Category Archives: The Details

The Best Wedding Party Ever!

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Alexander and I as the ring bearer and flower girl at our cousins Mike and Sophia's wedding

Alexander and Alysse as the ring bearer and flower girl at our cousins Mike and Sophia’s wedding

Koumbaro

Alexander

Relationship: Alysse’s Younger and Only Brother/Sibling

Likes: Old School Hip Hop, Athletic Training, Brewing His Own Beer, & AMC’s Walking Dead

One of Our Favorite Memories: My brother and I often would stay up late watching odd bad movies; for example one time we watched Leprechaun in the Hood. It was horribly fantastic. We always got along and would always play together.

Fun Fact: He has won every dance competition he has ever been in.

What We Love About Him: He’s funny and very entertaining, he is always there when you need him, and he can make friends anywhere.

Alysse as Wonder Woman and Alexander as Batman
We are wearing matching polos in Alexander’s senior pictures
Sarah and Alysse as flower girls riding in the limo

Sarah and Alysse as flower girls riding in the limo

Matron of Honor

Sarah

Relationship: Alysse’s 1st cousin (basically like her sister)

Likes: Tyler Perry’s Madea, her dog Finn, Big Salads

One of Our Favorite Memories: Sarah and I basically had lunch together everyday while we both went to Ohio State. We would talk about our classes, gossip, and enjoy amazing campus food. We would really bond together during these lunches. We also had a lot of fun together when we were kids. Sarah would always picked what we played with and when and I happily followed along.

Fun Fact: Sarah was High School Prom Queen and on The Ohio State University’s Homecoming Court

What We Love About Her: She gives great advice, She is great to go shopping with, and She is the best friend

Sarah and Alysse like to wear matching outfits when they go to church
Sarah and Alysse at Sweethearts in Columbus
Leah and Alysse at Sea World

Leah and Alysse at Sea World

Bridesmaid

Leah

Relationship: Alysse’s 1st Cousin (basically like her sister)

Likes: Button-ups, Photography, Orange is the New Black

One of Our Favorite Memories: When Leah did something, Sarah always would follow, and then I would follow and do the same thing. Due to this pattern Leah leadership I did a lot of really cool things Student Council, Sigma, and Mortar Board. I loved sharing these activities with her.

Fun Fact: Leah did 30 things in 30 days before her 30th Birthday you can read about it here

What We Love About Her: She is super creative, she is great to talk to you, and she is the best leader

Leah reads a book to Alysse
Alysse and Leah during some holiday
Lauren and Alysse in the 4th grade at Amish Country

Lauren and Alysse in the 4th grade at Amish Country

Bridesmaid

Lauren

Relationship: Alysse’s Best Friend Since the 4th Grade

Likes: TLC’s A Baby Story, Bargain Shopping, Ricky Martin/BSB/Nsync, Red heads

One of Our Favorite Memories: Lauren and I have a mutual love for gymnastics. It’s probably our favorite sport to watch. In high school we attended a gymnastics tour at the Gund Arena. Lauren’s mom got us the really good seats so we were super close to the arena floor. While most people who attend a gymnastic show sit quietly and watch the performance, Lauren and I would watch the show like we were at a boy band concert standing up, clapping, and screaming at the hot gymnastics boys. Our enthusiasm caught the eye of gymnast Alexei Nemov, who during mid performance on the high bar blew us a kiss. We almost fainted and history was made.

Fun Fact: Lauren can talk like Donald Duck

What we Love about Her: Fun to be around, the best person to go any concert with, and has a big heart

Lauren and Alysse on Lauren’s 21st birthday
Lauren and Alysse on our 8th grade field trip
Kendra and Alysse freshman year at Ohio State after jumping into Mirror Lake

Kendra and Alysse freshman year at Ohio State after jumping into Mirror Lake

Bridesmaid

Kendra

Relationship: Alysse’s first friend at The Ohio State University and roommates for 3 years

Likes: Going to concerts, Wine, Outdoors

One of Our Favorite Memories: While Kendra and I were living together our 3rd year we were about to leave to go to the famous 1. v. 2. Ohio State v. Michigan game and I could not find my ticket. Kendra, my friend Todd, my friend Amiee, and I tore my whole room a part to find my tickets. I could not find them and it was the most important game of the college football season. I was crying and Kendra was comforting me with shots of vodka. So Kendra and I decided to go to the OSU ticket office to see if I could get new tickets. Luckily I was able to reprint my ticket but I had to enter the stadium hours before the game. Kendra was nice enough to come with me. It was the best Ohio State game, we won, and we got to rush the field at The Shoe

Fun Fact: I used to call her “Top Chef” in college for making really fancy meals.

