The Knot is have a Real Wedding Awards. The weddings with the most votes goes on to the finals. You can even enter your own wedding pictures in the contest. The grand prize for the bride and groom is a Safari Adventure!

I’ve selected two weddings to enter and the pictures below have links to each of their weddings. I’d love it if you would take a few moments to rate/vote for your favorites.

I’m back in the office after a wonderful trip to Bucharest.

We didn’t have an easy time getting back once our Bucharest flight landed at JFK airport.  The snow storm on Friday forced the cancellation of my flight to Boston and Brendan’s flight to Chicago so we had to spend the night at the Ramada Plaza Hotel at the JFK airport, which was a terrible hotel and I would avoid staying there if at all possible.  We felt like we were staying in a Motel 6.  On Saturday my flight to Boston went off without a hitch, but Brendan had 3 flights to Chicago canceled before he finally left at 4:30 pm…needless to say he had a really long day.

A quick post before we have to catch a taxi to the airport. Our last day in Bucharest was spent walking the city and exploring the some of places we’ve missed.  Here’s a few pictures from the day.

I can’t believe we ran into a wedding.  They stopped right in the middle of this rotary around the Arc de Triomphe.

We walked three miles to get to the Hard Rock Cafe, only to find it was closed for a special event.  The Hard Rock Cafe is new here, it opened in January.  We probably walked about 8-9 miles and I was exhausted!

We have an even longer flight home, ughh 11 hours, because we are going against the wind.  See you back in the US!

We went out into the Romanian countryside to a town called Sinaia on an early 8:30 train and arrived in Sinaia around 10 a.m. We were lucky we got to ride on one of their new rapid trains, and it was surprisingly crowded. This was the first train I’ve been on in Europe where you actually had to choose which train you wanted to take, had an assigned car and seat.

We always like to get out of the city so we can to get a feel for the country. When we left Bucharest, the land was flat and mostly farmland but as we got further away we entered the Prahov Valley and you could see the snow covered mountains in the background. As we entered the valley, the train ran alongside a small river which had a lot of trash in it. The countryside appears very poor and rural and there are still a lot of stray dogs even when you get out of the city. When we arrived at the train station we decided to get our tickets back to Bucharest. We thought we had bought round trip tickets yesterday, but there was a very nice family on the train sitting next to us that spoke English and checked our tickets for us and apparently we only had one way tickets. Good thing we checked! While Brendan went to get the tickets I went to the restroom and that was quite an experience! Their idea of a restroom is a hole in the ground and it definitely was not in the most sanitary conditions. I thought it would be funny to take a picture of it, but then thought that would just be too gross!

Sinaia is actually a popular ski area, so there were a lot of hotels and the town was a little touristy. We walked a short way out of town to visit the Sinaia Monastary and Peles Castle.

The Sinaia Monastary

Peles Castle

I had to pay to take pictures inside again. I guess I shouldn’t complain, a lot of places won’t let you take pictures at all.

A gorgeous chandelier made of Murano glass. This reminded me of our trip to Venice, where Murano glass comes from.

King Carol I built Peles Castle. Construction began in 1875 and took 39 years to complete. It was the first European castle to have central heating, electricity and vacuuming!

For some reason we saw a lot of stray puppies today. There were some in the train station and on our walk to the castle. This was just heart breaking! This poor little puppy was afraid to come out, while his brothers and sisters were out playing in the snow with their mom and dad. I just wanted to grab him in my arms and take him home with me!

Today we saw the real Bucharest. They have a long way to go. I think we are the only tourists here (at least Americans) and we stand out like a sore thumb. While most people speak English, there are still a lot of people who do not. We actually thought it would be very similar to Prague, but Prague is much more tourist friendly and I think has realized how tourism can help their economy, while Bucharest has not done much to promote tourism and we have not felt as welcome here. They are in desperate need of improving their infrastructure

A beggar asking for a handout as we walk by.

Piata Universitatii - This is where the 1989 Revolution began and this cross commemorates the first person who lost their life. Notice the Intercontinental Hotel in the background; this is where journalists were staying when the revolution started.

Bucharest has so many cars! And no place to park them, so people just park on the sidewalk. This makes walking the city very difficult. Crossing the street is also challenging. You must obey the signals otherwise you’ll get run over. At crosswalks where there is no signal, drivers are supposed to stop for pedestrians, but you usually have to step out into the street and challenge them to stop, and pray that they do!

