The Wedding Photographer

Ahhhhhh.  Okay, this post could go on for days.  Sorry in advance if that really happens.

To start - anyone who knows me knows I am OBSESSED with wedding photography.  Obsessed.  There is no better word to describe it.  I LOVE, adore, can't get enough of it.  This has been going on for many many years.....since before I met Ant.  Which is great, because it means he wasn't freaked out by my obsession - it was normal.  Anyway.....this means I have spent LOTS of time looking at wedding photographers, following blogs, doing research on prices, packages, etc. etc. etc.  I have gone through "phases" with photographers where I have had favorites.  Blogs I have followed more and less closely.  There was one particular moment I am ashamed to admit, where I was at the seafood festival in my hometown and started freaking out because I realized one of these photographers was there with her family, enjoying the food.  Yes.  That obsessed.  I started slapping Ant going "remember that blog I read ALL THE FREAKING TIME??? THAT'S HER!!!" like she was Justin Timberlake or something.

Anyway.  The benefit to this is that I learned a lot about what I like about photographers, and a LOT about what I don't like.  I became quite the snob.  I googled every version of "CT/RI/New England wedding photographer" and I would pick and choose the ones I liked enough to keep reading.  I realized it was often the subtle details, and the simple photos that stood out to me the most.  Over editing does nothing for me....overly posed shots do nothing for me.  Give me some raw simple emotion and some beautiful pictures any day!

So, when it came time for Ant and I to start looking at photographers for OUR wedding, I had a mini freakout.  How was I supposed to make a decision like this?  To me, the photographer is hands down the most important vendor of the day (no offense to our other vendors...I love you all!).  Besides the marriage itself, the photos of the day are the only thing that will truly last a lifetime.

I emailed a number of them.  A few that I knew I loved I also knew were out of my price range.  A few others I quickly learned were out of my price range.  This discouraged me, and made me hesitate to email a couple of other photographers I had been really excited to talk to.  I then started panicking about budget, and went way too far the other direction.  I reached out to people I knew I could afford, and knew I didn't necessarily want.  The worst part was that half the time, these photographers who appeared cheaper ended up being not all that cheap.  Their wedding package included 1 photographer and 6 hours and by the time you got what you REALLY wanted, you were spending over your budget all over again.  For not the person you wanted.  It was a mess.

I took a breath, stepped back, and started over.  I filled out a contact form for a photographer who's blog I'd been reading for months...and I waited for a response. The email I got back made me take an even bigger breath.  She sent me a link to a website, FULL of information for potential clients.  It includes images of their "pretty heirloom items" like your wedding album..*swoon* and also includes all of the nitty gritty.  The cost, the details. and the beauty of it all?  It's oh so fabulously simple.  The fee for the "experience" includes all of the following:

Includes 8 hours of photography by 2 photographers, a couture styled engagement shoot, a PASS gallery of your wedding + engagement, the digital download of all your low-res images, delivered in less than 4 weeks, a custom website, and an EXPERIENCE that you won't soon forget.

Again...*SWOON* what more could you ask for?  Simple, clear cut, and best of all - BEAUTIFUL.  The photos, are beautiful.  These are some of the ones that jumped out at me in the beginning, and made me continue to follow her blog.

SO anyway, long story short, we agree that it is within our budget-ish enough to set up a meeting.  We show up in Hartford at Alicia's home studio.  She has a cheese plate and water and is sweet as can be - and it really is that simple.  The only wrinkle or hesitation after our initial meeting had to do with the cost of the wedding album.  Wedding albums, if done properly, are expensive.  More expensive than naive little me could have ever imagined.  So the cost of the photography and the album fell a bit outside of our initial budget.  BUT.  I have the best fiancé ever and the most supportive parents and future in-laws ever, and we made it work.  Conversation over, photographer booked!  We will be working with Rachel from Alicia Ann Photographers (formally No Eye Has Seen Photographers) next summer, and we couldn't be more excited!

