Engagement Photos!

Although I am planning a wedding that is still 393 days away, I’ve decided to have our engagement photos taken this Saturday (tomorrow). Yes, I have been engaged since January 9^th, 2011, but I have been putting off the engagement photos because I wanted to take some outside (and getting engaged in January in Cleveland, the weather outside is not so nice).

I did not book a photographer to take our engagement photos – instead, I am relying on my dad to brush up on his wedding photography skills. My dad, who currently works in the meat department at the local Heinen’s grocery store, used to have his own photography business. However, when digital cameras came out in the early 2000’s, his business took a hard hit and he had to look for employment elsewhere to provide for our family.  Luckily, he saved all of his photography equipment and is willing to help my fiancé and me save a few bucks by taking our engagement photos!

So….the next big question was where to take the photos. I thought it would be nice to take our engagement photos where we had our first/second dates. Therefore, we will be taking photos at Progressive Field and at the North Chagrin Reservation Metroparks.  I feel like we have to wear Indian’s t-shirts for the Progressive Field photos, and then probably something a little more formal for the pictures in the park.  IF it rains (*knocks on wood*), then we can still take some photos at my dad’s old photography studio.  However, I will be praying for warm weather and sunshine on Saturday so that we can take our photos outside!

I’d love to hear any thoughts on other outdoor locations to take engagement photos in CLE (just in case it rains tomorrow & we have to reschedule)! :D

Wedding Colors

This feels like one of the biggest decisions in planning a wedding, as I have already spent hours looking at different color combinations to find one that is "just right" for our wedding. Initially, I decided on:

Coral - Turquoise - Pearl White

I thought bright colors would fit a casual summer wedding. However, now that I have started to look at decorations and dress options for my mom & sister, Turquoise is WAY too bright. So, since I don't want guests to have to put on sunglasses at the wedding, I have "dulled" it down to Navy.

So, there you have it! Hopefully I won't decide to change these again (since it was a lot of work to Google images of strange color names)!

mywedding.com vs. theknot.com

After reading many wedding magazines, I thought one of the easiest ways to organize and plan a wedding would be to use the free online wedding planning tools that are available. From what I've seen, both www.mywedding.com and www.theknot.com seem to be the most popular choices for wedding websites. After creating accounts on both websites, I've decided to use mywedding.com for the following reasons:

+ More Wedding Website Options - wedding websites seem to be popular these days, and I felt that there was much more variety on mywedding.com

+ Simple Wedding Checklist - I felt that the Knot was very detailed and I was looking for a simple wedding checklist feature. I felt overwhelmed by the Knot's checklist.

+ Simple Budget - again, the Knot also had a very useful wedding budget tool, but it was above and beyond what I was looking for to plan a wedding.

So, for my wedding, I'll be using www.mywedding.com!

Note: Even though I've selected My Wedding for overall planning and wedding coordination, I will probably still use a lot of tips on the Knot website; the Knot has an entire section of their website dedicated to weddings in Cleveland, which I'm sure will come in handy!

Welcome to my Wedding Blog!

T-minus 416 days until I'll be walking down the aisle, so I thought I would share my wedding planning journey with the world, via a wedding blog. I'll share the ups and downs of planning a wedding in Cleveland, and hopefully some bride-to-be will discover my blog and find it useful. Or hopefully some married women in Cleveland will find my blog and give me wedding planning advice along the way.

So here's to 416 days of planning a wonderful wedding in Cleveland, OH!