engagement photos

Jon & I went out with Paul Pennington (www.paulpennington.com) and shot our engagement photos this past weekend. Now, don’t get too excited, I don’t have them yet (we just went on Saturday!) but I wanted to build anticipation… they are going to be awesome!

We were thinking that we’d want to go to Tinker falls where Jon proposed, but it’s pretty much only got 1 type of background – trees. So I was thinking of really cool places where we could take photos. I thought (of course) of one of my favorite places in Syracuse! Thorndon park. Now I know, it’s where people get murdered, robbed and all like that, but that’s only at night! during the day, it’s beautiful. We took pics in the rose garden, the landscaped area, the ampitheater (where there was all these people playing the African drums!), the playground (I got to swing, hang upside down) it was way fun. Then we headed over to the kissing bench. I figured – why not? It’s an SU landmark. So we kissed on the kissing bench. There was lots of kissing. I think Jon liked it. :)

So be on the lookout for some awesome engagement photos. Paul was so awesome to work with too! We brought him there – he hadn’t been before – and the wheels in his photographer brain started to spin in circles and his eyes lit up. It was awesome! Paul was great – he wanted to go wherever we wanted, but he had lots of suggestions & we just walked around the park looking for awesome spots. I’m sure it helped that it was one of the most beautiful days in Central New York!

I my opinion, it is a really good idea to have an engagement photo session with your photographer before the wedding. There’s a couple of reasons for this:
1. You get more comfortable with them, get to know one another (this is especially helpful if you don’t know the photographer at all – we knew Paul, but it was good to ‘hang out’ with him for a while anyway)
2. You get the “warm fuzzies” about the quality and timbre of their work
3. It’s fun!!! And good bonding time for the two of you. Plus, you can practice your smiles and angles for the BIG DAY!
4. Guest book and/or signing mat. I just love this idea – this way, when you look thru the guest book, there’s more than just lined paper and people’s signatures. It’s more memorable! I’m warming up to the idea of a signing mat. Mostly because I think it’d look pretty on the wall.

The Official Introduction

I’ve decided to start a blog all about my wedding planning. I’d like to externalize a lot of thoughts and reasons for decisions, also keep family and friends abreast of updates!
I am of the opinion that Jon and I are different from the norm. We do not lead an ‘ordinary’ life (if such a life is to be had). We dream BIG, we do what is right, we seek God’s will in all we do, we’ve done some things backwards; and if you keep on reading this post, you’ll come to understand that as I do.

A little background on us:

I grew up on Long Island. Lived there until I left for college to go to Syracuse University. Growing up, I went to a Presbyterian then Congregationalist church, then a Baptist church when I was 13. It was at a Word of Life “Superbowl” (an all night event where you go watch a nets game, go bowling, then to an all night arcade & then to breakfast) that I came to know the Lord.

Jon grew up in NJ, went to college for mechanical Engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He grew up catholic, and later in his 5 years in college, he watched the Passion of the Christ movie & made a decision that his faith couldn’t be passive any longer. It was then that he made the decision of what to do with Jesus in his heart. Fast forward a few years, he came to lovely Syracuse because of a Job.

This is where the two meet…

Liz had started working in early June in a leadership development program at LM. Jon started in late July in that same program – which is how we met! The program webpage would list all of the incoming members of our class and what they’d be doing & where they’d be sitting. So I (Liz) would go introduce myself to the people sitting in my building (there are 4 buildings on the campus). Jon just happened to be sitting quite close to me, so I went to visit him on his first day. We talked for a while – actually we talked for a while everyday after that. I’d find some excuse to come talk to him. It was then that we became good friends (that, and we were in the same class group – we had to spend all of our free time solving engineering problems and writing 30 pages reports on them every week together) so needless to say, we got to spend a LOT of time together. We (finally) started dating AFTER we were no longer in a class group together. Which in our estimation was around January ’06.

Fast forward about 3 years: Jon proposed November 9th behind Tinker Falls in Labrador hollow. Aww! How romantic!

