A look into our anniversary weekend…

He makes me work hard for my food.

Really…

Really…

Hard.

No, he didn’t make me do it.  I actually voluntarily decided it would be fun to chop wood with a hatchet.  Good times.

We had a civilized weekend as well, complete with indoor plumbing, showers, and wine.  So don’t worry, we didn’t spend the entire time roughing it (even though I would have LOVED that!)

Cute little B&B we enjoyed.

Fun stuff in Dubuque – 4th St. Elevator.

This guy built it so that he could get home for lunch without taking his horse/buggy on the hour long RT trip up the bluff.  And then his neighbors caught on…and it burned to the ground…and he rebuilt it.  And now it’s just this cute little elevator!

Going up…

Not the most stable and secure mode of transportation, let me tell you…

Still on our way…

The cool old turnstile, which was from fair or something…I forget now.

The view…

The little elevator car on it’s way up.  If you look closely, you can see that the left side of the elevator (the side closest to the top of the hill) has no door or window – it’s completely open!  You could just jump right out!

We walked around a bit, and of course DH engaged in one of his favorite pastimes – berry picking!  They were EVERYWHERE!

And then we stumbled upon this lovely terrace – who wouldn’t want this for a nice place to enjoy the view?

Seen around town…

The lock & dam

We also enjoyed a little window browsing while we were there, and a delicious dinner out on the town.

Happy anniversary!

My adorable niece and nephew with my Aunt Pam and her new puppy Daisy.

How cute are they?  Eeeeek!

I just HAVE to share this totally geeky thing that I love:

It’s an SD card for your camera that snaps and goes right into your USB port on your computer – no cords required!  My dad got me one of these a couple of years ago and I thought I’d break it, but it has lasted and I LOOOOOOOOOVE it!

I hate cords and desk clutter and keeping track of all that type of stuff, and since I’m taking pictures almost every day and wanting to post them immediately, this little gadget makes it so much easier for me.

Get thee to Amazon and try it out  I have a measly 1 GB one from the Dark Ages.  Maybe I’ll upgrade sometime soon.

I mentioned in a previous post that we had started planning our wedding before I had a ring on my finger.  Now you get the details of how it all went down when DH popped the question!

It’s actually quite a complicated and dramatic story, one which includes me traveling via plane to 5 different states in less than a week, and then the official proposal several weeks later.  Unfortunately whenever I tell this story, there’s so much that happened that it takes FOREVER to tell.  And there’s probably way more detail that I remember that y’all don’t care about.  So I’ll try to keep this concise.  (Note that I said try.)  It would be super neat if I could get a map with all of the flight routes taken for this…but I don’t know how to do that.

Late Nov/ early Dec 2007 We start talking about engagement because DH is finishing grad school and applying for jobs all over the country and has interviewed at one very promising college.  Internally, I am fuh-reaking out because I need to know the question that every girl would want to know: what does this all mean for us?

Dec 19th, 2007 I fly home to MN to be with my parents for Christmas for a few days, while DH sticks around in Massachusetts for a couple more days.

Dec 21st, 2007 DH gets a phone call from the dean with a GREAT job offer, and he has until January 2nd to decide!  Yikes!  We both start getting nervous and anxious and realize we have some big decisions to make, but we’re on opposite sides of the country.  Ahhhhhhh!  After much discussion, we decide that we need to spend some time talking through stuff in person. A very expensive last minute plane ticket is bought, and many complicated travel arrangements are made.

Dec 25th, 2007 DH somehow manages to have his flight to Denver canceled and ends up spending Christmas in MA, and then flying to Denver the next day and getting stuck there with his cousins on his way home to western Nebraska.

Dec 27th, 2007 I fly from MN back to Massachusetts to photograph a wedding the next day.

Dec 28th, 2007 I photograph the morning wedding, and then leave straight from the reception to go back to the airport.  I spent less than 24 hours in MA!  My flight takes me to DC and then out to Denver, where DH is staying with cousins because there was some screwy flight stuff going on.  I arrive at some unGodly late hour and receive a very welcomed hug.

Dec 29, 2007 DH and I fly to Alliance, Nebraska and are able to finally relax after an exhausting week of travel.  We ended up spending the next few days talking, praying, going for some walks, hunting, and hanging out in the hot tub.

