Registry Ennui

I have a confession to make. Early this year, when we were not engaged, but boy was I ready to be, I used to wander through the high end cooking store near my office and play the registering game. "Hum," I'd think to myself, "this sure is a nice fancy cheese board. I bet married people have cheese boards like this." Of course, what would follow was me looking at the price of said cheese board and thinking "AH! It's not that nice a cheese board!"

Fast forward to now. We've been engaged long enough that registering is something looming on the horizon. Oddly, I'm much less excited about it than you might expect. I really love shopping for presents for other peoples weddings off registries, mind you. Who doesn't? You get to play house, and get a inside look at peoples tastes. "Cool wine glasses," you think. Or "Ohdeargod, who asks for reindeer Christmas china?" And then you get the delight and satisfaction of foisting shiny wrapped things on newlyweds. But I can't seem to muster any of that excitement for our registry. Here are the issues:

• I'm almost thirty. I've lived in apartments of one form or another for the last 10 years, so chances are if I can't live without it, I've probably already bought it. We truly needed a registry a year and a half ago when we moved to San Francisco, and seemed to need a million things for our new apartment. But now? We've got those things.
• I don't cook. Period. David does cook, and he's very serious about it, so he has some things he's really excited to register for, like pans that will last a lifetime and serious knives. I'm excited that he's excited, but that's the extent of my emotions.
• We have a small apartment, and it's tidy. The rules are, if we don't have a place to keep it, it doesn't come in the door, and most spots are already taken. We have no plans to move to a bigger space soon. Our apartment is 1930's immaculate rent controlled perfection, so our thoughts are more of the "do we have a walk in closet big enough to convert to a nursery?" variety.
• I'm not a shopper, so the idea of taking hours and hours to set up a online registry filled with flawless etsy finds makes me feel bored.
  

So, we're pondering this registry stuff. David has his cookware, so he's set. I really want silver, as I'm thoroughly old fashioned, but it's expensive these days, and most people won't be able to afford it. My grandmother gave us a set of family china when we got engaged, so I'm happy as a clam in that department. Oddly, I do want a fancy toaster, since at some point I decided that a fancy toaster meant that you'd really made it into adulthood, so I'm sure we'll register for one of those.

The real issue is, I feel like the only bride in the world not excited by a registry. It's not that I somehow object to the materialism of it, I don't. I love getting for others gifts, and I always appreciate useful things for us. It just that the whole thing feels odd to me (not to mention 5 or 10 years too late to be useful). Isn't getting married enough? Do I really need gifts too?*

Anyone else share my registry ambivalence?

*And please no suggestions that we register for cash, or cash for a honeymoon, or anything cash related. I find it strange enough that the happy event of our marriage allows us to ask for gifts. I'm most definitely not going to be asking for anything more extreme then a toaster or a challah cover.

Picture via Yum Sugar

Miss Manners on Wedding Favors

Perhaps one of my favorite posts I've written is one I wrote ages ago, on favors. In that spirit, I thought I'd share this thought from the imitable Miss Manners:

Who told you that you had to give out wedding favors? Etiquette has never thought of weddings as comparable to children's birthday parties, where the guests might need consolation for not being the center of attention. You owe them only the hospitality of the occasion.

There. Now don't you feel better?

Affordable Wedding Dress Alternatives

Someone (who wears a size 8 or 14) needs to go buy this dress immediately as a simple beautiful wedding dress. And then send me pictures. It's on sale for $359, which puts it firmly in the 'expensive for a normal dress, fantastic price for a wedding dress' camp.
I know, I know. Normally you expect far more wordy goodness from me. But, frankly, it's been a crazy week, and I wanted to leave you with a tiny bit of goodness before the weekend. I have so many great exciting guest posts for you next week, and a few of my regular sassy posts. Until then, I wish you wild weekend rambles.

Wedding Graduate: Peonies and Polaroids

Our next wedding graduate post comes from a woman that needs no introduction, the unbelievably talented blogger behind Peonies and Polaroids. I'm so honored to have Ms. Peonies come share some of her considerable wedding wisdom. I think you'll find she shakes none of the glitter off her day, but tells us just enough that you will nod and smile and tear up and feel so much better.
What did I learn from getting married? Many things - if you're Doing It Yourself ask for help, loads of it. You don't need as many boxes of biscuits as you have guests. Spending your monthly food budget on fancy cheese is unnecessary and if you take medication that alters your mood taking it upon yourself to lower the dose a fortnight before your wedding is a bad idea. But which of these things to expand on, which that might offer some insight to other brides to be? I'll go for the one that I wish I'd realised earlier....