What We Love About Her: She is always fun to be around, she is an awesome friend, and she is always there when you need her.

Alysse and Kendra before the infamous 1 v. 2 Michigan and Ohio State football game
Alysse and Kendra 2nd year at OSU
Phil and Nick wearing matching outfits

Phil and Nick wearing matching outfits

Best Man

Nick

Relationship: Middle Brother

Likes: Fantasy Football, Video Games and Transformers

Favorite Memory: Living together in Lakewood and staying up way too late on a work night to play juuuuuust one more game of NBA 2K. We did this a lot over the years and we would always end up yelling at the TV or falling asleep with the controller in our hand.

Fun Fact: Was a better hockey announcer than any other sport, even though he never played hockey.

What We Love About Him: He has always been there for me.

Phil and Nick on Easter
Phil and Nick on Halloween
Phil and Steve Swimming

Phil and Steve Swimming

Groomsman

Steve

Relationship: Little Brother

Likes: Playing the piano, the discovery channel, and gardening

Favorite Memory: When I was an assistant coach for his 5th grade football team, Steve was the QB and we ran out of players to run the plays in. Steve improvised by calling his favorite plays in madden (a halfback pass and a hail Mary) and scored a touchdown.

Fun Fact: His best friend is his stuffed polar bear “Snuffles”

What We Love About Him: He entertains us with his enthusiastic love for “River Monsters” (Alysse’s favorite TV show).

Phil and Steve…don’t mind Phil’s facial hair
Phil and Steve in Greece
Phil and Dan Tailgating

Phil and Dan Tailgating

Groomsman

Dan

Relationship: Friend for…i don’t know how many years

Likes: True Blood, Keeping the streets clean, and adult beverage.

Favorite Memory:  When Dan worked at Cabin Club, he purchased a keg of Great Lakes Christmas Ale for his house. I helped him pick it up and take it to his house. That night, we both drank so much of it that we were both passed out by 10 pm.

Fun Fact: Dan passed out at least 3 Browns home openers in a row before actually making it through last years game.

What We Love About Him: Sat at the bar with me while I waited for Alysse’s flight to leave on the day I asked her to marry me.

The Great Favor Debate

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Our Favor Boxes

Our Koufeta Free Favor Boxes

So you are going to have almonds as your wedding favor, right? Um, no I am not. The women of my family look at me like I’m an alien. It’s a Greek wedding tradition that the wedding favors be sugar coated almonds aka Jordan Almonds, the Greek word for them is koufeta. As a kid/teenager/young adult when I went to any weddings (all of them were Orthodox wedding) I was always highly disappointed when I got koufeta as a wedding favor. As fluffy as the tulle that they were put in the almonds were as bland as they could be. My problem with koufeta is the sugar to almond ratio. I would prefer more sugar to compensate for the nutty flavor. Until I figured out the proper way to eat koufeta that would make the dessert tolerable I would never take the favor or I would always give the favor to my Yiayia, who loves sweets. In case you were wondering what the proper way to eat koufeta was, you have to eat the sugar coating first then you eat the nut. Simply biting into the koufeta will not maximize it’s flavor.

