Wedding Shower gift suggestion

So, I was supposed to attend a wedding shower (my first in over a year) today, but winter decided to pick this weekend to magically appear, so it wasn't quite safe to drive 3 hours there, when it's already not the best drive in the world in good conditions. But I digress.

Wedding showers always send me in a tizzy, even when I'm not worrying about weather, and driving there and back, and whatnot. I hate registries. Sorry bride friends, but I do. I never get to them in time to get the decent stuff, so I'm stuck buying the random kitchen or bath stuff that got left behind. So in the past few years, I've stopped dealing with registries.

2 years ago, one of my best friends got married. I was a poor grad student at the time (as opposed to the poor part-time nanny that I am now), and definitely couldn't afford anything good on the registry, especially knowing that I was the maid of honor and was going to have at least one more shower and bachelorette and dress and everything else to pay for. Which led me to this idea... Her wedding theme was "Live, Laugh, Love." And she loves the beach. So on my summer beach trip, I wrote out the theme, the wedding date, and the bride and groom's names in the sand and took pictures of each. Then I bought a 5 picture frame from IKEA (aka- cheap and chic) and printed the pictures. Surprise! It was the HIT of the shower, and most original gift by far. I think it cost me $25 max.

This time around, I'm serving as the photographer. I picked my favorite images, and bought them a similar IKEA frame. (I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that she doesn't know about this blog, since it could be several weeks before I get the present to her).

Not great with photography? Get them a gift card to Shutterfly, Snapfish, etc, to go with a nice frame. That way, they can pick out their favorites.

"Special People" and wedding snobbiness shines through

It's been a long time since my last post. Let's be fair... the last time I was a bridesmaid was 7 months ago though, so it's only natural to have posts slow down, right? At the very least, future posts will likely turn into wedding tips, whether for brides/ grooms, bridal party, or guests. I don't foresee any bridesmaid invites coming for a little while, so keeping it strictly to bridesmaids may require posts to take FOREVER inbetween.

On that note... a real post. I'm gearing up for my second "special person" duty in March (aka, photographer and anything else needed). That's right... I've turned my bridesmaid experiences into something somewhat constructive, and it saves me from buying a present, and saves the bride and groom for paying for a photographer (hey- they know I'm an amateur, so it's totally fair, right?)

Although, I'm pretty sure there's more pressure on being the photographer than being a bridesmaid. I'm not going to lie... being a bridesmaid is not easy-peasy. But to know that they are going to use these pictures to remember their day for a long time, as are their family members? Well... it's a bit stressful. I'm already picturing bad weather, dead batteries, missing the perfect shot, etc. (though thinking about it, my fears while being a bridesmaid were forgetting the dress, dress tearing, tripping, dropping my or the bride's bouquet, running out of money before the wedding, etc).

In a related note, my younger brother has moved into the world of groomsman duties. Today, his Save the Date postcard arrived, and I was horrified. I don't know what they did to the picture or the card, but I could have done 100000x better with the exact same idea (it looks like the picture was taken with a cell phone, and not the new nice high megapixel cell phone cameras, and the numbers on the front made no sense until you actually saw the back of the card). I guess I've turned into a wedding photography/ wedding invitation snob. I've seen my fair share (10 weddings in 4 years, 5 as bridal party attendant) of save the dates, and while I might laugh at some, this officially ranks as the worst.

That one time I wasn't a bridesmaid, and why I can't work for that wedding consulting firm.

I haven't been in every wedding... or even invited to every wedding... even if it feels like it.

This one particular wedding that I'm thinking of belongs to my freshman roommate. I'm sure most people have at least one bad roommate story... so imagine a really, bad roommate story, multiply it by happening about once a month (if not more), and you've got my living situation. I won't share the bad roommate stories, because that's not the point of the blog, but basically, it was terrible living with her. And then I had a much better roommate (and was invited and IN her wedding).

Freshman roommate got engaged my senior year (thanks Facebook, for making it impossible to get away from her), and then married shortly after we graduated. Thanks to Facebook, I got to see her pictures. And there were several that made my jaw drop. And then caused some very impolite laughter.

That's right. These pictures, no matter how nice photographically, made me crack up. They are awful. The bride had a bridal portrait session that put her in the middle of a daisy field with her veil covering her face, and despite this, you can still tell that she has the strangest expression on her face. And by strange, I really mean "pained." The girl looked like she was in pain sitting there, even though I can tell she was really trying to look pretty.

Sure, shame on me for laughing at these pictures of her. And really shame on me for showing them to friends to see their reactions (similar to mine). But shame on those photographers for taking those pictures. They are AWFUL of her.

Anyways, it has been well over 2 years since I looked at her pictures. But during one of my brilliant "Hey, what if I looked into becoming a wedding planner?" moments, I discovered that the company I was researching had pictures of her wedding posted on their site... meaning that she must have used them.

Sure- they picked probably the 2 best pictures from the wedding (they are far away shots), but this is the same wedding firm that allowed some really stupid stuff (like the cake topper where the bride is dragging the groom by his jacket, while he's checking email on a computer). So, I guess I'll be looking at contacting other firms if I'm serious about this idea, but I think it's hilarious that her wedding pictures have popped back into my world in an unrelated way.