Once you’re engaged your whole world becomes this amazing never ending list of things to do. On any giving day at any giving time there is something to do, someone to call, money to be saved, an asshole to stress you out, something you missed, a detail that turns out a thousand times better than expected and the list goes on and on. Since we already knew that there were a lot of things we couldn’t do right away I tackled the list from the fun factor and what could be more fun than a photo shoot?!?!

Booking a photographer (reality check):

Since I am in the industry and know more than enough people I thought how hard could it really be to have someone throw me a bone and do some quality photos for cheap? I picked up the phone and started my calls from top favorites to medium. All seemed eager and excited to shoot but all wanted $600 to $2000 dollars. Hello, excuse me remember me? yes me, you know me?!?! Hahaha, come to find out most of my photographer “friends” are booked months in advance or are starving artist, and I am a bride on a budget. So since it seemed that wasn’t going to work, I started to look up some old contacts on Oahu through my model mayhem portfolio (we were going to be in Oahu in a few weeks and could surely make time for a photo shoot). While on model mayhem I was going through my contacts and remembered a local photographer that had reached out to me a few months prior to do a shoot. Looking through his portfolio I quickly realized that he was not only very talented but a very talented wedding photographer. I quickly sent him an e-mailed and kept my fingers crossed for the response I wanted.

Meet Warrick Price at Warrick Price Photography:

Warrick was more than we could have ever asked for. He was professional and fun and had a ton of ideas. He wasn’t looking for money and worked with us for TFP (trade for photo) meaning he would give us the rights to the photos but he was also allowed to use them for his portfolio & websites. We set up the shoot at Big Beach (the place of our beautiful engagement) for that Sunday; we were so excited everything was coming together perfectly!

We did our shoot on Sunday November 27^th (8 days after our engagement) and the love was radiating out of every ounce of us. Falling in love again and again is probably one of the most beautiful things this crazy world has to offer. Warrick was amazing and had us out there for over 4 hours. He took over 1,000 shots and we laughed the whole time. By the end of the shoot we hired him as our full time photographer for our wedding day. We were so impressed with how genuine, hard working, and honest he was. His attention to detail was immaculate and we both left feeling like we were on top of the world ~

Friday, November 18, 2011 (the back story (lie) to get me to the beach)

Text sent from Colt to Jenn:

Forecast for 2011 Maui News, Astronomers are predicting that the Leonids (metors) could experience an outburst of about 500 per hour on November 19th and 20th. Although Asia and Hawaii are favored for viewing of the outburst, observations are encouraged around the world on the night of November 19th, as better than normal rates could be seen. The moon will not be an issue. The Leonid meteor shower has produced some of the most spectacular meteor displays in history.
Jenn to Colt: whoa, looks like we are going to the beach tomorrow night!
Colt to Jenn: that’s what I was thinking how cool would that be?!
Jenn to Colt: Amazing!!!
Colt to Jenn: Dangarang!!!

Saturday, November 19, 2011.

It was a Saturday morning in beautiful Maui. It was even more beautiful than normal because for the first time in what seemed like forever we both had the day off. We had plans to go watch the meteor shower that evening and Colt was going to pick up his new dream motorcycle a 1972 CB750 Cafe Racer. Life was good and little did I know it was about to get even better.
Once Colt got done picking up his motorcycle we went and had lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise. The afternoon was lazy and we enjoyed doing nothing with each other. As sunset began to approach we rolled out of bed packed a bottle of wine, two glasses, a blanket and headed down to big beach to watch the sunset and meteor show.

Once we arrived to big beach we hiked up and over the cliff to find our place in between big beach and little beach and watch the sunset over Lana’i. As we took pictures (our last pictures as boyfriend and girlfriend) laughed and drank our wine Colt continued to check the time. He wanted to ensure we were on the beach before dark. Once the sun was almost set we hiked back and stopped to take a picture on the cliff over looking the beach. We turned our backs to the beach and snapped our last photo. As I put my phone away I turned around to get one last look and…

BAM!

WILL YOU MARRY ME?

Each letter was illuminated in 6 foot rope lighting in the sand for the entire world to see with my man on his knee.

YES YES YES! Of course I said YES!

What happened next was a mix of pure adrenaline, emotion and just plain losing our minds. The best and only way to describe it would be how you feel when you are dreaming and you can’t tell if you are in a dream or if it’s real life. I felt like I was on a movie set only it was reality, our reality and we were engaged and then I took off to cloud 9.

I was later surprised by my mother and father (who had flown in from Oahu the night before) his family and friends with a huge Thanksgiving themed engagement party at his Dad’s house. It was truly a night surrounded by nothing but happiness and love.
To say that it was all I ever dreamt of and more would be a lie, because even in my wildest fairytale girl world of dreams I could have never dreamt of something this incredible ~