Koufeta Source Notice all the tulle

My mom thought that we didn’t need traditional favors. But if we were going to have favors it had to be koufeta. I wanted to have koufeta available at the wedding but I didn’t it want to be a main favor. When my mom shared her opinion she unintentionally made me feel guilty and feel that I was shaming my heritage by not carrying on the koufeta favor tradition. The koufeta is supposed to symbolize purity and the egg shape of the almond is supposed to represent fertility and new life which begins with marriage. The hardness of the almond is supposed to represent the endurance of the marriage and the sweetness of the sugar symbolizes the sweetness of future life. There is also an old wives tale that single women are supposed to put the almonds under their pillow the night of the wedding and then they will dream of their future husband. Even all these traditions are meaningful to my culture, it still doesn’t hide the fact that the almonds are not tasty. The final deciding factor of not having koufeta as our favor is the fact that Phil is allergic to nuts and can’t eat our own wedding favor. Meanwhile when I was trying to make the argument not to have koufeta as the favors; I couldn’t think of another good favor to have. I did research on different types of candy and what candy was the most 1920s. When I think of the 1920s I think of alcohol specifically drinking fancy champagne in secret speakeasies. So I started researching champagne flavored candy and I found out a division of Jelly Belly made a jelly bean like candy called champagne bubbles. They were a perfect solution to my koufeta problem they were white, affordable, and way tastier. Then I took it upon myself to make the decision that these “bubbles” were our favor because they went with our theme. Don’t worry Greek people a fancy bowl of koufeta will still be available on the dessert table to put under your pillow that night.

Invitations By Acia

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The invitations are ready to go!

The invitations are ready to go!

My mother, Acia, should be a professional invitation designer. If that even is the correct terminology for that sort of profession. She is so talented that she handmade and designed our wedding invitation with a 2000 version of Microsoft Publisher. She is truly the bomb.com. Designing our wedding invitations starts out with a journey to Hollo’s PaperCraft. I found out about Hollo’s through my cousin Sarah’s wedding. She had bought all our her paper there for her programs and menus there. So when I knew that my mom was going to make our invitations I knew that Hollo’s was the place to go. Phil and I first checked out Hollo’s by ourselves and it was scary. Hollo’s has a lot of paper in the store. It is literally like a warehouse of paper, envelopes, and odds and ends of art supplies. Phil and I tackled the challenge of Hollo’s with our color swatches in our hands and a mission to find the perfect match. We failed miserably at this mission. Not one piece of hundreds of shades of paper matched our “sea foam green” color. Well I just lied, we found a 5 cent business size envelope that was a perfect match…but this envelope was completely useless.

So we had to go to plan B, choose a gold invitation and bring in the “seafoam” color in with an art deco pattern. Phil and I then I picked out a pocket invitation we liked. On Etsy you can buy digital paper packs. A digital paper pack is when graphic designers make cool patterns in different colors and sell them on Etsy. You can use them for anything from scrapbooks to of course you guessed it, invitations. Luckily I found a few art deco packs in my wedding colors. Based on what pattern looked the best printed out we chose the design that you saw on the invitation. Then it was the journey of choosing the font. I am a trademark attorney so I look at a bunch of different kinds of fonts weekly. So I knew from the beginning that this journey of finding the correct font could be a long one. But luckily due to my mother’s talents in Google searching and following instructions on how to use free fonts, she found a variety of fonts to choose from. Then it was easy to pick my favorite two that looked the best together. I explained to her on how I wanted the invitation to be designed and she executed my vision with perfection. I truly love our invitations so much I probably will frame them. If you are thinking if you want to hire Acia to design your invitations for your next special event you are going to have to ask her yourself.

Suit & Tie

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Back off ladies he is mine

Back off ladies he is mine

Phil sense of style is very diverse. Phil loves his graphic sports related tees but he also will surprise you and wear a trendy sweater/button up combo from H&M. If Phil could get married in anything it would be sweat pants, a Homage t-shirt, and flip flops…he is a simple man. I can’t get the guy to wear anything pink but he will wear a v-neck t-shirt. When it came to picking out a tux for him and his groomsmen I wanted something classic and something a current star would wear on a red carpet. So this meant I did not want the men to wear the typical colored tux vest to match the bridesmaids dresses. Brad Pitt would get schooled on E!’s Fashion Police if he was caught wearing a matching emerald vest to complement Angelina’s dress.