We walked the steps of the revolution on our way to the Museum of the Romanian Peasant. Once again I had to pay to take pictures…50 Ron this time, which is about $20. The museum was nice, but there were not a lot of English descriptions, so we really had no idea what we were looking at. When we first got there I didn’t realize you had to pay extra to take pictures, so I got in a little bit of trouble:( They were very wary of us, and kept an eye on us the whole time. Do we look untrustworthy?

Romanians make beautiful embroidery.

And hand painted eggs.

Doesn’t this look like a Dr. Seuss character?

This is what a typical building looks like in Bucharest.

We stopped at the train station, Gare de Nord, on our way back to the hotel because we have decided to take a trip out of the city tomorrow to a town called Sinaia in Transylvania to visit Peles Castle. We wanted to make sure we knew where we were going and try to get tickets. This was definitely a challenge as they do not speak English there (very similar to Prague), but I learned a great tip from Rick Steve’s travel guide when we went to Prague, and that’s to write down where you want to go, when, etc. and they can usually figure it out. It worked.

No matter where you go in the world you can always find a McDonald’s!

I feel really bad about the dogs. Doesn’t he look sad:( Although we don’t have a dog, we are both dog people, but we feel the fact that we travel so much isn’t suited for dog ownership…cat’s aren’t as high maintenance. The stray dogs here are dangerous and could have rabies so you’re supposed to keep your distance from them. We saw a lot more today than yesterday and I’m sure it’s because of where we were in the city. I took both these pictures shooting from the hip while we were walking and that’s Brendan’s foot in the lower right hand corner.

After spending yesterday recovering from our flight, mostly sleeping and then getting some dinner. You won’t believe it, but there is a Pizza Hut right around the corner from our hotel. The place was a mob scene, but it was very different from a U.S. Pizza Hut, more like a European cafe, and everyone smokes! We have gotten so used to smoke free environments, it’s really hard to have to be surrounded by smokers.

We spent today just getting oriented to the city and we can definitely feel the roots of Communism here. While there are some beautiful buildings, there are also a lot of run down, dilapidated buildings and I thought traffic in NYC was bad!

When Nicolae Ceauşescu built the Palace of Parliament he had to tear down 1/6 of Bucharest to make room for the second largest building in the world (the first being the Pentagon). When he did this he tore down mostly apartment buildings forcing people to move to smaller apartments where there wasn’t room for their pets, so they let their dogs run free in the city. Bucharest is now home to over 100,000 stray dogs!

The Palace of Parliament was built in 1984. It took more than 700 architects and three shifts of 20,000 people, working 24 hours a day for five years to build. It has 12 floors, 3100 furnished rooms, 64 reception halls, and this year the NATO summit will be held here.

We took a short tour of the palace. I had to pay an extra 30 Ron (about 15 dollars) for a permit to take pictures.

A side street that we came across.

I have a love/date relationship with my Dansko clogs. I love them because they are so comfortable but I hate them because they conspire against me to humiliate me whenever possible, it has nothing to do with me;) The very first day I wore them I fell flat on my face walking down Newbury Street in Boston and today was just as bad. We arrived at JFK and we stopped at the restroom on the way to the Crown Room, as I was exiting the restroom there was a small rise in the floor and I tripped/lost my balance and went flying and landed hard on my knees and wrists. According to Brendan who was waiting for me across the walkway, it was anything but graceful! Of course I was carrying two bags, which also went flying. All these people came running to help me…it was quite embarrassing. Luckily there was no major damage to me or my equipment, although one of my knees is quite sore, but I’ll survive.

Hanging out in the Crown Room…

Our plane getting prepped for the flight…

Checking email

Watching the planes land. I thought this was a cool picture because you can see my reflection in the mirror.

Next time I’ll be posting from Bucharest!

Bucharest! And today is my birthday! Today is going to be a very loooong day. We fly from Boston to JFK and have a 6 hour layover before our flight to Bucharest. We really didn’t have a choice, it was either that flight or a flight where the layover was too short and we didn’t want to miss our next flight. So we’ll be hanging out in the Delta Crown Room trying to mentally prepare for a 10 hour flight to Bucharest. This will be the longest flight we’ve ever been on. Our previous longest flight was from Miami to Santiago, Chile in South America, which was 8.5 hours. I find flying eastbound to be the worst. You leave in the evening and are supposed to sleep on the flight and then arrive early in the morning there. I can never sleep on planes, and if I do, it isn’t a lot, so I usually spend the next day recovering.

