Deciding on a location for our engagement session was the easy part.  We spend a lot of our time in Davis Square, and there is a bike path that runs through Davis. Using a location that was a part of our life was important. We wanted the pictures to be natural, to really represent us. We didn’t want to look at them and not recognize the people that were there. So we met up with our photographer, Leah, at the subway stop and started walking down the bike path and through the square.

An amusing side note: There was some concern that it would be weird to be taking pictures in the middle of the square. But when we were walking to meet Leah we ran into a friend of ours. We asked her what she was up to, she answered, and then asked if we were “just wandering through the square being all in love”. We laughed and told her what we were actually going to do. There was something reassuring in the fact that our friends easily see us “just wandering through the square all in love”. So we went on with our plans to have the act of wandering around in love photographically documented.

We took some great pictures that afternoon. We didn’t do any outfit changes.  We decided that was making things too complicated. We also didn’t have any specific places picked out for photo opportunities. We just showed up and went for it.

One of the reasons that we really wanted to do an engagement shoot was that we were nervous about being in front of the camera on our wedding day.  So this gave us a great opportunity to get a feel for what it’s like to be in front of the camera.  We also got to work with Leah some before our big day, which was great.  She knows us better and we know her better. And we’ll get better pictures because of it.

*All Photos taken by Leah LaRiccia Photography

She's my rock!

Like everything else with this wedding, I decided to be very nontraditional with my engagement pics. I hired a photographer form New York who I’d worked with before to shoot them when she was here on a photo tour of SF last year. My photographer’s name is Sophie and she own a thriving photography studio called Shameless Photography. I first met Sophie in community a few years ago and when she opened up her studio I knew that I had to do a shoot with her – here’s one of our pics from the first shoot.

Super sassy, right?

I decided to do this shoot for my 33rd birthday and I had a great time! Working with Sophie is amazing because she does your hair & make up and advises you on clothing/poses, etc… I have never felt so sexy in my life as I did when working with her. I highly highly recommend working with her! When I found out that Sophie would be in the Bay Area I booked her for another shoot. I thought that she could take some vintage inspired photos of Nat and I. I sent her some old inspirational pics that I found online and this is what we created the second time around:

Our photo.

This is my favorite one!

Lovely pose!

I made this hair accessory and Nat's wearing my fedora, ha!

An impossible couple.

I am so so happy with our photos! Going the nontraditional route was exactly the way to go for us!

All photos used with permission by Shameless Photography.

This photo is a LIE! We weren't engaged... and never have been!*

I like that it happened that way. It’s much more in keeping with our “relationship personality”. This doesn’t mean we aren’t romantic – we’re pretty sappy, mushy, overly romantic types who believe our falling in love is like every love song come true. But this is one of those things that I think snuck up on us pretty early in our relationship and it needed to be a mutual decision come to through good communication.

And yes, I realize that you can have a mutual decision come to through good communication AND have a proposal moment – but when we decided for sure that we were getting married, we were going to do it nine days later! So, getting married jumped pretty quickly to the top of the list and hainvg some kind of proposal just sort of fell of the list altogether.

Now, that’s not to say we didn’t have some sweet moments surrounding our decision to get married.

A few months into our relationship, we started to talk seriously about our future and what we wanted to be doing. We had a bit of a time-sensitive pressure situation in that we had both packed up our lives and started travelling together (with friends) and once the traveling was over neither one of us had anything to go back to: no apartments, no jobs, no home cities even. And we were in a position where I couldn’t live in Bek’s country. So of course we had to have some conversations about what we were going to try to do about being together. Once we diecided we wanted to live together once we were done traveling, I was feeling pretty comfortable about the seriousness of our relationship and was more than satisfied with how we were doing.

Then after a particularly fantastic night in Santorini, Greece, Bek asked if in a year from that day we felt the way we did at that moment would I want to get married. Kind of like a proposal, but a bit more like an inquiry into my interest in marrying. A sort of pre-proposal. Bek had a theory about needing to live with someone through four seasons in order to truly know them. Fine by me! This was the first time we’d talked about marriage, so I was thrilled! I was always the “I don’t need to get married” type, but that didn’t mean wouldn’t have liked to get married. So of course I said yes! And we talked a little more about it over the next couple of days, then kind of tucked it away as something we would revisit in a year’s time.

The night Bek gave me a marriage inquiry...

Fast forward to only three months later, and we’d moved to Canada. We were starting to make our long-term plans in my country and we run into the immigration issue. There were several options for Bek immigrating to the country, we didn’t NEED to get married. And we were very firm that we did not want to get married for immigration reasons. But it definitely got us talking about it a lot sooner than the one-year-away date we’d agreed upon. And we both had to admit to each other that… we really wanted to be married to each other! And once we got to thinking about it, we figured why wait! It was coming close to Christmas, and we were going to be spending it just the two of us with no families, so we thought what better way to spend the holidays than by getting married! We bounced the idea around for a few days, kind of unsure if we should jump in. Then we were sitting in what’s now become “our” diner, having breakfast and something just clicked. We both both just got too damn giddy about it to hold back anymore, so we had kind of a “Let’s do it!” moment! We walked the two blocks to city hall and got our marriage license right after breakfast, and booked our ceremony there for nine days later on Christmas Eve.

So that’s it. Two pretty special non-proposal moments. I love the way we did things!

I have to admit – I thought not having a proposal wasn’t that unusual, especially amongst LGBTQ couples. But in reading blogs and such when I started planning our second wedding, I started to feel like I was the only one who didn’t do or have a proposal. Anyone else out there not have a proposal involved in their engagement or wedding process? I’d love to hear about others’ experiences in non-traditional ways of initiating their engagement/marriage.

