My favorite bouquet shots...

My favorite bouquet shots are the ones where the groom's face may or may not be seen while he is holding the bouquet. It's such a gorgeous contrast of feminity and masculinity, as well as showcasing all things similar between the styled groom and his beloved's bouquet...

From Dex Knows

From Ruffled Blog

Interestingly enough, although we don't have a photo like this of my bouquet, we have a great humorous version that fits us even better. I believe I recall telling Shawn, "Use the opportunity while I look at the Marriage Certificate to get a picture of you holding the bouquet while the photographer is looking. Bloghers love that."

He thought it was as funny as I did after it was heard coming out of my mouth instead of bouncing around the confines of my aloof-y, just-married head.

This comes in third:

All of our wedding images here by D. Pohlen



Mr. + Mrs. Shoes

Well... Mr. has shoes...

Our Wedding Jewelry

Lucky Elephant Bracelet that I won!!!

Shawnie in his handmade bunny plugs from etsy seller arksendeavors. She makes RAD plugs.

Close up of Shawn's jewelry with the bunny plugs!

Shawn's Nana's Necklace.

Shawn's mother wore this the day she was married (my to-be birthday years before) but we didn't realize it until after she let me borrow it.

Clockwise from upper left: Daisy ring from my parents for my 16th birthday; I wore it the night before when my ring was taken away for the wedding! My mother's grandmother's ring made of blood coral; Lucky Elephant bracelet again; wedding ring. PS: Yes, I did get a manicure but no, I did not wear fake nails! I just wanted them painted a nice light-almost-white pink.

Photo I took of our hotel-gift champagne cork; Shawn's pocket watch from his Papa in California; and my resting bouquet.

My "Something Old." Shawn's Grandma's hanky with my hand embroidery of the monogram and date in white. The pin is one of two that my mother's grandma gave to her. I wore one and mom had the other!

Nose ring! Or should I say Naath? I wish someone would have said "Come here..." and brushed my bangs out straight. Immediately after the wedding I started looking like myself, with disheveled hair, once again!

What do you guys think?!

Kiss Shot

Happy Birthday, Husbunnay

Happy Birthday, my Husbunnay!

Shawnie is 24 Today

We got a house! YAY BUN WE DID IT!!!
And when we get home from leaving work early today, I'm making ice cream cake.

Preview of Wedding Photos!

I wanted to hold off posting photos of the wedding until I have the professional shots all back and cropped and balanced... but I can't help it!!! There's so many photos on facebook (cringe) that it won't hurt one thing to share about 10 photos that our family took!

Dress hung with lilafrances "mrs. finley" hanger

Only Child - Walking with Both Parents

Unity Plant - Funny story for later...

Butterfly Release - One Refused its Freedom to be with Walter

Mr. + Mrs.!!!

Spectacular Homemade Wedding Cake

Handmade Mason Jar Centerpieces

Carousel Ride!!!

Skee-Bouquet!!!

Hell yeah Carnival photos!!! Y'all have to wait for more!!!

While you wait:

Enter the giveaway!!! Only 2 days left! Simply leave a comment and you're in; No following, tweeting, facespacing or anything else necessary.

Groom in Shorts - Inspiration

My future husband is the smartest, coolest, most unique and stylish man I've ever met. He is what we can deem to be an "offbeat groom." Having said this, you may already know I am an Offbeat Bride member. Offbeat Bride is basically a hardcore community-blog created by a pink haired lady on the NING platform. It pulls together people who are disquieted by the normal wedding magazine weddings. The offbeat brides and grooms submit photos of their weddings to the community Flickr pool and you can search around for offbeat ideas. ANYWHO... I had seen a picture of the groom and his guys ALL IN KNICKERS. I wish I had the photo! I just remember thinking how unique that was; I had never seen a groom in shorts. So I googled. There is nothing, save for beachy grooms in shorts. I never mentioned this to Shawn.
Around September after we were engaged for about a month we were having a laying-in-bed-at-night chat. He was mentioning the kind of suit he wanted for the wedding. He wanted to wear something with different blue pinstripes that had tails and shorts.
My mouth dropped to the floor and I just thought "This is the perfect man for me." I jumped on his bandwagon immediately! I encouraged him to do this because it is rockin', he always wears black flat-front Dickies shorts in the summer and because he decided he wanted to wear sandals.
Shawn and I have said it before and we'll say it again together:
Sandals + Pants = Cheese
So the sandals fit his outfit perfectly and his outfit suits him perfectly. I listened to each idea he had for his outfit and kept my eyes peeled online and in the stores until I had a good idea of what he was going for.

One day at Kohls I found a suit that was perfect but I didn't buy it. This was Shawn's decision and I picked my dress, so he gets to pick his suit. I told him about the suit immediately. It was a navy blue Ralph Lauren suit with a blue multicolor decostripe through it. It froze me in my tracks when I saw it; I knew it was for Shawn! When he saw the suit, he was immediately taken with it.

He has his final fitting in his custom creation coming up soon. I won't take pictures of him in it but I'll take a pic of the before and after for everyone to see the changes! It is awesome.

