At 5:45 am Saturday morning, I crawled out of bed to shower for our engagement shoot with our wedding photographer, Krista Watzel. The shoot wouldn’t start until eight, but we had an hour drive to get to Morrison, where we had planned to meet.
Friday night, we were up until eleven, choosing outfits like girls trying to plan their clothes for the club–trying to coordinate, but not match.
On Wednesday, we had bought two dresses at Nordstrom Rack for me to wear; dresses don’t suit Ryan’s frame. It was a whirlwind shopping trip, broken up by a meal with our friend Kellen. I think I tried on twenty knee-length dresses in about twelve minutes. Shoes took longer to find. I can’t get into a dressing room without conjuring my mother. When I put on a piece of clothing, I pull it as she would and judge harshly how it lays on my frame. This particular talent has been cultivated to such a degree that I don’t need to put on a piece of clothing to know how it will feel and look on me and gauge what Mom’s response would have been. As a child, she would often comment on how pants stretched across my crotch and how skirts were supposed to look–none of those ripples from fabric being pulled horizontally when it should fall vertically. I am acutely aware of this, but as a girl with hips, clothes either ripple across my front or the waist is too loose… (I’ve recently begun a small obsession with the comfort of jersey maxi skirts and yoga pants; I’ve not really worn pants/jeans in over a year.)
After all the stress of fitting into a fitting room and the cost of buying two dresses and one pair of shoes, I only wore one of the dresses. A red one. The one we didn’t get shoes for because once I put it on, Ryan knew what our outfits would be: He’d wear a suit, white shirt, and a red tie that happened to perfectly match my new dress; I’d wear the dress, paint my toenails to match and go barefoot, which is much more my style than heels. Prior to Friday night, I have no recollection of painting my toenails ever in my life. And while I was a fair distance from a professional pedicure, I think my toes looked less like someone pulled out my nails than they were done by a small energetic child trying to focus.
The second dress was an old one I had in my closet. I don’t think it’s seen the light of day since we started dating, probably before that. And I’m not quite sure why I’ve hung on to it, if I rarely wear it. Anyway, it’s a white summer dress with embroidered flowers on it; Ryan paired it with a dark blue dress shirt and jeans. These are the outfits we arrived for the shoot in, and while it was a nice temperature at home, Morrison was just above freezing… The perfect weather for a light summer dress and no sweaters.
A couple days prior to the shoot, Krista emailed me her suggestions for the shoot. Having a cocktail beforehand was one of the final things–to help the subjects to relax. Meeting in a town where nothing is open at 8 am isn’t conducive to a small swallow of liquid courage to loosen up. Ryan had said previously that he didn’t need the extra boost, that he’d be okay, but I was still on the fence: Do I bring wine as a prop and open a bottle during the shoot? Should I dash out and get a thermos to put hot chocolate and Bailey’s into? How do I make dairy-free alcoholic hot chocolate? Would rum go into that?
In the end, I didn’t need alcohol. Just Ryan. It’s hard not to be silly or act relaxed when you’re ridiculously underdressed for the weather, (and the other person with you is as madly in love with you as you are with him). But this is sort of our status quo. When we went to Iceland, it was supposed to be in the 40s and 50s, so we didn’t bring cold weather gear; as it turned out, it was still very much snowy and below freezing. Recently, when we travelled to Montana for a weekend away, we packed for cold weather, but not for the polar freeze that came through. This experience was planned though. It’s December; it’s Colorado. One should expect some chilly weather. But in the name of style and design, we didn’t dress for it.
I think we looked good. Krista kept complimenting us; and I’ll believe it was honest rather than positive reinforcement for those who weren’t dressed in a winter coat Saturday morning. Too stinking cute was a phrase that leapt from her mouth often.
The pictures should be available for us to look at in about two weeks. Fingers crossed Krista can Photoshop the bruises on my legs and our red faces. 🙂