Style... the New Black: Living Room Finishing Touches OR Just An Excuse to Share My Wedding Photos

Our living room has by far been the room with the most put into it with new chairs, throw pillows, up-cycled end tables, and finally art on the walls. Well, one wall, anyway. I don't know what it is about hanging things up on the walls in the new house, but I've been SO nervous to put holes in the walls. It makes no sense. I know I can always spackle and re-paint and it's really no big deal. But something about it has just been hard for me.

Our long-term plan for the living room is to invest in a much larger, nicer flat-screen TV to mount on the wall behind the piano. That left me the wall behind the sofa to play with for the time being. I have always wanted larger prints from our wedding, but I felt like investing in those pieces when we lived in the apartment was silly. Now that we've bought our own home, I'm gradually working on getting prints of our favorite wedding photos to hang up around the house. The wall behind the sofa was the perfect place to start.

I happened upon a sale on 11X14 inch canvas prints on Snapfish and I just couldn't resist. They were only $15 each! I know they aren't the highest quality canvases, but guess what? The highest quality canvases come at a high cost. Anyway, there are SO many photos from our wedding that I would love to have blown up and printed and hung all over the house, but that might get a little cray cray. So, I chose a set of three pictures that are meant to be grouped together and ordered them during this amazing sale. I'm completely in love with how it turned out:

The sign below the photos was a wedding gift from Sam's coworker Lindsay and much like printed photos from our wedding, I didn't hang it until we were in our new house. In our old apartment, we kept it out, but never found a great spot for it. I always planned that when we bought our own house, I'd find a nice spot for it.

I can't write this blog post without giving credit to our wedding photographer, Chris Keeley. When I first saw a wedding he photographed, I made a mental note to reach out to him if I ever got engaged. Just two years later, he photographed our wedding. Having Chris as our wedding photographer was so important to me, I actually chose a date partly based on HIS availability. I had three wedding vendors that I was intent on hiring and he was one of them. The other was my make-up artist, Joanne of Joya Beauty and the third was our videographer, LMV Productions.

I definitely want to print more photos from our wedding, but it's really hard to narrow it down! I look at our wedding album often- it's in the drawer in our coffee table- if you ever come visit, ask to see it because it's kind of amazing. I think that photography and videography should be at the top of your list when it comes to wedding planning. After all, photos and video are really all you have to look back on afterwards. One of my favorite traditions for Sam and I is sitting down together on our anniversary and watching bits and pieces of our wedding video and looking through the photos in our wedding album. I love hearing his voice crack during our vows. I love seeing the faces on our guests when they are told it's a wedding, not an engagement party. I love listening to the singing around the piano of all our guests- our closest friends, family and loved ones. If you invest in anything for your wedding, invest in capturing the memories. The food, the flowers, dare I say it- even the dress- are only for that day, but the pictures and video can last forever.

Anyway, I'll finish up this post with a handful of some of my other favorite wedding photos. Why not, right? It was a beautiful day! And let's be honest- I'll use just about anything as an excuse to show off our wedding photos. I'm a little shameless like that.