The bride & groom invited you to attend their wedding... not photograph it.

The bride & groom invited you to attend their wedding... not photograph it.

They invited you to witness their exchange of vows... their first kiss as a married couple... their official debut as husband & wife.  They couldn't invite everyone, but they chose you to share that special day with them.  That seat your sitting in?  It cost money.  The food you're eating?  Probably pretty pricey.  They even paid for a professional photographer to capture all the moments so nothing would be missed.  Oh, and that delicious cake... there's a piece with your name on it!

So why on earth are you spending the entire time taking pictures?

When I attend weddings, I typically ask myself one question: What's the end result of this photograph?

Do I plan to scrapbook it?  Frame it? Put it on Instagram?

I dare say that very few are planning on making a full wedding day scrapbook for the bride & groom.  And if they are... why?  That's why the bride & groom have chosen & met with a wedding photographer.  Most are just taking pictures for the sake of taking pictures.  They plan on uploading them to Facebook afterwards (or worse... during the wedding).  Trust me, Facebookland doesn't need 62 snapshots from so&so's wedding.

Yet wedding after wedding, I see multiple people zooming around with their cameras.  Capturing the bride walking down the aisle, the vows, the lighting of the unity candle, the first kiss, the couple walking back down the aisle, the first dance, the father/daughter dance, the cake cutting... do I need to go on?

www.FowlerPhoto.net

It's quite amazing how many people have their phones or cameras up, taking a picture as the bride walks down the aisle.  To me, it's kind of rude.  You've been invited to attend a wedding, to witness a marriage.  The couple wants you to be there to celebrate with them... not to be a back-up wedding photographer.

In fact, most of my brides still choose not to see their groom before walking down the aisle... because they consider the moment that special.  So if that moment is so special to her, why are you taking a picture instead of joyfully smiling with her?

I will never forget walking down the aisle on my wedding day.  There were no cell phone cameras pointed towards me.  Only smiling faces of friends & family.  I've never smiled so big in my life.  I was so excited & felt so blessed that these loved ones had come to my wedding.  They were there for me & Josh!  I looked at their faces as I passed by, all full of emotions, and it was wonderful!  Every bride should feel that special.

Is it wrong to take a picture at a wedding?  Of course not.  But please consider the bride & groom.  Enjoy their day with them.  Celebrate their marriage.  Trust me, they will appreciate it!

www.FowlerPhoto.net

The babes are growing up!

This past weekend was my brother's wedding reception.  They'd had a small ceremony back in October, but wanted to have a reception to celebrate in June.  It was so great to see my sweet nieces again & see how much they've grown!

Rylie is all about making some faces...

Rylie & her grandmother (my mom)

And check out Sunaura!  She loves purses & putting things in them & then taking things out of them.  Since we're going to miss her 2nd birthday coming up in July, I went ahead & gave her her gift-- this purse with bracelets & sunglasses.  And she's finally getting some hair!  Hard to see it in this pic, but it's there, and it's some sort of mixture between brown, blonde, & red.  Really pretty!

And someone still enjoys posing for the camera...  kind of looks like the Olsen twins when they were little!

And sometimes a wedding reception can get kind of boring for 2 pre-teens, but they seemed to keep themselves entertained!  I think there is a "ball & chain" joke in there somewhere...

My dad teaching a little one how to play banjo-- so sweet! 

Sunaura blowing sweet kisses!

I love my family for so many reasons, and when we get together, we kick back & have a ton of fun!

The best proposal story I've ever seen/read.

It's hard to impress me when it comes to engagement stories.  Personally, I think I have an awesome engagement story.  Josh did a great job of surprising me, incorporating my dad, and adding a unique spin to the event.  I'll have to tell it here sometime (if I haven't already?).

At any rate, no matter how romantic it is, I'm usually not as impressed as the average person, although I should be, 'cause I'm a total sucker for love.

But this guy?  This guy went all out.  Dare I say... the most unique, detail oriented story I've heard?  Maybe... maybe the best?  I know that's daring to say, but this is just insane!

Here's a screenshot from her blog-- click on it or click here to read the story & see the pictures-- I promise you won't regret it!

What's the best proposal story you've ever heard?  What was your proposal story?

Royal Wedding: Reflection on my own.

