hello world! I write
to you all this evening as a married woman – woo-hoo! 
the wedding was fantastic and the honeymoon amazing. I have pictures and more posts planned
for soon. But since I know a lot
of you have been wanting to see some pictures, I wanted to post the link to the
pictures right off, with a special tribute to my photographer.
Have you ever heard of a “bucket list”? It’s a list of things you want to do
before you “kick the bucket.” I
don’t have a physical list written out, but there are a few things that I would
very much like to do or have happen in my life. Some of them are semi-normal things like “get married” and
“have kids.” Some of them are
little things like “drive up highway 1.”
Some of them are big things like “go to Europe.” One item that was on my bucket list – a
secret dream of mine – was to make it onto Lydia Hartnett’s blog. Well, that’s not entirely true. Making it onto Lydia’s blog was a sub-item
on the list. When Lydia came out
to visit me back in March, she posted on her blog about the trip, and I made it
onto the blog then. I felt famous.
Seriously. We had a great time on that trip chatting and hanging out and
eating our way around Gilbert. I
showed her all sorts of things that are unique to my hometown, and she managed
to pictorially capture Gilbert in a darling way. However, the true
bucket list item, was to be on Lydia’s blog as a bride.
Lydia and I first “met” through the blogworld. Through mutual friends we found each
other’s blogs (yay xanga!) and began blog-stalking each other – haha! I’m not entirely sure why she read my
blog, to be honest. I loved
reading her blog, hearing her fabulous personality come through in her writing
and her adventures, feeling a special sense of camaraderie from our red hair,
and just loving the way she saw the
world through her camera lens.
Lydia and I hung out in person at different times – conferences, when I
would go out to visit friends in Gaithersburg – and went from blog-buddies to
friends. And of course, I remained
quite the fan of her work as well. I fell
in love with Lydia’s photography after seeing the post from when she visited
the antique store owned by one of her relatives. That was when I knew that she had a crazy-cool gift that I
respected and admired and was a HUGE fan of. So when Lydia started shooting weddings, I knew that more than
anything else for my wedding, I wanted her to be my photographer.
A lot of my dreams came true at my wedding. I had always wanted a large wedding –
with lots of family and friends there to celebrate with me. I had always wanted a wedding reception
in a beautiful venue somewhere separate from the ceremony location. I had always wanted very traditional
wording and vows for the ceremony (the idea of writing my own vows absolutely
petrified me). And now, I really
wanted Lydia Jane Hartnett to be my wedding photographer. And God in his kindness, provided the
means for this dream to come true.
What an undeserved thrill!
One of the best parts of having Lydia shoot my wedding was
that the whole time, it just felt like my friend was there to hang out with me
and oh yeah, she was snapping some pictures too. When I picked her up at the airport, she jumped in the car
and we both squealed and hugged.
“I can’t believe you’re here for MY WEDDING!” “You’re getting MARRIED!” It was definitely wonderful to have my friend there to capture the day for me. She’s just amazing. She is so others-focused. I continually felt like I had to stop her
from asking me all sorts of questions and talking about ME. I mean, hello. She has a life too – what’s going on in
MD? How’s school and the KG? how’s the house coming along? Lydia wasn’t even the one getting
married, but I swear she was more excited about my wedding day than I was. Her joy and unselfishness just spilled
out everywhere and created just a kind and happy atmosphere for me and all of
us around her. Lord, show me how
to be more like Lydia.
Oh, and the pictures turned out amazing too! Zach and I caught a quick glimpse of
some of them on the slideshow she had running on her laptop during the
reception – and were speechless! I
was like, “ohmygosh Lyd! You made
me look so beautiful!”
hahahaha! Ok ok, so without
further ado – if you’d like to see just a few of her shots, click here.
Zach & Andrea 