Photography

2 words: Shop around!

We got lucky that a cousin of mine is a seriously amazing artist (in all senses of the word). She was always creative and built on that in art school discovering new artistic outlets. We saw her true wedding potential when she did her sister's engagement shots and then their wedding.

By choosing someone that is working on building their portfolio we scored. She gets practice, she gets professional practice and pictures to add to her portfolio. We get someone we know already takes beautiful pictures, someone who is really willing to work with us to get the shots we want too, and we get a seriously discounted rate.

Want vs Need

Web Day 3 - I am seeing that this process will be less than easy and more work than I expected. Now it is time to prioritize. I began to make a list of the necessities; good food, good drinks, family, and friends. I also realized that there were plenty of things I didn't need. No doves being released, tuxedo clad servers, silver platters, string quartets...

Use this list as you talk to vendors. You can get a much better quote once you know what you want to price out.

Stickershock

Web Day 1 - And what a Day! I found many websites headlining stunning Orange County CA venues that I had no knowledge about. But they looked beautiful, so lets email them.

As the well designed pdf files began flowing into my inbox and out my printer i saw what i had only heard about; the exorbitant fees charged for renting a piece of grass or sipping out of their glasses.

What to do first?

Was 3 days enough to enjoy it?

I found myself sitting at the ford dealership waiting for who knows what to be done in twice the time you think it takes. I had free wifi and my laptop, let the games begin!

There are books and websites and blogs that can attempt to get you through this process, but honestly everyone's steps will be different.

1st - Envision your day. Is it inside? Outside? What season? What colors? Where can this occur?

2nd - Dive in and explore this amazing vast space we call the world wide web. There is so much to see and help and overwhelm you.

We decided with family mainly in Ca we wanted to try to stay here. Then we found many of our guests were in southern CA. So, if we married there we'd have the fewest gusts flying to our event. Wait, this is our day, aren't we supposed to choose where we want? Who wins?

What the ring really means

My better half told me multiple times that the ring was a promise for us to become a couple and as long as the day is what we wanted, it would be perfect.

We also talked about when? A year, 2 years, sooner, later... And I loved his response: "The ring means whenever you want, even tomorrow!" Free reign for me, score! This can definitely be difficult because we know it took serious guts to go out and get the ring and ask. Now you are adding the pressure of the planning.

This week I also began to share the exciting news with everyone and was blessed with so many amazing well wishes from family and friends.

Let the planning begin!

On One Knee

Once the joyous occasion of being proposed to occurs your brain goes into planning overdrive. But, do take the time to truly enjoy this time. It will be short as compared to the boyfriend or husband part.

My better half did an amazing job surprising me with this beautiful ring on my birthday. He gave me a beautiful necklace the day we celebrated my birthday to throw me of...and it did!

The ring was chosen by him and it makes me so happy that he took the time to look and choose the ring he loved and the ring he knew I would love.