Now, I’m sure you’re asking why in the world did you choose to go to Bucharest? So here’s the story…one day Brendan comes home from one of his many consulting trips and says “I know where we’re going next…Bucharest” I’m a little skeptical, “where did you get this idea from”…. “an article in the Delta Airlines Magazine.” Actually it was a special advertising article because Delta just started offering non-stop flights to Bucharest from JFK. So, without even thinking about it I said ok and we booked our trip. It wasn’t until after we booked our trip and I started doing a little research that I realized there really isn’t a lot of travel information about Bucharest. There are only a few travel books and they cover the whole country, with just a little section on Bucharest. So now I’m thinking, this could be an interesting trip!

Some tidbits about Romania:

• Nadia Comăneci is from Romania. She was the winner of 6 Gold Medals in the 1976 Olympics and the first gymnast to ever receive a score of 10 (a perfect score). I still remember watching it!
• Dracula, the novel and character created by Bram Stoker, was based in Transylvania which is located in Romania.
• Until the 1989 revolution, Romania was a Communist state. It’s last Communist leader was Nicolae Ceauşescu, who was captured along with his wife after the revolution, put on trial for genocide and both were executed.

Bucharest should be really interesting and we’re really excited to get there!

I will be out of the office until Monday, February 25th and can only be reached by email…Brendan and I are headed to somewhere far away where I won’t be able to call in for my phone messages and I don’t even think my wonderful Blackberry will work:(

Where are we going????  You’ll have to check back to find out!  Stay tuned for lots of great travel pictures!

First off I want to thank everyone who entered the contest and I have a special surprise for everyone who didn’t win, so make sure to keep reading!

The winner of the “Day After” Photo Session is….

Meredith & Eric

Here’s their story….

After a very long car ride and a night of anxiety (I had to meet some of his aunts,uncles and cousins our first night in Niagra Falls) we had a day of fun “touristy” things to do on the Canadian side of the Falls. We did the Journey Under the Falls, walked all around, did some shopping and felt the spray of the falls on our faces. It was a wonderful day….until I brought up marriage!!! I asked what he thought about it…and he brushed it off. I told him not to worry about money for a ring because i did not need one… and he ignored me! I began to become very upset. I didn’t understand why he was so against the idea. He had just introduced me to his family!!! But, he continued to just say “Why are you in such a rush”. Like I said, I began to become upset…to the point where at dinner I looked at him and said “You know what, I don’t think it is a good idea for us to EVER get married!”

After dinner we went back to our beautiful suite on one of the top floors of the hotel. Our room overlooked the falls (talk about an amazing view). It was about 8 pm and we had a romantic fire going in the room, and I was busy ignoring him and “throwing a fit” as Eric likes to call it! I was so sad at the fight we had just had that I really didn’t even notice the beautiful light show going on below us. The waterfalls were lit up in an amazing rainbow. With the water flowing and colors gleaming…I began to feel better! I turned to apologize to Eric for saying what I did at dinner. When I turned, he got down on one knee with a little black box in his hand! In front of a roaring fire and Niagra Falls in its glory, he proposed!!! I knew he really was the person I was meant to spend the rest of my life with. Come on…how many guys would propose to a girl not even an hour after she told him she never wanted to marry him!! We are definitely in this relationship through good times and bad!!!

Congratulations Meredith & Eric! They will be receiving a 2 hour “Day After” photo session, their images on DVD, and a 16×24 canvas wall mount!

Now onto my special surprise for the remaining couples.

