All these engagement pictures got me thinking about how we got engaged! I thought maybe you would all like to hear the story from my perspective. Wes's version is really short and completely takes all the magic out of that night so you don't get his version. :)
So, I got engaged in my sweatpants. I know, I know. Who wears sweatpants on such an important day? Let me explain…
To start: I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that Wes was thinking of proposing. He is really bad at keeping things like that to himself. Sometime in early 2010 while at dinner with some friends, he blurted out to our friends that he loved me and he was going to propose to me one day. He’s a romantic show-off and likes to embarrass me when he has had a few glasses of wine. Later after ring shopping with his mom, he let it slip to me that he had done so. And, he had told me once that it was important to him to propose before April 2010 because he wanted to go to his 5 year college reunion with me as his fiancé. *Smile* Since I was expecting a proposal and it would make sense to wear really cute outfits every single time we went to dinner or whatever! I should have known Wes would propose when I least expected it.
You should also know that during Oct 2009-Dec 2010 was a somewhat difficult time in our lives. Various things happened that were just ridiculous. In addition, our schedules were crazy. I had really tough classes because I had just started a new stem cell traineeship and Wes was staying in Maryland for half of the work week for an internship in Washington DC. On top of it all, we had just bought a condo and moved in with each other which cued various relationship changes involving shared budgeting and division of household responsibilities. It was a weird time in our lives to say the least. I was anticipating one of the happiest days of my life while dealing with a lot of day to day stress.
The night Wes proposed to me, he was returning from a week-long stay in Maryland for the internship which also happened to be a difficult work week for me. In addition, for some strange reason I also decided to go on a “cleanse” that I do from time to time. The cleanse isn’t really a cleanse, but more of a week-long reminder of how I am supposed to eat all the time. For a whole week, I don’t consume gluten, bread, dessert, alcohol, salt, nuts, soy or dairy. All of these things in excess make me feel gross, so I cut them out from time to time to “reset”. As an avid lover of cheese, Wes doesn’t like to eat with me during those weeks. Friday night was the last night of my commitment to the “cleanse”, so I planned on eating a gluten-free stir fry. My point is that I was not expecting a proposal that night. I mean, you are supposed to have some lavish dinner on your engagement night, right? Not so, for us.
I got home early… 5pm, yes that is early for me… in anticipation of Wes’s return. I threw on my favorite pair of ratty holey gray sweatpants and picked up the condo a bit. Wes decided to stop by Walmart on his way home and pick up an outdoor patio set that we had ordered and had come in that day. When Wes arrived, he seemed really eager to put the patio set together. This seemed like a weird thing to focus on after being apart for a week, but when Wes gets an idea that he has to do something in his head, it is hard to change his mind. I started making our “cleanse-friendly” dinner. Which brings me to another reason why I wasn’t expecting a proposal…WHO makes their own engagement dinner? Apparently, I do.
Wes had set up the patio furniture inside in the living room and insisted that we eat on it in the middle of the living room. It was freezing outside, so we couldn’t eat out there, but Wes was adamant that the patio furniture should have a proper maiden voyage. Strangely, I understood that to him buying the furniture was part of the whole process of setting up our first home together. So, I went along with it and set up dinner in the middle of the living room. I should have had my suspicions at that point, but one the other hand I had to practically force Wes away from his computer to come eat dinner. Needless to say, Wes was being very hot and cold, so a proposal was not on my mind.
I am making Wes sound terrible right now. He was being weird, but it turns out that it was because he was super nervous. When we sat down to eat, something flipped inside of him. He turned on music. He started being really attentive instead of focusing on weird things like patio furniture and sports news on his computer. Next thing I know, he is saying really sweet things. He started saying that he loved me and thought of me all the time when he was gone. And, that when he was driving home he heard a song on the radio which made him think of me and how our relationship has come to be. He took out his computer and started playing the song.
I listened carefully. He told me that the first verse reminded him of how I have struggled in the past with confidence, relationships and life in general, but now I have risen above it. The song reminded me of the same thing as well. It made me think about how being happy seemed impossible at one point in my life, but how I had moved on from the past and had found solace and steadiness in my relationship with Wes. Wes then told me that the second verse reminded him of own struggles. He said that before he met me that it always seemed that happiness in the form of a relationship was always going to be out of reach for him, but that I had changed that.
