Strike a pose.

This past spring, hubs-to-be and I had engagement photos taken by the wonderfully talented and extraordinarily sweet Kaela Lee at Kaela.Mey Photography. I cannot tell you enough about how professional this lady is and how tickled we were with the end product.

Neither hubs-to-be or I adore having our picture taken (I prefer to remain on the taking side), nor can anyone really argue that being photogenic is one of our strong suits. Therefore, having engagement photos taken was not high on the proverbial wedding priority list.

Looking back now, I am so happy we decided to have them done and so grateful that Kaela was able to make us feel totally at ease in the moment. Not only was it a great way for us to become acquainted with the photographer who would be working our wedding, but it also gave us great practice posing and being comfortable in front of the camera. I cannot be a bigger advocate now of having engagement photos done with your photographer before the wedding.

The end product were pictures that perfectly captured who we are and I am so excited for Kaela to be there on our wedding day. (I even used her to help capture bestie's bridal shower!)

And without further ado...

Summer Lovin'.

So this last August, the bestie got hitched and let me tell you it was one big, beautiful family affair! The ceremony got the whole bridal party choked up (including my own hubs-to-be who was a groomsman (-: ), the setting was divine, and we danced the night away to live music on the lawn. Just the way a summer garden wedding should be.

Now the pressure was on that day. Not only was the weather bi-polar, taking turns between 100 °F and torrential rain, but I STILL needed to finish my maid-of-honor toast AND I was doing bestie's makeup for the day. Phew. No problem. I got this. 

Photo by Me

Didn't she look like a gem?! (Mostly because she's gorgeous. But I think my makeup skills helped a little). 

And her something borrowed was a pearl bracelet that my momma had given me!

Photo by Heather Espana

As I had mentioned earlier in my post about bestie's bridal shower, the colors of the wedding were grey and yellow. The bridesmaids wore grey Bill Levkoff dresses and yellow wedges and the groomsmen wore yellow ties, grey suspenders and argyle socks. Cute, no?

Photo by Me

Photo by Heather Espana

Now speaking of that bridal shower, a lot of the pieces I put together were able to be reused at the wedding! Like those yellow chevron table runners that were my first sewing project EVER...

Photo by Heather Espana

...totally got rocked at the bridal party table.

And all those Izze bottles we saved...well I painstakingly de-gooed the labels and washed them out while bestie spray painted them white so that they could be reused as bud vases for arrangements of credpedia and Queen Anne's lace. 

Photo by Me

Photo by Heather Espana

Even the cupcake toppers were reused to decorate the dessert table and my adorable galvanized ice bucket found a second life.

Photo by Me

By the end of the day we were exhausted, but all totally filled with love.

I know, I'm such a cheese.

Photo by Me

 ***Please visit photographer Heather Espana's blog for more breathtaking and stunning pictures!