We stopped for a beer and saw this bottle of The Kraken Black Spiced Rum…. The bartender gave us a taste… wow! You could light your own breath.

The Kracke with The Kraken… Yes we are photo dorks!

The second day we got up early, mainly because 7 am Portland time is 10 am our time, we headed for the coast and spent the entire day there! Here I am with my feet in the cold Pacific ocean.

Kurtis wanted to see the beach where they filmed part of the Goonies, so we headed out to Cannon Beach to find the rocks. They are known as the Haystack Rock and the Needles but they will be known to us forever as the Goonie Rocks. The tide was low so we were able to se the amazing tide pools that surround the rock. (don’t know who those people are in the picks….)

Kurtis in front of the Goonie Rock…. You can’t see it but he is grinning like a little kid.

We stopped some other photographers and asked them to take our pick. (we are both grinning like little kids)

Next we went up to Astoria to see the Goonie House and have some lunch. (Yes we are big Goonie dorks.) ; – )

Then it was back down the coast and stopping at a few beaches along the way.

This was our view at dinner. We found an amazing little restaurant in Oceanside called Roseanna’s Cafe. I had the best little clams! hands down the best! and Kurtis had salmon that was to die for!

We got back to Portland really really late and woke up really late so there was only one place to go…. Stepping Stone Cafe, Ever seen Man vs Food??? On his stop in Portland Adam stops by for Mancakes…. 13 inch round and at least one inch think pancakes!! We only got one and couldn’t finish the whole thing.

I promise we did do more then just eat in Portland. We spent the entire day down on the river at the carnival and Sunday Market. We bought a few great pieces of outsider art and I got a great bag. Monday was the wedding. One word…. BEAUTIFUL!!! The pictures will be coming soon!!

So the day after the wedding we went to a Portland institution… Voodoo Doughnut! (also seen on Man vs Food) …. Promise we really really did more then just eat!

This was my pick. Voodoo Doll Raised yeast doughnut filled with raspberry jelly topped with chocolate frosting and a pretzel stake! (characteristics of Voodoo Dolls are all different)

The Bacon Maple Bar Raised yeast doughnut with maple frosting and bacon on top! (how can life get any better?)

Kurtis’s pick was the Diablos Rex Chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate frosting, red sprinkles, vanilla pentagram and chocolate chips in the middle!

Texas Challenge Giant Doughnut equals 6 of their doughnuts in size. If you can eat this doughnut in 80 seconds or less…You get your money back!  We didn’t even try to eat this is 80 sec… We actually only ate 3-4 bites and gave up.

So what is the best thing to do after eating Voodoo Doughnuts and buzzing around on a sugar high??? Go for a 12 mile hike in the Columbia River Gorge!!! It was completely worth the leg cramps, sore feet, rain soaked pants to see Tunnel Falls. (I – 84 exit 41, in case you were wondering.) Yes, we truly went for a 12 mile hike the day after we shot a wedding, three hours there, two hours back….yup, 5 hours of hiking.  I know, I know…. what were we thinking! ( I have no idea either…. I blame it on voodoo doughnuts!).

Around the 6 mile mark the trail comes across a huge waterfall, so instead of ending the trail some very strong outdoors type folk dug a tunnel behind the falls. It was AMAZING!!!  So here are some of the pictures from that walk…. OH, and a BIG BIG THANK YOU !!!!!! to Laura and Dan (the bride and groom from Portland) for the AWESOME wedding favors!! Umbrellas with their wedding logo screen printed on them. They came in so handy on the hike!! You guys are the best!

Yes that is one big, old tree!! The trees, mountains, gorge, everything was beautiful

For the most part the trail was fairly easy, mostly up hill there and in some spots the trail narrowed a bit  - the wire guide rail always makes you feel safe. ; – )

I was AMAZED by the trees and loved photographing them.

This is one of the campsites (lower right hand corner) We want to go back and camp for a few days.

This is one of the few teaser waterfalls they have on the way up to Tunnel Falls….. I would see it and think “Oh, Thank God we made it!!” just to be jinxed and have to keep walking.

This is my favorite tree picture. These trees were planted after a huge forest fire in 1902. Just breathtaking.

