Classy, vintage, romantic, cinematic - this is how I describe black and white wedding photography.  I always include a number of black and white shots for preview.  Since I shoot all in color and then process into black and white in the digital darkroom, you will always have the original color shot available to you.

The best black and white images are not just one click, grayscale photographs.  Leaving a hint of color (even if you cannot see it) will always make for a more spectacular image.  This helps to bring out texture in skies and wedding gowns too.  One of my favorite tricks is too add a 1950's style, hollywood-esque glamor glow.  You can see in the image below that even though the effect has blown out the detail in her dress that it has taken on the style of early hollywood.

One of my engagement packages, called The Chicago Sessions shows off a lot of different black and white techniques.  The image below shows off "blue toning" added along with a fairly intense vignette.

In the shots below, I added "film grain" into the mix and took the digital photographs and gave them more of an analog, film like look.  The second image is at a downtown Chicago vinyl record shop so I gave it that old 1970's aged look.

So when we get together to review your images, if something jumps out at you that screams black and white image, don't hesitate to ask.  There is never an extra charge for these effects.