Wedding Inspiration Board - Which One Is Ours??

Posted by Liana at 10:44 AM

While doing research a while back, I stumbled upon this innovative site called Polyvore that lets you incorporate images from the web (mostly apparel) into a sort of collage that links back to the original source.

There was this dress I REALLY liked and just had to have... so it was as simple as clicking on the image of the dress to figure out that it retails for $5,699 and no I wouldn't be getting it after all. Haha. Well, it's great for retailers because people go on there and design outfits (for free) and then suddenly that dress or those earrings are being bought up like hotcakes.

One of the things a good wedding planner will help you with is coming up with Wedding Inspiration Board(s). You can call them whatever you wish but basically it gives a visual representation of what your wedding may look/feel like. Where it is, what you wear, what the colors are, what details you will be including, etc. If you're not sure what type of wedding you want, it will help you decide when you see all the choices. We do something similar in my Photo Biz Boot Camp and Brand Camp DVD for our own businesses... the Brand Board.

Now on to the fun part... we've finally booked a location and set a date... but are waiting for written confirmation before announcing it. I made a handful of Wedding Inspiration Boards for some of our different options. There's even a joke-board in there (it should be pretty obvious!!) I had to create JUST for Mikey!!

If you already know where we're having the wedding, you cannot participate... but if you do not know, go ahead and vote in the comments section for which wedding you think we'll be having!!!

Sunny Blue Beachy Wedding in Destin, FL
Mike and I both lived in Florida (him growing up, me for college at FSU) and have spent time down in Destin together before.


Exclusive, Exotic Wedding in Greece
This time last summer we spent 1/2 a month in Greece (our friend Susan came too..to shoot a wedding)... what a better place to get married than the place we both claim as one of the most beautiful places in the world?



Red Hot and Lime Wedding in Baja Mexico
We also have been to Mexico together with my family this past January and one of our favorite dates is going out for cheap, yummy mexican food. It would be a big fiesta!



Vintage Glam Wedding in Beverly Hills
Neither of us have spent time together in Cali but Mike went to high school in the OC and I speak at conventions out there about once a year. We're big movie-lovers so it would be natural to get hitched where they're made!


Romantic, Casual Wedding in the Countryside
Neither of us spend a lot of time together out in the "country" either but our favorite place is my back deck where we are surrounded by nature. I grew up out "in the country" (well, behind corn-fields) in Ohio so it would be fun incorporating this into our wedding.

and last but NOT least...

Hello Kitty Pretty-Princess Wedding in Talladega
Mike LOVES race-cars and Liana LOVES kitty-cats so having a Hello-Kitty wedding at the racetrack would be puuuuurfect!!


Okay... now that you've seen them all... let's see who knows us best... VOTE for which one you believe is our REAL wedding below :)


Disclaimer: None of the wedding dresses pictured in these are actually the one I will be ordering (for Mikey's sake so he'll be surprised).

Meet the Parents, Part Duex

Posted by Liana at 12:41 AM

There it was... item #2 on the wedding worksheet/checklist... right under ANNOUNCE ENGAGEMENT... ARRANGE FOR YOUR FAMILIES TO MEET, IF THEY HAVEN'T ALREADY...

Mike and I have spent some quality time these past few weeks making doodles next to the check-boxes of our wedding checklist that came nicely packaged in my wedding binder that Kimberly so sweetly surprised me with the day after we got engaged. My eyes must have been growing wider and wider by the minute as I realized planning a wedding in less than 12 months requires getting through a full page-and-a-half of the checklist to get "caught up" to where we should be. Ha!

We'd both met each other's parents long, long ago (or so it seems)... we see his parents regularly as they live in the area and Mike's been on vacation with my family a few times now... but they'd never met each other.

Anyways, mom came down this past weekend to take me on a grand tour of EVERY dress shop in Atlanta, Marietta, Roswell, and even down to Peachtree City. While I tried on just about every gown made by every designer... she was on a mad hunt for a petite-size mother of the bride's dress to wear next month for my sister's wedding.



Item #2 was arranged much quicker than we imagined... and without much effort... Dad drove in from working in FL... Mike's parents arrived back into town from a business trip late Saturday... so we all joined up for brunch on Sunday after church :)

Brunch was super yummy and our parents talked the whole time we couldn't get a word in! LOL. After the food was cleared, they stayed and kept talking for another hour or so ...and finally Mike and I were like "okay, time to go..." to actually get them to free up our table for someone else! Needless to say, it went smoother than either of us bet on and now we can move down to Item #3 and beyond such as DETERMINE WHO YOUR BRIDAL PARTY WILL BE and CREATE A WEDDING WEBSITE :)

Ashley and Brant's Wedding in Athens, GA

Posted by Liana at 11:02 AM

Last weekend we photographed an amazing wedding in Athens, GA. Ashley and Brant both went to UGA but it wasn't until they both went to study abroad in Spain that their paths collided.

