Photoshop Fun

The best thing about getting digital copies from the photograph is that it gives me a good excuse to finally learn some neat tricks in Photoshop.

I saw this post on WeddingBee by Miss Gloss a few months back about Photoshop actions and knew I wanted to try them out. The actions are avialable for free download from The Pioneer Woman here and here.

It took me a little bit of searching on the internet to figure out how to load and run the actions into photoshop but for the most part they are really easy to use. When each action is run a dozen or so windows pop up where you can change the options. Since I am a "beginner" with this program and didn't really know what they were I just went with the defaults and waited to see what happened. As The Pioneer Woman states not all actions will look good with every type of photo but I think things turned out pretty well and I am excited to continue playing around.

Here are some examples of what I did. The original photo:



Soft and Faded


Heartland


Seventies


Sunshine


Vintage

Ceremony: Walking Down the Aisle

As my brother often says, Matt and I are not necessarily a traditional couple. We knew that we wanted our wedding to be outside, the more isolated the better. Fearing our family would not be willing to take a several mile hike or an adventure jeep ride to get to the wedding we settled on a spot about 500 meters from the car but full of beautiful Sedona scenery. We mentioned the crossing of the creek after we eased them into the idea we were not getting married in a church...

Here are a few shots of us "walking down the aisle" to our ceremony spot. Watch out over the next few weeks. We got our photo CD and I am not afraid to use it...


All photos from David Sunfellow Photography.

Yipee!! The photos are in the mail!

I just got an email that our photos from our ceremony in Sedona are in the mail! So exciting! They are also posted on Pictage so I have been resisting the temptation to go through them for the bizzilionth time.

I am also excited to see so many. We did a package deal through a Weddings in Sedona planning service and knew that we were guaranteed at least 80 digital pics. We got over 300 from a great photographer David Sunfellow. Now will come the challenge of what do to with them all!

Any ideas? What do you recommend as the best way to display photos? We were thinking of printing just a few for frames and making a Blurb book.

Cool Find of the Week

How fabulous is this idea? I saw it here from Offbeat Bride.



Not only did the bride rock an awesome red wedding dress but the wedding had tons of creative ideas. Here are thier words about the cutout:

" We blew our parents' wedding photos up to life size, cut out the faces, and put them on stands like a carnival photo opp. We got a Polaroid camera and asked guests to pose in the cut-outs and write a message to us on the photo (or take their own on their digital photos)."

So wish I would have seen this a few months ago.

Photobooth

I spoke with our photographer the other day. We discussed how we are going to turn this:


Gazzebbo from our venue


into this:





from Spencer Boerup Photography


from Molly Vaden Photography


from Calla Evans Photography

from Julia Williams Photography


from Pelaz Photgraphy

I have a bunch of props already - feather boas, fake mustaches, a sombrero, and other misc. things. I still need to get a sheet or piece of fabric to hang. I am super excitted about this project and can't wait to see the restults.

Anyone else doing a photobooth? What sort of props are you including?

DIY Project: Thank You Sign

Inspired by these:

From here.

From here.

From here.

From here.

I decided to make this:

In keeping with our papel picado banner decor I made a little flag for each letter. It was a really easy project. I printed out the letters using the same font as our STDs and Invitations. I worked out the number of banners so that the back side could say this:

I am not sure if I will print Thank You's with the sign picture but wanted to have a couple just in case. I plan on using pics with the Just Married sign in a wedding announcement card to other family and friends who can not make our celebrations. Hopefully our pics will be super cute!

More E-Ring Photos... But Better

I am very thankful to Sabrina from The Introverted Wife for using her awesome Photoshop skills to clean up our e-ring photos. You can see all of here work here. She is also looking to work her magic on some other ring photos. If anyone has some you should check out her blog.

The left is my original pic and the right is cleaned up.

click to enlarge.

One of my M&M pics was featured on the Weddingbee blog. They had been doing some really great tutorials and features of ring shots over the past month. Some additional great inspiration.

Welcome Obama Family!!

Yeah America! It was so exciting to watch the inauguration festivities today and I am so excited for America's new direction. I certainly wouldn't want to be putting the country back together right now but have faith that President Obama can to it!

