Sara Gray Photography Portland, Oregon

Well, I think it’s about the sweetest name for a line of unique bridal dresses I’ve ever heard. But that was before I heard the story.

This is the lovely (newly married!) Sara Temme. She’s the force behind Love, June Bridal. She named it after her grandmother, June, whose classic 1930s style helps to influence all the things Sara creates. June still writes Sara letters on her typewriter and signs them “Love, June” at the bottom. Sara said it’s been fun to create this myth of the woman who inspired it all, and since it’s so personal to her, it’s an effective way to drive her vision for the business.

Sara’s a self-proclaimed “fabric junkie,” who has been sewing since she was a kid (making her own crazy clothes from thrift-store fabric in high school) and after completing OSU’s Apparel Design program, she worked learning how to make unique custom bridal gowns. Over the past several years, she’s moved from totally custom gowns into creating her own lines of wedding gowns, which are thoroughly unique and gorgeous, not to mention Sara’s always thinking about how to move toward zero fabric waste while she’s building them.

Sara is like me (other than just having the same name): she’s a bit of a perfectionist, always making sure everything is built well and that quality is first, otherwise she can’t let a dress go out the door to a client. But it’s the personal touches of working with her throughout the process that her brides rave about.

Sara and I worked together on my most recent inspiration shoot, where her Francoise dress made a fabulous statement, and I’m so glad to have gotten to know her a little better. If you’re looking for a fabulous and original locally-made gown for your big day, she’s your gal. Check out her Web site or her Etsy shop.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could all drop $100,000 on a wedding? I’d love it. But it’s just not a reality for most people.

The good news is, you don’t need that kind of money to have an unbelievable wedding. The secret: You don’t have to spend too much money. Instead, you can use time and creativity to make it gorgeous, and a phenomenal time for all your guests.

I’ve seen a ton of weddings, and in my experience, there are great ways to pull off a budget wedding and some ways that just don’t work. Here are my three top ideas for making your wedding fit your budget, without sacrificing style.

1. Cut your guest list.

I know it’s hard to hear, but the single best way to save money on your wedding is to invite fewer people. The alternative is not being able to properly feed, entertain and pay attention to your guests. More intimate weddings are on the way in, anyway, and it takes some of the stress out of your big day.

Think about possibly inviting just family and close friends for a more personal event. Then, really spoil those guests that mean the most to you with a nice meal and lots of personal attention from you, the bride and groom. Guests go out of their way to attend weddings, and it’s only right to make sure you thank each of them personally for coming.

2. Pick a different time.

In the wedding world (particularly in the Pacific Northwest, with its pronounced seasons), everyone wants to get married on a Saturday in July or August. Well, there are only eight of those Saturdays each year, so they’re like gold to wedding vendors. If you pick a different day of the week or time of year, you’re much more likely to be able to get off-season or weekday discounts with venues and vendors (I offer a 10% discount to off-season couples).

Have a winter wedding with a white-on-white snowy theme to take advantage of slower winter months, or have a fun cocktail party wedding on a Thursday or Friday night. Weeknight weddings are gaining a lot of popularity, and they’re an opportunity to buck some of the more traditional aspects of the wedding and really have fun with friends and family.

You can also go your own way by scheduling your wedding at an unusual time of day. Host a morning wedding and serve brunch following the ceremony as a way to save money on food, but still send everyone home satisfied. You can also do a dessert-only reception, but make sure you don’t schedule your wedding during dinnertime, because guests will come hungry and be unpleasantly surprised.

3. Use your imagination

Lots of couples think that since they don’t have much money to spend, they don’t have many options for decorations or a theme. I think the opposite is true — being short on money can force you to think outside the box and come up with some really original ideas that make for a fresh theme for your wedding. You can buy cheap citrus bulk and use them as centerpieces, like I did in an inspiration shoot in March. Lately, I’ve been dreaming of styling an entire wedding using artichokes — if you played it right, I think it could be very Anthropologie. Go vintage and collect plates, glasses and silverware at thrift stores before the wedding, pick wildflowers in a field and use them for your bouquets and centerpieces or fold a thousand paper cranes. Think beyond the traditional ideas and pave your own way by using items that mean something to you and finding the beauty in the everyday object.

Because every post is better with a photo, I thought I’d share this one from my own mother’s day celebration a couple of weeks ago. I made this centerpieces from tin cans, IKEA tealights, mason jars I had sitting around and flowers from my mom’s garden. It was beautiful (and everyone loved it), but it only cost me about a buck (for the tealights).

