winner, winner chicken dinner

Just the other day I posted about wanting to find a unique way to display some of our engagement photos. Well today I found out that I won a contest hosted on Brooklyn Bride for a free Memolio photo deck! I'm excited that we'll finally see some of our e-photos in print.

(source)

Did you enter or win any contests during your wedding planning?

putting our e-photos to good use

I've been on the minted site dozens of times, but never knew that they offer photo calendars! Ever since having them taken, I've been looking for a fairly inexpensive way to display our engagement photos. One of these would be perfect hanging in our kitchen where we currently have a Georgia Bulldogs calendar (which is, thankfully, about to expire).

Some of my favorite designs:

Fling

Love Struck

Heirloom Blooms
(all from here)

What are some of the ways you used or plan to use your engagement photos?

forever young - her

One of the other projects I've been working on recently is our growing up slideshow. Since I have a background in communications and digital media, I have elected to doing it myself. In the winter the future mister and I started collecting photographs from our families and this summer, during a particularly slow wedding planning month, I got started by scanning in a bunch of photos. My mom also helped out with her scanner at home and recently sent me another batch.

Maybe it's just me, but I really enjoy looking at other people's baby photos. So here are a few of mine:

newborn

1 year

3 years

4 or 5 - my brother and I ate breakfast in this chair together every morning

first day of kindergarten with my Barbie lunch box

my favorite color was pink

7 years - anyone remember the game Pretty, Pretty Princess??

8 years - visiting grammy and pop pop

10 years - boys will be boys

I'll stop here since the awkward pre-teen/teenage years don't need to be posted to the interwebs.

Honestly, though, I could immerse myself in old photographs for days on end. I love revisiting old vacations, milestones, events and emotions. And I've found it very difficult to narrow them all down! As you can see, these are mostly photos of me and my brother. For our actual slideshow, I've been trying to include photos of me with the various members of my immediate and extended family and friends. I think it's more fun for the viewers when they have a connection to the photographs.

Those of you who have done slideshows, did you enjoy the process? Did you find it difficult to pick your favorites?

Next time, I'll show you a few of the future mister.

engagement announcements

I'm sure you have all seen the unfortunate engagement/wedding announcements that have been circulated through email and the Internet, but in case you haven't go here.

Luckily, ours won't be anything like those. I've got a German last name and the future mister's is Irish (yep, I'll be a "Mc"). Now that we have our engagement photos, we'd like to place announcements in our parents' local papers. I thought I had it all figured out and sent the following snippet to my parents:

[My parents' names] of [my hometown] are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter Heather to [the future mister's name], son of [his parents' names] of [his hometown]. Heather is a 2003 graduate of [my high school] and a 2007 graduate of [our university]. She is employed at [my place of employment]. [The future mister] is also a 2007 graduate of [our university] and is pursuing a PhD in History at [current university]. The couple is planning a May 2011 wedding in [where we live].

Then we sent this slightly different version for his parents to submit to their paper:

[His parents' names] of [his hometown] are pleased to announce the engagement of their son [the future mister] to Heather [my last name], daughter of [my parents' names] of [my hometown]. [The future mister] is a 2003 graduate of [his high school] and a 2007 graduate of [our university]. He earned a Master's degree in History from [master's university] in 2009 and is pursuing a PhD at [current university]. Heather is also a 2007 graduate of [our university] and is employed at [my place of employment]. The couple is planning a May 2011 wedding in [where we live].

Now this is where I need some help. I thought that it was appropriate for his parents to announce the engagement in their paper - i.e. their names first. However, my FMIL seemed a bit confused by my wording and thinks that it is proper etiquette for the bride's parents to announce the engagement, regardless of which newspaper. Did you announce your engagement in the newspaper? What's the proper etiquette for doing so?

And just so this post isn't completely pictureless, here are the photos we are considering:

Which is your favorite?

makeup fail

So now that I've showed you our photos, I want to talk about makeup. Prior to the shoot, I mentioned that I made an appointment at Sephora because they offer "free" special occasion makeovers. Ideally, I would have loved to have a professional makeup artist, but the one that was recommended to me charged over $200! I just don't have that kind of money. I don't really know of any salons in the area that provide makeup services, so the next logical option was either a makeup counter in a department store or Sephora. I went with Sephora because you have the option to use any product in the store, whereas at a makeup counter you are usually limited to one particular brand (at least that's been the case in my experience).

Well Sephora ended up being a makeup semi-fail. I say semi because it wasn't all bad. My foundation, blush and lip color looked great. The eye makeup (including waayyy too filled in eyebrows), though - wow. If I were to put it delicately, I'd say it just wasn't me. But I'm more blunt, so I'll say that I was on the verge of looking like a streetwalker. Unfortunately I was too anxious and worked up to take a picture of myself, so you'll have to use your imagination.

