Wednesday, November 19, 2008

One thousand, one hundred eighty-three and then some

For the past week, I've spent an enormous amount of time sorting through wedding photos. Weddings are one of those events where you are completely dependent on others to capture memories of the people, scenery, and action going on around you.

Our photographer sent us some teasers about a week after the wedding. We also encouraged guests to upload their photos onto a shared website Tim created through Shutterfly. Ten people took us up on the shared website. Two people posted pictures through Picasa, one set on Flickr, another on Photobucket, and two people sent us CDs with their photo files. We got to see many great shots of things we had no idea were going on while we visited with guests. The one thing I take away from what photos people sent is "remember to share photos of things other than the bride and groom." It's nice that we have dozens of angles of our ceremony, but it'd be better if we could see who was sitting next to whom and what was happening at the reception tables. I will definitely keep that in mind for the next wedding I attend.

Now comes the hard part of sorting through all these wonderful photos and decide on what will go into our final photo album. We'll probably have two, one informal book we'll print online, the other will be a fancy (and expensive) leather bound book with the thick pages that weighs 10 pounds. The big difference is how many pictures we will use. The online books tend to be 100 pages with 1 to 9 photos per page which you design yourself. The professional wedding books are a total of 55 photos over 30-40 pages where one chance to edit up to 10 photos is allowed before it goes to print.

As I go through and try to whittle down all these photographs into a tidy 500 to get from my official photographer, here are so fun pictures:


I could have imagined a more beautiful autumn day for a wedding. It had rained just two week earlier so we set up a whole Plan B timeline in case of weather. Good thing we didn't spend too much thought on it. Instead, Mother Nature graced us with a perfect 74F day, light wind, and clear skies. Not many people know about this place for some reason and yet it's so close by many things. I'm so glad we chose to have an outdoor ceremony. With all the activities we two enjoy, this was the place for us. Just before the ceremony, as the guests hid under the trees for shade, a light wind shook some leaves from the tall trees. It was like watching a romantic movie as I saw the golden leaves fall like golden confetti over everyone. I knew it would be a marvelous day.

I probably know little to nothing about florist. I can't say that I've ever bought anything from a shop. Naturally, I fretted constantly about the flowers. Having a proposal that list what flowers will be included in the wedding was not enough. Sure, we talked about ideas after looking at pictures, but how was I to be sure I'd end up with something I'd like? I have to say my breath was taken away by what was delivered to the hotel. The flowers were perfect, and she even managed to add flowers that I thought I couldn't get because they're normally out of season this time of year. (Hmmm, yeah, they're probably imported from somewhere and not "green" but I'll compensate for it somehow because it was worth it!)

My brother-in-law's girlfriend has just become a wedding photographer. We wanted her to enjoy the wedding, so she wasn't paid to do anything she didn't want to. Still, it was great to have a "second" photographer with a different artistic style. I really love some of her more artsy images.

I surprisingly did well in my $45 Naturalizer shoes (on sale with 20% friends and family discount - yes!). From the moment I found them, I was determined to wear them because I thought the style was perfect and the pearl white color matched my dress better than anything else. I thought for sure I'd have ten blisters on each feet and be walking bare foot after an hour. Luckily, they held up for a good 4 hours before I abandon them for slides and then 1-inch sandals.

But of all the details I shopped, fretted, fussed, and struggle over, my favorite is our cake topper. We're by no means the first to do it, although it has become a little harder now that you can't request them free from the company. Despite that, I wrote the company and told them of our love for the video game of their creation. I longed for the pieces I needed that I could not buy from the company without buy a set that cost $50 to $100. The customer service agent accepted my request and my obvious determination to obtain my cake topper and went so far as to give me a complete set of LEGOs from which I could created my bride and groom rather just the three pieces that I had requested. She has no idea how much that made my day.

3 comments:

Anna May Won't said...

beautiful! the site, the flowers, your dress. i also love your BIL's gfriend's photo. in the end, for me personally, i loved the photos my friends took more than the professional's (if only cuz they were free and the photo studio people turned out to be jerks).

and the LEGO cake topper - awesome!

shan said...

yay! i'm so glad you shared some pictures with us. you guys look so gorgeous. the location looks so exquisitely romantic!! congratulations again! (i had to laugh when i read about the shoes ... my friend who recently got married fretted SOOO much about her shoes that she ended up getting two pairs and changed between them during the evening. go figure)

teahouse said...

Ah, photos. I got married in April and I still haven't sorted through all of mine!