Hello friends! Today I would like to talk with you about our videographer. Yes, we are having a videographer at our wedding!! (Two of them, actually!) I am so very excited about this, and I think I am especially excited because videography was something we always knew we wanted, but didn’t always know if it was something we could fit in our budget. I think that the budget realities of weddings are not something that gets discussed often enough, so today I would like to honestly walk you through our path to videography, in the hopes that it could be of help to one of you. Let’s go!

As I said, we knew from the very beginning that we wanted a videographer. We hired an insanely talented wedding photographer almost immediately (yay Tanja!) and know without a doubt that she will capture beautiful and priceless moments from our wedding day. However, because we went over our budget to hire Tanja (which I don’t regret!), we only were able to allocate $1,000 for videography in our initial budget. I knew full well that that was wayyyyy too low, but I chose to cross my fingers and hope that something would work out instead of doing something more productive.

Brad & Deena : wedding highlights from Inkspot Crow Films on Vimeo.

To complicate matters still further, John and I are unfortunately not a fan of any of the videographers we’ve found in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. They’re just not our style, and most are so well established as to be prohibitively expensive, in my opinion.

No, our number one choice for videography was a little duo called Inkspot Crow. MacKenzie and Philip are based near us, in North Carolina, and I was initially introduced to them by my friend Meredith, who just so happens to be MacKenzie’s sister. We were immediately taken with their modern but classic filming style, and their story-driven editing. After working with them on a few projects through work, I also found them to be two of the nicest people around, and a great fit with my and John’s personalities. They are exactly the sort of people you want around on your wedding day.

Tim & Cate : wedding highlights from Inkspot Crow Films on Vimeo.

So I inquired! And as nice as MacKenzie is, even her niceness couldn’t help the fact that their basic package (for filming as well as a highlight and feature-length film) was three times our budgeted amount (you can do the math there). So we sadly parted ways, though MacKenzie did offer to waive their travel fee if we could make everything else work, since they could combine the trip up North with a visit to her Mom. A supremely kind offer to be sure, but still, not much to go on.

Fast forward to last month. I received a completely unexpected and very generous gift, and immediately decided to put it towards video. With that gift plus our initial budgeted amount, we were suddenly 2/3 of the way towards our goal. At that point, we knew we could make it work, so we sat down and took an even harder look at our budget. Extra hors d’oevres? Gone. Custom cocktail napkins? Gone. Less expensive (but still awesome!) band in favor of more expensive band? Yes. Mini cutting cake? Now being made by yours truly instead of our caterer (more about this to come!). With these cuts and more, we were able to shift enough of our resources towards video to make it a reality for us. Thankfully, Inkspot was still available for our date!

Alex & Katherine: wedding highlights from Inkspot Crow Films on Vimeo.

I know that videography isn’t a priority for everyone, and if it’s not for you, then that’s totally fine! But if it is a priority, and you haven’t hired someone because you don’t think you can afford it, I would encourage you to look again. I would make those cuts and more three times over to have a moving record of our day. We have a lifetime to throw parties with awesome details, but only one chance to capture the ones we love the most in action on one of the most special days of our lives. I have never heard a bride say she regrets spending money on videography, but I have heard more couples than I can count say not hiring a videographer is their number one regret. I didn’t want that to be us, and thankfully, it won’t be.

I will leave you with a completely adorable story, and though I might not be getting all of the details right, the sentiment is still true. A family with two little girls lives in the same apartment complex as John’s sister and her fiance. They went over to babysit one night, and the girls begged to watch “their favorite movie,” which they watch at least once a week with rapt attention. Yes, you guessed it: their favorite movie is their parents’ wedding video. I have a hard time thinking of a better reason to hire a videographer than that :)

P.S. Make sure you watch the highlight films from Inkspot interspersed throughout the posts! They’re some of my very favorites.

Who’s ready for Valentine’s Day? I’m not, really (yet!), so I thought I’d repost these fun felt Valentine’s Day fortune cookies I made a few years back in case you’re looking for a quick project.

They’re super easy to make, and the best part is that you only need felt, glue, and a little bit of ribbon and garden wire! See the full set of instructions on Martha Stewart here.

As you may recall, John and I are getting married at the Memorial Chapel at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. It looks like this:

Ahhh, so beautiful.

