Category Archives: our wedding

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Our Wedding ~ Chapter 1

April 5, 2009 – 3:46 pm

I began writing this entry, and realized there was no way I would be able to divide our wedding into two blog posts.  It just isn’t gonna happen!  So, I’m breaking it up into several chapters… who knows how many it will take, but I just want to give brides out there some ideas and helpful hints along the way.  And since I no longer have a day job to take up my time, I’ll be able to devote much more time to my blog… YAY!!!   I’ve even made a category just for this, so you can always click on the “Our Wedding” category at the top of the page to see only those posts about our wedding.

Let’s start with the invitation!  I knew I didn’t want the traditional invitation for a few reasons… first & foremost, that’s just not our style.  Second, your invitation should give your guests a feel of how your wedding is going to be.  So, since we were set on a whimsical, non-formal wedding, we didn’t want to use formal invitations.  Lastly, I just couldn’t imagine sending out any type of communication to our guests without our picture on it!

I designed a 4 sided card that had some of the beautiful engagement images that Shelby Leigh had taken of us.  I used my pro lab for the printing, and selected a fine linen paper for a natural feel. Here’s the front:

When you opened up the inside, you still got a little feel of that “wedding invitation” style, just without the formality of traditional invites.

The back was just filled with more images from our engagement session.

If you look closely, you can see we had our web address on the invite, and encouraged everyone to RSVP online.  We were trying to be a little more green by not printing a separate directions card, since all that info was on the web site, but we underestimated how many older guests that we had that did not have internet access, so we ended up sending a follow up directions postcard, with yet another photo of us (this one was taken by the ever-so-talented Dustin Izatt from Utah while we were in Vegas last year).  This was the front:

And the back:

It actually worked out quite well, and I’m glad we did it that way.  I think that it kept our wedding date on people’s minds, and we had close to 80% of people who were invited actually attend, which is phenomenal in the wedding world.  Of course, we only invited a little over 100 people, so it was still a small gathering.

Overall, I wouldn’t have changed a thing about the invitations.  Wait… yes I would have… if I had to do it over again, I would have forced myself to start a little sooner, so that invitations could have been sent out 8 weeks in advance.  We were just SOOOOO insanely busy last year with everyone else’s weddings, that we actually only spent a few hours of solid planning on our own (sounds impossible, I know, but it’s unfortunately so true).  I definitely couldn’t have pulled it all together without Jon’s tremendous help :)

Upcoming…

Gary & Staci’s e-session
Wesley & Heather’s wedding
GS Productions - Vendor Spotlight
Matt & Laura’s wedding
Geoff & Jennifer’s wedding
OUR Day After session w/ openField photography.
Rob & Jen + Two!
Matty & Jessy’s wedding
Splitpine Studios - Vendor Spotlight
Sean & Kathy’s wedding
Kara’s maternity session
Gary & Staci’s wedding
Manda’s generosity
Keith & Jessica’s wedding
Valley Pig Pickin’ - Vendor Spotlight
Brad & Casey’s e-session
David & Jacki’s wedding
Jaxson Ray - newborn

By Lori | Also posted in personal | Comments (0)

Vendor Spotlight ~ Wedding Window

February 21, 2009 – 7:57 am

It’s been a while since I did a vendor spotlight, so I’m excited to finally get the ball rolling again!  This time I’m showcasing a GREAT wedding site that allows you to create a beautiful, well-designed personal wedding website.  I love looking at my clients’ wedding webpages, and I always thought I would build my own site, utilizing all the skills I learned in my web design classes.  But, the first time I saw a Wedding Window site, I knew that I would be using their service instead (shhh… don’t tell my instructors!).  They have so many different templates to choose from, which are as customizable as anyone would ever need.  You can add as many different pages as you’d like, and it is SOOOO easy to create! If you have a facebook or myspace page, then building your wedding site on Wedding Window is going to be a breeze (even if you don’t have one, they have made it totally simple for even computer newbies to follow the steps to complete your site).