This was just before we got to the falls. Just beautiful beyond belief!

WE MADE IT!!! WE MADE IT!!!! (insert major fan fair!!) See the dark thing in the middle of the picture. That is the tunnel. We put our hands on the wall of the tunnel and could feel it move and tremble from the power of the waterfall.

again…. THANK YOU,  THANK YOU,  THANK YOU FOR THE UMBRELLAS!!!

We will get the wedding pictures up soon and share the wonderful day that we spent with Laura and Dan.

Cheers,  Julia and Kurtis

Want your own custom designed Save The Date card?? Give us a holler and we will make it happen!

Found this article on gizmag.com The Dissolvable Wedding Dress!! It was created by students at Sheffield Hallam University.

It’s a very interesting twist and idea on green wedding dresses. …-  just don’t spill your champaign on it! ; – )

“Aiming to address the issue of “throwaway fashion” and its impact on the environment as landfill, students at Sheffield Hallam University have combined fashion design with engineering to create a dissolvable wedding dress that can be converted into five different fashion pieces before being dissolved in water leaving no environmental footprint.

The success of low-cost retailers has driven down the price of clothes in the UK leading to an estimated drop in price of 25% in recent years. This has led to a 40% increase in clothes purchases to more than two million tonnes per year. Of this, 74% will ultimately end up in landfill making textiles the fastest-growing waste product in the UK.

“The students wanted to challenge the notion that a wedding dress should only be used once and aimed to explore modern society’s attitudes towards throwaway fashion,” said Jane Blohm, a lecturer on the fashion design course at Sheffield Hallam.

“In order to reduce fashion’s impact on the environment, the fashion industry must begin to challenge conventional attitudes and practices. The exhibition demonstrates what could be possible when design and scientific innovation combine forces.”

The wedding dress was chosen as an iconic representation of the “wear once” philosophy that pervades modern fashion. Polyvinyl alcohol, a biodegradable substance used in washing detergents, is knitted into the dress fabric which allows it to dissolve in water leaving no impact on the environment. But not before it can be reprized as five new fashion garments, each representing a stage of the transformation – assuming that perspiration or weather hasn’t made Swiss cheese of the dress already of course.”

The designs were featured in the exhibition “A Sustainable Marriage” displayed at the Sheffield Hallam University Furnival Gallery.

We just got the nicest note from Rachel Dewey,  the events manager for Sonnenberg Gardens and Mansion State Historic Park.

“Your images completely and totally rock! I was just about crying to see how gorgeous you and Kurtis made them look. Can’t say  enough about what a completely cute and relaxed and in-love couple they were, because that was totally captured, but you two made our grounds look magnifique!”

Rachel E. Dewey, Events Manager
Sonnenberg Gardens & Mansion
State Historic Park
151 Charlotte St.
Canandaigua, NY 14424
(585) 394-4922
Fax: (585) 394-2192
www.sonnenberg.org

Click on the name of the couple. This will take you to their Knot site. Tell your friends and family to vote between March 1 and 21. (You can vote too!) There will be a voting box on the page. Vote “yes” and we’re one step closer to becoming a finalist. The 10 photo entries and 10 video entries with the most votes will move on to be Brides’  Pick finalist.

THANKS!!! (giggle giggle… we’re so excited! ; – )

Tonia and Kevin

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Dan and Julia

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Jeff and Melissa

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Bryan and Meg

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Jeff and Bridget

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Chris and Angela

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Kittie and Dan

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Emily and Jeff

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Pat and Mary

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Mark and Amanda

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Erika and David

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Ian and Carrie

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Lauren and Ben

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Jane and Willis

“This week’s theme is Wedding Planning. From Bridal fashion and jewelry to wedding invitations and honeymoon plans, you’ll find everything you need for that special day at amazing prices.”

You need to be a member to take advantage of the offers, it is free to join. Borders Rewards

Here are the offers that they listed. I hope they help.

Kleinfeld Bridal
Get up to $500 Off your wedding gown & $100 Off your Jewelry & Shoe purchases

Wedding Invitations
Receive 30% off your online order at Carlson Craft!

