March Madness

Having the venue booked at the beginning of the month and heading fresh into the month of March we really started to ramp up our vendor search.  This month [along with the venue] we managed to knock out two major components of the wedding -- our officiant and the photographer.

It's kind of funny; with the officiant we really did not have a clear vision in previous months of how that would end up playing out.  We toyed with the notion of having someone close to us get ordained and do the ceremony.  The more we thought about that route, the only people we would want to do it were people who we really wanted to enjoy the day and not be tasked with performing the ceremony. 

On the other hand, we're not members of any specific church or group and I personally was having a hard time wrapping my mind around just randomly selecting a person.  Kristen was doing her research and came across a company called "Sensational Ceremonies" and they are headed up by Reverend Glenn Ferguson.  We wanted to get to know them a little before making the decision so we met him one day after work at the Starbucks in College Park.  We probably sat and talked to him for like 2 hours and quickly realized we had the right guy.  He seemed very professional, tons of knowledge/experience within the wedding industry and it also didn't hurt that he has roots in the Panhandle. 

This was a huge relief because it was something that was plaguing me for awhile but once we found Glenn, there was a sense of relief that our ceremony was going to be in good hands. 

Another big task we tackled in March was booking our photographer.  As you've probably read in previous posts, we had attended a few wedding shows as well as signed ourselves up into every wedding related email database we could find.  Throughout our shows and many emails we kept hearing about a company called "Elegant Imagery."  We went to their website and checked out samples of their work and we were impressed with their portfolios and overall presentation.

Eventually, they offered a specific package at the right time that included an engagement shoot and at that point we had to bite.  Usually when you're looking to spend a large chunk of change on something like a photographer, you normally have an initial conversation, mull it over then possibly pull the trigger.  With this specific booking we did no such thing.  We scheduled a call with our contact [Victoria] and pretty much knocked it out in about an hour. 

It was funny because as soon as we hung up the phone and I had given Victoria my credit card number, Kristen and I just looked at each other and both admitted that we didn't expect that to be as easy as it was.  I expected to go through several proposals from different photographers, but that was not the case.  We just felt their offer was great and we were confident that they understood our vision; we figured, why put it off when we have a million other things to knock off the list.

In that same call we also managed to schedule the engagement shoot for a few weeks down the road which meant one thing -- the dieting must begin!  Kristen and I set out to both lose a little bit of weight so we could look our best for the pictures.  This would mean no late night Taco Bell for me as well as trimming down the amount of beers I normally put down on a Friday night.  This, was no easy task!

In our next post you'll see the results as well as how the pictures turned out.  STAY TUNED!

- Smitty