For our site, I wanted to use a domain name that would be easier for our guests to remember, so I set up www.jon-n-lori.com to redirect to the Wedding Window site.  We had so many comments from our family & friends that it was such a nice touch to our event.  Go check it out at Jon-N-Lori.com!

Stay tuned for some beautiful bridal & wedding images!

Wedding Window - Vendor Spotlight
Jennifer’s bridal session
Matt & Jessie’s wedding
Rodney & Tiffany’s wedding
OUR WEDDING - pt.1
Khimaira Farm - Vendor Spotlight
Gary & Staci’s e-session
OUR WEDDING - pt.2
Wesley & Heather’s wedding
GS Productions - Vendor Spotlight
Matt & Laura’s wedding
Geoff & Jennifer’s wedding
OUR Day After session w/ openField photography.
Rob & Jen + Two!
Matty & Jessy’s wedding
Splitpine Studios - Vendor Spotlight
Sean & Kathy’s wedding
Kara’s maternity session
Gary & Staci’s wedding
Manda’s generosity
Keith & Jessica’s wedding
Valley Pig Pickin’ - Vendor Spotlight
Brad & Casey’s e-session
David & Jacki’s wedding
Jaxson Ray - newborn
Nicole’s maternity session
Sophia - newborn

By Lori | Also posted in vendor spotlight | Comments (0)

Introducing Vendor Spotlights!

August 1, 2008 – 11:58 pm

So, I was planning on doing this oh-so-long-ago, but my time has been totally consumed with a whole bunch of work and an occasional splash of wedding planning, so this got put on the back burner. Since I am going through this whole wedding planning process, I thought it would be really helpful to share my vendor choices with everyone, including you future brides out there :) Being that the wedding is only two weeks away now (AAAAAAAHHHH!!!), I’m certainly not going to be able to post everything before it happens, but I will continue to do vendor spotlights on not only the vendors I chose, but also those vendors that I’ve had the pleasure of working with and whom I totally recommend to my clients!

I didn’t have to think more than a second about which vendor I would spotlight first. I mean, come on, the MOST important thing to me naturally is the photography. I’ve always knew that the photos would come first. I love looking at old pictures of my parents/grandparents, and realizing that there is NOT enough to tell the full story that I’d love to know about, I definitely want to be able to pull out a wedding album for our grandkids that will really show what our wedding day was all about… and this album is going to be our first family heirloom, so it HAS to be special.

So, my search for our perfect photographer started with realizing that our budget did not support the kind of photography that I really wanted. Being in this business for 8 years now, it’s obvious that you get what you pay for, and I really would regret if I went with a budget photographer. So, I started a savings account in December (when we were engaged) that I poured every extra dime into that I could spare. This meant lots of dollar menu items at McD’s (I really can’t stand McD’s, so this was a big step!), and pushing leftovers to the ultimate limit. I knew that by the time I had enough saved up, there was bound to be somebody I LOVED still available for my date. In the meantime, I came up with a list of 11 photographers that I would contact once I could afford them, which included some of my favorite photographers on this side of the country. I was really hoping that by the time I got to #11, someone would be open and willing to travel for our wedding. The time came, and so I began with #1. I knew it was a long shot, and just too perfect to work out. #1 was in Annapolis, which was one of the closest on my list, and I have grown totally hooked on her blog. I sent the email before we left for a wedding in New Jersey, and when we got back…. she had emailed me that she would do it!!! Jon was in the room when I got the email, and I just started laughing and doing a little happy dance. I LOVE this girl. She totally rocks, and I feel SO lucky to have her as my photographer. She did an engagement session with us in Chesapeake Beach, and so I’ll share a few images that she created for us.

So, the very first vendor spotlight is my insanely talented photographer, Shelby Martin of Shelby Leigh Photography…

Didn’t she do a FABULOUS job?!? I’ve already forgotten those six months of extreme saving, and now I have a whole bunch of images that we are IN LOVE with, and I’m sure we’ll be cherishing these for the rest of our lives. I can’t wait to see the wedding images she captures for us!

By Lori | Also posted in personal, vendor spotlight | Comments (2)