Photo from US Weekly

How gorgeous did Michelle Obama look in this dress? I just loved how he asked "how good does my wife look?" when they walked out onto the stage at the Neighborhood Ball. You can tell how supportive and in love they are, what a marriage inspiration. I hope that after today's jam packed schedule of celebration the Obama's get to relax like they did after their wedding. See this post for their adorable wedding pic.

Cool Find of the Week

The week before New Year's is my favorite time of the year. No, not because I am still chowing down on Christmas goodies but because everywhere you turn there is a Year's Best of something and everything countdown. I am a girl who loves to reminisce...

I was so busy this year I missed out on watching, reading, and even writing my own Best of 2008 list. But recently I did come across this slideshow of the Best 2008 Wedding Images from the Best Wedding Photographers from Junebug Weddings.

Here are two of my favorites:I obviously love these because of the whimsical vibe of the wedding couples. And of course I love the short, sassy dress from the top.

I know the bottom image is also featured on the cover of the recently released Southern Weddings Magazine (how could you not of seen this one if you read wedding blogs), but where have I seen the top image before? I know it is familiar. If anyone knows, tell me because I would love to see more from this wedding.

Christmas Projects

I am home for the holidays, hence the lack of posting. First we are in Houston with Matt's parents and next in Nebraska to see my family. From about 70 degrees to -30 windchill. Yeah winter! Just because we are on vacation doesn't mean the wedding planning takes a break. We spent a few hours having a great time looking though old photos for a blast from the past album to display at the Fiesta and NE reception. Instead of a wedding slide show we are going to have a couple of photo albums - M & M In the Begining, M & M Fall in Love, and M & M Get Married. The last one will have photos from the ceremony for people to see because they won't be at the actual vow exchange.

Aren't we cute? Always the academics.















I found some great albums in our wedding colors for only a couple of bucks. They have space in the margins for labels and comments. I also will add a pen and a note to the albums instructing our guests to feel free to leave comments - facebook style. Hopefully we get some great insights from our guests. I am also excited since this isn't a traditional slideshow we can have the albums on display in our house. Since I spend so much time on the computer it will be nice to have actual, tangible, non-digital things to look at.

I love getting mail...

especially when it is wedding related mail. I don't necessarily like Bride's magazine but when I get that thick, overly pretentious monster of a magazine I can't wait to dig in. I sit down immediately and scan the pages crossing my fingers, hoping that finally I will see an ad for the dress of my dreams. After about page 50 I realize that giant poofy ballgowns made to fit size 2 are not really what I am looking for. This slowly sends me into what I have begun to call wedding-induced-stupper making me want to reach for a cupcake...

But not today! The mail was full of fabulous wedding related goodies. This immediately sent me into what I call a wedding-induced-upper! When I came home I saw and enormous box on the doorstop. (I have to admit I was thinking the registry fairy had made a delivery.) It was the Save the Date cards I won from Minted from a Blog contest.

I was so excited to win these so we would have STDs for the Nebraska reception. I am not really sure why 25 cards and envelopes needed to be in a box the size of a microwave. I only felt a little guilty about the environmental destruction this likely caused because I love mail so much, especially packages in the mail. The happiness that this giant package brought me, and therefore the gas saved from not making cupcakes in the oven, offset the footprint of making and sending this enormous box and nearly 4 lbs. of packing material. Don't you think?

The second fabulous wedding related mail item was our photo book from our engagement trip to Mexico. We made it using Blurb. So excited that I finally finished this (we got back 11 months ago). Instead of the childhood photo presentation (which must be another Midwestern wedding tradition because I have never heard of anyone else ever doing this), we are going to have this book and some other photos available at our Fiesta and Nebraska receptions. The last few pages of this book are my favorite. There is a photo we took after Matt asked me to marry him on a park bench in Mexico City as well as a scanned napkin of our wedding to-do list we made on the plane home. I think we are making progress on this list and about quadrupled it in size.