The ceremony was so touching and emotional for everyone... I think it was tough for us to keep composure behind our lenses!! LOL. They got married right on the UGA campus in the chapel and then held a wonderful evening reception at the Taylor-Grady House just down the street.

Here are some layouts from their album (which I'm lovin'!) and also you can access their slideshow HERE.

Ashley and Brant in front of the Chapel


This one is going to look FAN-TASTIC in the album :) Love the chapel as the background :)


Some scene-setters after the ceremony


Sara shot these of them going through the arches for the first time as husband and wife :)



Such a darling reception! Here are some details



The newlyweds off to their honeymoon in St.Lucia (he surprised her on their wedding day with the location!)


Thank you Ashley and Brant for having us be a part of your amazing day!!

Talia and Adam's Wedding Featured in the Atlanta Journal Constitution!

Posted by Liana at 10:28 PM

I believe this was published while I was in Spain and I somehow overlooked posting it until now.

I just read the article and Talia is so super sweet (from the article) "Once dressed, the wedding party headed to the Fifth Street Bridge near the Biltmore for photographs. Guests had ridden Georgia Tech trolleys from the hotel to the church. Not willing to leave her alma mater out, DeLuca had a few UGA "G's" and bulldog decals added to the Tech trolleys.

Her favorite part of the wedding was taking the pictures."

If you want to see some of the awesome details they put together for the wedding you can watch their slideshow HERE.

I absolutely LOVE the lounge area they set up at their reception in the Biltmore Ballrooms.



***CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE***

Featured Details on Style Me Pretty Blog

Posted by Liana at 12:08 AM

As one to join the crowd of recently-engaged and loosing-their-mind-plowing-through-hundreds-of-vendor-research ...I've grown more and more appreciative of people like Abby Larson who host blog-meccas of information and inspiration. Hers is certainly for the style-conscious crowd looking for ideas and vendors. Check it out here.

I was super honored to be selected as one of her three photographers to recommend in her Little Black Book here in Atlanta... and now I'm able to REALLY appreciate first-hand what she does for future-brides like me :)

She recently featured Alecia and Nick's fabulous floral details from their Seaside, FL destination wedding last spring. Check out how cute their pup is all dressed up in formal attire!!

Featured Interview on F-Stop Beyond: July is for Creative Entrepreneurs!

Posted by Liana at 12:07 AM

A few weeks ago I had an awesome opportunity to chat with Ron Dawson of Cinematic Studios for the F-Stop Beyond Podcast. It turns out Ron went to the same high school (and was valedictorian) as my friend Bryant from church ...and he and his wife are also huge fans of my secret addiction So You Think You Can Dance because they used to dance too!



This month is all about creative entrepreneurs and you can actually listen to a new podcast each week which is a SUPER resource for photographers and other types of entrepreneurs even. My friend DJ is the week after mine so be sure to check out his interview too!!

Anyways... there's plenty of chit-chat on the podcast so CHECK IT OUT HERE or you can listen via the player below :)

F-Stop Beyond

Sneak Peak: Ashley and Brant Married!!

Posted by Liana at 10:15 AM

This weekend we had the opportunity to photograph the amazingly sweet wedding of Ashley and Brant up in Athens.

Here's a sneak peak I took when they were taking some alone-time in the church before the wedding. They choose to take all their portraits and formals ahead of time and it was SUCH an emotional first-meeting for them in the church but then again when she walked down the aisle (and afterwards too!!)

Cardboard Testimonies

Posted by Liana at 6:56 PM

My friend forwarded this to me today and WOW is this powerful. It's set to a song "He Loves Us" by John Mark McMillan (played at Hillside) that I heard earlier this year for the first time and my friend Tony plays for us often on the guitar. LOVE this song :)

Where in the World should we get married ??

Posted by Liana at 9:59 AM

WOW this planning stuff is difficult!!

I have a WHOLE new respect for my clients and what they've had to go through with research, planning, setting budgets with family, all the pressure and stress this world puts on us to have this perfect wedding. Or wait, maybe that pressure is self-induced from me being spoiled as a wedding photographer and having been to some pretty darn amazing weddings all over the world.

So here's the dilemma: We cannot officially set the date until we figure out Where in the WORLD are we going to get married??

