New Blog!

Hey, folks! Guess what....I have a new blog! As much as I love this blog and found it really was a wonderful project to work on while I was planning our wedding, I realized once the wedding was over that there wasn't that much left for me to say.

I may still post little tidbits here from time to time, like if I'm helping a friend with his/her wedding and feel like they have a unique vendor or project to share, but the bulk of my blogging will likely take place here from now on:

candiceeley.wordpress.com

Come by and check it out sometime -- it will be photography focused, with a healthy dose of travel and food/bar stuff thrown in. Pretty much no wedding stuff though, if that's your bag. Unless I take photos at a friend's wedding. Which could happen. Just sayin'.

Thanks for reading!

Polaroid Guest Book

I promise I'll have lots and lots of photos by Aaron Thompson to share with you soon, but in the meantime, let's talk about photos of a different kind: our Polaroid guest book.

We didn't want to do the traditional guest book, and photobooths are all the rage on wedding blogs this year, so of course we wanted to incorporate some sort of photobooth concept. What I thought took it up a notch was the way we gave guests the option of adding a personal message in the photo -- Bleu Boheme has a wall across from the bar that's one giant chalkboard. So next to this wall, we set up a small table with a camera, some extra boxes of film and some chalk with instructions to write a message on the chalkboard and snap your photo in front of it. We got some really adorable, sweet and funny photo messages out of it.

Photo by Aaron Thompson

That is until my mom decided halfway through the reception to use up the "leftover" film and went around snapping through a good 30 sheets....and of course, only about half of the guests had actually made their way over to the chalkboard by that point, so a few of them never got to participate in the fun. But every shot, no matter how goofy or strangely composed, is like gold. It was totally worth the high price that I had to shell out buying Polaroid film on Ebay (because Polaroid was officially discountinued this year, it's been selling like hotcakes on Ebay). But fear not, future brides, Fuji is planning on making a replacement product in 2010.

And Suddenly You're in Love with Everything

The first photos of our wedding from our totally awesome photographer, Aaron Thompson, are in! Here's a little preview of many more to come.

I'll be posting more along with more details about the reception and great vendors we used, but for the time being, you can see more photos on Aaron's blog.

Best. Party. Ever.

We did it! We're a couple of married folks now! The wedding was...perfect. Seriously. I kept expecting things to go wrong, and nothing did. At least, nothing that anyone noticed other than me.

We're already getting lots of great photos back from our friends and family, so I'll have plenty to share with you in the coming weeks. But tomorrow, we jet off to Barcelona, so I'll be absent for a little bit, enjoying some quality honeymoon time.

In the meantime, please enjoy this photo taken by our good friend Spencer Tuck. I think it sums it all up nicely.

P.S. Sorry for all the typos in the last couple of posts. I think my mind was elsewhere :)

Coming into Focus

I'm not a big fan of blog-as-confessional. Generally, I don't think baring your soul on the internet will lead to good things. Just ask that girl from Gawker. But bear with me as this post will be partially personal.

I don't like relinquishing control of anything, and right now, with my sister being sick, there's a major element of my life that I can't control. Both she and I are afraid and worried, and know that it's a possibility that she may not be able to attend the wedding at all, what with planes being major germ incubators. Heck, even a healthy person usually can't set foot on a plane without catching a cold. So needless to say, I'm having a hard time balancing the whole joy about getting married with the worry about my sister. Sometimes it causes me to freak out. So the first part of my blog-as-confessional is to say to anyone who may be or has already been subject to a wedding related freakout, I'm sorry. Just know that I'm trying to cope, and it's not always easy. So if I seem unusually worried about a particular detail, it's just because I'm trying to hold on to whatever it is that I can control.

My whole philosophy as a bride from day one of our engagement was to be the anti-bridezilla. To roll with the punches, not stress on the details, and encourage everyone to just have fun with the whole thing. So descending down this path of stress and worry, I ask myself everyday, "Am I turning into a bridezilla?" My biggest fear is becoming "that" bride, the one that everyone dreads. One of my friends recently shared her thoughts about the whole bridezilla moniker with me. She pointed out that every bride (and groom!), no matter how cool, no matter how grounded, will have moments that freak them out. Stress so bad that it seems to dwarf everything else. And that's OK. Having a momentary freakout is OK, so long as you don't yell at anyone, call them an idiot and make them cry. Which I haven't done, so I think I'm still safe.

Part two of my blog-as-confessional is to a plea to our friends and family that are attending: have a good time. Have a blast. Help me stay true to my original vision of the event. Remember that a wedding is, despite all the emphasis on how it is the "most important" day of our lives, a party. An expensive party, sure, but a party nonetheless. The important part, the marriage, lasts well beyond that day. So along those lines, if you are not able to attend for whatever reason -- you can't get time off work, can't get the kids out of school, it's too much of a financial burden -- that's OK. We understand. And to those of you that can attend and will, we are thrilled and hope to show you a really good time. And I hope that you'll also help remind me of this as well, when I start falling back into the state described above.

