I had a whole intro written for Dreamlyn, but I scrapped it, because what I really want to say about her is this: she is being the change she wants to see in the world (well, wedding blog-o-sphere) and I deeply respect that and am thrilled to make it happen. So, I bring you Dreamlyn and the amazing wedding elopement in Sedona Arizona. 
Hubs and I knew that we wanted to elope all along so planning was fairly easy. Our family situations are complicated thus a large wedding would be incredibly stressful for us. Plus there is that little thing about money. We knew we’d be footing most of the bill ourselves. So, we planned our elopement. It eventually grew from just the two of us to the two of us and our local parents and siblings. We decided on what wedding-y things we absolutely had to have and I took it from there. Don’t get me wrong, for a hot second I thought, “I could plan a wedding on the cheap”, but then I thought of the stress and inevitable emotional breakdown. Wasn’t interested.
There is something that I found during the process that I think absolutely needs to be said. My husband and I are a black female/white male interracial couple and let me tell you, there’s a real lack of diversity in the blogosphere. I found very little representation of couples that looked like us on blogs and especially magazines- and don’t even get me started with the availability of cake toppers. In no way am I saying that I need an all interracial blog, but I like seeing the world that I live in represented. There are interracial couples (hetero and same sex) of various ethnic backgrounds in all sorts of shapes and sizes. It’s time for the wedding industry to catch up. Meg said it best with her reply to my e-mail, “You’d think that only skinny white girls are getting married.” Anyway… that’s all I’ve got to say about that!
Hubs and I didn’t take engagement photos (he thought I was making the concept up) so I was surprised by the whole photo shoot process. You know how in love everyone looks in their wedding photos in the real weddings that you see on the blogs? It’s like a Gone With the Wind/Disney/all consuming love? It’s staged. Yeah, the couples love each other but those super romantic Hollywood photos are staged by the photographer. Kinda broke my heart a little…
Planning such a small wedding, we wanted to remember every minute of it. Hiring kick ass photographers was extremely important to us. I knew that some people would hate on the fact that we didn’t have a party for them to attend, but I wanted everyone to be blown away by our photographs, and they were. Once the ceremony was over we submitted to the will of our photographers. That was a brilliant move on our part. They were fantastic and our pictures exceeded our expectations (shout out to Cameron and Kelly). Whatever suggestions they had, we took them. I sat down on rocks, I walked through dirt- whatever. I look at the red dirt that’s covering the bottom of my dress and I think about how much fun we had that day.
If you don’t have the money for the custom $65 garter, Jimmy Choo shoes or designer dress, so what? Do whatever feels right for you, don’t stress yourself out about having a platinum wedding. My hair was in braids, I had no idea what to do with it but my friend Olivia did, so she was in charge. My shoes were from Nordstrom Rack and my feet were completely comfy. After seeing my pictures I received some compliments on my dress but lots of people commented on how happy we looked. I was relaxed, overjoyed and in love.
Here’s some advice that you may have read elsewhere but it’s REALLY good, It’s really easy to look at wedding blogs and magazines and feel bad that you don’t have the time or money that a lot of these “real weddings” have. Don’t let anyone make you second guess what you’ve planned. We have no regrets about our wedding. There’s so much about that day that I love and very little has anything to do with my shoes and dress.
Amazing photos by Cameron & Kelly Studios in Arizona. Dreamlyn raved about them (and you can see more wedding photos on their blog)
Dreamlyn And The Arizona Elopement
