Free Wedding Photos

Chris Leary of Weddings by Chris Leary Photography is having an annual wedding photography giveaway.  If you or someone you know is getting married in the next year, this could be a wonderful gift.  In order to enter the giveaway each couple must write an essay or submit a video detailing why they would like to win free wedding photography.  The Chris Leary website has an online submission form and the deadline to enter the giveaway is February 28, 2010.  The lucky couple to win will receive 8 hours of wedding coverage by Chris Leary and one other photographer, an 11x14 signed print, and a disc with all the high-resolution wedding images.
Although Chris Leary is located in New York, he states that he loves to travel, so do not let the distance be a hinderance to your entry.
Good luck to all of you who choose to enter!  I hope one of my readers will be the lucky winner.
Click here to enter the wedding photo giveaway.

I Love Being Married (Most of the Time)

I absolutely love my husband and I truly love being married, although there does exist a day here and there when I miss little anecdotes of my single days.  My husband is great, he truly tries his best to work on all his bad habits and do things to make me happy.  I can sometimes give him a hard time when he falls short and I'm the one who tends to end up feeling badly because I didn't recognize all the things he has done, but still pointed out the one thing he hasn't done.  Well, today I'm letting the entire internet world know how much I love and appreciate my other half.

My spouse is a far cry from perfection and so am I.  However, we are perfect for each other.  We have different outlooks on many things, but there are some areas where we completely see eye-to-eye.  Parenting is one area where most of the time we are in agreement.  Some of are interests also align, like watching movies, trying new food and drinks, going new places, traveling entertaining friends, and playing games.  That makes our relationship fun and exciting since we do a lot of fun things together. 

I miss my husband when he is away and when I say “away” I am referring to the several hours he spends at work.  In the 4 years that we’ve been married he has only gone out of town once for a weekend where he was in his friend’s wedding.  I was pregnant at the time and really didn’t want him to go, but he took our 2 year old with him so I was able to get some time to myself.  I say all that to say he is usually in town, but I still find myself missing him when he is at work or on the rare occasion that he is hanging out with his friends. 

Like I said, I love my husband and I love being married.  It is great to go to bed with someone you love and spend time enjoying each other and your interests each day.  That is what makes life wonderful.  If only we could survive off of love and quality time alone. 

If you feel this way about your mate, leave a comment and share about your marriage or how you think your married life will be once you exchange your vows.

When I was engaged to be married there were many changes taking place in my life.  I was in the middle of purchasing two houses, started a new job, moved into temporary campus housing at the school where I worked, had to move all my things and drive my car to Atlanta where my husband-to-be lived, rent out a condo and plan the wedding.  I had a lot going on.  I was not able to really focus on my actual wedding.  I found a wedding planner and gave her a long list of things I did not want and told her to run with it.  She and my husband-to-be, at the time, put everything together.  However, if I could do it all over again here is a wedding scenario that would be wonderful:

I would have a traditional videographer as well as a cinematic videographer.  I would like to have the traditional video as a way of reliving my wedding exactly as it happened.  However, the cinematic video would serve as the video we show to friends and family or showcase at our 10th, 25th or 50th anniversary party.  This video would leave out any mishaps like the minister mispronouncing my name or shots of me trying to scarf down food before we have to greet our guests.  Instead, this video would show all the great moments as a short film.

Secondly, I would want a better photographer.  Our photographer was not too bad at the picture taking, however we've been married three years and we still do not have our wedding photos.  Granted I lost touch when the photographer was traveling back and forth to Miami, but I've recently tried to get back in touch to no avail.  

Another major change would be the location.  I would love to get married on a beach or one of those really picturesque places with a beautifully manicured garden overlooking a lake.  I am a water lover and  any ideal wedding would involve some surrounding water.

The food.  I love to eat, but at my wedding I didn't get to eat.  I took two bites of my food and my family told me to greet my guests.  The little I did eat was not my absolute favorite, my steak was overcooked and the side dish was not memorable.  The caterer also catered the rehearsal dinner and the food was AWESOME, so maybe we just made a bad choice it the items that were served at the wedding.  To do all over again, I would love a really good jambalaya or a great Italian spread.  My husband is not a big fan of pasta so the jambalaya would probably be the better option since it's his wedding too.  

Next, I would change the colors.  I like the colors that my husband chose, but they seem like colors chosen by a man: crimson, cream and chocolate.  I actually still can't come up with color options, but I just know that something else would have been my preference.  Maybe  a dark gray and melon or violet and medium gray.  As you can tell, I like gray and that would have most like been one of the colors.

I also would have liked to get married in a place where our entire family could come.  We got married in a state where our family did not live because of budget restrictions, but it would have been nice for every single one of our friends and family to be a part of our embarking on a new journey.

Lastly, the dress.  Although I really liked my dress, I would now prefer to have a one-of-kind dress made just for me.  I would love a beautiful material and a traditional style with no beads or sequins or any of those other frills.  I just want a simple, classic and elegant gown.

My Wedding - Part 1 - The $5000 Budget

As one of my first posts I would like to tell you a bit about my own wedding.   I was so excited that I was getting married, that I never fully made my wedding my own.  I had always wanted to get married, but I never really pictured my wedding day.  With that said, I had no clue what I wanted in a wedding.

To start the planning process, my husband-to-be and I set a budget.  He and I had initially planned to get married on a $5000 budget. To save money we planned to get married on his cousin's property, which was over 10 acres and had a lake.  Then we considered having our family members prepare all the food.  We are both from California and all of our family still lives there so we figured we would save money by having our wedding in Georgia.  With people having to travel to our wedding, it would considerably cut down on the number of people that would show up.  Don't get me wrong, I would have loved to have everyone that I know see us share our vows, but the budget did not allow for that.

We had to pick a date because there would be no planning without a date.  We chose August because my love proposed in June and we thought July was simply too soon.  His birthday is in September and I didn't want to share my anniversary with his birthday month and November and December are holiday months and the same sharing problem applied.  That only left August and October and since patience is a virtue that constantly has me working toward improvement, I of course opted for the closest date.

When I said that I had no clue what I wanted in a wedding, I was not kidding.  I didn't even have any ideas for colors so my husband chose the colors: cream, crimson and chocolate.  I would not have picked those for my wedding, but since I didn't have any colors to counter with at the time, we went with his choices.