Snakes, Jackalopes and No-See-Ums

I think I already told y’all that I was down at my folks place last week when I got those incredibly awesome Christian Dior vintage hats (*swoon*).

Well, my parents live in this community that’s filled mostly with retired people. It’s not an old folk’s community nor one of those creepy neighborhoods where old people go to die. It’s super-active; where the men meet weekly for motorcycle day-trips and bridge games and the ladies have academic sorority lunches and participate in sewing circles and go to Pilates. In fact, I think my parents are as busy now as they were when they were working.

Anyway, they live way out in this little country town that’s mostly known for their horse farms. There’s lots of land, trees, ponds and covered bridges. It’s so cute you might want to kill yourself a little. On the road out to their house, there’s this place that I pass. I’d always been curious as to what it was, who owned it and why it was in such a state of disrepair. So on this last trip I stopped by to snap some pictures.

Now, I tried to find someone to talk to to make sure I wasn’t trespassing (there weren’t any signs), but all I could find was some sort of repair shop behind the funky place. I assumed there was a lot of activity going on because it was loud as hell, but I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t want to get too close because it was a little scary. It looked a lot like the Deliverance of Auto Repair. I decided to take my chances and venture about without any permission (I'm pretty good at begging for forgiveness). 

I thought I’d share the pictures I took.

A lovely old boat.

This truck was just taken over by bushes and weeds and brush. There was a dead bush in the cab. I thought it was funny that it was from Charlotte, North Carolina!

This is the front of the building. I want to say it was a store of some sort. There was a “Clemson Fan Parking Only” sign nailed to one of the posts, a few chairs and a rusted out shovel on the falling down porch.

Under the side porch was an Airstream. Most of its windows were broken and this made me so sad to see such a cool vintage camper left to rust and rot amongst old pallets. But WHAT is that table there under those screens? I wanted so badly to start digging through all this stuff!I think I felt a lot like those dudes from American Pickers.

So after wading around in hip high grass and getting all these little black seeds all over my legs and shorts, I started feeling a little braver. Now mind you, I was in thong sandals and shorts, now sweating profusely in the 95+ degree heat and 800 billion percent humidity. I was certain no human person had walked where I was walking in several years. I kept expecting a snake to jump up and bite my face at any moment. In fact I freaked a bit when I saw this:

Yes, it was a stupid rusted screw embedded into the dirt and sand that makes up the Carolina topsoil. After I had calmed down a bit from thinking I had seen a snake, I was actually scared shitless again by a rabbit scurrying off. And let me tell you, it was the biggest damn rabbit I think I’ve ever seen. It was like a freakin’ jackalope.

I stood and took several deep breaths. Nerves calmed, I ventured a little deeper behind the falling-down building and found a car graveyard.

An old Jeep.

Classic, no? A rusted old Jaguar next to a potty. Both probably run the same.*badum ching* I'm here all week, people.

I think this is an old Studebaker, but I’m probably wrong. I wanted to get up close to this and look inside, but the brush (mostly bamboo, which I thought was odd for South Carolina) was really thick and I’d already had two heart attacks from the screw and the jackalope, so opted to be a chicken shit and use the zoom lens.  

Another old Jaguar still in pretty good shape, despite it’s exposure to the elements.

I headed back to my car and snapped this last shot thinking to myself, “Some little vintage-style bride somewhere might give her eyeteeth for these suckers.”

I was tempted myself to start collecting them, but Lord knows what they hell might be living in those things. Ew.

I  left everything as I had found it and returned to the comfort of my air conditioned car, covered in grass seeds and sweat and I’m sure, a few no-see-ums. Happily, I avoided the twanging sounds of a lone banjo too.

Buttercups!

A few weeks ago, I did some photo shoots for TruLu Couture with Lindsay of Lindsay Hess Photography. We shot at this incredibly cool "barn" a good clip south of Charlotte. I mean, it really was an honest to goodness barn, but I have to say it was the nicest freakin' barn I've ever seen. The horses were hanging out with us (even though horses kind of freak me out: big, stupid animals make ME skittish), the weather was AH-mazing and it was all about the fields of buttercups!

I'm still waiting for the photos from Lindsay (foot tapping impatiently) and I don't want to blow her wad, or mine for that matter, so I'll only give you a few snippets of the photos I took that day. Consider it a sneak peek of sorts!

Buttercups as far as the eye could see!

Inside The Barn!

This horse just looks crazy, right?

Our lovely model for the day.

Ever done hair in a barn? Our hair stylist was a pro for sure!

BUTTERCUP!

A new TruLu Couture fascinator and BUTTERCUPS!

