misadventures in wedding photography

I've had this on the back-burner FOREVER because my mother said I couldn't write bad shit about the wedding photographer. But since he still hasn't completed everything our parents paid for, I'm publishing it now....

So mom hired this photographer to shoot our wedding. He was AWFUL. During the wedding he was so awful that he was pissing me off. After the wedding we found his pictures to be so bad that we laughed our asses off one night. Now that some time has gone by and I've seen all the pictures from most of the people that were there I am getting angry again. Friends and family who happen to have cameras captured some of the moments after the wedding even better than the photographer that we paid thousands of dollars!!!

Let's play "who captured it better"...

1.

       photographer A                     or              Photographer B

Did you say B? Me too! And Photographer A was the guy my mom hired. AND he was the one that suggested Aaron pick me up! Why!? So he could take a picture that looks like Aaron's giving me a very awkward hug!? If you're going to frame the photo like that, why have him pick me up at all? And that island in the background looks like a lump growing out of Aaron's head. Did he not notices that? It's called "being aware of the background" guy.

2.

Photographer A:

or Photographer B.

Hmmm. I chose B. Picture A looks like Aaron's regurgitating food and I'm eating it out of his

 beak baby bird style. Or it looks like our faces are melting into each other. Either way, it's not flattering. When looking over the photos that Photographer B took she told me that she was wondering why Photographer A was taking a picture of you guys with the sun right between us when the sun setting to the left of us looked so beautiful. But I have to give a little thanks to Photog A for setting this shot up. If he wasn't making me so angry, Aaron would never had started slow dancing with me on the beach to try and make me smile. Of course Photog A didn't take a picture of this, he was too busy trying to make us fake kiss each other in an attempt to make (and I quote) "the sun burst between your lips." Yikes.

3.

Photographer A           or         Photographer B

Who is that couple in Photo A? You mean the ones awkwardly walking down the beach, taking a step and looking at each other, then taking another step and looking at the ocean, then taking another step and kissing each other? And trying really hard to coordinate these steps while wearing wet wedding clothes and walking on sand and holding hands? Yeah, that couple. I don't know, let's look at Photo B to find out... Oh! It's Aaron and Megan of course, aren't they funny. Look how well their personality comes out in Photo B. And they aren't doing anything fake. FYI photographers- that's always a good photo op, a natural and happy couple.

4.

Photographer A:

or Photographer B.

Um, yes, hi, I have a question Photographer A- Why is the ocean above us? And also where are our feet? Phew, no worries, Photographer B found our feet for us, and also put the Earth back on it's proper axis apparently. Thanks Photographer B.

     Photographer A                 or              Photographer B

Now these photos were taken at the exact same moment and yet it looks like two completely different experiences. And Photo B is one of my most favorite photos from the entire wedding. Photo A is actually not a terrible photo but it looks like Aaron's trying to crush me to death, and the angle is one in which I have to crane my neck and look out the corner of my eyes to smile at the photographer. Photographer B positioned herself in such a way that it looks like Aaron and I are the happiest (and only) people on the planet. Plus look how amazing the sky is, it makes a much better background than tourists in bathing suits.

5.

 

Photographer A                     or       Photographer B

This one makes me laugh every time. Photographer A just wrote our names in the sand and then apparently messed u pon what year it was? I don't know. And then just took a picture of our names. Photographer B, getting the idea from Photographer A, wrote "Megan & Aaron" which made more sense and then took a picture of the beach on which we got married. Yeah, I think i'm going with B on this one.

And finally... the man kept telling us to NOT SMILE! WTF!? Who tells a bride and groom on their wedding day to not smile.

smile v. no smile

In the second picture I'm telling Aaron and I'm about to kill our photographer in 2.5 seconds if he tells me not to smile again.

AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

my wedding inspiration board

It's a little late for it, but I put together an inspiration board for my wedding anyway-

please make all checks payable to "Megan Finley"

I am officially "Megan Finley" at my bank!

I recently had a check made out to my married name and that sorta' freaked me out because I haven't gotten my name changed yet. The official marriage license doesn't come for like 150 days after we got married and I have a little more than 100 days to go!