The woman who did my makeup was perfectly nice and probably would have redone my eyes, had I asked. I'm just not the type of person to speak up, though, especially since I wasn't paying for her services (I even ended up walking out without making the required $50 purchase). So as soon as she was done, I raced out of there to find the future mister so we could leave, proceeded to have a mini-meltdown on the ride home, and bucked up and redid my eyes myself with the help of my mom over video chat. Crisis averted.

*photos by Heidi, cropped by me

strike a pose, part 3

These are the last of our photos and definitely my least favorite of the bunch. The future mister changed into a red polo and the photos were in front of a red barn (not sure what we were thinking). So needless to say, I like these best in black and white.

*all photos by Heidi of Our Labor of Love

Now that you've seen a decent amount of our photos, any suggestions on how I can incorporate them into the wedding? Keep in mind that save the dates are out since we're doing something like this. A guestbook is an option, but I'd prefer something more unique than the typical album from snapfish or blurb. Thoughts?

strike a pose, part 2

*all photos by Heidi of Our Labor of Love

strike a pose, part 1

Okay....so I am having a REALLY difficult time picking out my favorite engagement photos (did anyone else have that problem??). I don't want to bombard you with too many, so I'm going to break it up into three posts according to our three different outfits. First up, dressy.

These outfits were actually an afterthought. I was only planning on casual clothes, but the future mister really, really wanted something more formal. Fortunately, I had this great navy blue dress from a wedding I went to last year. Unfortunately, the future mister didn't really have anything appropriate, so we spent the Tuesday before at the mall (45 minutes away) searching for a suitable outfit. And to tell you the truth, as stressed out as I was trying to rush around at the last minute, I'm really glad we went through with it. Because I might like these just a teensy, tiny bit more than our casual photos. (Hopefully the future mister doesn't read this or I might get a big, fat "I told you so!" - ha.)

*all photos by Heidi of Our Labor of Love

who wants a sneak peak?

*photo by Heidi of Our Labor of Love

Georgia peaches

It's the weekend again already?? Where did the week go? Not that I'm complaining, of course, because on Sunday we have our engagement photo shoot with Heidi from Our Labor of Love! Yay!

Our initial plan was to trek out to the countryside and have some photos taken at a local peach orchard. My inspiration being these lovely photos from Simply Bloom:


Unfortunately the owners weren't up for it. Boo. So on to plan B. We'll be meeting Heidi downtown first since there are some great old brick buildings. Then we'll follow her out to the countryside where she has scouted out some locations. We're starting at 6:30pm, so hopefully it will be a little cooler, although I doubt it. The temps have been in the high 90s with equally high humidity. My plan is to pack lots of water, a towel, maybe an ice pack to put on the backs of our necks, and oil blotting sheets for me so I don't ruin my makeup.

Speaking of makeup - I have an appointment at Sephora at 2. I was looking into makeup artists but the prices were way more than I wanted to spend on engagement photos (like $200 more!). Well I saw on sephora.com that they do special occasion makeovers for "free" if you purchase $50 worth of products. What do you know, I'm almost all out of foundation and could use some more powder and blush too. So it really is kind of like getting a free service since I already needed new makeup anyway. Score! Now I just have to finish prepping our outfits.

Where did you have your engagement photos taken? Any tips?

wedding bands

We found the future mister's wedding band this past weekend. The jewelry store that my e-ring was purchased from is in North Carolina and we went there this weekend to get my ring resized. Now that the weather is getting cooler, it has been slipping quite a lot. So while we were there, we looked at some bands. He already had one on his wish list - it was a simple, classic band with white and yellow gold. Sort of like the one below:

(source)

For some reason though, I just didn't care for the yellow gold. I guess maybe it was the way it looked with his skin tone. So he tried on a few others. We saw two in the case that looked like they had some copper in them - turns out it is rose gold (can you tell I'm not very jewelry literate?). He tried one on and it looked really nice. It was same look he was going for with the two-tone, but the rose gold looked much, much better against his skin. I can't find an exact picture but it looks like this one, except the rose gold is brushed instead of hammered.

(source)

Our plan was to put it on his wish list and leave it at that until closer to the wedding, but the saleswoman offered us a deal we couldn't refuse. First of all, the jeweler we are dealing with is amazing (Skatell's for anyone living near Charlotte, NC, Mt. Pleasant, SC or Charleston, SC). They are family owned and operated, specialize in custom work, and do ALL of their work in-house. That being said, we didn't feel that they were "just trying to make the sale." Apparently, a few days ago the price of gold hit an all time high - more than $1000 per ounce! So the saleswoman offered us the ring in the case. It was created when gold was less expensive and it was close enough to his ring size that they would be willing to resize it for him. If we were to wait until closer to the wedding to have this ring created it would be more than double the price. After much debating, we decided to go for it and put it on 90 day layaway. The deal cincher was that if he decides he wants a different ring after all, as long as we don't resize it yet, we can get store credit and pick out something else. Now we just have to figure out my band...

When ring shopping, did you find a deal that you just couldn't pass up?

my precious

First of all, the future mister refers to my e-ring as "my precious" since, as he was proposing, I tried to take it out of his hands before he had the chance to slip it onto my finger.

