Wedding Do or Don’t: At-Home Engagement Photos

I’ve come across some amazing engagement photos over the years, like an underwater engagement, travel-themed shoots, library love, a zombie engagement and a romantic Iceland escape, but what about taking the simple route and celebrating your engagement in the place where you perhaps feel the most comfortable?

Your home.

It sounds like such a novel, out-of-the-box idea, doesn’t it? Well, newly engaged couple Melinda Kunze and Josh Blitchington opted for just that with their recent engagement shoot in their North Carolina abode. The result is a collection of photos that truly reflect the love between the couple, set amidst the backdrop of their everyday life. It’s dreamy and romantic and everything that gives me all the feels. And to make the photos feel as authentic as possible, they left the house as-is, leaving items on the counter and stuff on the fridge.


“We are in love with [this house]. It’s adorable and perfect for us,” says Kunze. “We would love to look back in 10 years after we have moved to a different house and have memories of our first home together.”

Plus, their pups shared some of the shots, which just ups the adorableness factor. In a world where some couples’ engagement photos are overly extravagant productions that rival red carpets at movie premieres, it’s nice to see something that feels so intimate and, well, homey. Two people just being themselves is so utterly refreshing!


Would you be game for taking at-home engagement photos, friends? Is this a wedding do or don’t for you? Did you take engagement photos? Care to share one in the comments? xoxo

P.S. Do you know your parents’ engagement story?

[Photography by Anchor & Veil]

What I Learned From Attending My First Wedding Alone

My “life timeline” has never followed a typical trajectory. I’ve never really done things in a “normal” fashion whatsoever — I mean, I didn’t take my first sips from a straw until I was well over two or take my first steps until I was four.

So I guess it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that I didn’t attend my first wedding solo until last week. Last Friday night, to be exact. You might remember Jessi, one of my old newspaper advisees, writing soul mate and just all around AMAZING person. She and her equally awesome fiance Chris got married in a small, intimate ceremony and then invited friends and family for a fall-themed reception. Don’t get me going on the delicious food or the fact that Jessi and Chris did almost everything DIY…we’ll be here for hours!

Anyway, a little backstory to catch you up: I’ve known Jessi and Chris since they started dating some five years ago, which is pretty long in young-people years. They met while working at the same movie theater — how cute is that? Jessi would come into the newspaper office and we’d chat about this boy she met at work. As the months went on, they became attached at the hip, with Jessi chronicling their courtship as only a writer could — through This Totally Awesome Boy series on her blog.

Needless to say, I’ve loved being able to watch their relationship blossom over the years, and I couldn’t have been happier when This Totally Awesome Boy became This Totally Awesome Fiance. And then last week, of course, he became This Totally Awesome Husband.

Theirs was the first wedding reception I’d ever gone to alone. Sure, I’ve been to plenty of weddings — aunts, cousins, family friends — but usually with several family members in tow. After all, my dad comes from a family of six kids, so I’m used to my family taking up at least two or three tables. Yes, we’re that family. But last week? I found myself flying solo into very uncharted territory. It was one of those new experiences most people my age probably had at least a decade ago, but here I was, drinking my ice-cold Coca-Cola in a beautifully dimly lit room anxiously waiting for the bride and groom to make their gloriously romantic entrance.

As they came off that elevator, hand in hand, I suddenly realized something: It’s all too easy to become jaded when it comes to love sometimes, to take Simon and Garfunkel’s advice and just become our own closed-off island. I know I’ve felt that way a time or two before. Older generations are even so quick to say that the young people of today have no idea what love is.

But love? I mean, real, true, meant-to-be, feel-it-deep-down-in-your-bones kind of love? My gosh, that still exists. I still believe in love. To all those who say that true love is lost, they’ve never met Jessi and Chris. I saw love that night. I felt it. I know it’s real.

