I never actually planned on having a wedding poster…it just kind of happened…here’s how it all went down.

Back toward the end of September I won a free poster size print from a blog giveaway!!!  (hooray for winning!!)  When I got the email with the info on how to redeem this free print…I noticed I only had ONE MONTH to come up with something!!  Well there goes my grand plan of waiting till after the wedding and having one of my favorite pictures printed.  I briefly toyed with the idea of dressing my two cats up in little outfits and taking their picture and having that printed*…but I quickly convinced myself that no…I should really use this for something WEDDING related!

That’s when I remembered all the lovely wedding posters I had seen on Etsy!

via ello there on Etsy

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ack!  So I’m sorry for being MIA lately…I have good reasons…some of which I’ll share with you all very soon!  But I just COULD NOT WAIT to show you some of our Love Shoot pics!!  Khara is pretty much awesome and a half…and well…we’re kinda cute too :)

LOVE this black and white one…

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We have had our rehearsal dinner venue booked since February….our wedding is next June…16 months in advance if you do the math.  In fact…I had it booked probably a week or two after we officially booked our ceremony/reception site.  You wanna know why??  Well when this girl knows what she wants….she KNOWS what she wants….and I just so happen to love fresh locally brewed beer.  Yep I said it…I love beer.

just a sampling of the different brewpubs Utah has to offer…pic by me!

I have always (well since I’ve been 21 anyways) had a thing for micro-brews.  Seriously, when I get to the micro-brew part of the beer aisle I’m like a kid in a candy store…picking between a Wheat or a Pale Ale is such a hard decision for me!  So once Lance and I started dating he really had no choice but to go along with my beer snobbery.  Even now, whenever we go somewhere new or are on a trip, we make it a point to eat at whatever local brewpubs we can find!

So once we knew for sure we would be having our wedding in Lincoln, I instantly suggested Lazlo’s for the rehearsal dinner!  While in college Lazlo’s was by far my favorite place to grab a bite to eat and a delicious beer!

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As I mentioned before, our engagement pics are coming up!  Needless to say I’ve been spending lots of time recently searching some of my favorite photographer’s blogs for inspiration.  Now I am definitely not planning on handing my photographer a list of “must have shots” or poses….I 100% believe that you hire a photographer for their artistic talent of “seeing” great shots….not just for their fancy camera.  With that said, I also believe that pictures should portray who you are as a couple.  Whether that involves wearing certain outfits, a specific meaningful location, or your favorite activity.

For Lance and I one thing specific pops into my head….Husker football.

Our shared affection (read: obsession) for Nebraska football first brought us together in Utah…and every game-day since we have spent dressed in red head-to-toe cheering on our favorite (college*) team.  (In fact, we are squeezing our session in while we are back for the home opener over labor day weekend!)  I thought a fun way to incorporate this in our e-pics would be to throw the old pigskin around a bit and/or get some fun shots around Memorial Stadium!

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ok picking up from where we left off…

I was pretty bummed after finding out several venues were already booked for the “date” we had our hearts set on…so when I made the call to Country Pines I was expecting the worse.  No one answered…so I left a message explaining that I was interested in renting the facility for our ceremony/reception and curious about the availability of a certain date.  Well about an hour later I got a call back and guess what?!…they were NOT BOOKED!  (hooray!!!!!)  The lovely lady I spoke with, Nancy, explained to me that her and her husband are the owners and do everything themselves from set-up and food prep to clean up.  She continued on explaining their policies and what is all involved with renting the facility and I liked every bit of it!

some of the pluses being…

-family owned and run facility
-make all the food on site themselves…several menu options (served buffet style) with insanely reasonable prices
-we have the entire venue for the entire day of the wedding till 1am the following day
-they set-up and take down tables/chairs/linens/food…basically everything but the decorations and whatever else we bring in
-complete freedom with decorations…the few exclusions would not matter for what I wanted
-tables, chairs, linens, dishes and glasses all included
-we provide our own alcohol and bartender = major budget helper!  (umm can I get a HECK YES!)

Seriously….I was about to put my deposit down right then on the phone!  Although our date was open at the time…she told me that they had been getting quite a few inquaries for June 2010 already and that I should probably act quick if I wanted to seal the deal.  I explained to her that because I live out of state I wouldn’t be able to just stop by and have a tour before making my decision…and amazingly they agreed to put a hold on our date until that following weekend when my mom, aunt, and sister would be able to drive down and take a look.

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Much like finding our photographer, searching for and finding our venue took place mostly via the internet.

Up until this point (Feb 09) I hadn’t put much thought into where we would actually get married.  I know some people are set on getting married in a church…and although my home church would have been fine…my hometown is small-ish so the hotel/food/entertainment options for out-of-town guests are slim…unless you’re a huge fan of Applebees.  So we decided we needed to find something in either Omaha or Lincoln…the two big cities in Nebraska.  I personally liked Lincoln better…it has a small-town feel and is home to the University of Nebraska giving it the college-town atmosphere. Plus I lived there for 4 years so I have a better grasp on things to do and places to eat!  So we decided to look mostly around Lincoln.

Some general things we wanted in our venue:

- Both ceremony and reception in one location:  we figured this would be easier on our guests as well as our budget ( I hear churches can be quite pricey when you are not a member!!)

- Not a hotel ballroom:  I guess this kinda gets nixed with the “both in one place” idea…but more than that I just wanted something different

- A place with a lot of decoration freedom:  meaning I could pretty much do whatever (like have candles)

- Good food options that wouldn’t kill the budget (BYOB would be a HUGE plus!)

and so the google searching began…

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So I may have lied a tiny bit in my last post…yes I WAS rushing to book our venue…but long before that search began I had one of our vendors pretty much decided on…our photographer.

I’ve inserted lots of lovely eye candy from Khara’s blog throughout this post…so if you could really care less about my blabbing feel free to scroll through the ugly black lines of text and just check out the pics :)

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