Matthew Steed Wilson Photography

Hiring Matt was the best decision I made throughout my entire wedding planning process. In short: Stop your search here and book him ASAP.
To elaborate a bit:
Matt as a Vendor: I found Matt through Wedding Wire and he was very prompt to respond. His response rate never slowed anytime within the time I booked him to even after my wedding day (I think the longest he took to respond to an email was 12 hours). Even though he is based in Washington (outside Peoria), he was able to meet us in Chicago so we could chat — from Day 1 he was accommodating. After brunch, It wasn’t hard to make the call to hire him. He was professional, positive, and clearly knew how to match up to our off beat personality as a couple. I had no doubt that he could translate the feel of our wedding into photos.
Matt as a Photographer: his portfolio speaks for itself, so I don’t have much to elaborate on here. I will say that circumstances for our engagement shoot changed the day of and Matt was forced to shoot us in the basement of a bar with little to no natural lighting and he STILL killed it. All of them turned out amazing and I was so impressed. It was also snowy and mucky outside. Regardless of the scenario, Matt makes it work. This made me trust him 110% with my wedding day. This guy can clearly roll with the punches.
Matt on the day of the wedding: Matt was the absolute best (are you seeing a pattern here?). Something I never considered till the day OF the wedding: Matt is confident, experienced, and a professional, which as a bride, translates to zero stress. I know there was not a moment missed. He even came up with some really great shots in the moment that turned out to be some of my very favorites from the entire day.
In short, I cannot speak highly enough of Matthew Steed Wilson Photography. He was a perfect vendor from day 1. Zero problems, amazing photographs, and wonderful to work with all around.

Matt was the photographer at my wedding and what an epic event for him to showcase his amazing talent and wow us and our guests with our magnificent (less than one month done) photo gallery! First off — Matt is a genuinely nice guy — my first communication with him was through e-​mail and his correspondences were always friendly and punctual. He was very accommodating in setting up Skype with me in efforts for me to meet him prior to signing a contract. He is a great listener in understanding our likes and extremely talented in capturing our dynamic and love for one another. I felt that he was a friend celebrating with us, not just an incredible photographer on our big day! I absolutely love his editing techniques too! Abhi and Aida were great photographers as well! I look forward to using Matt for future special events! :)

I cannot explain in words how thankful and grateful my wife and I are to have found Matt as our photographer for our engagement and wedding pictures. We were looking for someone who could capture moments and could do traditional but also photo journalistic photos and he did just that. From the moment we met with Matt and saw the previous work he has done, we knew he was perfect for us. Matt was so easy to work with and always responded quickly to my questions throughout the whole planning process. If we had specific requests, he met them for us and went beyond to make us happy. And he did not let us down! He captured every emotion and event that happened during my big day and I will treasure these pictures for the rest of my life. The photos are so different than what other photographers are offering and we could not get enough praise about them from our family and friends. I would highly recommend Matt as your photographer and are so grateful for all of his hard work!

Matt came highly recommended to us from a wedding photographer friend, and now I have to highly recommend him to you!
Simply put, Matt was the BEST. We are beyond pleased with his photography services! Our wedding photos turned out so great and we love them so much.
Matt is very personable, and so flexible. He comes to you to meet up, and we met him at Starbucks a couple of times. He tries to work around your schedule too! We had an engagement photo shoot downtown at Navy Pier and the surrounding areas, and it was so fun. Matt is very chill and provides you with directions. Our engagement photos turned out so nicely, especially the backgrounds. There were some places that we weren’t sure would look nice as a background, but Matt truly has an eye for photography and the photos turned out great. They are all framed so nicely. We were a little concerned about our posing, as we are insecure about certain parts of our faces (me, my nose, and him, his hairline), and when I emailed Matt to ask him to pay special attention to that during our wedding, he offered to do another engagement shoot! For free!!! That is truly A+ customer service. We met in Evanston on a freezing day, and this time, we loved all of the photos.
Matt has a lot of clients, but he somehow still manages to make you feel important and special. He met with us a couple days before the wedding to get some details down. We gave him a list of «must take» photos and a list of group photos that we would love to have. He got them all! At the wedding, Matt brought a second photographer, as well as an assistant. He was there literally all day long, from getting ready at the hair salon down to the bubble send off. Matt was never in the way and he was able to catch really special moments for us. For example, he caught a picture of my husband kissing my hand during the ceremony, and that was literally for one second.
Matt uploads a blog post, and then sends all the pictures in an online gallery that you can download and print for free (he also includes a photo release form). The photographs are all super high quality.
We are super happy with Matt and would recommend him to anyone looking for an awesome wedding photographer. His prices are beyond reasonable, and he was such a pleasure to work with.