I have very few vendors taking part in my wedding in comparison to most weddings, I suspect. That's not to say I'm forgoing the services provided by these vendors, but I've delegated to friends and family or taken on these projects myself. My brother's the DJ, my cousin's the ceremony musician, I'm the florist, my grandmother is one of the bakers, my sister's making the edible favors, etc.
Well, within the last week, I've added 2 vendors to the uber-exclusive little group of vendors we are hiring.
I had previously arranged for a friend (AKA "ex-boyfriend") and his fiance to shoot our wedding with my equipment with the understanding that I'd feed them, give 'em some cash, and edit the photos myself. And then I fell head over heels for the work of the photographer who shot my bridal portraits for free when she was just starting her business. We're talking madly in love here. And not only is her work great, but she's an absolute sweetheart to boot. The only problem? Her ridiculously incredibly absolutely reasonable or rather, cheap prices (Only $600 for high-quality professional wedding coverage? Unheard of!!) were about double what I had budgeted for photography, being the cheapskate, err.. budget-conscious bride that I am. Nevertheless, I managed to finagle (by which I don't mean "trick, swindle, or cheat", Mr. Webster) my way into affording to hire this lovely lady for the big day itself.
Thus, Jenna Cole is our wedding photographer!
And for my next magic trick, I started browsing through some of the classified ads on Weddingbee, looking for reasonably priced (or more honestly, next-to-nothing or free, given my budget) day-of-coordinators in the Dallas area. While I absolutely want my mother involved in the day of my wedding, and the planning thereof, I don't want her to end up worrying herself sick over every little detail that I can't personally attend to while I'm busy being the bride. My wedding planning is very much a labor of love, but it would be quite a relief to hand the reins off to someone in the few days leading up to the wedding itself.
Enter Chrishawn Sontia. She's just launching her wedding planning business and is advertising free planning services to build her portfolio. [raises hand] Yes please!
We met up at Starbucks (my life revolves around Starbucks, I swear) just to make sure our personalities mesh before I entrust her with the details of our day, and she passed inspection with flying colors. She's super organized, gregarious, outgoing, and I have to say, I admire the woman's clothing ensemble color coordination. Just sayin'. She was rockin' the purple like I rock the brown and/or green 90% of the time (hence my wedding color palette).
Chrishawn will be helping me pull together a day-of timeline, run the show at our rehearsal, help decorate on our very time-constricted wedding day, organize vendor payments, and all that other coordinator-y jazz. She's also super willing to help me with my million & one craft projects, if I'm ever organized enough to decide in advance that I'll work on something at a particular time and place.
I'm very pleased I've found these ladies. I know our wedding will be even better thanks to them!
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2 comments:
I'm not stealing your life, we're just super cool in sync like that. All the cool kids are doing it and we just started the movement.
P.S. We loooooooove Jenna too.
LOVE your portraits! So happy for you to have found the photographer! I think you can rest easy that she'll capture your special moments. Love the dress, the accents of red (including the chair, what a nice touch!), birdcage veil, and the tattoo! You'll make one gorgeous bride. I just moved to Dallas and although our wedding may take a place elsewhere...mind sharing the photographer info? I might be interested in a little portrait session for my FH as an engagement gift... ;)
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