Her Totally Awesome Boy is now her Totally Awesome Husband. And THAT is totally awesome…THANK YOU for inspiring us all, Jessi and Chris!!! xoxo

P.S. Check out Jessi’s new blog to follow more of their adventures as newlyweds! 🙂

Love Lounge: Thoughts on Weddings

A not-so-surprising confession: I’m a wedding fool. We’re talking seriously, madly, deeply, I’d-show-up-at-random-weddings-if-I-could in love with them. They make my heart beat just a little faster and life’s possibilities seem just a little rosier. After all, weddings are the Hopeless Romantic’s equivalent of a kid jumping with wild abandon into the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese. Or a chocolate lover’s takeover of the Godiva Chocolate factory. You want to roll in it. You want to absorb all your senses in it. And, really, you want all those feelings to last forever, long after the last piece of cake was cut and the bride threw the bouquet.

I’ve been thinking about weddings lately, probably because summer practically screams “I DO.” It’s Wedding Season at its finest, full of bridesmaids and groomsmen and dresses and vows and first kisses and first dances, and now that same-sex marriage is FINALLY legal in all 50 states, there’s even more to love and celebrate. When it comes to the big day, thoughts and ideas pop into my head at freakishly alarming rates sometimes, so I suppose it’s only appropriate that I record some of them for posterity — at the very least, I can most definitely use it as a blueprint for my wedding with a certain Mr. Melissa Blake. Here are my four recent wedding-related musings…

1. Writing Your Own Marriage Vows: I always assumed that I’d do this. There’s something so special and romantic when couples take the time to really give voice to what’s in their heart. It doesn’t mean that you have to come up with some elaborate prose that rival Shakespeare himself, but a few carefully chosen words are something I’d remember forever. When you think about it, who knows you and your relationship better than, well, you??

2. Bursting Into a Chapel and Stopping a Wedding: I’ve got Taylor Swift to thank for this one. Well, Taylor and Julia Roberts a la My Best Friend’s Wedding. I sometimes think of that one moment — those nail-biting final seconds — when you’re asked, “Does anyone here object?” — and you wonder what people are thinking. Is someone going to rush through those doors and declare their undying love for the bride or groom? Are you that person? A lot could change in the span of a couple minutes, and I’ve always been fascinated by that. And it also begs the question: Would you ever run away from your own wedding? What would it take for you to walk away?

3. The Whole Hook-Up Culture at Weddings: Do people even “hook-up” at weddings anymore? It’s all seemed very awkward and tawdry to me. I mean, how do you make a move on that guy you spot across the room while the DJ is blaring YMCA and the disco lights are spinning everywhere? Ironically, it doesn’t seem very romantic or dignified to me.

4. The Post-Wedding Romantic Buzz: If I were a scientist, I’d commission a large-scale study of this phenomenon because it’s a real thing. I’m sure of it. In fact, it’s happened to me many times. It’s that romantic buzz. It’s that buzz you get driving home from a wedding. It’s butterflies in your stomach, except instead of scary ones, they’re magical ones. They’re the ones that get you excited, that make you daydream and want to believe in the fairytale again, even if only for awhile.

Are you going to any weddings this summer, friends? Do they make you googly-eyed? Or more down on love? What are you most looking forward to when it comes to your future wedding? If you’re married, what was your favorite part of it? Let’s chat about all things wedding, shall we? xoxo

[Photos via We Heart It]

Vintage Brides

My grandparents would have celebrated their 72nd wedding anniversary this week, a fact that just completely blows my mind.

The tumblr Vintage Brides remind me so much of their first photo together as a married couple, which we have hanging on our wall of family photos. There’s such a nostalgic innocence to these photos, don’t you think, friends? It’s almost as if they’re bursting with the possibilities of the future… xoxo

P.S. Remember these vintage wedding photos? 🙂

Tiffany’s new engagement ad

A few years ago, Target made history when it featured a same-sex couple in an ad campaign. Well, Tiffany & Co just released their new engagement ring ad campaign, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Isn’t it stunning? Way to go!! xoxo

P.S. Click on the ad to make it bigger! 🙂

[Via Fashionista]