I really loved photographing my sister’s wedding, which was just this month at Studio 450 in New York City. She had a small budget, so she enlisted help from family and friends to put the wedding together. Her friend designed the flower arrangements, my other sister put them together, her sister-in-law cooked the food, and I took the pictures. I was really scared, but luckily {phew} she loves the pictures and I think we’ll be able to make a really nice blurb book from them! Here are some highlights of the day out of the 300 pictures I edited. My hand is tired from clicking–pro photogs, how do you do it??

[Yes, he did indeed wear shorts.]

[My oldest sister made this bouquet!]

[I made the table numbers, the arrangements were put together by friends.]

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There was a time in the wedding planning process that videography was no where on my radar. I didn’t want to spend the money and I didn’t want to be left with a cheesy wedding video of a style circa 1992. You know what I’m talking about. But then, the more I became immersed in my happy wedding blog haven, the more I fell deeply and madly in love with modern wedding cinematography and from that point forward, everything changed for me. A few months ago, I shared my excitement at having stumbled upon the supremely talented Luke Walker and his then fiancée now wife (congrats, guys!) Alisha Clark by way of a series of random coincidences and ultimately booking them for our wedding videography. I can say with confidence that may just be one of the best decisions I made while planning our wedding.

Last Friday, I was stunned into teary-eyed silence when I got to see our wedding video trailer. I immediately shared it with E and as many people as I could. Just two weeks after our wedding, things are already starting to get fuzzy so I’ve been anxiously awaiting photos and our video trailer. What I felt as I watched it was nothing short of glee. It’s amazing how a video (or photos) can catch little moments, looks shared, tears shed and emotions that you’re so busy experiencing you don’t necessarily notice when in the moment.

Without further ado, I’ll let the video speak for itself…

Cyd and Mike [Video Trailer] by Clark Walker Studio

Working with Alisha and Luke has been spectacular. They are both supremely talented and incredibly fun, an absolute true joy to work with and to know. I thank you both with my sincerest and and warmest gratitude. I can’t imagine not having this stunning treasure to remember our wedding.

As you read, my fiance and I recently took a practice engagement shoot with my sister.  Good thing we did, because if I dare say so myself, we did a lot better on our real engagement shoot.  And guess what?  They’re here!  I just got home and unwrapped the most fantastic gift I’ve received to date - my 225 incredible engagement photos by the fabulous Melissa Murphy of Missy Photography (whose services we won in a blog contest back in March!).

The contest I won was originally for Missy’s services and photos for the wedding day and day-after, but when I requested we switch the day-after shoot for e-photos in NYC (Dave and my previous stomping ground and Missy’s current one), she happily obliged.  I’m sure glad she did because I am obsessed.  Not only are the pictures, the color quality and artistic shots breathtaking, but I am downright giddy and 100% in love that we have pictures at Columbia University, our alma mater, where we spent 70% of our dating relationship.  I can’t wait to show our kids the photos and point out the places we used to sit at, drink at, eat at, picnic at, meet up, etc.  I have just become a huge supporter of picking engagement photo locations that mean something to you rather than pretty sites - although if they’re also beautiful, it doesn’t hurt.  :)

Finally, before I share with you some of my favorites - I just wanted to mention Missy.  The reason I entered the contest is because I loved Missy’s photography (and had it vetted by a dozen family members before I entered), so I was confident I would be happy with our photos.  Naturally however, since I hadn’t yet met her, I was nervous about our rapport.  Within 5 seconds of meeting Missy however, I realized it was impossible not to like her, and rather, I fell in love with her!  She is super sweet, laid back, talented, easy going and cute, but also gives you enough direction so that you don’t look like a fool lost in space walking around.  Dave and I are ecstatic that she is our photographer and already, I give her a high recommendation.  Not only is she fabulous, but she sent me the edited photos within a week~!

Ok, here are some of my favorites from the ones Missy posted online.  (As you can see, I nearly posted them all, it’s so hard to choose - there are SO many I love).   I also have a gazillion others I love that will be revealed at later days (probably as STDs or guestbook photos).  You can also find more on Missy’s blog.