But apparently it's acceptable to bring a copy of your marriage license to the bank. (Just in case, they needed more proof I was armed with our wedding pictures and a link to our registry.) I was not only was able to cash the check but the lady also officially changed my name for me!

1 name change down - 150 billion to go.

NEW wedding pictures from my m.o.h. AMY!

My best friend and co-Maid of Honor, Amy, is a very talented lady. She's an wonderful friend, incredible cook and AMAZING photographer! (She's actually the one that inspired me to try my hand at photography which is now my favorite thing in the world.) So it wouldn't be surprising that even though she was busy being IN the wedding, she actually took some of the most amazing pictures of the wedding. My favorite thing about her photos is that they capture us as a couple perfectly. She caught the goofy-but-so-very-loving side of us that none of the other photographers really captured.

Check out the awesomeness that is Amy's amazing wedding photography...

 

 

 

 

my favorite photo EVER!

My NEW Maui Wedding blog

It's official, I am obsessed with Maui weddings. And since my brain is filled with so many useful facts and tips on planning one, I've started a new blog about- you guessed it- planning a Maui wedding. 

It's called My Maui Wedding - "Local Style" and it's all about how to plan a wedding doing what I did, using almost all local products from the invitations to the favors to the photographer. It encourages the future Maui bride to help support the local economy and at the same time save tons of money on shipping! Plus it pretty much makes planning a wedding on Maui from a remote location super simple. :)

Blogger is a little less dead to me now

So I figured it out!! I spent all night fighting with Blogger- went through all the 5 steps of grieving it felt like. I was in denial thinking, no this can't be, why would Blogger be this much of a punk!? Then I was angry, furious, cursing my wretched fate of not ever being able to check my email and blog at the same time. Of course I thought about emailing Blogger and begging them to let me change my email address, don't they understand that I'm married now, it's not my fault! Then depression set it and I put myself to bed. And I was ready to accept it this morning when I had a brilliant idea! 

Well, I have to give a little credit to my buddy Sabrina over at the Introverted Bride, her comment on my last post sparked a crazy little idea in my head...

Now pay attention newly married bloggers, this could help you out when you "make the change."

From my old email address, I invited myself to be a member of Misadventures in Wedding planning! Then signed on to my new email address and accepted the invitation. Now the Misadventures shows up on my dashboard under my new email!!!! OH HAPPY DAY!!!

Oh wow, I just had deja vu. 

Anyway, the crappy part is that if I want to erase a comment or do anything more than just post I have to undertake the Hurculean task of signing out and then signing back in again to do so. See? This is why I said "a little less" dead to me, Blogger.

good one, Blogger

So I changed my email address to have my new last name, which I've been dying to do! But I'm soooooo annoyed that I can't transfer over this blog to my NEW gmail account. Soooo freaking lame. Thanks a LOT Blogger. Way to make it even harder on us newly married chicks. Guess I should have just contacted a psychic 7 years ago when I opened a gmail account and found out what my last name was eventually going to be for the rest of my life. Or maybe I just shouldn't have started a blog until after I got married so that I could have all my online activities on one account. Boooo.

I don't know, I guess that it's not that big of a deal, but it the principle of the thing, ya know? 

Happy Time Wedding Day Beach Day

There are several reasons that I look so happy in the picture to the left. One reason is because it was taken on the morning of our wedding. This is us right after waking up on the happiest day of our lives. Another reason that I'm smiling is because Aaron was going to make sure that I had my first stress free day since i arrived on Maui....

Every day leading up to the wedding I was just getting more and more stressed out. There seemed like there was NO END to the things that I needed to get done. When I finally let it all out in a mad-woman rant it was the night before our wedding. I went off to Aaron and his best man about how stressed I was and how I wasn't even enjoying myself at all and how having a wedding was the worst idea I'd EVER had. So Aaron, deeply upset that his lovely bride was so miserable during her wedding festivities, took it upon himself to plan a day of fun and NO STRESS for me. He decided that the next day, the day of our wedding, I was going to have an amazing day. 

And how did he do this? Two ways- getting me to write a list of rules for everyone to follow on the day of the wedding. (The only one I remember anymore is "No one asks me any questions." lol.) And the other way to reduce my stress was to plan a fun beach day.

the bride & groom hours before the wedding

So hours before our wedding we called up all our friends and had them meet us at our favorite beach- the shark attack beach! :)

our friends from LA arrive at the beach!

