Our Engagement Photos

Once upon a time, Carson proposed, we got engaged, and we started planning a wedding. One by one, we checked things off the massive to-do list, and one of those things was to take engagement pictures.

 We took these the day after my birthday (364 days after the first time he asked me out) in 2010 and I'd sort of forgotten about them, but I'm working on a project that involves going through old pictures, and I came across these ones again. 

They aren't my favorite pictures of us, but they're fun to look at. 

Some thoughts, when going through them:

- I should have planned what we were going to wear a little better. I bought the dress the day before and it really makes me look like a lumpy frog (not necessarily in these pictures, but certainly in general). The color is great, but I kind of hate this dress (yes, I still have it). 

- Carson's shoes - this was actually a long-standing debate until I nipped it in the bud, but he thought that white tennis shoes were equal to dress shoes. They are not. 

- My shoes - were the only dressy shoes I packed, so they had to work. They hurt my feet, so I don't have them anymore but I loved them because they looked like jelly shoes.

- Carson's hair... got cut the next day. It was a busy time. 

- My makeup... I should have gone by the rule of "wear more so it shows up on camera". It's okay though. And I remember really debating if I should have worn my hair curly that day. 

- I don't think I look like myself, which is fine, but I can't figure out why. I think I may have been sick, so that's a factor in these pictures. It was also March and cold, so it could have been more of a "sick of winter" kind of sickness.

Double-chin, and my nose looks wide but I like this one.

No idea what was going on here.

Fake smile on my part. 

This is Carson's favorite picture. We sent this picture with half of our invites (the other half got my favorite picture). I don't like this one in the slightest but Carson still has one in his wallet.

Carson's idea. He had lots of ideas like this and would have preferred only pictures like this. We actually printed some of these out and sent them with our invitations, but only to very close friends. His roommates had this picture up on their fridge with all kinds of commentary, with good reason. 

Our eye color stands out and that's all I can say.

I wish we'd chosen this one because now I think it's one of the better ones, but we didn't. 

THE SHOES.

I like this one too.

I don't know why I'm barefoot here. Maybe I thought it wouldn't be in the picture? Maybe it's on purpose?

This is the one I loved, and the one we sent out in half of the invitations. We appear very airbrushed and whitened and I have a feeling that's one of the reasons I liked this one. 

This was a fun little walk down memory lane. It really wasn't that long ago, but I feel like it looks like it was, judging from what we wore and how we looked. I think that's really one of the big reasons to get engagement pictures in the first place - they may not be the best pictures of your whole life, but they document an important stage. 

And for us, since our families are on opposite sides of the country, it was slightly practical we wanted our guests and invitees to have a visual and be able to say "Ah, THAT's the bride/groom!" when they met Carson/Lindsay at our receptions or wedding. These were printed out on big sheets of paper, cut individually (we sent several hundred invitations so this was not fun) and tucked in with our wedding invitations.

Oh, and we still have a million of little wallet sized versions that we sent with our invites if anyone wants one. We over-printed.