(source)

Anyway, some time after we started dating, I found the ring of my dreams on the Internet. Vintage inspired, delicate, simple when looking at it straight on, but much more complex when looking at it from the side. Here she is, in all her beauty:

Her name is Medora and she is from the website faycullen.com. As soon as I felt that it was safe to send him hints, you better believe I sent this straight away. I looked at millions of other rings, many had similar features, but none could ever compare. Except ONE. Mine.

I always thought the idea of buying an antique ring was romantic, however, the future mister didn't like the idea of someone already owning and wearing the ring that his fiance would be wearing. It turns out he took those pictures I sent him to a jeweler that specializes in custom design. They made a few tweaks and my ring was created. Here she is, in even more beauty than Medora (okay, I might be a bit biased):

The biggest tweak they ended up making was designing it so that a wedding band could sit flush, instead of having a band that curved. Coincidentally, that was the one thing I didn't like about the Medora - curved bands just aren't my style. Problem solved! I think Sam did an amazing job (again, biased).

Did you send your fiance any hints before being engaged? Would you consider a vintage or custom made ring?

the proposal (part 2)

So the day was Thursday, July 9. That morning, the future mister and my dad left to play golf while Mom and I went about our day - I was working from home at the time. Sometime in the afternoon my dad called my mom and told her that they were going to grab a drink from one of the bars downtown because the club at the golf course didn't have a bar. Nothing out of the ordinary - they usually enjoy a glass of bourbon when they're together. He said they'd be home for dinner - which was my dad's wonderful, homemade chili. When they got home, my dad suggested we all take a ride to the botanical gardens after dinner to walk around. Despite only being in town for a few weeks, it was already one of our favorite places, and actually the place we were visiting when we made the decision to move from Kentucky to Georgia (*very important tidbit). I thought it was a great idea, of course.

So we got there and my parents quickly found some reason to split off from us. Now we're alone. The future mister turned to me and said, "I love you." Now, I probably should have caught on at this point, but I'm obviously dense. Why? Because 1. He never randomly says "I love you" and 2. It was in the weirdest tone of voice I have ever heard come out of his mouth. Anyway, we ended up under this pergola covered with beautiful wisteria vines. He told me that he and my dad were talking about me while golfing. I asked what they were talking about, but he wouldn't say. Then a bunch of kids showed up riding their bikes and I announced that we should find mom and dad. Poor guy - attempt number 1 turned into a big fat fail. I was not the easiest girl to propose to.

We found my parents and walked around some more until they wandered off again. At the point when we were nearing the bench where we made the decision to move to this town the future mister grabbed my hand and said, "let's go to our bench." On the way, he started talking. He said "I love you" again, in the same weird tone of voice. We got to the bench and I proclaimed that it was dirty (lucky for him since I wasn't supposed to sit anyway), so he told me to just stand. More beautiful words followed, most of which I cannot remember. Something about me moving twice to be with him, starting a new chapter of our lives together, wanting to be with me forever... I'm told that during all this I asked "are you serious?" at least twice. I finally realized what was happening and the tears began to fill my eyes. I remember nodding yes over and over again as he got down on one knee, before he even asked, and then of course saying yes, once he did. Then he took the ring out, and never having been engaged before, I tried to grab it out of his fingers to get a closer look. Oops, I guess I'm supposed to wait until it's actually on my finger first!

So that's the story. It was meaningful and just perfect. Mom and dad were thrilled (and honored to be included) and we celebrated with champagne later that evening.

Was anyone else out there difficult to propose to?

the proposal (part 1)

It happened the week my parents were visiting and only a few weeks after the future mister and I had just moved states into our first apartment together. Let's backtrack a few weeks and I'll explain all the reasons why I SHOULD have known it was coming.

1. Once my parents decided they were coming to visit the future mister was VERY adamant about setting up a golf outing with my dad. However, my dad had just thrown his back out, so I said no. But you can't keep dad from golf and the outing was planned.

2. Over the July 4th weekend we stayed at his parents' house. While I was "napping"/only half asleep, I could hear him talking with his parents. All of a sudden it got eerily quiet and i could have sworn I heard the words "ask", "dad", "golf." Hmmm.

3. Weeks earlier I received an email from him asking "do you like these?". Attached were photographs of engagement rings. He was constantly telling me that a proposal wouldn't happen for "like 5 more years," so of course I thought he was just teasing (read: torturing) me. Except for the fact that the photos were named "lastname1.jpg", "lastname2.jpg", and so on. I don't know about you, but if I took the photos myself or found them on the internet there's no way I would name them with my own last name. Which led me to suspect they were sent from a jeweler...

But despite all this, I still had no freakin clue. None. The rents showed up and I told my mom what I overheard and asked what she thought. In so many words she told me not to think anything of it - just in case nothing happened.

Engaged or married girls, did you know your proposal was coming? Or did you only see the clues AFTER the fact, like me?