Some exuberant responses that landed in my in-box from my friends after sending them a link to my wedding photos:

UNFREAK’EN BELEIVABLE!!!   If I wasn’t laughing I was crying.   Absolutely beautiful and funny. Probably one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in a long time. The photos, blending and delivery are GREAT.   My hat is off to the producers and players.

The drinking, the airplane,the cake, dancing,   the “gun”… where to stop?   Great job and you guys look so happy- keep it that way at all costs!
- Brian, www.designatea.com

My parents sent me a link to your wedding pictures…the last ones were way “riskay”!!!! i almost thought i should close my laptop and give you two a bit of privacy! hehehe just kidding you looked beautiful!!!! what a wonderful wedding!!
-Sara, the innocent new bride-to-be

So I have to just admit I watched the slide show of the wedding again, because it makes me happy lol
-Carmen, my new sister who’s planning her wedding 7 years in advance just to hire Neil & My wife

your photographer is pretty amazing! it kind of makes me want to get married… haha
-Jen, the one who loved being single until now

I’ve narrowed the choices for the front of my thank-you card down to 6 images, so give me till tomorrow afternoon to decide. This is harder than my college chemistry final! I’m not kidding…

-D

It’s unbelievable to me, but my wedding is only 3 days away and I feel incredibly lucky to be experiencing no stress or jitters, just total and immense excitement. Though I’m sad to have my 2 year engagement come to an end, I thought I would share some words of wisdom for brides wishing to be as happy as I am at this very moment:

1. Plan the longest engagement ever!

I’ll admit it, I’m addicted to being engaged. There’s a certain sparkle in telling people I have a fiance and watching their faces light up as they reminisce about their own weddings and romantic memories. I loved the time I spent with my mother planning every detail, listening to my bridesmaids discuss their dresses & dancing partners and learning new things about my man of 9 years. (Who knew he loved cake pillars?! Seriously?)

2. Book a crazy bachelor/bachelorette party yourself…aka go to Vegas.

There’s no written rule you can’t plan your own party! Our trip to Vegas with 6 of our closest friends was the best vacation we ever experienced. Though I’m sure my bridesmaids would have planned a fun outing, be spontaneous and go somewhere you know you’ll never forget. Well maybe you’ll forget some things……

3. Laugh at the drama and write it down!

Our wedding planning wasn’t without bumps. We “restructured” the bridal party a month before the date, sent out invites totally last minute (3 weeks to be exact) and desperately lacked in funds more than once, but when I tell my stories to others, they just make me laugh and realize the long and adventurous path we’ve taken to get to this amazing moment. Write it all down and when you’re finished, you just might be able to pitch your own soap opera!

4. Hire fantastic people.

I consider my taste to be high class, but the professionals I hired are in a class of their own. My caterer, cake decorator, stylist and of course, my photographers! are such wonderful and fun people to be around and this eases a huge amount of stress. Always there to answer any question, I couldn’t be more pleased to have met and shared my time with these people and I’m glad I choose my vendors based on personality, not just a portfolio.

5. Kiss each other goodnight EVERY NIGHT.

We might not be married yet, but almost a decade of dating means we must be doing something right.

Best wishes to all you beautiful brides! I hope your stories of celebration are as memorable as mine.

I have an obsession for the past. I’m talking 1930′s-60′s when the music was swinging, life was full of dancing and Frank Sinatra was damn sexy! (I have an obsession for him too.) So when I became engaged, I knew right away I was going to have an old Hollywood-themed wedding.

But what about my dress? I needed something nostalgic, hollywood, yet modern for today. Oh geez, was this going to be worse than my first prom?

 My tenth grade year, I bought 3 dresses, returned them, had a custom dress made, then bought my final dress 2 weeks before when i was looking for gloves. I’m so indecisive. So I buried myself in my endless library of bridal magazines and surfaced with a beautiful dress from Badgley Mishka, a classy designer inspired by 40′s Hollywood. Perfect!  

