It's Wedding Season!!! Photo Ideas

Wedding season is upon us and no one loves a wedding more than me!  I love everything about weddings.  The dress, the flowers, the cake, being with all your friends and family; it's all awesome!  But one of the things I love the most about weddings is the photography.  When you get married, it's a great opportunity to show your creative side with photos.  We had a blast taking our wedding photos and it showed; they turned out great!  So, if you need some inspiration for your wedding photos, I thought I'd give you some ideas.  All of the following photos were found on Pinterest. 

 

This is a fabulous idea for a photo!  I love the contrast of the black and white photo with the color of the bouquets! 

 

This is an interesting shot!  I also love that the groomsmen are wearing tennis shoes.

 

 

This is so creative! 

 

 

Cute!  Love how the focus is on the wedding party.

 

 

This photo was texted to the groom right before the wedding.  Awesome!

 

 

Ask your photographer to do this! It's a long exposure shot with sparklers. All they had to do was stand there very still and someone else ran around them with a sparkler. It's like a fairy tale!

 

 

What a great idea!  Take a shot of the happy couple through the ring!

 

 

Look for ways to make your wedding photos unique.  Argyle socks on the groomsmen, fabulous!

 

 

Love the attitude in this one!

 

 

Absolutely gorgeous!  Look for backgrounds for your photos that will really make them pop.

 

 

Another great background.  The rain in the back makes this photo.

 

 

So darn funny!  Don't forget to add some humor to your wedding day photo session.

 

 

Props can be used to create unique photos. 

 

 

Mr. & Mrs.  On a sandy beach, beautiful!

 

 

Have your guests create a heart with the wedding couple in the middle. 

 

 

Are you inspired?  I hope so.  When you go to take your wedding photos, just remember to be unique and most of all, have fun.  As long as you're having a good time, it will show in your photos.  And remember, it's your special day, so don't be afraid to ask your photographer to work with you on the shots you want.  Our photographer was great with this.  She totally let us express our creativity.  In case you are wondering, our photographer was Ashley Athey of Ashley Athey Photography and she's from the Bloomington, Indiana area.  But for all my Hoosier friends, she will travel around Indiana.  So find a photographer that will work with you the way Ashley worked with us.  For my the first blog post with our wedding photos, click Here, and for the second post with our wedding photos, click Here !  So what will you do to make your wedding photos unique?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Viva Las Vegas Open House Ideas

So my latest idea for Joe's high school graduation open house has to do with the entertainment for the party.  Since the open house is Las Vegas themed, I figured we would need some casino games.  Party City had exactly what we were looking for!  Check out the table covers for blackjack and craps:

The craps table cover can be bought HERE and the blackjack cover, HERE.

Party City also had a roulette wheel...perfect!

Then they had cool looking Vegas style poker chips:

 

I thought it would be cool if we had dealers so Bill (my husband) and his buddies will be the dealers, complete with visors!

Now what will be traded in for chips?  "Joe Bucks"!  I designed play money with Joe's picture on it in different denominations.  This way it will be more like a real casino and guests can keep some Joe Bucks as souvenirs!  I used Microsoft Publisher to design the Joe Bucks.

 

What do you think?  What games would you play at a casino party?



 

 

Viva Las Vegas - A Themed Graduation Open House - Invites

My stepson, Joe will be graduationg high school this month!  When I was thinking up ideas for his open house, I thought he might like some sort of themed party other than the traditional "Class of (insert graduation year here)".  That's when I brainstormed the Vegas theme!  Joe loved the idea, so now I am off and running.  I thought I'd share some of my ideas and inspiration here.  This is the open house invite design:

 

I wanted something fun, so I designed it myself using Microsoft Publisher.  I wanted the focus to be on Joe, so I didn't include too much about Vegas other than the saying "Viva Las Vegas" to the left. I printed the invites on brown kraft paper 5X7 flat notecards purchaed at Hobby Lobby (50 for $9.99, on sale for $4.99!).  They turned out looking like this:

 

 

This will go in a 5x7 brown kraft envelope (they came with the notecards) and then Joe's fancy graduation announcements we ordered from school will be enclosed too!  Finally, a gold seal will go on the envelope and the names and addresses will be written in gold Sharpie marker on the envelopes!

 

 

 

 

 

Book Bucket List

I have been wanting to read so many books for so long that I decided to make a list of all the books I would like to read before I die.  Hence, The Book Bucket List!  The list also includes some of my favorites that have been read.  These books are in red!

 

 

 

My Book Bucket List:

 

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Odyssey by Homer

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

The Iliad by Homer

1984 by George Orwell

The Republic by Plato

Poetics by Aristotle

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud

Native Son by Richard Wright

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Apology of Socrates by Plato

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

Oedipus the King by Sophocles

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Medea by Euripides

Mignight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora N. Hurston

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

How to Win Freinds and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank, translated by B.M. Mooyaart

Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Complete Works by William Shakespeare

Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Asten

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Animal Farm by George Orwell

All the Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser

Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy

 

 

 

This is what I have for now.  Some of the books on the list I have started and for whatever reason haven't finished, not because I didn't like them, more likely due to time constraints.  But I think this is a good start!  What books have you read on the list?  Can you recommend a book I should add?