Websites and Registries and Photos, oh my!

So continuing the list of random wedding things that surprised me...

First of all, I've googled "... etiquette" more times in the last two weeks than my entire life cumulatively.  Admittedly that's not saying much, but still.  It's excessive.  And when you're done reading all the rules, at the bottom it basically has a codicil that states "none of this applies to destination weddings".  Sheesh.

So we decided a website would be a good method of disbursing all of the relevant information.  Sweet.  I know websites.  Easy.  But then I foolishly googled to see what others had done.  Oh dear.  But in the midst of all the chaos of Too Much Information, I realized there are several good free sites available and picked one of those.  It's not nearly as customizable as I'd like, but it's free and it's fast and it's well laid out.  Fine.

Deciding it would do, I spent a fair amount of time entering information from the travel agent and deleting sections I didn't like.  "Our Proposal" ummm no.  Those who should know either asked me already or read my blog.  The website is for actually useful information, not storytelling.  That being said, there will have to be a little bit of storytelling as Chris convinced me it was reasonable to leave the "About Us" page up -- since the vast majority of the people attending likely only know one of us.  But that's all we need.

Anyways -- all good right?  Except, websites like photos.  Not a ton, perhaps, but at least some.  And Chris has a pretty serious aversion to cameras.  So as a result, pretty well the only photos of the two of us together are the ones taken in Cuba -- where we were very rarely dressed appropriately for a wedding website ;)

So we called our wedding photographer (did I mention we already have a wedding photographer?  Oh yeah, we're just that good!), and asked if he could do some engagement photos.   Seriously.  I actually just wrote that sentence.  Don't entirely believe it myself, but it is, in fact, true.

Well Joe agreed and suggested that the best time for outdoor photos is either sunset or sunrise.  Which would be lovely, except that I'm generally working at sunset and Chris is generally working at sunrise.  Hmmmm weekend it is.  But this weekend both our evenings were booked, and so that is how we ended up doing a photoshoot at 7:30 in the morning.  Oh the things we do for love ;)   Or at least for the trappings that go along with love.

This lighting is why the early-morning start.
Love this shot!

Actually went really well and I had a surprisingly good time with it.

Definitely not the most formal or technical photo of the day,
but it makes me smile every time I see it.

And that should've been the end.  But no, apparently we need registries.  Three according to the etiquette-consensus.  We shouldn't need any.  We're going away.  People are paying a lot of money to come to our wedding.  We don't need or want gifts, or showers, or anything else.  But still people keep asking, and our mothers strongly recommended we do the registry thing.  And really, a wise person doesn't ignore a strong recommendation from their mother.  So we sucked it up and hit up a store, where we met Debbie, the poor woman whose job it was to help us set up our registry.  You've heard of a hostile witness?  hahaha well she had the wedding version.  We did mostly behave ourselves.  At one point she mentioned she had a hard time knowing when we were being serious.  Oops.  hahaha but we got through it all and escaped with only a few scars ;)  And even Debbie was smiling -- although that might've been because we were done *g*

When we got home we discovered the concept of a honeymoon registry.  Way better idea -- we "need" the most amazing trip ever far more than we need place-mats. hahaha so then it was back to Google to see what'd be involved in setting that up.  That one was actually fun, because it lead to daydreaming about said honeymoon -- we're aiming for Zanzibar.  Seriously.  Awesome.

So we still have one more to go to appease the etiquette gods, and we will get it done at some point.  When both Chris and I have time.  And the store's open.  Cause, you know, those things all coincide at least once in a while.  I'm sure.

And in the end we have some photos that I'm really happy with, gave Debbie something to do at work, and by the time we get our invitations, the website will be ready to launch.  The world is good.

Oh and Chris' parents met my parents for the first time this weekend.  But that's a different story ;)