Sharing this inspiration shoot makes me want to jump up and down, because I’m so happy with how it came out. Here’s some more photos from that Sunday afternoon magic, to enjoy today.

I know you’ve been wondering about that dress since I started sharing this shoot, so I’m going to let you know about Sara Temme from Love, June Bridal. She makes handcrafted, truly unique bridal gowns and I was lucky enough to stumble upon her as I was planning this shoot and looking for something a little less traditional. This is her “Francoise” dress, which is a seriously gorgeous piece.

I’m constantly amazed at the work that Jennifer Walker of Face Body Beauty does for women — totally stunning.

What would an inspiration shoot of mine be without a fabulous pair of shoes? Well, it just wouldn’t be right. This is a pair of Steve Madden heels I’ve been eyeing for awhile and I thought they’d be just perfect for this shoot.

I love all the stuff that The Party Place can provide — Kathy is my contact there, and she helped me to organize all this so that I could come up with the cohesive look I was going for.

Happy Friday, and I hope you enjoyed looking at this inspiration shoot as much as I truly enjoyed putting it all together. Have a great weekend!

I had a beautiful wedding almost three years ago myself. But being in the wedding industry makes you see new ideas and contemplate all that you could have done for a stunning celebration. One of my favorite ideas over the years has been the idea of a morning wedding, followed by a nice brunch. This might be because of my undying love of pastries.

I’ve been dreaming up a concept for a brunch wedding for a long time, and a couple of weeks ago I finally made that concept a reality when I partnered up with some fantastic Oregon wedding vendors at Saucebox Restaurant to shoot this inspiration shoot.

The basic idea for this brunch wedding celebration was to build it around a feminine pink-and-white palette. Meg from Fieldwork added punches of darker pinks in her unbelievable centerpiece, which is topped off with a handcrafted table number by Erin Frano from Foosie Design. All our rentals for this shoot came from The Party Place.

Erin from Foosie Design went all out, with a gorgeous pink-and-white invitation suite and personalized place cards for each place setting, as well as an embellished program. Erin sells this specific invitation design, called “Olivia and William,” on her site.

Sitting at the table are the ravishing Cat and Jeremy Sloan, who are already married. They are friends of Eric and I’s from college at Washington State University, and I’m so glad they agreed to come out, get glammed up and be in love for the camera. Cat’s hair and makeup was done by the incredible Jennifer Walker of Face Body Beauty.

If you know me and my pastry habits, you won’t be surprised to hear that those rhubarb Danish came from Baker & Spice in Hillsdale, which is my neighborhood bakery and the place you can regularly catch me eating everything in sight.

Those menus are also the handiwork of Erin Frano — she sent a whole coordinated suite for the shoot, and it fit perfectly.

We brought in some delicious French macarons from — where else? — Pix Patisserie. They are known for them in Portland, and they come in tons of flavors. We got coconut and raspberry, which were fantastic.

I’m so excited to be sharing this shoot! It’s not over yet, though — come back Wednesday to see the rest of the photos from this girly brunch inspiration shoot!

In one of the more exciting moments of my week, my latest inspiration shoot was featured on The Wedding Chicks blog on Wednesday. I’ve got to tell you — the vendors I worked with on this shoot were just amazing, and I think it really came through in their hard work and creativity. Here’s the video from the shoot, and I’ll be sharing more photos from it on Monday and Wednesday of next week. Enjoy!

May Inspiration Shoot from Sara Gray on Vimeo.

I’d like to thank:

Tia from Saucebox Restaurant, my friends Cat and Jeremy (our models), Jennifer of Face Body Beauty, Meg from Fieldwork, Erin of Foosie Design, Sara from Love, June Bridal and Kathy from The Party Place for making this a reality! Also, a huge thanks to crooner Courtney Freed for providing the music used in the video. And, because I know someone’s going to ask, those shoes are from Steve Madden.

Happy Friday!

Morgan and Kyle’s wedding was simple and small, but it had all kinds of style. I loved their blue mason jars lining the short aisle for Morgan to walk down. Kyle waited patiently for her as she walked through rocks and sand in her fabulous wedding-day shoes to get to him.

Morgan’s dress and Kyle’s casual beachy outfit were so perfect for the setting.

Watching Morgan and her dad share a dance was really sweet, but it was almost sweeter to watch her mom, sisters and best friend watching them dance. It was such a nice moment that I’m sure they’re all going to remember for a long, long time.

