It's The Journey, Not The Destination

Oh, how true that statement actually is! Jimmy and I live for the journey! To us, nothing is better than a long car ride filled with spontaneous detours and endless random conversation. For that reason, we have decided on a destination wedding! However, before I reveal all of the details, I want to talk about the weeks following the proposal. As soon as we returned from Utah we were bombarded with questions: "What's your date?" "Have you picked your colors?" "What kind of dress are you going to wear?" And the ultimate winner, "Who's going to shoot your wedding?" Come to think of it, I was even asked, "Are you going to hyphenate your last name?" (My answer? "No, I can't wait to change my last name!" ;))

Funny side-story to the list of questions: My dad called me about a week after Jimmy proposed and frantically asked, "What kind of suit should I wear?!" If you've ever met my dad then you know he has been counting down the days for a long, long time! Ha,ha!

I laughed, "Jimmy doesn't even know what he's wearing yet!"

"Well," My dad explained, "I was sitting here looking at suits online and I wasn't sure what to get."

"Dad! We've only been engaged for a week!"

"I want to make sure I find one in time," He said, trying to be serious.

That was the first of many random phone calls from my excited daddy! I guess I am his only daughter and the first of two children to be getting married so I'm sure I will have more stories to share later!

We spent the majority of that next week visiting friends and family, telling our proposal story to everyone, and answering as many questions as we could. It was a very hectic week but it's one I'll never forget!

Anyways, back on track. To be honest, at that point I had NO IDEA what we were going to do. I had not been planning my wedding since I was a little girl, and I'm not sure it would have helped anyways. Jimmy and I have thrown aside everything we've ever known about weddings and we're starting from scratch. Don't get me wrong! I love traditional weddings, everything from high-vaulted chapel ceilings, to bubble exits and the beautifully crafted wedding cakes! Yet, being in the wedding business, we have also seen so many nontraditional/ unique ideas that are too cool to pass up. That's where the real planning began.

A couple of weeks passed and things started to come together. We had known for a long time that we would be having a destination wedding. We have a habit of asking our couples, and married family and friends, "If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently?"

The only answer we've ever received? (And I'm not over exaggerating! This really is how everyone has answered!)

"If we could do it over again, we would have a small destination wedding."

And because if that one single, yet very popular, answer we will be taking their advice! :)

Next we had to figure out WHAT that destination was. It wasn't long before we came to the conclusion that we would be getting married at Lake Powell. We love to visit new places, but for some reason we always travel back to the lake. It was the first place we arrived on our very first road-trip and we can't seem to get it out of our minds!

Once the destination was decided we started researching venues in order to pick our date. Since there aren't many towns close to Lake Powell, we were able to narrow our venue down in no time. We set up meetings and made a plan to visit as soon as we had a week off.

We traveled back to Utah a month after the proposal to narrow down the date and venue. When we arrived at the first place we found out that the wedding coordination had a last minute obligation and would not be able to see us that week! Jimmy was furious until we found out that, thankfully, her assistant was available to answer any questions and show us around. She informed us of the option to choose and off-site location on the lake instead of at the venue itself. Of course we loved that idea! What better of a way to share our favorite place with all of our closest family and friends than to get married on the red-rock shore of Lake Powell!

However, this option did bring up a bit of a problem. You can only reach the location by boat! So we did our research and discovered that the venue rents out large houseboats. Problem solved!

The second venue we visited could host a ceremony and reception on-site, but they did not offer an off-site option. They also rented out house boats so that was still a consideration. The second venue was also more expensive.

On to the third. Keep in mind we emailed and called all of the wedding coordinators after the proposal and set up times to visit. The third venue is not located on the lake but it is beautiful and we did read online that they offered an off-site ceremony and reception option. This venue had a gated drive, so we took that as a sign that it would be considerable more expensive but the prices were not online so we thought we'd check it out for fun. When we reached the gate we used the call box to contact the wedding coordinator. She said she was "too busy to talk" to us that day. We explained that we were from St. Louis and we would only be there for that week and asked about her availability for the other days. Again she said she was too busy and we would just have to come back another time. Scratch that venue from the list! I will admit we were a little irritated.

In the end, we decided to go with the first venue for obvious reasons. We did have fun checking everything out and we tried to keep an open mind until we knew all of the details. Thankfully the decision was fairly easy!

Now to answer all of the questions! :)

First and foremost, our second team will be filming our wedding! They are great friends of ours and they have learned a lot working along side of us. Plus, they are invited anyways so might as well put them to work ;) haha! (Just in case they are reading this!) In all honesty, we are trying to make the day simple and easy so our vendors can enjoy their mini-vacation as much as possible. Being on the vendor side of things, we can relate to the hustle and bustle of a wedding day; therefore, we are trying to schedule all of our big events to happen before the sun goes down (Reception dinner and events included) that way everyone can relax for the rest of the evening and enjoy Lake Powell.

Second, our colors are burnt orange, charcoal, and taupe. I guess I probably shouldn't show this yet but I'll go ahead and share anyways! Below is a preview of our travel guide we are creating for our guests. We thought it would be fun to include it in our invitations in case anyone wants to show up a couple days early or hang around after the wedding and explore the area. We highly recommend it!

As for the dress, I haven't started looking yet, but I'm sure once I do I'll share my dress hunting story with you!

Happy Wednesday everyone! Stay tuned for the next post!

captured in frames - St. Louis Wedding Videography

The Hike Up

As promised, today I will be talking about the proposal! Some of you may have already heard this story but I love telling it! :) For those of you that haven't...enjoy! All right. So one day, a few weeks before the actual proposal, Jimmy and I were sitting at the table having our morning coffee and I noticed that he looked kind of sad. Not weepy-tears sad, just sort of off.

