Miss Coyote, Westchester, NY
Age and Occupation: 26, Administrative Assistant
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Computer Programmer
Engagement Date: August 2010
Wedding Date: June 2012
Venue: Franklin Plaza
About Me: I am an overly-caffeinated, sports-obsessed history nerd who loves a good book and hates bananas. Originally from a small town in Upstate NY, I made the move to Westchester County and never looked back! My loves include NBC Thursdays, red wine, fleece pajamas, and my amazing fiancé. Together we are planning a formal evening affair for 175 guests with a mix of new and old traditions and plenty of personal touches.
Remember the huge dilemma we had about where to take our engagement photos? How I wanted to take them at on the college campus where we met and Mr. Coyote was adamantly against this idea? Well, about a week or two before our engagement sesh with our awesome photographers Mr. Coyote began to have a change of heart.
One day, out of the blue, he looked at me and said, “You know. I’ve been thinking. We aren’t from upstate. It doesn’t make any sense to get our photos taken there. It would make much more sense to get them taken down here at the college, you were right.”
Double-You Tee Eff, mate?!
I couldn’t believe it. First I asked if he was joking. He wasn’t. Then I asked if he had lost his mind. He hadn’t. Then I asked him what the hell I was suppose to do about it now because we were scheduled to go upstate in one week and we already had to cancel once and now I’m not only going to cancel again but I’m going to ask them to reschedule and then drive their butts all the way down to Westchester and why didn’t you THINK about it when I first brought this up to you in freakin’ December?? And yes, it all came out in one long, run-on sentence like that too. What can I say? I have healthy lungs!
Well I wasn’t about to let this one go just because we’d already scheduled a session upstate. You bees should know by now that I am way too stubborn for that! So I did some stalking on the awesome
Weddingbee Classifieds and found a photographer in our area who was just starting out and offering free engagement sessions in order to build up her portfolio.
And that is the story of how we ended up with two sets of engagement pictures from two different photographers.
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Miss Opossum, Tallahassee
Age and Occupation: 23, Aspiring Interior Architect
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 23, Soon to be Firefighter
Engagement Date: October 30, 2011
Wedding Date: April 2012
Venue: The Retreat at Bradley's Pond
About Me: I am a recent design graduate and aspiring interior architect that is a compulsive list maker, a Christmas light fanatic, and an avid nap-taker. This freckle-faced Southern girl loves being on the back of a horse, hanging out at the gym, and watching SVU with her rugby-playing fiance. It is a dream come true to finally be planning a wedding (in five months) to my high school sweetheart (of seven years). While preparing to tie the knot we're also balancing Fire College, grad school applications, jobs, and precious time with our supportive family and friends. We're moving fast...but are excited about enjoying every moment of this time in our lives!
And it’s not because we’re photogenic people. It’s because Seed and Sparrow is awesome. Period.
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Miss Coyote, Westchester, NY
Age and Occupation: 26, Administrative Assistant
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Computer Programmer
Engagement Date: August 2010
Wedding Date: June 2012
Venue: Franklin Plaza
About Me: I am an overly-caffeinated, sports-obsessed history nerd who loves a good book and hates bananas. Originally from a small town in Upstate NY, I made the move to Westchester County and never looked back! My loves include NBC Thursdays, red wine, fleece pajamas, and my amazing fiancé. Together we are planning a formal evening affair for 175 guests with a mix of new and old traditions and plenty of personal touches.
Word of warning: Photo bomb ahead!!!
Because we booked with our photographers so early, they threw in a free engagement session. W00t! I was super stoked about this. Mostly because about 90% of our photos look a little something like this:
(Personal pic: Miami 2006)
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Miss Turkey, Philadelphia
Age and Occupation: 29, Brand Management
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Consultant
Engagement Date: February 2011
Wedding Date: May 2012
Venue: The Rittenhouse Hotel
About Me: I'm a marketer who loves a good glass of wine, anything pumpkin-flavored, every crime drama on TV and, of course, Mr. Turkey. It's funny to say out loud, but we're former coworkers turned betrothed---now planning a wedding in the city of Brotherly Love. For three years, we've been eating our way through Philadelphia, playing tourist at home, and cheering for every sports team in the 215. Although we've hit some unplanned snags along the way, we're determined to have a rocking party this spring with our loud, fun families and friends.
