The universe clearly wants me to marry elenuial, part #973.

[hazliya]

A big part of my wedding planning process is Offbeat Bride, and I love that site like crazy. It's an excellent resource, with things like My Little Pony boutonnieres and Kill Bill-themed bridal party shots letting me feel like it's okay to not have a cookie-cutter (or even reasonably normal) wedding. I was worried about the budgeting, but apparently, serendipity is taking care of that for us.

The venue fell into our lap. It's a place I never thought of, since I spent so much time there as a child, but we stopped by while elenuial's parents were in town, then asked if it was available for weddings and if so, open on our date.

Yes. And you get both floors. And a full kitchen. And a lit fireplace. Oh, and it's 1/5 the price of most other venues. Are you a RI resident? Yes? 20% off. And it's on a Sunday? 15% off of that.

Catering is also going surprisingly well. One of the caterers we're meeting with did several weddings in my family, knows my father, and is happy to cut a deal as WELL AS delicious (the food, not the man).

But those are two things I really wasn't as invested in.

The one thing I was really fussing over was the photography. As a photographer (admittedly, total amateur), I'm super picky about who I want doing this thing. After all, this is the one day in my life I'm allowed to be this choosy, right? I looked at literally hundreds of wedding photographers, none of them catching my or elenuial's attention. Especially those that only had traditional weddings in their portfolios - we're going to go weird, and we want someone to rock that. Plus, wedding photography is goddamn expensive. For a decent photographer on a moderate package budget, the prices range from 3-5k.

I showed him Photo Pink, based in NYC, and we both agreed that we really liked the team's work. They're fun, and manage to do "pretty" and "weird" in the same shot.

That same day, they announced a contest on Offbeat Bride where Photo Pink was offering a 75% off wedding photography packages prize to winning weddings between January and March 2011. My heart jumped, then sank when I saw the deadline. Still, the criteria was "offbeat," and I figured that giving it a shot couldn't hurt. I sent them an email asking if they'd consider a May entrant, and got a response of "Depends. Show us what you got."

Half an hour of typing and describing our Japanese/Scottish nondenominational, gender-neutral, completely recyclable dance party wedding with an officiant who's been dead for 220 years- potentially with a time-travel theme - later, I sent it off and hoped for the best.

Just now (one day after sending it in), I got an email from the head photographer saying that she'd absolutely love to shoot our wedding personally, and would be happy to do the full works for $1k flat, more than 75% off her usual rate.

So a really top-shelf photographer at cheaper-than-cheap price?

Holy.

CRAP.

I'm waiting until elenuial comes home but man, if he agrees, we'll have the awesomest photographer in the world and THE singular biggest worry I have will be erased.

Knock on wood for the caterer to pan out.

Comments

[offside7.livejournal.com]

That's fantastic! Their photography looks really cool. Congratulations!

[quish.livejournal.com]

I loved Offbeat Bride. It definitely made me feel like "huh, it's okay to do this my way."


Congrats on the photographer. You need a photographer who will be able to capture the spirit of your wedding.


So where's the new venue? You never said why you guys switched. But at those prices, HOLY COW WAY TO GO!

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

Glad things are going (absurdly) well! The work at Photo Pink is amazing.

If things somehow don't work out with the caterer, I have a friend in NYC I can recommend.

[reichan.livejournal.com]

Holy Crap that's awesome! Very happy for you guys.