It's Great to Bee in DC!

What better way could there possibly be to come back from a two week wedding/friendymoon hiatus than to meet up with some DMV area bees?!

Including but not limited to (I think!): yours truly, Mrs. Pony, EAQ219, PitBulLover, LovesToPlan, Eulalia, Lady Bear, TwinABee, laurenmck, MissGlobe, All In, bdemps11, Clairebella 

Mine and Foxy's flight from Mexico got in at 12:30am Wednesday morning, and by 5pm, I was surrounded by all those lovely brides and bride-to-bee's from the metro DC area (mostly Virginia, actually!) that you see above. We met up at a cute little place called Zengo in Chinatown for a few (ok.. maybe more than a few) happy hour drinks and bites, and got quite comfy getting to know each other!

Sushi, empanadas, shrimp. Omfg so good.

A view from above!

Mrs. Pony & I

EAQ219 & PitBulLover

Conversations ran all over the map, but I do distinctly remember talking about random Ohio connections and the Twins Festival in Twinsburg (at least two of the bees there have twins and have been to said festival.. how cool is that?!). There was also some talk about all things wedding related (obviously) and a bit about Fifty Shades of Grey (I mean, why wouldn't there be?).

I also had a just a bit of fun with their saucy beaded bathroom "door". How could I not help myself?!

All in all, it was such an amazing time with such amazing women.. all in favor of making this a more regular event than once every two years? Aye!

How engaging!

So I discovered this gem of a Groupon deal last April - a $425 one-hour photo session with Brooke Bready Photography for the low price of $65. That's a discount of 85!%!! Craziness. I was checking out the amazing deal, loving Brooke's amazing photography, and ultimately decided it was the perfect opportunity to use for an engagement photo session.

The kicker? I wasn't engaged yet.

Here was the rationale behind my thinking: we were on track to get engaged/be married, the Groupon was good for a year (and if we weren't engaged by then, well then, grrrrr), and if for some reason I actually was not engaged by April of 2011, I would get my friends together and have a BFF glam photo shoot. Genius. And no, I did not tell Mr. Foxy about buying this for fear of appearing psychotic.

However! It must have been good luck or something, because 9 days later, on April 18th, he proposed. I was able to schedule a session for September with Brooke, admitted my pre-engagement engagement-photo purchase to Foxy, had a good laugh, and was so excited to get our pictures taken at Brookside Gardens in Maryland.

Then I found out three days before the shoot that Brookside was hosting a "Children's Day" and the park would really not be the ideal place to have an engagement photo session. They basically denied our permit request (not that we really needed one anyway..) and I was kind of bummed. After some searching online, I found some great e-pics of other couples by the C&O canal in the Georgetown area of DC. This was already one of my favorite parts of DC, and figured it would actually be better than Brookside Gardens because of the water, unique architecture, little bridges, etc. So off we went!

I got a CD of the pictures within two weeks (longest two weeks everrrrrr) - here are some of my faves!

This is honestly one of my favorites, because Foxy and I are almost permanently making

weird faces at each other. It's how we communicate ;)

I like to call this our "indie/alternative CD cover shot"

This one has a funny story: we were on the corner of M St and Wisconsin Ave (very busy intersection) at 7pm on a Saturday night.. so yea, it was busy and we were trying not to die with all the people and the cars but still look cute. So as we are being disruptive to all the people walking by, one guy just comes in and starts moving my body and posing me, telling my "ANGLE YOUR BODY IN!" "STEP YOUR FRONT FOOT FORWARD!" "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!" "LOOK AT HIM AND SMILE!" There we were, feeling like awkward turtles to begin with (poor Foxy, this was like nightmare central for him) and this guy just starts yelling at us (in front of like a hundred people) that we suck at posing. He eventually gave up and walked away. And this was the result. Slight fail, I think. Oh well!

Definitely love them!

So the question is.. did you "preplan" your engagement at all?!

Waiting..

...for our engagement pictures that we took on Saturday!

A little back story here:

There is this great email/online service called Groupon, where companies and businesses offer services at a discounted rate in hopes of promoting themselves and gaining business. Example: You get $20 worth of food at a restaurant for only $10, or, in my case, a $425 one-hour photo session with Brooke Bready Photography for the low price of $65. That's a discout of 85%. Craziness!

So I got this gem of an email on April 9th of this past year; I was looking at the amazing deal, Brooke's amazing photography, and the opportunity that I could use this as an engagement photo session! The kicker? I wasn't engaged yet.

Here was the rationale behind my thinking: we were on track to get engaged/be married, the Groupon was good for a year (and if we weren't engaged by then, well then, grrrrr), and if for some reason I actually was not engaged by April of 2011, I would get my friends together and have a BFF glam photo shoot. Genius. And no, I did not tell Scot about buying this for fear of appearing psychotic.

However! It must have been good luck or something, because 9 days later, on April 18th, he proposed. I was able to schedule a session for September with Brooke, admitted my pre-engagement engagement-photo purchase, had a good laugh, and was so excited to get our pictures taken at Brookside Gardens in Maryland.

Then I found out, three days before the shoot (last Wednesday), that Brookside was hosting a "Children's Day" and the park would really not be the ideal place to have an engagement photo session. They basically denied our permit request (not that we really needed one anyway..) and I was kind of bummed. After some searching online, I found some great e-pics of other couples by the C&O canal in the Georgetown area of DC. This was already one of my favorite parts of DC, and figured it would actually be better than Brookside Gardens because of the water, unique architecture, little bridges, etc. So off we went!

We are currently waiting for the pictures (they were just taken two days ago, after all), but I will be eagerly checking the mailbox daily until we get the DVD of our pictures.. which of course, I'll share!!

Where did you guys take your engagement photos? I think I love looking at them more than wedding photos, because you can usually get a good sense of the couple's personality and such :))