Rife Ponce Photography

Maggie is incredibly talented. We truly LOVE the photos she did of our family. Amidst the chaos and mayhem of two young boys and two dogs, she beautifully captured the sweet moments and love of our family. She is incredibly artistic and has a way of making photos come to life yet look so peaceful and serene. She was also wonderful and patient while working with our kiddos.

I have had the privilege of working with Maggie now three times. First, she shot my professional head shots, where she coordinated a photo shoot that was tons of fun and the results were amazing. She is true professional and does a fantastic job of making her subjects feel super comfortable! When my husband and I got engaged, she was one of the first calls I made! We lined her up as our wedding photographer because her knack for capturing real moments just as they are is incredible. We scheduled our engagement shoot with her in Lincoln Park, where she caught some hilarious and mischievous exchanges between me and my husband and we were thrilled with the results. On our wedding day she was the consummate professional. She managed the photos with our super large extended family beautifully, and captured some truly magical moments during the ceremony and the reception. I have never seen a photographer capture the little nuances of human interaction so beautifully. But beyond her work, she is an absolute gem of an individual. Beautiful on the inside and out, she is a true pleasure to work with. I cannot recommend her enough!

My husband Todd and I knew we wanted a fantastic photographer for our October 2014 wedding and immediately begin to ask our friends for recommendations. We knew Maggie through mutual friends as she had been their wedding photographer as well.
Our initial meeting with Maggie was wonderful. She is the kindest, sweetest, well-​thought out and most creative person we worked with throughout our entire wedding process. I knew planning a wedding was going to be stressful, but I never once worried about our wedding photographer. She was responsive and thorough the entire time.
Maggie was so impressive on our wedding day. She has such a calming energy and makes capturing pictures so effortless and fun. She is such a gifted photographer and we will be forever grateful for that.
She was fantastic gathering pictures on our wedding day with tight time frames, especially with the large family shots and the little children. Everyone was complimentary on how she handled everything with such poise & confidence!
Everyone was so impressed with our wedding photography! We still get so many compliments on our wedding photos AND engagement photos to this day. I would also like to add we got married on such a cold and rainy day in October and you would never know with how the pictures turned out!
Maggie is creative beyond her years and is such a pleasure to work with. Her prices are fair and competitive with the market and I would recommend her to anyone looking to capture their engagements and wedding photos.
We will be sure to use her again for family photos to come!

Maggie photographed our engagement and wedding pictures and we could not be happier with the results. We had originally booked a different photographer but it fell through in February (our decision) and we needed a new photographer fast for our July wedding. I actually reached out to Steve Koo, because a friend of a friend used him as a photographer and fell in love with the photos. I was looking for modern, non-​cheesy photos with crisp, bright colors (the vintage look is not my thing). Unfortunately, he wasn’t available for our wedding date, but fortunately he recommended Maggie as someone who has a similar style and a great personality. Um, he wasn’t kidding! Her photography is fantastic and she’s a sweet and wonderful person to work with. She also had plenty of experience photographing in my venue and knew Chicago well (I needed help finding locations for our city photo shoot). Also it turns out I’m not very comfortable in front of the camera, but she helped me feel at ease and actually enjoy being photographed. She captured some of the most amazing moments and our wedding and engagement photos came out beautifully. She’s an absolute gem, and I hope to continue to have a relationship with Maggie for future events!

I just launched a media company and knew that I needed to have some professional portraits taken. After reviewing dozens of portfolio websites, I was starting to feel like I’d never find the right photographer for me. See, most of the other photographer portfolios I perused had a generic, corporate look and feel. I wanted a more natural, artistic look but still professional. The minute I landed on Maggie’s site, I knew I’d found my photographer.
It’s hard to explain, but Maggie has a way of capturing the true personality and spirit of people. Her photos are breathtaking. I also loved that she’s well-​traveled and has a diverse group of people in her online portfolio. Something that’s not always common.
Working with Maggie was laid-​back, yet prompt. Relaxed, yet professional. She has an easy way about her and is able to communicate exactly how she’d like you to pose, in a way that is clear and understandable. Do yourself a favor and hire her. What are you waiting for?

I had the privilege of working with Maggie Rife this past July as she photographed my daughter’s wedding. The photos were fantastic! She was able to capture the love and joy shared by the couple. Her photos were artistic and unique, from the shoes to the sparklers lit late in the evening. My daughter’s grandpa who attended the wedding sadly passed away a mere 6 weeks after. Photos of him from the wedding exemplify what a great man he was.
Thanks Maggie for making our special day the best!!!
Diane Akins

My husband and I had a wonderful experience with Maggie Rife Photography. Maggie was very nice, creative and gave great direction. My husband and I were quite nervous going into the shoot but working with Maggie put us at ease. She was able to capture a lot of great moments on film and we couldn’t be happier with the final results. She has been very responsive to all my requests and questions and was competitively priced. Overall, Maggie was a true professional and we very much enjoyed working with her!