Makeup.
I thought of it as “make stress,” personally. Like other bees around these parts, I’m not big on makeup. I pretty much rock the natural look…the bulk of my morning “beauty” routine is spent on my hair. My daily makeup application goes like this: some mascara, a little eyeliner (shadow if I’m feeling particularly ambitious), a brush of blush, swipe of lip gloss and out the door.
OK - if I’m being really honest, there are days when I mix it up with concealer or bronzer.
Anyhow, the truth is, I never feel like I have too little makeup on…but I have definitely had times where I feel like I have too much. So, when seeking a makeup artist for the wedding, I really focused on those who had good reviews by brides who wanted to look “natural.”
I know, I know…”natural” is a total buzzword in the wedding world (goes with “classic,” “traditional,” etc) and my “natural” could be very different from your “natural.”
For reference, here’s my makeup “spectrum”: sans makeup (rocking the specs), daily wear and with “fancy” makeup (at a wedding - did it myself).
 |
| I know - the difference is minimal |
I consider each of these pictures to be natural in their own way - clearly the right being most appropriate for a formal event - if you must choose from the selection above.
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Miss Opossum, Tallahassee
Age and Occupation: 23, Aspiring Interior Architect
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 23, Soon to be Firefighter
Engagement Date: October 30, 2011
Wedding Date: April 2012
Venue: The Retreat at Bradley's Pond
About Me: I am a recent design graduate and aspiring interior architect that is a compulsive list maker, a Christmas light fanatic, and an avid nap-taker. This freckle-faced Southern girl loves being on the back of a horse, hanging out at the gym, and watching SVU with her rugby-playing fiance. It is a dream come true to finally be planning a wedding (in five months) to my high school sweetheart (of seven years). While preparing to tie the knot we're also balancing Fire College, grad school applications, jobs, and precious time with our supportive family and friends. We're moving fast...but are excited about enjoying every moment of this time in our lives!
See what I did there? Ha. I’m such a nerd.
Mr. Opossum wants to be very involved in planning this wedding. A few nights after he proposed, he asked me what he was responsible for in the wedding-planning process. All I gotta say is I love a groom that gets involved! He has some strong opinions…like the fact that he was 100% opposed to a summer affair, but then he isn’t as picky about most of the design decisions (which is great because that is my forte).
One decision he knew NOTHING about was photography. He told me I got free rein on that one. And even though I am super-duper picky about photography (yes, I’m a photography snob), that decision wasn’t hard for me either.
I’ve taken a sort of “stand,” if you will, about the types of vendors I’m choosing to work with, and the photographers I’ve chosen fit the mold perfectly. I know they’re fantastic because they are friends of friends…awesome friends that are really good people and would only be friends with other really good people. Plus, they’ve already managed to work with me in so many ways (even during the booking process) that have made my life SO. MUCH. EASIER. (If you’re reading this, thank you!)
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Miss Turkey, Philadelphia
Age and Occupation: 29, Brand Management
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Consultant
Engagement Date: February 2011
Wedding Date: May 2012
Venue: The Rittenhouse Hotel
About Me: I'm a marketer who loves a good glass of wine, anything pumpkin-flavored, every crime drama on TV and, of course, Mr. Turkey. It's funny to say out loud, but we're former coworkers turned betrothed---now planning a wedding in the city of Brotherly Love. For three years, we've been eating our way through Philadelphia, playing tourist at home, and cheering for every sports team in the 215. Although we've hit some unplanned snags along the way, we're determined to have a rocking party this spring with our loud, fun families and friends.
Our engagement session came just shortly after our venue change, so we felt like we had a fresh start! The plan was to do photos around the historic Old City section of Philadelphia since we would be on the other side for the wedding. (Mr. Turkey is also a big history buff.) We had a GORGEOUS day for our engagement pictures with our fantastic photographer, and our slight nerves were calmed almost instantly.
All photos in this post are by Philip Gabriel Photography.
There were definitely some awkward photos at the start!