"What's wrong?" I could tell he was waiting for me to ask.

"I had a bad dream," He frowned.

"A bad dream?" I raised my eyebrow incredulously. "What about?"

"I had a dream that I proposed and you said you didn't like the ring," He maintained the frown.

I couldn't keep from laughing! It seemed like such a silly thing to be upset about! For one, it was just a dream, and for two, I would like any ring if it was coming from him. I proceeded to tell him just that, but he insisted that I show him a ring I would like. So that's what I did, not thinking any thing of it. Normally Jimmy's not very good at keeping secrets so I figured if he had something up his sleeve I would know.

Jimmy, being the trooper that he is, let me tell this story to all of our friends and family, laughing along with us as I turned his "bad dream" into a joke. Little did I know, the joke was on me!

A few days later, our buddy Ryan called early in the morning claiming that he needed Jimmy's help on shoot because Chadwell broke his finger. We have worked on many projects together so, again, I didn't think anything of it. Ryan even sent us a picture of Chadwell's broken finger solidifying any doubt I may have had about what was really going on. I later found out that Chadwell actually did break his finger, but they didn't need help on a shoot. It was all just a ruse to get Jimmy out of the house so he could go purchase the ring!

The following week we had a shoot scheduled for an up-and-coming travel app called microtrip.it (Check it out! It's going to be awesome!) The film is about friends going on a road-trip so we called Phil, one of the guys who is going to be standing up with Jimmy on our big day, and asked him to tag along. Phil, always down for anything, said yes! When he got to our house, Jimmy apparently hid the ring in Phil's bag, knowing that I would never find it there. After loading down the fusion with enough film gear to shoot a full length movie, we hit the road. What an eventful trip it was! (And I'm not just talking about the proposal!)

When we entered Kansas, we ran into a freak blizzard that had me abandoning my position as driver. I usually don't mind a little snow, but a blizzard in April is freaking ridiculous!

Big thanks to Phil for taking over! Further down the road, we saw signs that I-70 was closed on the Colorado/ Kansas border due to the weather, so I woke up my sleeping personal travel guide (that's Jimmy btw :)). He rerouted and took us 200 miles south, bringing us out of the storm yet adding 6 hours to the trip, all the while asking me if I was okay. I didn't understand why he was asking me that since I wasn't the one driving! We reached our destination at 1am that night!

The following day, we drove to Lake Powell to camp on the beach. Talk about a much needed temperature shift! After the blizzard, 85 degree Utah felt AMAZING! Don't be fooled, the story doesn't end there. When we got to the beach, we discovered that there were no roads, but we saw other midsized sedans down by the water. Thinking if they could do it without getting stuck, then we could do it, so we took off across the beach. Unfortunately, we were not so lucky. We got out of the car, assessed the situation and decided to push the car back to the harder packed sand. Only the front drivers-side wheel appeared to be stuck. How hard could it be? As instructed, I got into the drivers seat, put the fusion in reverse, and gave it some gas. It moved about three feet before stopping completely. I hopped out of the car to see what had happened and found that the other front wheel was almost completely buried in the sand. The boys had been so focused on the drivers side that they hadn't noticed the enormous hole that had formed on the passenger side! Finally we gave up and called for a tow. The poor guy that came to help had to shovel out sand up to the frame! Haha! Let's just say we've learned our lesson!

That night Jimmy asked me if I was okay probably 20 times! I just assumed he thought I was upset about my car.

"At least I have a good story to tell!" was my response.

Now for the proposal! After shooting at the lake, we drove to Zion National Park to hike Angel's Landing. We had decided that Angel's Landing would be the best hike to capture on film, but Jimmy had other plans. When we got to the park Jimmy asked me if I wanted to go wash my hair in the bathroom (We didn't have time to take showers before leaving Lake Powell). I had taken a shower the day before and it wasn't that bad so said no, I would just pull my hair up for the hike and take a shower when we got back to camp. I love Angel's Landing so I was more than eager to get going but Jimmy said he wanted to shave and wash his hair. I figured it was just for the film we were shooting so I patiently waited outside of the bathroom for the boys to finish.

Once they were all cleaned up, we headed to the car to change into our hiking shoes and I discovered that my phone had died. I tossed the phone back into the car and announced that someone else better have one because mine had died. Jimmy, taking advantage of the situation, asked Phil to take a picture of us before our favorite hike. After snapping a quick pic, we boarded the bus that took us to the trail head.

I would not recommend hiking Angel's Landing during the hottest part of the day, but we had decided to do a sunset time-lapse at the top, so we started this hike around 2pm (I think?). Phil and I both wore camel backs with a couple of lenses, while Jimmy lugged up a backpack full of camera gear. Needless to say, we had to stop to rest more than a few times. I offered to trade Jimmy and carry the backpack for a while, but he hastily said no and traded Phil instead. I didn't understand why he wouldn't let me carry it! When we finally reached the top, we set up the time-lapse and proceeded to shoot for the travel-app film.

Jimmy started setting up the other camera and told me that he was going to use the mic to get natural audio. I shrugged and said okay. He then showed Phil how to use the camera and told me he just wanted a shot of us for the film. The rest is as follows:

[embed]https://vimeo.com/65343235[/embed]

Looking back, I have no idea how I had not figured it out! It's all so obvious now! Haha! I guess Jimmy is sneakier than I give him credit for! :)

To our future couples: I look forward to hearing about your engagement, and as I'm sure you have figured out, we love a good story!

captured in frames - St. Louis Wedding Videography