Now generally I’m carefree about my looks, except for my nose. It’s bigger than I’d like, but I’m not going to knife it for $5,000. Think of the wedding favors I could blow that on instead! Well, I’m thankful it doesn’t grow when I tell a lie, otherwise I’d be in trouble.

I knew I couldn’t tell my Mom the cost of the Badgley Mishka dress because she’d flip, so I fibbed a little. I also knew how important it was for her to see me try on wedding dresses and make my choice, so I promised her it would be an exclusive trip for both of us. Did my nose just swell?

I just happened to be visiting my Maid of Honor, Laura,   in Boston a month later, where we scheduled an appointment to try on bridemaid dresses. Well wouldn’t you know, this shop happened to carry the Badgley Mishka line! I couldn’t try on dresses without my mom, she would be heartbroken, but it seemed silly to drive 7 hours and not get a peek! I swear this is where the devil took over.

When we arrived at L’elie on Newbury St., I was greeted by the shop owner.

… Read more

I’ve of course never been married, but I sometimes compare my wedding to my senior prom. (Only let’s hope I don’t dump my man the next day.) My prom, at the time, seemed like the biggest event of my life and I just couldn’t wait. And of course with all the excitement and preparation came the crazy dreams. And I mean crazy…

So I wasn’t too surprised when my wedding nightmares started last year. Most are the typical worries: getting married on the wrong day, forgetting to invite anyone, the church shrinks while we’re in it…real common stuff. Well I finally experienced a “mind movie” that I wouldn’t mind watching again and I thought I would share it with you.

It was my wedding day and I think because of lousy weather, I got mad and called the whole thing off. Well Neil had already set up all his equipment, so he was annoyed and decided to smoke a joint in the parking lot. I thought this was an interesting concept so I sat next to him and started talking. He offered me a puff when a cop showed up to ask what we were doing. At that point Neil was so high, he offered the cop his own joint, which he gladly accepted!

Unfortunately, Neil didn’t continue in the sharing mood and another officer was mad he didn’t get offered a joint so he arrested Neil. Like a crazy man, Neil jumped in his 80′s Ford pickup truck and started doing donuts in the grass at my reception site. Dug the whole thing up like a mess then left, with the cops chasing after him.

As he drove off, we called My wife to come bail him out of jail, but instead she decided to talk to me on a balcony somewhere and discuss life. And of course as we were chatting, the whole thing fell down and we ended up joining the New York City marathon in progress below.

Can’t say I remember who won! But I woke up totally confused wondering if I was married or needed to find a different photographer. Should I be concerned?

I found the perfect shirt for my engagement photos; a white tailored beauty from Guess. But guess where it didn’t fit? Actually, I’ll give you two guesses…

Now normally I don’t obsess about filling out my shirts, but I’m an only child marrying a man with two beautiful sisters and a mother all blessed with big brains and gigantic…well you get the picture. It’s not uncommon for them to team up on me and joke about what they call “my peanuts”.

So you can understand that this shirt had to fit perfect. This was decided at 10pm the night before my photo session. No problem, I’ll just grab my bra made of pillows.

Hmmm…that didn’t seem to fill it out. How about wearing an undershirt as well? No luck either. Ok, desperate times call for desperate measures. I’ll try bra on bra with undershirt…haha…I bet I won’t be able to get it over my head. WHAT!!! There’s still room to pack a lunch! This is ridiculous.

As I sat there looking at my deflated chest in the mirror, I wondered how I was going to pull this off. I had to wear this shirt, it was the one. After pinching the shirt from all angles, I realized I just needed to pin up the shoulders to lift up the neckline. Easy. Where’s some safety pins?

We moved into our first home just 2 months ago so be darn if I knew where any safety pins were. The only ones I could scrounge were some giants holding up our 70′s draperies in the living-room. That’ll do. So I pinned up the shirt and tried it on for the 40th time. Lovely! Well…except for the silver metal peeking through the fabric and the uneven gaps gathering atop my shoulders. After 30 minutes of trying to pin it just right, I realized this wasn’t going to work. Time to get serious.