Okay, I promise I'm not caught up in the Royal Wedding frenzy.  But I do think it's interesting, and I love weddings, so I caught myself daydreaming a bit.  About what I would do if I were getting married now, rather than 5 years ago.  Oh, and assuming I don't have a budget.

This was my wedding dress 5 years ago.  Got it at Wedding Inspirations- a fabulous boutique in Asheville, NC. It was on the discontinued rack for $300, and alterations were free!  It was by Maggie Sottero, whose styles I adore.  Although I love things that are symmetrical, I loved that this dress wasn't.

If I were planning today (with a limitless budget), I'd go for this one (still Maggie Sottero):

Ironically, it's a lot like my friend's dress- I was just in her wedding a few weeks ago!

 As far as bridesmaids dresses go, though... I couldn't give a flying flip.  I chose these because they were less than $100 and were the type of style & material that would look good on many different body types.

That and my bridesmaids wouldn't pick anything out!  Heehee-- I told them I didn't care, but they wanted me to pick because it was my wedding, so someone had to choose.  I didn't even care about the color-- no one else had an opinion, so I chose a green and this pink.  Finally I think it was Melanie who chose the pink because I made her choose something!

Oh... and feathers!  I would have feathers.

Hmmm... do you think Kate will have feathers?  Personally, I think she'll go for something simple and chic, but extremely sophisticated.  Feathers could fit in well with that, I do believe...

Life Advice.

At our wedding reception we had "Life Advice" cards sitting on each table for people to write on. Unfortunately, they were shiny on the front and it was the equivalent of writing on a photograph.  But the back was easier to write on, so it all worked out!


Looking back through them, we had a ton, but some were absolutely hilarious, or have really hit home over the past 4 years.  Here are just a few of those:

Well there's some practical advice!  Can you tell we had a chocolate fountain disaster at our wedding?

Advice for Josh: Have a bath drawn w/wine, candles, and her favorite romantic novel for when she gets home after a long day.
Also, Learn to cook (and I don't mean mac & cheese)
Advice for Susan: He has good intentions, even when he doesn't appear to know what he's doing!


Update on this: I did come home one day during our first year of marriage to a bubble bath and homemade chocolate covered strawberries!  And Josh is one of the most fabulous cooks you'll ever meet!  And I do know that he (almost) always has the best of intentions.


Daniel's wife also offered for him to make a changing table when we have kids.  If that offer still stands when we have kids-- heck yes!

"Always go home & give your wife a good listening to!" -Some guy in Florida named Bubba


This couple got married a month after us and are now expecting their 2nd child.  I guess it worked for them!  And, I have to say, Josh listens pretty well.


Have you noticed that most of it's for the groom?  I think it's because you can joke around about the guy more...

Hmmm.... I don't think we've done too hot on this one.  I still hear this a lot!

Just obey and say yes! Honey, whatever you say.  Where do you want me to move this piece of furniture?  Don't have kids for 5 years- travel & do all you want to do before kids.


That was advice from my mother-in-law who has begged us for the past 4 years to have kids!  :)  I mentioned this to her the other day and we all had a good laugh.


But seriously, the 5 year count may restart now.

This gem came from Josh's cousin who was recovering from a terrible motorcycle accident.  I laughed so hard because that's all it said on his card!  Best advice I think we got!

1) Life's a garden, dig it!

2) She's been an RA Josh, don't break any rules!

3) Josh, if Susan gets in a rotten mood, give her chocolate... it works!

4) Life's like a swimming pool.  If you don't just dive right in, you'll end up dry or bored on the side of the pool watching everyone swim by...

5) Most importantly... if you get nothing else from this card, get this: SMILE!

Spoken from someone who truly knows me... give me chocolate! It does make everything better...

And her fiance wrote:

Just remember to love... and everyone has an argument sometimes --> it is good for the blood pressure.  Teamwork... through everything.

Is that why Josh had blood pressure issues our first year of marriage????

Tyler and Sarah were engaged at the time.  They've now been married for awhile and have a tiny, adorable, newborn baby boy!

Have the Pressley family build you a house- they're the best!

My dad & brothers had built their house-- can you tell?  And I absolutely plan on them building us a house... when we decide that we don't LOVE maintenance free living (which will be a few more years).

Josh- Learn the Phrase- Yes, Dear!

Ahh... fun stuff.

What would be your advice to a couple getting married?

Weekend recap (so far).