Mike and I both love to travel and neither of us (nor our families) are originally from Georgia so we've known for a while that we'd like to have a destination wedding. We would still consider a local one but we're about 95% sure now that it's going to be a destination hopefully in February, March, or April next year.

I already am aware of quite a few amazing, unique, fun locations that we are considering... but I KNOW there has to be soooo many more out there that we're not finding that fellow industry professionals and others know about.

So below I've quickly thrown out some of the ideas we're having and we'd SOOO LOVE to hear of any places you'd recommend!!

Some ideas:

A super small wedding with just family and a few close friends in a Castle in Italy!!
(unlikely because of the Euro but yes it's an option)



A big wedding in Atlanta
(also unlikely because neither of us want a huge wedding nor want to stay local really)



An intimate destination wedding in a Vineyard in Napa or Sonoma


On some posh estate in Southern California



At a Luxury Villa in Turks and Caicos, Cabo, or Puerta Vallerta







At a resort in the lush Dominican Republic


In a crazy, unique hacienda in Yucatan Mexico




Of course these are just a FEW of our ideas and you can see we're realistically looking at California, the Caribbean, and Mexico and will probably make it a vacation and celebration for family and close friends.... BUT haven't decided anything... and are looking for more ideas :) :)

Thank you in advance for any ideas/suggestions/recommendations. When we eventually figure this out and pick the date then it's on to something even MORE difficult... determining the photographer!! LOL

More Pics of Me and My Fiancé :)

Posted by Liana at 2:06 AM

It's soooo weird to not call Mikey "boyfriend" anymore but fiancé. Fiancé, fiancé, fiancé. There I'm practicing :)

I totally missed a few hidden candid-camera pics including these two from Greece last summer and then the one of him giving me a hang-ten driving us around Mexico in January. He and our friend Susan (who is the one we can most thank for being the cupid in our story!!) came to Greece with me last summer to shoot Farrah and Nick's wedding and then tour around.

This one is from the Island south of where the wedding was, Zante, on this wicked cliff we found when driving up to the top of the Island to photograph shipwreck beach. He's pretty good at holding the 5d and taking a self-portrait of us, eh?



In Santorini, Greece in Oia town. SOOOOO freaking beautiful there!!!



Sweeeeeeeeeeet!!

The PURfect Proposal ( I'm Engaged!!! )

Posted by Liana at 11:41 PM

It's officially been over 24 hours now... so on to the juicy details!! Considering it may take a good week to dish out all the important stuff like how we met (many thanks to Delta canceling my flight two years ago and mutual friends from church for connecting us), the dating details, and all the fun stuff like ring shopping, and him asking my dad for my hand in marriage over 4th of July weekend... I'll save more in-depth recaps for future posts and get on to the PERFECT PROPOSAL details for now :)



I knew something MIGHT be up since he took me back to Tiffany's on Sunday after church and to the store where I found MY ring that I liked best... just to "make sure I really like it the best." Little did I know that he'd already purchased THE ring days earlier and this shopping trip was great for throwing-me-for-a-loop and adding to my confusion. Later that day he mentions it's time for us to celebrate our 1-year Anny on the 15th. I don't ask too many questions because I'm thinking this MIGHT just be THE occasion...but doubtful since he probably hasn't even picked the ring since we just went looking again.

Tuesday rolls around and after an hugely successful trip to Lenox mall's BCBG (can you say 70% off RUNWAY fashion!?? LUV me some BCBG!!) I land home in time with new work outfit, dress for my sister's rehearsal dinner, and a flowing summery white sheath perfect for a special date. He's running late but arrives looking more handsome than ever in my favorite color blue with a blue bag in tote.

We have this joke about Hello Kitty because I pretend to like it more than I do because I know it bugs him and he'll tease me about it and it's this constant goofy game we play... me being the annoying kitty-lover and him enabling me! LOL. Well, my anniversary gift is a 3-pack of Hello Kitty candy charm bracelets and I put one on immediately and proceed to bite pieces off as we race through Buckhead towards our dinner destination.


Look what I got on our 1-year anniversary: adorable Hello Kitty candy bracelets when he came to pick me up... and then a diamond engagement ring when he dropped me off :) I'll wear both with pride and joy! :)



Dinner and dessert was just as perfect as our first date... if not more so... because it's a replay of the same places we went for our first date minus the first-date jitters, plus lots of reminiscing about the past year and joking about how Mike grows sillier every day (indeed I'm rubbing off on him). Hahaha. We moved from our outdoor dinner at Horseradish Grill to the Grape in Vinings for chocolate dessert and champagne. I notice he has his phone very close by and start to wonder why he keeps telling me not to have too much Champaigne because he knows I'm tired (hey... I've been like a kid on Christmas eve not sleeping for 2+ weeks now!!) and he 'wants my attention' when we get back to my place. Hmmmm....

