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| That hair took HOURS |
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| Kneel in a wedding dress? Yeah, super easy. |
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| So glad to be done with the "hard" part! |
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| I didn't even trip! |
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| A limo! It's like prom, but we don't have to share! |
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| So ladylike |
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| Our own golfcart! |
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| It's a good thing he's driving that thing |
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| Getting married in mid-July is HOT |
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| Screw these pictures, let's go back inside |
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| Ah, AC |
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| So glad I went with the 4 inch heels |
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| Best wedding planning decision I made was this cake |
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| Guess which one is Brian? |
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| Wait, why do we have to cut this cake? Isn't there waitstaff for this? |
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| What I wouldn't give for another piece of that right now |
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| I don't even know |
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| Breaking my bustle was kind of a buzz kill on the dancing |
I could get all lovey-dovey and talk about my husband, but that would be a kind of "anti-present" for him since he greatly enjoys NOT being discussed on my blog, so I'll talk about the wedding photography instead.
For all of you ladies out there who aren't married yet, this is my biggest piece of advice: be cheap about many things, but not the photography. I found a very cheap guy and thought it wouldn't really matter because how hard can it be to take pictures? (
Very hard apparently)
At one point during the ceremony, he must have gotten bored and he went off and started taking self portraits. How do I know this? Because he didn't bother to delete them when he gave me the disc of the wedding pictures. I guess I know why we only have a few pictures of the ceremony. :) Also, all of the church pictures are orange-y. Photography savvy people have told me that's a lens issue (or a filter issue, I don't really listen), and it's a pretty basic skill to mess up.
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| Orange you glad to see me? |
I'm not super happy with any of our wedding photos taken by our photographer. I actually preferred the ones that Brian took with his fancy camera, and he was just there as a guest. Maybe one day while I still fit into my dress I'll do one of those "trash the dress" photo shoots with my husband. It seems silly at this point, but it's not completely out of the question.
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| Picture by Brian |
Also, our engagement pictures were strange too, but the time was so cramped (I planned the whole shebang in about 6 months) that I didn't have time to find another photographer. In my understanding, engagement pictures are of the couple, but he kept insisting on taking pictures of
just me. So I have a bunch of random pictures like this:
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| Really? |
And not so many couple photos. He was a strange dude.
What part of your wedding (past or imaginary future) did you not scrimp on? I went all out for the cake and that was a fantastic decision. It was such a good cake that there weren't any leftovers, which means almost everyone had to have eaten more than one piece.
Happy anniversary! Some photos are better than no photos, right? ;) We went cheap on the whole thing: only 25 guests, J.Crew dress, student photographer from Georgia Tech. It was awesome and worth it for the honeymoon in Hawaii.
ReplyDeleteHappy anniversary!
ReplyDeleteI vote for the trash-the-dress shoot - it does seem silly, but especially since you aren't happy with your wedding photos, it's a great way to get something nice now :)
Are these supposed to convince me you aren't a 50 year old dude with a beer gut?
ReplyDeleteHappy anniversary! You look beautiful in the pictures! We had a truly awful photographer as well and I regret it to this day (we also don't own the images so I can't post them on my blog, not that I would want to). We went all out on the open bar, which seems to have been a good decision since everyone told us it was the most fun they'd ever had at a wedding.
Happy Anniversary!
ReplyDeleteYour cake is really pretty and also I want a piece now. I love the designs on each tier. Your wedding may have been in July, but at least you didn't have it OUTSIDE! My friend had hers outside at the end of June, in North Carolina. I was a bridesmaid. The dresses were a shiny material that, when it gets wet, the moisture spreads and is really noticeable. Not awesome for someone like me who sweats just thinking about sweating. And the dresses were pretty hideous, at that.
What's a trash-the-dress shoot? If it means you get a bunch of people to finger paint your wedding dress, count me in! (Only because it's white, like a blank canvas).
GREAT post, I want it in the newspaper, because my stepfather is a great photographer and gets so little business now because everyone is cutting corners going with cheap guys or their cousin thinks they are good at photography or whatever, but when the day's over that's all you have and there's no re-dos. We actually went the cheap cake at the last minute and our florist made it look gorgeous with flowers and everyone said they loved it (if they were lying, I don't care), but honestly, everyone was on the dance floor and barely sat down and ate it. I think DJ and videographer are where you shouldn't go cheap, the DJ makes or breaks the reception. Our video captures SO MUCH stuff we would have never remembered or known about, and it's your only chance to see the ceremony as the bride. We love watching ours every year. I'm pretty excited my dress still fits too.
ReplyDeleteHappy Anniversary!! :)
ReplyDeleteWe had an awful photographer, too. The pictures are just OK.
Hope you have something fun planned to celebrate!!
Your dress is beautiful. YOU look beautiful. So happy and radiant. For some reason I thought you have been married for like 10yrs (which would have made you 17 or something, right). Whenever married people have kids, I always assume they have been married forever. Odd, I know.
ReplyDeleteOur 3 year is coming up in 2 months. We were cheap on everything because we didn't have a wedding. We eloped in Hawaii so I think it cost us around $60 for the marriage license and $15 for the actual ceremony on the beach.
Happy Anniversary!
ReplyDeleteAnd seriously...self portraits? How ridiculous! I would totally suggest you do a "rock the dress" shot! We just did one a few months ago and we've been married for 4 years this August. It was a ton of fun and I am pretty sure we will be framing (maybe replacing??) a few of the shots that we took. I look way better now anyway! :)
Happy anniversary!!! 3 years?! Wow, you're practically still newlyweds. :)...and you totally make me feel old. Enjoy your day...Baby #2?! :)
ReplyDeleteIt's not a lens or filter issue that is causing the orange cast, it's pure laziness on the photographer's part. That can EASILY be fixed in post-processing on the computer. In like 3 seconds.