The song ended and I was crying. It hit home in so many ways. I don't listen to country music so I had never heard the song. It made me so happy in that moment to think that because of Wes, I was in a much happier chapter of my life. It was then that Wes came over to my chair and kneeled in front of me. I thought he was coming over to comfort me. It never occurred that he was kneeling to propose. Silly me. He then said to me, “You saved me.”
I am not sure if Wes meant to refer to this of not, but all I could think about in that moments was something he had written to me, early in our relationship, in the front cover of a book called The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean:
Before I fell in love with you, it was ‘acre after acre of sameness’. I had illusions of whom I would meet and how things would be – and when these consistently turned out to be just illusions, I began to think like Orlean – that maybe love is better in your head and that the actual experience will disappoint. I only wish Orlean could see the flower that you have come to symbolize in my life. No one could feel disappointed with what I’ve found with you.”
Wes then asked me if I would marry him. I fell apart and cried for what seemed like an hour. After a while, Wes asked me if my emotional response meant yes or no and all I could do was nod. A little while after I managed to say, “I promise to be a good fiancé.”
So, yes, I got engaged in my sweatpants on the most unlikely of nights. There was no fancy dinner. No standing on some tropical beach "The Bachelor/Bachelorette"-style. It just us hanging out on some patio furniture and it was more perfect than I could have ever imagined.
P.S. Happy birthday Wes!
Thursday, December 29, 2011
ENGAGEMENT PICTURES!
Holy cow! Our engagement pictures are in. First, what a very very good idea it was for our photographer to include a free engagement session in our package. I have to say, I was fairly nervous to do these pictures. It took me a few minutes to relax and get into it. Now that we have spent some more time with our amazing photographer, I think Wes and I are going to be totally relaxed to have the cameras on us for 8 hours on the big day. It was a lot of fun and I totally recommend doing it!
So, you want have a sneak peak? I hope so because here's a few that our photographer loved.
What a fun day. Some things for future brides: Don't wear super high heels, you walk around a lot. I wore 2 inch wedges and they were perfect. The props were cute, but my favorite pictures were definately the ones without them.
I hope you like them!
All pictures taken by Kristen Taylor Photography. Love her.
So, you want have a sneak peak? I hope so because here's a few that our photographer loved.
What a fun day. Some things for future brides: Don't wear super high heels, you walk around a lot. I wore 2 inch wedges and they were perfect. The props were cute, but my favorite pictures were definately the ones without them.
I hope you like them!
All pictures taken by Kristen Taylor Photography. Love her.
Monday, December 12, 2011
I love mail
Best part about planning a wedding (other than the fact that you are planning your wedding) is getting copious amounts of mail. I loovvve getting mail. It makes me feel special. For sure I have deep rooted psychological issues that have manifested itself in a need to receive letters, packages, EVEN bills. Seriously, I can't wait to send out the invitations just so I can get your RSVPs back. I am a super big weirdo. I know this.
In Finland, I got lonely a bit but was so very happy when I would open my door to find letters from my fabulous family and to-be family.
Cards from the best mom ever.
Care package from the best mom-in-law ever.
Love note… from Wes of course!
Wonderful thoughtful letters from Florie and Aunt Luisa in Maryland.
They are Wes’s second cousin and great Aunt, respectively. These letters were particularly unexpected and wonderful to receive. I'm a lucky gal with a wonderful new family.
But, now that I am a bride, I get all sorts of things in the mail! Well… mostly stuff I ordered for myself but that is beside the point.
My first package was…
Table number holders! I bought them used from a “Bee” from Weddingbee.com. I followed this lovely lady’s blog from beginning to end. She had such a beautiful wedding. I related to her quite a bit because she is from Michigan (GO BLUE!) and studies neuroscience at the University of Michigan. She was such an inspiration for how to balance your work life in science and life’s fun things (like wedding planning).
Since then I have received many more packages. I received packages of colored twine samples, paper samples and fabric swatches! Oh my.
Bet you want to know what I am doing with all those goodies!
Some packages even came with such sweet notes, too! I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to just look at pictures of things I received in the mail. It’s a sickness.
Were you excited to get things in the mail from me? Such as…. save the dates???
All photos personal.