Suit & Tie inspiration Emily Blunt and John Krasinski in Prada Source 

I saw the above tux on John Krasinski from The Office while watching the 2010 Golden Globes. Back then I thought to myself damn that is a good looking tux and they are a good looking couple. When it came time to pick out a tux for our wedding I immediately thought of one of Hollywood’s cutest couple and “Jim’s” Golden Globes tux. When I told Phil I wanted him to wear a navy blue tux and bowtie, he approved and I was happy. But the oddest thing is that finding a navy blue tux is hard. Fun fact: most tuxedo rental shops only carry black tuxes and navy blue suits. When I went to the Today’s Bride Bridal Fair I found this out by asking most of the Northeastern Ohio tuxedo rental shops at the show. It still blows my mine that some shops don’t carry blue tuxes. We did find one store that carried the perfect 1-button navy tuxedo at American Commodore Tuxedo. I earned some extra bonus cash towards the tuxedo rentals playing a knock-off version of Plinko at the Bridal Fair so it made the tuxedos rentals pretty reasonable. Not to mention Phil looked super hot in the tuxedo when he tried it on…so he said yes to the tux.

 

The Epic Greek Band Search

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The Aegean Duo from Vasili’s World Video on Vimeo.

I am a music snob. I admit it and my family and friends know it. Anytime I go to some event where there is music played I am super critical about what kind of music is being played and what order it is played in.  I am also super picky about Greek music.  I think I secretly want to be a DJ, my friend Cynthia knows about my DJ ambitions, in fact she sometimes calls me DJ A-List. So when it came to picking out the band for our wedding, I wanted the best. Due to the demographics of our wedding and our parents suggestions we decided that we wanted a Greek band for our wedding. I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the Greek Bands out of Northeast Ohio. I was right I did. Your main Greek bands in Northeast Ohio are Stigma, Karizma, The Fabulous Grecian Keys, and the Orion Express. But the big problem with Greek Bands is that there are made up of Greek people. As a Greek person myself I know that Greek people like to wait til the last minute to do things, aren’t the best at communicating effectively, and sometimes make promises that they can’t keep. I suffer from these stereotypical traits myself. My mom and I started contacting Greek bands late November, our first choice was booked and our second choice lead us on for approximately 3 months. See some Greek bands in Northeast Ohio are not made up a set group of people and their lineup changes depending on who can play that weekend. This particularly charismatic group was one of those bands and it took them 3 months to not tell us that they couldn’t find a bouzouki player. So after calling a few bands and not getting a response from them or them charging an arm and leg for their sub par performances, I started to get worried. I ended up calling some of the bands that were on the bottom of my list because I didn’t know who to call. One of the bands I called was very responsive and got excited that I called. I have seen them perform so I was excited. But this fabulous band had submitted a contract to a festival that same weekend so they were waiting to hear back from them. So they made us wait a month and half  waiting to hear about this festival contract. So naturally me being me I panicked. I had my parents and Phil’s parents ask everyone they knew what other Greek bands were out there. I was too invested in the idea of having a Greek band to search for a DJ. Luckily we got the best recommendation from Presbytera Goldie who gave Phil’s mom the name of the band that was at her daughter’s wedding, The Aegean Band from Rochester, NY. So naturally I Google’d them and found their website and watched and listening to all their music on their website and I was instantly fell in love with them. The video that was posted on their website I knew all the songs, they were playing songs from the last 5 years (which is rare for some NE Ohio Greek bands), and they sounded great. The moment they had me sold is when they played THREE of my favorite Greek artist’s songs in their promotional video. My Justin Timberlake of Greek music is Nikos Vertis, I love him. I have all of his CDs and my dream is to see him in concert one day. My favorite Greek song of all time is “Pes mou ksana” (The Aegean Band knows that song). When I contacted Steve from the Aegean Band he got back to me within hours of my email and was so nice and accommodating. They were actually up for the same festival contract as the other band that lead me on for a month but told me that I was his first priority since I was contacting him and was willing to reserve the date over the phone. So after discussing the band with Phil and the parentals we booked The Aegean Band and I couldn’t be happier. Opa!

This is Nikos Vertis’ newest single…isn’t he dreamy?