As I mentioned, we wanted to use a photo from this session for our save the dates. Gabe had seen the design, so we felt hopeful that we would have a lot of good choices to select from.
In the end, we had too MANY. I’ll share with you the top five options.
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Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Miss Hawk, Richmond, VA
Age and Occupation: 26, Finance
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 30, District Supervisor
Engagement Date: March 13, 2011
Wedding Date: May 2012
Venue: The Chapel of the Sir Christopher Wren Building, 2007 Legacy Hall
About Me: I’m an Arizona-born girl who has spent the majority of my life living below the Mason-Dixon line. The South has definitely earned a special place in my heart (alongside my Virginia born and bred fiance, of course!). We are planning a traditional Christian ceremony at my alma mater in historic Williamsburg, Virginia, followed by a rocking reception filled with Southern cooking and vintage/shabby chic details. When we’re not wedding planning, we enjoy spending time with our three dogs, going for runs together, watching plenty of football (or baseball depending on the season), and sampling new wine.
A couple weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon, Mr. Hawk and I met up with Valerie of Valerie Demo Photography in Downtown Richmond for our engagement session. When trying to decide where to take our photographs, I had a little difficulty. After my relentless stalking of Valerie’s blog (along with other inspiration like SMP, Bride’s Cafe, and Weddingbee…), my brain was clouded with so many beautiful ideas.
I adored the look of on-the-beach photos with dreamy light:
But the beach isn’t really Mr. Hawk’s and my thing. (We’re kinda more pool people!)
I also loved the rustic countryside photos:
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Miss Warbler, Long Beach/Malibu
Age and Occupation: 24, Quality Assurance Editor
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 32, Handheld Administrator
Engagement Date: December 7, 2010
Wedding Date: April 2012
Venue: Calamigos Ranch Malibu
About Me: I’m a Korean BBQ loving, cheesecake enthusiast bride living in the LBC! By day I write and edit for an online search engine marketing company. By night I am a volunteer food taster of all that is delicious. I am fortunate to be marrying an amazing man who loves me and my quirky ways. I love food, books, indie music, and Harry Potter. We are planning a small, intimate wedding up in the Malibu Hills with our closest family and friends. With the help of my wonderful fiance, our loved ones, and red velvet cheesecake, our wedding will be glorious!
A zillion months ago, more like two months actually, I teased you with a photo from our engagement session. After a long wait, we finally got the rest of the photos from our photographers on Saturday. After cringing at awkward angles and laughing at weird faces, it’s time to share our favorites with the hive!
Sorry, this is a shameless personal photo post. Lots of photos coming at you…now!
*All images in this post by Nataly Lemus Photography
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Miss Unicycle, Chicago, IL
Age and Occupation: 23, Editor for a Web Publishing Company
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 23, MD/PhD Student
Engagement Date: March 26, 2011
Wedding Date: June 2012
Venue: Bridges of Poplar Creek
About Me: I’m a writer by trade who likes analyzing pop culture, making fun of celebrities, and laughing until I cry. I’m the queen of half-assed crafts, and there’s nothing I won’t try to DIY. You can usually find me reading blogs on my laptop in front of a good Lifetime movie, wine in hand. I’m planning a polka-dotted summertime wedding to my physics geek college sweetheart, and when I’m not making stupid puns I’m freaking out about my wedding timeline.
One thing I forgot to mention that I crafted in preparation for the engagement session was our date banner!
Personal pic
So now that you’ve seen all the junk I made for the pics, it’s time to show you the actual pics themselves! We decided to have the engagement session in Milwaukee, since that’s where Mr. Unicycle and I met, fell in love, and spent the first three and a half years of our relationship. Jenn said she would love to do a shoot there—score! There were a few locations I knew I wanted to hit up:
- Marquette’s campus: It’s picturesque, as most college campuses are, it’s where we met, and it’s what people expect from an engagement session.
- The lakefront: it’s also picturesque, and it’s where Mr. Unicycle proposed!
- The Milwaukee Art Museum: It’s basically a photographer’s dream, as it’s filled with tons of natural light, features beautiful architecture, and is basically all white.