Dec 31st, 2007 We both realize that this job opportunity is too good to pass up, and that DH’s life would suck alone.  Mine too.  And I don’t want to move halfway across the country without some kind of commitment.  SO…..we decide we want to get married!  Eeeeeek!

Jan 2nd, 2008 DH calls my dad and officially asks him – my dad is super encouraging and gives us his blessing. We then call the dean and DH accepts the job.  Then we run upstairs and gleefully tell DH’s dad and stepmom.  They were so adorable and got all teary-eyed!  We toasted with some squirt, and then DH had to take me to the airport  I proceed to fly to St. Louis (you tracking still???) for our IV staff conference, arriving a day late…thanks Scott for approving that!

Jan 5th, 2008 I arrive back in MA after a few days in STL, attempting to hide the fact that DH and I are getting hitched from all of my coworkers until we can tell some more of our family and close friends together.  I actually fooled quite a few of them who thought we were breaking up!

Jan 12th, 2008 After telling friends and family, we go ring shopping together.  We purchase my engagement ring, I get it sized, and then DH gets it to officially pop the question.  I know, this probably seems silly, especially since at this point we had already decided a date and a location, and I’d reserved the photographer.  But, I’m old fashioned and wanted DH to actually ask.  *shrugs*

Jan 19th, 2008 After guessing and hoping all week long, DH surprises me by getting me all dressed up and taking me up to the top floor of the UMass library (it’s the best view!) and then out for a fancy dinner.  He starts saying all these wonderful and sweet things during dinner (sorry, you don’t get to hear that part) and proceeds to pull the ring box out of his jacket…..BUT I fuh-reak out and ask him to wait!!!    Ummmmmmm.  Yeah.  I’m a dork.  I just could not handle such a big moment happening in front of all of those strangers!  And I still can’t believe I interrupted him!  DH was super sweet and immediately understood.  We finished dinner, stopped by the grocery store to pick a few things up, and back at his house he gave me flowers and proposed to me!  Woohoo!

I hope you enjoyed my little trip down memory lane yesterday.  It was fun to remember the sweet beginnings of our relationship!

In continuation of Wedding Week 2009, today I’m going to sort of evaluate the good, bad and ugly parts of our wedding day.  Nope, not going to evaluate the marriage – sorry if you’re disappointed and were hoping for some ugly stories!  Things are great in the marriage department  Nope, you get to read an evaluation of the actual day of sha-bang.

I’ll try not to bore you too much and make it fun and light hearted. And hopefully someone else will be blessed by the joys of our wonderful wedding day, and I bet our mistakes will be helpful learning experiences for someone else as well.  Here we go!

The GOOD

1. The music and entertainment!

After several conversations and some negotiations, DH convinced me to have a Contra Band at our reception.  You probably have no clue what that means – contra dance is a type of dancing that is sort of a mix between square dancing and English line dancing.  It is HUGE in New England, and became a favorite weekend date activity before we got married (sadly, there’s not nearly as much of a Contra presence in the midwest for us to enjoy).  DH contacted a musician we met in Greenfield (the contra hub of the US) and he put together a band for us.  I was super nervous because we never heard them play together ahead of time, plus it was fairly important for us to have a good caller that could help direct the many contra newbies that would be in attendance.  We ended up scoring big time!  They were amazing.  Almost everyone was up on their feet dancing late into the night.

We knew that we would need a DJ as well for special songs and to satisfy the comforts of some of our guests, and we were blessed to have one of DH’s best friends from college DJ for us.  We had a ton of fun at our reception and lots of people commented on how they loved all the great music!

2.  Flowers

Okay, I know I promised I wouldn’t talk about flowers, but here’s my one chance!  I knew early on that flowers can be ridiculously overpriced, so I was on the hunt for a budget-saving way to pull it off well.  Enter two wonderful friends of ours – Lois and Anna!  Lois has done wedding flowers for several wonderful ladies, and Anna studied something having to do with landscaping and architecture (oh man, I’m totally getting that wrong!  Sorry Anna!).  They graciously agreed to be my florists and were so great at putting things together.  I ended up ordering all of my flowers wholesale online, so they were delivered right to my house.  I ordered exactly what I wanted, and while some of my selections ended up being a bit different than I had hoped (colors weren’t 100% accurate online), they really made it work. They even added fresh flowers from their yards to some of the arrangements!  Lois and Anna did all of our flowers except our table flowers at the reception – this was easier and cheaper to have a local florist do.