This is about where the blog picks up: the beginning of wedding planning and marriage preparations. I’ll have to admit, I’ve been dreaming about my wedding since I was 16 and working at Port Jeff Country Club in wedding catering. But I didn’t let myself form any concrete ideas until I got engaged (contrary to what Jon may think…).

For me, planning comes easy – it’s what I do best. Planning, making lists, dreaming up ideas within a certain framework, executing. I did it all thru college in my sorority from planning a formal to sisterhood events, engineering events, parties, friend get-togethers, wine tours, Travel, etc. I’m used to organizing groups of people and events. It’s the icing on the cake for me. Some women struggle with the wedding planning part – making everyone happy, meeting family and friends expectations, figuring out exactly what needs to be done, finding vendors, budget constraints, etc. don’t get me wrong, I worry about those things to some extent, but I choose not to focus on them – just how fun it is and what an awesome thing this wedding planning is! I enjoy the process. Aside from planning and all, the thing Jon & I have really decided to focus on was marriage preparation. To be honest, I’m super excited for the day, but I know that its just that – one day! It’ll be over before I know it, and all I’ll have from it is memories and pictures. What I’ll have for the rest of my life is a marriage – a lifelong partnership, if we’re willing to spend countless hours planning for one awesome day, shouldn’t we devote equal if not more time to preparing for the rest of our lives? I think Yes (Thankfully, so does Jon).

In light of that, we made the decision (or really God made it for us & convicted our hearts along the way) to get married by Pastor A from our church. He is the Pastor that I’ve come to know the most being involved in the music ministry, so we felt like this was the best decision. He’s already been such a blessing to us (and we’ve only met with him 3 times!!!). at any rate, I wanted to share this illustration that he shared with us this past Tuesday night. I thought it was really neat – an “AHA moment” if you will.

It’s an illustration of a Human Being. In the middle, is your soul. Which is surrounded by 3 things: your mind (or intellect) your free will (the choices you make) and your emotions. Surrounding that is your physical body. When a person accepts Christ, He enters your soul. He is alive in the innermost part of your being. His presence affects your decisions, your emotions, your intellect (greater understanding of Him). Now, since we don’t live in a fairytale – there’s another factor to this whole picture. Satan attacks us from the outside (the body). To put it in the words of pastor A, “to be quite frank, we don’t need satan’s influence to sin, it comes naturally to us!” so sin’s influence seeps in the opposite direction. Since it can’t get into our soul (God’s indwelling in us) it forms a crust around our soul, blocking God’s impact on our lives & shielding us from knowing His will.

I like to call the amount of crust the “crusty factor.” You see, when we confess to God, he takes out the brillo pad and scrubs the crust away!!! So, needless to say, I went home Tuesday night and wrote out the whole list of sins that I have been struggling with lately… He is doing a work in me! He has forgiven them & wiped me clean (granted, he had to use this industrial sized diamond encrusted titanium wool pad to do it…). In my dorkiness, I’ve plotted out my “crusty factor” to me, it is really an illustration of my walk as a Christian. And yes, I’ve chosen to represent the last few years with an exponential function. It was the best mathematical function I could come up with to describe it. so, you could just think of my walk as a rectified saw-tooth unit step function in series with a capacitor… or not – your choice!

So to wrap up, I just wanted to share some of my reasons for starting this Blog (aside from having ya’ll laugh at my dorky diagrams!). I’d really like to encourage others that are at a similar point in their life with our story, share some knowledge on wedding planning, but really to inspire people to start dreaming again! Whether you are planning a wedding, already married, single, whatever – I think that all too often, we get strapped with responsibilities and the drudgery of everyday life & we lose our childhood dreams – or really, we repress them deep within ourselves. There are reasons why you dream what you do. But often times, we ignore them, we tell ourselves that “we’re just not good enough, we won’t make it, that’s not how my family does things, no one I know has done that, it’s scary!, I’m uncomfortable, what if I fail?” but then again, what if you don’t try? Which will you regret more?