- The 3rd/5th Ward: I’m a sucker for urban shots of decrepit storefronts, peeling paint, and brick walls with oozing mortar, and I think Jenn is, too.
Jenn actually researched photo ops online beforehand and sent me these inspiration pics:
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Miss Unicycle, Chicago, IL
Age and Occupation: 23, Editor for a Web Publishing Company
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 23, MD/PhD Student
Engagement Date: March 26, 2011
Wedding Date: June 2012
Venue: Bridges of Poplar Creek
About Me: I’m a writer by trade who likes analyzing pop culture, making fun of celebrities, and laughing until I cry. I’m the queen of half-assed crafts, and there’s nothing I won’t try to DIY. You can usually find me reading blogs on my laptop in front of a good Lifetime movie, wine in hand. I’m planning a polka-dotted summertime wedding to my physics geek college sweetheart, and when I’m not making stupid puns I’m freaking out about my wedding timeline.
After we booked our photographer, the amazing Jennifer Shaffer, we put an engagement session (AKA e-pics, if you didn’t get the pun in the title) on the books. I wanted to take the pictures before it got cold, since I hate being cold and I didn’t want to have to wear a coat in the pictures. I also wanted to take them as soon as possible, since we’d already been engaged for three months by the time we booked Jenn. So we decided on the end of July.
With the engagement session looming, I realized I had to get my butt in gear and prepare for the shoot. I wanted to buy a dress, shoes, and a hair accessory that would match our wedding color scheme (yellow with gray and white polka dots), because you can bet your life I was going to use the pics in our save the dates. I love all the cute engagement-pic save the dates I’ve seen on Weddingbee and other wedding blogs, like these:
Image via Mrs. Hyena on Weddingbee
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Mrs. Skunk, Atlanta
Age and Occupation: 23, Post baccalaureate student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Mechanical Designer
Engagement Date: February 13, 2011
Wedding Date: November 2011
Venue: Neverland Farms
About Me: I’m a Georgia peach born and raised in the dirty dirty. I love reading, baking lots of sweets and forcing them on my friends, and most of all, rock climbing. I am in the process of applying to graduate school in physical therapy and I work at farmers’ markets around town selling bread for a local bakery. The mister and I met while rock climbing just over two years ago and have been inseparable ever since. Our climbing friends mean the world to us and have played an integral role in our relationship. We’re planning a barnyard shindig filled with good food, good friends, and lots of love.
Yea, yea, yea. It’s our wedding week. And I’m just now getting around to posting engagement pics. So shoot me.
If you remember, the whole reason we hired Mrs. Scissors (ILoveYouMuch) was because I was super worried all of our pictures would turn out like this:
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Miss Fox, Washington DC/Havre de Grace, MD
Age and Occupation: 26, Massage Therapist
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Field Support Engineer
Engagement Date: April 18, 2010
Wedding Date: June 2012
Venue: Vandiver Inn
About Me: I’m a dancer turned massage therapist who was born and raised in New York. Alas, true love has brought me “south” where I still maintain my penchants for pretty shoes, wine, crossword puzzles, cherry blossoms, and the Mets. I own more sunglasses than a normal person should and don’t eat red meat (though I make up for it by eating my weight in sushi). I tend to be a big planner who likes to get things started early, but generally end up being indecisive and procrastinating when it comes down to it. I have a (not so) secret crush on Chris Carrabba, but my loyalty and love ultimately goes to the future hubs, of course! Together, my Foxy man and I love to discuss (read: debate) politics and current events, have Mario Kart and Scrabble duels, and just laugh. A lot. We’re hoping and planning for a laid back, fun, summery, rustic vibe to our June wedding that will be genuinely “us” – that is, if we finally make some decisions. Huzzah!
October 13th, 2011 @ 12:12 pm by Miss Fox
I’ve been holding out on you.
But only for a week, so it’s OK.
We agreed to meet up with Anni from Anni Cee Photography last Saturday morning bright and early (cough:after a late night out:cough) at our local farmer’s market to do a sort of “real life” shoot. It was a light year different from our original engagement shoot. Anni really wanted to catch the early morning sunlight, but it turned out to be a pretty dull and rainy day. No matter! This girl is amazing at what she does and the vibrant colors at the farmer’s market totally offset the dreary day. It also helped make me and Mr. Foxy more comfortable getting our pictures taken (OK who am I kidding, just Foxy. I’m a photo hussy.) since we already “knew” Anni. I’m telling you, it makes a difference!
