Engagement Pictures

Jason and I are really really lucky when it comes to our photographer. His name is Mike Brown, and I have known him for about 5 years. He works for a company called Lou Coopey All Pro School Pictures which was the school picture photographer from when I was a yearbook adviser. When I was first trying to decide on a photographer, I put a post up on Facebook asking if anyone could suggest a photographer. All my friends who had been married recently, for the most part, recommended their own photographers. Them my mom posted four words: What about Lou Coopey? That was it! I knew the moment I read it that Mike would be willing to take our pictures and that he would be perfect. He isn't necessarily a wedding photographer by trade but he is a phenomenal photographer who looks at photography as an art form. He takes the photographs he shoots very seriously and very passionately, and he wants to translate them as art.   Mike has such an awesome personality that it is hard not to smile the whole time he is taking pictures. And to be honest, he didn't have to do engagement pictures for us. He is going to be with us for 12 hours on the day of our wedding.... and he is charging us next to nothing. He didn't ask us for anything additional to spend his Sunday morning with us, either.

The morning of our engagement picture session, I got up at 5:00am to curl my hair. Our pictures weren't scheduled until 8am, but I just wanted them to be perfect! We arrived at Tempe Town Lake and Mike was already there. Over the next couple hours, he took us all over downtown Tempe: the Hayden Flour Mill, the old railroad bridge, the lightrail station, and Monti's La Casa Vieja. About halfway through, Jason and I had to climb into the back of Mike's Lou Coopey Photo Van to change our clothes, which was a hilarious experience. Its amazing we came out looking so well put together.

I don't think it would be possible to love these pictures any more than I already do!! Mike did an amazing job, and I can't wait to see how my wedding pictures will turn out!!

The Bridesmaid Dresses & Luncheon

I finally found a dress for my bridesmaids, and I swear it is like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Dress. It looks so good on ALL of my bridesmaids, from the 8 year-old all the way to the mother of 4! The dress won't be white and black as it is shown here, this is just the floor model at Lillian Lottie. It will also have sleeves, which we are hoping we will be able to make out of the bottom of Isabel and Megan's dresses after they are shortened. Trust me, there will be a LOT of material left from the two of them. To see the final product you'll have to wait for the wedding pics! I mean, I have to leave something to your imagination!

Me and Isabel. Her dress is going to need the most work because she is only 8 and it was not made for a little girl.  When it is fixed, though, she is going to look SO good!!

Amanda!

Me and Amanda

Lettice. She even brought shoes and wore her hair in a French Twist so I could see the full effect!

Laura

Megan

Tiny little Helen had to get all clamped into her dress!

Helen Melon in her flower girl dress! Love her sideways smile!!

Helen said she was wearing a
"Princess" dress.

Laura getting her measurements done.

Helen getting her measurements done.

Helen getting her measurements done.

All my favorite women!

My rockstar bridesmaids.

Olive and Ivy for Brunch!

Me and Lettice at my Bridesmaids Brunch

Me and Izzy

All of us at brunch! This looks like a picture out of a magazine! I am so lucky to be surrounded by such amazing friends and family and family that are such amazing friends!!

Will the REAL invitations please stand up?

I really thought I had it figured out. I thought I had the font I wanted and I even thought that the local Alpha Graphics would be able to make my dream invitations come true. Then we got this:

$1,272 for my invitations!???!?? This price doesn't even include the envelopes or the cost of postage! There was absolutely no way I could fit this into the wedding budget. What a totally ridiculous waste of money this would be! Especially because I know how much it would actually cost to print these. Their overhead was ridiculous! In addition, I couldn't get the font I had originally wanted because I refuse to spend any amount of money on fonts when there are hundreds of thousands of fonts online that I can get for free.

It was time for a new plan.

Call it good timing. Call it divine intervention. Call it a coincidence. Call it whatever you want, but when my old friend Sarah called me from Designashirt.com to see if I wanted to come in and work for them for a bit, I knew she would have the connections I needed. Sarah got me in contact with a great guy name Chris Sposi at O'Day Printing in Scottsdale. Chris not only got the price down by almost $1,000, he also offered to print my invitations at cost because he has such an awesome relationship with Designashirt.com/Anton Sport. At almost the same time as we got a new, much more affordable font, I located another font that I absolutely fell in love with. It's called CAC Lasko, and it is the most readable script font I have ever seen. Even my dad was able to read it... without his glasses!

The new invite font!

The thing about my invites is that there are soooo many pieces to them. They are tri-fold with 8 information cards and the formal invitation. I was so nervous about something being spelled wrong or about not having the right information that I had to have my mom and my bridesmaids proof read them. Here is when it pays off to know so many teachers... and a couple of them are even literacy-based instructors!

Lettice and Amanda doin' a little proofreading. Complete with Red pens! 

Chris was even willing to do our Save the Date Cards, menus, table cards, name cards and thank you cards. He has been so helpful, I can not recommend his company enough! The first time we met, he sat and chatted with my mom and I for almost two hours! I feel so great about my invitations now, I can't wait to see the proof... which will be here in a couple weeks!

I

My Something Old

For my baptism, my godparents, Paul and Carol Gissel, gave me an "add-a-pearl" necklace. Add-a-pearl is a jewelry company that will add one pearl at a time to a string of pearls. They are hand knotted and come in all different sizes. Originally, my necklace was on a gold chain. Paul and Carol continued the tradition of adding pearls to it until I was eight years old. Since then, I have always considered it my "nicest" piece of jewelry because I have had it my entire life and it is one of my few jewelry pieces I own that is real gold and real pearls. I guess I have always imagined I would wear it at my wedding. It is so simple and traditional that I think it fits the style of my dress just perfectly.

In order to get it ready, though, we had two pearls that had never been added, and we needed to add another pearl so it would be balanced. I also wanted it to be restrung on a silver chain to match my ring. We took it to a jewelry shop in Scottsdale called Betteridge Jewelers. They are one of the very few remaining jewelers who will actually do add-a-pearl necklaces. When we got it back, I was, of course, in tears. I absolutely love how it turned out! I think it will be perfect with the detail of my dress. Now to find earrings!!

In tears after trying on the necklace for the first time. Me? In tears about something wedding related? NO WAY!

The finished necklace!

The work order with all the changes that needed to be made!