It's not about the details.

Hardly a novel idea, I know. Wise women like Meg and East Side have been telling us this since the very beginning but lovestruck fools like me (I'm assuming that I'm not the only one) have been ignoring them. Let me share what I have learnt, although I feel like an idiot for not listening in the first place...

I love the details, the details were my sustenance during the bitter moments of wedding planning, the he wants to elope so he doesn't have to wear a suit moments, the my mother has told me 16 times in the last 12 months that she hates weddings moments. Making handmade prettinesses made me smile (and occasionally want to throw things out the window, but that's par for the course right?) and I firmly believed that they would make our wedding...*better* somehow.

Well, they didn't. It wasn't the details that we managed to pull off that made me realise this, it was the huge number of projects that didn't quite make it to the wedding day either because we just didn't have time to finish them or because on the morning of the wedding we were too busy making sure our guests would have tables to eat at to worry about fripperies like decor. The aisle decorations never made it, but even better than admiring our beautiful silk ribbons our guests admired the love and joy that shone out of our ceremony... Escort cards? Well I spent days making them but again and I know not how or why, we ended up with a list of names written on a piece of card and no lives were lost as people found their seats without the help of handwritten notes hung on a washing line with bird shaped pegs. Finally, the one thing that really brought it home to me that the details matter less than the thought behind them - the photo line.

We fantasised about a string of photos hung outside and fluttering in the breeze. Photos of us at every stage in our lives, with our family members and friends hung where all could admire them. We spent hours choosing just the right photos and a fortune having them printed. We bought ribbon that coordinated with the rest, two bamboo sticks to string them between and a hundred wooden clothes pegs to hang them up with. On the morning of the wedding we got as far as putting the sticks in the ground before we were confronted with a worrying lack of dinner tables and ceremony chairs and the photos were abandoned in a sorry pile at the bottom of a cardboard box and swiftly forgotten about. Until much later in the day that is, when they were found by a bridesmaid slightly squashed and in a terribly unattractive yellow cardboard packet. She took them out, divvied them up into three piles and handed them round. People held a half eaten cupcake in one hand and a handful of photos in the other as they congregated in groups to laugh, reminisce, cringe and get tearful. The photos were a huge hit, with everyone. People who had never met before shared giggles at my mum dressed (very convincingly) as a Mexican man; friends saw pictures of parties they had hosted and remembered what it was like back in the old days and girlfriends saw their boyfriends as little, fat naked babies and cooed delightedly. Nobody would have enjoyed them more if they had been hanging beautifully in a line, nobody cared that the yellow packet didn't match the invitations or that the photos weren't in chronological order. What they did care about was that they were given a chance to come together, to tell new friends old tales, to remember other occasions we had all been together. The details can be pretty, they can give your guests something to admire, remember and talk about. Spend time on them if you want to, spend time on them if you enjoy it. But know this one thing, your guests care about the thought not the execution. The things your guests really want to admire, talk about and remember? The love they share for you and each other. Think about the memories you will make, not the photos that your details will make. I won't deny that the compliments I got on the little things made me smile - 'Oh, you like the matchboxes? Why thank you, they took me hours to make', but the self-satisfied glow that I get from remembering those moments is as insignificant as a sparkler to the sun when I think about the sight of our friends and families coming together and talking and laughing, really laughing, about the history and the future we were building and celebrating. That is what matters, those are the memories that will fill you with love once it is over. Not the escort cards, not the aisle decorations and not the cursed invitations.