Even now when I look at our pictures, the flowers that Lois and Anna did are just breathtaking!

3. Reception food/location

I think we made this decision before I had a ring on my finger! (More on that story later…) We had our reception at the Delaney House, and I am so glad we did. Food was important to us, and we really wanted to host our guests well, and this place did not disappoint.  The food was absolutely spectacular and the setting is just so elegant.  It was one of the best deals we could find for our medium-sized-ish Friday wedding, and I am soooooo glad we went with them.

4. Photography

This is a tough one because I have such high standards for photography.  Our photographer did a magnificent job capturing a lot of great moments.  We ended up with many beautiful images to chose from.

However, she did miss a lot as well, and there was a slightly stressful moment when it began to rain right as we were supposed to take some family pictures that I didn’t really appreciate.  I was also less than thrilled with the confusing pricing structure for her albums and lack of artistic editing – that was a HUGE disappointment, and one that I wish I had seen ahead of time.  If I had known all of this, I wouldn’t have paid in advance for an album and would have paid the difference to design it myself.  All of the images from this blog post are edited by yours truly and are from pages of the album that I am in the midst of designing for our parents (a very LATE Christmas gift!)

5. Personalizing our ceremony

After going to seven weddings within a year of getting hitched myself, I had seen A LOT of ceremonies.  And they’re all basically the same, except with different colors  Not to be cynical, but weddings do tend to mush together in your mind after you’ve been to a handful of them.  So it was important to us to try to make ours reflect us and what type of commitment we were making to each other and before God.

We based our ceremony off of the one in the Book of Common Prayer, and adapted a few elements and changed weird wording.  Instead of lighting a unity candle, we took communion as a couple, our first act as a married couple.  This was such a great moment for us!  We also had our wedding party say several short prayers for us (which are included in the marriage ceremony in the BCP).

Now it’s time for the Bad.

1. Getting married in the middle of July + no AC= misery.

We didn’t really have much of a choice on wedding dates, but we sure picked a doozy in terms of weather.  It was probably 94 degrees outside the day we got married, and the humidity had to be in the upper 70s – we were sticky and sweaty and just plain gross.  To make things worse, our church had no AC!  Our poor pastor was dripping buckets up there!  Luckily, my dad and our best man thought ahead and got a cooler of cold drinks to stash under the first pew, as well as some slightly damp rags to dab sweaty foreheads during the ceremony.  I wish I would have thought to provide some hand fans, because only made enough ceremony programs for each couple/family, and they ran out rather quickly because of the heat.  Thank goodness our reception site had AC!

2.  Leaving so quickly

We had a very narrow time window for our honeymoon, and so we booked our flight out of NYC for the next day.  Looking back, I wish we had waited an extra day so we could have stayed later with our guests and not been so exhausted when we arrived on our honeymoon.

And word to the wise – don’t move two days after getting back from your honeymoon.  It stinks saying goodbye to friends at your wedding.

The UGLY

1. My dress

Actually, I loooooooooved my dress.  I wish I could find an excuse to wear it again.  I hated looking for dresses, so to actually find one that I liked at all was a miracle.

(No, I don’t have two heads – that’s just a layout trick for printing later on…)

What was ugly, however, was the bustle. Not the bustle itself, but the whole process of getting the dang thing bustled. My seamstress had graciously given me two bustle options, however one of my bridesmaids sort of forgot how to do them…and well, it ended up taking like 20 minutes!  Which meant everything at our reception had to be pushed back by 20 mins.  Not a huge deal, but we had to basically shave off an entire set from the band and miss out some dancing!  Major bummer.

Word to the wise – get an easy bustle, and make sure your bridesmaids know what they’re doing!

That’s all for the ugly – there was really only that one major hiccup.  Everything else went really smoothly!  We are so grateful to have such a joyous celebration with close friends and family, and an amazing wedding to remember.

In celebration of our upcoming first anniversary, I thought I’d put together a few wedding/marriage related posts.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to go on and on about flowers and crinolines (okay, maybe I will…I haven’t written all of the posts yet), but hopefully I’ll share a few stories that you’ve never heard!

If you didn’t already guess from the title, this week you’re going to hear the story of how DH and I first met and got acquainted!  It’s a cute story.  But I’m biased, of course!