In Finland, I got lonely a bit but was so very happy when I would open my door to find letters from my fabulous family and to-be family.
Cards from the best mom ever.
Care package from the best mom-in-law ever.
Love note… from Wes of course!
Wonderful thoughtful letters from Florie and Aunt Luisa in Maryland.
They are Wes’s second cousin and great Aunt, respectively. These letters were particularly unexpected and wonderful to receive. I'm a lucky gal with a wonderful new family.
But, now that I am a bride, I get all sorts of things in the mail! Well… mostly stuff I ordered for myself but that is beside the point.
My first package was…
Table number holders! I bought them used from a “Bee” from Weddingbee.com. I followed this lovely lady’s blog from beginning to end. She had such a beautiful wedding. I related to her quite a bit because she is from Michigan (GO BLUE!) and studies neuroscience at the University of Michigan. She was such an inspiration for how to balance your work life in science and life’s fun things (like wedding planning).
Since then I have received many more packages. I received packages of colored twine samples, paper samples and fabric swatches! Oh my.
Bet you want to know what I am doing with all those goodies!
Some packages even came with such sweet notes, too! I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to just look at pictures of things I received in the mail. It’s a sickness.
Were you excited to get things in the mail from me? Such as…. save the dates???
All photos personal.
SAVE THE DATE - The final product
I know you have already seen the save the date, but I wanted to put the finished product on the blog for others and because I plan on having a printed copy of the blog made when the wedding is finished. That way I can bore my future children with my craziness as a bride. :)
So, here it is!
I have a few graphics that I would be happy to email to you if you want to steal them or parts of them. But, other than that here's what I used:
Fonts: Amelie, Ecuyer Dax, Calisto MT
Linen Paper
70lb white envelopes (heavy duty so that the magnet wouldn't break through, click here for instructions on how to make the magnets)
Embossing kit for the heart
Small Corner punch
Removeable glue dots to attach the bottle cap magnet
HP photosmart 410 printer
So, here it is!
I have a few graphics that I would be happy to email to you if you want to steal them or parts of them. But, other than that here's what I used:
Fonts: Amelie, Ecuyer Dax, Calisto MT
Linen Paper
70lb white envelopes (heavy duty so that the magnet wouldn't break through, click here for instructions on how to make the magnets)
Embossing kit for the heart
Small Corner punch
Removeable glue dots to attach the bottle cap magnet
HP photosmart 410 printer
Friday, December 9, 2011
SAVE THE DATE Design Failure
I'm a save the date snob. :) Oh no, I definitely couldn't just have something generic. And to add to the problem, I have wine taste on a beer budget. There was really no choice but to make my own. Only problem was... I had absolutely no experience designing.
It took me a lot of time to figure out how to design something I considered "cool" on the computer for free. One issue I had was that I refused to pay for graphics (pictures, drawings, etc), which meant I either had to make it myself or limit myself to free graphics. FYI, most of the time, free graphics suck or are difficult to find. It look a lot of time to find the things I was looking for. My other issue was that I had no idea how to edit graphics using photoshop or gimp. I ended up teaching myself to use these programs through trial and error and then designing the rest of the project in powerpoint. Powerpoint has come a long way and you can do a lot in it, but it has its limits. And as I said before, I really had never designed anything paper material related ever. My first few trys making a save the date and invitation design were lacking, to say the least. Want to see my disasterous attempts? Don't laugh too hard...
The first one just looks sad to me. The second one is boring (and it looks funny because I removed our last names). The last one was supposed to be trees. One from Michigan and one from Florida. But, this just didn't have a fun factor. Besides the poem, of course.
We have had the "poem" for quite some time. We wrote it at 3am while driving from Michigan to New Jersey in the summer of 2010. It has changed slightly over time, but most of it was written while we were sleep-deprived that crazy night so long ago. Yes, I did have to nag Wes a bit to participate in writing the poem, but he got pretty into it after awhile. Some of the best parts of the poem were written by Wes. I think our poem is cute, funny (in a ridiculous way) and is "us". So, it was a must that it went in the save the date.
I was so hell bent on having something original. With the limited resources I had, it was very difficult to make anything look professional. I am not sure if I was successful or not in making the save the date I sent you look professional, but we love them and that's all that matters in the end. Still, I have this crazy goal to have one of those fabulously styled weddings (on a limited budget). I am quite proud of what Wes and I accomplished. They were supposed to have some more details, but then real life happened, as it always inevitably does, and I decided that other things were more important than adding those details. They probably look better without the extras anyway.
