Greatest Escapist: Our Wedding Day: The First-Look Photos

The morning of our wedding, Mike & his groomsmen got ready at our apartment in Tremont, just a couple miles from downtown. They headed back to the hotel when they were ready, which means we don't have any pics of them getting prepped - none of those standard groom-adjusting-his-tie-in-the-mirror pics.

Then again, how do dudes "get ready," anyway? By... tying their shoes & taking shots? Probably.

First snafu of the day: The spot inside the hotel where we'd planned to do our first-look photos was not available on our wedding day, as the hotel coordinator had told us it would be. Instead, when the groomsmen arrived there to wait for the photographers, they sent the bridesmaids a frantic text: That whole section of the hotel was filled with conference-goers!

Plan B: Luckily, our photographers are consummate professionals who excel at thinking on the fly & adapting to their surroundings. They found a spot just around the corner from our hotel with a brick wall that served as our first-look locale instead. Unfortunately, that meant we had to be outside for all our pics, & it was really freaking cold, but hey, it worked well enough.

Look how joyful we are.

After our first look, we wandered around for a little while, trying to get good shots with interesting backgrounds - which isn't easy in downtown Cleveland in winter. We didn't want to go too far - I was in my dress, & we'd yet to, you know, actually walk down the aisle, so we didn't want to do anything that would mess it up, & I couldn't walk super well in my size-too-big-&-stuffed-with-Kleenex heels. We got a few in the Public Square area, though, which still retained some of the colors of fall.

It was so out of our comfort zone to take photos like this. We're not people who, like, get professional photos taken, & we felt so weird wandering the streets smiling & faux-laughing & gazing longingly at one another on command. We were really happy, though, so it wasn't that hard. Just cold!

Please believe me when I tell you it was just so freaking cold. I happen to love winter - or at lest prefer it to summer - but my bridesmaids, all of whom loathe cold weather, only put up with it because, you know, they love me.

They were desperate to get inside. When it came time for the photographers to take photos of me & each bridesmaid, one on one, each of them clamored to go first so that they could get back inside!

We let our bridal party go back inside, then Mike & I took some more photos together around downtown - again, without going too far. There's this very cool statue called The Fountain of Public Life, or Peace Arising from the Flames of War, which was originally erected as a Korean & Vietnam War memorial. It doesn't feel like a war memorial, though, if that makes sense, so it was a perfect spot for a few additional photos.

It was so cold that I didn't originally want to head back out for this second round of photos, but I'm so glad we did. Weirdly, we don't have many photos from the wedding itself of Mike & me together, aside from the ones at the altar (is it called an altar if it's not at a church?), so I'm really relieved that we acquiesced to going back out into the cold, after all.

I love these ones... even if all the walking around did damage my dress more than a little. Oops! My sister scrubbed the train like mad, just minutes before I walked down the aisle.

This next photo is one of my favorite of the whole day, but unfortunately the coloring is off, maybe because of the time of day or the way the sun was shining or God-knows-what. I don't care, it's my favorite anyway.

And cold or not, look how blue that sky is!