Adorama is Amazing

How was everyone's Tuesday? Isn't business suppose to slow down for most offices during the holidays? Apparently we didn't get that memo because I have been insanely busy since right before Thanksgiving. It is making the holidays come insanely fast! Still have a few more presents to buy yet... :/

Tonight, after stopping by UPS to pick up a Christmas present for my mom, I raced home because I knew my photobooks I created through Adorama for our engagemnet pictures were waiting for me. After giving both of my fur-babies hugs and kisses for the day, I ripped into the packaging.

Be still my heart.

Our. Books. Are. Amazing.

The cover is extremely sturdy and has a nice metallic sheen to it. When I say it is sturdy, I mean it reminds me a of a text book cover - very durable. (Not sure if it would stand up to a puppy and I am hoping we don't find that out...)

The binding is amazing - I love how thick it is and that the cover continues around the back.

The pages are nice and thick. Not as thick as a flush-mount book, but definitely more than a glossy paper or even card stock. The finish on the pages is awesome as well - very nice, clean finish. 

My favorite part is the lay flat pages... I HEART full page spreads. I have multiple spreads like these throughout the book. 

The Adorama software is also extremely easy to figure out and for those who have no layout skills, there are plenty of templates to choose from. Adorama also offers many different options in terms of backgrounds and extra stickers and frames, which will be cute for a baby book... Someday. Maybe a fur-baby book. Hm....

In total, I bought a 10 x 10  album for ourselves and as well as two 6 x 6 books - one for each set of parents. I was a little nervous that the 6 x 6 books were going to be too small for the parents, but they turned out to be the perfect size for them. For all three books and for express two-day shipping (because I am impatient) I paid $129 - not too bad!

So - for those of you who do not know what they're going to do with their engagement or wedding pictures, I HIGHLY recommend Adorama - you will not be disappointed. If you want to view our full album, just click here. 

You Know You Want to See More...

... WE'VE BEEN BLOGGED!!!

Sorry, couldn't contain myself any longer. Our photographers emailed me last week and told me they had chosen OUR engagement pictures to put on their blog!

I have a dirty little secret: I've always wanted to be blogged about. Not me blogging about my life, someone else thinking that my life is worth blogging about.

So you can imagine how excited I was when I found out we were going to be featured on their blog... I was even more excited when I figured out this would give me readers a chance to view ALL of our E-pics without my painfully uploading each high-res file.

Here is the link to their blog.

And one more picture for you. (The last one, I promise.)

The Rest of the E-Pics

The wait is over! Our photographers emailed us a link today with the rest of our engagement pictures - TOTALLY worth the wait. Here are a few of my favs. :) Enjoy!

E-Pics Photobook

When we were getting ready for our engagement pictures, I started thinking about what I wanted to do with the pictures when we got them. Our current house is not the biggest house and therefore we do not have a ton of wall space to work with as well as limited table space on which we could set our engagement pictures. I am also not a big fan of pictures in bedrooms because I once read that you are not supposed to put pictures in bed rooms because it counteracts the “calming” effect of the room… I am not sure how calming a room with laundry thrown everywhere can be, but for some reason, that tidbit has stuck with me.

Then the thought of a photobook came to mind. I have a couple of friends who frequently put together photobooks for events that happen throughout the year. One uses a service called Blurb and another uses Snapfish. I looked into both of these services and was going back and forth between the two when I came across this post on Wedding Bee today.

After reading that, I looked at Adorama. I clicked around their website a little and discovered that uploading and placing the pictures was a breeze. I also liked the layouts they had available as well as the fact that you can very easily create your own. Adorama is a bit pricier than say Snapfish, but I am hoping this translates into better quality.

So, as soon as our engagement picture proofs come in, you can tell what my next project will be! BTW – yes, I have been running to the mailbox every day to see if they’ve arrived. It’s worse than when you were a little kid expecting birthday cards!!! 

