Where to Elope in Chicago, Illinois

Chicago is one of the most underrated elopement cities in the country. You get a world-class skyline, twenty-six miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, some of the best architecture in North America, and — drive an hour or two in almost any direction — sandstone canyons, waterfalls, dunes, and prairie. For a couple who wants their day both beautifully photographed and captured on film, that range is a gift. You can trade vows on a rooftop at golden hour and be standing in a canyon the next morning.

We're a photo-and-video team, and we shoot elopements all over — now with Chicago as home base. Below are our favorite places to say "I do" here, first in the city and then the wild spots just outside it, with a note on each about what it gives us as photographers and filmmakers. How a place holds still in a photograph and how it moves on film are two different kinds of beautiful, and the best locations deliver both.