Wedding website is up!

I'm finally to a point where I can spread the word that our wedding website is ready to be viewed. By no means am I a web designer, so I had to toy around with the basic website page designer that comes free when you purchase the domain. Mix that inexperience with my laptop saying goodbye this week and you've got a whole lot of frustration with technology on my end, but it got done nonetheless. Or as done as it will be for a while.

Our main goal for the site is to prepare the guests for the unexpected...so in turn, that would make everything expected. We need to relay the message of "no heels" for the women; the ceremony/reception site is out in the woods. Don't waste your expensive cologne; we'll all smell like bonfire and bug spray anyways. Or that pitching a tent is really the only choice for accommodations.

And along the lines of being nontraditional I decided to post goofy photos for the wedding party section. Actually, with all my personal files being unreachable, I only had a handful of pictures to choose from and somehow they are all the embarrassingly funny kind of photos. I very much enjoy them, and Josh got a good laugh out of them as well. He did comment on hating the picture of the two of us...but it was only fair. I really never would have thought to post the funny photos if I had access to all my digital files. But I'm so glad they're not the perfect shots of our wedding party. Everyone knows how good looking they are, I want to show their care-free personalities. I'm hoping that our friends will appreciate and understand the humor, after all, they're in our wedding party for a reason and if they are at all bothered by the photos on the site, then we'll just kick them out of the wedding. Sounds like a plan.

Today's Mantra: something wonderful can emerge from something gone wrong.

system error

My laptop died. Postings may slow down for a few days until I can figure out how to get all my files off that hunk of junk. Thank you for your patience and continued support.

Autumn in Grand Ledge

Today...
all I want to do it share some of my favorite portraits from this past weekend.
Tomorrow...
I will post something a little more wedding related.
I promise.

Anyone who's been to downtown Grand Ledge can recognize this location; the Island park. I love how blue the sky is in the first photos from this set. And look at the beautiful colors reflecting in the Grand River.

Recognize these two little guys? I'll give you a hint: One goes "Gobble, gobble" and the other goes "Roar!". It looks like we walked up on two farmers having a chat about their harvest this year.

Of course you can't have Fall without playing in the leaves.

Josh loves Sheila...and Sheila said yes

Alright, so that first post was more of a "testing...one..two..." kind of entry. You may have read it and wondered to yourself-I thought this was supposed to be a blog about Josh and Sheila's wedding? Well it is, and I'll have you know that life as we know it does not stop for a wedding. It goes on.

Let me give you a Mission Statement:

I will strive to not allow this wedding consume our lives for the next 10 months. I'll embrace this period of engagement as an opportunity to enjoy the planning of this wedding with Josh and create beautiful memories along the way. I will encourage bonds of family and friendship to become even closer by involving others in the process as much as possible. I will fulfill this mission and maintain my role as photographer, receptionist, belly dancer, and bridesmaid(x2).

Basically, I am going to blog about the wedding, yes, and every other occurrences in my life whether it applies to the planning process or not. I'm going to write about how happy dancing makes me, because in the middle of all this prenuptial stress it's the one thing I look forward to the most. I'm going to write about the hours I'm putting in answering phones, greeting visitors, copying, faxing, filing, and organizing office supplies Mon-Fri, 8am-5pm, because it's what's paying for the wedding of our dreams. I'm going to write about my photo customers and their sessions because it's the #1 thing that get's my creative juices flowing (not to mention I'm getting great ideas from the weddings I shoot). I'm going to write about my two bridesmaids who live in town and I don't see or appreciate nearly as much as I should, my two bridesmaids who are also getting married and have kindly asked me to stand beside them on their big days, and my one bridesmaid in France who I miss so dearly, because I love them all so much. I''m going to write about every single thought and every little wish for our big day because in the end, we may not be able to execute or even apply all the wedding ideas to ours, but maybe someone else will get some use out of it.

So I do expect your input. Please tell me what you think. Give me your ideas. Help me out, people. And if along the way you see any hint of Bridezilla coming out, for god's sake, let me know.

Hello. I'm finally doing this

I'm writing this first post immediately after a disgustingly cute fall portrait session with two 1- year old twin boys. One with curly hair, one with straight, in overalls sitting on bales of hay...oh, and yeah, we did Halloween costume as well (Turkey and a Lion). It's been such a beautiful fall here in Michigan. This morning's first session was a family at Grand Ledge's Island Park and I am fully convinced by the reflections of red, orange and yellow in the water of the Grand River, that this is the most vibrant autumn season I can ever remember.

In the past 3 months I've had unbelievable changes in my life and as one who hates change, I need as much as possible to find some constant in my life...maybe writing a blog? A wedding/portrait photographer, full-time receptionist, belly dancer, bridesmaids to two other 2009 summer weddings, and bride to be of my own August 2009 wedding most certainly does not have enough time in the day to maintain a blog, but...I'm hard-headed and do whatever I want. Lucky you...

Enjoy! I'm off to buy groceries for dinner.