I stumbled onto Maggie’s website while I was looking for wedding photographers and I was immediately taken in. I loved her wedding pictures, but what really hooked me was a shoot she’d done at a Bikram Yoga studio I’d used to frequent. In her pictures, the studio looked beautiful and sun-​drenched, nothing like I remembered, although the room itself hadn’t changed. I figured that if she could make me appreciate the beauty of a room where I would go to sweat and suffer, I had to meet her.
I’m a novice to getting my picture taken. I’m a novice to photography in general. My now-​husband is the same, if not worse. When Maggie asked us what we wanted her to take pictures of, who we wanted to focus on, etc, we both looked at her blankly. Maggie was able to ask us enough questions, both in person and over email, to figure out what we actually thought was important. Our pictures are like a storybook.
Maggie put up with my in-​laws constant requests for posed pictures. She took pictures of my husband and me in the cold, giving us great direction — the photos are beautiful. She captured so many moments, big and small, as well as some details that I think I missed, and I was there! I couldn’t have asked for a better photographer. Maggie is professional, she’s prompt and she is totally worth your money!

Maggie is a gem. She was just the right mix of responsive and easy going in the planning stages of our wedding. She had a great understanding of our vision, from just a couple of phone calls and she has a great handle on where to take pictures in the city of Chicago (including staging backup plans for inclement weather). On the day of our wedding Maggie was indispensable. She was authoritative when she needed to be, knew how to capture amazing photos without putting herself right in the middle of the action and she was professional and amazing with all of our guests. Best of all, the end product brought us to tears. Maggie posted our edited photos to Pictage just 10 days after our wedding. I could not believe the range and quality of the photos. I would recommend Maggie to anyone getting married who places a value on high-​quality, fantastic pictures that they will treasure forever.

My wife and I had the joy of using Maggie Rife photography for 3 sets of photos: Engagement, Wedding and «Trash The Dress». We could not have been more pleased with the product and experience.
Product — Maggie has the «it» factor and it certainly came through in the final shots. We have received a tremendous amount of compliments and the wedding and trash the dress shoots were featured on more than a half dozen prominent wedding blogs (these blogs are not my area of expertise, but from what I understand, it is not easy to get featured). We also received our finished photos back in less than 30 days, which I understand is quite quick.
Experience — If the product is excellent, than working with Maggie is exceptional. She has a tremendous passion for her work (which will be evident within the first 60 seconds) and a knack for making the session (s) comfortable (let’s face it not everyone, i.e. me, enjoys taking dozens of photos). As an example of Maggie’s passion, when shooting our trash the dress shots, my wife decided she needed to wade into Lake Michigan. Maggie, caught up in the moment, waded in after her shooting, not realizing that she was up to her waist in water and her iPhone was in her back pocket.
I do not know much about the photography business world, but I have a feeling Maggie is going to be extremely successful. She is already highly sought-​after (read: busy) and she has the personal touch and likeability to truly be a leader in whatever she does.

We recently got married and used Maggie for our engagement and wedding pictures.
As we are a same-​sex couple it was of utmost importance to have a photographer that would be comfortable shooting two women very much in love.
Our original choice for a photographer was not available (we got married on a very popular date — 9÷10÷11) but she recommended Maggie and we are so happy that she was the one to shoot our wedding.
She was competitively priced, and we got the rights to all of our images which was super important. Anytime I had a question, she was quick to respond within 24 hours if not sooner. After the engagement pics and weddding, we got all of our images on a DVD within the month.
My partner hates taking pictures and is not the most natural at it, but Maggie made her feel very much at ease and we got some wonderful shots as a result. I would not hesitate to use Maggie again for baby pictures or other family portraits as the need arises in the future.

Had the opportunity to peruse through some of our photos during a recent trip to the in-​laws which triggered a somewhat delayed review (as we just celebrated the 2^nd anniversary) and we used Maggie for engagement /​wedding photos.
Besides being competitively priced for the package we went went with, the pics looked even better than I remembered the first time around. Most the shots (including our engagement photos), just had a really warm, movie-​esque look to them.
Since I don’t even know how to post photos on fb yet from my phone, I am obviously no photo expert but our shots truly looked «Professional» and had a warmness factor that seemed to capture a lot of the moments we probably would have long forgotten by now; was really amazed at some of the little details she captured and the uses of light (especially with the church scenes).
After hearing several friends wedding photo horror stories, can say working with Maggie was the one wedding vendor we had the most peace of mind with throughout the day. Highly recommend.

We hired Maggie to shoot both our wedding photography and engagement session. She did a wonderful job and was really a breeze to work with. She really has a rare talent for capturing the joy of each moment, and seems to have the ability to be in many places at once, without feeling like she is in the way.

I used Maggie for both our family/​engagement session in February 2011, and also for our wedding ceremony and reception on 8÷12−13÷11. All I can say is, I could not have found a more talented, hardworking and personable photographer for such an important time in our lives.
As an Art Consultant, I was looking for someone who has a good eye with an artistic vision, someone who could capture the moment yet not make anything look posed or staged. She is extremely talented of knowing when to take shots… all our pictures came out beautifully and I don’t even remember having to pose for anything. All of our friends/​family absolutely loved having her along for the ride, and I can’t say enough about how wonderful the experience was, and how our photos turned out. She is very quick to respond with requests, and I found that the value of the work she does for her pricepoint is unbeatable.
Maggie and her photography truly made our wedding weekend special, and I can’t say enough great things about her work.

Maggie is a really talented photographer. She made me feel really relax when we took the head shot. She can definitely capture every great moment of you. You are the best, Maggie!!!

Maggie Rife did photography for my wedding. She is amazing and has more heart than any other wedding photographer you will find. I was more than pleased and suggest her to all of my friends!

Maggie photographed our wedding this past July and was so easy to work with. She was very responsive and professional throughout the entire process leading up to the wedding and the day of. We ended up with hundreds of photos that perfectly captured our big day, and have received nothing but compliments from our family and friends.