As you may know from reading about our engagement pics here or here - we didn't actually meet Rachel until the day of our engagement shoot…which I was also a little nervous about.  But there was nothing to be nervous about! Rachel is so so sweet, and was so helpful with every detail leading up to the day we took our pictures.  The photos came out AMAZING, and the process was so simple.  They were posted on the blog here - and we received a PASS gallery of all the images, so I was able to download them and use them for our engagement party just a few short weeks later!!  She has also been beyond patient... answering my random questions and rehashing timelines with me, as I start running into all the silly things you never thought you'd think about.  I legitimately can NOT wait until August, to see the beautiful moments she is going to capture for us on our wedding day.

Okay…I warned you it was going to be long!  How did you choose your photographer?  Is anyone else as in love with wedding photography as me?  Send me the links to some of your favorites - I'm always looking for beautiful new blogs to read!!

and just because I can't help myself, I'll leave you with a few more pretties to look at…

I love love, but valentines day cards?

Happy Valentines Day everyone!!

I love love, so there isn't much to dislike about Valentines Day! One thing I do struggle with is finding the right valentines day card for my favorite boyfriend-turned-fiancé, soon-to-be-husband.  I find most cards are either wayyy to cheesy, or try too hard to be funny.  I love love and romance, but want to fill the card with my own words...so the more simple the better!

Here are a few that I found that I plan to keep on the back burner for future Valentine's Days!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/LHCalligraphy

https://www.etsy.com/shop/RowHouse14

https://www.etsy.com/shop/DahliaPressShop

https://www.etsy.com/shop/cottonflowerpress

https://www.etsy.com/shop/pepperpressny

https://www.etsy.com/shop/fluidinkletterpress

https://www.etsy.com/shop/chathamandcaron

What are your Valentine's Day plans?  Besides your Valentine, don't forget to send a little extra love out to the rest of your friends and family today!!

I work tonight, so my Valentine and I had breakfast together today…and will be enjoying dinner at our favorite spot tomorrow night!  Here's a few more of our engagement pics - some sweeter moments to go along with a sweet day.  xoxo!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!  This shoreline bride is SO excited - my holiday starts today at 4pm! Ant and I will be heading to Rhode Island to celebrate my youngest sister's birthday tonight.  Since we're making the trek out there there - we're going to stay!  We will spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my family, before heading to Prospect to celebrate with Ant's parents - Christmas Day is his mom's birthday too!  So many reasons to celebrate!!!

This is the Christmas card we sent out to a few friends and family this year....again - I'm looking for any excuse to maximize use of our engagement pictures! I found this cute temple in this shop on Etsy...and thought it was perfect!  We asked her to make the colors a little more festive.  It was downloadable, and we printed them out at the CVS down the street.  SO super easy and simple, which is perfect for this girl.  Holiday season in retail is way too busy to make things complicated.

I hope you all enjoy a wonderful holiday with your loved ones!!

All I want for Christmas....

I'd love to talk about some of my favorite Christmas gifts to give others - but since Christmas hasn't happened yet - that topic will have to wait!  In the meantime, I thought I'd cover self gifting.

As new homeowners, Ant and I have found ourselves with an entirely new set of expenses and responsibilities....which we would never trade for the world!  We LOVE our home and the projects we continue to do to make it our own.  These new expenses and responsibilities, however, make the holidays that much more fun!  We love an excuse to spoil each other and ourselves......which is why 2013 is the Christmas of WANTS!  Absolutely beautiful and unnecessary things that we ask for just because we want them :) (Yes Ant, I just called XBox One unnecessary...sorry!)

When I was asked what I wanted for Christmas this year, I wasn't entirely sure.  But....as I've gone along over the last few weeks, I have managed to come up with a few things!  If I was going to be splurging on me, these are a few of the things I want that would be at the top of my list this year! As a firm believer in self gifting, maybe a few of them will make their way into our house over the next few months....

