We chose our photographer very very early in our wedding planning process.  We went to a Bridal show and met the really cool husband and wife team of Scott and Lisa Kretschmann of Scott Krestchmann Photography (http://www.scottkretschmann.com/).  They're based in Albany, NY but were willing come to Brooklyn to do our engagement shoot.  We lived in Albany at the time but wanted our engagement photos to show off our love for Brooklyn.  

Part of Scott and Lisa's package included a website (www.tehraandjuan.com) designed for us that would feature the photos.  I wanted to send out the website information with our Save the Dates, which meant we needed to get the engagment shoot done first. Unfortunately I didn't come to that realization until about the middle of December, which resulted in a frigid yet fun engagement shoot on the Brooklyn Bridge & Dumbo.  We walked around for about 4 hours and it was a little hard to stay romantic when I couldn't feel my legs, but Scott and Lisa kept it entertaining and Juan let me warm up inside his jacket in between shots.  The four of us finished off the night with some pizza from Grimaldi's in DUMBO. Here are a few of our favorite shots from our shoot (including a great one of my ring):  

Juan and I met over two years ago while I was still in law school.  It was the summer before my 3rd year and I was interning for a non profit in Albany.  I was asked to attend a planning meeting with the organization's lobbyists and (about 20 minutes after the meeting started) in walked Juan.  We sat across from each other the entire meeting and made eye contact a few times.  I was impressed by how informed he was on the issues and the great questions he asked.  During the lunch break he asked me and one of my co-workers (and future bridesmaid, Katie) to go out for a drink after the meeting.  We both agreed and had a great time.  At the end of the night, he asked me for a ride home (even though he lived around the corner) so I knew something was up.  He then asked me if I ever dated anyone shorter than me and I said yes.  A few days later we had our first date and have been together ever since.  

Juan proposed twice.  The first time was spur of the moment and in the middle of heated argument outside of our broken down car.  It was over 100 degrees outside and we had no air conditioning or patience.  We were waiting for the tow truck and in the middle of the argument he asked me to spend my life with him.  It certainly wasn't how I envisioned the moment happening, but it was sweet and felt right.  The following weeked we were driving near Brooklyn Bridge park when Juan just pulled over and parked the car. I had no idea what he was doing until he asked me to get out and then I realized.  We walked over to the park and he got down on one knee and pulled out a beautiful ring and asked me to marry him again. I said yes (again).  I'll post pics of the ring soon :-)

When Juan and I finally sat down to talk wedding ideas, we both agreed we didn't want anything cookie cutter. We didn't want to have our wedding at a hotel or banquet hall.  Initially Juan wanted to have our wedding at the Downsvill, NY Firemen's Field.  As a child he spent his summers there so it had special meaning to him.  Unfortunately, while the area is beautiful, it's a little remote and only has one hotel in the whole town, which would make it hard for guests.  Additionally, it really wasn't my idea of a dream wedding location.  Then he wanted to get married in raw space like a warehouse or abandoned building.  We considered places like the The Metropolitan building, The Mill and even an abandoned church in Albany.  The church in Albany was beautiful and owned by the historical society.  However, there was no indoor plumbing and a good chance no caterer would agree to serve food there. Ha! So needless to say we decided to go in a different direction.

That direction led us around the corner to The Palace Theater.  We were at a bridal expo (the same one we met our photographer's at) and met Taia Younis, the owner of Inspired Occaisions Wedding Planning (http://inspired-occasions.blogspot.com/).  We asked her what was the most unique Albany wedding location she could think of and she said the Palace.  As soon as we did our walkthrough we knew right away that this was where were getting married.  It meant moving our wedding up from 11/11/11 to 7/30/11 but it was well worth it.  

*the palace photo is from wikipedia and the inside photo is from EYP design 

The plan is for the ceremony to take place in the lobby, the cocktail hour in the mezzanine, and the reception on the stage.  It's a 1930s theater so I really want to keep that vintage classic 1930s feel.  

Choosing our venue and wedding planner also helped our color scheme come together.  Our colors are gold, champagne, deep red and aubergine: 

I am going to stick to the champagne gold and some ivory for the ceremony, use the aubergine and gold during the cocktail hour, and bring in the red during the reception (since there's so much of it throughout the theatre anyway).  Next stop are the save the dates (aka my first DIY project).  

Finally finished the Save the Dates!  It's composed of 2 tickets, one is an actual ticket printed by the theatre with our wedding information on it.  The other is one I designed because we liked the idea of everyone opening the envelope and finding two tickets but didn't want to send two of the exact same thing.  I printed it on pearlized paper from JoAnn's Fabrics.  I purchased the chandelier image off of etsy after searching the internet for the perfect one.  I'm pleased with the final product and I think it's good practice for the many DIY projects to come.  I added the ribbon because I felt the outside of the card looked too plain even with the stamp.  I also cut the flaps of the envelopes and tops of the cards in a matching scalloped pattern. Our initials, in the lower right corner of the card, were done by stamp.  The card was glossy, which meant that the stamp ink took days to dry (lesson learned on that one).  Anyway, check them out: 

So that's one DIY project down...on to the next one :-) 

I came back to Albany for another weekend of wedding planning (and to see my family of course :-)) and look what project my mom started on: 

This one is only halfway done.  She spraypainted the hanger and is in the process of covering it with rhinestones.  She's going to cut the wire from the hanger so that it looks more like this: 

and this:

She's making these for the BMs, it's a cloth hanger with rhinestones - it's gold to go along with our color scheme.  We reserved a suite for everyone to get ready at the day of and so when all the BMs come in their hangers will be hanging along the wall w/ the spa robes I got w/ their names embroidered on them!  

Our photographers, Scott & Lisa Kretschmann posted our blog post about out wedding!  Here's the link and some of the shots, plus a few that were taken by our friends and family:  

 http://www.scottkretschmann.com/blog/tehra-and-juans-albany-ny-palace-theater-wedding-part-1/

Here is the first shot they released:  

In front of our venue, The Palace Theatre.  

Some fun with my bridesmaids!  

Our Rings:  

And one of us walking up the street to the theatre.  The best part about this moment is that as we were walking our bridal party began singing the Going to the Chapel song and we joined in -- it was SO AMAZING, definitely a moment we'll never forget:

And here are a few non professionals: 

Getting ready: 

My flower girl helping me with my shoes: 

Ceremony:

Here is a ceremony space pic that our florist (Anthology Weddings) took. The monogram hanging in the middle of the draping is made of painted gold leaves...We LOVED IT  

The reception space from the mezzanine:  

cake cutting kiss!  No cake in the face for us :-)

Here is just a cake pic: 

Here are some pics of the tables before the reception started (our caterer moved the chairs from the ceremony space to the stage during the cocktail hour); we used gold chargers (which my mom and I found through out the year on sale (best time is right after Christmas), and satin crepe back eggplant napkins (which our mother's made), and menus designed by me - The pics were taken by our florist: 

This is a pic our florist took of the arrangement on the ledges of the lounge area: 

Here is another florist taken pic.  This is our cocktail hour lounge area.  I found the square ottomans at Ikea on sale and my mom coverered them for me (she was SO amazing throughout this whole process); we picked out the fabric together and I picked up the coffee tables at Ikea (7.99/per); Of course the florist created this BEAUTIFUL tree with the candles hanging from it.