Aside from being gorgeous, however, this lovely spot holds much significance for me. It’s on the base where my Dad went to school as a cadet, and where he worked as an active duty professor for more than twenty five years — from before I can remember to after I graduated from college. So many of my memories from growing up involve the Academy, from football games on Saturdays to sponsor cadets that became bonus big sisters, Easter egg hunts on the lower field, many windy Saturdays on the sidelines of the softball diamond eating extra box lunches (my Dad was the assistant coach), countless days spent in the auditorium amusing myself through my older sister’s musical rehearsals, trips to have lunch with Dad at the Officer’s Club (famous among my sisters and I for its “fancy bathroom”), and accompanying him to work when we stayed home from school (when he took us into the classroom with him, he would sometimes introduce us as the “visiting expert on Play-Doh” — a funny joke when you’re a Western Political Theory instructor).

I also love that we’re holding our ceremony at the Academy because in a small way it’s a gesture of appreciation for all who serve in the military, including my Dad, several other family members, and one of my and John’s best friends from high school. I am so proud of my Dad’s service, and all those who serve, that I always knew I would want him to wear his uniform for my wedding. And wear it he shall! It won’t be the first time he’s worn it for a wedding, either:

Some of you may recall this gem from my parents’ anniversary, but I thought it was worth digging out again :)

My Dad and I are still discussing his sartorial choices, but we’re pretty sure he’s going to go all out and wear his service dress whites for the ceremony, then switch to his dinner dress blue uniform for the reception. I love it, and I can’t wait to walk down the aisle on his arm.

Just for fun, here are a few more service people at weddings.

Photo by Q Weddings via Style Me Pretty

Photo by Braedon Flynn via Southern Weddings

Photo by Erin Hearts Court

Photo by Jose Villa

What do you think? Ladies or gents who are getting married, does your ceremony spot hold special meaning? How about those of y’all who are already married?

Happy Friday, friends! Fridays make me happy, and so does getting things in the mail, so what better day to post about our save the dates than today?

As you all know, we were choosing between a few different Minted designs. You overwhelmingly preferred the “Midnight Vineyard” style, and it turns out we did, too! We loved how the strings of light evoke an elegant evening garden party feel, which is exactly what we’re going for. However, as some of you also noted, the green ink was not the best choice for us. Here’s the original design again:

Thankfully, Minted is awesome about customizations, so we easily switched out the font (for something more classic), swapped the ink color (for a pale powder blue), and made a few text layout changes. We also opted for a solid-colored backer. It’s the same pale powder blue, though it’s kind of hard to tell in photos (and, truthfully, in person… should have made it a little darker!). Here’s the final design we ended up with!

Pretty! We also wanted a patterned envelope liner. Midnight Vineyard has a standard liner design, which looks like this:

However, that was a little too matchy-matchy for me, so we opted to swap the standard liner for the liner that comes with the Kraft Ribbon Christmas card:

Voila!

Now, to get these babies ready for their big adventure! I addressed each with my best handwriting, popped on my favorite stamps, and subbed in a custom rubber stamp from Rubberstamps.net for handwriting our return address on every envelope. For those who are interested, we ordered the 3 inches by 1.5 inches size, and I uploaded a custom design I made in Illustrator. I purposefully opted to leave our last names off, because this way, we can use this stamp even after we’re married! A very good $16 investment if I do say so myself.

Thank you very much to my friend Nancy Ray for taking these photos!

With everything addressed and stamped, all that was left was to box the pretties up and take them to the post office.

Which we did, on a very busy Saturday morning.

Yes, I am the ding dong that made my fiance take a photo of me in front of the post office.

Despite the line, I bravely asked the postmistress if I could hand cancel the stamps once we got to the front. She really didn’t want to let me, but eventually caved to my winning smile :) (Don’t worry, we stepped to the side while we worked so as not to hold up the line!) Why did I care about hand canceling? It avoids your mail being run through the machine, which imparts not-so-lovely neon markings and often mashes them up a bit, too. When you hand cancel, you just get a charming, old school stamp on the front. Tip for others who would like to hand cancel: make sure you stamp OVER your postage stamp (that’s what you’re canceling, get it?). Otherwise, your envelopes will be run through the machine anyway, and you’ll incur the wrath of the USPS to boot.

I’m so happy with how everything turned out! I did feel a good bit of anxiety as I worked on these, though, and I couldn’t understand why. Finally I concluded that it’s because sending out save the dates makes your guest list very real. These people are invited, and these people are not. We ended up cutting down our initial guest list a few months back once budget realities started to sink in, and of course, we had to leave people off the list that we would have loved to invite. There’s understandably a degree of sadness that comes with that. However, I’m so excited to celebrate with those we are able to invite, and hope they’ll all be able to make the trip to Connecticut in September!!