Vintage wedding gown + horse tack stuff = amazingly pretty!

I thought the impromptu buttercup bouquet I made (tied with some lace ribbon from Michael's, no less!) was the shiznizzle. Oh, and I'm so loving this headband I made for one of Tabitha's brides. The wind died down for like, a nano-second, allowing me to take this shot! It was crazy-feather all over the effin' place!

Trying to be all artsy-fartsy. Did it work?

Another new TruLu Couture fascinator and the still lovely BUTTERCUPS!

I have been so lucky to have met some great folks here in Charlotte so far, photographers, make-up artists and hair stylists too! Once I have Lindsay's real pictures, I'll give some shout-outs to all the peeps involved. Don't you just love BUTTERCUPS?!?

Trying to Contain the SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I've been working furiously on TruLu Couture stuff these days. I haven't just been sewing my little fingers down to the nubs (I do a lot of hand sewing of laces and whatnot), but I've been frantically searching for someone to photograph my goodies. Now, if I was still in Nashville, I'd be able to put out a request and easily find someone willing to work for what's called TFP (Time for Print). Basically, everyone involved in a shoot offers what they do for free/trade and people get to build their portfolios. It's a cool little bartering system, but it's tough to coordinate. Being new to Charlotte has left me without my network of photographer friends. I was guided towards a website used specifically for networking called Model Mayhem.

Um, yeah. That's what I'll call a quirky little website. I liken it to Match.com in some ways. First, it took FOREVER for them to "approve" me - like over a week. Then, I had to figure out all the lingo and abbreviations. It's like walking into the newly engaged world and trying to figure out what OOT, FMIL, FFIL and all that shit means (and by the way, there are still wedding acronyms I'm confused about). Then I was able to post a casting call to try to drum up my own photo shoot. I indicated in that casting call that I was a newbie and had no idea what I was doing. My excitement with the project was completely derailed by a fuck-wad. Yes, a fuck-wad. In my casting call, I offered print for ad space on this here blog. Now, I'm no SMP, but I do have traffic that's decent. It doesn't suck. What I do know is that because of this blog, more than one wedding was booked at my reception venue. I believe my photographer booked a bride because of my blog too. In my little world, that means something. People come to this blog because they see me linked on other blogs and I am VERY appreciative of that, probably more so than a lot of those linking blog-writers are aware of. So, back to the fuck-wad. The person was a photographer from Chicago who seemed pretty hoighty toighty. He sent me a nasty message saying that offering ad space on a low-traffic blog wasn't worth the effort, that my stuff was crap and that I really shouldn't bother. He also posted the same, with slightly less attitude, as a comment on my casting call page. This was the FIRST response I'd had on that casting call. Awesome, right? I was just beat down before I even had a chance to start! But I'll tell you what, I got pissed.

1. Hey jack-ass? You have NO IDEA what my traffic is so go suck it.

2. Hey jack-ass? You live in Chicago. I didn't request photographers from Chicago. I requested them from CHARLOTTE. Now I know the "Ch" at the beginning of the city name might be a bit confusing for a Neanderthal such as yourself, but please learn to read.

3. Hey jack-ass? My stuff does not suck and I have happy brides to prove it.

4. Hey jack-ass? Fuck off.

Basically, this guy was an on-line bully trying to prove something to somebody. I basically wrote him back and told him to go away and to take his negativity with him. He continued to berate me with the meanest emails until I learned how to block him. I am so curious as to why people do this sort of thing? What is the point of engaging in that kind of activity? I'm going to guess it's either a traumatic childhood or a small penis. Or both.

But now I was gun-shy. There were models and make-up artists and a few photographers who were engaging me with interest, but I was as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I was frustrated too. For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you might have seen the random tweets regarding Model Mayhem and my frustrations. Thanks to those who encouraged me to stick with it as I received an invitation from a local make-up artist to join a bridal shoot in Greensboro, NC! At this point, I would have glommed onto just about anyone who was willing to be nice to me. However, I seem to have hit the golden freakin' jackpot because it appears that I have stumbled upon some kick-ass artists. Check this out!

The make-up artist is Make-Up By b.b. Check out some of her AH-mazing work:

Photographer: Rusty McDonald

Photographer: Rusty McDonald

Photographer: Marie Killen

Photographer: Urban Decay/Chris Cooke

Like, I am DYING over these photos. Edgy and cool, but with the ability to make women look totally beautiful. I could not have hand-picked someone better. I am so excited to work with her!

