Onada Photography » Onada’s Wedding

My Bridal Shower Invitations!

Onada — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:37:40 +0000

How fabulous are my best friends? Take a look at my bridal shower invitations and you can decide :)

My big sister Ata from InkHearts.com put these gorgeous invitations together based on the theme they chose, despite being occupied with her twin babies. I saw them and was totally awed – Fabulous and very me! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this Ata!

The invitations arrived in this pretty little box -
Just in case you are wondering who Bola is -It’s me! That’s my first name, Onada is my middle name – people call me either or :)

And inside was this gorgeousness -

Did you figure out the theme yet? The shower took place this past weekend. Wait till you see the photos!
Coming soon :)

Protected: Our Traditional Wedding! ~ Photos by Jide Alakija

Onada — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 17:36:45 +0000

Bridesmaids Cards

Onada — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:06:35 +0000

I thought it would be a good idea to share my “Will you be my bridesmaids cards” especially since I have a lot of brides-to-be reading the blog :)

I got these gorgeous little water color wash cards on Etsy.com from an amazing shop called Lily & Louise. They came with different dresses on the front (which I chose to represent the unique personalities of my BFFs) and they were also blank inside which was exactly what I was looking for as I wanted to be able to add a hand written personal note to each of my friends. Here they are (illuminated by my desk lamp as I decided to photograph them the night before I dropped them off in the post) -

The shop gives you the option to customize the cards to your choice – I personally liked the ones that she already had listed and if you can’t tell from the photo the paper stock and detail on these cards is just gorgeous! (You can feel the little hanger and elevation of the dress hanging on it!). Here are all of them in unison (one is different from mine) from the Lily & Louise shop -

I purchased a gift to go along with these cards for each of my friends but you’ll have to visit my lookbook to find out what the other gift was and the story behind it :)

Thanks for stopping by and I have many more updates to come!

My Google Reader Line Up!

Onada — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:21:35 +0000

I have a new obsession and its my Google reader :)

I’ve always kind of used it to view my favorite photography blogs in one place but I wasn’t a religious user or anything – I would log in every couple of weeks to see what was new. However, now that I’m engaged and planning my wedding my Google reader experience is on a whole new level thanks to all the fabulous wedding planning blogs I’ve recently discovered and thanks to all the blogs my fab friends have sent me (and of course thanks to my iphone too).

Since most of my clients are future brides and a lot of my friends are dating, soon to be engaged, engaged or married with their own wedding related businesses I thought I’d share the blogs currently in my reader. So here’s my list (In alphabetical order) -

All Things Lovely
Bliss Event Group
Clover and Bee
Classic Bride
Elizabeth Anne Designs
Green wedding Shoes
Grey Likes Weddings
I Love Lolli
It’s a Jamie Thing
Once Wed
Polka Dot Bride
Ritzy Bee
Snippet and Ink
Southern Weddings Magazine
Style Me Pretty
The Bride’s Cafe
The Connecticut Wedding Blog
Wedding Chicks
Wedding Nouveau
Wedding Bee

If you guys have any other blogs you’d like to recommend I’d definitely love to know about them :) In the meantime enjoy the list and I’m sure they’ll be super helpful to you!

p.s. I created a section on my look book where I talk more casually about this whole experience so make sure you stop by!

And the planning begins :)

Onada — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:42:52 +0000

So as the engagement settles in, G and I have begun planning our wedding :) Exciting huh? We are looking at an early fall wedding in the states next year and have come up with an initial checklist that we’d like to complete before we think of anything else (I’ll get into the checklist for our traditional wedding we are having next June in Nigeria in another post). The items on the checklist are as follows (in order of priority):

1. Find a wedding planner (complete – yay)
2. Find venues for the ceremony/reception (pending)
3. Find a wedding photographer (pending)

The wedding planner: We wanted someone who lived in Philly or in the Philly area (although I live in NJ, G lives in Philly and we’d like to get married in Philly), someone who knows the city, someone who understands the vision we have for our wedding and isn’t going to push or force us to do anything we don’t want to, someone I can get along with for the next year and send a million emails :) – just joking Kathy! - and just generally someone we’d love working with. I know a couple planners but none of them lived close by and then I remembered during Nicole and Roosevelt’s engagement session I had asked Nicole who her wedding planner was (side note: Nicole by the way is one amazing chick and I’m so glad to call her my friend now – check out her blog here). So after Nicole’s wedding, I asked her about her planner again and she told me she was amazing and I just had to meet her!

Kathy Bado owns The Wedding Factor and as soon as I met Kathy I knew she was perfect for us. She’s an amazing lady with so much insight, I mean there’s so much I assumed about planning weddings that I was totally way off about, the first being that it’s not easy peazy (and you’d think I’d know this being a wedding photographer lol). We are so happy to have someone to guide us through this process because I wanted to think of my wedding day as perfect and fabulous which I know I personally do not have the time or expertise to plan all by myself. Kathy has been one step ahead of me – it’s almost like before I think of something she suggests it and she’s totally on top of the vision we have for our wedding. Love it! For all you Philly bride’s to be searching for a planner, definately check out TheWeddingFactor.com.

2. The Venues: We are having a large wedding here. 300 to 350 guests. It’s daunting but we’d love to have all our close family and friends be a part of our special day which pretty much comprises of 300 to 350 people lol. That being said finding a venue we love is proving to be a bit of a challenge. Philly has a million gorgeous venues, majority of which are too small for our wedding size :( I’ve also kinda limited our options majorly because I don’t want a hotel ballroom reception. Hotel ballroom weddings can be amazing and absolutely stunning but it’s just not our style…but perhaps we’ll have to settle? I won’t give up though (and Kathy our rock star planner is totally on this). We have two places in mind that could possibly work…or not. Fingers crossed!

3. The wedding photographer: No venue = No photographer hahahaha. On a serious note our wedding photography is a huge deal for me. I’d get married in a shack on the roadside if that’s what I’d have to sacrifice for the photography I want and love. I could look at photographers I love forever and ever but I’ve settled on two of my absolute favorite photographers that fit within our budget (budget, this is a very important word in wedding planning). I’m finding it hard to choose but then I can’t really think about it until I have a venue with a confirmed date and then we can make our final decision hoping and praying that one of them is available. Fingers crossed here again :)

So there’s my first wedding update. If you feel like hearing about the emotions and all the other craziness involved stop by my Lookbook here.

I’ll be back soon with more engagement sessions and wedding posts – and of course more updates on planning my wedding :)

Thanks for stopping by!