Weddingbee bios

Just your regular goofy girl woho found an equally goofy soul to enjoy life's adventures with.

We met virtually on MySpace! Through a mutual friend, of course. People are always surprised to learn that we met online through a social networking site.

He used to work together with the mutual friend (who was dating one of my best friends. Coincidentally, they met on MySpace, too!) My goofball (let's call him Mr. Wea) was THE KING of leaving hilarious comments our friend's wall. In turn, I would comment on the wall about the funny comments.

One day I got a message in my inbox from Mr. Wea telling me that I seemed like a pretty cool girl and asked me to be his friend. I thought, why not? He was obviously funny and I asked our mutual friend who vouched for him, saying that he was a really cool guy.

So pretty soon, I was lucky enough to receive Mr. Wea's hilarious comments and we became fast MySpace friends. One day I got another inbox message. This time asking me to grab some lunch. I wasn't sure if it was a "just friends" lunch or more. So I actually asked him if my friend could join us too (my friend that was dating our mutual friend). He didn't seem to mind, so my friend came along as our buffer. (Side note: I was also her buffer the first time she met her boyfriend--the mutual--for the first time. They are now happily married and expecting!) She was totally cool with it, even joking with me that it was an awesome opportunity to ask Mr. Wea questions about her boyfriend.

It just so happened that the day we decided the lunch to take place was St. Patty's day. We had lunch, it was great. I thought he was cute. Totally not anywhere near the spectrum of the guys I've usually dated. And my friend got some questions answered. And we made plans to hang out later that night for St. Patty's.

Needless to say, Mr. Wea and I have been inseparable since that fateful St. Patty's Day! =)

Mr. Wea proposed to me on a re-enactment of our first date at Disney's Boardwalk here in Orlando. He was so sweet and super nervous--even though he already knew I'd say yes! He's so silly!

He proposed on Christmas Eve of 2008.

Mr. Wea and I have a dream. And that dream is to live in our most favorite place on Earth... Hawaii.

Mr. Wea is a firefighter and he has been trying since even before we met to get a job for either the Federal Fire Dept. in Hawaii or for the City and County of Honolulu Fire Dept. He's actually in the middle of the hiring process right now for C&C FD. He started this process around the summer of 2008.

He first flew out there to take the written exam. We found out in Oct '08 that he passed the test and was scheduled to take the physical agility test for March '09. We agreed that for this next trip, I would go with him! Aloha, Hawaii!

He received his information packet and we found out that there were 2 agility tests, spaced a week apart. Which meant that we would have to take a 2-week long trip! (Oh darn... hehe)

Well, we had just gotten engaged on Christmas Eve and I was itching to plan anything. I'd been thinking about engagement pictures for a while. I knew I didn't want your standard Olan Mills stop and pose pictures. I wanted them to be a good representation of Mr. Wea and I. You know? LOTS of character, 'cause really, character is definitely something neither one of us is short of. I was joking with him one day and told him that we should get our pictures done while we were in Hawaii. His response was: "Whatever you want honey." Yessssssss...... "Hey babe! We're going to be in Hawaii for two weeks!" Double Yessssssss......

Back then I was just toying with the idea, but I started Google searching Hawaii photographers. You can imagine the long list I got in return! Obviously there are a lot of photographers in Hawaii...I mean, when you live in paradise, you can't really go wrong!

I started first with the ones that had websites, of course. I narrowed it down to ones that had the style and feel I was looking for. I'm not even sure how many I contacted or e-mailed. I even asked one of Mr. Wea's friends in HI if she knew of anyone that was good, but affordable. Everyone I contacted was either too expensive or they wouldn't let us print the pictures on our own. Things weren't really looking good.

I prayed to God to either help with my search or give me acceptance that it wouldn't happen. The next day I come across Jana Morgan's website. I fell in love with her photos and her style. But I thought, "Man, she's good! We probably won't be able to afford her..." So at first, I just drooled and wished.

My day went on and I searched some more. I even went on the Honolulu Craigslist to see if there were any affordable photographers. And what do I see? An ad that Jana placed in Craigslist! Not just one, but I kept seeing her ad every few entries. So I finally thought, "What the heck? Wouldn't hurt to contact her."

So I filled out the little contact form on her site (You know? Standard name, e-mail, phone, description...). I told her our situation: that we just got engaged, love Hawaii, I'm obsessed with getting our e-pictures done while we were there and (most importantly) we didn't have much money to spend. Okay, hit send.

I was actually greeted with an e-mail from Jana later that night. It started off with: "Is that a 407 area code?!" Turns out, Jana and her husband used to live in Orlando! She and her husband lived in the Waterford area. She also went to school in Sarasota and they had just visited his family near Lakeland during the holidays. Small friggin' world!

YES! Something in common that I can cling to! We started e-mailing back and forth and I explained to her more about our situation. I was really drawn to her because she just seemed like a genuinely kind soul. It radiated in her e-mails. Not to mention she was totally in our budget AND she was letting us have shared rights to our pictures! Ask and you shall receive...

We set up a time to meet her and her husband, David, for lunch at Cholo's (THE BEST Mexican restaurant on the North Shore--maybe ever) that first Sunday we were in Hawaii. Over lunch we found out that David was born and raised near Lakeland and graduated from UCF. And his favorite movie of all time is Dumb & Dumber! (Oh my goodness, they might as well call themselves family!). So Mr. Wea and David bonded over redneck relatives and Dumb & Dumber quotes. :)

Our engagement session was fantastic! We ended up hanging out with The Morgans a few more times during our trip. It was seriouly like hanging out with old friends! They're awesome!

Seriously, How awesome is Jana Morgan? You tell me!

All photographs taken by Jana Morgan. http://janamorgan.com/