Ah a new year. I really have forgotten about this blog for a few months now. In my defense, I have been very busy going to two wedding, a funeral, and a honeymoon.
The funeral was for my uncle down in Fl. I flew down to Tn, picked up my mom and drove the rest of the way. It was good to see the family but the circumstances sucked. So after the funeral I drove my mom back, then headed over to east Tn for my cousin’s wedding.
She had a very beautiful wedding. The place was in the middle of nowhere and set up perfectly. I got there and immediately started playing photographer. I started taking over all photos of the reception area which was a combination of a tent outside and rustic looking cabin. I still need to stitch/edit some of those. I finally find my cousin, the bride to be. She, of course, is doing the most hilarious thing. She wants a glass of wine before she says her vows. The only problem is, she doesn’t have a corkscrew. I walk in on her stabbing the cork with a butter knife. This of course is not working. Finally her dad shows up with a drill and wine is served, though with some bits of cork. The rest of the evening goes relatively smooth. The bridesmaids get the groomsmen for a few pictures of flower pinning. The coordinator asks me if we are done taking photos cause the ceremony needs to start. Since I’m not the photographer, I’m only playing so, I direct her to the real photographers (more on them later). At this point, one of my other cousins (a bridesmaid) realizes that she forgot the rings and makes a mad dash to get them. I follow to get the bouquets that everyone forgot. On my way I see the bride in a white horse drawn carriage. My jaw kind of drops because I was not expecting that. It really was a very beautiful wedding. We get everything and make it to the ceremony site. I take my seat and watch the ceremony. I hang out at the reception and try to snap some photos but it was getting dark. I end up talking to the wedding photographers. Very nice people. They started small and grew from there. A bunch of family and friends wanted them to take senior photos and weddings naturally came to them. Since I am trying to build a website with Steve, Seng1011, I ask about their website. They have flickr but don’t really use it anymore, then they built their own site and use facebook to show off their stuff. Both can be located here: http://rbbphotography.com/ and http://www.facebook.com/#!/rbbphoto?v=wall. If you live in the Knoxville area and need a photographer, you should check them out. As for my photos from the wedding, I would post some here but I am just now getting around to editing them. I think they deserve a later post over editing and lightroom.
After her wedding, I drive home to Pa and work for a week. I then drive back to Tn for a week off before my wedding in St. Louis. While my wedding was about as different as my cousins’, it was still very beautiful. It was on the day before Halloween so we had black and purple everywhere. We had classy masks and candy for favors. For everyone that I’ve talked to that attended have said it was great. However, the people working to make it great, know better. Just about nothing went right. We get there for rehearsal to discover that the sun is coming in at that time and would blind everyone. The place said they would take care of it but of course they did not. We had to call an outside vendor to come in last minute. The dj company we had kind of fell apart right before our wedding. They sent some rookie that messed up just about everything. There of course was other stuff but it is not really important. We got married. Was it worth all the headache and money? No. I’m telling everyone right now, Elope! I wanted a nice wedding as much as anyone else but it really isn’t worth the hassle of all the incompetent vendors and the complete ripoffs that are/is the wedding industry. Elope and save the money for your honeymoon.
Speaking of honeymoons, ours was amazing! The honeymoon was worth the headache of throwing a wedding. We went to Sydney for a week, followed by New Zealand for two. The weather in Sydney sucked for us. It was cold and rainy and we were sick from the plane. Other than that, Sydney was wonderful. The food was AMAZING. I’m not a big food person and I loved everywhere we ate. We did a little bit of everything while there. We surfed, went to an opera, went to the blue mountains, petted some koalas, and went on a ghost tour. I will definitely go back there some day. Then we went to New Zealand. That is by far the most beautiful place I have ever been to. If you ever get a chance, visit New Zealand. We started on the south island where we went whale watching, swam with dolphins, went horse back riding, ballooning, and went to Milford Sound. Milford Sound is amazing. I would describe it but my words would fail to convey how magnificent that place is. As far as showing you a picture of it, I have not made my way to editing or loading to the web any of them yet. The HDR for this blog is of a church on Lake Tekapo. The blues of the lake are very stunning. It truly is unlike anything i’ve ever seen before. From there we went to the north island where we saw some geothermal sites and went to hobbiton. I’m not really a Lord of the Rings geek, but since we were there….
Anyways, that is why I have not posted anything in a while. October was filled with wedding stuff. November was honeymoon stuff. What about December? Well that’s for Christmas and sorting through the thousands of photos I have from the past few months. So to make up from the lack of content the past few months I figured a long post was needed and deserved.
