engagement pictures

Kiss-Cams Set to Capture!

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

Have I built it up enough? Are you ready to see how silly we looked in our engagement photos?

Please note: Neither am I fishing for compliments nor am I holding our wonderful photographer responsible for any of the below. Mr. Road Trip and I are absolute goofballs and ridiculously awkward (at least I am) so I’m more shocked when I think I look good in a photo as opposed to the alternative. Still, we had a lot of fun, so I have no regrets for the day–not even the copious amount of duck faces.

We started out our day Honey Lake Plantation–actually, no, we started our day meeting up in the Publix parking lot because it’s an hour from town to our venue and Kara lives south of town as it is, so we offered to chauffeur her around between locations just to make things easier. The drive time also gave us a chance to break the ice a bit more–never a bad thing.

The photos started in front of the chapel on the property, with me feeling very self-conscious and therefore very giggly.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

But I managed to pull it together for a decent shot after a bit.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Prop #1: the banner comes out to play:

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Then we moved over to a bend with a view of one of the lakes. Admittedly, this looked a lot cooler in my head, but it’s still a good shot. And very reminiscent of how we spend most Friday nights–only it’s a sofa instead of a stone bench and the view behind us is our dining room and bar instead of a gorgeous lake. And in the bottom right corner is one of our monkey cameos.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Time to change our view, we headed off towards to main hall and posed for this artfully tilted shot under an arch. The circular drive behind us is where cocktail hour and the ceremony will be held (the former on this side of the fountain, the latter on the steps). We’ll have to remember to get a shot of us on the day from this vantage point, too. Apparently there’s an art to the toe-kick pose, an art I’ve yet to master (though not for trying). And this is one of the few non-duck-face kissing pictures we managed.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

And then the obligatory walking-down-the-road-towards-our-future shot. Teasing aside, I did pull this as one of our inspiration pictures, and I do like the way it turned out.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Kara had this awesome idea to shoot us with the fountain between us and her and I LOVE this shot. Trust the pros, right?

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

We also did the picture frame pose–frame provided by Kara–and of the dozen or so she sent us this one is my favorite. We really look relaxed and natural in this one.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

I’ve decided that pictures of me sitting on the ground without something in front of me are a bad idea. Combine that with kissy-face and I’m generally unimpressed. This one Kara cropped just right and I think the sepia tone makes the duck face less ducky. It might also make a good shot for the back of our Save the Dates. We shall see.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Now, after this we tried for some arty shots among the semi-tall grasses behind us but they must not have looked at all good because none were included in our discs. I’m not super surprised, as we were standing in a hole and I was leaning over at an awkward angle, but we gave it a good go. And then the strap on my shoe broke, so it was good I had several pairs in the trunk as back-up.

It looks like we’re on a bridge, but it’s actually the back stairs up to our reception venue shot while Kara stood on the same landing on the opposite end. Sneaky photographers for the win. What do you think of our monkey climbing the tree?

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Eventually we moved on to Lofty Pursuits–we can only take so much nature, after all. I had a severe slouching problem in a lot of these shots, so our bright red dress amidst neutrals didn’t work out like in my head, but they’re still some cute shots.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Then we got sneaky–smooching behind the soda. One sure-fire way to avoid duck-face!

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Finally, it was off to Secret Headquarters for our last shots of the day. These were, overall, the best shots of the day because I think we were all about the playing and being silly and just letting our hair down.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

It helps that there were toys to play with, too.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Brian, the store owner, suggest we swap my sapphire for a different sort of ring (Blue Lantern, anyone?)…

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

And we wedged ourselves between the stacks in the graphic novel room for our best approximation of another of our inspiration shots.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

We pinned a cool collage on our inspiration board and Kara put one together of our detail shots. I really love those shoes. Oh, and Mr. Road Trip, too, of course!

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Okay, 19 pictures has GOT to be enough of us, yes? And, yet, I like nice, round numbers so here’s a 20th just to appease my OCD a bit.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

We ended up with 477 shots from our engagement session. Now, a lot of them are different treatments of the same shot, but for someone who wants lots of choices this is an awesome thing. Plus, Kara was all-around awesome in hanging with us for a total of 5 hours, 2 of which were spent in the car, when her engagement shoots only last an hour or two on average. The thing that made the difference is that she was just as excited as we were and pretty much up for anything, but she was also great about telling us what to do where and when that I have no doubt we’ll miss anything important on the wedding day.