And now check out the photographers. I'm a little confused as to the who/what of them. It appears that two photographers have joined forces but I'm not sure if that's professionally and personally, or just professionally. So many photographers are husband/wife teams, it's hard to tell. The pictures I'm showing here are not from their individual web sites, but from the on-line combined effort on Model Mayhem. Individually they are Marie Killen and Scott Russell, together they are Russell-Killen Photo. Check this shit out:

So can I go ahead and say it? Yes, I think I have to.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I am so nervous. I have so much to do. I totally shouldn't even be sitting her writing the bliggity blog. I need to be sewing! I want to offer an array of product in hopes that I can get as much photographed as possible. I have no idea what to expect, no idea what I can or can't request (if anything) or how to even walk into this scenario. What I do know is that I've got a platinum opportunity to have my stuff photographed and I hope the artists involved will forgive me my stupidity should I eff something up. Wish me luck because the photo shoot is tomorrow! And check out all these photographers and the make-up artist, their stuff is super-cool eye-candy.

ACK! I'm off to sew!

Happy Valentine's Day, Lovers! Oh Yeah, and Something Else....

You people and your emails....I swear, it's some kinda hard to actually count emails on a computer screen. However, the team bucked up and managed not only to count, but to double check ourselves for accuracy (we were right the first time!). 

Thanks to everyone who participated in the contest: contestants, finalists, ALL the voters (you people are exhausting in your determination!) and all the other wedding junkies, websites and bloggers out there who shared this little battle for free wedding photography! I'll tell you, this was one heated contest. It was hard to tell who was going to win as we watched the votes come in, it was that close. We had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and HUNDREDS of emails come in and it came down to twenty-six votes. Only TWENTY-SIX votes put one couple over the edge! Amazing.

So without further delay.....drumroll,  please......

The winners of Dulce Photograhpy's FREE WEDDING DAY PHOTOGRAPHY is...

SHELLY AND RYAN!

CONGRATULATIONS, YOU TWO!

Carissa will be in touch with you shortly to hammer out the details. I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Thanks again to everyone who participated in this contest! It's been fun. I wonder what kind of contest is coming up next?

Stay tuned.....

Do Over.

Dear Thirty-Something Bride Readers and Contest Finalists,

There are bots at work. Robots, that is. And they are voting. And voting and voting and voting. I've spent WAY too much of my time over the last two days tracking this issue and trying to figure out what to do. Cancel the contest all together? Pull out the bot votes and count "real" votes only? Disqualify bot-vote recipients? Before I share what Carissa and I decided to do, I've got some things to say.

The intent of this contest was two fold. First, I wanted to help a sweet, talented woman get her name out into the wedding community. Carissa wanted to sponsor the contest and I was in support of her, the contest idea, and being the platform for that contest. Second, I wanted it to be FUN! I wanted readers to get to know the couples a little, not just see a picture or hear yet another sappy engagement story.

This intent has gone so far awry with the tech savvy hackers who have come into play. There is NO WAY to point a finger and blame, so please don't. There are so many different kinds of poll-voting codes out there, it's sick. There are a million ways to hack and many people do it simply for fun. In my research on this, I even found a forum where people will share different polls on-line, simply with the intent to hack them. So uncool.

So, that being said,  we are starting fresh. Yes, that's right.

I've spoken with Carissa as well as the Legal Team here at The Thirty-Something Bride. We cannot count the votes as is. We simply cannot. Because we cannot precisely determine who is hacking, I am not going to blame anyone. Could I spend a crap-load of time trying to nail a culprit or two? Sure, but I'm not going to. Why? Because that is NOT what this contest is about. I will not let lame hackers determine the outcome of what is supposed to be a most wonderful prize and opportunity for the winning couple and the talented photographer. I will not disqualify people for something they may or may not have had a part in.

I feel absolutely awful at how this has played out. It was supposed to be fun.  I've participated in similar polls many times and I think they are awesomely exciting, which was the point. However, our voting has been compromised and we need to take this action in order to make it fair for all parties involved.

I am mortified and embarrassed that my website has been compromised. As a blogger and a sponsor of this contest, I humbly apologize for the inconvenience and heart-ache this may have caused anyone involved. Truly, that was never the intent. The maliciousness of the internet world is scary and strange. We understand that many, many, people worked hard to vote their asses off for their favorite couple. To you, we apologize profusely and hope you decide to vote again. 

To vote for your favorite couple, all you must to do is this:

1. Please send an email to DulceContest@gmail.com.

2. Please put the name of the couple you would like to vote for in the title of your email AND in the body of the email.

That's it! Easy-peasy, right? We will accept emails until FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11th at 11:59pm.

We will count ONE VOTE per email address.

GOOD LUCK to ALL our finalists!