I love mail! I wonder if anything else will come this week...
Since I am talking about mail, I should also mention that last week I received another fabulous piece of wedding related mail. My sister-in-law Lindsay and some of my mom's friends are hosting a Bridal Shower for me when I am home in NE over the Christmas holiday. I received the invitation last week. They look great (thanks to my crafty inspiration- my Mom) and I am super excited for the shower (thanks Lindsay). My mom's friends are also super excited. A party at a winery in NE in the dead of winter seems to be the highlight of thier year.

Cheesy Photos

Why do engagement photos have to look cheesy? Couples staring lovingly into each others eyes, stealing kisses, and holding hands. Okay, so maybe in the end they don't all look cheesy but certainly doing it is completely awkward and unnatural. At least in front of strangers with a camera at least. Matt and I recently got our engagement photos and couldn't be happier with the end results. But I am wondering about all of those cheesy poses. What were we doing?. I have already posted some of our favorites but will use this opportunity to share the cheese. I blogged earlier about the session with Bride's for Brides Photography in Phoenix. They were great and even though we went in with a game plan of strictly no cheese, we should of discussed this with the photographer first. Once we got to the session our game plan went out the window. It was like we were on America's next top model with Tyra telling us every move. And sure enough we fell right into it - the staring, the kissing, the CHEESE!

Cheesy Shot #1: This is the begining and took us a while to warm up. It looks like we hardly know each other.


Cheesy Shot #2: Seriously. This was the most unatural pose. I am laying on top of Matt, in a dress no less. See the look on his face. He is saying get your elbow out of my back please.

Cheesy Shot #3: Matt looking like Joey from Friends. How you doing?

Cheesy Shot #4: Awkward kissing alert.


Cheesy Shot #5: The cliche down on one knee shot. Not at all how Matt proposed, but I will share that another time. I actually kinda like this one and think it is really cute.

Cheesy Shot #6: Super cheesy, no? To tell you the truth I kinda like this one as well.

So even though some of these weren't our favorites there are plenty more that we love. In hindsight I just wish we would have thought about what types of photos we wanted out of the session instead of just putting it on the photographer to tell us what to do and how to stand. Just "relaxing and acting natural" is sort of hard to do. The photographer was totally open to our ideas. For the wedding I want to think about it a little more and make sure we get the shots we want. A couple things I think we did do right were:

1: Booked a great photographer at a great deal. I loved working with Sara at Brides for Brides. One of the best parts is that we own the jpegs and can make our own prints and books.
2: Color cordinated our ourfits with the location. I knew that the location would have tan stucco so wanted to wear color that would pop.
3: Did't force Matt to wear fancy clothes. I fell for a t-shirt and jeans guy so I want to see him in a t-shirt and jeans. Actually before I met Matt he only wore cargo shorts, not jeans. But that is another story.
4: Got engagement photos at all. We thought this wasn't going to be in our budget but am really glad we did it. It is nice to have some really great photos of us in more normal situation, not just from our wedding day. I highly reccomend it.

Real Wedding Inspiration

Check out this post from Once Wed (a great wedding blog). I love this dress, the shoes, and the jewelry. The bride's hair is also amazing. The bride designed the dress and had it made for her. She is a jewelry designer and made the pieces herself. I also love the photo of the couple in front of building - beautiful!

Photos from Leo Patrone

Photo Time

Yesterday Matt and I got engagement photos taken. We weren't going to do this but I got an advertisement from a really cool photo studio that was having a special on portraits just in time for the holidays. It was such a deal that I couldn't say no. I am glad we did is yesterday because today we went to the field and now I have a fieldwork tan and cut up my legs because I walked into a cholla cacti.


The studio is Brides for Brides located in an amazing location in north Phoenix , Tlaquepaque Center. It was built to be a mini version of the one in Sedona. It is a a Mexican inspired shopping center with fountains, archways, tile, stone columns, and small courtyards. It was really beautiful and I am super excited to see them. We have to wait a couple of weeks to get the CD after they touch them up and I will be sure to post some.

I was also super excited about this location. Once we got there I realized it was also the location of the Aldea Reception Center. I REALLY wanted to be able to have our party here because it reminds me so much of Mexico when we got engaged. However it was a little large and also expensive so wasn't practical for us. But having photos taken here is just as good!