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Within a week of getting engaged, I told my fiance that there was no way we were skimping on the photographer.  I made it clear that this was one of the top 3 priorities I had and would work night shifts as a waitress to make sure I got who I wanted.  I grew up with old photographs of my parents and grandparents in our home and know how pictures and the stories they tell transcend generations.

Early on I dove into the world of wedding photography blogs and quickly became obsessed.  Not only did I love looking at all the joy and happiness captured in the photos but I found that I got better ideas of where I wanted to my reception to be held by perusing local wedding photographer’s blogs who update their photos nearly every week.

Within weeks, I had several photographers who I LOVED, but who exceeded my budget 2, 3 even 4x.  All the other wedding costs we had just made (reception deposit, ceremony deposit, dj) began adding up and at that point I realized I might have to compromise a bit.  But that didn’t last long.

I entered a blog contest (one of MANY) at Classic Bride to win an engagement and wedding photo session from Missy Photography (based in NYC), and low and behold, we won!

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I’m pretty much in love with the beautiful and classic details of Chris and Vanessa’s Manhattan wedding.  And not only was the wedding beautiful, but these two are chock full of personality and it really shows through in the amazing photography of Chris Humphreys.

Vanessa’s bridesmaids were dressed in strapless gowns in varying hues of purple.  Love this!

I mentioned their sparking personalities.  I present to you the best groom photo EVER.  Seriously how cute is Chris?

Vanessa is a princess in her flowing gown and veil.

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This is the second of the engagement connection sessions I photographed while in New York. Sean and Jess are an amazing, wonderful couple, and made me feel like a fast friend despite it being our first meeting. As a creative individual, Sean took the reigns on finding great locations for our shoot throughout their Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn. It was like a tour of wonderful graffitti. I cannot wait for their beautiful wedding in Madison, Wisc., this fall, and I cannot wait to share photos from it!

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Yes, I’m biased, but I love New Years Eve weddings!  There is something so special to me about ringing in the new year with your friends and family - marking the beginning of a new passing of time.  And in this case, the beginning of a life together!

Megan and Niall were married in Saratoga Springs, NY and two of our favorite people, Luke Walker and Alisha Clark, were there to capture the event!  Megan stopped by to chat with us about her beautiful and romantic wedding.

Megan is resplendent in her Monique Lhullier gown.  The beautiful silver beading echoed the wintry theme of her event, both in the decor and in the weather!

Megan says:

New Years Eve proved to provide some very special challenges - I woke up at 7AM to blizzard conditions outside my window!!  We were hit with a whiteout snowstorm the morning of the wedding.  The snow lasted well into our cocktail hour that night.  It was beautiful, but to say it was stressful is an understatement. My bridesmaids practically went off the road trying to get to my house, my band almost didn’t make it, the flowers were all starting to freeze in the bitter cold temperatures, one of our readers for the ceremony got stuck on the highway in the snow…. it was all pretty hilarious. I just put on Hunter wellies underneath my dress, tried to focus on the positives, and just kept going forward.  I had so much going on and I was so happy that I couldn’t really focus on the fact that we were getting hit with almost a foot of snow (which, interestingly enough, had NOT been predicted by the weather forecasters - they all said four inches at the most!).

Megan and Niall’s wedding was all about white, green, and silver, as you can see in her gorgeous Manolo Blahnik shoes and beautiful white bouquet designed by Ambiance Floral Designs.

The ceremony was held at the Historic Saint Mary’s Church in Albany.  These next two shots, of Megan and Niall during their ceremony, are just wonderful.  You can tell by the light in their eyes how happy they are to be marrying!  Alisha also captured a wonderful shot of the couple in their limo on the way to the reception — so thrilled to have tied the knot!

The reception, held at the Hall of Springs in Saratoga Springs, was full of green, white, and wintry details.  The columns of the room are so dramatic that decor is largely unnecessary - it’s simply a stunning room.

The centerpieces featured beautiful bare branches, silver accents, and hanging votives.  And I adore the silver pintuck linens - a perfect complement to the decor!

