Bham Bride

I'm so excited with the new project I'm working on with fellow photographer, Morgan Trinker!

Being originally from North Carolina, it was really difficult to plan my wedding in a new place (Birmingham, Alabama), and especially since the online resources I found were lacking. I am very online-oriented, and most of the vendor websites I had seen online were outdated and unimpressive and the only vendor guides were subsidiaries of some larger company that surely knew nothing about the vendors that were paying them for advertising.

 Fortunately vendor websites have come a long way, but the lists that feature them are still really impersonal and overwhelming. We've got some really great ideas for creating an actual community for brides planning their wedding, and helping vendors out with knowing brides and communicating with them online.

Bham Bride will feature local events, giveaways from local wedding vendors, real weddings from Birmingham, vendor listings and features, polls and surveys, discussion boards, and inspiration.

If you are interested in contributing we want to hear from you! We'd love to have a large group of present and former brides (and vendors!) to contribute on topics of interest. Send us your thoughts or sign up to get involved! bhambride@gmail.com

Giveaway :: Personalized Bridal Hanger

I've been hoping to find a solution to the problem of photographing fabulous dresses on really un-photogenic plastic wedding dress hangers for a while now, and I finally found the perfect solution via Etsy! It's a surprise for my brides, and I love them! They are personalized with Mrs. and their new last name. Kara, the crafter behind the hangers I ordered, included a special one for me as well!

I'm so grateful to Kara's Kloset for offering one of these hand crafted hangers to a lucky reader! The personalized hangers can be personalized with up to 12 characters, and are a really clever idea for brides and their bridesmaids (your photographer will thank you!). 


Kara is also extended a 10% discount to dash pinch smidgen readers, just use the code DASHPINCHSMIDGEN10 when you place your order!

To enter to win one (1) personalized hanger, please leave a comment below with the detail you  For extra entries head over to facebook or twitter and like dashpinchsmidgen (or share a link to this post!), and report back below (add your twitter name if you choose to tweet!)


You have until Monday, February 7th to enter. And, go!

Wedding Dresses that aren't

So, French Connection is one of my new favorite dress brands (I've known about FCUK but just recently started trying on their clothes & buying on sale at Belk). Weddings are a favorite pastime of mine.  This post was born.

Wedding dresses that aren't are pretty great, and I admire the folks that go the non traditional route of buying a dress not designated as a wedding gown. You can some luxury brands you may usually feel too thrifty for and spend less than you would have at a bridal shop.

So, here's a French Connection dress for $248 that I could most definitely see as a wedding gown. I haven't tried it on (I would say yet but I don't see any chance for a vow renewal in the near future and I think I've passed the opportunity for a deb ball), but it does look pretty amazing on the model.

What do you think? Have you seen any wedding worthy gowns lately?

Also, as far as a recommendation for FCUK:   French Connection dresses tend to fit me pretty well (I'm really petite and I can rarely find dresses that really fit) and in my opinion the silhouettes are typically interesting and flattering.

Urban Outfitters to start Bridal Brand

Pictureshow Dress from Anthro, $298

Urban Outfitters has announced plans to start a wedding brand. As much as I love the clothes at Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, I'm kind of sick of everyone calling things "Anthropologie inspired" and I'm not sure I'd get my dress from them. I don't hate on J. Crew for their wedding line though, so maybe I'm being too harsh. Or maybe I'm just hating because I worked for anthro for a little while and it killed some of the magic. A year ago I bet I would've died with excitement. The wedding industry has killed my buzz.

Local Vendor Feature:: Please Reply:: Birmingham, AL

In my continuous quest for local vendors I discovered a hidden away stationery and invitations store in Crestline Village. Over on Vine Street, just by the elementary school sits a little yellow house full of personalized items, gifts, and papers. The owners, Betty McEwen and Katie Smith were generous enough to let me overrun the store with my camera and my questions. 

Click on any image to view it larger.

The front of the shop is full of tote bags and goodies to personalize! I really enjoyed the "mommy agenda" bookshelf and of course, the display of Alabama merchandise (left image)

These onesies are precious, the one on the left has an elephant with a blanket on its back that says "roll tide" and the right is an airplane, both can be customized. The hand towels on the right would be such a cute bridesmaid gift.

And now for the good stuff, the event invitations! I picked some of my favorites from the shop, which actually carries a lot of local lines. I was really excited to see products from local Jenny Barry of Press Charming, she did our wedding invitations and her letterpress goods are absolutely gorgeous. 

The middle one is a new address that says "a new nest" and it makes me want to move so that I can have an excuse to send these out. 

(all three by Press Charming)

I love the colored envelopes, and the invitation on the right is for a crawfish boil!

(both by Press Charming)

Many of the products at Please Reply can be printed on for showers, parties, and announcements. The invitation on the left is a bestseller by Devonshire, the center pink bridal shower invitation is by Mindy Weiss from Arkansas, And the blue with lace is by Cat Seto from San Francisco.

These metallic invitations with ribbon embellishments are by local designer  Fabulous Designs.

The green on the left really stood out to me, by Cat Seto. The Thank you card to the right is by Prentiss Douthit from Birmingham.

All three of these designs are by Prentiss Douthit, the simple and colorful squares on the left are really fresh and the the invitation on the right has a very playful elegance. 

The really fun thing about stores like Please Reply is that you can go through the entire wedding process with paper in their shop! From engagement party invitations to save the dates, wedding invitations, shower invitations, thank you cards, and baby announcements. They have so many options for bridesmaid and groomsmen gifts and really lovely hostess gifts. They carry many luxury stationeries such as Vera Wang, Crane, and Kate Spade. 


