our first look in our wedding outfits!

We decided to see each other in the rotunda, before the bedekin (veiling) and ketubah signing so that we could have a little private snuggle time (in front of the camera). Just having a few minutes together, where we could talk without all of our guests listening in as if we were saying anything worth hearing, was SO grounding. I think we said things like "wow, you look good" and "does my hairspray smell like bubblegum? I feel like I'm candy scented." Like I said, nothing worth listening to.

After a few minutes of photo time, we walked over to the conference room where we had the bedekin and ketubah signing. To be continued....

we're beautiful and our photographers were awesome!

I posted this photo to the Weddingbee Gallery, and I was featured on The Bee!

Thanks to all the vendors who made this photo what it is:

Kokoro Photography

St. Julien Hotel & Spa

Boulder Blooms (flowers and chuppah rental)

Something Classic Events

not shown: La Bella Brass Ensemble

iRave may be dead, and the professional photos are in!

Remember how I signed up with a free photo hosting service that I thought was awesome? That you only pay to download photos that you didn't upload, and there was no limit to how many photos could be uploaded, or how many users there were per account? Well, that awesome website has been down for 4 days now and I'm not I'm not sure if/when it's coming backup. I've received no emails warning of scheduled down time, they just disappeared!

I'm glad that I wasn't using iRave as my primary storage for photos, and that they never had any of my money (since none of you uploaded any photos yourselves). But it's a big bummer because I thought it was going to be the perfect way to share photos, you only pay for what you want! I guess no one wanted anything and that's why they shut down?

Anyway, all of the professional photos are up now: http://pictage.com/795846

Here's a quick sneak peak, from the lovely ladies at Kokoro Photography:

There are also my friend Michael Coblenz's photos, which he's made available to download all at once, or one at a time for you all: http://gallery.me.com/mcoblenz#100129

And my mother is trying to collect everyones' photos and upload them to her personal collection: http://public.fotki.com/everbrite/wedding/

Plus, there are lots of folks who've posted photos of us on Facebook, which anyone who is my "friend" can see.

Does anyone else have photos hidden away from me that I haven't seen yet? May I share them on this blog?

look at me, look at me!

We got our engagement photos on Wednesday! Some of them came out really well too. WOOHOO!

http://www.pictage.com/795846

Now we just have to figure out what to DO with them. Other than sending a few choice ones to grandparents, I think we're just going to have a few of our favorites printed out and then make our own photo album.

On the theme of photography, I've realized how disappointed I am that there won't be any photos of our auf ruf or of shabbat dinner on Friday night (it's not OK to take pictures on Shabbat in our congregational ethos, or Ben's family's for that matter). Our families and friends are starting to make their travel arrangements and are getting excited about coming out to Boulder, I'm realizing quite how important it really is to me that they're going be here.When we decided to move the wedding here, from DC, I'd girded myself for the fact that this was going to be a destination wedding for most people and that we'd have low-ish attendance. Now it looks like most everyone we thought would come is coming!

[caption id="attachment_817" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="my "I'm hot stuff" photo from our e-photo session"][/caption]

major wow wedding

WOW, this is the most beautiful wedding I've ever seen. The only thing I'd change if it were mine would be the flowers (no roses). WOW.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="900" caption="from photographer, Kate McElwee's blog"][/caption]

Kate McElwee's blog is full of wonderful goodies, but I'm especially in love with Karen and Phil's Boston State Room wedding.

nervous giggles during picture time

I get the nervous giggles. Especially when giggles can be inappropriate, like auditions, or when someone is trying to take my photo. Oops. At least I learned yesterday that smiling for 4 hours doesn't hurt my face like I thought it might. [side note- I wonder at what time of day my face will hurt, from smiling so much, on our wedding day]

Taking our engagement photos yesterday with Debi and Amanda was a blast. We started with a picnic near the Flatirons, up behind the Boulder NIST buildings. While walking back, Ben and I climbed on some rocks and stood in tall grasses to take some more photos. Then it was off to the St. Julien, where we changed into our fancy clothes and then took some photos of us all dressed up and eating ice cream (and by the rainbow wall).