Beautiful Wedding Shoes

I wish to share with you why these shoes are the most beautiful wedding shoes (to me) ever. When Shawn & I picked out our shoes, we were going for barefoot. I'm not wearing mine until after the wedding, but the reception will be at a restaurant and you hafta wear shoes there!!! Sandals was the next best thing to barefoot. Especially hippie sandals.
We saw Shawn's sandals at a store called Euphoria in Lincoln, NE when we went to Lincoln on our first ring shopping trip... I'll have to write about that also. Shawn has EcoDragon sandals which are made of sustainably harvested hemp fiber. They last FOREVAR and you can recycle them at the end of their use.
He liked them but it wasn't until the week after when he divulged to me "I want to wear those sandals at our wedding. But they're so expensive." I told him, "Shawn. If you want those sandals for your wedding, you're getting them! I can have a hundreds-of-dollars wedding dress, you can have those damn sandals! ... I'll buy them myself!!!"
So we planned a trip back to Lincoln to try on dresses at the BEST SALON EVAR called Ellyne's and we also went back to Euphoria and bought those sandals! I was more excited about that than my dress experience in Lincoln. Let's not write about that, by the way...

We found my sandals when we went to Kansas City, MO to ask Shawn's friend Sprague (who is tattoo/graffitti artist Manic!) to be in our wedding. We were in West Port near downtown and the Plaza when we went into a little store called Beautiful Day. It looked happy from the outside so we had to  go in. I found my shoes and got that gut feeling of "That's IT!" until I looked in my wallet. I only had like half the money for my shoes. I told Shawn and Sprague heard, too, so we all pitched in. We all 3 bought my wedding shoes. So the way they were acquired is beautiful.
Last Wednesday I took them out to look at them with Shawn's sandals to swoon over how perfect they are together and I examined mine particularly well. On the bag they come in, it says "UTOPIAN Rope Sandals. Handmade by Tom." I wanted to know who Tom was to tell him how wonderful the shoes are and that I love them so much they're going to be my wedding shoes. I looked up UTOPIAN rope sandles on 'teh googles' and found out from Wiki that these shoes are beautiful how they're made, too.
Tom and his community, East Wind, make these sandles along with nut butters and tahini. All the income is pooled for the community to cover medical expenses and each member is given food, clothing, shelter, education and personal money. They believe in equality, social democracy and nonviolence. Each member contributes man hours and lives together, voting on every decision made by the community. So East Wind in Tecumseh, MO is responsible for the creation of my wedding shoes.

Can you say Beautiful?

Saturday + Sunday = 2 Days = 1 Weekend

This weekend was summed up for me with a reminder to pace onesself during wedding planning and to relish in what did get done. It's amazing what we tried to accomplish in the two days known as Saturday and Sunday.

We attempted

-Grocery Shopping
-Shawn's Tux Shopping
-Make my headpiece
-Find my Hot Glue Gun
-Get my Portfolio Together

We completed

-Grocery Shopping
-Shawn's Tux was found for $150--to OWN
-Finding my something Borrowed (and it's old) and my something Old.

Shawn's suit is so pretty. It's navy and it has deco stripes which means that each pinstripe is a different blue color and they alternate. It's perfect. With how much we saved on it being 50% off at Kohl's we can afford to have it overhauled by the tailor into his dream of shorts.

 


I tried to make my headpiece Saturday and Sunday but I just need to find my hot glue gun. I set it down for now because this is not something to rush. I used to need to "DO THIS NOW" when I was younger with everything but as I've grown it changed into I must "DO WHAT I CAN DO NOW. NOW." Here's a preview anyway.

My Something Borrowed is Shawn's Nana's necklace. His mom asked me what jewelry I was wearing and I said I didn't know if I'd wear anything but the jewelry Shawn has given me. She took me upstairs and showed me the most beautiful vintage frosted glass necklace ever. I truly like it. I tried it on and with my dress's neckline it will be perfect. She also found me a hanky to use that day for the Something Old. It's white with white embroidery and I'm going to add our initials and date to one corner, also in white embroidery.

So the weekend was great even if we didn't get everything done. In a short time, all things will be done and there will also be nothing left to fret over.

Oh, and WHAT THE HELL STEELERS?!

Groom in Shorts

I refuse to accept that our wedding planning is going on hold for Christmas. So I'm still researching my fiance's fashion choices he has made for the wedding. He loves pinstripe so we started off of that. Since I have gotten my dress and he found his shoes (hemp rope sandles with black straps) he has expressed that he wants to wear shorts.
I am all for my groom in shorts.
Sandals + Pants = Cheese. Who are we trying to fool? No one! This is a casual wedding now and my bare feet will be showing. So he will be wearing shorts, a shrug-sleeve notch tail jacket and a vest with dress shirt. In the perfect series of events we will find a pinstripe ensemble for him to this description that he will love.
Some of our family members raise an eyebrow to his choice but it is just that-- his choice and I happen to like it. He's unique in what he wears everyday; why should his wedding day be any different? The man never wears jeans. He wears flat front black pants every day of his life. With tee shirts and Vans. I love everything about him to death.
Besides, does this J Crew Couple look questionable?