Wedding Blog

We first featured the gorgeous Hollywood glamour inspired wedding of Nicole and Kent back in December.  Her day after pictures were just as beautiful and uinque as her wedding and engagement pictures, so we had to share them with you!  Enjoy!

Part 1 - The Wedding
Part 2 - The Engagement Pictures

I had been surfing around San Diego wedding planner websites and came across a GORGEOUS picture of a bride and groom sitting together on a bench beneath the most majestic tree.  The photo credit was linked to the photographer’s website so after exchanging a few emails and finally talking on the phone, I realized that he lived in North Carolina! I had no idea he wasn’t local. But I knew he had to be our photographer. So, while negotiating, he offered to take day-after pictures while he was in town. He also said it’s a good idea since a lot of brides are stressed out on the actual wedding day; the next day is better for getting totally relaxed, blissed out pictures. We had never intended to have day after pictures taken, but he offered them for no additional charge - so we said OK. It turned out to be a very good decision because we didn’t have time to take couple pictures on our wedding day like we had planned.

There’s a story behind our outfits as well. I had my wedding dress custom made by Julius Bridal (which I was VERY happy with) and I wanted them to make my day after outfit as well, but I waited too long to set that up (they need I think six weeks to sew it and ship it). I had this very specific idea of what I wanted and couldn’t find it anywhere. I was visiting family in Kansas for Christmas and decided to check out the formalwear section of the local department store. I actually found my outfit at Dillard’s on the clearance rack. I think the whole thing was $30 bucks. marked down from several hundred! Except that the jacket was one size too big and the skirt was more than 10 sizes too big! Amazingly, the sales associate was also a seamstress on the side. She took in the seams on the jacket and skirt perfectly and I had my vintage outfit with a week to spare. My husband wore a real vintage three-piece-suit borrowed from his father. We found his green hat to match it at this amazing hat store in Wichita, Kansas (who knew it would be our shopping jackpot city?).

Our photographer, James Walters, was really THE vendor. He’s not just a really gifted artist; he can get the pictures done in crazy circumstances. In addition to having that “eye” and knowing everything there is to know about the camera/lighting/etc. (which were the critical attributes for me), his experience and professionalism saved the day when I was more than TWO hours late due to hair and makeup taking longer than estimated, which left no time for the bridal party pictures we had scheduled before the ceremony. The bridal party pictures he took were squeezed in to the block of time we had for family pictures (and I had a TON of people to get organized for those shots!!!) and they’re so amazing. He just took three or four shots of each family grouping and squeezed in the bridal party pics sort of casually and mostly unposed, all in about THIRTY minutes before the wedding!!!

The day after the wedding, we just went all over San Diego and Coronado Island with our photographer. It was SO cold, especially at the beach, but those pictures were so worth it. And we were pretty excited about kissing each other since it was still a pretty new thing for us (ed. note their first kiss was really their first kiss!). Even though James was not from the area, he already had all the good spots scoped out and we finished with the beach pictures exactly at sunset. We were really just in our own little newlywed world - he’d say put your hand there or stand against this wall, but we just remember staring at each other and kissing all day. I think I was so happy and smiling so much that I looked silly, so James kept telling me not to smile. We were so thrilled with the shots that we printed an entire My Publisher album for our day after pictures and it’s almost as beautiful as the wedding album.

Coming up: The Conclusion - Vendor reviews and things Nicole and Kent were glad they did/didn’t do…