On the way home and a train holds up traffic and suddenly he's going 90 on the highway like we're in a hurry to get home for some reason. He's got that phone nearby still. I wonder if there's a ring hidden in his suit jacket that he hasn't brought out of the car all evening because that's the only place he could possibly hide it. We get out of the car and he walks me to the door empty-handed. Darn. Disappointment that I'm left with that little-kid-on-Chritsmas-eve feeling for who-knows-how-much-longer. Then I walk in the door and call out to Charlie and Grace.

All is dark in the house but there's music and lights coming from the back. Someone has been here! In a bout of nervousness I hop into the restroom and emerge minutes later to be escorted to my own back deck. On our first date we spent 5+ hours talking out there after dinner by the light of the tiki torches... it's my favorite place to be with him even to this day. I know by the flowers and candles and champaign though that this is more than a re-enactment of a first date... this is a start of something completely new to both of us... something we've been talking about and praying about for months and it's finally here.






He pulls me into a slowdance for a song or two. I marvel over his shoulder on my tip-toes to admire the twinkle lights, flowers, linens, and the transformation that has been made. The moon is almost-full over the opening in the trees... in perfect position and moving quickly to the right. "Who did all this!??" I wonder out loud, knowing one of my best of friends, Kimberly, obviously was in on it from her signature flower arrangements she always made for me when Mikey brought me flowers in the past. They were all over the deck now in different pretty colors. "My mom and Kimberly" Mike let me know. "Your mom!!" I had NO idea how many people he'd gotten in on the surprise. They'd obviously all put a lot of thought into everything... Mike leading the way of course.






The dance is over and I know what's coming and his sweet, poetic words start the tears a pourin. He's got a handkerchief in his back pocket... a REAL one... not kleenex... and through my tears I object for a second not wanting to ruin it. He talks about the past, the present, and our future together. He prays for us. The tears really come then. I try my best not to choke on them... oh Lord what am I going to do when I'm actually saying vows if I can hardly hold it together now?? LOL. Then it's up on our feet again and now everything is a blur but then he's on his knees with a box in his hand and the next thing the pretty PURfect beautiful diamond engagement ring is on my finger... "no, honey, not the right hand... the left hand" and he finally admits his nervousness. There's more dancing and finally the Asti is opened and then the calls to mom and dad and Kimberly because I know she's up still and she HAS to hear from me ASAP :)






I try my best to not turn instantly into bridezilla pretty-princess-planning mode and instead savor the last few minutes we have together on the transformed deck before it's time to say good night. I find the pictures from Greece of his that I picked up from the lab today and bid him good night and hop into bed. I wonder if you're supposed to wear diamond rings to bed and figure I will... at least for the first night...until I figure that out... and fall asleep quickly with a smile in my heart...


..... and now on to the pictures....

So pretty! Mikey brought me carnations on one of our first dates and explained, no he isn't cheap... it's the Ohio state flower (where I'm from!) So thoughtful!!




The Ring. It's on a REAL handkerchief that he had stored in his back pocket and pulled out when I started to sniffle/cry. I was like "I don't want to ruin this it's too nice!!"



The Ring is a Scott Kay Crown Vintage Setting... beaaauuuutiful, IMHO. He took me to look at Tiffany's (and other stores too) to look but this was the ONE I knew is PERFECT despite my Tiffany-blue-box-luv :) Hehe.



Flowers and Candles Kimberly put together for us when she and Jason snuck in to help Mikey's parents set everything up.



Ooooh how cute/purfect are these linens?? Mikey's mom picked them out and set them up and Kimberly did the arrangements just like she did with the ones Mike originally got me.




I just couldn't decide what I liked to photograph the ring on best.. so I tried it all :)









And of course like anyone who does it for a living, I forget to take many pictures of ourselves so most of the pics I have of us are self-portraits on a tiny point and shoot camera.

Here's a bunch of us from this past holiday season... New Years Eve, my birthday last year....


....getting all muddy ATVing in the jungle in Belize...


....floating down a river in Belize after cave tubing...


...being goofy on that trip (Lehman family vacation cruise in January)....




...him looking super handsome all dressed up for dinner...


...and us hanging on the back deck during his surprise birthday luau we had here last month...
.

A day later I don't think the full reality has set in yet because today was such a whirlwind but I'm so at peace and excited for the future and tonight I rest again thanking God for this amazing man He's put in my life to share and grow with... together soon as husband and wife :)