The Gallegos Family and Company - Sneak Peek!

We braved the heat and dodged the trains. Worth it? Yes Yes. This beautiful family was so fun to photograph.  

Wedding Websites: You Need One!

Howdy Bride Friends!

Let me just lay it out for you. YOU NEED A WEDDING WEBSITE! I'm serious. They will save you a TON of time and heartache. Not only can you use this website to give out directions, registry info and notifications, but guests can RSVP on your site. Let me just repeat that in case you missed the excitement there: Guests can RSVP on the website! Dinner selection and all! Sure the old-fashioned way is "classy" and "sophisticated." I mean if you want to field 200 phone calls or pay an extra $100+ for the little inserts and postage on your RSVP invites. Personally, I am a forward thinker and a technophile.

Let me just show you how awesome it is. Click here to see my website and follow along.

There are a bunch of free sites that offer wedding websites that anyone can set up. I found google weddings annoying and hard to customize. And of course there is The Knot.com but they are too spamy.

My favorite so far is The Wedding Wire. I actually found a template with my color that wasn't totally hideous and its easy and quick. You can upload custom songs (yay, no bad rights free music!) and add a ton of helpful apps like hotel finders, blog links, car rentals, flights, guest books, photo albums, etc.
This site took maybe an hour of messing around and playing with the functions before I loved it. Now, you do have to manually add your whole guest list. (Boo! It took several hours). But, there are a bunch of different export options, so once all my guests have RSVPed, I just export, print and I'm ready to go!
Then you get to play with the super seating arrangement tool!

Ok, now go to the RSVP link and search for lets say 'Mike.' The guests are separated by households and then by individual guest. Click on one of the responses. Fancy right? Mike doesn't have to search for every member of his family, they all just pop up. Then they just RSVP and pick their meals! They get an email confirmation and can say a quick congrats. Now once I'm ready to give my caterer the numbers for the meals, I just look under my guest list and it's automatically tallied for me.

I am also excited about the registry link! How easy is it for your guests to shop for you now!? No printing out that colored paper list from target and trying to find the stupid item. Just click and ship!

Don't forget to check out the Map section. This saves everyone the trouble of googling the addresses on their invite. Can you see why I'm gushing over this site? Seriously, Sit down with a glass of red wine, mess around for a few hours and save yourself some stress! This website has so many wonderful tools, I can't stop using it!


The Wedding Wire

Food Found!

Let me just preface this blog with a note about how AMAZING my fiance is. I put him in charge of the catering for our wedding and he managed to find something delicious, clever and AWESOME!
Let me now also tell you how much I LOVE the Beastie Boys. I have met them several times, seen every show they've put on in the southwest, and gotten Ad-rocks autograph! (which is NOT easy to do).
Yes. Nerd.

So imagine my surprise when my fiance pulls this out from his sleeve:

What!? It's a Beastie Boy themed GOURMET food truck! Hehehee. I love it. Check out their current yummy menu:
Da Bomb - $6 
Vietnamese style sandwich with Marinated Chicken or Tofu, cilantro, cucumber, pickled carrots, avocado, roasted jalapenos served on a French baguette


Sabotage - $7 
Roasted Pork au jus with local braised greens, sharp provolone cheese served on a French baguette


Frank the Pretzel - $6 
Homemade Chicken poblano sausage, chardonnay mustard, on a soft pretzel bun


Pork Snuggies (2) - $6 
Fluffy, steamed buns stuffed with Pork belly, green onions, cucumber, hoisin


Eggman Sandwich - $5 
Homemade Maple-smoked Bacon or Chicken poblano sausage, local eggs over easy, cheddar cheese, sauteed veggies served on a Challah (Holla!) roll


You must go see them and try them out! Check their website first, these gentlemen are high plains drifters: http://eatsieboys.com/

My $3,500 Wedding

Ok, so weddings are EXPENSIVE! ugh. 
I love the beautiful and creative weddings that I shoot for my Brides. But when it comes down to it I don't need a $20,000 wedding. What I really want is a House! I would be happy with a court house wedding and a party at Sherlock's afterwards. But, alas. This is not my fate. So, I am going to tell you how I plan to throw a beautiful wedding for under $5,000.


I will admit, I have some advantages since I work in the industry. Firstly, I can trade my craft for services or discounts. Don't rule this out when you are shopping for your wedding services! That's how I got my Chaplin, and my photographer for free. (It's cheating I know). But think about it when you book. What can you offer the vendor that they will want or need?