One thing I've always struggled with is all the great things I find that I LOVE while shopping for others!! This beautiful wave necklace is from Aquinnah Jewelry designed in Killingworth, CT.  I was shopping at a boutique that had a trunk show by this designer and fell in love.  I absolutely need this necklace for myself...but I held off (for now)! Like so many other pieces by this designer it is so simple and so pretty - I DID buy a bracelet for a friend!!  A girl can only say no to but so many things...

Ahhhh.  These booties by Jessica Simpson.  I can't decide if I'd buy brown or black, which is probably the main reason I haven't bought them yet.  I am not the best in heels. So wedge heels like these are the perfect solution - especially in the winter!  It's so cold which makes looking cute sometimes feel very challenging.....but these with any jeans and a simple top and ta da!  Crisis averted. (They're on sale now too!)

Okay, so my dad and I discovered this pillow while shopping at Pier 1 the other day.  It might look slightly...frilly.  But it is seriously the most surprisingly soft pillow!  and the frilly makes for a very soft, pretty detail for your favorite space.....mine currently being our brand spanking new living room.  Now if I can find the perfect new blanket to go with it, Ant's in real trouble.

Our engagement pictures were amazing...and we have big plans to display a few of them - our two favorite black and white ones - in our bedroom (my second gallery wall project!).  We already bought a frame for one of them, but the other would look even more stunning displayed as a Gallery Wrap - which you can order through our photographer herself!

Back to the basics - my go to mascara would be the perfect stocking stuffer...if I was stuffing my own stocking! I love most things BareMinerals...and this mascara is at the top of that list.  I have very long eyelashes, and it's easy for mascara to get too clumpy or too crazy.  This one is simple and does just what I need it to, curl & lengthen.  Enough said!

Sigh.  I buy myself two purses a year, and I am way overdue for my winter one :)  This crossbody from Kate Spade would do the trick!  Not too big, not too small....and I haven't had a simple black bag in about 4 years...I think it's time!!  My current purse is a beautiful mustard colored one I got in Florence though, so it's a little harder to part with than usual.

Is 2013 a Christmas of wants or needs for you??  What is at the top of your list??

Pretty things and good deals

Happy Saturday! (and a belated Happy Thanksgiving)

Today's post is a short(er) one....in honor of Small Business Saturday!!

I work retail, so Thanksgiving week means Black Friday - one of the busiest weekends for us, and the official kickoff to the holiday season!  Today is also small business Saturday.  One of my favorite things about living in Guilford is that we have so many small local businesses in town.  There is nothing more fun than spending the afternoon wandering in and out of the stores around the green!  I have a busy work weekend - so I didn't get to participate in too many deals - but this one jumped out at me as something I HAD to share - especially if any of you out there are local CT shoreline brides!!

A couple of weeks ago I spent my Halloween afternoon up in Hartford at Alicia Ann Couture's studio.  As you know - Rachel from No Eye Has Seen is our wedding photographer....in our initial meeting with Alicia - when we decided to hire Rachel, I found out that Alicia also does glamour/boudoir shoots! Her brand, Alicia Ann Couture launched just a few weeks later...and after a little bit of thought I decided to go for it and book a session with her!  A friend of mine had done a boudoir shoot for her fiancé as a wedding present, and only had good things to say.  I thought it would be a special thing to surprise Ant with - as well as a fun way to treat myself.  (I can safely write about this here, because he just got 3 photos as a teaser on our 5 year anniversary....he has to wait to see the rest!)

I can NOT speak more highly of the experience!!  I brought my middle sister with me for moral support (which I also highly recommend).  We told Ant we were busy all morning doing wedding things...not a lie, and enough to keep him from asking any more questions! Erin Infantino from Simply Gorgeous by Erin did my hair and makeup in the studio (again - HIGHLY recommend).  She was incredible and made me feel - and look - absolutely amazing (which is why I have since booked her for our wedding!).  Alicia was so professional and made me feel so comfortable throughout the shoot....and the pictures are stunning.  She advertises her shoots as glamour/boudoir which I think is the perfect description.  While I busted out some incredible lingerie I bought for the occasion from Beneath the Gown and Victorias Secret - the photos are not raunchy or in-your-face sex - but more soft and feminine - with a touch of sexy, of course!