Wedding Graduate: A Desert Bride

I'm super duper excited to have The Desert Bride of the fantastic blog a desert fete sharing her wise words on wedding planning today. I fell for Jamie's wedding *hard* when I first saw her inspiration board, which was nothing like any inspiration board I've ever seen. Her architect's eye brought something profoundly artistic to her wedding planning process, and her wedding is one of the most stunning and personal I've ever seen. On with Jamie's wise wedding thoughts:
We approached our wedding as planning a very special, very personal party celebrating our choice to join each others family [with a whole bunch of friends and family]. We tried to keep it as simple [and special] as that. There was never any pressure to include the wedding must haves [groom's cake? special cake cutting knife? ring pillows? garter toss?]. We basically started from scratch and only included the elements that had special meaning to us, that sounded like something we would like to have or like to do, and said no thank you to the rest.
Choosing the location was integral for us as far as wedding planning went. It was important to us that the venue be very private- a place that we could "take over" for the weekend with our friends and family without a bunch of fussy staff members or rules [or other hotel guests!] to contend with. We also were careful to choose a venue that was, in our eyes, quite beautiful on it's own, going with the tried and true advise of- prettier the place, the less decoration necessary. We let the location [a little hacienda style inn in Joshua Tree aka the middle of the desert] set the tone, mood and style for everything that followed.
We asked a lot of questions every step of the way to help keep things real, affordable, and not wasteful:

• Can we do this ourselves ahead of time? Is it something we can delegate to our friends to do the day of the wedding? Is this something someone can do for us?
• Do we need this? Can we make it? Can someone who loves us enough to do so make it? Can we buy it used or rent it? Can we borrow it? What will happen to this after the wedding? How will this affect us if we do not have it? How will it affect our guests?
  

This little exercise really helped.

While we had a pretty tight budget we didn't obsess over it toward the end. Having already put money aside for the big necessities, I [to be quite honest] stopped keeping track of the small stuff. If I wanted to spend my pocket money on wedding stuff from week to week then I wasn't going to stress out over it, as long as we weren't relying on credit cards.
Something that really surprised me about our wedding, is that the ceremony went by waaaaay too fast. This is because it was short-short-short. Intentionally. Ben and I are not terribly sentimental people. We find that our love and commitment is expressed on a daily basis, and while it was important to us to make this commitment in the eyes of our community of friends and family, we did not want it to be a big production. Short and sweet and on to the party pu-lease. BUT, I found that because it went by so fast, it was hard to take it in. I did not have time to look out at the faces of my guests, of our families and take in these little joys. [I was too busy crying like a baby and trying to get through my vows!] I suppose some sort of audience [is that the right word?] interaction part of the ceremony might have helped that.

This small observation can be applied to a more general element I had not quite planned as well as I could have. I hadn’t really considering the evening through my own personal own experience. Kind of weird, but I never really thought the day through by examining what I hoped my own experience to be like. For example, while I knew I had at least 3 hours to "get ready" I never took the time to think about what I expected out of that time from a more experiential viewpoint. While we planned the entire reception based on how all of the guests [ourselves included] would experience it, I never thought about how I would personally like to experience the evening. I suppose I expected this to come naturally but, while I wasn't stressed, it was still such a big day that I that I neglected to let loose as I would like to have. I think if I would have thought about this before hand, I would have done so.

I think the most important thing you can do is locate your inner dao-ist or buddhist or whichever eastern thought talks about expectations [not too lump them, I just don't remember over the years where I have read these things...] and find a way to take the really obvious advice and know that not everything will be perfect [and it shouldn't be, isn't the beauty in life in the imperfections?], and to be ok with that, to embrace it! And always remember what it is about, your getting freakin married! Awesome!

Photos by Michelle Pullman

Wedding Graduate: East Side Bride

I'm not sure I have enough kind words to say about the fabulous East Side Bride. She's infinitely hipper than I will ever be, and you could read her blog just for it's style tips. But what keeps me coming back is how funny, wry, and honest she is (her f* this series will make your day). She makes me feel more relaxed about wedding planning. So without further ado, the girl herself:

I got married on August 9, but I still haven't managed to post many details (or photos) on my own blog. Part of me doesn't want to share my wedding with the world. I think I'm afraid if I shake it too hard the glitter will fall off.

How then to write a "wedding graduate" post for A Practical Wedding? What can I share that might help the rest of you? My thoughts came out in the form of a list. (It's possible this is a side effect of compulsive wedding planning.)

1. Don't go overboard with the wedding blogs. I know…. right? They will give you a complex.

2. Delegate. Early. Our wedding was essentially made by our friends and family: the baker/shirtmaker, the stylist/photographer, the chef, the musicians, the sculptor, the potter, the painter, the gardener, the director, the expert shopper, the mad organizer…. Honestly, I'm a better delegator than a DIY'er. I have good ideas, and then I look around to see who can help me make them happen. And a very happy byproduct of wedding planning was that we found ourselves talking to far-away friends more often. By the time the wedding rolled around it felt like a big party we were all throwing together.