That is, perhaps, the best reason to have an engagement shoot with your wedding photographer: the make sure everyone’s simpatico and nip any problems in the bud early on. I’m really glad we found Pink Shutterbug Photography and actually looking forward to seeing pictures of myself again in the not-so-distant future!

Getting Ready for Our Close-Ups

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

The night before our engagement shoot would normally have been our weekly date night. Instead we were rushing around until a bit later than we’d intended pulling together our outfits and props for the next day.

We’d procrastinated the whole glasses situation, but I managed to put in an order on New Year’s Day and have my new, frame-free eyewear in hand in a little over a week. Mr. Road Trip, on the other hand, hadn’t even gotten an appointment by then, so picked up some reading glasses similar to his existing frames to use as stunt specs on the day of.

As far as wardrobe went, we planned for 3 outfits to roughly correspond to our 3 locations. For the shoot at Honey Lake Plantation we wanted something a bit bright to stand out against all that nature without clashing violently with it or each other. (Obviously the items in the sets below are NOT what we wore, just the closest representations I could find on polyvore).

HLP Engagement Outfit
HLP Engagement Outfit (click for source links)

Next was our stop at Lofty Pursuits–our local soda fountain. There was one inspiration picture at a bar or some sort, with neutral tones and the woman in this amazing red dress. We weren’t planning that swanky of a stop, but I figured it could be kinda neat in an incongruous way.

Lofty Pursuits Engagement Outfit
Lofty Pursuits Engagement Outfit (click for source links)

Then, finally, we would relax a bit at the comic shop. Time for jeans and fun, but I still had to include some awesome shoes (mine were hot-pick cap-toes–you’ll see) and even though he could have, T opted to forgo one of his many geeky T-shirts for another of his button-down shirts with a nice pattern to it (hence my clumsy grid over the shirt I used in a previous set).

Comic Shop Engagement Outfits
Comic Shop Engagement Outfits (click for source links)

As for props, we definitely had to bring some wine, glasses, a blanket, and a basket with us. That, plus the banner were the lion’s share of any props we thought of using. Then we had the cute idea to try to include a monkey in as many shots as possible, just a silly little something somewhat “unique” for the shoot. Since we had plenty of monkeys around the house, the trouble was in picking which ones were best to bring with. We settled on 3 of the plush variety and the sparkly necklace one Mr. RT gave me birthday before last that I wear most days.

How did you decide what to wear for your photos–did you shop especially for them or shop your closet?

Achievement Unlocked: Photographer

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

When last I ranted wrote about the thoughts and search for a wedding photographer while planning a budget-minded wedding I was faced with seemingly few choices:

  1. Spend half our entire budget on a wedding photograher (conventional wisdom)
  2. Pay what we could afford but not be able to actually choose our own photographer (going with a photography group)
  3. Wait until a couple months before the wedding and try and score and up-and-comer on Craigslist or Facebook (last ditch before handing a friend my camera and hoping for a decent photo or two)

Seriously, that’s what the landscape looked like.

But I’m a little more stubborn than that, and I started searching afresh for someone out there who took good, no-nonsense photos without charging an arm and a leg. To do that, I did something a lot of people don’t: I went beyond the first page of search results. I clicked on every link listed in the WeddingWire photography directory and about midway through I found my glimmer of hope: Pink Shutterbug Photography.

Not only did she take straightforward photographs without a lot of over-processed filters applied, but she’s personable, quick with an email reply, and understands that not everyone has a photography budget of $2500+ but that everyone deserves decent wedding photos.

What makes her able to offer such affordable wedding packages is that she’s primarily a family photographer. She might do only one or two weddings a year, but she tells me she likes it that way–she gets to enjoy the shoots more than always wrapping up one to go straight off to another.

After a few dozen emails back and forth, we met for an in-person meeting and signed the contract then and there. I couldn’t see finding someone a better fit for our budget and we got along swimmingly. Better yet? She includes an engagement session in her package–great opportunity to work together before the actual wedding day–and delivers strictly digital files, just what I was looking for.

She wasn’t the only photographer I reached out to, of course. There was another who did her best to work with our budget but it meant one shooter for half the hours and no engagement session and was still 50% more than we really wanted to spend. We could have made it work, but I’m glad we didn’t have to.

Our engagement shoot was in January, and I’ll go into more details in another post, but here’s the teaser collage she posted on Facebook, just to give you an idea of what you can get if you really look hard enough:

It can’t be all about price, of course, but when you’re on a tight budget, price can’t be discarded from the discussion entirely. What lengths were you willing to go to, to find the vendors you needed?