OUR WEDDING!!!

Sorry, it's been a while since I blogged cause I have been a little busy... Pete and I got married!!!

I owe so many people a big thanks for all the hard work and time they put into the big day! I had relatives and friends stringing lights, hanging lanterns, setting up tables, and millions of other tasks as we had almost a week of festivities (and meals) to plan!

Most of all, I need to thank my mother who was amazing! From planting carload after carload of flowers in the yard to cutting and pasting together decorations, to coordinating every meal, thinking about every detail, and making it all look gorgeous! I have to thank her too for putting up with me! After 4 years of shooting weddings I was a little "wedding-ed out" when it came to planning my own. But I warmed up to it and ended up loving every second of it- there was something magical about getting so many important people in our lives together, and Pete and I both feel so grateful for everyone's love and support!

We had the wedding on a perfect late summer day up at my parents lakehouse in Michigan. We had cocktails followed by the ceremony on the front lawn with Pete's Dad as the officiant, he got ordained online and he did an amazing job! I think he has a new career calling ; ) After the ceremony we had the guests move through the house to the back yard for dinner, dancing and an amazing sunset over the lake followed by a small fireworks display and star gazing from the decks over the bluff. I still can't imagine how we could have done it any better- it was wonderful!

Our inspiration for the wedding decor was really the lakehouse itself. I knew immediately when planning that it was the only place I wanted to get married. The time of year, degree of formality, number of people and everything else changed quite often though ; ) The house is set high on a bluff overlooking the lake with amazing views and the house has lots of stone and wood throughout. We brought in the blues and greens of the lake as our main colors and many "natural elements" like rocks to hold down table cards, wooden mats on the buffet table and sand in the candle vases.

I have always been obsessed with maps and incorporated Michigan maps into the table numbers, place cards, hotel guest bags, photo booth and anywhere else we could think of.

Pete is quite the beer connoisseur so we thought it would be fun to serve up some of our favorite local brews to our guests.

We got the flowers from the local farmers market- we talked to the ladies at one of our favorite flower stalls ahead of time with the simple direction we wanted everything to look "natural and wildflower-ey" and they did a fantastic job, at a bargain price!

Instead of giving away take home gifts to our guests, we decided to make a donation in their honor to the Great Lakes Alliance, this fantastic organization works to keep our great lakes clean and beautiful.

We found Crate & Barrel tablecloths and napkins that incorporated a bunch of fun colors and used that as our guide for the paper lanterns, paper decorations and other colors we pulled in.

I had Sean Dorgan who I used to work with at an event photography company shoot the wedding for us (he handed over the raw files and I'm doing the editing). He did a great job- thanks Sean! My sister Morgan also got a ton of fun shots and of course I was out there with my camera too before the wedding to get some of the detail shots :) I'm also eagerly anticipating some photo files from friends and relatives who snapped some great shots- (hint hint people- send me your files :)

We drove up the Blue Star Highway before the wedding and had fun popping out of the car for pictures at sites we found along the way.




Back at the lakehouse, I changed into a more informal dress to greet the guests for cocktails.


After getting back in the wedding dress, we were all set to go!

Instead of a traditional wedding party we chose to have our family walk down the aisle including our nephew and nieces as our "flag children" :)





Our "wedding party" :)

















I set up a photobooth for the guests and we had people snapping photos in there all weekend, here is a small sampling....



The next morning at brunch we made sure to get some big group shots of the families.


Due to our work schedules we didn't have time for a long honeymoon (instead we are planning a delayed honeymoon to Italy in the spring) So we decided to take a mini-roadtrip and spend a few days exploring Toronto as neither of us had been.

We were impressed, so diverse and so much to do!

The Art Gallery of Toronto was very cool- Frank Gehry (a Toronto native) just renovated it!


Toronto even has islands which we took a ferry to then explored on bike- im always a sucker for boat rides!

We decided to go all "honey-mooney" and detoured by Niagara Falls on the way home. Awesome!


And for the grand finale- Pete surprised me by calling one of our favorite restaurants by the lakehouse and making sure our name would be on the marquee for the wedding day! Awe...what a catch my hubby is!

Thanks again to all our friends and family for helping to make our day so amazing! And I owe a thanks to all my brides and grooms who have trusted me to photograph their weddings over the years. I definitly got lots of inspiration from all of you!