A “Change” for FSIL Hot Cocoa!
September 4th, 2008 @ 10:59 am by Miss Hot Cocoa
August 28, 2008 was an awesome day. It was a propitious date on the Chinese calendar (the word “eight” in Chinese is a homophone for prosperity and “two” is a homophone for easy, so 8/28/08 = prosperity, easy prosperity, more prosperity). It was the day of Barack Obama’s historic acceptance speech. And it also happened to be a very special day in the Hot Cocoa family. That night, after a viewing of Obama’s speech in downtown Philly, future sister-in-law Hot Cocoa’s wonderful boyfriend proposed! She said yes, and there was much rejoicing around the country (fireworks in Denver!).
Check out FSIL Hot Cocoa’s unique and beautiful e-ring. She designed it with the help of New York jewelry designer Sarah Perlis, who handmade the ring from 22k gold and adorned it with a pink sapphire center stone and ethically sourced diamond side stones. Since some of you out there might be looking for alternatives to the traditional diamond e-ring, I thought I’d deliver some eco-friendly bling for your viewing enjoyment.
Easter Egg Hunts and Missing Chocolate… The Dumpling Engagement!
August 27th, 2008 @ 1:39 pm by Miss Dumpling
Well let’s just dive right into it, shall we?
Mr. Dumpling and I have been together for a long time, y’all. I tend to ramble, so the short version is that we did the long distance thing for a while, then I made the big move to Las Vegas so we could be together.
Fast-forward to almost two years later and there we were, happily living together and very much in love. We talked about getting married a few times but I never pressed it. Things were great the way they were and I was happy.
Ha! Who was I kidding? I wanted to marry Mr. Dumpling from the moment I saw him. I was really just trying to play it cool.
Anyway, one night after work I came home, completely exhausted.
Visually Engaging
August 25th, 2008 @ 2:45 pm by Miss Sweet Tea
As I’m sitting here trying not to sneeze goop all over the keyboard, I realize I never shared with you the engagement photos Mr. Sweet Tea and I took in New Orleans back in January. [Sorry to all the LA bees that made it up to the meet-up yesterday, but the prospect of a 5hr+ roundtrip drive made my head spin even worse! Hope it was fun!]
Let’s just say photography is important to me… as in, after the food and drinks and before the dress, it was my highest priority. There are some really great photographers around New Orleans (and I’ll feature some tomorrow!) that I emailed just after getting engaged in the hopes of talking to them about shooting our wedding.
Read more…
CLUE: The Espressos, in the Urban Jungle, with a Picture Frame
August 22nd, 2008 @ 2:55 pm by Miss Espresso
Monday as I was about to leave for work, I received a text from our photographer saying our engagement photos were ready and up on her blog. What?! Spend the last 10 minutes doing my hair or looking at our pictures? Um ya- I went to work that day without even running a brush through my hair… but the stray strands and knots were totally worth it. Our photographer, Sandra Salisbury, is so awesome. She’s a redhead, she drinks coffee like a woman after my own heart, and she totally knows how to rock a camera. And she’s affordable. We love her.
Are you ready for this crazy duo?
The Perfect Vacation!
August 5th, 2008 @ 1:03 pm by Miss Champagne
As I mentioned earlier, the trip to Naples, Florida with Champ our sophomore year of college was where I really fell in love with my best friend. So it only seemed fitting that five years later we would visit the same spots, swim at the same beach, and enjoy the same company we had enjoyed so much before. When Mr. C asked if I would be interested in heading back to Naples, my heart fluttered a little in hope that this would be “THE vacation.” So off we went to Naples!
Engagement Photo Extravaganza
June 27th, 2008 @ 4:10 pm by Miss Pomegranate
We were fortunate enough to have two engagement sessions - totally unplanned! The first was completely unscheduled, but impromptu plans sometimes turn out the best, yes?
The first engagement session was inspired by my lovely FSIL who also happens to be an extremely talented photographer. We all happened to be meeting up to welcome home my FBIL from Iraq. My Future-In-Laws were gracious enough to host us all at a rented beach house on the Topsail Island beaches of North Carolina where we spent a week of having family fun.
For the Love of Photography
June 26th, 2008 @ 5:06 pm by Miss Coconut
I’ve always loved taking pictures. I’m not particularly good at taking them, but I’m very good about pressing the snap button…A LOT. So you can imagine my delight when I discovered photography blogs! Jessica Claire, Susan Stripling, Chenin Boutwell…OH MY! Yes, these names are second nature to me now, it’s quite pathetic. I’m a super photography blogstalker, LOOK OUT!
Naturally, the first vendor we booked was our photographer and the search was quite difficult for us. For one, we had a budget and the photographers I had been drooling over were well beyond it. I will admit that I was skeptical I would find someone with great talent at a low cost, but after much diligent searching and cost comparisons I found one. His name is Jason Angelini. Jason is great for a lot of reasons. He and his wife, Lucia give me tons of feedback on vendors and random questions. They are my wedding analysts. Most importantly though, he was very reasonably priced. For two graduate students, that was essential.
An Alaskan Engagement
June 25th, 2008 @ 5:48 pm by Mrs. Magnolia
We’ve been best friends since we were fifteen. And just in case anyone out there is counting, that’s almost half of our lives.
In high school, we’d show up for first period in the same outfit. She’d look at me and say, “I knew you were going to wear that.”
We lived together all through college…and we not only survived, we’re still as close as ever.
Engaging Photos
June 18th, 2008 @ 9:24 am by Mrs. Jasmine
I’m going to backtrack a little while I wait for our professional pictures to come back…
In May, Mr. Jasmine and I met our valima photographer, Laurie Tennent, in Millenium Park. My mother-in-law wanted to create a photo guestbook for the valima and she asked us to take some engagement photos with Laurie. We met Laurie in the park on a *ridiculously* cold day for May. I was all bundled up in a black coat which I threw off to take pics and would throw back on between shots. I felt very much like a ANTM contestant 
I’ve featured some of my favorite shots below. Laurie was such a joy to work with and I think she really captured our personalities. I would definitely recommend her to any Michigan area brides looking for a photographer!
Read more…
Engagement Picture Attire
June 4th, 2008 @ 2:22 pm by Mrs. Sundae
Now that you know our photographers, onto the engagement picture discussion! We’re having them taken in 3 weeks, which is a huge “holy s@#$!!” in my world. We scheduled the session back in February, when June seemed like such a long time away…and here we are. How is it possible that it’s June?! When I looked at my calendar last week and realized the pics were fast approaching, I also realized I have nothing to wear. But I did have a jcrew gift card in my wallet…