Blue Nile Jewelry
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Michael C. Fina

SAVE 15% ON ALL FINE JEWELRY & FREE SHIPPING

Brooks Brothers
Save 15% Off Online, In Store, & Catalog

Limos.com
Save up to 40% when you book online with Limos.com!

Wedding Flowers
20% off Wedding Bouquets and Flowers

Sandals Resorts
Sandals Luxury-Included Resorts – Save up to 60% and a 3% Vacation Savings

Wedding Gifts
Save Up to 20% on Unique Wedding Gifts!

Kleinfeld Bridal
$200 Off a Suit or Tuxedo

Ok… so for our first money saving tip…. Lets talk dresses!

Filene’s Basement is most famous for it’s annual wedding dress sales. This is the best place to save THOUSANDS of dollars on designer dresses. Dresses that are originally $900 – 9,000 go for $249, $499 and $699!

Wedding dress sales will also be held this winter at Filene’s Basement stores in

Atlanta, Georgia – March 19
Chicago, IL – July 23
Washington, DC – July 30
Boston, MA – August 20
Cleveland OH – August 27

Here are answers to frequently asked questions about the “Running of the Brides.” from Filene’s website

When did the sale start?
Filene’s Basement has occasionally sold wedding gowns ever since the store first opened in 1909. Through press coverage and letters from customers, we determined that a special one-day wedding gown event was held as early as 1947, although it was probably a little tamer than the sale is today.

How many gowns are there?
Anywhere from 1300 to 2500, depending on the store.

How much do they cost?
$249, $499 and $699.

What were the original prices?
$900 to $9,000 plus—Gowns bought from other retailers usually have the original price tags attached, so customers can see the savings instantly.

What labels do you carry?
Filene’s Basement carries some of the most famous labels in the wedding gown industry. Because we sell these gowns at such a huge discount, we have an agreement with our vendors that we will not advertise the names. What we can say, though, is that these are designers and brands you see featured in all the big bridal magazines.

Where does Filene’s Basement get the gowns?
We get them from bridal gown manufacturers and from bridal salons and boutiques. Our buyer has developed great contacts in the wedding gown industry, both in the United States and in Europe. Dresses become available for a variety of reasons– a cancelled order, a cancelled wedding, a small shop needing to make space for new gowns, and so on.  We buy nothing ‘sight unseen.’ The buyer travels to where the gowns are, and hand picks the best ones.

Do I need to make an appointment? What are the hours of the sale?
No appointments needed—we’re not that formal. Brides-to-be are welcome any time during store hours.Doors open at 8:00am, but brides-to-be start arriving much earlier. In fact, some brides arrive the day before and bring lawn chairs, sleeping bags, and even pop-up tents. Most brides arrive between 7:00am and 8:00am. The sale continues all day until store closing (which varies by store).

What if I don’t want to partake in the actual “Running of the Brides,” or I can’t get there till later in the day, will there still be dresses left?
Plenty!  When the store opens, the racks get cleared quickly because people take as many as their arms can hold. Not knowing what they’ve grabbed, they quickly relinquish the sizes and styles they don’t want, putting them back on the rack or giving them to empty-handed brides. If a bride gets impatient waiting, we tell her to go have a cup of coffee and come back later—by 10:00AM, most of the dresses are back on the racks and you can shop in relative calm.

If you don’t get out of work till 5:00PM, or you’re just not up to the frenzy of store opening, the odds of finding a dress are still excellent. Only one in three or one in four people in line are shopping for a wedding gown. The others are helpers. For instance in Boston, usually the biggest event, there may be 800 people in line but only 250 of them are brides-to-be and there are up to 2500 gowns for sale.

What happens when the doors open?
Customers run full speed to the racks; they grab as many dresses as their arms will hold. It takes less than sixty seconds for the racks to be stripped bare; the record is 36 seconds. The brides-to-be stake out a spot on the selling floor, preferably in front of a mirror and start trying on dresses. Even though we sometimes build a temporary fitting room on the selling floor most brides try on gowns in the aisles. Some women wear sports bras and shorts, others wear the lingerie they plan to wear under the gown.