Cake, Cake, Cake

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We killed that cake

We killed that cake

I love desserts. Phil also love desserts. So when it came to picking out a wedding cake it was easy as pie….or should I say cake. (Wow that was lame, but I’m keeping that joke anyway).  In the summer of 2011 Phil and I traveled to New York to volunteer at the Greek American Foundation’s Gabby Awards. At the Gabby’s I had my first ever Georgetown Cupcake, it was a salty caramel cupcake and I was in love.

My first Georgetown Cupcake...June 2011

My first Georgetown Cupcake…June 2011

After the Gabby’s, and my first Georgetown Cupcake experience I become obsessed with everything that had to do with salty caramel. Salty caramel cupcakes, salty caramel ice cream from Jeni’s, salty caramel cheesecake, salty caramel popcorn, and everything else that was salted and caramel. So when it came to deciding on what kind of wedding cake Phil and I wanted to have it had to have some kind of caramel in it. When my mom, Phil’s mom, and I went to the Today’s Bride Bridal Fair I went to the fair with the intention of finding a cake vendor who offered a caramel flavor. To my surprise none of the cake vendors at the fair actually made a caramel cake but most vendors make a banana flavored cake, a flavor that I never ever tried, but none had a caramel flavored cake. So I had to choose vendors that had caramel filling, which is just as good. Phil and I setup an appointment with Any Way You Ice It because 1) it had a sweet punny name 2) they had caramel filling 3) they handed out cupcakes at the bridal fair and it was tasty and 4) the price was right. So Phil, I, and Phil’s parents went to go taste cakes and these were the flavors we tasted:

1. Chocolate with Peanut Chips cake with Creme Caramel filling
2. Chocolate cake with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Filling
3. Yellow cake with Creme Caramel Filling
4. Strawberry Cake with Chocolate Gnache filling.
5. Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese filling.

All the flavors were AMAZING! We especially like the chocolate cake with the peanut butter cream cheese filling and the yellow cake with you guessed it the caramel filling. So we decided to have 2 flavors of cake at our wedding chocolate cake with peanut butter chips with peanut butter cream cheese filing and the second flavor being yellow cake with creme caramel filling.

Phil's Mom and Dad enjoying the cake

Phil’s Mom and Dad enjoying the cake flavors

When it came to the design of the cake that was pretty easy. I wanted to incorporate an art deco design with my wedding colors. Luckily art deco style is based on a lot different designs and patterns and it wasn’t had to find inspiration for the cake. I received inspiration for the art deco design from a Martha Stewart art deco wedding cake, a 1920s screen door, and the Great Gatsby book cover. It was actually much easier than I thought to create my own design. Since we loved the flavors and Kelly, the owner of Any Way You Ice It, we booked her as our cake vendor. One thing we do regret is interviewing more cake vendors just for the sole purpose of tasting more cakes.

Our Cake Design

Our Cake Design

Dear Brides Everywhere Don’t Let Your Bridesmaids Pick out their own dresses, it’s too hard

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My Bridesmaid Dresses from “Louisa” from J. Crew my 1st and approx. 250th choice.

I have only been a bridesmaid twice in my life and both Kendra and Sarah made my life as a bridesmaid easy. They both did the choosing and I did the buying, just the way it should be. Brides if you need one of your bridesmaids to try on dresses for you, it is totally acceptable. But only ask 1 person to go try on dresses. All of your bridesmaids don’t have to be there. I did this for Sarah’s wedding and she did this for mine. If you are the “chosen” bridesmaid just model them and give both positive and negative feedback and most importantly don’t be a bitch. The best way to give your opinion on if you like a dress is to give a grade “A+ to F”. It is the easiest way for the bride to get true idea of what dresses you like best instead of calling each dress “cute” or “pretty.” If you are a bride, it is still your wedding you should pick out a dress you like and would want to wear and if your bridesmaids like you they will like the dress you pick. For the past couple of years it has been a trend to have mismatched bridesmaids dresses you give your bridesmaids a color and and they go out and pick out a dress they like. To me that is flat out being a lazy bride. “But, Alysse if I just give your bridesmaids choices they will be happier and they will love their dress so much more that they will wear it again!”  This is false, bridesmaid dress shopping is stressful there are a lot of stores and styles and different dresses to choose from, you don’t want to pass that stress onto your friends and family. If you want the mismatched look, pick 3 or 4 dresses yourself and have your bridesmaids choose from those 3 or 4 dresses or you can pick a color and fabric by a certain designer they pick from the different styles.

