Well the wedding is quickly approaching and I am quickly realizing that there is still alot that is left to be done! I just constructed my Honey-Do list and there were at least ten things on the list and it is by no means complete.
It felt like the majority of the wedding planning was done which is true, but I now realize that those 3 months of planning must be excecuted in less than 2 MONTHS!! There is nothing but excitement, but the sands of the hour glass are slowly running down!
Well I guess a major plus of having the guy sharing your office be your wedding photographer and your business partner a professional photographer as well means you get to have some cool engagement pictures. Here is one of the shots from Jamie. You can check out more at Jason’s site as well. It was a fun day. We ran all over Baton Rouge shooting in the FREEZING COLD! So I hope the guys edited out our red noses and rosey cheeks! Anna and I both had alot of fun at the shoot. It was kinda of weird kissing in front of the camera, but we were troopers.
Enjoy the pictures!
Sorry it has been so long since you have seen an update from me, but things have been a bit crazy, as you will soon read!
So the other night in order to get everything done (finalize some album design, finish coding a website, and debugging another) I decided to pull a late night. I guess that late night bled into an early morning in which I wrapped up work at about 5AM and headed home. So I got home and ready to climb into my nice warm bed that was calling my name and realized that my loudly-coughing-sick father, thinking that I wasn’t coming home, was sleeping in my bed in an effort to not keep my mother awake. That meant that I got bumped to the cold couch with an afghan. Hey, at 5:30AM in the morning, a place to sleep is a place to sleep! Needless to say I was a bit worked up by the time I actually got to sleep.
In a matter of seconds I was out cold and off to dreamland or should I say nightmare land. Now I know that most guys probably never have a wedding nightmare because they are far removed from the wedding planning, but much to my fiancee’s frustration, I am not that guy. This dream was everything that could be wrong was wrong! So here we go! The wedding was being held in some random church, not Our Lady of Fatima, that was setup amphitheater style. Dreadfully plain and drab! All of our guests were people that we had definitely decided NOT to invite and none of the invited people were there, even our parents! Anna’s bridal party was made up of friends of mine from high school, both who were not very pleased with me getting married. My groomsmen were a hodge podge group as well. My best man and one of my groomsmen were not there at all, so two random guys I didn’t know where standing in for them. The other two where there but only one of them was in the proper attire. The other was wearing a black sports coat with khaki pants with patches all over them!
So now comes the mass/wedding ceremony! Readings normal, responsorial psalm definitely was a song from The Sound of Music! I was furious!! I was also mad at Anna for wanting to sway back and forth to the song! Then after the wedding vows we preceded to do an old-style-Cajun promenade to “It’s a Small World After All”! This again made me soooo mad! But I remember in the dream saying to myself…”The wedding is in shambles…but the reception is coming!” Well turns out that was a flop as well!
The reception, planned to be at a’ la carte , was actually being held in the same Church were the wedding had been held. And of course instead of the oh so delicious spread of food we have planned, we had a vegetable tray and some tuna sandwiches with a few 2 liters of Coke™. Of course I spent the entire reception speaking to people that I didn’t like and didn’t invite to our wedding! It was then I said to myself…”Well at least you have the honeymoon to look forward to!” It was then that I realized people were leaving and the reception was winding down. I then noticed that my new blushing bride was in an SUV with the rest of her bridal party and were heading out to go clubbing! That pretty much took the cake and I was distraught. I then looked to my groomsmen and discovered they were in this beat-up pickup truck and where leaving to go hunting, very odd for this couple of guys as well. So I was alone…so alone. Well I returned to the church to find it empty except for the janitors from my office in the Oil Center.
So all in in all it was a pretty horrific wedding! I then woke up to one of my groomsmen, also my business partner Jamie Orillion, calling to talk about work. Instead I just had to relay the story of the wedding nightmare! I then the combination of sleepiness and Taco Bell for dinner did me dirty! Then I reminded myself that everything was going to be ok!
- Daniel
P.S. I promise we will have more than a vegetable tray and we will definitely not have tuna sandwiches at our reception!
You know married guys always tell you that after you propose…just step back and watch the flurry begin. They are RIGHT! I am amazed at how much stuff there is to plan for this wedding and how LITTLE time we have to do it in. Six months sounded like so much time and I am quickly realizing, with the help of my beautiful fiancee, that we still have alot to do. We have been very lucky with all the connections with have in the community that have helped us quickly book, plan, and secure all the things we need for June 6.Within the first week we had ALOT planned:
What we still have LEFT:
But I think I might be stressing my fiancee with more involvement than most grooms-to-be. Being the graphic designer that I am…I weigh in more on style and design than most.So I am glad things are slowing a tiny bit so we can catch our breath! So little to do and so much time…wait…strike that…reverse it!
Well I have been told that I did a pretty good job on the proposal, but I keep saying it couldn’t be any different for this hopeless romantic.I had been playing a little bit of reverse psychology on Anna for a week or so before the day. We talked alot about marriage so I knew that I had to basically hide the proposal in “plain sight.” So that my oh-so-gifted-girlfriend wouldn’t catch on. I created what has come to be called a “Choose your Own Adventure Date”. I sent her a list of things that she would have to choose from. Each of these items corresponded to a restaurant, place, or topic to discuss during the day. But secretly each item actually had a reference to something in our relationship. So her choices lead us to Zea’s, then Maggie Moo’s, and we ended up at the steps of Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church. Now some of the lead up to this has to be mentioned. My amazing friend and office-mate Jason Cohen offered to shoot the actually proposal from afar! So we go to the church about 9:30AM to scout a location. He borrowed a 500mm lens to hide in the bushes to shoot the proposal. You can check out the pictures below.We arrived at the church and quickly realized that there was actually a funeral beginning in a few mintues which almost made me push it back…but there was too much riding on that day and that time! We walked to the church and sat on a bench and I read to her the real meaning of all the items that she was required to bring. Then I walked her to the spot where we first met, hugged her, and moved her into prime picture position, and dropped to one knee. I took out the ring box out of my pocket (where it almost fell out a couple of times during the date!!) and asked her, “Anna Therese Maragos, will you marry me.”
I Dropped to One Knee…
I Opened the Box…
She said YES!!
She Said Yes AGAIN!
I was excited as well!