The last time I sewed was in 6th grade. We made sweatshirts from sewing machines and my sleeves were different lengths. Oops. I wasn’t even going to attempt that. Too many buttons and threading, this job called for the hand stitch! Now where was some thread?

My only guess for the location of thread would be in our sewing machine. You would think this would be an easy item to spot, yet it took me over 30 minutes to hunt it down in the corner of our garage. (Just in case Billy gets in the mood to sew up some britches?) I open the top to find a single needle with less than 6 inches of white thread. Are you serious? Who doesn’t have a stock of white thread? Well I would have to make due.

For the next hour, I sewed my left shoulder. Martha Stewart, watch out. When I finished I had less than an inch of thread left. Well that isn’t enough to hold up my right peanut!

So I dived into my closest and choose an old white shirt as my victim. For the next 20 minutes I carefully pulled out a piece of thread just long enough to finish the job. I totally felt like MacGyver. Finishing the second shoulder in record time, I raced to the bathroom to view my tailor skills.

Perfect! And I think they might have grown to walnuts!

Happier than a clam, I headed to bed with only 6 hours left till photo time. Guess who was going to look good now?

I’d like to think I’m a pretty relaxed and easy going bride. Rain on my wedding day? Big deal…. Rip in my dress? Who cares… My wedding will be perfectly planned so stress won’t be an issue….OR so I thought.

The night before my engagement photo shoot I was a mess. It might have helped if I had started planning things before 9pm, considering we had to be up by 5 in the morning to catch the sunrise. But who has time to plan?

I start to throw this and that into bags. Five pairs of shoes? Check. All the makeup I’ve ever owned? Check. A bottle of wine? Well you never know…Check. And as I start to fill the bags, I start to get a little nervous.

What if the weather is lousy? What if we don’t pose well? What if we’re uninspiring to Neil? And after filling the fifth bag, it hits me. I’m a wreck! Is this what the wedding jitters is all about? I don’t think I can get married!

I go to bed at 1am, worrying about my hair and makeup, so I never really sleep. When did I turn into such a Barbie? (Without the DD cups, *sigh) We get up the next morning and head out the door at 7am. Late as usual.

When we get to Letchworth Park, it’s absolutely stunning. I’m not a morning person (morning being any time before 11am) so I was captivated. Neil was setting up with the most tranquil music playing from his car. What a wonderful way to start the shoot. Ok, take a breath.

We pose for some amazing shots and head to the next location. “Stop being so stiff,” Billy says to me in the car, “just relax.” Wow, was it that noticeable? I peek at the wine bottle in the back seat. Maybe just a sip.

A few swigs later and I’m feeling much more Cindy Crawford. I couldn’t stop smiling or talking to Neil’s dead cat. (Don’t ask, you’ll find out.) And I finally start to relax. The effects of the nasty drink didn’t last long, but it had served its purpose. To allow me to live in the moment.

I realized then that these photos weren’t relying on a flashy smile or the way I crossed my legs, but about how happy Billy and I were at that exact moment being with each other on such a gorgeous day. How could that photo not be beautiful? No wonder I love Neil & My wife’s images. They know how to capture that moment.

And I laughed. Weddings aren’t about schedules or fresh flowers. They’re for living in a moment of immense happiness for the whole day. I can’t imagine. I can’t believe I was so stressed over nothing! I can’t wait for my wedding.

Hello everyone, my name is Deanna and I am excited to be the first bride to contribue to My wife’s and Neil’s wedding blog. My finance and I are planning to wed on July 12, 2008 and are eagerly anticipating the event. I found Neil’s website list of resources to be immensly helpful during the early planning stages of my wedding and I therefore hope that my posts may also help other brides who browse this website faithfully.