My suggestion to anyone wanting to design a paper material who has no experience in design is to do the following:
1. Ask yourself if you really really want to design them on your own or just sort of on your own. There are lots of fabulous people in the world who went to school for graphic design and will design something for you...for a price. For example, I found people at Etsy.com and Weddingbee.com who will design everything (save the dates, invitiations, rsvps) for someone and then send them the file so the person can print it out themselves. Sometimes I found people on Weddingbee.com who would send me a design they used for free that I could alter.
2. Make sure you give yourself lots of time to design before needing to make them, especially if you are a perfectionist like me. I went through a lot of designs. Even if I thought I loved something, I would alter it just to see if I liked it another way more.
3. Accept that it may not look exactly perfect ever and don't feel bad if you realize that your first few attempts were "lacking".... like mine.
It took me a lot of time to figure out how to design something I considered "cool" on the computer for free. One issue I had was that I refused to pay for graphics (pictures, drawings, etc), which meant I either had to make it myself or limit myself to free graphics. FYI, most of the time, free graphics suck or are difficult to find. It look a lot of time to find the things I was looking for. My other issue was that I had no idea how to edit graphics using photoshop or gimp. I ended up teaching myself to use these programs through trial and error and then designing the rest of the project in powerpoint. Powerpoint has come a long way and you can do a lot in it, but it has its limits. And as I said before, I really had never designed anything paper material related ever. My first few trys making a save the date and invitation design were lacking, to say the least. Want to see my disasterous attempts? Don't laugh too hard...
The first one just looks sad to me. The second one is boring (and it looks funny because I removed our last names). The last one was supposed to be trees. One from Michigan and one from Florida. But, this just didn't have a fun factor. Besides the poem, of course.
We have had the "poem" for quite some time. We wrote it at 3am while driving from Michigan to New Jersey in the summer of 2010. It has changed slightly over time, but most of it was written while we were sleep-deprived that crazy night so long ago. Yes, I did have to nag Wes a bit to participate in writing the poem, but he got pretty into it after awhile. Some of the best parts of the poem were written by Wes. I think our poem is cute, funny (in a ridiculous way) and is "us". So, it was a must that it went in the save the date.
I was so hell bent on having something original. With the limited resources I had, it was very difficult to make anything look professional. I am not sure if I was successful or not in making the save the date I sent you look professional, but we love them and that's all that matters in the end. Still, I have this crazy goal to have one of those fabulously styled weddings (on a limited budget). I am quite proud of what Wes and I accomplished. They were supposed to have some more details, but then real life happened, as it always inevitably does, and I decided that other things were more important than adding those details. They probably look better without the extras anyway.
My suggestion to anyone wanting to design a paper material who has no experience in design is to do the following:
1. Ask yourself if you really really want to design them on your own or just sort of on your own. There are lots of fabulous people in the world who went to school for graphic design and will design something for you...for a price. For example, I found people at Etsy.com and Weddingbee.com who will design everything (save the dates, invitiations, rsvps) for someone and then send them the file so the person can print it out themselves. Sometimes I found people on Weddingbee.com who would send me a design they used for free that I could alter.
2. Make sure you give yourself lots of time to design before needing to make them, especially if you are a perfectionist like me. I went through a lot of designs. Even if I thought I loved something, I would alter it just to see if I liked it another way more.
3. Accept that it may not look exactly perfect ever and don't feel bad if you realize that your first few attempts were "lacking".... like mine.
4. Less is more. Try to remember that. :)
Happy designing!
Happy designing!
Sunday, December 4, 2011
SAVE THE DATE Inspiration
So! I bet you want to know how you ended up with such a beautiful Save the Date. Ha! I really love our Save the Dates and I suppose I think they are beautiful because it was a long journey to the finished product.
The Save the Date idea is a fun trend going on in the wedding world right now. I think it is great because you can share information with the wedding guest well in advanced. Mostly I was hoping to make it easier to put in for time off for people who have to travel to come to our wedding. And, there are a lot of you who will have to travel. Thank you in advanced. We love you. Seriously.