*first photo courtesy of Kelly Prizel Photography

In my last post about our engagement photos, I was still struggling to find an outfit that I loved, but wouldn’t come across as too definitive in our relationship roles. Bridesmate Beth was concerned that wearing a fancy vest and pants could be a little ‘butch’, which was a frustrating but accurate thought. What really constitutes a butch lesbian anyway? Well, I was unsure of the exact definition, so I looked it up.

According to the highly regarded, but academically unsound UrbanDictionary.com, a butch lesbian is defined as an overtly/stereotypically masculine or masculine-acting woman. Can be used to denote an individual, or the dominant role in a lesbian relationship. Huh. Then, my little internet definition adventure took me into sub-categories: Stone Butch, Sport Dyke, Soft Butch, Chapstick Lesbian, Fellagirly, Gym Queen, Tomboy Femme, Futch and the list goes on and on!  I’m all for defining oneself, but on any given day, I could fit into any of these labels and more! If the labels were sewn into jeans, I could even be a Blue Jean Femme.

Why are we, as a community, so quick to jump to assumptions about others gender identities and relationship roles? And why are we so adamant on sticking to the traditional hetero-normative definition of what a couple should be? (Excuse that last sentence, I sort of threw up in my mouth as I typed it, but it is still true– vomit inducing or no.) I’ll be the first to admit that if I saw a photo of a lady in a dress and her partner (who happens to be…um….. ‘cherubic’ in weight) in pants, I too would make a quick decision on their relationship roles (aka who was butch or femme).  But what if you saw that cherubic gal in a skirt and her lady in workout clothes, showing off her super-toned arms? Who is the ‘butch’ now?  Because on any given day, that is little ol’ me and my bicep crushing Deborah.

Deborah and I in the summer of '08 at The 'Shoe on Ohio State University's campus in some of our typical outfits. Photo by Bridesmate Ashlea

So, what’s a gal and her gal to do?  For our casual outfits, we  wore these:

Deborah wore this Mossimo Dress from Target (photo from Target.Com)

I wore this fun dress with a white cardigan and some leggings! (Photo from Target.com)

And for our super casual, Deborah wore her favorite pair of khaki shorts and a layered tank. I wore my trusty jean skirt with leggings and a cardigan. And as for my dressy outfit? The outfit that caused all of this frustration? Well, I just went with what made me look and feel sexy and confident. The outfit just happened to be a pant suit from Anne Taylor… this time around. I paired it with a silky blue tank and some seriously sexy red patent leather heels! I truly feel that our photos will be completely representative of us, as people and a couple. Personally, I felt pretty, feminine and empowered. The best part is knowing that even if random people see these photos and decide I am ‘the dude’, I know that Deborah sees me as her fiancée and future wife– at the end of the day, that is all that matters.

Yes, this is a real engagement…but were actually featuring our very own blogger Brian!

Last month, Tom and I had our engagement shoot with the fabulous Kristina Hill, who just last week was added to SYE! She snapped us in some of our favorite spots in DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights. One of my favorite locations was the courthouse. I felt it imperative to shoot a few there in protest to the inequality we face in our home state. Those photos are my favorite!

Anyway, we just had the best time with her. And, we brought lots of fun props. I strongly suggest that all couples brings things to play with in their shoots!  We never had a dull moment and just look at some of the photos that came out of that day!!! If you are looking for a photographer, I highly recommend booking Kristina! You’ll be glad you did.

*See my foot in a cast?  Yeah.  That’s been fun.  I’m supposed to have it off two weeks before the wedding… keeping my fingers crossed.  More on that in another post.*

These pictures were taken in the Nine Mile Run section of Frick Park, very close to where Stacy and I shared our first kiss ten years ago and a stone’s throw from where she proposed.  It was one of the last warm fall days last year, and we had a lot of fun roaming around in the beautiful park.

Don’t get me wrong, I love spring! But looking at these pictures again makes me so excited for fall in general and the coming one in particular.  I can’t wait to get married amid colors like these!

Chris: Kelly Alice and I met through a mutual friend, Erica. Erica, who lives in Philadelphia, actually went to college (Penn State) with KA and she also dates my very good friend Jo, who lives in New Orleans. One day Erica sends me an IM saying, “Do you like girls with tattoos?” to which I replied, “it depends on the tattoo…” Thankfully KA has good tattoos so she made the introductions and KA and I had an amazing 1st date.

Following that 1st date, we most amazing summer courtship. I think we both said several times that summer felt like it was “something out of a storybook”. Neither of us were really looking for anything and don’t you know we ended up falling in love. A year later I got down on one knee at the Jamaica Plain pond, on the same bench we had our first date (where several of our engagements photos were taken), and I asked KA to marry me. Thankfully she said yes. We had planned on having a long engagement in order to try and save up for our wedding but KA was laid off a year after I proposed and so we said screw it, wedding planning is giving us a headache and we had a shotgun wedding. In less then 5 days we (and when I say we I mean KA) planned our wedding. We didn’t have high expectations that our friends from out of town would be able to make our Wednesday night ceremony but were amazed when some many of them did. We got married in the Arboretum, a favorite place of ours in Jamaica Plain, and then had friends over our house for cupcakes (made by Kelly Alice) and wine. It was a fantastic little party.

Kate (the photographer) is a new friend of ours and offered to take some engagment photos for us. We’re hoping to have some wedding photos retaken later in the year, when the weather is warmer. Kate is an AMAZING photographer who made us feel at ease right away. I mean, it’s a little awkward having your picture taken with tons of people nearby!

One of the pictures below is the front of our Save the Date postcard. Can you guess which?

Photo via Kelly Prizel Photography