10jujubees shares a photo of her cushion cut engagement ring.
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Right after our ceremony ended, Mr. Ly and I headed outside to take some photos of just the two of us. I was hoping to get some sunset photos, but I think the timing was just a little off. There was still great light outside and we took our gender reveal photos that we were going to use for our thank you note once we found out if Baby Lyre was a boy or girl.
I hunted long and hard for shoes I wanted to use for the shoot—they had to be distinguishable boy or girl shoes to make the photo work. In the end, I found some cute blue sneakers and some sparkly pink shoes. I think the blue shoes actually photographed better, so lucky us that Baby Lyre is a boy!
All photos by Mike Landis Photographer
We took a few pictures of just us in the park, before adding the shoes into the mix:
For some reason, we took a lot more shots with the pink shoes than the blue ones. We have two shots with us holding the blue shoes, and at least six shots holding the pink ones. Maybe our photographer thought we were going to have a girl?
For some reason I really wanted to follow the “somethings” tradition. You know: Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. Do I think it’ll bring me luck? Not really, I just wanted to follow it. But at the same time I never obsessed over it…I didn’t look up and down for the perfect and meaningful “something old” as other brides do, or look for for anything specific, really. I didn’t stress over it and just thought things would fall into place, and they did.
Something new: My dress.
My dress was custom made by local designer Marisol Naserau, inspired by Alcanar by Pronovias. On my last dress fitting (over a month before our wedding), I didn’t love my dress, thinking it wasn’t as flow-y as I wanted it to be.
I never put the dress on after that appointment (since it’s laced-up it was going to fit and we knew the length was right by then), so when I pinned the crinoline inside the dress for pictures and finally looked at it, I just gasped. The crinoline I got was bigger than the one I tried on and it looked gorgeous. It was just perfect.
Photo by Alberto Alcorta photography
Hive, I have to tell you. As much as the emotions hit when I was wide awake at 4:00AM, they hit hard when I had my veil put in. I’m not sure what it was about the veil rather than the hair or makeup or people going back and forth from room to room, but for some reason when I put that veil on, I just felt like a bride. In that moment, I felt another rush of emotion—this is it. This is me, getting in to my dress. Right now. I couldn’t believe the time had finally come!
(All photos by Stacy Able Photography.)
And for honesty’s sake: I have to say that in this photo, I just wanted to open my damn present (hence the veil in but no dress look that I have going on). See, I knew that in the other room, Mr. O had already opened his gift, and I was anxious to open mine. But nooo, I couldn’t open mine until I was in my dress, and I couldn’t be in my dress until everyone ELSE got dressed. I believe it was at that point that I started saying “get dressed, get dressed, you guys, come on, get dressed.” I knew the moms would change in the bathroom, and I knew K (mom of the little ones and also one of my favorite people in the whole world) would also change in the bathroom. The ladies though? STRIP! We’re all ladies, and quite frankly, I wasn’t interested in seeing lady parts or who was changing where, I just wanted everyone to get dressed.
Recently, you may have thought, “Gosh, that Blue Whale has been awfully emotional lately. Can we see some pretty pictures or something?”
I have been a bit stressed. I can’t lie. But I managed to fit in just a couple more DIY projects at the last minute, so I’ve got some pretty picture for you! Hopefully I’ll find some time to snap pictures of the others, but my favorite project by far has been my painted shoes.
This is a project I’ve been thinking about since we first got engaged! I can’t believe I saved it right up until the last minute. So how did go down?
Let the games begin!
Or something like that.
Wedding planning is sort of like reindeer games, in that there are a lot of hoops to jump through and options to try out, and it’s like you’re at the beginning of the obstacle course with the venue as your first challenge.
Challenge accepted!
The first venue that really piqued our curiosity was Honey Lake Plantation in Greenville, Florida.
Taken from the tour bus from the vantage point of the chapel (all photos personal)
What made it stand out on paper?
Hi again, hive! The Hyenas are celebrating our second anniversary this week! I kind of can’t believe time is passing so quickly. Year two seemed like a good time to revisit our wedding and share a snapshot of it with all the new bees. 
Mr. & Mrs. Hyena
• City: Bryan, Texas
• Church: St. Luke’s United Methodist Church
• Reception Venue: Downtown 202
• Wedding Date: May 2011
• Budget: $14,025
• Number of Guests: 127
• Bridal Gown Designer: Mori Lee (Blu #4602)
• Photographer: Danny Boyle Photography
• Music: iPod reception
• Flowers: DIY faux blooms
• Stationery: DIY, printed via Catprint
• Cakes: Cake Junkie
• Catering: D’Vine Cuisine
• Bartender: Luke’s Bartending Service
• DOC: Hired friendor
• Hair: Cutler 2 Salon
• Makeup: DIY
• Bridesmaids’ Dresses: Mori Lee (discontinued)
• Tuxes: Men’s Wearhouse
• Ring Designer: Natalie K, via David Gardner’s Jewelers
• Honeymoon: Fort Lauderdale, Florida and a Carnival Cruise to Key West, Grand Cayman, and Jamaica
Some topics surrounding weddings are touchy and uncomfortable. Almost inevitably there is a chance for hurt feelings. In my last post, I talked about one (weight). But there is one topic that comes up fairly often in wedding planning for a lot of couples that can be even more uncomfortable: inviting an ex to a wedding.
Why invite a failed relationship to come see a successful one? That would be like inviting the Seattle Mariners to the World Series. That’d just be awkward for everyone.” – Marshall on How I Met Your Mother
Unrelated, but hilarious image from How I Met Your Mother via Last.fm
Getting engaged made me do something I needed to do. Really, I should have done it a lot sooner, but once I got engaged I knew that soon time wouldn’t be on my side and I needed to get a move on. I needed to fix my skin.
I never had awful skin as a teenager, just normal teenage skin. A bit spotty, a bit oily, but not really bad acne that I’d seen others suffer with. However, as I got further into my 20s, I realised my skin wasn’t getting any better and with planning a wedding I figured I’d better get a move on to see if I could sort this out.
I made an appointment with my doctor for 9:00 AM so I could go and see her before putting on my makeup. When I walked in the room she asked me what my problem was, and when I told her it was my skin her response was, “Oh good! Because when I saw that I thought ‘well, if she’s not come about that then I will definitely have to mention something!’”
Naturally at first I was horrified—was it really that bad? But then I realised that this could only be a good thing. I had been worried at first that I’d be brushed off and it would be described as “cosmetic” and not really a problem, but she was adamant that we do something “aggressive” to sort this out.
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