beautiful pictures

photos by lightfantasik photography
new york city, new york

My good friend Sarah has a whole series of new pictures up on her website www.lightfantastik.com. If you haven't visited her site lately, go check it out! While I was of course excited to see pictures of our wedding on her site, I mostly enjoyed seeing all the other creative portraits she's been taking recently. Pictures like the ones of the adorable kiddos above make me smile.

Looking at the pictures on her site will increase your happiness by at least 20% today. I guarantee it.

Mismatched wine glasses and plates were one of my favorite parts of our wedding. It was tempting to want to keep them all for sentimental reasons, but we're definitely running out of storage space in our new apartment! Plus, when would one realistically use 50 vintage plates? As much as it broke my heart just a little, it definitely made sense to try to resell our wedding dishes. I ended up compromising by saving a number of my very favorite glasses and plates. It was fun going through them one last time this weekend! My mom did all the work in acquiring the dishes in Sioux Falls, and I never quite got to soak in the beauty of the collection as a whole in the whirlwind that was our wedding weekend.

I saved one glass that had an etched cursive letter H on the side. There's definitely this thrifting treasure hunting moment where you realize this item must be yours, and you almost want to turn to the stranger next to you at the thrift store just to ask them if they'll mind giving you a high five. I imagined my mom coming across this glass and getting so excited at just how perfect it would be on our big day.

In any case, our lovely collection was taking over a good part of our computer room, so we decided to sell them through Craigslist this week. We found a couple getting married at the groom's cousin's ranch in August who are now the proud owners of our entire collection. They're serving barbeque, and she's wearing his grandmother's dress! When they came by to pick up the glasses and plates tonight, the bride-to-be said she's really into antiques and thrifting, and that she loves things with character. We wished them well and said our goodbyes, and I realized that our wedding dishes found a very good home.

There's a recap of the bachelorette party night over on my wedding blog for anyone who would like to check it out.

I'm back!

Today was my first day back at work. In addition to a post-it note on my computer monitor that said, "Welcome back, Mrs. Hess- we missed you!" I had a jar with garden-picked flowers from another coworker waiting for me on my desk. What a sweet return after a wonderful week off. How often do you get such a happy time, full of friends, family, and desserts galore? It was magical.

My coworker printed off copies of her photos from the wedding and gave them to me today. She didn't take a lot of photos, but the ones she did take were good! She printed them on her inkjet, so as a result, the photos scanned in a little grainy from my scanner. I had fun playing around with the color tinting, and actually like how this makes the photo look like it's some late 70's wedding picture. The black and white version is kind of fun, too.'


It's the strangest thing. I had this terrible fear the day after our wedding that nobody outside of our professional photographer took any pictures of us. I don't remember video cameras or anyone asking us to pose or camera flashes at all. I barely remember Cindy taking this photo, until she told me the story of how I said to her, "Oh, no- I looked away!" I kind of remember that part. In any case, I'm so happy to see these new photos.

My groom looks so handsome in his suit!

My green dress and his yellow tie really did look good together!

I look like a bride from 1956!

My fake eyelashes didn't fall off!

I even like the part with him staring at the camera and me looking away.

I am not even sure I can put into words what a great week we had, and I can't wait to see more photos from that evening. Even though I was convinced that my groom and I would eat on our wedding day, and that I would be in the moment and not let the day slip away from me, the little details are kind of a blur. I remember looking at all the beautiful faces of everyone as I walked up the aisle, I remember the kissing menu performances and the toasts and the hugs and dancing and photo booth shenanigans. I'm just not sure I took the time to soak in how delicious the dessert table looked, or what the decorations looked like all together, or what the room looked like full of all the people. It's probably perfectly wonderful that I remember who was behind me in the conga line, how beautiful my flowers looked, and how we tried to convince my dad he needed to wear a certain costume in the photo booth.

I think part of me is afraid that in a decade, I'll remember the details so broadly, whereas I want to remember all the tiny little things that made up the whole day, like Sarah's son Jack coming down before dinner even started in a flashy pink hat with an American flag in his hand. I've started a document that quickly became 3 pages of wonderful wedding memories- like the fact that a bunch of people took time to make and bring desserts for our dessert table. My sister Kelli told me the story behind her daughter getting up to sing the Barney song on her chair during the dinner, and I was touched and amazed and LOVED hearing how it all came about. I started a conga line not once, but twice, per the request of a certain 4-year old who just had way too much fun the first time and kept asking her mom if we could do it again.

