Life. Love. Lipstick.

Well, as happy as I am about our decision to elope, I’m sad to wave goodbye to Eric Laurits.  I had my heart set on having Eric shoot our nuptials, but deciding to get married this year means that we just can’t afford a top-notch photographer.  So here we are, searching for a decent photographer that meets our criteria:

1. Local to Orlando, to avoid travel costs.
2. Will shoot for just an hour or two, much like an engagement session, with a little ceremony thrown in.
3. Will sell us a disc of edited images for a reasonable price.
4. Will sell the disc of UNedited images for way cheap.
5. Is a good fit with our favored styles.*
6. Can be booked with just a couple months’ notice (wedding will possibly be on a weekday, so this isn’t impossible).
7. Will do the shooting itself for under $400.

Am I seeking the impossible?

I’m going with NO, and am going to search for the right photographer!  I know a lot of photographers read this blog, so if any of you can do this, or know someone who can, please let me know!

*Samples of these favored styles can be found on these photography blogs: Eric Laurits, Susan Stripling, The Image Is Found, John & Joseph – Just a few of my faves.

We’re eloping.

Details are to come.  I’m really short on time and energy right now.

But i promise… more is coming on how I came to this decision, and what the plans are so far!

Well, I am still really confused about what we are going to do.  We decided to have an intimate wedding where we live, and even made our guests lists, totaling 48.  Then, however, we decided that we want to get married THIS YEAR.  yes, this year that is halfway over.  We are in no financial position to have a wedding on that scale on such short notice.  Now begins Project Scale-Down.

Eloping seems like the obvious choice here.  Very little expense, easily done on very short notice.  Something inside me is nagging to have someone present, though.  To keep things small, and to keep me relaxed, it needs to be very few people.  At this moment, I am really feeling pulled toward eloping.  Tomorrow, I may wake up and be ready to pare down the guest list to the bare minimum.  It’s just such a stressful task for me.  It was hard enough to get to 50.

We really want to get married in October, so I better figure things out quickly!

Oh, how I love me some ring shots.  I’ve come to realize that I pretty much like 2 types…

Quirky-

And downright beautiful art, suitable to hang as a huge canvas above the mantel-

And this, my friends, is my absolute favorite one to date… both witty AND beautiful art-

Photo credits:

• Next Exit Photography
• Studio ATG
• Whitebox Weddings
• Susan Stripling
• Blue Nalu Photography
• Anna Kuperberg

I am quite possibly the most indecisive bride-to-be on this planet. I just posted recently that after much thought, I decided we would have a small wedding rather than just elope. Well…. Now I’m not so sure. After making the guest list and reaffirming that we could definitely do a small wedding, I started daydreaming about eloping again. I feel like once I get moved in with Dustin, the wedding is going to feel unimportant, and I’ll be just as satisfied with an elopement. But I’m not sure! Will I miss out on having our friends and families there? Or will we have the wedding and feel overwhelmed, crowded, and broke?

I love the thought of having my parents and brother and my closest friends there. My mom helping me into my dress, my best guy friend Brandon seeing me all dressed up, seeing Dustin’s expression as I walk down the aisle toward him… these are all moments I dream about. I want to dance with my new husband to a special song, show our guests a good time, and give them a glimpse at our love. I want great photos that tell the story of the day.

I also love the romanticism of eloping, with a modern twist. Dustin and I would have a private ceremony, just the two of us plus the minister and photographer. We’d dress in nice, informal clothes, write our own vows, and have beautiful imagery to document the day. We’d celebrate with friends and family a few weeks later with a casual party.

Both scenarios have great appeal, and I constantly flip-flop between the two!

Has anyone else gone through this? How did you make your final decision?

The main thing that caught my eye about this wedding is the imagery, by the amazing Wiebners. As i’ve said before, I love when emotions and relationships can be felt in a photo. These are truly wonderful photos.

I know I used a lot of images from their blog post, but there are actually many more! Check them out!

From the first day Dustin and I discussed getting married over a year ago, the guest list was a source of stress for me. We knew from the beginning that we could not afford to have a wedding with more than 50 or 60 guests. Not only did we want to have a small guest list for budget reasons, but I love intimate weddings.

I have a very large, very close-knit family. The way our family dynamics are, if I invite one of my mom’s brothers and his family, then I have to invite all my mom’s brothers and their families. This equals out to around 60 people… without even beginning to invite my dad’s family, Dustin’s family, and friends. I played around with guest lists when I was bored, trying to cut out people and see how small I could get my part of the list. Fast-forward to last week. I decided that to avoid drama and unnecessarily hurt people, there needed to be cut-off criteria. We decided that I would invite immediate family and my very closest friends. Dustin can invite whomever he wants, since he can’t even think of 20 or 30 people he would invite. His family is very different than mine. Plus, he doesn’t care a thing about hurting people’s feelings over something he thinks is silly.

I am very satisfied with my list, and while I know some of my family will not understand (I come from a small Southern town, where weddings are held at the church and fellowship hall, all food is finger food made by family, and it’s “the more, the merrier,” complete with an invitation in the newspaper and on the church bulletin board), I know I made the right decision for myself. Sure, we don’t even have a date yet, so the list is bound to be tweaked a little. But it sure is fun to plug the names into the spreadsheet Dustin made for me! If anybody would like a copy of it, email me. I’m happy to share.

Now, if I could just get Dustin to make his list [you reading this, babe? ]…

Okay, so I’m on a blogging roll today, but I can’t help it! So much great material out there in the wedding world, and a couple days off from work.

Here we have another great wedding by Jules Bianchi, complete with an insanely awesome wedding cake. And wow, a beautiful bride and groom! I love, love, love weddings in book-filled surroundings. Just love books, period!

Check out the rest of the post!

While browsing my daily reads, this one photo caught my eye:

Love this tattoo! Not only the message, but the type. if I ever get words on my body, I want this typeface!

Photo from Meg Baisden.

This is it! This is exactly what I envision for my own wedding – intimate, cozy, us. And ideally, in my own home. Kudos to Merry and Mark for pulling off a wonderfully personal affair. Merry even made her awesome dress and the cake!

See the blog post in its entirety here.

Note to Our Labor of Love: Seriously, now… you’re just showing off! The beautiful imagery you consistently create? Ridiculous.