Megan & Dan: Married! (Part 2)

Time to get down to business: the ceremony! It was beautiful and full of laughter, ending with a bubble-itious dance down the aisle by the brand new Mr. and Mrs. We re-gathered for the reception, full of fun and thoughtful details like little plants to take home and hand-made cake pops to take in. To end it all they danced the night away! The reception was all you can hope for: a celebration of love, close-knit family, and dear friends. Congrats again Dan & Megan!

(In case you missed it, here is Part 1)

Megan & Dan: Married! (Part 1)

On January 5th of 2013 two very special people got married. I am still blown away that they chose ME to document the day, which ultimately meant I got to spend a day working with some of my best friends and family. Not a bad deal! Megan is the little sister of Melissa, who was my dear Maid of Honour when I got married! Megan is also one of my little sisters best friends, so when you start to lay it all out its a tangled web of awesome relationships.

THEN you add Dan into the picture: this amazing guy who captured her heart. It doesn't take long for one to be assured that Dan is the perfect fit for Megan. Together they're a power team, and hot stuff to boot! Shooting them all day was a breeze! 

Dan & Megan:

You two are AWESOME and hanging out with you on that incredibly special day was an honour. Choosing photos to blog was way way way too hard, so be assured that there are many more where these came from! Congrats again and again! May the Lord bless and keep you both as you launch into life as a married team. (part 2 will follow as soon as I finish editing all the ceremony and reception photos :D)

Our Wedding Album!

I finally did it! Got my butt in gear and ordered our wedding album! I had it 95% done for the past 2 or 3 months but procrastinated finalizing the files. Let's blame the weather. 

I can't say enough how THANKFUL I am for these incredible photos by Sharalee Prang. I put so much work into our wedding day and she captured it in a way that still makes it seem surreal! What I absolutely love about her photography is her aptitude to capture "the important stuff." She didn't miss any of my work-intensive details, but she also didn't miss a single ear-to-ear grin from my loved ones! Every time I look at this album I get this feeling that no one wanted to be anywhere but at Saar Bank Farms on that beautiful cloudy august wednesday. THAT is a good memory for a bride! 

Here are some of my favourite spreads (cozy on my hand-made wedding blanket from my maid-of-honour)! 

At the back of the book I included a spread with our wedding verse (Philippians 2:1-4) and the song I chose to walk down the aisle to, "Something Beautiful" by NeedtoBreathe. And here is where I admit that I just saw my own typo. I can't believe that. You'd think I'd have made enough mistakes to know the importance of editing by now!!  Ahh well, it wouldn't represent me without a typo...

I printed via Blurb, a wonderful option for superb quality photobooks. They aren't that fancy (as far as binding options, and they don't lay flat) but the print is excellent, and they offer a variety of high-quality papers in different finishes. My favourite part is that they allow professionals to submit custom made designs and ensure colour correcting! I knew my files would be well handled. I am sure that using their automatic options would also be a great way to go. I built my book in Indesign/Photoshop and imported  a pdf. If you want to see the whole thing...here's the blurb book viewer! 

Vanderwel Wedding Album by Laura Vanderwel | Make Your Own Book

Wedding Details: Website!

One of my favourite details to work on was our wedding website. I haven't done much web design at all in the last year, especially coding (at work we have a web guy for that...lol! He implements all my designs for me). Anyways, I really do love coding, especially the simple stuff (html and css) so I was excited to build our wedding website! I went cheap, because I'm dutch to the core, and hosted it under my own portfolio website (why buy a domain for a temporary website?!).

I had to do some "soul searching" to decide what to include on the site. In the end, I just had fun building it and found it a good way to share our engagement photos and our "love story." It also seemed like a good place to share last minute details in case the weather didn't turn out how we planned...but of course it was a lovely day!

My first draft of the site had "Wednesday, august 8 2011" on the top of it...um oops! I guess I was thinking more about html tags than the actual date of my wedding...lol! thanks to sisters for calling me out on it before I went live! 

Click on the photo to view the site:

Wedding Details - Bookmark Favours

Rather than spend money one a party favour that would be consumed in 3 minutes, forgotten on the table, or die in a cupboard (favour tree's anyone? I've killed a few...), we decided to  support the International Justice Mission in the name of our guests. I've seen this done before at weddings I've attended, and each time I've appreciated it a lot. Its a reminder to think beyond ourselves in the middle of all the blessings we have, which are so obvious at weddings! Our wedding verse was Philippians 2:1-4, which includes in part "...in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others."

We both felt this was a good way to implement what we are committing to founding our marriage on - our faith, and the many ways Jesus calls us to live differently in this life.

I designed bookmarks with this information and put them at each place setting, so our guests still had something to take home. I think they turned out great :)

I printed them on a printer at work, so they were low-res but I keep getting told I'm the only one that can tell. lol!!

Sharalee got a few good photos of how we set them up, wrapped snuggly at each spot:

Wedding Details - Invitations

Finally! The wedding is over, I can breathe, and I can share with you my wedding invitations!

The invitation is a tri-fold accordian design based on the wedding design theme and some of our engagement photos. We got married outside on a farm, and had the reception in a barn, so I wanted the design to have a country feel to it. I didn't want to go all out "country western" though! The finished design was perfect, and I am so happy with how it expressed not only our wedding, but us as well.

Here is the finished piece:

and some more detailed studio shots without the ribbon and twine:

The design could have been done 2-colour on the press, but since I was only printing roughly 150, I printed them digitally at Globe Printers and took advantage of the four-colour process and added a full-colour photo and a creme tint in some of the light areas. Globe is awesome by the way, I work with them regularly at work and highly recommend them.

Hope you like them! As I've mentioned before, I really enjoyed designing the invites and look forward to working with brides in the future on wedding print pieces! Drop me a line if you're interested :)

D & L's Wedding Photos!!

The day has come! Our wonderful photographer, Sharalee Prang of Sharalee Prang Photography has finished editing our AMAZING wedding photos and posted them on her blog! Sharalee is fantastic... before the wedding, during the wedding, and after the wedding. The photos are better than I could have imagined, and I think they are going to bring me back to that day every time I look at them! She totally captured the excitement and the vibe of the day, which I think should be the purpose of wedding photos!! I am so grateful that wedding photography has evolved from the posed studio photos they used to be. And grateful beyond words to Sharalee for doing such an amazing job. I can't wait to get the photos and start creating our wedding album!

laura & dwayne: married:

 

laura & dwayne: the reception: