

Although he fought it at every turn, Mr. Magnolia eventually gave in to some formal shots as a groom-to-be. More than likely, it was just that he knew how disappointed I would be if we got our pictures back and found zero of him…

And now onto the next part of our wedding: Formals Photos!
Because we opted to not do the formals before the ceremony, this meant that we did them immediately after. I was a bit nervous about this, but I must say that I was completely relaxed for it. We had a lot of fun and I think the photos captured the joy!
THE BRIDE & GROOM:
Since Mr. Peppermint & I opted not to do an engagement session, it was important to us that we get some great photos of the two of us. I really love the sweet moments that were captured, as well as the beauty of the setting.
Since the boys snapped up all of the sunlight for their group shots (greedy beasts…), my bridesmaids and I suffered through our photograph session by artificial light.
I kid, I kid. 35Atlanta did an amazing job of lighting the courtyard at Christ the King, and I’m truly thrilled with how our group pictures turned out!
Dear Miss Penguin,
Why do you have so many freaking pictures of yourself?
Answer: I dunno. And I have no idea what I’m going to do with all the pictures. But these turned out wonderful! I was going to forgo engagement pics altogether because I thought they were strange….which is why I put it off until 3 months before our wedding. But actually seeing them come to life has changed my mind. Of course, what to do with them now? Who knows. Here’s our session with our faboo photographer, Sarah K. Chen! I can’t wait to reunite with her at the wedding!
I’ll refrain from having a one way conversation with myself now and move on to the pictures…
Funny that the wedding ceremony is so often a side note in the wedding-planning process. It’s easy to get caught up in menus and floral arrangements and invitation wording, and forget the part that actually gets you married!
Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, a Weddingbee Blogger named Mrs. Magnolia started posting her wedding pictures……and then she stopped, because life intervened, and she started traveling like a madwoman, and all of her free time was devoted to cleaning and gardening and raising a puppy, and oh yeah - being a newlywed and spending quality time with her wonderful husband.
But she’s back, and ready to post more wedding day photos, so here goes nothing!
With our wedding scheduled for 7:30 pm in January, nighttime pictures were a given from the start, especially since Mr. Mags and I decided not to see one another before the ceremony. I wasn’t worried about it, because I really do love the ambiance of evening pictures. In fact, I was looking forward to seeing what our photographers came up with.
Anyway, with that said, the boys did get their group shots in before the sun set completely, and I just love how the “city at dusk” lighting came out!
Why mess with success? Mrs. Lemon showed us how to collect non-pro photos from our guests via Flickr, and I ran with it. Originally I planned to copy her idea exactly, however, my inkjet printer isn’t equipped to handle small pieces of cardstock (I bought blank, pre cut business cards), so I had to go the Gocco route.
Because I turned to Gocco, I wanted to keep the font pt size above 10, and wasn’t able to fit all the pertinent info with a 10 pt font, so I made some minor modifications. Ultimately, it’s just an extra step, which isn’t too bad.

The focus of the day (of course) was the ceremony. After over a year of planning, the big day was finally here. In less than an hour we were to be wed!After a week of stress about the weather, you can see that the sun shined bright during our ceremony. We did, however, arrange for a tent because of the forecast…
Our ceremony was held at The Athenaeum, in old town Alexandria, VA. The room was a big, empty gallery space with beautiful natural light and a nicely historic feel.
The folding chairs belonged to the Athenaeum. Our groomsmen and ushers set them up before the ceremony. As much as I drool with desire over a pretty Chiavari … these were free. And, after all, people just sit in them. (Or so I kept telling myself!)