Posted on March 22, 2010
so many of you have asked about our day last saturday…. so i thought i’d write a little about it! foremost, i’d like to say that we had all these “big plans” of taking pics with our cameras, but our cameras NEVER came out of their bags! so we don’t have any pics yet to post, but melanie of whitebox weddings did a FABulous job photographing our wedding and i can’t WAIT to see what she got! as soon as i can i will be posting pics here! PROMISE!!! (well, i just added the one melanie posted from FB…. now its at the bottom….)
the weather the day of our wedding was PERFECT! it was 76 degrees and the sun was shining the whole day! our wedding venue was the cotton room in durham and it was soooo gorgeous! i can’t imagine a more perfect place for us to be married!! the kids were our wedding party, and they entered the room one by one, youngest to oldest, walking in to “dream” by priscilla ahn (the song on this blog). finally, it was my turn to walk in…. as i came around the corner, and saw richie standing at the end of the aisle waiting for me, i LOST it! i thought there’d be no way i’d cry this day! i thought i’d be Way too happy to CRY! well, i was wrong. i cried BECAUSE i was so happy!! the look on richie’s face i will Never forget! his face covered in tears, he was slapping the sides of his legs and leaning on his toes like “SOMEONE LET ME RUN TO HER!!!” finally, as i got closer, he came to me, meeting me halfway down the aisle and we hugged tighter than i think we EVER had before! we were both just holding each other like we’d been seperated for years and finally reunited! then we finished our walk down the aisle, and stood, hand in hand, as our ceremony began. reverend barbara lodge was WONDERFUL and she did such a fantastic job with our ceremony!! i just remember looking at richie like he was the only person in this world! i couldn’t believe that after all we’ve been thru that we were FINALLY here… finally becoming husband and wife… finally officially bringing our families together… we each wrote our own vows, and as we spoke them to each other, i just wanted to pause time right there and keep that feeling of total joy and love as long as i could! then came that line we’ve waited to hear for so long… “i now introduce to you, mr and mrs richie staggs” ((big big smile!!!!)) then the music started and we danced our first dance to “our song”, “the way i am”. THEN all eight of us did our family dance to “say hey, i love you”!!! the kids did sooo awesome! it didn’t even matter that we had to start over after our first failed attempt! the second time we HAD IT! everything went perfectly!! the kids were soooo cute doing their little solo dances!!
our wedding was without a doubt the VERY best day of my life!!! i have to say THANK YOU to all the people who helped set up and take down everything for our wedding… chloe and nathan, aaron and amanda, and john and teressa. it was so nice to know that they were taking care of everything and that we didn’t have to worry at ALL about it! and THANK YOU to my parents for hosting all of us at their house afterward and for all they did for our wedding! and THANK YOU to richie’s mom for keeping zack all day so i never had to think about if he was ok, or if he’d eaten, or if he was tired…. and for all the work she did beforehand, like sewing napkins, and ironing shirts, and cleaning constantly the week before!
i also have to say thank you to our kids for being such amazing little people… for working so hard to get the dance memorized…. for helping get things ready for the wedding…. for looking so beautiful walking down the aisle… for their giggles when richie and i kiss…. for the tears they cried during our wedding… and for all the fun they have as a family! we love you so much and we are so proud of each one of you!
richie, i am soooo proud to be mrs staggs! i love you so much and i thank you for giving me the happiest day of my whole life…. <3
i hope melanie doesn’t mind me posting this… but i am giving her total credit for this shot! melanie, i LOVE this pic!!! and poor richie’s boutineer was like almost GONE by this point. zman couldn’t help but grab it every chance he could, so by this point it was slobbered on and flattened… but atleast it was still on! z ATE his about a minute after we put it on him! 
wedding venue: cotton room, golden belt, durham
photographer: melanie from whitebox weddings
ceremony by reverend barbara lodge
dresses: mine- davids bridal (but i had BAD experience there!), girls- TJ Maxx and Khols
flowers: farmers market in greensboro and costco… put together by amanda and i
cups/saucers/forks: bought at antique stores!
napkins: cut out by us, sewn by richies mom
cake: my dad got it… i gotta ask him where he got it from!
brunch location: piedmont
Posted on March 12, 2010
as most of you know, richie and i headed to vegas this past week to attend WPPI, a huge wedding photographer convention (thank you tofurious for allowing us to be able to attend!!), just one week before our wedding. richie and i debated for several days if we should take my dress and do a session in the desert, knowing he’d be seeing my dress before the wedding. it was a quote from our good friend elizabeth pellete who said it best…. “ohh Just take the dress and do the photos.. it will be so worth it one of those once in a lifetime opportunities.. really… and I am sure you will still take Richies breath away on your actually wedding day but not because what you are wearing but because of who you are and how lucky he is to be having you as his wife..” soooo, we decided that we really wanted to take advantage of the amazing location we’d soon be at. once i heard that shannon hollman, of thousand words photography, was going to be attending WPPI also, i KNEW she was the one i wanted to photograph us. i knew it was asking alot for her and her husband jeremie to take time away from the conference to do this for us, but they were very willing to do this for us. since this was the first time richie had seen my dress, we took the time to have make that viewing very special, by having richie meet jeremie out by the pool area at MGM grand and then once i was ready, i entered through the doors… and shannon and jeremie captured every feeling that moment…..
once we spent a few moments together here, we traveled just out of vegas to red rock canyon state park. the desert was soooo amazing…. it just took our breath away seeing the huge red rock landscape. the following are the images that shannon and jeremie captured for us…. i can’t even begin to tell them how much in love we are with these images. they show what richie and i feel for each other… total, complete, overwhelming love for each other… and to be able to See what we feel for each other just makes my heart skip a beat… THANK YOU shannon and jeremie for these images… we are more thrilled with them than we could ever express…..