So, yes, Save the Dates are practical. But, that doesn’t mean they can’t be pretty as well. Early on, Wes was really digging the idea of taking pictures of our pets dressed in bride and groom outfits. And I do mean WES was excited. If you don’t know by now, Wes really really REALLY loves his dog.
Mo. How do you not love that face? I probably fell in love with Mo before Wes.
We added another member to our family early in our relationship when Wes and I bought a ferret.
Emily, the princess. Or evil monkey. Depends on who you are asking.
We love our fur babies. But, getting them to sit still to take pictures together, in outfits, none-the-less, would have been impossible. It turns out something like this every time:
So I ruled out Mo and Em dressed up as bride and groom.
But, there are tons of other cute ways to announce the date of your wedding.
Love these cute cut-out numbers….way too time consuming for me.
One thing was for sure. I refused to pay for someone else to do these for me. This wedding is "do it yourself" all the way, baby. So, I set out to design my own.
Would you take the time to make your own Save the Dates?
The Save the Date idea is a fun trend going on in the wedding world right now. I think it is great because you can share information with the wedding guest well in advanced. Mostly I was hoping to make it easier to put in for time off for people who have to travel to come to our wedding. And, there are a lot of you who will have to travel. Thank you in advanced. We love you. Seriously.
So, yes, Save the Dates are practical. But, that doesn’t mean they can’t be pretty as well. Early on, Wes was really digging the idea of taking pictures of our pets dressed in bride and groom outfits. And I do mean WES was excited. If you don’t know by now, Wes really really REALLY loves his dog.
Mo. How do you not love that face? I probably fell in love with Mo before Wes.
We added another member to our family early in our relationship when Wes and I bought a ferret.
Emily, the princess. Or evil monkey. Depends on who you are asking.
We love our fur babies. But, getting them to sit still to take pictures together, in outfits, none-the-less, would have been impossible. It turns out something like this every time:
So I ruled out Mo and Em dressed up as bride and groom.
But, there are tons of other cute ways to announce the date of your wedding.
Love these cute cut-out numbers….way too time consuming for me.
Calender. Love this.
One thing was for sure. I refused to pay for someone else to do these for me. This wedding is "do it yourself" all the way, baby. So, I set out to design my own.
Would you take the time to make your own Save the Dates?
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Catching up
Hooray! You've received your Save the Date! We really wanted to send out a "reminder" that, indeed, we are still getting married. It has been a looooonnnng engagement, but have no fear! We still love each other and want to be chained together for life. And, if you are reading this, you see that we wanted to give you links to our website and my blog.
I am using this blog as a fun way for me to document the journey and keep everyone from far away updated on wedding planning. I have been blogging for awhile so for everyone that has missed the passed few months I thought I would catch you up. Below are links to each post I have published so far. Have fun!
I introduced ourselves in "Who we are".
I explain the beginning of wedding planning in "Dealing with initial budget blues".
I outlined my DIY list in "The countdown commences soon".
I talked about building a good foundation in our marriage in "Working out the imperfections".
We had a small adverture picking out wedding colors in Lavender and amethyst and grape, oh my!"
I discussed shoe inspiration here.
I introduced the bridal party here and here.
I talked about bridesmaid dresses in "Dressing the maids", our shopping trip for dresses in "One dress, two dress, three dress, four" and groomsmen garb in "I'm too sexy for my tux".
I introduced our ceremony and reception site in "Where shall we wed?"
We checked off lots of things on our to-do list in "In current news".
I talked about staying fit during my trip to Finland here, here and here.
I talked about our photographer not once, but twice.
And, I talked about making bottle caps for your Save the Dates in "DIY: Bottlecap magnets".
I am using this blog as a fun way for me to document the journey and keep everyone from far away updated on wedding planning. I have been blogging for awhile so for everyone that has missed the passed few months I thought I would catch you up. Below are links to each post I have published so far. Have fun!
I introduced ourselves in "Who we are".
I explain the beginning of wedding planning in "Dealing with initial budget blues".
I outlined my DIY list in "The countdown commences soon".
I talked about building a good foundation in our marriage in "Working out the imperfections".
We had a small adverture picking out wedding colors in Lavender and amethyst and grape, oh my!"
I discussed shoe inspiration here.
I introduced the bridal party here and here.