[caption id="attachment_760" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="view from near our picnic spot, only 5 minutes from the car!"][/caption]

These ladies have some serious camera stamina! They took almost 750 photos of us! Wow. I wonder how many will come out well, 1/2? 1/3? 1/4? It doesn't matter, as long as we have a few were we both look like us, without bra/spanx/xyz issues. The point was to get used to being in front of the camera and spend some time with our photographers so that we're not all strangers in 4 months when they're our shadows.

a discount on prints from our wedding!

If you're going to want to look at our photographs of out wedding, you might want to pre-register with the viewer thingy so that you can get $5 off any prints you may want to order. Cool, huh? You'll need to register eventually too look at the photos, you may as well do it now and get $5 off. Then you can order all the awesomely awkward shots of yourselves to scan into facebook or something. I dunno.

To pass this $5.00 credit along, follow the simple steps below: Send your friends and family the following link: http://www.pictage.com/795846 Have them sign your guest book - That's it! After pre-registering, your friends and family will be notified when your photos are available. They will automatically receive their $5.00 credit upon log in to view your photos. Remember, this $5.00 credit is only for your guests who pre-register. Sincerely, Kokoro Photography

photographer contract is in the mail

Here's to hoping that Amanda and Debi Tipton win some fabulous award now that we put our contract in the mail this morning!

Please welcome, Kokoro Photography to our vendor list!

yey for cool people/vendors!

Ben and I took the bus into Denver on Saturday afternoon (yes, we broke the "no wedding talk on Shabbat" rule, again). For some reason we we kinda disgustingly snuggly all weekend, but managed to pry ourselves a few inches apart so that we didn't scare off Amanda and her mom Debi, the awesome photography team behind Kokoro Photography.

Oddly we've found that the standard of how we get along with vendors is: cakewrecks. Yes, a fail blog is used to measure how well we get along with someone. Does the vendor appreciate a blog that catalogs epic fail cakes? If not, then how can we ever get along?

Afterward we went to visit a friend who was working at the Christkindlmarket, drink some Glühwein, and do a bit of shopping at Ann Taylor Loft (40% anything that wasn't on sale on Saturday, how could I not!?), 'case ivory is in this winter! So, I of course had to go start looking for sweaters and other things to wear for our wedding weekend. I'm going to need lots of outfits, oh darn! Here's the list (so far) of activities:

• Wednesday: bachelorette party


• Thursday: pre-mikvah get together? (then I go to the mikvah)

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Boulder Mikvah"][/caption]

• Friday: Erev Shabbat service & dinner w/ family


• Saturday: Shabbat services/Auf Ruf


• Sunday: WEDDING


• Sunday: brunch?

Is it weird to be thinking about the whole week before the wedding as part of the wedding? I jut figure there's a lot of potential for photo taking and I'd like to look a bit better then my usual PJ/crappy work uniform potato-sack self.

PS- try adding 2 pumps of gingerbread to your chai at St@rbuck$, yummy!

woohoo! phone call making averted

our fabulous coordinator is going to schedule meetings with us with the 3 photographers Ben and I agreed on. SWEET.



Kinda like that, but we'll have majestic mountains and possibly snow, instead of a gorgeous white sanded beach on Tybee Island, Georgia (which I went to with my mom and GS troop when I was 12).

stagnant progress

Here is the narrowed down list of photographers. Anyone out in the blog-o-sphere have any feedback on them?

Andy and Angie Wood of A&A Studios

Debi and Amanda of Kokoro Photography

Karie and Natalie of Karie McLain Photography (which will forever mess with my head since I grew up in McLean)

Now I just need to get my act together, figure out (with the dude) when we want to meet with them, and then call and schedule it. I hope that meeting in person is going  to help us figure out who we want to book with.

I told my mom that the biggest part of my personal hang-up about booking things is thinking about $$$. I know I need to pay decent money for decent services, but everything cost so much! The food budget I can think about $/person and justify it, but photography is really just for Ben and I and our families. That makes it seem like the $/person is just astronomically high until you remember that photography is the only thing from the wedding day that will last in perpetuity.

*brain overload, no more thinking about budgets and money that's not mine except to spend on this wedding fete*