Should I bring help?
Definitely bring help—your mother, bridal party, a style-savvy friend. You need people to help grab gowns off the racks, make trades with other parties, help you in and out of the dresses, and guard the ones in your “maybe” pile from prowlers. It’s a good idea to have a team “uniform”—something that will help you find each other in the crowd, like wearing the same color shirts or big hats. Some teams get very creative. They print their team name on t-shirts, carry whistles or walkie-talkies, and so on. Some teams have strategy meetings before the sale; one woman created a Power-Point presentation for her team all about the dress she wanted.

Why aren’t the dresses organized by size?
1) We don’t want give the first people in line the unfair advantage of taking all of one size. 2) Any order we start with would break down as soon as all the gowns come off the racks. 3) Wedding gown sizes vary—often they run small. Try on any dress that looks close to your size and see how it fits.

I’ve heard that people trade dresses. How does this work?
Over time, a unique trading strategy has evolved. Any gowns that are rejected by the bride are ‘shopped’ around to the various groups looking for fresh merchandise. This can get complex—one trade could involve multiple transactions. For instance, bride #1 wants a gown that bride #2 has, so she offers a gown in trade; #2 has her eye on a gown being held by bride #3, so she sends bride #1 to negotiate with bride #3. Got it? Often you’ll see helpers making their way through the crowd holding signs that read “size 10 – 12 in ivory” or “simple size 20 wanted.”

I’ve heard all kinds of stories about how people behave at this sale—are they true?
This is an emotional purchase so we see a range of behaviors. At the start this event can bring out the worst in shoppers—shoving, elbowing, hoarding, and so on; but eventually it brings out the best. A lot of bonding takes place between the bridal groups.  Everybody stops what they’re doing and cheers for brides when they declare a dress “the one.”  Once, when it was discovered that one bride’s mother couldn’t fly in from Chicago because of bad weather, all the other mothers acted as surrogates and helped her find her wedding gown. Brides-to-be who are shopping alone have met on-line and in line and joined forces and help each other. The behavior of Bridal Gown Sale customers has been studied by two professors of marketing at Bentley College, near Boston. They have shared their findings in scholarly journals and at academic conferences.

How far do brides travel for this sale?
We’ve talked to brides who traveled from Alaska, the U.K., Switzerland, all over. A group from Fresno, California flew to Boston for the sale after hearing about it from an uncle who lived in Taiwan. The gowns themselves have traveled too. One woman sent 4 dresses to her nieces in Russia; another from Brazil shipped a gown to her future sister-in-law, who loved it.

Are men allowed in the store during the sale?
Sure, if they dare. We’ve seen the occasional brother, male friend, father and even fiancé. There have even been instances of fiancés doing the shopping for their brides-to-be—yikes!

Besides saving money, why go to the sale?
As one bride put it, “if we get a gown here, we can invite twenty more people to the wedding.” Her fiancé had other ideas for the savings, like extending the honeymoon.And there’s the fun factor—this sale has become part of the wedding planning experience for brides and their helpers. In some families, it’s a long-standing tradition to shop for a wedding gown at this sale.

What was the most expensive wedding gown ever sold at the sale?
One was originally priced at $10,000. At the time, the price for gowns at the Filene’s Basement sale was $199, so some lucky bride got the bargain of a lifetime.

What is the most unusual wedding gown sold? A few stand out. One was custom designed gown and train made of white lambskin. The skirt was gored alternating leather with different patterns of ecru lace. Another was hand-made by designer Michelle Roth for a runway show. The skirt had five layers—one layer was hand painted with flowers and it was sandwiched between two layers with three-dimensional flowers sewn on, underneath, a layer of crinoline, and finally, a layer of lace. Two other gowns were memorable for their hand-painted skirt designs: one was a peacock and the other, a map of the world.

Are the dresses returnable?
No, because Filene’s Basement does not carry wedding gowns other than the day of the sale.

Do you have any tips for finding the perfect dress at this event?
Yes, we have a compilation of tips from brides-to-be who found their wedding gown at this sale. E-mail pat.boudrot@filenesbasement.com to request the “Secrets of Success—finding your dream dress at Filene’s Basement’s Running of the Brides.”

If you have been to a Filene’s Basement Running of the Brides event let us know about it! The good the bad and the ugly!