Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
The Why
I know I've been super quiet the last two weeks, and here's why.
When I first started this blog, it was rather unfocused (and still might be). Friends have described it as a personal/craft blog with advice and a wedding bent, but not something they see as a true wedding blog. I went and asked for opinions a few weeks ago when my application to become a Weddingbee blogger came back with a big N-O.
After spending some time thinking about it, I realized that I may have started blogging too early for the wedding, filling Down the Aisle with a lot of fluff that perhaps didn't have to be there. Is it possible for a blog to have too much fluff? I'm not sure. Do people like the asides and the fact that I talk about things that relate to the wedding, but aren't necessarily about the wedding?
I decided I needed to step away from the blog for a little while and let my mind work. I've been busy over at my Sewing/Costuming blog Lilacwire Sewing and Cosplay (if you care!).
What I've decided is that because Dr. Light and I have been SO productive on decisions, decorations, and such, I've got a gap for a little while of the real meat of the wedding. Our date isn't until October 29, which is six months away. Not only is that a lot of blog posts (which I truly love writing), but it's possible that it might be a lot of crappy blog posts.
I don't want to give you guys junk. Yeah, I could write crafting stuff until the cows came home - but that would make this a crafting blog that happened to have some wedding ideas in it. What I want is to make the wedding the bones and muscle of this part of this blog.
What I'm going to do is work on the wedding and prepare. I will blog lighter than usual, but I'm not going away. My plan is to give the wedding a chance to become more immediate. Let deadlines hit. Focus on the design and the timeline and give you more of what I feel is important. I hope that it's ok with you! I love blogging about these ideas because they've really helped me gain understanding and insight into how I want my wedding to go, but I don't want to burn out too soon.
There are so many exciting things coming up. Bachelorette parties, brunches, even decisions about the centerpieces. I want to share them with you. <3
When I first started this blog, it was rather unfocused (and still might be). Friends have described it as a personal/craft blog with advice and a wedding bent, but not something they see as a true wedding blog. I went and asked for opinions a few weeks ago when my application to become a Weddingbee blogger came back with a big N-O.
After spending some time thinking about it, I realized that I may have started blogging too early for the wedding, filling Down the Aisle with a lot of fluff that perhaps didn't have to be there. Is it possible for a blog to have too much fluff? I'm not sure. Do people like the asides and the fact that I talk about things that relate to the wedding, but aren't necessarily about the wedding?
I decided I needed to step away from the blog for a little while and let my mind work. I've been busy over at my Sewing/Costuming blog Lilacwire Sewing and Cosplay (if you care!).
What I've decided is that because Dr. Light and I have been SO productive on decisions, decorations, and such, I've got a gap for a little while of the real meat of the wedding. Our date isn't until October 29, which is six months away. Not only is that a lot of blog posts (which I truly love writing), but it's possible that it might be a lot of crappy blog posts.
I don't want to give you guys junk. Yeah, I could write crafting stuff until the cows came home - but that would make this a crafting blog that happened to have some wedding ideas in it. What I want is to make the wedding the bones and muscle of this part of this blog.
What I'm going to do is work on the wedding and prepare. I will blog lighter than usual, but I'm not going away. My plan is to give the wedding a chance to become more immediate. Let deadlines hit. Focus on the design and the timeline and give you more of what I feel is important. I hope that it's ok with you! I love blogging about these ideas because they've really helped me gain understanding and insight into how I want my wedding to go, but I don't want to burn out too soon.
There are so many exciting things coming up. Bachelorette parties, brunches, even decisions about the centerpieces. I want to share them with you. <3
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
A thought about details.
I feel like one of the hardest things about planning a wedding isn't the DIY or the anticipation. It's not the vendor choices or picking clothing. It's the fact that I've only been to one wedding in the last two years and sometimes I feel like I'm fishing around for more wedding experience.
Inspiration boards online are great, but they only do so much. There's something wonderful about being there and seeing the tiny details you might otherwise gloss over. I feel the experience of being a guest and watching the whole affair come together can help your own wedding be successful. For instance, the wedding I attended last year was great because I got to see how successful a receiving line could be - that face time with the couple was fantastic! I definitely want to do that at my wedding too.
My sister has been to something like four weddings in the past couple of years, and ever since I've been engaged, I've asked her to come back with reports of her experiences. What did the couple do well? What could have been improved upon? Were there any ideas that she thought were incredible?