ReplyDeleteLuckily for me, Kara as well as another friend took the bullet and figured out that a bad photographer is not worth it. So at my wedding, I got a really good one and was pretty pleased with the results. (I'd better be, for the amount we spent!)
If you want to do some new photos, let me know.
Also - I don't even remember what your cake tasted like.
ReplyDeleteAlso - I'm disappointed you didn't use my ping-pong photo.
ReplyDeleteHappy Anniversary! My 2-year is on Monday! Getting married in July is HOT but it's better than snow. You looked beautiful and I love your dress!
ReplyDeleteWe didn't skimp on the booze. Kept the bar open the entire time. Need to keep the guests (and bride and groom!) happy. We even had them build a 3rd bar just to prevent people from waiting in line too much. We're hardcore!
Happy anniversary! We are planning our wedding right now, and it's so overwhelming I don't even know which way is up! But hopefully we'll be in good hands for photos - one of our close friends does semi-professional photography, and would be basically shooting the wedding regardless of whether we hired him...so we did! I figure we have the bonus of him knowing us as a couple, so he can capture us in our infinite weirdness.
ReplyDeleteDanke for ping-pong pic.
ReplyDeleteWe had a friend - a documentary photographer - do our wedding photos as a gift. Some of them (the candid action shots) are awesome, but we don't really have the traditional artistic wedding pictures or portraits. Occasionally Brent and I wonder if we should have done it differently, but when it comes down to it, the pictures capture the day, and it was such a great experience having a friend do it instead of some of the super-intrusive photographers we've seen at friends' weddings.
ReplyDeleteHappy anniversary!
hahaahahh! Everybody was kungfu fighting! HA!
ReplyDeleteI am cracking up about the photog. I just read this whole post out loud to Mike.
Despite the crappy photos it looks like a great day! You look beautiful! And the engagement pics of only you...that's just weird! Congrats on your 50k! U r craaazzzyyyyy! Faith must be proud of her mama!
ReplyDeleteOh...and happy anniversary!
ReplyDeleteHappy Anniversary!
ReplyDeleteMy aunt did our pictures with her fancy camera as my husband, "would sooner die then have some asshole barking orders for how to stand, jump on the beach, or kiss my wife in some awkward position."
She did a nice job and my husband wasn't angry the whole time. :-)
Your wedding cake looks so tasty!! I wish we wouldn't have waited so long into the reception to have the money dance.. HA!
ReplyDeleteHappy anniversary! Pictures and reception were two things we didn't skimp on. We had a fantastic time and the pictures to prove it!
ReplyDeleteHappy Anniversary!!!
ReplyDeleteWe went cheap everywhere - had a beautiful ceremony at a state park and had the reception in a very nice building at the park as well. We had a day time wedding. We ordered the best BBQ around, my step-mom made the deserts, we used an ipod for music, bought beer, made sangria, etc... We would have splurged on photography, but I won a photography package, so it was free! Photography would have been over 1/3 of our budget if we hadn't won it.
Pictures are really important - it's what remains once the party is over!
Happy anniversary!
ReplyDeleteI didn't like our "inside" pictures either. They looked way orange and stupid. ha.
Happy Anniversary! You look amazing in your pictures, but I would totally be disappointed by the orange cast.
ReplyDeleteAnd, your cake looks so yummy - now I'm wanting cake.
Happy anniversary!!!! We celebrate ours next week :)
ReplyDeleteskimped on - guest list and food a little. planning.... photographer, was a medium skimp. we just got ours back and they are mostly good.
ReplyDeleteoh, and btw, getting married in the OUTDOORS in mid july is hot. argh. skimped on the weather bribes!
ReplyDeleteHappy Anniversary!
ReplyDeleteCake is my favorite part of weddings. Love me some wedding cake!
Your wedding cake is beautiful. Worth every penny I'm sure.
ReplyDeleteI regret our "photographer" too. My uncle who is a photographic "hobbyist" offered to do it for free and everyone in the family raves about his photos (he lives on the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton and if you've never been, it's so freaking beautiful that it's kind of impossible not to take a beautiful photo). Well he's old fashioned with no imagination and pretty much just wanted everyone to stand in a row taking turns on who was in the pictures and I had to come up with some sort of creative thinking on the spot and only got a few pictures that I kind of liked. The rest were pretty sucky and I wished that I had of paid the big bucks to have a real professional too.
ReplyDeleteOh and you want a cake story - whenever I find the picture of the cake I paid someone to make me I will email it to you because girl Oh.Em.Gee is all I have to say. It was lime green, had dirty fingerprints and hair on it and all the fondont flowers were sloppy and falling apart. Hubs and his groomsmen had to run to the freaking Superstore (Loblaws) the day of and the lady in the bakery slapped together a few teirs of white cake and I wrapped some ribbon around the layers and added some flowers and VOILA we had ourselves a cake! lol
Ah, happy anniversary!!! yay for all that time!!!
ReplyDeletebummer about the photographer. that stinks!
happy anniversary ! your wedding was beautiful!! i wish we had a better photographer too; we just had my friend's son who was a senior PHOTOGRAPHY STUDENT IN COLLEGE. he did OK but definitely was no professional.
ReplyDeleteI should email this blog post to my mom, we just got in a big wedding-related fight last night because she tried to tell me that she can't see the difference between photos my aunt takes and the photos the professional photog I hired takes (for the record I think my prof photog is AMAZING and I've admired her work for a very long time). She thinks that spending a 1/4 of my budget on videography and photography is stupid. NOPE, sorry mom, this is one area where I'm not budging. Grrr, still gets me steamed up thinking about it.
ReplyDeleteANYWAYS, you looked very beautiful and I love your dress!!! Happy Anniversary (late!)