3. Know when to let go. Two days before the wedding, your to-do list will seem insurmountable. It is. Take a fat sharpie, cross out three big projects, and get some sleep. Seriously.

4. The vows are more important than any of the crafty sh*t. We wrote our vows together, and we labored to make them simple and personal. In fact, I drove my almost-husband bonkers obsessing over them. But the vows are what people talked about. And because we memorized them and practiced saying them to aloud each other, they are imbedded in my brain. I love that.

Photo by Tiffany Pond

The Wedding Graduates

I’ve mentioned before, when we first started planning our wedding, I had a hard time finding wedding planning resources that were a great fit for our needs. So, I was over the moon when I started blogging and started meeting smart, savvy, thrifty women who were planning weddings who had amazing style and a sense of humor. Some of these ladies were bloggers and some of them were readers that I got to know through long late night emails.

So, it was with some anxiety that at the end of July I realized that 90% of my new-found internet wedding support group was getting married. In August. Of this year. And here I was, not getting married until next August. What was I going to do? Suddenly I was going to be all alone in wedding land again. I’d noticed that in the indie Wedding world, people often find the wedding planning process so draining, that once their wedding is done, they never talk about it again. I was convinced I was going to be savvy-wedding-posse-less.

Then, the weddings of internet friends started happening, and I started hearing quick stories, tips, and yes, seeing pictures. I realized that far from being all alone in the wedding world, I now had friends and allies with real life indie wedding experience. They knew something magical that I didn’t know yet. They had gone through the transformative process and come out the other side.

I wanted to hear more from these newly married women, and I thought you might to. So, a new Practical Wedding series was born: The Wedding Graduates. Over the next two weeks some fabulous woman (and one man, hooray!) are going to guest blog about what they learned from their wedding. I can’t wait to hear what they have to say.

Professional Photography Alternatives

This week a reader emailed me and pointed out that a lot of the weddings I feature have gorgeous professional photography, and that I have a lot of photographers as sponsors. This is true. I admit to being a sucker for beautiful photography, and having a soft spot in my heart for indie photographers as wedding elves*. However, writing with a eye to the practical, I'm well aware that not every couple can afford, or wants to pay for, pro-photography. Lots of the weddings that I've featured have gotten photography for free, from a pro or semi-pro friend or family member, and I think that's great. In fact, inevitably, some of the coolest weddings I receive are ones where a pro-photographer shot their best friends wedding for free - like Ember and Ben, or Kate and Colemine. That said, not everyone had a talented photographer friend. So! I can only blog about weddings people send me, so I would love for readers to email me weddings where the pictures were taken by family and friends, and stories of not using a professional photographer, and other tales of photo mischief.

When I asked for stories about affordable wedding dresses, you all blew me out of the water, and we ended up with the tale of the great wedding dress hack. So, team practical, what have you got in the way of photography hacks? Email me your stories, and leave your tips in the comments.

*Full disclosure: before I found a pack of indie photographers, I was in photographer hell. I've gone to weddings that were ruined with a photographer screaming orders "Cut the cake now! Kiss the bride!" I've interviewed photographers that came complete with scary generic shot lists. This is why I have been so excited to find photographers of the wedding elf breed.

Beth & Chris' Simple Orcas Island Wedding

This wedding, shot by Seattle photographer Jenny Jimenez has such an amazing simplicity to it. I'm so inspired by this wedding, because it seems that the couple stripped all the excess away, leaving a pure and simple ceremony, expressing love and joy and family. And on top of that, it features stellar scenery (who would ever need wedding decorations again, if we all got married in amazing natural places like this), found art sculpture, and a dress so amazing I would steal it out of the pictures and wear it myself if I could.
Beth and Chris planned their wedding while living halfway around the world in Mumbai, India. Beth had her dress made for her in India, and I think it might be the most beautiful wedding dress I've ever seen. Simple, somewhat traditional, but made of a easy relaxed fabric.
The wedding took place on family property on Orcas Island, where Chris's grandfather had collected items and made them into found art.

