Eleven Twenty Five Eleven: The boys get ready!!

Welcome to the program! If you're just joining us, this is the part where I SHOW LOTS AND LOTS OF PRETTY PICTURES!!!!

So I'm at a complete loss as to how you're 'supposed' to do recaps, so I'm just jumpin' on in! I'm going to start with the boys getting ready because they took far less time than we did... and for some reason, in my mind, that means they go first... I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that the girls are prettier... hmmm.

Either way, I feel like recaps require more fancy words and intros, but then that would just bore you anyway, so, without further ado!!!...

The guys got to Riverdale Manor before the ladies did, which seems to have been a life saver since the men took an inordinate amount of time figuring out their suspenders:

How many boys does it take...?

Uh oh, Dad looks panicked ;)

 

Such a great picture!

Boys! My dad and brother also wore each others' suspenders... I was also told there was a lot of pantslessness. Thankfully the second photographer (who was a woman, poor girl) stayed far away until they had all put their pants on.

Once suspenders were mastered, Kyle passed out his gifts to his groomsmen. First Dan:

 
And so begins the biggest bromance of the century:

 

It says "Big Spoon" Kyle's says "Little Spoon"

If you're one of the many who doesn't get it, don't feel bad, just chalk it up to today's crazy kids and count yourself lucky.

Next was Keith:

 

My brother received the much more normal and socially acceptable gift of a leather-bound copy of Sun Tzu's The Art Of War (a little bit of a running joke because of how badly my brother kicked Kyle's ass in Risk once). I love this picture.

Last minute getting ready:

Looooove this picture! Love the sexy profile!

Ties and shoes! Including Kyle's awesome, sexy snakeskin shoes. I just wish he had tied them himself, not sure who's idea it was to have Kenny do it... But glad that there's a shot of Kyle's shoes too. Guys' attire should get just as much attention I think, because like that guy from Men's Wearhouse says "While everyone is looking at her, she'll be looking at you." And I was, and he looked slick!

Anyway, since guys are so much easier than girls, they had plenty of time to get portraits:

 
Kenny

 
 Dan

 Daddy-O! Lookin' so handsome!!

Thanks to Kenny for ruining this shot.

Lastly, Kyle opened my gift to him:

 

 
I hadn't written the card until that morning, and I was so scatter-brained that I have no idea what I was writing, but I can tell you that he enjoyed his gift nonetheless. No need to go into too much detail, but here's a sneak peek:

Yeah, I went there. I didn't write about it because it was a pretty 'meh' experience. I got a free session at a local studio and I was very excited because I had started to hear about boudoir all over the place and saw how sexy but tasteful it was and I thought that it would be the perfect gift. I got all my inspirational photos together and was ready to go to the salon, and they canceled on me at least three times. It ended up taking 4 months to finally get this thing done! Then they totally ignored my inspirational photos (even though when I gave them to the photographer and owner of the salon, she said that was exactly the type of photos they do). The photographer was stiff and didn't let me do anything I wanted to do, but micromanaged me the entire time; arm, leg, hand, foot placement, head tilt, facial expression, etc... Everything was staged. It made me angry and uncomfortable and so the whole thing came out, in my opinion, looking like a bad lingerie catalog. Still tasteful, but cheesy... gross. Kyle loves it though, so, I guess that's all that matters. Perhaps I'm being overly critical.

ANYWAY, enough of that, sorry for getting so off track. If you've stuck around this far, thanks! Last thing the men did to get ready involved the grandfathers getting bouted:

My Pop Pop, looking so sharp!

And my G; who doubled as grandfather and officiant on our big day. He also looked as handsome as could be (and adorable, because he told me he was nervous)!

So concludes my first recap!! How exciting!! I spent the weekend categorizing the photos, Ben did such a fantastic job, I'm so excited to show you everything our day was made of! Next up: the ladies get pretty!

NSFW or NSFM, or both

For my lovely not-so-techy readers (Mama :)) that means Not Suitable For Work. This might not be a suitable post for my mom at all really ;)

I wanna' talk about something sexy. One of my favorite blogs (The Knotty Bride) posts about it a lot and there happens to be a giveaway going on right now... Enough suspense?

Boudoir photography!!! I'm embarrassed to write about it since I know my mom reads the blog, but hear me out! I used to be mildly embarrassed whenever I saw shots of scantily clad women but I read The Knotty Bride every day, and she features boudoir photography maybe twice a month. And I started seeing some real artistry. Am I still scared as hell of even considering doing it myself? Yeah, of course, I'm just writing about it because I'm less embarrassed about it now.

Take this for example:

This is an example of a not so scanty shoot where it's all in the eyes. If I was a guy, I wouldn't mind opening up this gift on the morning of my wedding at all. I've seen every spectrum, and I think I like them so much because they remind me of old pinups:

Some still embarrass me, but I wanted to switch up the usual pace of the blog and talk about this; plus I just talked about gifts for everyone else yesterday and the day before, and it seemed serendipitous that there's a giveaway on The Knotty Bride today (also serendipitous that the photographer who's administering this free boudoir photo shoot is Serendipity Studios). I also like talking about all aspects of wedding planning, and not just the wholesome stuff. Sorry Ma.

It would be a pretty cool gift to give the man, but I dunno' if I'm woman enough to do it.

What about you guys? Anyone done a boudoir shoot? Would you do one? Do you love TKB as much as I do?? She cracks me up, I'll advertise her stuff all day long.