My favorite quotes from Amy:

• “There’s perfection in imperfection”
• “Paper is sexy”
• TOAST (listen till you get it)
• “I didn’t care if I got married”
• “I wasn’t the Bridey Kind of bride”

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For more inspiration about Making Your Love real in art, view our themed posts about ‘Where Art Lives’.

Blogger contest take two and YouTube version

Blogger talent search contest or YouTube version.

Ungodly Fruit – Soundtrack by Wax Taylor

The prize is a free multimedia engagement session by Neil Cowley with a value of $3000. The quest is for a storyteller with heart and humor to tell the stories of wedding planning and engagement from inside their head and out through the web. Submit your journal, blog, video log, or contest entry to the comments here to be considered!  Multimedia submissions will  definitely  score you bonus points!!

What is a multimedia engagement session?

• Sara & Jeremy – dog lover’s extended love story
• Letchworth New York destination engagement shoot slideshow
• Erin + Josh Engagement story at Centeral Park West and MOMA NY
• Where art lives with Courtney & Charlie shows you how a couple designed their engagement session

If you are chosen as the new blogger, I will help you design your engagement session and schedule it for as soon as possible.  Your themed shoot will also produce Save the Date Cards, and a Signature Wedding Guestbook.  You will then be responsible for writing 20-30 posts from your engagement and wedding.

Who else has blogged for you?

Deanna was our first bridal writer who’s creative, heartfelt and zany  posts were a lot of fun!  You can view her multimedia  engagement shoot slideshow, her post reflecting on the engagements, her wedding slideshow, and her post reflecting on the wedding experience and journaling/blogging.  Deanna is planning to incorporate some of her reflections in her album design.

The entries will be judged by Neil, My wife and Deanna on the basis of creative writing, personal presentation and emotional candor.  We are looking for writing style, emotional expression, and humorous visual flair (like Deanna’s barbie page).

How can I blog this, pass on the word, tell my friends?

Click the </>Embed button on the above video and copy the code to your own blog or site – or use the YouTube Version with Neil or My wife.

Paste the link to your post in the comments, so everyone reading here can find your site!

http://makelovereal.net/blogger/

Click this button to post this page to your Myspace, FaceBook, bookmarks or other sites:

Wedding Workout with guest Sherry Granader Alkalize and Energize for Great Sex « Wedding Podcast Network Wedding Talk Radio the blog

Sherry discusses acid overload and which foods you should and should not be eating that will make a huge impact on how you look and feel. She has the scoop on the importance of eating alkaline foods, super green foods, antioxidants, and what makes the body crave sugar and salt. Sherry shares her Cupa, Cupa, Cupa Smoothie recipe that’s easy, delicious and very good for you. Find out what you can do today to make a difference in your daily regimen to maximize your energy and watch your vibrant, sexy self return!

[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/weddingpodcastnetwork/WWSherryGranader.mp3]

I enjoyed this show’s encouraging tone, and let those positive motivations build up to a completely healthy lifestyle as you make healthy choices for your wedding!

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

-D

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.

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.

“Your private showing of our wedding dresses will be with an Italian designer from Peter Langdon.” Seriously? This sounds amazing and expensive…where’s the door? But i was like a kid in a candy store, I had to look around!

We climbed the stairs and I turned to Laura, “Remember, we’re just looking. Don’t let me try anything on!” “Ok!” she said and we entered the gallery. The shop was filled with bright, magical lighting and the dresses where neatly lined up on the walls. Wow.

After telling an American women of my vintage love, she grabbed a few styles and shuffled me to the dressing room. In panic I looked at Laura, was I supposed to tell her no? Ok, maybe just one or two, what were the chances of finding the real one today?

Not so good. I stepped out of the dressing room and almost screamed at the hideous frock I was wearing. I swear it looked like I had dueled a lawn mower and lost. Feathers and stripes of fabric were hanging everywhere. “You look great!” said the assistant. Oh my gosh, was she on crack? I’d rather wear a white garbage bag. I looked at Laura who was laughing. Well maybe the Badley Miska dress would be better.

Nope. Tacky as Britney Spears’ weave. Well I wouldn’t feel bad not telling me mom about this experience. Things weren’t going so well. That’s when I heard the voice of doom herself. The Italian designer from Peter Langdon scuffled over to my mirror with a dress from her collection. “She needs to try this on.”

Looking at the dress on the hanger, I knew it was different. The dress was ivory with floral embroidery which gave it a vintage feel. I walked out of the dressing room and Laura’s face just grinned. The dress fit so perfectly. I felt like Rita Hayworth about to dance with Fred Astaire. I knew this was “the one”.  

Realizing I was probably pushing my budget, I asked how much the dress cost. Haha! Was I buying a car or a dress? I looked at Laura and we laughed for minutes. How funny, time to take it off. And as I was getting one last look at myself in the dress, the shop owner came up and offered it to me half price. “I’ll take it!” I looked around the room to see who had said such a ridiculous statement. Then realized, it was me! I couldn’t afford this dress, it was half my salary! I looked to Laura for help. She was dumbfounded but grinning.

“I just need to grab my credit card at my apartment and I’ll be right back,” I told the shop owner . As we stepped out the door, Laura and I were both bent over laughing hysterically at the biggest compulsive purchase of my life. “I didn’t know you had that kind of money!” said Laura. “I don’t! And we have 30 minutes to round it up!” I replied. The look on her face was priceless.

Now if marriage is about honesty and trust, I may have bent the rules. After borrowing money from my Maid of Honor’s mother and my Mom (who thought it was for a purse!) I was still majorly short so I called my wonderful fiance for his credit card number, forgetting to tell him the actual amount of the dress. Oops! He sweetly read off the numbers and I proceeded to call the shop and purchase my dress.

Wait….there’s a security limit on purchases out of state! Oh boy, I wasn’t going to call Bill back and profess my insanity so I did what any crazy bride would do….call the credit card company and pretend to be my future husband:

“Hello, this is Mr. Wallace,” I said in the most unmanly voice EVER, “I need to lift my limit.”

“I’m sorry Mrs. Wallace, but we need to speak to Mr. Wallace.”

“This is Mr. Wallace!”….

short pause….

“Umm, I’m sorry Mrs. Wallace, but we need to speak to Mr. Wallace.”

Would you believe I tried my line three times?! Then admitted defeat and hung up with Laura laughing uncontrollably.

I laughed along with her at how desperate I’d become when my phone rang. It was Bill. I was in the middle of the ultra quiet Boston Library. He was very loud and yes, everyone heard him….”Are you trying to buy a dress for $#*$%! Are you insane!!!!!”

I didn’t realize my dude impressions would trigger a security call to Bill verifying the activity of the account. Oh brother, now I was in trouble!

Now I’m not saying to love a man for money, but if you can talk your honey into partaking in your over the top wedding shenanigans, I might say he’s a keeper and in less an hour, that’s just what Bill did. What a guy!

To end this fairy-tale story, I bought the dress of my dreams, left it in Boston and gained a few inches length on my nose, as I couldn’t tell my mom I had bought a dress without her. After driving 7 hours to take my mom “window shopping” in Boston, we just happened to both fall in love with an ivory floral embroidered dress perfectly sized for me.

Now that’s what I call luck!

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?

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?

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.