Is there anything more we could as for on our wedding day then to climb through nature, barefoot, with our beloved? Since we are also getting married in nature, I intend to be doing some of this myself.
The bride was walked down the aisle by both of her parents, a Jewish tradition that I love. And look how much they are all enjoying each others company!
I've showed you their chuppah before. So simple and so beautiful.
The ceremony site featured some of Chris' grandfathers found art, three concrete circles overlooking the water.
I love pictures of couples laughing and enjoying each other during the ceremony.
The wedding pictures that I love the most are always these pictures of the couple, after the ceremony, giddy with the joy of it all.
And ok... this picture, with the vintage umbrellas... Oh. My. God. Best wedding party ever.
The evening ended with some dancing in the barn.
And a huge hora outside. Hurrah!

A big congratulations to Beth and Chris! And a huge thank you to Jenny Jimenez for sharing this wedding with me. You should go check out much more of this wedding on her blog.

A Toast To Jacob And Megan

I'm in Baltimore for a few days for my future brother-in-law's marriage. I wanted to raise a toast to Jacob and Megan and wish them a sunshiny, joyful, love-filled day on Saturday, and many happy years together. I'm so glad you'll be part of my family.

In honor of their wedding which is the first Jewish (or interfaith Jewish) wedding I've ever attended (really), I thought I'd post one of the most gorgeous Jewish weddings I've yet to set eyes on. More from the above wedding, shot by Jenny Jimenez, up next.

Shana Tova

I am unplugged tomorrow for Yom Kippur. To all my Jewish readers - may you have a peaceful and reflective day, and a sweet new year. I'll see you all back here on Friday.

Tiffany & Ethan's Forest Picnic Wedding

I've been all a-twitter about picnic weddings of late, but this picnic wedding has just about everything you need - a thrifty couple, a forest, adorable babies... what else do you need? This magical forest bash was shot by sponsor Kate Harrison, and the bride is a reader of the blog (which is a pretty exciting combination for me!)
The wedding took place at the affordable and beautiful Corralitos Community Center nestled at the foot of the Santa Cruz Mountains. (Bay Area brides - I suggest you check this location out! I wish we'd known about it.)
This from the bride: I truly found each project that I took on (i.e. 200+ paper flowers, homemade invitations, favors and banners, labeling wine bottles, etc) to be calming and it gave my creative side a chance to come out. I work in an office 40+ hours a day where that side of me is stifled and our wedding was the perfect outlet for me. I had lots of help from friends who truly wanted to help with the projects, they really were fun. Having a day-of coordinator was a complete blessing too, I highly recommend that. The store - Paper Source - became an addictive source of inspiration. I started the whole planning process with the invitations that my husband helped me design. My color theme came from the paper I chose for the invitations, it was the paper that made the whole thing come together so nicely for me!
Every wedding is better with a jam session! The couple hired local folk band The Farmers Market String Band to play for the reception.

The couple hired a local chef to make organic and sustainable picnic lunches for everyone with finger sandwiches, nuts, and chocolate molten cake. Other then that, they used reusable and recyclable materials, tried to keep vendors to a minimum, and had family and friends help with set up and tear down.
And here is the thing, when you have babies that are this delighted to be at your wedding (click to see the picture even bigger, because this child is so amused) you have done something right.
The bride and groom shared a picnic blanket (aww) and hung out with their family, friends, local folk band, and adorable babies. I'm not sure it gets any better than this!

Congratulations to Tiffany & Ethan, here is to many happy years!

All photos by practical sponsor Kate Harrison

Sponsor Introduction: Kate Harrison Photography

There is nothing that delights me more then when vendors email me to tell me that they love working with low key, practical, DIY couples. It's so rare and it's so fantastic! My newest sponsor, Northern California photographer Kate Harrison is one of those amazing wedding elves. In her words: “I am low-key and go with the flow kind of photographer. I like to be a fly on the wall at weddings, capturing the real deal. My style is artistic photojournalism so half of me loves the moment when an image is captured and the other half loves the process of making it art afterward in my studio. I love photographs that give people a sense of texture, mood, reality, passion and love.” Hear, hear!

And the images… the images… her work is dreamy. Next up, a wedding shot by Kate Harrison that happens to be one hip, laid back, thrifty bash. If you love it half as much as I do, it will make your morning a bit happier.

Get Rich Slowly Feature

Wow... a big thank you to reader Rebecca who dropped me a line to let me know that A Practical Wedding was featured on the excellent finance blog Get Rich Slowly. Since personal finance is more of a passion for me than weddings, this was really a honor. The made my day quote?