This 1/18th of the dresses I found when I was looking for a bridesmaids dress.

This 1/18th of the dresses I found when I was looking for a bridesmaids dress.

Let me tell you about my journey of finding a bridesmaids dress to enlighten you on the situation. All bridesmaids dresses look the same. You got your strapless dress, you got your spaghetti strap dress, you got your edgy one shoulder, you got your Duggar cap sleeve dress, a cool back dress, you got your halter dress, and finally you got your regular strap dress. The dresses come in three fabrics chiffon(two kinds), satin, or jersey. Add some sparkly brooch or a rose and you got a bridesmaid dress. I wasn’t floored by any of the bridesmaids dresses I saw at bridal shops or online bridal shops. So I thought I would just search other dress shops and websites that didn’t sell exclusively bridal stuff. You would be surprised how many everyday brands have bridesmaid dress lines including J. Crew, Ann Taylor, The Limited, Nordstorm, Guess, BCBG, and a few more. There are also a few websites that sell bridesmaids dresses like ASOS, Monsoon, BHLDN, and ModCloth. I spent about 3 months searching these websites and checking them a  minimum of 3 times a week looking for dresses. I wanted a dress that was 1920s inspired but didn’t look like a costume. Due to the movie The Great Gatsby coming out this May there was a lot of 1920s/ Art Deco style dresses out in the stores for the holiday season. But a lot of these dresses were too flashy or too slutty. I knew that I liked J. Crew bridesmaids dresses and that was my backup plan if I couldn’t find an unconventional dress. I figured out why so many brides buy dresses from bridal shops because every time I found a dress that I liked it either was too expensive, didn’t have all the sizes of my bridesmaids, or sold out too quickly. It was not only hard to find a dress that was in stock and had the right number of sizes it was just as hard to find the right color. There are tons of different shades of blue especially my minty/seafoam/grayed jade blue I had picked for my wedding color. Even if I wanted to shop at a bridal shop for the dresses there wasn’t a designer that sold a dress in my colors. I found a dress at BCBG that I really liked but it was $325 and since I would never spend that much on a bridesmaids dress I wasn’t going to have my ‘maids spend that much either. So I waited to see if it went on sale and unfortunately that dress was so popular  that it sold out before it hit the sale rack. After ordering a few other dresses online and then returning them because they were just a hot mess; I went with my 1st/backup choice the J. Crew dresses because they are so pretty aka an A+ and the dusty shale color was the perfect color I was looking for. The “Louisa” was also flattering and had the 1920s inspiration I wanted with the V pleated on the bodice. So ladies you see how time consuming and options there are for bridesmaids dresses, don’t let your ‘maids bare that burden.

Sarah in the BCBG dress...she will probably kill me for posting this...so if I go missing you'll know where to look first :)

Sarah in the BCBG dress…she will probably kill me for posting this…so if I go missing you’ll know where to look first 🙂

Let’s Make a Wedding Movie

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This video above is the exact opposite of the kind of video we want to have and the type of people we want to be.

I have always loved being in front of the camera. I started taking acting classes around the 3rd grade which lead to going to a performing arts school, which lead to be majoring in Theatre at Ohio State, and which lead to me having my own show at Ohio State called “Music On Campus.” I always thought to myself when growing up that why were wedding videos so lame and cheesy. They had zero cinematic and artistic quality. These wedding videographers had to like some sort of film or art because they got into the business of videography.  But why were these wedding video so boring and didn’t tell any story.  I had this misconception of wedding videos until I stumbled on this video by Brinton Films out of Arizona. It was beautiful, romantic, and told a story of a couple in love. All of their wedding videos were amazing. At the time I thought if I ever got married I would want my wedding video to look like any one of their films.

Lex & Loren – Engagement/Save the date! from Brinton Films on Vimeo.

