Wedding Blog

After the wedding I had my dress cleaned, put it neatly in a bag, and then threw it on the floor in the back of my closet, heaped into a little pile. I thought I might sell it one day, but Mr. GB is sentimental and doesn’t want me to. I’m not attached to much; even cards that I give to Mr. GB I hand…

Tomorrow we're going location scouting for our engagement photo shoot. As we plan, I am coming up with more and more engagement photo ideas.

Below images courtesy of Flashdance.

This post has been a loooong time coming. I had a lot of... concerns about writing about this issue, but I really think I need to share my experience, so here it goes!

With 21 days left until our wedding, Mr. Bunny and his "buddies", as he likes to call them, took off for his bachelor party. They spent Friday night at a campground in southern Ohio and then moseyed on down to Athens to spend the day in his old college town. From what I heard, it was a rollicking good time!

While Mr. Bunny was away, I took advantage of my privacy to work on his wedding gift.

OK, this is the last in the mini-series about lessons I learned and things I’d do differently. Let’s talk about photography.

A lot of people have asked me what I thought about the photographer we used at our wedding, particularly since we paid so little ($300) and I found him on Craigslist. I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll just say it again for the record: we’re not picture people. We LOVE photography and love looking at other people’s pictures, but our own? Not so much.

Early on in our photography meetings, our awesome photographer and I both professed love for photobooths, lovingly dubbed the “Faux”-to Booth. We went back and forth on whether to hang fabric or use a white screen, but we ended up with something better!

The Caribbean! When the sun sets in Jamaica, it gets dark. Fast. There isn’t ambient light, which in Chicago makes me feel like…

I really want a photobooth at my wedding. I also think that all sorts of props will be in order, I’m thinking hats, wigs, glasses, etc. I don’t know where I’ll find all this stuff, but maybe hit the costume stores right after Halloween? Can someone remind me of that plan??

Lulu has once again come to our rescue.

I was telling - okay, complaining to - her about how much people charge for engagement shoots, and she kindly offered to photograph our engagement shoot! She is an excellent photographer, as you may remember from this picture:

So you’re trying to take some photos of your bling. Or your finished DIY menu cards. Or the sweet shower invitation you got the other day. And you already know Anne Ruthmann’s tutorial like the back of your hand. But the pictures just aren’t coming out right. Why???

My hunch is: You’re probably not playing close enough attention to Step #3.

Good light is ESSENTIAL to a…

In the early dark ages of my wedding planning, I found and fell in love with our great cake topper. Remember? I also developed the escort cards that will nestle into bed of wheatgrass at the reception, as you might recall.

However, one topic I haven’t touched on are our table numbers. How are our cake toppers involved in this topic, you ask? Well, I decided…

The mister and I recently revisited our church (on the beautiful Villanova University campus) and reception neighborhood (in the Old City section of Philadelphia) to scout out the most “photogenic” areas for our post-ceremony pictures.

Since we’re crossing off the formals and posed pictures in the morning, this portion of the wedding day will focus much more on photojournalism — and perhaps will include a bit…

Tonight Mr. SB and I will have a virtual meet up with our photographer. I thought it would be best to meet and greet before the wedding day, because I already expect to feel awkward in front of the camera, let alone in front of a would-be total stranger. I also had a few things to share that I felt the need to share with…

When I made a trip home in July, we found that our caterer’s food and demeanor was not up to our standards after all, and scrambled to find a new caterer who rocked. Luckily, we did just that and couldn’t be happier with Jody’s Pantry Catering.

Last weekend I went home again, and like the first trip, I encountered a huge unexpected bump in the road. I was going to be in Cleveland the last day of my visit, so I scheduled to meet with our photographer, primarily so we could meet before the big day and avoid the feeling of, 'Hi stranger, would you like to take some photographs of me being emotional and getting dressed?'

I was going to save this post for later, but a tweet from Mrs. Peony this morning has prompted me to seize the day and share some of our wedding day deets!

I’d never seen the trend of having photobooths at weddings until I started reading wedding blogs, but I was immediately taken with the idea. I love getting my picture “drawn” at those dinky photobooths…

A while back we booked a photobooth to entertain guests and add that extra bit of carnival fun we were after. It wasn’t easy finding a vendor in South Africa, but after some browsing I finally found Photobooth Inc. We’ve arranged for it to be placed in the smaller hotel restaurant which is adjacent to Pure. The operator will set up at the start of dinner so that it will be operational when people start venturing out of their seats to greet other family members and friends, and of course, later during the dance portion of the evening.

The time has come for Mr Lightning and I to select a venue for photographs. We have decided to buck tradition once again and have our formal photographs taken before the ceremony for two reasons. One: because it makes use of the best light considering our wedding is in the evening. Two: because we won’t have to leave our beloved guests unattended with our reception to follow directly after the ceremony (it being the same venue for both after all).