“It is unlikely that you will ever hear me utter these words again about a wedding-related site, but I could read A Practical Wedding for hours.”

Awwwwww..... and thank you. I'm really sort of in shock over here!

Tracy & Leslie's San Francisco City Hall Wedding

Remember way back when when I told you that photographer Jessamyn Harris was doing a same sex photography give away, in honor of California's Supreme Court Ruling? Well, she did, and the pictures are in! I give you Tracy & Leslie's wedding. I'm not sure I need to even say much about this wedding, because as I was blogging about it, the pictures made me cry. Watching triumphs like these is such a clear reminder of why marriage is important, and why we are all getting married in the first place.





Next time wedding planning is stressing you out, and you're worrying about how the napkins should be folded at the reception, come back to this wedding for a moment. It will remind you why we are choosing to celebrate our marriages, and what love and family mean.

A huge congratulations to Tracy and Leslie. I know your lives together have already been filled with years of joy, but as you embark on this new stage of life together, I wish years of love, happiness, and understanding. Check out much more of the wedding over here.

Small Wedding Sass

I love this quote from this amazing conceptual invite suite for a in-home wedding featured by Oh So Beautiful Paper:

"The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have no taste for finery or parade, and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars detailed by her husband thought it all extremely shabby, and very inferior to her own. "Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a most pitiful business." But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the predictions, the confidences of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union." - Jane Austen, from Emma

Sigh. It makes me want to have a small wedding at home.

Now, I know Oscar Wilde* must have written something almost as eloquent and twice as clever about weddings, if I can just lay my hands on it....

**Update! This is the invitation for Emma in the previous post. I had no idea! How cool!**

You must go see the invite suite, found via the excellent Cevd at Pretty Pretty Paper
* Because if you think about it, I'm sure it's obvious that I love Oscar Wilde's writing. I've even lipstick-kissed his grave in Paris.

Wedding Morning Glee

I found this picture of bride Emma rocking her ban.do headband, and doing a little pre-wedding teeth brushing via A Cup of Jo.

This is it! This is how I want to look the morning before my wedding. This is how I want to feel. I don't want a thousand people primping me. I don't want a gown that takes five people to get me into. I don't want to be thinking about if the programs came out right, or if the centerpieces have wilted. Eff the centerpieces! I just want to be rocking out, giddy, excited, happy, and brushing my little teeth. And David will have to document it for you, because to save money on the wedding photography front, I decided we did not need pro-shots of me in my skivvys.

Patty & Trent's DIY Picnic Wedding

This fantastic picnic wedding was shot by practical sponsor Keira Lemonis. I love featuring picnic weddings because, well, I love picnics. They are fun, laid back, and affordable to throw. (And did I mention, fun?) So mixing picnics with the overblown world o' weddings seems like the perfect antidote. How can you talk your wedding super seriously if you have a "head picnic blanket" instead of a head table? My favorite parts of Patty & Trent's wedding are that they had a pot-luck dessert buffet, let people bring their dogs, and had had dog treats at the dessert buffet! Awwww....
In the end, the pictures from weddings I love best are always these - the un-posed, un-rehearsed, un-planned moments, filled with joy and emotion.

There were picnic baskets filled with fresh fruit on every picnic table, a clothes line with pictures, bocce and horseshoes, hay bails, a lemonade stand, a wishing well.
And dancing! You can have a picnic wedding and still have plenty of dancing.
There was a playground right next to the wedding "venue" (achem, a park, yay) with a playground. Fun for the kids! Fun for the bride and groom! Just fun!
And... if you didn't already love this wedding because of the puppies and the swing set and the pot-luck... you should love it because the groom made his own boutonnière. Hurrah for gender fearless grooms!

Sponsor Introduction: Keira Lemonis Photography

I’m pleased to introduce our newest sponsor Keira Lemonis Photography. Keira reached out to me to be a sponsor because she particularly loves working with practical brides, which is always so good to hear. Her pictures are fantastic, and she is all about showcasing your wedding glee (do we dare say relaxed wedding glee? Yeah, we do.) And the best part? She has fantastic rates. Keira is located in New York State, but she travels (affordably) which is often the best way to get a photographer that gels with your style. Next up, a fabulous real wedding shot by our own Keira Lemonis.