She just got back from a wedding in Texas this weekend, so Dr. Light and I asked her to bring back a program and any other items that could help us get an idea of what other people are doing and how well it was done. Luckily, she had almost nothing bad to say aside from, "Get a seating chart!"
How do you handle the details of your wedding that aren't familiar to you? Have you been to enough weddings to feel like the planning process is easy?
Inspiration boards online are great, but they only do so much. There's something wonderful about being there and seeing the tiny details you might otherwise gloss over. I feel the experience of being a guest and watching the whole affair come together can help your own wedding be successful. For instance, the wedding I attended last year was great because I got to see how successful a receiving line could be - that face time with the couple was fantastic! I definitely want to do that at my wedding too.
My sister has been to something like four weddings in the past couple of years, and ever since I've been engaged, I've asked her to come back with reports of her experiences. What did the couple do well? What could have been improved upon? Were there any ideas that she thought were incredible?
She just got back from a wedding in Texas this weekend, so Dr. Light and I asked her to bring back a program and any other items that could help us get an idea of what other people are doing and how well it was done. Luckily, she had almost nothing bad to say aside from, "Get a seating chart!"
How do you handle the details of your wedding that aren't familiar to you? Have you been to enough weddings to feel like the planning process is easy?
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Posing for Photos Tutorial - Part 5
So no doubt, posing is hard. Even after 10 years of photo shoots, I forget to follow my own rules sometimes. I tend to get a squinty left eye when I smile, like this:
My left eye, not your left left. Confused?
If I don’t consciously widen my eye when I smile for photos, I get so frustrated! It turns into the only thing I see, even when it's invisible to everyone else.
A lot of us have these ticks that pop up when we pose for photos, and they're one of the reasons why we hate pictures of ourselves, but those selfsame photos are ones your friends LOVE. And then they post them on Facebook and you're forced to untag yourself in a fit of sadness!
Your photographer won’t automatically know that you care how you look when you sit, or that you tend to put your hand on your chest when you pose, or that you always show WAYYYY too many teeth if you smile like your mom taught you. If these are things that you know you do, however, make a little list and ask the photog to watch out for them. Not all people with good photographic vision are equally good at posing their subjects in fantastic positions. It’s a work in progress for you both.
Learning to identify the things you want to change in photos of yourself is another reason to go in your backyard and take a bunch of casual photos like I mentioned waaaaay back in Part 1 of the tutorial. With enough practice, you may be able to change the behavior completely and never need to worry about it again.
Good communication is also essential to getting pictures that make you look good to your own eyes. Don't spend $2,000 on a photographer and never tell her that you need help with a pose or to watch and make sure you aren't doing something silly with your hands.
Remember, you are the master of your body! It sounds funny to say, but it's the absolute truth.
I'm finishing the posing tutorial here with one simple word of advice. Don't be afraid to mess up. It's not easy to be in front of the camera, but no matter who you are, you are loved. Your family will adore your engagement and wedding photos, and the more you do to prepare yourself for them, the happier you will be. And if you get one or two back that you dislike, that's why your photographer is taking a million pics that day! It will all be OK.
My left eye, not your left left. Confused?
If I don’t consciously widen my eye when I smile for photos, I get so frustrated! It turns into the only thing I see, even when it's invisible to everyone else.
A lot of us have these ticks that pop up when we pose for photos, and they're one of the reasons why we hate pictures of ourselves, but those selfsame photos are ones your friends LOVE. And then they post them on Facebook and you're forced to untag yourself in a fit of sadness!
Your photographer won’t automatically know that you care how you look when you sit, or that you tend to put your hand on your chest when you pose, or that you always show WAYYYY too many teeth if you smile like your mom taught you. If these are things that you know you do, however, make a little list and ask the photog to watch out for them. Not all people with good photographic vision are equally good at posing their subjects in fantastic positions. It’s a work in progress for you both.
Learning to identify the things you want to change in photos of yourself is another reason to go in your backyard and take a bunch of casual photos like I mentioned waaaaay back in Part 1 of the tutorial. With enough practice, you may be able to change the behavior completely and never need to worry about it again.
Good communication is also essential to getting pictures that make you look good to your own eyes. Don't spend $2,000 on a photographer and never tell her that you need help with a pose or to watch and make sure you aren't doing something silly with your hands.
Remember, you are the master of your body! It sounds funny to say, but it's the absolute truth.