We had so much fun with all our friends and family at our wedding this weekend! From the Thursday night bachelorette party to the multiple conga lines on Saturday night, it was amazing and seriously one of the best weekends of my life.

Our Flickr photo sharing site can be found here. I am so enamored by the photo booth pictures! We passed out cards with the login and password to our Flickr site, and are hoping guests add their photos using the username and password we shared at our wedding. If you lost your card with this info, drop me an email and I would be glad to share with you!

it's almost time!!

I can't believe our wedding is less than two weeks away! In just about a week, we'll start seeing the first of our friends and family roll into town. Brandon picked up his new fancy wedding shoes today, and after a long weekend of non-stop wedding projects and planning, our to-do list is becoming amazingly short!

Can you believe it?

This will be us in a few months! This is an actual photo of our wedding venue. Hopefully they don't have any nude art on the walls behind us because I'm just sure I'll start stifling giggles as I'm saying my vows in the way that only causes them to get worse because you're trying to hold them back. In front of all my friends and family, nonetheless!

I just finished another quarter, had just a week off, and already started a new database design class. I'm busy, but trying not to be one of those people who proclaims how busy I am every other sentence, but am afraid I've become just that person. I am super excited about making progress towards my next degree. I'm starting to get into really challenging classes, and am hoping that before I know it, I'll be a web page design pro. I thought I had 2 weeks off school between quarters, and in the weeks leading up was daydreaming about all the amazing wedding projects I'd complete, and all the fun shopping I would get to do, but it really didn't quite happen as I'd imagined. C'est la vie.

Luckily I've got a pretty independent spirit in that I kind of enjoy the nature of tackling projects in seemingly impossible timelines and the happiness that comes with realizing toward the end that- I did it! Pretty sure it's that same part of me that takes on a holiday jewelry show while I'm going back to school, or takes on 40 custom charm orders that I complete between December 1 and December 23. Ask Brandon- at times, I just think I'm an overachiever, and other times, it feels a little bit like insanity. Apparently I can't sit still for too long.

I've had several offers from some local friends and co-workers to help me with wedding projects, and I keep saying, "I'm not quite there yet, but when I get to that point, I'll call you." I'm nearing that point! I'm looking forward to a craft day, and wish I could fly in all my best girlfriends, mom, and aunts to partake in wine and making stuff. Instead, I'll stock up on wine and we can eat cupcakes together when you're here in June. You don't realize how much you miss people until you think about all the ways they've collectively influenced your life. My heart swells thinking of having all these people- new friends, old friends, people who changed my diapers, people who have changed the way I thought about myself, people who encouraged my creative endeavors, people who taught me lessons, people who taught me how to be a good person and a hard worker, people who took me to teenager events with them when I was a nerdy 12-year old- all those people in one place at the same time? *sigh*

Speaking of our wedding, we are hoping to have a "community" ceremony where people can get up and read a quote, tell a story, read a poem, or say any words of their choosing- either planned or off-the-cuff- in the spirit of the day. We hope to take the pressure off our future officiant, and think this would be a nice way to do something different for the ceremony part of our wedding. If anyone would like to participate in this part of the ceremony, we would be grateful.

Brandon and I went to First Friday in the Santa Fe Arts District, and while we were there decided to visit our wedding venue. Here's Brandon peeking at the wall on room #1 where our food and liquor will be located.



Here's a picture taken from the upstairs loft-type area. The area below, which we'll call room #2, is where we'll be married. I love the cement floor, exposed duct work, and black rafters. You can't tell, but the ceiling is shiny silver.



Here's the same room, but this photo is taken from below so you get a good shot of the upstairs area. We'll probably have this be a sort of lounge area with drinks... maybe Jell-O shots. After the ceremony, we'll go into room #1 and eat, then we'll return to this room for dancing.



So exciting! And stressful. Talking about the best place to put the food table made me suddenly start to feel a bit claustrophobic! We're not experts, so don't know like a caterer would know where you put the food so the traffic flows well.

Some of my favorite wedding inspiration boards I've come across. My favorites are the orange and blue, and the cyan and slate gray. Even though I'm not normally that into pink, something about the rustic, antique look with a pale pink is appealing to me these days.

Which one is your favorite?


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a geek like me

I confess that I kind of like the groom in a Superman outfit and the Mario Brothers Cake. The Star Trek Klingon-infused wedding? Not so much.

