Oh Matt and Jackie, where to start? These two are so so so lovely and fun to be around. Not to mention, they are incredibly well-dressed all the time. It was such a joy to shoot their funky and stylish engagement session a few weeks ago. : )

They made chalkboard bubbles for their engagement session and then wrote cute things on them! So adorable. I love DIY brides : )

I just love how edgy and unfiltered their love is.

I love the way a girl looks at the man she loves.

Jackie and Matt: you guys are the best. I seriously can’t wait for your wedding day!

Meagan and Ryan have an amazing story: they actually spent their first year of dating in China! They only recently came back to the states for their wedding. : ) Here’s their story in Meagan’s own words:

Ryan and I separately went to Chongqing, China to study Mandarin in the fall of 2007.  The expatriot community is small despite it being a city of 34 million and we met upon arrival. Nothing really sparked between us until Christmas Eve of 2008.  We were sharing a meal with his roommate at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant before attending an international fellowship Christmas Eve Lessons & Carols service and realized we shared a similar love for the Lord and the Chinese culture.  After traveling over the winter holiday together through Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines Ryan asked me out to eat hot pot- a local Chongqing delicacy famous in China.  From there, we continued to fall more in love with China, the Chinese people, the Lord and one another until he proposed in March 2010.  We finished our studies in June and came home to get married and start life in the states together.

Meagan’s dress was from John’s Bridal in Tampa, FL and her shoes were found at DSW. : )

Meagan made a super beautiful bride!

How cute are they?!

These Chinese characters stand for “husband” and “wife”. : )

Their reception was held at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Pete, FL. This venue was super cool and modern. I loved the juxtaposition of a wedding with family and friends in a room full of great paintings and artwork.

I just love to see a husband and wife dancing together. So lovely.

So, while I prepare Meagan and Ryan’s awesome wedding to be blogged, I thought I’d share my birthday party on the blog as well. : )

This year for my birthday I threw a fancy tea party, sort of drawing inspiration from Alice in Wonderland. The whole party was designed to generate a little bit of financial support for an upcoming service trip to India. Instead of gifts, I asked friends to pitch in financially to help me get to India – more on that trip is at the end of this post. Let’s get on to some pictures of this adorable tea party (I might be biased but I really do think it was pretty lovely).

So here I am, you know… just hanging out. Couldn’t decide if my mustache went with my outfit or not.

I found this frame at a yard sale and painted it with chalkboard paint! Such a fun and inexpensive DIY project.

I bought paper straws off Etsy and used some of them for beverages and some of them for felt mustaches that I made!

My best friend and I baked the cupcakes and I hand wrote “enjoy” on little toothpick flags for them. We baked apple-spice cupcakes and pumpkin bread cupcakes and they were a HIT.

We also hand made tissue poof balls and origami birds and strung them up on the trees around the table area.  : )

All of the guests dressed up in fancy clothes for the tea party. Here were some highlights:

And I was pretty thrilled with the outcome of Brian and I’s outfits:

And of course, I ended up impressing everyone with my bb-gun skills. I am kind of in love with my red ryder bb gun that one of my dear friends gave me for my birthday.  : ) I realize that no one will believe me, but I literally shot the flame out of a candle from about 20 feet away without knocking the candle over. I am totally leaving photography for professional bbgunning.

Dear Internet, allow me to formally introduce you to my boyfriend, Brian, and my godson, Avin. It’s pretty stinkin’ cute when they hang out.

So that was my party! It went fairly late into the night and we all sat around the table and played games, laughed, and just altogether enjoyed eachother’s company. It was such a blessing to have so many wonderful and loving friends in town to celebrate my birthday and to support my trip to India!

In case you were wondering what I’m doing in India, I thought I’d tell you the short story version. If you want to hear more about it, definitely shoot me an email!

I’m going to India with a service team, and we are heading over there for a few specific reasons. One, we are going to be entertaining 2oo extremely poor school children for two days. These kids have been sponsored by their church to be able to come and spend time with us. Our main goal is to show them love and to allow them to have fun (something they haven’t had much of, considering the incredibly difficult lives they lead due to the poverty of their family and community). There will be loads of food, stories, and laughter.

We are also going to India to spend time at a home for rescued girls. These girls were rescued out of human trafficking and are in a continual process of recovery. The girls range in age from 8 – 18 and have lived lives full of pain and sadness and confusion. Our main goal while with them is to show them how loved they are and how important they are to strangers from all over the world. These girls have been sex slaves for far too long, and are now dealing with the emotional and physical damage of such trauma. It’s so important to me, personally, to be there and to just demonstrate how special and worthwhile they are.

While with the girls at the rescue home, my team and I will be putting on a photo session for the girls (among many other things). These photos are a part of their recovery, a way to show them how beautiful they are and to help the girls gain a healthy identity and to love themselves again. Before I signed up for this trip, the caretakers for the girls specifically asked for a photographer to come and take the girls’ portraits to help them grow and overcome some self-esteem issues.

So! There is nothing I want to do more and there is no where I want to be more than right there in their small town in India, just showing these beautiful girls exactly how loved and special they are. : )

If you end up wanting to support me financially or to just hear more about what we are doing over there, please shoot me an email! Also, feel free to try out some of these DIY projects on your own. Everything I did for this tea party was super inexpensive and incredibly easy!