I'm finishing the posing tutorial here with one simple word of advice. Don't be afraid to mess up. It's not easy to be in front of the camera, but no matter who you are, you are loved. Your family will adore your engagement and wedding photos, and the more you do to prepare yourself for them, the happier you will be. And if you get one or two back that you dislike, that's why your photographer is taking a million pics that day! It will all be OK.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Dyeing Synthetic Fabrics
There are some wedding dresses that would make great "event" dresses, especially with a bit of color added. White can be a hard look to pull off, and there are a lot of brides out there who want to change their wedding dress look so they can get the most bang out of their buck, so to speak.
One simple way to do this is color. A white dress easily becomes pink, blue, or green with the right kind of dye. Then an expensive investment may get use for years to come!
Source
One simple way to do this is color. A white dress easily becomes pink, blue, or green with the right kind of dye. Then an expensive investment may get use for years to come!
Monday, April 4, 2011
Growing Our Ceremony
I'm taking the view of our ceremony as an organic thing - a thing that needs nourishment and attention, lest it starve. I want our guests to feel like it was worth the entire drive from Denver because the ceremony is it, the moment the wedding is actually about.
Source
Dr. Light once went to a wedding where his speech to the couple lasted longer than the actual ceremony, which timed in at about three minutes. That is really, really short to me. It sounds like they didn't have anything beyond their vows. Maybe it's the way they wanted it, but that's a ceremony that sounds like it received no nourishment.
Growing a ceremony takes ideas.
1. An officiant's speech. The officiant has a lot of power in weddings. Their initial words can set the tone to the wedding - will it be serious? Religious? Romantic? Funny? I've seen variations to all of these and enjoyed each of them, so it's an aspect that's very important to me. One of Dr. Light's best friends is our officiant, and I'm so excited to have him marry us.
2. A reading or a song. This continues to set the tone. I'm really lucky - I have friends who play as a trio right now, and I fully intend on asking them to do us the honor of playing a piece during our ceremony. Nothing too long, but I hope it will help our guests feel the love we'll be experiencing up there on the stand.
3. A unity celebration. I'm not a huge fan of things like unity candles or the vases filled with sand because they're just extra "stuff" to me. Slipping on the rings is our statement of unity. We won't have on of these, but I felt it was worth mentioning.
It's cute, but not for us.
4. Writing our own vows. I have this little thought that including vows, we could each tell the other one why we love each other. It doesn't have to last a long time, but it's a perfect reflection of why we're there. "Dr. Light, I love you because you drink milk with dessert." Ok, maybe not that, but you get my drift.
How are you thinking of "growing your ceremony" without it seeming stagnant? What have you seen at other ceremonies that you want to incorporate into yours?
Dr. Light once went to a wedding where his speech to the couple lasted longer than the actual ceremony, which timed in at about three minutes. That is really, really short to me. It sounds like they didn't have anything beyond their vows. Maybe it's the way they wanted it, but that's a ceremony that sounds like it received no nourishment.
Growing a ceremony takes ideas.
1. An officiant's speech. The officiant has a lot of power in weddings. Their initial words can set the tone to the wedding - will it be serious? Religious? Romantic? Funny? I've seen variations to all of these and enjoyed each of them, so it's an aspect that's very important to me. One of Dr. Light's best friends is our officiant, and I'm so excited to have him marry us.
2. A reading or a song. This continues to set the tone. I'm really lucky - I have friends who play as a trio right now, and I fully intend on asking them to do us the honor of playing a piece during our ceremony. Nothing too long, but I hope it will help our guests feel the love we'll be experiencing up there on the stand.
3. A unity celebration. I'm not a huge fan of things like unity candles or the vases filled with sand because they're just extra "stuff" to me. Slipping on the rings is our statement of unity. We won't have on of these, but I felt it was worth mentioning.
4. Writing our own vows. I have this little thought that including vows, we could each tell the other one why we love each other. It doesn't have to last a long time, but it's a perfect reflection of why we're there. "Dr. Light, I love you because you drink milk with dessert." Ok, maybe not that, but you get my drift.
How are you thinking of "growing your ceremony" without it seeming stagnant? What have you seen at other ceremonies that you want to incorporate into yours?
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Meet the Dress
I've been kind of dragging my feet on officially presenting my dress. I ask that if you are an attending member of the wedding and want to remain "spoiler free," also refrain from clicking the link.
That being said, let's meet the dress!
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