So, what will be a part of that really good time? I was hoping that it would include a photo booth. Rather than the traditional guest book, guests would step in front of one of our venues massive chalkboards, write a message to us, stand in front of it, and snap a picture. My initial idea was to have a user-friendly Polaroid 600 camera, so that guests could snap pictures of each other easily. But since the film has been discontinued, it's selling for a lot online, making it too cost prohibitive. My next idea is to use this old-school Laminex camera (pictured above) that I got for free with some Fuji instant film. This camera, however, is NOT user friendly. It's hard to pull the film out of the camera, and then you have to let it sit, peel it apart, and try not to get developer goo on your hands.

We first thought about assigning one of our friends to man the camera, but then didn't want to burden one of our guests by having them be tied to one spot all night instead of enjoying the party. So we're thinking of trying to find someone, a friend of a friend or a student or what have you, that we could bribe with a small sum and a free lunch to do the job. Know anyone that's interested?

Popular Culture No Longer Applies to Me

I promise to return next week with wedding related blog posts, but in the meantime, I'm focusing on that other part of my life that has nothing to do with being a bride: music photography.

This weekend, I'm shooting Street Scene 2009. So for now, here's a snapshot from day one. I guess I am officially old, because I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone would want to wear this:

But even when I was younger, I had an extreme distaste for American Apparel once they abandoned promoting themselves as "sweatshop free" and decided that it was more important to market themselves as the official outfitters of 70s soft core. That and the fact that every band t-shirt I've bought that was an American Apparel shirt immediately shrank and changed color upon washing. But I digress.

Shooting bands seems to have snapped me out of the funk I've been feeling all week, which is a very, very good thing. Be sure to watch for my upcoming shots on Jambase.

Engagement Pics, Part Deux

JT and I are running off to take our first official dance class tonight (we've taken a few "drop in" classes before), so I'll leave you this evening with a few more shots from our engagement shoot with Aaron Thompson.

I've Been Looking So Long at My Pictures of You

We just got our first engagement pics back from Aaron Thompson! Here's a few to sneak peeks.

You can see a few more on Aaron's blog, too. And I'll post more when we get the full set, so check back soon!

Engagement Shoot Recap

This weekend, we had our engagement photo shoot with Aaron Thompson. After being submerged in a fog of depression for the last two weeks, it felt pretty great to shake off everything that has been happening, put on cute outfits, and just have a good time together.

We did the shoot in our neighborhood. Not only cool because our neighborhood is just so darn awesome, but also because we 1. felt comfortable and 2. will now have great photos to remember our hood when we eventually move away. Noteworthy highlights of the day included climbing over logs while in a short skirt, laying on the ground in front of our local bar hangout, and getting in a confetti fight. Yup, that last one is gonna look SO cool.

A few tips worth sharing: Anthropologie is your best friend. I wore one of many dresses I have purchased there for the pictures. Just about every time I see an engagement photo with a girl in a super cute outfit, it's from Anthro. Aaron even said that he's just going to send out a link to their website the next time he gets a question from a bride asking what to wear for the engagement photos. Another tip that Aaron endorses is the idea of having a drink (which JT and I did) before the shoot to help loosen up. But the important part is to keep it to ONE drink!

It will be a few weeks before we have the finished products to share with you, but from the couple of shots that Aaron showed us, they are going to look amazing! I can't wait to share his work with everyone! In the meantime, enjoy this photo of Aaron's adorable dog, Barley:

You can also enjoy this photo from an engagement shoot by another set of photographers, He & She Photography. They are based in Orange County and charge very reasonable rates for the gorgeous work that they do, so they would be a great choice for SD brides.

Cool Photog Coming to San Diego

Our engagement photo shoot is just around the corner, so I've been spending a lot of time checking out great couple photos for inspiration.

You may have seen Jill Thomas' work on some of the major wedding blogs already (Once Wed and Green Wedding Shoes for starters). But after checking out her website, I noticed one very important fact: she is relocating to San Diego this summer!

Obviously we have already found a photographer that we love (yay, Aaron!), but if you are looking for a cool photog for your event, she seems like a great bet (and reasonable priced, too!).

Been MIA

I always feel guilty if I go longer than 2 days without posting anything, so I'm sorry. I've been trying to make my way through the 700 images I shot on Sunday and Monday this week. And just to prove I'm not lying, here is a photo from Sunday night's show with the lovely and talented Jenny Owen Youngs:

I've added a couple more shots from her set in my live gallery as well.

I Heart AS Too!

Since I'm a photographer in my own small way, obviously finding a photographer for our wedding would be a big challenge. Throw in the fact that I don't have $5,000 to spend on photography, and it becomes an even bigger challenge. JT and I have been pouring over photographer's websites for months (well, 2 months to be exact), trying to find someone who was not only a talented photographer with a unique viewpoint but that was also affordable and a good fit with us personality-wise. We finally found the perfect combination in one Mr. Aaron Thompson! Check out these bits of awesomeness.

Hopefully Aaron won't mind me "borrowing" these rad images from his own blog. You can check out more fabulous stuff at his site iheartas.com.