Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The Importance about having a GREAT Photographer at your Wedding

I always thought, "Wow, these photographer's now a days... they charge A LOT!" But now I know why. I found this little breakdown and wanted to share it with you. Let me know what you think, ENJOY!


"Why I Hired a Professional"
Same wedding. Same moment. Same lighting. Same Editing programs. Same Camera.

These pictures were shot feet apart at almost the exact same moment with identical cameras and very similiar lenses.

Why the big difference?
the one on the left was shot be a photographer with hours and hours of experience, thourough camera knowledge, and solid photography training.
The one on the right was shot by your friend.. with a great camera.

Venue Options in the Desert (On a BUDGET)

I've been at a stand still and it's pretty frusturating. Since we don't really have much money to spend until the end of the year, we are pretty much just studying, investigating and following up with different venue options for our wedding. The 3 I've come up with are:

Moortens Botanical Garden

Genuine Draft Ranch

Joshua Tree State Park

Remember, our wedding has to be as close to nature as possible and all 3 of these venues gives us that option. I want some natural, sandy, cactus and sunset wedding pictures and I cannot wait to visit Genuine Draft Ranch and Joshua Tree State Park. I'll be taking photos and posting them! I can just feel it, I'll be a little bit more settled as we start putting down venue deposits!!! Until then, enjoy some pics so you get a better understanding of the venue grounds. Take care xoxox!


Joshua Tree




Moorten Botanical Garden
Genuine Draft Ranch






P.S. I think all of these have potential to work!


Monday, August 6, 2012

Wedding Planners vs. DIY


Many people ask me why I decided to go with a wedding planner? My answer is always, "because I want everything done FOR ME on my wedding day". I've been to many weddings where I see the beautiful bride still "conducting" the wedding from behind that lovely veil. I really do not want to do that, I want to walk down the aisle and see everything in place, perfect, while my gushing groom is admiring how beautiful his wedding day is. I have been meeting with my wedding planner monthly and going over little details, talking about venues, developing how we want the menu, how many people we want in our wedding party and how many guests we will be inviting. I sure do not want to be the one doing all of the legwork, getting on the phone, leaving numerous voicemails, haggling prices, etc. I just want to help her see my vision, give her ideas and let her do what she does best... EVENT PLANNING! She's wonderful at what she does and I trust her with my special day 100%!
Here's too the wedding of our dreams!

How We Met and Other Musings


I met Pathrick on a hot sunny day in July, 9 years ago. My, my, my, how time flies! I started at a new job and this cute young man avoided me like the plague! Hmm... I guess I have to kill him with kindness, I thought. I started greeting him every morning at the time clock and you can tell he was a little thrown off by that. But I secretly loved it. I knew the instant I laid eyes on him he was, "different". Little by little, he grew more comfortable around me during our time at work and one day he asked me out to lunch. "Yes!" From there on we were iinseparable. I lived 45 minutes away and he would drive to meet me morning, noon and night... I loved how he would drop everything to see me even if it was for a little while. We would steal kisses at work when nobody was looking, it was totally cute. We would be in love forever after that.
And They Lived Happily Ever After... 

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Beautiful for him, Beautiful for Me.



This post is kind of my little rant and rave around the dieting dilema for soon to be brides. The typical, "I want to fit into my size 3 wedding dress on my wedding day" mindset often finds it's way to even the most confident of women. Well I'm here to say that I've caught this disease too. I started my pre-wedding diet last week. July 23rd, 2012. I've given myself roughly about 10 months to shed as much weight as possible. I believe the key is to not be too unrealistic to what you can obtain and to choose a healthy diet. (Crash diets DO NOT WORK!)

I don't expect to look like a Victoria's Secret model, but I do expect to look good! I really want to feel and look gorgeous on my wedding day. I want my husband to be to glow when he see's me walking down the aisle! I want to be able to look back at my wedding pictures and think, "wow, I looked beautiful". With that said all I can do is hold on to the hope, and keep going with the determination. Keep letting my wedding motivate me and learn that a diet is not only to lose weight and get healthy, but to actually adopt a completely new lifestyle.

So keep calm, don't stress and learn to love to be active. Choose things you enjoy doing like: hiking, biking, wii, gym, dance, running around with your kids, yard work, etc. Find something, choose anything that will keep you active and moving. I'm working on it daily, sometimes I struggle because I'm human and it's HARD but at the end of the day I'm still "TRYING"!

xoxox ~Amber