Must-Take photos and BOOOOOOOOZZZE!!

Does anyone else have a list of must-take photos for their wedding in their heads? I got an e-mail from my photographer about our final timeline and it made me think 'shoo, we're getting there, and I assume this is all just going to fall into place.' But that's not necessarily true! What if he wants us to come up with all the locations and 'poses'? Well, I thought long and hard about it and after the smoke cleared, I realized that what's most important is just going to be me and the man, looking lovingly at each other... heehee, I couldn't write that with a straight face, sounds so cheesy!! But seriously, I'm not going to agonize over every location that would be great for pictures or every single pose that I've been poring over on the interwebs.

That being said, I have been storing away a few here and there, that represent the only sort of 'necessary photos' that I MUST. HAVE.

Don't know why I'm so in love with this style, but I am... I mean, I'm sure Mr. Darcy has something to do with it ;)

 
Kyle has so many cute little grandmas and great aunts, and the funniest part is how he towers over all of them, I want pictures with ALL of them!

What would be sweeter than me and my girls close up 'cause we loooove each other so much!

Some of my favorite moments at weddings is how bored people look at some points. I love this idea of the overly-bored or the Vanity Fair overly-privileged group shots. Now, I know it can be taken out of context, especially when it's too overdone:

Funniest thing I have ever seen!!

Actually, now that I've seen that shot, I want to do it even more, and make the guys get in on it too; they'll probably have more fun than I!

Otherwise, obviously we want to get the standard formals, but I'm putting my foot down when it comes to people wanting shots with JUST the man or JUST me. No! Our families have had our whole lives to get pictures with us individually, now Kyle and I come as a set. Jumping in and out individually would double our formal shot time. That will make for a cranky Kyle, which will make for an anxious Ashley. You don't want that, do you, Family? I just hope there's not bickering, I will turn bridezilla quick. I'm tentatively putting my mom in charge of rallying the troops because I'm afraid of her... everyone else should be too right? ;) Just kidding, Mama! But seriously.

Kyle and I will then just get to walk around and enjoy each other's newlywed company! I plan on using that time to have our take-a-deep-breath-it's-over time, and just have Ben happen to follow us around, when an opportunity presents itself, start snappin' away! I don't know if this approach is too laissez faire, but I don't want to put pressure on myself, Kyle, or Ben, because Kyle already told me he wants no posed shots. I already think he's probably going to fight me over a head-in-the-lap shot. BUT, I trust our photographer, I think everything will be perfect.

Lastly, we're picking up our booze this weekend! Whoopie!!

We were always drawn to the idea of a BYOB reception venue, and we're so happy with the fact that buying your own is massively cheaper than most venues' alcohol packages. It's allowing us to have an open bar but still make it full (at some other venues, we were going to have to choose because we just couldn't afford their full open bar packages!)

Only problem was, now I had to play bartender; Kyle's pretty knowledgeable but I really didn't want too much or too little. I don't feel the need to have massive amounts of extra booze at my house, and obviously we don't want to run out. So of course, I googled wedding alcohol calculator, and of course, the very first link that came up was "Wedding alcohol calculator":

Pretty impressive, yes? The most impressive part is that I most definitely estimated booze costing a hell of a lot more. I'm kind of flabbergasted at that total cost, but, it's all written out there, it's all correct... I have no idea where I got my original huge number from. Anyway, just to be sure (and because this website didn't have a liquor breakdown) I checked one more site:

So there's some discrepancies, this site would cost an extra $150 over the first website, but I'm definitely not getting 10 bottles of champagne, sooo... yeah. We're actually getting more bottles of booze than is listed here because we have several guests with eclectic tastes so we'll get smaller bottles of a few different types of rum, whiskey, etc... Obviously not everyone can be accommodated- I can only do so much- but I hate it when I go somewhere and they only have one standard gin, one standard rum, one standard whiskey, etc...

Anywho, marriage license will be obtained TODAY! We're going to pack up all our wedding stuff and take it to my parents' house this weekend... We're renting a truck. Ha! Seriously. And I can't wait to show how packed that truck is going to be! Till then, what do you guys think of my booze charts?! How about my must-have photos?!