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I spent about a week in New York, shooting some engagement sessions and a wedding with a photographer friend. Julie and Mat are a wonderful couple I met quite a long while ago, and despite having their wedding here in Chicago, we elected to change things up a bit and do their engagement session in New York, where Mat lives. If you’re planning a trip to another city or if you and your fiance are in a long distance relationship, it might be worth asking your photographer if they’re planning any trips that might coincide with yours, as a new and different locale can make for an exciting few hours of shooting for both the couple and the photographer. Here are some favourites from their session!

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I just returned from an incredibly busy trip to New York City, where I shot engagement connection sessions with two of my 2009 wedding clients, and I also helped shoot a stunning wedding in Manhattan on Saturday. What a wonderful city! While I was there, I also did a bit of pleasure shooting while getting lost for an hour or so in the meatpacking district, and also took some photographs in between a session on the Brooklyn Bridge. I can’t wait to share photographs from the sessions soon, but given that I’ve just returned, here are a few rare personal photos that also provided some inspiration light and shooting wise for the professional work I shot in the city.

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I hope you guys have enjoyed seeing our wedding and learning more about Indian traditions as much as I have enjoyed sharing them with you!

Portraits:

Fresh Floral Arrangements at each table:

The Table Names: (These were created in Photo Shop by me and then printed out folded and inserted into frames. The names came from different Bollywood Movies, we made sure to use the romantic ones only!)

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When we first started dreaming about and planning our wedding, sticking to a budget that would allow us to have a fantastic event without draining our savings and that of my parents who are graciously contributing 2/3 of the budget was a priority. With that priority in mind, I put my MBA to the test and started hashing out a rough budget. In the months since that budget has been tweaked, pruned, preened, expanded, cut and slashed in a hundred different ways. From the beginning I knew date, location and photography were my top priorities and things like a designer dress, a fancy cake and elaborate flowers were not, even though I love all of those things as much as the next girl. One thing I never even considered was videography. No way, no how, it just was not going to happen.

Many months into the planning process and I can safely say that videography is the one thing I’ve changed my mind about completely and have not wavered on since. Unfortunately, I still did not know how to make it happen and doubted we’d find room in the budget. Remember E’s amazing same-day edit video by the incredible Simply Cinematic? Or how about the genius that is Mrs. Milkshake’s same-day-edit by Toronto-based Still Motion? These are just two of the beautiful reasons why I’ve been crying myself to sleep every night for the last six months because I knew we wouldn’t be able to work videography into the budget. Ok, so maybe I haven’t exactly been crying myself to sleep, but I have been thinking, hoping, wishing and dreaming. A lot.

If you’re like me you’ll remember the beautiful wedding of Caitlin and Evan {above} featured on EAD last month, shot by the fabulous Luke Walker. As it turns out, Luke and his fiancee, photographer Alisha Clark, have recently opened up shop on a business they now run together, Lillie Studios, the focus of which is primarily incredible cinematic quality videography in the Upstate NY region. You can actually watch a trailer from Caitlin and Evan’s wedding on the Lillie Studios website…I absolutely love how it turned out!

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I have three adorable nephews that I wanted to be a part of the wedding, since I have three sweet little girls on my side of the family so I thought it would be perfect for each little girl to be escorted by a little boy! When I went to India to shop I had a specific idea in mind for my flower girls dresses, I wanted them to look similar to my wedding dress and after shopping at many stores I came up empty handed. I ended up buying two white and red sari’s and having them turned into outfits, to pull in the green and the stone work on my dress we purchased green gemstones and red rings made of smaller gemstones to add on to their dresses. After we hand glued the stones here was the final product:

They turned out exactly how I pictured them and the best part was we did it ourselves! My mom had already purchased the ring bearer pillow and the flower girls basket. Since we had some of the gems left we added those to the pillow and basket to tie it all together.

These few quick and easy changes to everything made it customized to our wedding colors and everything matched perfectly!

*Images from author’s personal collection and Fine Art Productions