Way way way back in the day (2005) I moved to western Massachusetts to start my first job after graduating from college.  I was eager to make friends and find a welcoming church community, so my roommates and I set out one Sunday morning to go church “shopping.”  It was the first Sunday of the academic year, so there were tons of students at the church we visited and everyone was super friendly.  I loved it there!  Even better – they had a “20-somethings” growth group (code for Bible study) that met every week.  Score!

I wasn’t really paying attention during the announcement of said group gathering, but thankfully my roommate was.  She ended up getting the phone number of the guy in charge, and two nights later, she dragged me and our other roommate to the little gathering.

I was pleasantly surprised by the lively group – mostly grad students, but some young professionals, and a few local folks that had stuck around in the area.  It was an odd bunch (let me tell you…but that’s Amherst for ya!) and it was a little uncomfortable having three new people show up all at once and being put on the spot, but I really enjoyed the community and felt like it was a place I would be encouraged in my faith.

And…..there were boys.  :-)  I fully admit to letting my eyes pass around the room and sorta evaluating the possibilities.  Some nice guys for sure! And who happened to be in the room but my future husband!  But I had no clue at the time.  And honestly, I didn’t really notice him other than that I thought that he seemed like a shy nerdy guy with funky fashion taste.  That was about it.

I think we both wish we could say it was mutual love at first sight, but sorry folks, not true.  I didn’t have a clue what a gem DH would turn out to be.

But apparently, he noticed me. And I bet DH wishes he could say that he whisked me off my feet with the one-liner that supposedly bounced around in his head (“Who’s that foxy Dane?”), but alas, no.  Many, many, many months later – a year and a half! – and after coming to my sense about what a great guy he is, which then led to a dropping of the hint by yours truly (all it took was my AIM address in one mass email to our whole Bible study group) and subsequent flirty, conversations, and several ambiguous and awkward dates, he finally let the cat out of the bag that he liked me.  *swoon*

Ah, young love.

We’re closing in on our one year anniversary next week! It’s crazy that it’s already been one year. We’re loving it

In celebration of the big event (well, right now, we don’t really have anything planned…) I’m going to recount and share some of the fun stories from our wedding last year. I’ll try to keep it from getting boring and too wedding-y

A little preview…

And if you still haven’t voted on my poll about what to name my photography business, make haste and go do it!

For a long time I’ve toyed with the idea of starting my own photography business, but I’ve never had the guts to do it.  I know a lot of people think that just because they have a digital camera, or just because they have an SLR, that that means they’re capable.  But I just never felt confident enough to really go for it.

It all started in high school when I took a graphic design/art course that included B&W film photography.  That’s the whole reason I took the class!  I loved it.  Somewhere around that time, my parents gave me my first “real” camera – a Pentax Z-27.  I took SO many photos with that camera.  It lasted me all the way through college, a trip to France (where I took some of my absolute favorite photos), and the B&W fine art photography class I took at Colby.  Thanks to my wonderful professor and the AMAZING facilities (seriously, I have never seen a photo studio quite like it – it’s wonderful), I learned a TON about composition, proper exposure, developing, mounting, and presenting high quality photographs.  I still have my portfolio of hard copy black and white prints, done by yours truly, and I even have some of my mounted final prints…somewhere.  They need to be framed.

Paris 2004 (taken with my dad's digital camera)

Notre Dame, Paris. January 2004 (Pentax Z-27 film)

The Metro. Paris, France. January 2004 (Pentax Z-27 film)

All was wonderful with my love of photography and art (I was a studio art major – painting was my main focus, but if photography had been a choice, I would have done it).  However, it was about the same time I took my college course that digital photography was starting to filter into professional photography.  Equipment was getting cheaper, and computer editing was getting more robust.  Bummer for me – all those lovely skills gone to waste.

Except, not really.  All the principles still applied – expose it right the first time, don’t rely on cropping for a good composition, take your time but take lots, etc.  But there was a lot to learn.  And it intimidated the crap out of me.  Not gonna lie.  But I didn’t give up, I just kept taking pictures on my film camera and resisted going digital…until my job forced me to.  :-)  I got a dinky little point and shoot that sufficed for necessary job related photos, but secretly pined for something better.  I missed my SLR and the beauty it could capture.

Boundary Waters, MN (Canon P&S)

Then, my dad became my first real photography investor – he paid for my first digital SLR camera, a Pentax K10D, as a Christmas/birthday gift in 2006.  I agreed to pay him back (still haven’t fulfilled that promise…) and happily went on my way to geeky photographic bliss.  I was in luuuuuuurve.  I snapped pictures like crazy over the holidays, it was a blast.

