Distance Wedding Planning & Engagement Pictures!!

It has been almost 6 weeks since I graduated from W&M and it is now July! Ah! I am finally home for good (besides a weekend at the beach and perhaps some trips to DC). Now that I am here, I can unpack, do laundry, and start planning- planning the wedding AND planning for school. Being between three schools I need to be very organized, and I like to be ahead, so I will probably have at least a few weeks of lesson plans ready. I'm so excited for my own students and my own way of doing things. I have a great department and a great school, so I can't wait!

In other planning news, this is how most decisions get made:

I am so so thankful to have Skype/iChat. I have no idea what we would do if we had to wait for letters! As I said before, Dan has lots of opinions, all which are generally the opposite of mine, so we sit here and have conversations that lead to links and inspiration. Some conversations:

"Do you like that _____?"

"I don't see a ____?"

"Oh wrong link..."

"This one?"

"...no."

Being on the same page, literally, is often difficult. But it is fun to look at things and hash out details- or at least decide what we don't like- that seems to be easier than what we do! Other conversations go like this:

"I haven't talked to you at all today..."

"Yes, you have."

"No, I haven't."

"Yes, I talked to you this morning."

"That was my last night!"

"Oh..."

Despite all of these interesting aspects, we are starting to come together on some things. But inspiration is to come in its own post... promise. For now- engagement pictures! Since Dan sprung this whole getting married thing on me, and was leaving in 2 weeks, I didn't think we would even have time for pictures. In comes Larry- Dan's neighbor and photographer! He did the pictures for both of Dan's sisters' wedding and has done the dance photos for his mom's studio for a long time as well. He has photographed thousands of weddings and agreed to shoot our engagement photos the next week!  Poof- a plan!

All photos below by Larry Darling- darlingphotography.com. The photos can be viewed and ordered here:

Some favorites:

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As you can see, we made props! I don't want to show you all of my favorites- we are still trying to decide what to do for save the dates! Something fun? Classy? Apple Blossomy? Creative? Any ideas are welcome!

Larry did such a great job- he made us feel so comfortable and was open to anything we wanted to try!