Nautical Inspiration

If you can't already tell, I'm slightly obsessed with all things nautical. Especially nautical weddings. The coolest one I have ever seen was found on the Armorology blog, photographed by WeddingbeePRO, Amelia Lyon.

I'm in love with every detail of this wedding, I love the navy and white color scheme with pops of aqua.

And of course, I love the Starfish accents.

Every detail is incredible, but I especially love the postcards they had made.

Heather from Armorology worked with Courtney Scowby of Brightly Designed to create all of the paper elements for the wedding, including vintage style post cards which sat atop each plate. The back side allowed for all guests to leave the couple a message, which Kaite's mom offered to mail to them throughout their first year of marriage and on anniversaries. The front side featured various engagement pictures (also by Amelia Lyon) as well as several love and beach quotes such as, "If you want to know how much I love you, count the waves." I would love to do something similar to these instead of a guestbook at our wedding.

My second favorite element? The photo booth! I love photo booths, as you may have noticed! All of the amazing photo booth shots were taken by The Digital Orange.

See more of this wedding here and here.

Have you found a wedding that just completely inspired you?

A picture is worth...????

Choosing the photographer was one of the first wedding planning tasks we accomplished. I must have e-mailed between 15-20 different photographers. I had no clue what our budget was, but since I am a girl who loves my memories, I was willing to splurge.
Reflecting back on the process, I should have been better about narrowing my choices before contacting all of those people. Everyone I contacted, in my opinion, is exremely talented and therefor they probably don't have a lot of time to waste e-mailing people who aren't seriously interested. At the time of contact I thought I was interested, but I just hadn't done enough research and budget planning to know exactly what we were looking for other than someone extremely talented.

I spoke with photographers ranging in the low 2K range to over 10k. The photographers over the 10k range were pretty amazing and depending on what your looking for they may be worth every penny..... but as a bride on a budget, they were knocked out of the search immediately. Luckily after a lot of searching I found a photographer who I think is worth the 10K, but doesn't charge it!
It came down to a few photographers who I set up appointments with. The first one was David Bibeault. He was recommended by a videographer we had met with. He had the lowest prices in our search, which oddly made me wary. I went in with low expectations. I always think, you get what you pay for. So I was willing to splurge on our photos because I want them to be amazing.
He made me change my whole perspective on "you get what you pay for". In my area, everyone I contacted seemed to be right around 5k or up for photography packages with what we wanted included (Engagement Shoot, Full Day Coverage, Rights to Photos, Wedding Album, Online Viewing, Disc of all Images). When we met with Dave, we not only loved his prices, but him as well. He really put us at ease. His work was amazing and totally changed my perception on the cost of things. I feel really lucky to have found him. When we first booked him he had a pretty basic site with some galleries, but a few months after booking he updated his site and started a blog and facebook page, which made me like him even more! Now I can check out his most recent work. Most of the other photographers had blogs, which really gave me more insight into their work and style. I wasn't sure what to expect from him, until I actually met with him.

The lesson I learned during the process of looking for our photographer was to do your research before contacting vendors and know that there are hidden jewels out there. If you find someone in your budget, who you doesn't have a lot of work on the internet, take the opportunity to meet him/her and give them a chance.

Did anyone else learn how to better deal with vendors and what to expect from vendors after your first few bookings?

All photos credited to: David Bibeault

"You're my Lobster"

Most brides are on some type of budget, and wedding dreams sometimes need to be toned down or completely cut to make the budget work.

When we started planning our dream Newport wedding, I had big ideas. I wanted it to be a weekend affair with events throughout. Then reality set in.... a.k.a. the budget. My dreams of additional events were toned down, and we had to figure out what would give us the most bang for our buck. We decided to go with a morning after brunch as a send off for our guests. I'm so excited about the brunch, but I would have loved to treat our guests to a welcome dinner in addition to the brunch.

I had dreams of a traditional lobster bake. Can you imagine the possibilities?

I am in love with this rehearsal dinner shown on the Brian Phillips Photography blog. Click on the link to see more gorgeous photos!

I love the lobster details in this rehearsal dinner, photos by Snap! Photography, another RI photographer. The event was planned by Raina of Raina Dawn Events.
We had a senior event during our college years hosted at Kempenaar's Clambake Club in Middletown, RI. The photo possibilities would be fun! They have a built in photo area, as seen in the lovely photo by Newport photographer Faith Dugan. The site also has volleyball nets and horseshoes, which would make for a fun welcome event.

And no event is complete without a little inspiration from Martha. How cute are these diy place cards and invites?

What wedding dreams did you have to tone down or completely cut due to your budget?

Talented Friends and Family

One of the things I love about Facebook, is the ability to instantly get access to photos after a big event. Within the few days after Sister Newport and Brother in law Newport's wedding, at least 6 albums have surfaced. My favorite being from Jarett Skeffington. He is a photographer(Jskeffphoto) from CA who has been doing photography on the side for a couple years.

He wasn't the actual photographer for Sister Newport's wedding, but he still got some amazing shots. It helps to have talented friends and family members. I want to give sneak peak at some of his shots, but don't want to give too much away before the re-caps!

I love the moment captured in this shot. Mr. Newport escorting two of the bridesmaids into the reception to "I've got a Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas. The wedding was so much fun and I love that this picture captures thatThere were so many great options for the first dance and father daughter dance to choose from!

The details of the wedding were amazing.I love that this was captured. I'm so amazed at the quality of the photos seeing as I never even noticed Jarett taking these.

I was so nervous giving my speech and I like that I appear to be calm and collected in this one!
And of course, I had to throw some in of the flower girl, my adorable god-daughter.

I spoke to Jarett during the wedding and was excited to hear he's going to be updating his website. I've been excited to see more of his recent work, as most of the site is form 2006. He recently shot a wedding and I'm excited to see what he can do as the real photographer, because I think the shots as a guest were amazing. Jarett is a relative, so I've been following his work for as long as I've known about his business. It's been so cool to see his progress over the past couple years. I can't wait to see more!

Did you have any surprising talents at your wedding?