Spring 2007. Amherst, MA (Pentax K10D)

Bridge of Flowers, Shelburne, MA. June 2007 (Pentax K10D)

About two months later, I went to visit friends at my alma mater in Maine and brought my camera with me and my arsenal of lenses (I think I had three at this point, dSLR kit lens, film SLR kit lens, and a long zoom cheapie Tamron that my mom had given me a few years before as a gift).  Took loads of pics, and my friend Jonathan then proceeded to ask me to photograph his wedding!  I was completely flattered, but fuh-reaked out of my mind.  I had no idea if I could actually handle it, but Fat (as he is known) was insistent that it would be fine.  I told him I didn’t want to be paid because I was worried my photos would suck, and that really, this was my gift to them.  He agreed, and plans were made for their June 2006 wedding.

In preparation, I just practiced like crazy.  I even used my roommate as a model at one point!  Thanks Kristen! I also acquired a flash and a diffuser, both confusing tools I had never used.  The flash baffled me.  I admit, it still kinda baffles me.  All of my experience before this had been natural light only, I was completely out of my league.  But I persevered, and I got some amazing photos at their wedding.  I was so pleased with how it turned out.  Now when I look back, I’m totally critical…and because of that, you don’t get to see any pics.  For now.

Fast forward a few months later, and another friend of mine asks me to photograph their wedding in December 2007!  I guess something is catching on.  With a little experience under my belt, I’m more okay with it this time and agree to do it, as long as they pay me a tiny little bit.  We do a fun engagement session in October (which was probably one of my FAVORITE photo sessions ever!) and I do their wedding in December.  Both super fun and pretty successful (see, I’m still critical!)

Scott & Colleen's engagement session - unedited (Pentax K10D)

Scott & Colleen (Pentax K10D)

Scott & Colleen (Pentax K10D)

They're hitched! Scott & Colleen 2007 (Pentax K10D)

Since then, I haven’t done as much photography.  Getting married and moving left little time for it.  But once settled into Grinnell, I’ve been able to do some here and there, and do some for my job.

Well, last week I asked the director of communications (or something like that) if I could be a photographer at Urbana.  He seemed positive about it, and asked if I could post a portfolio for him.

AND NOW I get to the point (you’re probably all breathing a sigh of relief since this has turned into a book).

I’m not necessarily going to start a business, but I am going to start an online gallery & portfolio that might have the ability to become something more.  Who knows what will happen, but I’d love to keep going with this passion that I treasure.

So here’s where I need your help.

I need to figure out what to call this thing.  Most photographers tend to name businesses after their name, and I generally like this idea.  But I’m up for creative suggests.  If I go by my name, then I have to finally decide between my full first name, and what everyone generally calls me.

I know, I know…this shouldn’t be a big deal. But it IS.  I want to know what you guys think.

Here’s some ideas you can vote on:

[polldaddy poll=1769036]

I’ll let you know when I decide and when my portfolio is up!

My former punk-rock DJ of a husband told me yesterday that there is a song called “The Day That Farrah Fawcett Died”.  Kind of a morbid title if you ask me, but it was originally written maybe 20 years ago, so I think it was more a tribute to her pop-culture icon status.

I had no idea this even existed, but DH insisted on playing it yesterday on our stereo.  It’s by the Vandals.  I don’t know how to describe it, but it was odd listening to that song on the actual day that it describes.

And then we found out Michael Jackson died too.  Whoa.  Really?  I couldn’t believe it.  A bittersweet day for pop-culture junkies for sure.  And I was even a little bit sad – MJ gave us Billie Jean, the moonwalk, hyperbolic sleeping chambers, the best music videos ever, and probably was a person that paved the way for African Americans to have greater influence in our society.

Yesterday (well, technically, 4 AM today, but it felt like yesterday…) was also the day that we decided to sleep in the basement one last time because of the unbearable heat, and woke up to a bat flying around above our heads!

We some how finagled the thing outside, praise the Lord!  Actually, it was my husband who did the dirty work, while I squealed in fear underneath the sheets.  I have a friend named Amy who woke up to a bat sleeping right next to her, so I consider myself lucky!

The day that Farrah Faucet died, MJ died too, and we had an intimate encounter with a bat.  Weird day.