Featured!

So remember I told you that I might have some exciting news??

Well I do.

Today, on none other than the amazing wedding website Lovely Little Details...

...mine and Scot's engagement session by Anni Cee Photographie is being featured! So please go on over, check it out, say hi to Jacin, and leave some love!!! She wrote such a sweet write up about us (thanks lady!), and I only wish I knew this girl in real life (Facebook is close, right?!).

Engagement, take 2

I've been holding out on you.

But only for a week, so it's ok.

See, my good bloggy friend Anni was in town last weekend and was looking to do a photo shoot with someone to help build her photography portfolio. I? Was more than happy to oblige. Was there ever a better excuse to get a second engagement shoot done?! I think not.

We agreed to meet up last Saturday morning bright and early (cough:after a late night out:cough) at our local farmer's market to do a sort of "real life" shoot.. a light year different from our original one. Anni really wanted to catch the early morning sunlight, but it turned out to be a pretty dull and rainy day. No matter! This girl is amazing at what she does and the vibrant colors at the farmer's market totally offset the dreary day. It also helped make myself and Mr. Foxy more comfortable getting our pictures taken (ok who am I kidding, just Foxy. I'm a photo hussy.) since we already "knew" Anni. I'm telling you, it makes a difference!

So.. enough jibber jabber. Here are some of my favorite shots!

Ok. I may have a lot of favorites. But Anni is just that amazing! She took my hungover arse and Foxy's sleepy butt and somehow made us look cute and adorable and in love (well we ARE in love). Point is, I'm super excited to have this set of pictures in addition to the other ones!

Thanks Anni! (And btw, anyone in the Chicago area looking for a great photog.. Anni's your girl!)

Engagaversary!

Not only is it Tax Day today (thanks for that extension, Abe)... it's our 1 year engagaversary!

Benefit #24 of having a long engagement: new made up occasions to celebrate. Which we will absolutely be doing tonite, in style!

To be honest, it's also Scot's birthday on Thursday (minor detail ;) ).. and since I won't be in town, we decided to smush our engagaversary and his bday celebration all into one. I'm treating him to one of our favorite fancy pants restaurants for some steak and potato skins and omggggg I can't wait! Nom. We actually go to this place pretty much every year for his birthday - it's that darn delicious.

Bring on the gratuitous photos!

April 2008

April 2009

June 2010

Yea, we were a bit delayed on this one.

Anyone else have some fabulous birthday traditions??

A Lurve Story

You know what would be nice?

Sharing our engagement story. Since I just kind of went "BAM! Read about our wedding!" and didn't give you much reason or a chance to say "awww". You probably still won't. But I'll share it anyway.

You should know there's some background to this story, so I'll start there. If you want the abridged version, just go to the bottom.

Way back when I was a little girl..

KIDDING.

But really.

Back in my senior year in college, all the dance majors (that was me) had to choreograph a piece and present it in a self-produced and -promoted show with about 6 other dance seniors. My show was in March, with graduation only 2 months after. As a congratulations/graduation gift, Foxy Mama got me a ring that I had been lusting over for years.

Elsa Peretti open heart ring

Simply gorgeous. I'm just as in love with it today as when I got it. I wore it every day on my middle finger on my left hand.

Well last March (2010), I had to do a fieldwork assignment for massage school and was offering free 15 minute chair massages at a local business. Naturally, I had to take off my ring to give the massages. I put it in an open pocket in my purse, to be retrieved later. When I was done massaging, I packed up and headed home - and for some reason, did not immediately put the ring back on my finger, as I usually do (and I'm usually quite obsessive about it). Long story short, it wasn't in my bag when I finally went to put it on the next day; see how the ring doesn't go completely around? I'm 99% sure that it got caught on my keys or something when I was fishing them out of my bag on the metro, and I didn't realize it got caught and fell off.

So.. no more ring. I was really upset about it, and at first decided not to tell Foxy Mama. Mr. Foxy said that we could get me a new ring, which was great, but.. it was sentimental, being from my mom and all, for graduating college, blablabla. I eventually ended up telling her, and she said that she would get me a new one because she knew how much it meant to me. I relayed the info to Foxy, and that was that. Best-mom-ever would get me a new ring.

Sidenote: As I've alluded to, Foxy and I knew at the time that we would get married eventually. I started to get antsy around this time, mainly because some friends and family kept. asking. if. we. were. engaged. and it was really wearing on me. I was happy in our relationship, but I got worked up about it due to other people not understanding that they just needed to let it be, and it would happen when it happened.


Now the weekend I told my mom I lost the ring, I was actually visiting her in NY. I offered to help her find her wedding dress (she got married that September), under the caveat that we leave me out of the equation. No questions about Foxy and I getting engaged. Without sounding like a spoiled brat, it was a bit hard to look for a dress for my mom - I was super happy for her, but of course it bit at me a little. Different story for a different time.

We ended up having a lot of fun, and found her dress. I hung out with her and her now-husband a lot over the weekend, ended up finding my maid of honor dress, and went home happy and content with myself and my relationship - honestly. I was happy that my mom was getting married, and my time would come eventually. End.

So I get home on Sunday night, worn out from a busy weekend, and Foxy and I snuggle up on the couch and start watching Public Enemies, which we rented from Netflix.

It sucked, so we stopped it about 20 minutes in.

We started talking, about random things, and then he just sits and looks at me and says "So you know how you lost your ring?"

"Yea..."

"Well what if we get you a new one?"

"Baby, my mom said she'd get me a new one, I told you that yesterday, remember?"

"Well, I didn't mean that kind of ring...."

"What? Wait.. what?"

"Will you marry me?"

"Are you serious? Really? Are you sure? Like, we're engaged? Really??"

"Are you going to say yes or what?!"


"YESSSSS!!!"

::commence smoochies and lots of phone calls and a Facebook update::

And while I don't have a picture from that night, I, in all my glory, looked something like this:

Aka, a hot mess in pajamas. I may have just been wearing a t-shirt and boy shorts. Not exactly photo-op material.

Anyway, apparently me losing my heart ring kick-started something in Foxy to make him propose. And apparently he took one look at all the ring options online and decided to just ask me, then go ring shopping together. Totally fine with me.

So there you have it! My really long, obscure, random proposal story.

And it was perfect :))

PS. Foxy Mama did eventually get me the heart ring again.. when I graduated from massage school last July!

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 :))