Weddingbee Blog

One of the easiest ways this budget bride has saved money is by recruiting help wherever possible. Fortunately, I happen to have some pretty talented friends! I love the concept of a “friendor” because I feel that it makes a wedding more personal and intimate. On our wedding day, we’re most looking forward to being surrounded by the people we love. Why not have that feeling extend to our vendors, too?

The first friend we hired was Sister Lioness. Though Sister Lioness is currently studying “Teaching ASL as a Foreign Language” at Columbia (bee tee dubs, their mascot is a lion…woot!), she does some pretty sweet graphic design on the side. It’s more of a hobby for her, but she kind of rocks at it. I don’t know much about graphic design, but I do know that I’m a sucker for fonts. Choosing fonts happens to be Sister Lioness’s favorite part of graphic design, so it’s been great to have her artistic eye around! She’s designed our invitation suite, and I plan to collaborate with her for other paper projects like programs and menus. Here’s a sample of her work, a little ditty she came up with to give to family and friends when she moved from Gainesville to NYC:

Ugh. So sorry I had to censor that!

My friend Kealoha used to be a makeup artist. Though she has now chosen a different career path, she still does a few gigs on the side. A recent gig was our mutual friend’s wedding. She did the makeup for the bride, as well as all of the bridesmaids and the mothers. Best of all, she gifted this to the bride as her wedding present. Naturally, I asked her nicely to grant me the same favor, and I was psyched when she gladly obliged…though not nearly as psyched as Mama Lioness was. What can I say?! The woman likes to be pampered!

Personal photo: The artist on the right, with her lovely work to her left and further left…aaand the groom and me just chillin’ on the far left.

Next, we have my cousin Chris. Chris is my age, and he and Mr. Lion became good buddies one day at Disney World. It was only their first time meeting face-to-face, but by the end of the day they were yelling Wookiee noises back and forth to each other on Star Tours. (Male bonding is so strange, is it not?) Chris happens to be an ordained minister in the state of California. When two nonreligious Lions started to put a ceremony together, there was only one name that came to mind. Of course, Chris was happy to look into the requirements to transfer his ordainment to Georgia, and we’re all really looking forward to having him in such an important role on the big day.

Personal photo: Chris on HIS big day

Lastly, we have our friend Evan. Evan is engaged to my PT school friend Christina, and together they form some of the greatest couple friends these Lions could ask for! Evan also happens to be a wedding photographer…a good one, too! They recently moved to Jacksonville, but Evan still happily agreed to shoot our wedding. And our engagement pictures. And some random pictures for our OOT bags. Here’s a sample of his work, from a photoshoot he did for our graduation:

Source: Weddings by Evan Hampton

Have you recruited any friendors?