E-Pics Sneak Peak

Our engagement pictures were a week ago today and our photographer posted a few shots for us right away - you know, just to drive me completely mad for the next three weeks until we get the CD with all of them on there!!! :)

I could not be happier with how the pictures turned out - it is EXACTLY what I was looking for! Bryan, being the good fiance that he is, was looking for the exact same thing that I was looking for in the engagement pictures... Actually, he was just happy I told him NOT to tuck in his shirt.

Without further delay - here they are!!

E-Session Outfits

Photography is on my mind lately! Our engagement pics are set to take place on Sunday, keeping my fingers triple-crossed that it does not rain. I've had our outfits bought and stowed away for a little over a month now and I am SO excited about them! We are not dressy people - in fact, we can wear jeans every day of the week to work - so I think our outfits are pretty normal/natural for us, but still look nice.

I personally have two outfits and one pair of FABULOUS shoes. I like clothes. :) Bryan's technically has one outfit - a button down shirt with a nice t-shirt under it - so, for some of the pictures he will wear his button down and for some he won't, so he's not technically changing. (I had a hard enough time convincing him that we really did need a 2 hour photography session, getting him to completely change outfits was a battle I did not chose to pick.)

First, anchor of both my outfits - the shoes! Love, love, love them!!! Living in a small town (I mean, less than 5,000 people) I feel I can pull these off no problem.

My fabulous shoes will be paired with this dress

with this AWESOME jacket

My next outfit will consist of the boots and this shirt

and this little number

Bryan will be wearing jeans (didn't feel the need to photograph those) with this shirt

over this shirt

So excited for the combinations and to show you guys the sneak peaks!!!

Nina.Cecilia - Creative Spark

I love pictures. I love candid pictures, professional pictures, pictures of babies and pictures of old people. I ESPECIALLY love wedding related pictures. Before we got engaged I spent MONTHS pouring over the websites over local photographers, trying to find just one that met my style.

A little over a year ago, I saw that a couple of girls, twin sisters in fact, that I had hung out with for a short stint early on in my college career had started a photography business. (Via Facebook of course.) I became of fan of their Facebook page - Nina.Cecilia - Creative Spark and Fell. In. Love. They're photographs are amazing and just my style. Their pictures are not overly posed, very natural and capture the true emotion of the subjects. Their editing skills are also amazing - they're incredibly creative and talented!

I knew I had to have them as our photographers.

Around the time that I knew we would be getting engaged, I emailed Nina and asked for a menu of services. It must have been a good omen because we were engaged about a week and a half later! I immediately booked them the next day.

Since they had been around for less than a year when I booked them, it was a bit of a leap of faith as they had only done a couple of weddings at that point. However, this summer they have had quite a few and with each wedding they post on their Facebook page and blog, I get more and more excited! Our pictures are going to be amazing and I really can not wait.

Here is a sampling of a few engagement pictures and wedding pictures they have done so far - AMAZING!

Cheap & Chic: Party Booth Software

First of all a confession... I may or may not have begun planning our wedding in December of 2009... For those of you paying attention, we got engaged in May of 2010.  When I say planning, I mean book marking ideas that I liked, browsing wedding dresses, researching photographers - most of the stuff you usually do in the first two months of your engagement. Yes, I know a lot of my friends were questioning my sanity, but I figured as long as I admitted that it was a little crazy, I was OK.  Besides, I've known Bryan was "the one" since exactly the fourth day of our relationship. (Maybe I'll tell that story sometime...)

Anyway, I have longed for a photobooth at our wedding. I think they're a lot of fun and a nice little take away for the reception. However, the price of most of them I could not justify. Enter Party Booth. This FABULOUS software takes a webcam to the next level. AND, setup the right way is a really nice, AFFORDABLE alternative to a "real" photobooth.

Our reception hall has a nice big coat closet right off the main area that, in mid-August, we will have next to no use for. I am thinking, make a cute curtain for the doorway, setup some lighting and a computer, throw in some props - BAM!  Good to go!

What do you guys think?