Betty and Katie were so personable and they make an excellent Mother-Daughter team. Betty got started in the business over ten years ago when Katie was engaged and about four years ago Katie joined her mother in the Crestline shop. 


I can imagine having a wonderful experience there as a bride. Please Reply has a wedding room just filled with wedding books full of invitations which would surely overwhelm anyone if left to them alone, but Betty and Katie are there to expertly bring out the designers that best fit your taste. They also work with local calligraphers for customized invitations and have samples for brides thinking of having their envelopes hand addressed by an expert (samples coming up in a future post, if any local calligraphers would like to be featured as well let me know!)


Thank you so much Betty and Katie for your time and patience! 

Awesome Wedding Cake dress!

This takes the idea of eating food off of women's bodies to a new level.

The creator is Lukka Sigurdadottir (I totally thought it was a joke when I first read on Reyka vodka's website that women have their dad's name + dottir as their last name, much like Leif Ericson for men, for example. But no, totally true and one more thing to love about Iceland. Plus I like the brand Leifsdottir that Anthropologie sells). Someone please hire a model to wear their wedding cake!

image via neat-o-rama, found thanks to @designcrushing

The Blessing!

Since Garrett and I got married in San Francisco without our families and friends (with the exception of Garrett's aunt, uncle, and best friend who all reside in CA), we both wanted a way for them to be part of the marriage and we knew we wanted to have the marriage blessed, because God is the important part. We decided on the chapel of the church Garrett grew up in, a side portion of the sanctuary with its own altar and a more intimate setting.

I love this image, by Kristen, of us walking in. You can see the priest's white robe as we follow him in, walking together, hand in hand. It was really nice to go in together, I was only thinking about Garrett the whole way. We decided on having the church's music director play organ for our entrance and exit which was lovely. Once we got up to the altar I remember Garrett asking if it was okay that we were holding hands. ("Yes!" I said, "we're married!") Either way, I wasn't letting go.

I think we had about 20-25 guests at the blessing. My bridesmaids and some of Garrett's close guy friends were there (sans one of my best friends who couldn't get out of a vet school surgery, and she was sorely missed) and otherwise we kept it limited to family no further than aunts and uncles (and their children). I don't think anyone was offended (if so they didn't make it known to us), and I think it meant more to us and to the people there that everywhere we looked were people that really loved us. I was so happy to look at all the faces when we walked in.

Hillary snapped this one right before the wedding coordinator tracked her down to forbid her from taking pictures. I never knew of any no picture rule (that would've put a huge damper on this choice of location), and I'm hoping for other couples' sakes that it was because we were praying or something? Since I'm a photographer, I find this aspect of ceremonies really frustrating. Crying babies are a much bigger distraction in church than a few shutter clicks and no one kicks them out! Nor do babies capture the most precious moments of your joining your life with someone else. I digress.

In addition to the readings, the priest told a story about a man who bought his wife red carnations every Saturday for years and years. She would put them on display in a vase and be so glad to receive them. He said that one day the wife came for confession and admitted that she hated red carnations, that they reminded her of funerals and didn't go with anything in her house. But the joy that she felt every time he gave that gift was real. I'm pretty sure I teared up.

We did have a kiss, but we'd been prepped by the priest that the kiss should not be the "first kiss of the honeymoon" with hollering and the like, but instead the passing of the peace. He told us that you can repeat the kiss every time you do the passing of the peace at church and it will remind you of the day you married and the vows you made, which is a really nice thought. So, had the wedding coordinator let the photographers actually take pictures, they would've had a hard time catching our super quick sweet marriage kiss.

The blessing was absolutely beautiful and lovely and wonderful, and my previous stress at being rushed had melted away. We both agreed that we really felt married afterwards, because this was how it should've been for us. I wouldn't take back getting married early, it alleviated a lot of our problems and worries, but I would've been okay with having the blessing immediately when we'd gotten back. There had been something missing, you know?

(You'd melt too if he was looking at you this way.)

I'll have another post with the readings and music from the blessing for those interested.

All images by Kristen Stewart Photography and Je Vois Photography, edited by me.

Our San Fransiscan Elopement

Subtitle: Why people usually don't try to get married on the 13th.

All images are from Olivia Leigh Photographie

I couldn't sleep at all on the night before our wedding day. I had thought about getting flowers when we got to San Fransisco but it seemed like too much trouble (I can't get around the city at all) and I called the florist too late to get a delivery. It bothered me. I wanted a bouquet. And then I talked myself out of it (what's the point of a bouquet? I had fantasies about throwing it to a stranger post wedding, but outside of that I couldn't see the point. Plus, ranunculus was out of season and would've required 2 weeks in advance to order from Holland). I eventually got to sleep and had a nightmare about my mom making me wear some flower wreath around my neck. Ick.

I'd had some contact trouble the day before, maybe from the San Francisco air, maybe because I am a very irresponsible contact lens wearer. Either way, I had neglected to visit the eye doctor before we left and I had no more contacts. So, I tried putting my contacts in the morning of August 13th but the left one hurt so I left it out. I'd get married in one contact. Good thing I'd seen the groom before. I was NOT going to wear my glasses on the biggest day of my life. So what if I couldn't see.

I think our wake-up call was for 6:15 and Olivia (of Olivia Leigh Photographie) would be arriving around 7:45. I fixed my hair (I did it myself in a really simple updo. Remember Topsy Tails? Yeah, well, I made one of those (you don't need the fancy plastic piece for it, just your hands) and pinned the ponytail underneath the base of the ponytail. Then I wrapped a piece of hair around the ponytail holder. I'm not sure if I have a good picture of it, but I'll recreate and let you see sometime. I my makeup, Olivia arrived, and it was showtime.

Next up, "going to the chapel"