Yes, that’s right – Morgan hiked up that fabulous dress and dragged it all around the beach until it was all sandy around the edges. I thought it was awesome.

What a beautiful bride!

After Morgan and Kyle’s small ceremony, they gathered together with their family and friends and they ate cake, they toasted the newlyweds and they spent the evening together. It was a gorgeous night in Cannon Beach, and such a wonderful celebration of their relationship.

Congratulations to you, Morgan and Kyle! It was an honor to be a part of your wedding day, and I wish you years of happiness.

When you’re a bride in the Pacific Northwest, you often grit your teeth and know that on your wedding day, it may well rain. Especially if you’re getting married at the coast. Especially if you’re getting married in the spring. Especially when you’ve planned it all to be outside on the beach as the sun is setting.

I think that’s why, on Morgan’s wedding day last week, she was a little shocked when her wedding day, at the Ocean Lodge at Cannon Beach, Ore., was a magnificent, sunny, breezy day. It was a perfect day for a wedding.

I photographed this wedding as a second shooter and a help to my friend Karen of Avayah Photo, and Bunn Salarzon came along for the fun too. At a wedding with ten guests, I have to tell you that it’s pretty funny to have three photographers. But it was a total blast.

Grooms usually need a little help with their flowers. Here, Kyle’s dad and Morgan’s stepdad both stepped in to help.

The Ocean Lodge is a stunning venue, not to mention the staff there was friendly and really went out of their way to make Morgan and Kyle’s day special. I’d love to shoot there again!

For awhile now, I’ve been really into small weddings, so I just loved the intimate-ness of this wedding. Attending were Morgan and Kyle, all their parents, Morgan’s two sisters and brother and her best friend. Everyone was so close! It was really emotional and sweet.

This is Morgan getting ready, just as she started to feel a little nervous about walking down the aisle. I love that moment with brides! I’m going to save the extra-yummy beach shots for Wednesday. Be sure to come back and see the magic of this sunset wedding!

It’s not very often that I do a high school senior portrait session — I used to, but it’s not super common these days. Sometimes, though, a lovely person comes along and I just can’t resist. Anna and I got together last week to do her senior session and I’m so happy with it, I just had to share!

Anna is a Jesuit student (my alma mater) and a super bright and talented chick. She’s going to the University of Washington in the fall and she’s going to study languages and international studies. She speaks Japanese and Spanish. She’s pretty amazing.

Because Anna has traveled all over the world, we styled her shoot to make it feel very European, including borrowing this 1951 bicycle from one of my fabulous brides, Morgan! She and her fiance have done tons of work on it and I think it’s so fun.

Anna looked absolutely ravishing — Jennifer Walker of Face Body Beauty did her hair and makeup.

Thanks so much, Anna, for coming out and being so much fun for an afternoon! I can’t wait to hear about your successes next year and beyond!

If you have been reading my blog for awhile now, you know I’m a huge fan of GemKitty. Their design-your-own process is perfect for everyday, but lends itself particularly well to bridesmaid gifts since you can personalize each piece of handcrafted jewelry. And any day now, they’ll be launching design-your-own earrings! I recently got together with the masterminds behind GemKitty to help them with some new photos of their beautiful stuff.

This is Cecilia. She’s stunning and an up-and-coming Portland model. I loved photographing her!

This model is my sister, Emily. She loves earrings and wears them like crazy, so she was so excited to be a model for this shoot!

There are so many great varieties of earrings that’ll be available through GemKitty once they launch.

Thanks, gals, for being so fun to photograph! Now get over to GemKitty and get yourself a necklace or some new earrings!

Alright, alright — I know it was yesterday. But I wanted to share some photos of my family from Mother’s Day on the blog. Eric and I hosted brunch at our place (which is always sort of comical since I have a really big family and a rather small apartment). But we had loads of fun and lots of delicious food.

I made some totally DIY centerpieces from aluminum cans, Mason jars, tealights and flowers from my mom’s garden. They came out so fun!

This is my mom, opening some of her gifts. She’s the best.

In my family, we have these “You are Special Today” plates and you get to eat off of them on your birthday or other special days. I got my red plate for my wedding. We had to pool our resources to come up with red plates for all three moms: my mom, my aunt and my older sister. They’re together below.

I also made scones for only the second time ever and they were pretty delicious.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the great moms out there — and the ones in my family!