I talked about bridesmaid dresses in "Dressing the maids", our shopping trip for dresses in "One dress, two dress, three dress, four" and groomsmen garb in "I'm too sexy for my tux".
I introduced our ceremony and reception site in "Where shall we wed?"
We checked off lots of things on our to-do list in "In current news".
I talked about staying fit during my trip to Finland here, here and here.
I talked about our photographer not once, but twice.
And, I talked about making bottle caps for your Save the Dates in "DIY: Bottlecap magnets".
Thursday, October 13, 2011
DIY: Bottlecap magnets
I am sure you all have been impatiently waiting for a DIY project! Me too.
Now that we are 253 days from the wedding, it makes sense that I can start crafting!!!
DIY Project 1: Save the date magnets
First, sending out save the dates and doing it fairly soon is important to us since most of our invited guests will be from out of town. Sending it out enables everyone to know exactly when and where the wedding will be so people can save money and/or personal days to take off from work. Also, everyone will get the address for our wedding website for traveling and hotel information and the address for this blog so more people can follow along.
Now let’s start crafting! It is very popular to have a magnet incorporated into your “Save the Date” and I jumped on that bandwagon with no shame. Magnets are fun! Slap it on your fridge and you have a constant reminder of the fun times that lay ahead. I didn’t want the actual save the date to be a magnet. I wanted the magnet to be something cute on its own so that people might reuse it. My mom and aunt make super cute bottle cap jewelry and I thought, well let’s turn bottlecaps into magnets!
Materials needed:
Bottle caps, I used flattened ones from a seller from Etsy, fizzypops, so that they will better fit into the envelope.
Bottle cap epoxy stickers from fizzypops (trust my family, they are much easier to work with than glaze)
1in circle punch
Glue dots, the mini permanent dots, the super thin permanent dots, and also removable regular size dots, one each for 1 magnet. I bought mine from amazon.com.
Magnets
A helper, such as your beautiful and generous mother and fiance- Create image that fits into a 1in circle. I know you can use Adobe to make beautiful images but I am much more comfortable with power point so here’s my cheat method of making images. I used fonts from dafont.com and I arranged the text boxes like I wanted and made it very big and then grouped all the text boxes together. I then saved the image as a picture by left clicking and selecting “Save as picture”. Next, open powerpoint again. Resize the “slide” to be a standard 8.5 x 11 in sheet of paper. That way you will be working with the image and know exactly how it will print on a regular sheet of paper. (I changed the dpi of the image using Irfanview before the next step to make sure the image looked sharp.) Insert the image and then copy and paste the image onto the slide over and over leaving enough space between the images so you can punch non-overlapping circles. I spaced the image too close together even though I was thinking about it, so be careful not to do this! Then, click “Save as” under “File” and save it NOT as a powerpoint file, but as a pdf file. Saving it as pdf file ensures that the size of your sheet and images remains the same when you print.
- Print on 80lb cardstock. We used a glossy paper and had it professionally printed on a laser printer at my mom’s work. But, I am sure your home printer and nice cardstock from amazon.com would work fine. We are using our home printer for the actual save the dates.
- Make your mom punch out all your images. My mom was really patient with me as the first tinge of bridezilla came out. I wanted the images centered in the bottle cap, so I kept telling her to re-punch ones that weren’t centered. Wes and my mom said it was all in my head and that not every single one had to be perfect but I think it is pretty obvious.
Wes and I have a friendly competition going on, so this poll is most interesting to us. J
- Stick the CENTERED punched out image onto one of the epoxy caps with the image facing down. Press firmly all around to remove any air pockets between the cap and the paper. The epoxy caps are sticky already so just place and press.
- Put an ultra-thin glue dot into the bottle cap.
- Put your punched out image with the epoxy cap into the bottle cap.
- Put a mini glue dot onto back of the bottle cap. I liked that these little things were stuck between two sheets. I peeled off one sheet, push the glue dot on the bottle cap and then peeled off the second sheet. So easy.
- Take one of your magnets and push it on! A word on magnets: I hate magnets that are too weak to stick to anything. It was really important to me that the magnet would actually stick to our guests’ fridges. So, I bought neodymium magnets. I used these ones from magnets for less. Lots of fun to play with, very small and great holding power!
Excuse my icky nails.