Fast forward to early 2012 and one of Phil’s friends from his church got married and posted her wedding video on Facebook. I had just watched my cousin Sarah’s wedding video and telling Phil about it and then he sent me her wedding video by Candy Apple Films . There it was a wedding videographer that made weddings look like a real artistic movie! Scott from Candy Apple (not Candy Apple Dance you Dance Mom fans) was the only videographer we wanted and interviewed and he had us instantly sold when he showed us a film of a Greek wedding he did and it made me teary eyed and I never get teary eyed watching wedding videos. So we booked him. Watch one of his awesome films below.

Candy Apple Films presents Desireè and Sean from Candy Apple Films on Vimeo.

We would like a Photographer who makes us look skinny and super hot and also is not afraid to use photoshop

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This photo was taken after 4 attempts; Feb. 2011 Barrister's Ball

This photo was taken after 4ish attempts; Feb. 2011 Barrister’s Ball

I am really bad at remembering to take pictures. For a couple of years my New Years resolution was to take at least 3 pictures when I went somewhere. Like most resolutions that one would last only about 3 months. Also, Phil also got me a camera for Christmas one year and I love it. But, I still wished I used it more. So, when it came to looking for a photographer for our wedding we wanted someone that took modern and beautiful pictures and had a photojournalism style.  There is a lot of wedding photographers out there. Searching for wedding photographers is much more of a daunting task that it seems. In northeast Ohio there is a wide variety of wedding photographers and styles of photography. There is also a wide variety in pricing. You can expect to pay anywhere from $1,500 to $7,000 for a wedding photographer. You also have to sort through photo pricing and you have to decide if want an engagement session, the rights to the photos so you can make as many copies as you want, how many hours of coverage you want, wanting 1 or 2 photographers, and if you want fancy wedding albums. You also have to be careful to see if the photographer edits every photograph you get or you have to request for them to photoshop certain photos.  We knew that we wanted an engagement session in Columbus, 2 photographers, the photographer needed to have a blog, the rights to our photos, no cheesy poses or early 2000s , and no fancy albums. We contacted about 15 wedding photographers. Yes, you read that right fifteen photographers. Some were not available, some where too expensive, and some photographers I really didn’t like their pictures. We ended up interviewing 3 photographers. The 1st photographer was good. The 2nd photographer never photographed a Greek Orthodox Wedding, which was a deal breaker. The 3rd photographer InLux Photo we loved. There pictures were simple and beautiful, Heather and Jarred the photographers were super nice, and they fit within our budget. After our long search we were thrilled to have such an awesome wedding photographer.

InLux's wonderful photography

InLux’s wonderful photography Source

This Blog Stole Our Wedding!?!

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This fake couple stole our wedding…good thing Phil and I are way better looking than this two peeps. Source

When you get engaged and you’re a girl you tend to go a lot of wedding blogs to get ideas for your wedding. There are a ton of really good ones like Style Me Pretty, 100 Layer Cake, Green Wedding Shoes, and Ruffled. Back in November I picked my colors and my theme of my wedding. I swear I didn’t copy them from any of those blogs. I chose the colors below and my theme was going to be 1920s/Art Deco. My vision was that Nucky Thompson (from “Boardwalk Empire”) and Jay Gatsby (from “The Great Gatsby”) were throwing a movie premiere party for our wedding in the 1920s.  I love everything that has to do with old Hollywood glam and I love the decor and the style of the 1920s, so it was the perfect combination.

So during my lunch break at work I browsed my favorite wedding blogs including Ruffled and came across this blog post: http://ruffledblog.com/mint-and-gold-wedding-inspiration/  I was in shock. This photo shoot was my theme, my colors, and everything! I didn’t know if I should have been pissed or flattered. This blog definitely stole our wedding because it was posted in January and I came up with my theme in November. It was also very weird that my favorite dessert, salted caramel cake, was a featured dessert in the photo shoot. But, after thinking about it for a couple of hours, I was grateful to Ruffled for “stealing” my wedding theme and colors because now I have actually pictures to show our vendors what we want for flowers, linens, and decor, etc. So, brides out there let me know if you need a wedding theme and/or colors because apparently I’m a “trendsetter.”

See the Salted Caramel Pops! They are onto me!