So…enough jibber jabber. Here are some of my favorite shots!
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Mrs. Raccoon, Indianapolis
Age and Occupation: 22, Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Graduate Student
Engagement Date: Christmas 2010
Wedding Date: January 2012
Venue: Catholic Church, Chateau Thomas Winery
About Me: I'm a wholesome Midwestern girl, TV series junkie, professional shower singer, and Anglophile. I love my fiance, crock pot cooking, my cat Heepo, going for the gusto, and all things wedding. Mr. Raccoon is pretty sweet, too! He’s a mad scientist that loves to travel. We met my first night on campus and have been inseparable since.
Everyone has really been pushing for engagement pictures. We just didn’t see the point. We hadn’t lined up our wedding photographer, it would be another thing to plan and another thing to pay for, and it seemed so secondary compared to future wedding pictures.
Still, they magically happened. The other weekend Mr. Raccoon was in town and we had my dad snap a few pictures of us. Here are some sneak peeks!
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Miss Warbler, Long Beach/Malibu
Age and Occupation: 24, Quality Assurance Editor
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 32, Handheld Administrator
Engagement Date: December 7, 2010
Wedding Date: April 2012
Venue: Calamigos Ranch Malibu
About Me: I’m a Korean BBQ loving, cheesecake enthusiast bride living in the LBC! By day I write and edit for an online search engine marketing company. By night I am a volunteer food taster of all that is delicious. I am fortunate to be marrying an amazing man who loves me and my quirky ways. I love food, books, indie music, and Harry Potter. We are planning a small, intimate wedding up in the Malibu Hills with our closest family and friends. With the help of my wonderful fiance, our loved ones, and red velvet cheesecake, our wedding will be glorious!
On Sunday, Mr. Warbs and I had our long awaited engagement session. We were both super nervous, but we got over that pretty quickly. The one hitch was that our photographer stepped in dog poop. Whoops! Since it will be a while before we get the finished result, our amazing photographer sent me her favorite photo to tide us over.
Photo by Nataly Lemus Photography
Ah, I can’t wait to see the rest!
Miss Doe, Northern California
Age and Occupation: 24, Real Estate Assistant
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 23, Recycling Manager
Engagement Date: December 25, 2010
Wedding Date: May 2012
Venue: Monte Verde Inn
About Me: I’m a Rat Pack fan and a Christmas nut that loves to read, good wine, cheesy ’80s movies and ’90s sitcoms. My wiener dog with an attitude problem and lazy basset hound are my constant source of entertainment. He's a hunter and I like cooking so it's not rare to see wild game on our dinner menu. Both of us were born and raised in a small historic farming town where our feet are still firmly planted. We have been together for nearly a decade and have shared many life experiences together, including birthdays that are only one day apart. We are two old souls that are creating our long-awaited wedding with loads of tradition that blends our two styles into rustic elegance in the foothills of Northern California.
September 30th, 2011 @ 8:15 am by Miss Doe
We majorly scored with our photographer. He is a friend of the family as well as practically family to one of my bridesmaids. He gave us a sweet deal, plus he is super fun and easy to work with. When we were preparing for our engagement session I had to really think about where we wanted to take them. I wanted something unique that meant something to us. One of our groomsmen comes from a farming family and has lots of property out near the Capay Valley hills. Mr. Buck does quite a bit of hunting out on that property and to top it off, it is absolutely gorgeous. Luckily for us, they let us have free reign of their property to use for our photos.
We arrived at near dusk and began taking photos in front of the barn, in the almond orchard and in the wheat fields. We may have potentially ruined a few cents worth of wheat while we were trampling through it. Whoops.
What I loved most about our photographer is that he had no restrictions. He took photos for as long as we wanted and ventured off into all the obscure places that we desired. There were no boundaries for him, and this resulted in over 400 photos that he placed on a disc for us to use as we please.
Here are just a few from the day:
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