Green Hayes :: Wedding – The Details

So let me introduce you to Super Crafty Mom. This woman did the most amazing job on her daughter’s wedding. She made both cakes (which both tasted amazing, by the way). She also was the mastermind behind all of the decorations, from what I understand. To me, the most amazing part, though, is the fact that she made, not only the groomsmen’s ties but the Bride’s dress. Like I said, Super Crafty Mom.

Here is the artiste hard at work on the morning of the wedding working on the finishing details of this awesome cake. The first time I met with Meghan and her mom, Patti, they told me that they were thinking about doing paper flowers for all the bouquets and I was skeptical as I had never seen what they were talking about.

Well, after creating one masterpiece of a bouquet they realized that in order to maintain their sanity, they would be unable to complete the task. All I have to say is, “WOW!” because what you see below is a truly a work of art. The way cool boutonnieres.Lovely wrist corsages for the ladies.Coffee cups? What do those have to do with the wedding? Well. . .Some of Corey’s family owns a coffee bean business and so they had the neat idea of scouring thrift and antique stores for unique coffee cups that the filled with little bags of coffee beans. And there you have a really neat and unique wedding favor.

I actually did not know the story of their engagement until I delivered the wedding images and I asked.

Many couples have their little traditions and Meghan and Corey are no exception. Each Tuesday night, Meghan heads out to get their Starbucks. As usual, her regular barrista tells her to pull around for her order. When she gets to the register she hands over her card and the sly girl pretends to ring everything up and then tells Meghan that her order was already paid for and hands her her coffee. . . . . .Corey then appears in the drive-through window to confirm her answer. And they drive off into the sunset. ;) Okay, so I fudged that last part, but you get the idea.

I absolutely love the details and how the interwove the Starbucks engagement into the theme of the wedding. The image you see on the right is of one of the smore’s stations. I loved that the several times I met with Meghan I could tell she wanted everyone to have fun at her reception and not just her. How awesome is that?

The Bride and Groom’s table. Oh yeah, and Super Crafty Mom strikes again. The “Will You Marry Me?” stamp at the bottom of this set was carved by her. Sheesh some people are just too talented for their own good.And here it is, the masterpiece of a cake. Is it not awesome that the icing looks like woodgrain? Oh and the topper was handmade as well. Yep. A few detail shots of the delicious cake. And the equally delicious and detailed groom’s cake. I love the deer. Footprints and chocolate boots? Yes, please and thank you very much.Below are my first attempt at ring shots not ON the Bride and Groom’s fingers. I had a bit of fun although I was working on next to no light by this point.

Meghan works part time as a substitute teacher, which is the reason for the #2 pencils. :DI had brought with me some antique suitcases to hold the props for the photo station so I utilized them for a bit. And here I was endeavoring to tie in with the theme of the wedding. I took advantage of the graininess and gave it an aged look. I really do not think that the details could have been any more spot on. I remember seeing the sweetest comment on FaceBook the week after the wedding where someone said that Patti took what Meghan’s dreams for her wedding and made them into reality. I couldn’t say it any better than that.

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Attempts at Domesticity

I am a murderer of flowers. I cannot seem to keep them alive. And if I attempt to plant a garden. . .well let's not go into that atrocity against nature.

Anyone who has ever gone to Target has most likely been drawn in by the inappropriately named "dollar spot" (being that not everything there is one dollar). They keep it updated with the seasons and, in Spring of this year, they had quite a bit of gardening items and things of that nature.

Well, I couldn't help but snatch up a few of the little kits that included a tiny flower pot, seeds and a soil pellet of sorts. It was nearly impossible to resist because they were just so small and cute.

There they sat on my windowsill in the kitchen for months on end, neglected and forlorn. Liam kept asking me when we were going to plant them and I kept putting him off. Until late last week when I decided to continue a little streak of mother and son activities we had going on. It was quite fun to do and his reactions were so cute to the varying sizes and shapes of the seeds, and admittedly, we both thought it was so awesome to watch the soil pellets grow once you poured the water on them.

Anyway, I digress. The purposed of this post is to inform you of my complete astonishment at the quick rate that our little plants have been growing and flourishing. I took the pictures below only a few days after we planted them and the progress since then is so advanced that these pictures are greatly outdated.

(side note about this next picture: have you ever found yourself with the accessory to an item/appliance that you have already thrown away? if you have, then you can sympathize with me for having three of those little containers that are supplied with your iron to assist you in putting water in them for steam. so why not use one of them for a watering can?)


The plant above is called a "sensitive plant." I kid you not when I say that the package gave it no other name. It is so named because when you touch the leaves (as it shows in the above illustration) the leaves react by beginning to close. As you can imagine, this can be quite entertaining, as Spencer and I have discovered.

Here is a little collage of our little plant babies. As you can see, at the time, our little oregano and marigold were quite barren. I am proud to say that they are now proud parents to several little sprouts each. ;)
I thought this one was quite cool since it comes with it's own greenhouse contraption. I rarely have to water it since its little house keeps things quite moist. If I had not read the instructions, I would have thrown out the plastic casing thinking nothing of it. Glad I read the instructions.
Thank you for bearing with me for my little episode of home and gardens. Would you believe that on the other side of this very window is a woefully neglected patch of garden that is begging to be weeded? :( Yep, we'll just have to see how long these little guys last.

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More "Stinkin" Flowers. . . I can't help myself

You know, as tired as I am of photographing flowers, they are SO freaking beautiful and the ones around our house are blooming so I can’t help it. I try to find new and different angles but don’t always succeed. One of my favorite flowers is a hydrangea. I fought to have those on the men’s boutonnieres in my wedding because the girl who was doing my flowers was telling me that guys HAD to have roses in the boutonnieres that EVERYBODY used roses for the guys. Don’t I know it..as many weddings as I have photographed, I also know how ugly roses are when they wilt and how heavy they are…So I put my foot down for once and there were NO roses for the men. YAY ME!!!

We exchanged many and kick bootie gifts this year for anniversary which I have not as yet even been able to show you guys (all kinds of goodies) but the BEST of all and the only one I will probably end up posting is "the surprise" that Liam worked on with Grandpa. LOVE it and it is a perfect addition to our little garden. Priceless.

Beginnings of Life

So I got this really inexpensive macro/fisheye lens for my Canon D30 about a month ago and have been so busy that I have not been able to test it out. Poor lens has been sitting neglected in my camera bag. Well…when is the best time to test out a macro lens?!?! SPRINGTIME!!! My mother-in-law is a flower enthusiast so she has many beautiful flowers and flowering trees in her yard. PERFECT for me to experiment on.

IRISES!!! So intricate and SO beautiful. The detail is amazing. You can even see the pollen.

Tulips are one of my favorite flowers. They are so much less showy & ostentacious than roses yet they are just as beautiful in their slender simplicity. It is the smooth lines and the simplicity I think that make them so beautiful

I actually loved being able to get to many of the flowers before full bloom. I think it is amazing how a tree can look dead but, as you get closer, you see these amazing little green shoots and leaves beginning to slowly find their way out of the limbs showing that, despite appearances, life has been lying dormant inside for so long...just waiting. What a wonderful illustration to the fact that Jehovah has us always alive in his memory, even when we die, so that he can resurrect us in paradise as we always were, just without sin and imperfection.