I really didn’t get as many entries as I had anticipated and I’m a sucker for romance, plus I just LOVE photographing these sessions, so I thought it would be fun to give everyone who entered a Mini “Day After” Session. All of you will receive a one hour photo session and all your pictures on DVD for you to make prints from. Here are their stories…

Candace & Levi

Ok so to start Levi proposed on me on my parents 25th anniversary. So with a little background. we always have used cute nicknames/petnames. We have been together for eight years this march. During the beginning of our relationship i developed the nickname Pooh (as in winnie the pooh). On every holiday, birthday, anniversary i would get some form of stuffed animal or something to do with winnie the pooh. So on October 18th, i was at work in the ICU at the hospital, and i was approached by another nurse who said there was someone there for me. When i walked around the corner there standing in front of me was a person in a large winnie the pooh costume. For a moment i thought this person got lost on the way to the pediatric floor. Once i realized it was him, with a bag/box from Jared’s and balloons. I turned to express my surprisement to the staff all huddled around watching, i turned back around to find the winnie the pooh head removed with levi on one knee. He pulled me in close and whispered romantic words (just so i could hear) as he asked me to marry him. I have pictures too!! We still talk about that day at work often. What a great memory.

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Jen & Jack

It was a drizzly, dreary day in mid July. I was sitting at home alone thinking about what to microwave for dinner and what would be on TV that evening. My cell phone rang and it was one of my closest friends, Laurie. I picked up the phone and Laurie excitedly asked me if I wanted to go to a party that evening. I immediately responded with “I don’t know. Where is it? Who else is going?” She told me that it was in Hingham (a good 45 minutes from my house) and that she was invited by her boyfriend’s friend so she really didn’t know who was going to be at the party. She told me that it was going to be a huge party with a hot tub, swimming pool, and a live band. We would have to meet up with her boyfriend’s friend so that he could show us the way to the party. I looked toward my couch and the TV, decided that the party was a much better option, and told Laurie to pick me up.

An hour later we had arrived at our meeting place with her boyfriend’s friend. His name was Jack and I had never met him before. We pulled into the shopping plaza where we were meeting him and he was waiting outside his car for us to arrive. Laurie said “Let’s get out of the car so that I can introduce you.” I got out and looked at Jack and when I looked at him I felt something that I had never experienced before. It was like an electric shock going through my body waking up a part of myself that I never knew existed. I tried to behave normally as I said hello to Jack and shook his hand. He said “Hi, Jen nice to meet you” and something about his eyes seemed so familiar to me. I wondered if he was feeling anything toward me. I had never experienced such an instant connection to someone. I could tell that he was a fiercely independent, brave, confident, and adventurous person. Something inside me knew that we would be an excellent match and that we could bring happiness and fun to each other’s lives. To this day, I have no way of explaining the immediate attraction I felt, but four and half years later we are inseparable, blissfully happy, and engaged to be married in October 2008.

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Jill & Damon

I know people say this all the time, but I wasn’t looking for love.

I’ll never forget the day that “The Maintenance Man” came knocking on our door to fix the deadbolt lock. Not only was he easy on the eyes, but he was so nice and pleasant in conversation. As soon as he left, I turned to my roommate and said “Oh My Gosh, I just met my future husband!!” We found a good laugh in that and enjoyed scoping out Damon from afar.

So here we are, almost 4 years later: we’ve built a beautiful home, we have the most wonderful pets that we treat like our children, and now we’re getting married! On August 31st, I will walk down the aisle and say “I Do” to my Maintenance Man!

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Kate & Jason

Jason and I have been together since my freshman year of high school, his sophomore year. Truthfully, I was dating someone else when we met that afternoon in study hall. My boyfriend at the time was away on vacation in Europe so his seat in the auditorium, above me, was open. Jason decided that was a better seat than his. I knew he had an agenda, but he would say it was to be closer to his friends. Over the course of that week I turned around to “look at the clock” frequently enough that he finally asked me a question. I can’t remember a day since than that we haven’t talked. In fact that was sort of our thing. Every second we weren’t physically together we spent on the phone. One late summer night after my mother had already told me to hang up the phone I snuck out to the end of my driveway and he to his front porch. For some reason this night it was particularly hard to say goodbye. We simply stared into the clear night sky trying to absorb all the little things that make us who we are. We share everything from our favorite color to our family trees. We found ourselves staring at this spectacularly bright star. It was hard to feel so emotionally connected but not be able to even hold his hand.

These days I find myself thinking back to that night where I shivered in my driveway with butterflies in my stomach and hopes of what a future with this boy would bring. At the age of fourteen I knew I would have the honor of being his wife some day. That day is nearingand he still gives me those beautiful butterflies.

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So everyone’s a winner!! Happy Valentine’s Day!