And it worked! I had the BEST time that day. Throwing tradition and worries aside, Aaron and I sun bathed, snorkeled and played frisbee with friends at the beach up until, oh 2 hours before the wedding! 

John brought the Zinka, I chose white since it was my wedding day!

my cousins chose to lay out in style at the Four Seasons with a nice view of our beach party

so did the rest of my family

my sister definitely had a relaxing day

jessica and me goofing off.

my hero!

And like magic, I was stress free and having fun! Which set the tone for us to have the most amazing wedding.

I wish it was in the hearts of all

I had to post this video on here for several reasons-

1. The passage of Prop 8 has deeply affected me, my friends and my ideas of marriage & weddings in general. And this, after all, is my blog about such things.
2. It's the most sweetly passionate of negative responses to the passage of Prop 8.
3. Plain and simple- it's one of the best descriptions of marriage and what marriage means to me, that I've ever heard.

And all this from Keith Olbermann, who, as far as I knew, was just some sports commentator!



wow. just wow.

Welcome to Maui Party

Instead of a "Rehearsal Dinner" Aaron's parents hosted a "Welcome to Maui Dinner" as there was no rehearsal. Everyone who came to the island was invited and it was a lot of fun. Except for when I got stung by a wasp. THAT was more than not fun, that was excruciating. 

We had the dinner at a friends restaurant in Kihei- Matteo's -and it was fabulous!

the bride and groom outside of Matteo's

me & Raina- she did my hair right before the party!

Aaron and his Best Man, Daren

the guests start to gather at Matteo's.

Judy with the shark ballon!

My mom and sister found this balloon and brought it to the party.

me, my cousin Dana and my mom

we went around handing out all the "Welcome to Maui bags" to all of our guests.

"the kids table"

I was being stung by a bee as this picture was being taken

after being stung the the bee. 

Raina came by to comfort me, I cry and hold a napkin filled with ice to the sting and my sister is behind me laughing!

Aaron's dad's amazingly sweet speech.

We got a cake for Aaron's parents 40th wedding anniversary!!!

At the end of the night our friends came together and read the haikus they had written about us. The haikus were inspired by the fact that "Megan and Aaron" is five syllables. 

Erik reading his haiku.

I can't remember any of them at the moment so I will write another blog about the haikus later. But the one I do remember is this:

Megan and Aaron

and Aaron and Megan and

Megan and Aaron

Amazing. And so was the entire party. We had a great time and great food and even greater company. And it helped set the tone for an awesome wedding.

THANKS LARRY & STEPHANIE!!!!!

oops, i mean

MOM & DAD!!!!

Behind the scenes freak out

So after the "Welcome Bag Slave Party" all our friends had left, except for Raina. She stayed behind to re-dye my hair because it didn't take as well as it should have the first time. My hair likes to reject all things unnatural. It's annoying. Raina dyed my hair and while I sat there with gunk on my head she cut Aaron's hair.

cutting Aaron's hair on the lanai

Raina cut Aaron's hair and then did my hair for the Welcome Party and as she was packing up her stuff I went to change into my fabulous dress that I love just as much as my wedding dress! Of course I hadn't tried the dress on since I bought it almost a year before and after working out like a mad woman for the past 2 months the dress ended up being too big!!!! It was practically falling off of me. I looked like an idiot. 

I rushed into the kitchen in a blind panic and in tears over my dress. Luckily Raina is my guardian angel and said to find her a needle and thread and she'd take care of it.

raina altering my dress

I may not have a dress, but damn my hair looks gooooood.

So there i was a little less than an hour before our Welcome Party in a towel with my friend Raina altering the straps of my dress and Aaron and his best man Daren drinking beer and messing about, totally oblivious to the fact that I was about to loose my mind!!!

Aaron dancing and Daren surfing the net while I was loosing my mind.

But Raina pulled it off, after taking in the straps it looked like it fit a lot better, my hair looked amazing and Aaron, well, it'd take Aaron until that night to realize just how stressed out I was.