- Use the removable glue dot to attach the magnet to your Save the Date so it won’t slide around in the envelope.
- Seeing that our save the dates are going to be a bit bulky because of the magnet, we ordered durable 70lb envelopes from actionevenlope.com. We will also get the save the dates hand stamped at the post office so your magnets will arrive intact.
Three hours of my life tops and you get such a fun little thing!
Photos from a booth on the Jersey Shore
Now we need the actual Save the Date… but first the very long process of designing those suckers.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
So far, I love my photographer!
I know in my last post that I left things off in a "we'll see" way. However, since writing that post, it has been confirmed that I definately love my photographer. For the following reasons:
1) After signing our contract, she sent over a hard copy.... just look:
How freakin' cute is that? This stationary is an example of how wonderful her products are, including her photo albums. She has such amazing style.
2) She addressed all my concerns in our contract with no hassle. Example: She agreed to drive beyond our contractually agreed limit for our engagement photos to Clarkston, MI for no extra charge. Where I grew up! She usually shoots in Birmingham, MI and it is a very cute city, but it has no meaning for Wes or I. Clarkston is where my family is from...my dad grew up in the same house I did. It has a pretty and quaint downtown area and it served as a nice backdrop for, hopefully, some really wonderful pictures. The point wasn't to have Clarkston as the main feature of our photos, but being somewhere we considered to be one of our homes made us feel more comfortable.
3) You can probably tell by the tense I am writing in, but we have had our engagement photos taken and it was a lot of fun to work with Kristen! We don't have the photos yet... sad face. I keep checking her blog every day to see when she is going to put up some sneak peeks. I was saying before in my last "photography" post that I felt that if I gave Kristen something cool to work with that she would respond to that. Well, she did. Of course, she did all the typical Kristenesque shots. (Grabbing Wes's arm while I smile at the camera and Wes looks off into the distance while contemplating our future...so dramatic.) But, she also took pics of us on the swings, holding pumpkins from the local market, holding a cupcake from the local cupcake shop AND using some props that we brought along. Such as:
Part of what makes us a fun couple (in my opinion) is that we have completely different viewpoints on 99% of everything. Yes, that makes us fun. Well, at least interesting. Yet, ultimately we both want the same things... family, adventure and world peace. How we are able to reconcile our differences to be even better people has helped make this almost 4 year relationship more rewarding than I thought possible. So, we used these silly flags and a few other things to represent those sentiments.
I can't wait to show you some of the engagement photos!
1) After signing our contract, she sent over a hard copy.... just look:
How freakin' cute is that? This stationary is an example of how wonderful her products are, including her photo albums. She has such amazing style.
2) She addressed all my concerns in our contract with no hassle. Example: She agreed to drive beyond our contractually agreed limit for our engagement photos to Clarkston, MI for no extra charge. Where I grew up! She usually shoots in Birmingham, MI and it is a very cute city, but it has no meaning for Wes or I. Clarkston is where my family is from...my dad grew up in the same house I did. It has a pretty and quaint downtown area and it served as a nice backdrop for, hopefully, some really wonderful pictures. The point wasn't to have Clarkston as the main feature of our photos, but being somewhere we considered to be one of our homes made us feel more comfortable.
3) You can probably tell by the tense I am writing in, but we have had our engagement photos taken and it was a lot of fun to work with Kristen! We don't have the photos yet... sad face. I keep checking her blog every day to see when she is going to put up some sneak peeks. I was saying before in my last "photography" post that I felt that if I gave Kristen something cool to work with that she would respond to that. Well, she did. Of course, she did all the typical Kristenesque shots. (Grabbing Wes's arm while I smile at the camera and Wes looks off into the distance while contemplating our future...so dramatic.) But, she also took pics of us on the swings, holding pumpkins from the local market, holding a cupcake from the local cupcake shop AND using some props that we brought along. Such as:
Part of what makes us a fun couple (in my opinion) is that we have completely different viewpoints on 99% of everything. Yes, that makes us fun. Well, at least interesting. Yet, ultimately we both want the same things... family, adventure and world peace. How we are able to reconcile our differences to be even better people has helped make this almost 4 year relationship more rewarding than I thought possible. So, we used these silly flags and a few other things to represent those sentiments.
I can't wait to show you some of the engagement photos!
*all images are personal photos
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)