While I was getting all prettied up, Tanja busied herself taking some photos of the wedding paraphernalia. Now I hadn’t wanted to go too overboard with the list of “must-take” shots, because it felt a bit pushy, and I am not pushy *at all*. Do I want people coming into my work telling me how to do my job? No. So I felt I shouldn’t get too carried away with the lists; I didn’t want it to come off as me telling Tanja how to do her job. But actually, though, now that it’s over, I wish I had added more items to that list. There were lots of little things that I either forgot about, or thought, “well, surely she’ll get that shot”, but in the end they didn’t happen. And some of my very favourite photos are the ones based on items from my list. I suppose it all depends on the photographer, but sound yours out, brides-to-be, and if he/she seems amenable, make a list of everything you can think of!

One of the shots I did absolutely insist on was the hanging dress. You might remember how much I love those! And I also mentioned a bunch of times that I like shots taken from below. This is my favourite of the dress shots. I liked it so much I made it sepia, black & white, faded colour, softened, sharpened; you name it, I did it! I think this classic black & white looks best, though.

Did I mention that, despite my Packham Envy, I luuuurve my dress? It was so pretty and fairytalesque! In fact, when I first tried it on and wrote down the code number in my diary, in case I wanted to go back for it and they couldn’t find it, that’s what I wrote next to it: “Fairytale one”. Here’s a close-up of the bodice detailing:

And here we have the back of my dress and, dun dun dun, the big reveal of my bouquet:

Now, you may remember me saying that I wasn’t entirely happy with my bouquet, and that’s not because it doesn’t look lovely. It does; it’s beautiful, and lots of people told me so. But It’s. Not. What. I. Wanted. First off, the colour of the lilies was all wrong. This is the colour I wanted:

I really wanted that deep, blackish-purply-red colour. And my florist had these pictures! But what I got was, well, pink. And I don’t LIKE pink. So I’ve spent a whole lo of time darkening the bouquet in photoshop so that it looks “right”. Is that wrong? I know it wasn’t how it really WAS on the wedding day, but I really wanted the look of the dark, dark calla lilies, and photoshop helps me achieve that! (the photo I’ve posted is not altered, however, so you can see the colour as it was).

Secondly (yes, I’m still harping about the bouquet), I wanted a few black feathers in the bouquet. Sort of like this one’s style:

So my florist promised me black feathers like this. If you scroll up again, you’ll see what I GOT was a surround of peacock feathers. Now I LOVE peacock feathers. I think they’re incredibly beautiful. But they didn’t go with my wedding, so after considering them, I disregarded them. Yes, I thought about it, and decided it wasn’t what I wanted. But apparently that didn’t matter. Aaargh.

Now I know I shouldn’t complain, because two of my friends paid for more than half the flower cost, and the florist (one friend’s sister) did everything at cost, which saved us all a LOT of money, but I just wish she’d been more communicative! Asked me if I was okay with peacock instead of black. Warned me that the lilies were going to be far more expensive than she’d originally estimated. And especially told me that they were the wrong colour, and asked if I wanted something else instead! I had already emailed her options of other dark red bouquets with different flowers, in case the lilies were unavailable. I would actually have preferred the right colour with other flowers, than the wrong colour on the right flowers. Oh well. It was a pretty bouquet, at least. Here’s another shot of it with my wedding stuff! Oooh, ruby slippers!

And here’s a shot of our rings on one of my Oscar favours! I also suggested this one. I had to photoshop him a bit, because I realised, when I took him out for Tanja to use, that I had accidentally picked one with a hole on the front of the base. Ooops. (By the way, we had a bunch of Oscars left over after the wedding. I just ate the last one last week!).

Here’s a shot of me checking out the back of my hair in a compact mirror:

And the girls went off to start getting ready. Tanja sneaked in a shot of Sister Honeysuckle putting on her shoes:

Then, because my veil was a drop veil, and had no obvious point at which to attach it to my head, I had to measure it out so Megan could put some hair grips in at the right place.

And while she did that, I derobed. I had to crop the bottom half of this next picture because I was wearing my comfy panties and my not-so-great cellulite. But at least the top half of my back looks ok. And I got a shot of my tattoo!:

And the girls helped me on with my dress. I’m not sure what I was doing with my hand again. The Claw, perhaps?:

Once the dress was on, I had to shimmy over the the nearest mirror and adjust my cleavage. Yeah, I had to do the whole “dip my hands inside the dress and hoist up the girls” thing. There doesn’t, however, seem to be a picture of that. What a shame.

And on with the garter! Look at me trying to do an elegant ballet pointe very inelegantly:

And then I struggled to get my earrings in. I have stupid holes that don’t like to let earrings slide in easily. I was originally going to wear my dangly diamante earrings, but when I tried on my ensemble a few weeks before the wedding, I decided that they were Too Much with the tiara and necklace and the sparkliness on the dress. So I ended up wearing some tiny cheap diamantes hanging from a tiny loop of silver. I’ve had these since my university homour’s ball in 2001, and I’ve worn them for many a community theatre show.

And then my mom helped me put on my necklace.

Ok, so she didn’t, and this picture was totally posed. My mom can’t see well enough without her glasses on ever to be able to fasten a clasp, let alone one behind my head where she can’t see at all!

And then a shot of me in the mirror, taken by Tanja lying on the floor, yelling, “Lean forward more!” a lot. But it was totally worth it :-)

A bride standing elegantly (ish) in a doorway…

A close-up of my tiara. I love this one so much! Look at my eyelashes. Love them too!

And on with the veil. There now follows a loooong series of veil photos. Suck it up, they’re my favourites!

First, my Mom bringing the veil over to me:

And lowering it:

Megan fixing it to my head:

Then lifting it again so that Tanja could get some awesome photos:

Yeah, I went nuts on photoshop with these:

This is my mom’s boutoniere/corsage thingy. Now THIS looked great! Possibly because I didn’t care what it looked like to begin with:

I HEART this next series of photos in the mirror:

And kazam! The transformation is complete! I’m a BRIDE.

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