Secondly, I ditched the flowers and went for origami bouquets. They will last for years AND I get to have an origami party! Margaritas! So far I have spent about $30 on paper. And if you are addicted to Style me Pretty and June Bug Weddings like I am, then you'll find a million crafty ways to make fun and original decorations. I know, you're thinking it sounds tacky. But check out this bouquet I plan to emulate. GORGEOUS (and super easy to make)!


If you're not crafty, never fear! I promise you that you have friends that are. Its very fashionable right now to be crafty. Just make sure you go to them when you already know what you want. Pictures never hurt either!


So, now we have the biggest expenses. Location and Food. I know you don't want to hear it, but getting married on a Sunday is an easy way to save a ton of money. Do it early so you leave friends and family travel time, and then you get to party ALL DAY!

 We chose our locations based on our relationship. We met in college so why not get hitched there? The church is nice and bright (this was the single most important thing for me in a venue. You know, photographer and what not.)  Also, we got a massive discount for being alumni. Go Coogs!
















For the reception we had our hearts set on a brewery. My finace is a craft brewer and I knew he would love this venue. I also knew I was going to be making some decorating choices that are not the most manly, so I wanted to make sure his personality was present in our wedding. Now, here's the best part. When you rent the space a lot of breweries will include the beer FOR FREE! Mwahahahaha! 
We chose St. Arnold's Brewery because we love their beer and they are only a few miles from the ceremony location. This puts us at roughly half our budget. Diabolical! 
















Food is troublesome. We are both avid foodies. Nothing would depress me more than a poor meal at my wedding. Since we are doing a early Sunday wedding, we have a lot of flexability here. We can do snacks, brunch, gourmet sandwiches, or a full dinner. What ever we do, we are keeping it to $10 a head. There are also fashionable new gourmet food trucks that can pull right up to the reception! This particular section of our wedding is still being hotly debated. But if we stick to our budget that puts us right up to $3,000.


Ok, I cheated again. I skipped the dress because my Mother-and-Father-in-law-to-be were gracious enough to pick up the bill on my dress. I cannot thank them enough for this. I originally had planned to make my dress, as I have some sewing abilities. But this concerned my Finace's Father enough that they insisted. For this particular area I have no advice except to come to the Bridal Show I'm shooting for this June: 
Brides Against Breast Cancer
http://bridesagainstbreastcancer.org/
They will have huge DESIGNER names for awesome DISCOUNTS! And when you buy a dress, you get entered in all sorts of really awesome giveaways!

I'm sure we will inevitably go over our optimistic budget. I haven't started collecting invitation supplies or bridesmaid gifts. And we are still up in the air about the cupcakes. Whatever we do we are keeping it
simple so we focus on keeping our wedding day about celebrating our love with friends and family.

Wedding Blogs and Sites that YOU NEED!

Warning! Only continue if you have at least an hour to kill : )


Hey there! If you are one of my Brides, and you aren't OBSESSED with
Style me Pretty, then I can only assume its because you don't know it's out there!

Then there is June Bug Weddings They started out as a photography company and are now full time wedding bloggers. Seriously, if you want to obsess for a few hours and then go manic at Michael's, this is the place!

Oldie but Goodie The Knot
The Knot lets you search vendors and even create your own wedding website! Complete with RSVP!

The Wedding Bee for real, actually did it themselves DIY projects

Check out this site to help you choose your Wedding planning APP

For general tips and meandering browsing go to I need Wedding Help.com

For etiquette Who better than Emily Post?

And this handy Wedding dictionary has saved me many times!
Popquiz: What is a nosegay? Would you know if your boning was showing? Don't let the Dragees roll away! (not even spellcheck knows that one!)

Here's another Terminology list that is more general.

Have fun ladies!

My enthusiasm is UNCONTAINABLE!

I'm finally not sick anymore! Yay! Now it's time to put this ship into high gear! Let's get those portraits made! Let's stick together and get things done! Wooooot! Gooooooooooooooooooo Peoples!

Engagement Pics For the Win!

Check out these awesome Engagement pics I did in New Orleans! I took Kurt Gerber's workshop and I LOVE the results. I know you will too! Where are all my newly engaged couples at!? Let do some of

these!