Brandon and I were talking this weekend about looking at wedding venues in June. This sounded quite unassuming on May 31. Now that's it's officially June 1, I'm furiously making a list of places we've narrowed it down to and planning on making a few calls this week. I've been frequenting some local wedding message boards, and it's really a fabulous tool getting a chance to hear opinions and insight from locals who are planning a wedding. Some are hardcore, having visited 15(!) potential reception spaces. I wouldn't have it in me. I don't know anyone in town my age who has recently been married, so the internet has been invaluable in this whole pre-planning phase!

Taking a quick break from studying today to put together some wedding eye candy. I've been gathering pictures over the past few months, and definitely see a sort of theme emerging in what I like- dogs as ring bearers, bright colors, anything vintage, and sweets.

Since it's really important to us to plan a wedding without going overboard on spending even a fraction of what the so-called average wedding supposedly costs ($29,859), we're considering scrapping the traditional $400 wedding cake in favor of a tiered cake stand piled with doughnuts, but Brandon's really giving me pushback on that one (kidding! out of everything we've come across, this was the first thing Brandon jumped on - doughnut wedding cake? let's do it!)

we're having an iPod wedding!

I'm usually the one carrying the camera, therefore, it's much more common to see photos of my guys on my blog. Today, Brandon was in charge of the camera as we took a walk through our new neighborhood. I'm really trying to resist commentary on my photo, but think my once-savvy haircut has grown out into a soccer mom 'do when I go all weekend-casual and forget the styling products. Oops!

Now that we've got a potential wedding month kind of defined, people have been asking me about our latest plans. We're 95% sure we're going to have an IPod wedding dance in lieu of a deejay- or as I said to my sister Becki last night when we were out to sushi getting all girly over wedding talk, "We're having an iPod wedding!" (meanwhile Becki's staring at me with a confused stare, wondering what an iPod wedding might be- vows downloaded from the iTunes Store? What?)

Some of my favorite recent downloads for my "iPod wedding" include: Falling Slowly Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova, Kodachrome Paul Simon, Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop Landon Pigg, Beyond the Sea Bobby Darin. Of course I'll be adding some Van Morison (thanks, Sarah!), already have Kanye West (Becki- you know me too well) and am slowly gathering some of my favorite oldies- my dad loves the song Tequila, and I always think of my mom out on the dance floor all happy and dancing whenever The Twist or Shout comes on.

I came across these lovely little things on the wedding section of the Martha Stewart website tonight. After reading through the instructions, I realized that it would be a pretty quick project- just grab some white tissue paper from under my art desk, and grab some 24-gauge wire, which just I happen to have handy. Craft nerd!

In less than 5 minutes, I had a rudimentary 10-inch white pom-pom created. It wasn't perfect, but I felt proud nonetheless and hung it from the ceiling fan cord dangling above our bed so I could snap some pictures of my handiwork. With school over these past few months, moments of creative completion have been far too few!

Koda stood on the bed, peering at the pom-pom with a huge smile on his face. I asked him to stay in my nicest voice, because I wanted to get the perfect photo of my first attempt at handmade wedding decor. I grabbed my camera from the living room, sprinted back into the bedroom, and snapped this photo of Koda peering up at my creation.

After two failed attempts which left him with tissue paper scraps flying about, he finally managed pulled the Martha Stewart tissue paper pom-pom down from the ceiling fan and promptly ran by me and into the living room.

About 20 seconds later, the ball of tissue paper had been shredded into a hundred pieces. Luckily, we gather amusement from the amusement he gets from such endeavors. And I have at least 360 more days to practice making tissue paper balls.

Brandon and I had a sort of impromptu visit to a potential reception venue today. It's the first place we've seen up close, and not just through strategically-chosen photos on the internet. I think one of the biggest decisions we'll make is where we'll hold a reception. All the little details are easier to decide because you really have less to lose if your cake is dry or the frosting doesn't match the flowers. I'm actually looking forward to putting together the little things- it's the big decision of location that has seemed like such a huge decision. Is it easy to find? In a good neighborhood? Ample parking? Is it us?

Now, instead of feeling overwhelmed by picking somewhere to hold a reception, I feel happy in knowing that we've found one strong contender. I don't want to go into too much detail, in the event that we end up meeting with the owner and don't get a good vibe, but so far it's exciting to have a maybe on our radar.