Gettin' Hitched - Gettin' Ready

We lucked out with an absolutely beautiful day for our wedding. That's always a worry when you decide to get married outside - but on our day the Northern Michigan weather cooperated (for the most part!).

The wedding and reception all took place that a historic inn right on Hubbard Lake called The Churchill Pointe Inn. We couldn't have asked for a better location, because not only was the wedding on the lawn and the reception in the restaurant, but we also stayed there in one of the rooms upstairs! It doesn't get more all-inclusive than that! My sister and I stayed in the suite the night before - and many of our family members stayed in the other rooms. There are only 8 rooms available - so the rest of the guests stayed in the nearby town of Alpena. But for those of us who got rooms - we were treated to an amazing breakfast the next morning (complete with gluten free french toast - omg! ridiculously delicious!) overlooking the water. 

From there it was just a matter of setting up the restaurant for the reception (which I'll cover in another post!) and then running upstairs to shower and start getting ready!

We all did our own hair and makeup - DIY to the end!

My fabulous book paper bouquet from Momichka on Etsy

 At some point J arrived from the other side of the lake where he had spent the night and started getting ready in a different room of the Inn. I sent him down a card while we were both prepping and in return got a handwritten "Ditto." The man has a way with words - what can I say?

<3 

Apparently it took the girls a little longer to get ready - so the boys went out and took some pictures while the lake was still calm.

Lacing me up took forever - but once we were done we knew it wasn't going anywhere!

The scrunchy nose smile is one of the few traits we share!

And a veil on top to complete the prep.

Mom approves.

And so does Dad.

There are pictures of her from when she was my age - we look SO much alike.

The fam before we became one larger.

Daddy's Girl

This pretty much sums up our relationship.

<3 her always

And then it was time!

Maybe Bigger Really is Better...

... in the case of pictures.

So last weekend I finally gave into the fact that my cute arrangement of white picture frames above the buffet just weren't working.  You may remember from this post that the picture frames were actually just an assortment of random frames that I spray painted white and hung prior to getting the buffet.

Different sizes, different textures, and I couldn't even keep them straight long enough to take this picture.

They were... fine. Just... fine. However, slowly, the fact that they were never straight started to grate on me. The stairs are right behind that wall, and it seemed the the frames were never, ever, EVER straight - no matter how often I painstakingly straightened them. And yes - I know I could have used some sticky stuff to keep them straight, but I really just wasn't sold on the overall look anyway, so I didn't really feel like taking the time for that!  I also think I was still hating that the one anchoring spot on that wall continued to be that damn thermostat.

So. What to do?

Project: Photo Safari

Last year my awesome aunts bought me a TravelZoo deal for a photo safari with a professional photographer, since they know my secret favorite pastime is photography.  This past weekend I finally got around to using it!  The original deal was actually for a walking tour of the memorials and monuments in the DC area - but those were all booked (probably because of the close proximity to the highly anticipated cherry blossom season.  No worries though! I was able to take tour with the same photographer, only inside the Museum of American History.  This actually worked out perfectly because the lessons were all focused on taking pictures in low light - which I hadn't mastered yet.

It was really a fantastic time - I spent the whole afternoon touring around in the Museum of American History looking at some of the exhibits like I really hadn't before.  I really enjoyed getting home and downloading the pictures... I was pleasantly surprised to see a major improvement from the first few shots through the last couple!  I can definitely say I'm a lot more confident in my ability to take good pictures in low light situations now!

Here are a couple of my favorite shots from the day.