This weekend we got a special treat: Josh's cousins came to visit!  Kenny & Diane.  Kenny's dad and stepmom were doing a vow renewal and our house happened to be the halfway point.

I should mention that Josh and Kenny only see each other ever few years, but they are so much alike it's scary.  They're 2nd cousins.  I can see the family resemblance, but I don't think they look like twins or anything.  But at Kenny's wedding 4 years ago, several people came up to Josh and congratulated him.

Man: "Congratulations!"


Josh: "Huh?"


Me: [whispering] "shhhh... just say 'thank you'"

We went out to dinner but didn't account for how ridiculously busy the downtown area is on any given day or time.  Friday night being the worst.

I've really never seen anything like it.  There wasn't any sort of special event, but even at 10:30pm there were people everywhere... even kids!  Restaurants slammed with business and parking is out of the question.  It's one of those areas where you just drive to a tried and true spot that always has parking and walk the really long distance.  You're probably not going to find anything closer.

After we parked and Josh realized how far away we were from the restaurant, he (jokingly, guys) said he was going to beat me for every empty parking spot we passed during our walk.

He didn't beat me.  Not that he would have, but still... not a single parking space was open.  And not because there's a lack of parking... there are tons of lots and parking on the street and alleys... just everything was full.

Then on Saturday we went to the main event: a vow renewal to celebrate Kenny's dad & step-mom's 25th anniversary.  The picture above is where Kenny was explaining that he had a long night last night.  He somehow managed to tie that in with his speech to them during the ceremony.

And the gang.  We are going to have to hang out together a lot more in the future.  We said that last time we all hung out as well... which was 4 years ago.

Speaking of which, I was supposed to have a meeting tonight with the Procrastination Club, but we rescheduled for next week.  I'll try to let you know how it goes.

ba-dum-ching!

A little bit of my weekend...

My my, it sure has been a busy weekend!  Here's a few snippets of what's been going on:

Pictures for little miss Olivia.  Adorable!

Sunset at Max Patch.  Google it.  You life will be enriched.

This, my dear, is a wedding reception.  A mighty cool one, at that!

More to come, but I hope you had a great weekend as well!

DIY wedding programs.

It's wedding season, and as I was looking through our wedding memory box, I was reminded of how much heart and soul I put into nearly every detail.  Here are the programs that I my family handmade.  300 of them.

I made the layout in a simple word processor, using half pages.

We didn't have chicken pox... it's paper with flower petals in it or something like that.

These were two of my favorite pictures at the time.  Truthfully, I love photos, and I wanted to share them.

See the 'We love you?'  That was a formatting mistake on my part.

This wasn't necessary (nothing in this program was), but it was a way to share parts of our love story with our friends and family.

Yup.  There were a lot of them.  And Josh had one more groomsman than I had bridesmaid.  Although I love even numbers, this worked out perfectly.

A good way to remember those special to us that have already passed on.  At the bottom of this page is where it was supposed to say, "We love you."

We love our families and were excited to have them as a part of our special day, so we wanted to mention them in the program.

Of course we had a lot of musicians at our wedding... I married Josh!

This is a picture from one of our first dates.

A thank you to our family a friends.

The chorus from a song Josh wrote for me.  He had sung it to me many times while we were dating, and then sang it and played it on the piano right before proposing!

Directions to the reception, and our new address.

Wedding memories continued.

More fun going through the wedding box.  It seems that I saved a little of everything!  It all fits in the box, though, so it's not taking up tons of space.

Here is the newspaper clipping from our engagement. 

And the invitation.  Sorry for the poor photo quality.  I didn't make these-- I ordered them from Rexcraft.  Great price and I was happy with the quality and turn around time.

And we saved two guestbooks (from showers and the wedding).

And we tucked these in with the invites-- Directions, as well as RSVP postcards.

Yikes... I just couldn't get the color right on these napkins.  In real life, it's a bold pink color.  I got these off of ebay-- super happy with them!

And the infamous Life Advice cards.  These were on the tables at our reception.  I wasn't thinking and had them make on glossy paper.  For future reference, it's nearly impossible to write with a ballpoint pen (or even a marker) on glossy paper.  Most ended up writing on the back, which was plain paper.

Not sure why or how this got in there, but I've had this forever.  Thought I'd include it for fun!

I'll add some of the "Life Advice" cards on here later-- some are sweet, some are hilarious-- we've enjoyed looking back on them!