Happy Black Friday to all shoppers and Pretty Little Wedding readers! My fiance and I were out this morning for about two hours braving the crowds and we’re glad to say that our short trip was pretty successful! How was yours?

So, now that you’ve got a few gifts to wrap, we thought we’d tell you about Adore By Nat, an Etsy vendor that makes the cutest gift tags and greeting cards. Stop on over to snatch up some of these Christmas gift tags (below, $3.50 for a pack of 12), but be sure to check out Nat’s non-holiday offerings for your wedding needs. I especially love these Paris-inspired gift tags for a bridal shower (below, $3.50 for a pack of 7).

Tim had mentioned getting married in passing to Sarah, but the sentiment was usually muddled in with questions about first taking another big step—moving in together. Sarah refused his offer again and again, she said, because she didn’t want to move herself or her 1-year-old daughter into a new place without a commitment. “It had become a joke for Tim to say, ‘Sarah, will you move in with me?’” Sarah said. “He knew my answer. ‘No, Tim, not until we’re engaged.’”

So without her knowing, Sarah said, Tim approached both her parents and “asked if could have permission to marry their daughter and to take on being a parent to Alyssa. He has always put her needs ahead of everything else, which I find very commendable. I say this over and over daily, out loud and in my head—I really have found the perfect man.”

On June 27, in front of Tim’s home, “he grabbed me by the arm and asked me to move in with him, knowing what my reply would be,” Sarah said. “After the expected, ‘No, Tim, not until we’re engaged,’ I turned around to find him on one knee holding a ring.”

Sarah dropped to the ground, shaking, she said. “Once I recovered from that off-the-wall reaction, I jumped up, threw my arms around him and said yes,” Sarah said. “Soon after, the tears came. And after my roller coaster of emotions was over, Tim asked if I would let go of him so he could show me the ring. What kind of girl forgets about the ring?!”

Sarah and Tim will be married on June 11, 2011, Wendigo Lodge in Grand Rapids, Minn. Congratulations to you both, and thank you again to Gina Zeidler for sharing these images with Pretty Little Weddings.

Sarah and Tim had total trust in their wedding photographer—until Minneapolis-based Gina Zeidler told the couple they’d be posing for their engagement photos in their PJs.

“Tim and I were making small talk with Gina, and she asked us what we liked to do in our spare time,” Sarah told Pretty Little Weddings. “I quickly replied that we were boring and didn’t do much. Liked to watch movies and eat junk food. Little did I know that Gina’s creative mind was hard at work while I was blurting out whatever came to the tip of my tongue.”

Gina told the couple to pack PJs for their session and Sarah said, “We said ‘okay’ but later in the evening, we started wondering if she was actually serious about the pajamas. Engagement pictures and pajamas seem like an odd combo. But if anyone can make it work, Gina can.”

Sarah continued, “When the time came to pack our engagement attire, Tim and I were both hesitant to pack our PJ’s. I remember thinking, ‘Is she going to think we’re nuts because we actually brought them? Was it a joke?’ It wasn’t!”

The couple brought along their favorite munchies—a smattering of sour candies—and followed Gina up a hill and onto flat ground, where they spread out thrift store blanket Gina had bought beside dried grass and twigs, opened the candy and began to play. “We laughed hysterically and were never put into a position that seemed unnatural,” Sarah said. “We went from candy eating binges to tickle wars, grabbing lots of kisses in between. All the while, Gina was capturing everything.”

Sarah said, “Every person that sees our pictures is absolutely dumbfounded. Gina is so good at what she does, and the reaction I get when people look at these pictures is 50 times better than I could have ever hoped for.”

Thank you to Gina for sharing these incredibly cute photographs with Pretty Little Weddings, and for giving our brides the following advice when preparing for their own engagement shoots: “I would ask each couple to dig deep, to figure out what defines them and what makes them tick and incorporate them,” GIna said. “I just ask my couples many questions like, ‘What they do for fun? What do they do for date night? What takes up 50 percent of their time?’ Then get creative with your photographer and the props will show up. My favorites are pieces of how he proposed.”

Come back tomorrow for more photos from this session!

Laurie and Scott nearly never met. Mutual friends invited Scott to join their crowd at a lounge the last day of Laurie’s last day in Phoenix, but Scott declined. He was tired. Scratch that—he was exhausted—and he didn’t feel up to the task of socializing with a woman he’d never met.

But then he drove past The Roosevelt’s parking lot and a spot just outside its front door was available. “So I said, ‘Why not? It’s just one drink,’” Scott said, and walked inside.

“He walked in the room and I saw him, and what can I say—I felt moved,” Laurie said. ”I felt relieved. Something sort of like, ’Oh, there you are.  I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’”

A series of exchanged e-mails and a month later, Scott boarded a plane for New York City, where Laurie lived, to take her on their first date. “We actually had six dates that summer day,” Laurie said. The pair sat on her front stoop, noshing on fruit, took a walk, talked on a park bench, toured the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and listened to live music at the Bowery Ballroom.

It was at the modern art museum that Scott said they knew. “There was one piece everyone was waiting in line to see, but you couldn’t tell what it was,” Scott said. When they stepped through the opening, Lauren and Scott saw themselves reflected in mirrors mashed across a wall. “That’s the moment we knew we were meant for each other.”

Laurie said, “By the next day, we were in love. We contemplated going to city hall to get hitched but it seemed crazy, so he flew home.”

A year later, the couple was engaged and began planning their Andover, N.J. wedding. The first venue they saw, the Crossed Keys Inn, became the site for a celebration that told the story of their love. “It was a beautiful early autumn day. The dahlias were in full bloom, the bees buzzing around,” Lauren said. “Again, it was love at first ‘site.’ We went to see one other place, but it was too late—I was already in love.”

For the bouquets, “we used herbs as sort of a starting point,” Laurie said. “Mine would have lavender, and my sister’s would have rosemary. There was one with sage and another with ornamental basil.  The flowers were yellow dahlias and there were lots of wild, spiky accents like thistle that would pick up the slate color of the bridesmaid dresses.”

The couple forsook floral centerpieces in favor of terrariums. “I’ve always had an interest in dioramas and little stories,” Laurie said, “and I wanted an artifact, or a living thing as a centerpiece, something that wouldn’t be thrown away.”

Laurie envisioned the terrariums as “a tiny diorama of one of our favorite memories, or a future plan. Something about our life together, contained in a little garden.” She planned to make the mini-gardens herself, but “it wasn’t until a few weeks later that I realized how in over my head I was. By then, I realized how many tables we had, and we had compiled a list of our favorite memories and plans for the future that we wanted to make ‘scenes’ out of.” The couple found Tassy and Claire at Sprout Home, who agreed to make the centerpieces. “Nothing could have prepared me for how fantastic and magical the terrariums were,” Laurie said. Laurie and Scott found figurines for the terrarium scenes, and wrote stories to go with them.

Thank you to Pat Furey for sharing this incredibly special wedding story with Pretty Little Weddings.