Friends ... Vendors - It's all the same

I am SO very blessed to have a wonderful collection of VERY talented friends to help with our wedding. Since these friends have all been confirmed I thought I would share our Friendors (thanks for the word Mrs. Hummingbird)

First up - Invitations
In town there is a (not so small) scrapbooking store called Mementos. She has expanded a few times since I originally met her in 2004 and it is much more than just a scrapbooking store. The owner, Lisa is a wonderful and VERY creative woman. I can't wait to sit down and put together our amazing invitations. She is an Envelopments dealer so we will be using their product line. I did some work for Lisa creating her blog so we are bartering some of the price of my invitations. What an awesome deal!

Photography
The 1st time I got married my mom tried to convice me to use this photographer that she met in our hometown in Arizona. At the time I lived in Orange County and wanted "the finer things in life" and we ended up booking with a larger photography company in Southern Arizona and was NOT pleased with the service we paid for. When I moved back to Arizona we started having family pictures done by my mom's photographer, Bill Bulter. He was so much fun to work with. Here is a family picture from that session:


Since then he has done a few more family sessions, a grandkid session and has even photographed a few of my kids birthday parties. I love when he captures the "real" moments:



Because we are returning customers (and we refer a LOT of people to him) we were able to create the package that we wanted for a price in our budget. He will be with us all day and has even promised to capture a grand exit photo for us (a little more on that later). We will also get DVD's of the high res images that should be ready when we get back from our Familymoon.

DJ Services will be provided by a close friend. You saw his wife's baby shower before on the blog. (She was the kid's nanny for years, and now they are expecting their own bundle of joy any day.) D-man has such a great personality and since he really knows Mr. B and I we are not stressing about music at all. D-man and his pal B-Man are better known as FranzAnelli Audio Services and are just starting out. I had the pleasure of seeing them DJ a wedding in March and they did a wonderful job.



The kids and I with D-Man on his wedding day.

D-Man is not the only one from his family that will be a Friendor. His FIL (Father In Law) will be our officiant. I have known him since I was a teenager and Mr. B is very comfortable with him as well. He was ordained a year or so ago and has only done one other wedding, but I am confident that he will be able to give us the relaxed yet meaningful ceremony we want to have. We will meet more with him in the upcoming months.

{source} ignore the bad church directory photo LOL

His son has also agreed to perform our ceremony music. He is a very talented musician and he and his friend have performed at other ceremonies. I still have to get them a list of music but I am not worried. You can hear a sampling of his music on his MySpace page

with his sister on her wedding day

Hair & Make Up
I already mentioned that my friend and long time hair stylist will be doing my hair & make-up for the big day. She is coming to us, since her house is about 30 min from my parent's house. We will be doing a trial as it gets closer and I am SURE I will need your advice & opinions about my hair. What I didn't mention is that her mom is a florist and if my DIY flowers are not coming together when we get them in I can call on her for emergency help.

There are some other "Friendors" in the works as well and once they are confirmed I will share those with you as well. Are any of your friends doubling as vendors for the day?

Decision, Decisions

This Thursday Mr. B and I go to have our E-Pics taken. I am admittedly strong arming him into this a little. He isn't really a "picture taking" kind of guy. I am insistent we have these done because we don't have that many pictures of us together. We are lucky that I have relationships with multiple photographers in town.

Our last "family" pictures were taken by William F Bulter, who has done MANY of our family pictures & events, including my kids birthday parties. He is the photographer that we have booked for our wedding day (more on that later)

He would have done our engagement photos but I wanted to use another friend that is also a local photographer. Her name is Jill and she unfortunately doesn't have a website and she no longer shoots weddings. She did however do my Senior Portraits some time ago. I was in a musical this Christmas with her. During our many rehearsals for the musical we talked about her doing our engagement photos when Mr. B popped the question. I literally called her the next morning after we got engaged! It took about a month to get our schedules coordinated, but we found a day. We have discussed the types of photo we want. I definitely stress that we want "FUN" photos. We are going to start in her photography garden that she has next to her studio. Then we will be taking some down Main Street, which has some fun fountains, a lot of architecture. Take a look:

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Then as our last location we will go down to the Old Ocean to Ocean Bridge and possibly the river:

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So now I have some decisions to make as far as outfits. I was gonna take pics of me IN the outfits, but Mr. B doesn't take the best pictures. You will just have to help with the use of the pictures from JCP.com.

{blue faux wrap top}

{brown crossover top}

both with a pair of jeans


{Stretch Bootcut Jeans}

and one of these pairs of heels

{Judy Round Toe Pump}

{American Eagle Sling Wedge}

Help me pick which tops go with which shoes. PLUS which top I should use in the garden and which one I should wear on main street/river.