We booked our hall!!

So of course we decided to go with Andorra Banquets for our wedding reception. It seemed like the best choice for us. The staff is really great and friendly. They are even helping us out with our wedding planning that doesn't even involve the banquet hall lol. They are also letting us come back to check out the hall all set up for a wedding on the 26th, so im excited to see how it looks! I have been to a wedding there before, and it was beautiful! So im excited to see how it is going to look on OUR special day in November! Can't wait!!

Check out the our wedding website tooo, and sign the guestbook if you haven't already ;)
Eric and Ashley

Thanks!
Ashley

Wedding Website

Our Wedding website is up and running! Be sure to check it out!
http://www.weddingwire.com/duhackwedding

If you are viewing this blog from the website, welcome and thanks for stopping by! :)

Wedding Photographers

Some of you may already know my frustrations with most of the "photographers" I have looked at, from my rant of Facebook lol. My feelings were "I get it, you have a nice expensive camera, but that doesn't make you a professional photographer!" I'm amazed at how many wedding photographers I have seen that have absolutely no idea what they are doing, and charging crazy expensive amounts for their wedding packages. I'm not into their color selection, I can do that myself lol, and weird edits that make the pictures look almost cartoonish, or their over use of fish-eye lenses.. so not me. I'd say the style Id want the pictures to be is photojournalistic, and artistic!  Of course Id love some fun pictures too ;)
These are two that I really liked: MBigelow Photographer and Monica Z Photography. There were some others I liked as well, but now I can't find their websites lol.
I was sold, or still might be sold on a certain photographer! They had great pictures, and they were not charging outrageous prices for full complete wedding coverage! Then Eric came home last night and was telling me that he had talked to a guy he knows who come into his work, who is a wedding photographer. Eric was asking him about shooting our wedding and said he would love to do it. Eric told him *I* would need to see his work first because of how picky I am about my pictures hahaha. I feel bad now tho lol. He would also be bringing his colleague with him as a second photographer. I guess he is also a DJ, and said he would DJ too! haha. He has a huge DJ set up with lights, speakers, and everything. Not sure how he will be able to DJ and be our photographer at the same time, but sounds interesting lol! I really am crossing my fingers his photography is great! I have a good feeling about it, so I hope it works out :)Eric keeps telling me I need to go to school or photography because of how crazy I am about pictures. So I think its something I may look into!

Search For The Perfect Hall

So far Eric and I have looked at 3 halls together, all in Schererville, IN. [I swear they have like 20 halls in that town! strange..lol] Our first stop was Andorra banquets. We loved it! The guy Chris we talked to was extremely informative and helpful, he was just awesome. The price was the cheapest too, from the prices I had gathered online. Then we went and checked out The Patrician. That place is huge! The rooms are nice, but it was kinda pricey. Eric does want to go back and try the complimentary "samples" tho lol. Its more like a full dinner! lol. After The Patrician we went to Villa Cesare. We weren't impressed, it looked kind of outdated, and our date wasn't even available. So after the 3 we had looked at Andorra was our favorite!
Last Sunday my mom and I went and looked at the Lighthouse restaurants upstairs banquet hall. I didn't even know they had one! It was gorgeous and overlooked the lake...just amazing! They are also expanding and making the rooms even larger up there! She said if we booked before construction, we would still be able to have the room at the normal rate, because after construction begins the price is going to go up big time. As beautiful as it was, there were alot of 'extra fees' that were already included with the packages at the previous halls we had looked at.
Today Eric and I took the kids to looked at a another hall that I had looked up online. The price was much lower on the internet, I guess that's how they get you to come in and check it out. It was nice, separate room for the bar area, which was cool. So after going to 5 halls, we still thought Andorra the best choice for us, and it was cheapest! Which is always great! lol. So we may have decided that Andorra will be the hall we will be going with!! Hopefully they still have our date(s) available!

We're Engaged!

I haven't blogged in so long - well not since I had a MySpace page. I'm not even sure where to begin with this. Well we have been engaged for almost one month now. I had Eric choose the date and he chose November 19, 2011. Now he cant decide to have it the 19th or the 12th. His biggest concern is that Thanksgiving is only 5 days after the 19th, and hes worried that people may not come because they are already traveling for Thanksgiving plans. So that's why hes thinking of moving the date up a week. I was kinda already 'attached' to the 19th lol, but it really doesn't matter what day we have it.
A few weeks ago, my mom, some friends and I went to a Bridal Show. I got a lot of information from different vendors, so much I was overwhelmed! We had a great time tho, and loved the bridal fashion show! 

Here are a few pictures I took from the bridal show. They were really dark so I had to brighten them up, so they are crappy quality lol.