Here is one example from my shoot (stolen bad quality screen shot - since I haven't purchased my album yet!)

Anywayyyy....long story short - Alicia just posted her 2013 Holiday Promo - and I am passing it along to all of you!!!  If you book now for a shoot this winter, you get a gift certificate for a free massage along with your glamour session!

I would recommend this to any woman - whether or not you are planning a wedding.  The photos make a perfect birthday gift, anniversary gift....or present to yourself!  It is a fabulous way to pamper yourself.  For me, it was honestly just a fun afternoon.  If you need more convincing - let me know! I can put any of your fears to rest :)

Have you ever done a boudoir shoot?  What was the occasion?  

Planning our engagement pics

Planning our engagement pictures was SO much fun! It was the first time we were meeting our photographer Rachel, which we were so excited about...and she could not have been more help in the planning process! In the almost 5 years that Ant and I have been together we have a LOT of pictures together...but it's a totally different ball game when you get to do it with all the bells and whistles! The most important thing was that I wanted the pictures to be US...nothing too cheesy and nothing too fancy, just a slightly more put together version of us :) 

The easiest decision was where to take our engagement photos....when this is where your fiancé proposes, it's sort of a no brainer. 

Could Chaffinch Island Park be any more beautiful??  Rachel was totally on board! The next thing we talked about was themes. Ant and I are big wine-os... We love sharing a good glass of wine at our favorite restaurants, or exploring the local vineyards....Ant had brought a bottle of wine and picnic to the park when he proposed! So a wine picnic complete with blanket was not a stretch for us.  I wanted to keep it SUPER simple with props, again nothing over the top, so when I searched Pinterest these were a few images that jumped out at me.  We bought a new blanket at TJMaxx (any excuse to buy a new blanket is good in my book!) - and bought the same bottle of wine Ant had brought to celebrate when I said YES! If you're going to have a bottle of wine in the pictures forever, it's gotta be a meaningful one!

I asked Rachel for suggestions on cute ways to incorporate our date into the images, again without getting too cheesy, and she sent us a number of great suggestions! This is one that immediately stood out to me as an easy one to incorporate into what we already knew we wanted to do...

 

How cute are those glasses?? A great way to personalize with our date and blend into the shots. I thought we we were going to make them ourselves at first, but I googled chalkboard wine glasses (brilliant I know) and found them at Pier 1 for only $3 each! Done!!

These images were pics I pinned as inspiration for poses - I love how natural and sweet they all are! It is all about the couple and their closeness. 

The next thing to figure out was our outfits!  These were the outfits I pinned for inspiration - I wanted to keep our outfits coordinated without being matchy - and make sure they wouldn't be things we'd look back at and wonder - what were we thinking??? I know, who ever thought I'd spend so much time thinking about a couple of outfits! I just knew there were a few things I definitely wanted us to wear - like my fabulous new mint heels, and Ants pink and blue plaid that I adore! Luckily, one day my sister and MOH were over and they helped us make our final picks!  We did have three picked out, but only ended up using two. Our best two, I think :) 

The day of the shoot, I went and got my makeup done by Jennie Fresa in Clinton, CT.  She recently opened up a blow dry bar, so I got my hair done too! It was the perfect way to ensure a good hair day - and I couldn't have felt better when we met Rachel at the park! Jennie did an amazing job keeping my makeup natural, in such a way that came out amazing in the pictures! I'm glad I took Rachel's advice and did get my makeup done professionally. 

Anddddddd here are the final products!! I know I already showed you a bunch of them, but I'm showing you again, now that I walked you through all the nitty gritty details that got us there!  Now that you've seen our thought process leading up to the shoot.... What do you think? How did we do?