Fleur de Lips: Monumental Love: I Sphinx I Love You

Add the Pyramids to the list of couples who strongly recommend a first look! In a practical sense, the key driver was to get pictures out of the way, but it also allowed us to spend a special moment together without anyone else around (well, except our paparazzi). Several family members and friends have looked at our pictures and said "Wait - so you saw each other before?" From their point of view at the ceremony, nothing was missing. Not like I shuffled up the aisle, gave Sphinx the 'sup nod, and he said "Oh, hey, it's you again." That moment was still special in it's own way (and when we get there, you'll see even more why I'm glad we did the first look!).

If you're anti-first look, I'm not trying to sway you otherwise. However, if you like the idea of a first look but are worrying about missing out on "the aisle moment" - trust me, you won't.

Can you spot the bride creeping up in the mirror?/All photos by Eau Claire Photographics

I was never struck with inspiration for a really cool place for the first look, so I defaulted to what was the most convenient: the club level lounge at the Windsor Court. My parents got a room on a club level floor, so that we'd have that access, but I booked ours on a regular floor so that we wouldn't need someone to escort all the vendors up to the room, and it worked out great. Random bridal wisdom of the day: don't book your room on a restricted floor if you've got a bunch of vendors showing up.
The plan was for Sandra and me to head upstairs, then have Sam, Sphinx, and the videographers follow once I was hidden. Sphinx's request was that we do this without any family or bridal party around, and I'm happy we did - it was so sweet to be (mostly) alone.

On the way up to the lounge, we nearly had a big "oopsie" moment - the room where I was getting ready was on floor 12, the room where Sphinx was getting ready was on floor 16, and the lounge was on 18. As Sandra and I were in the elevator going up, it stopped on 16. I even said "Wouldn't it be funny if that's them try to come upstairs now?" Sandra had specifically told them to wait for her word to come upstairs - and then we see her husband Sam at the doors, I hear a familiar male voice, and I see a guy in a tux reflected in the mirrored walls of the elevator. We both start screaming "No! No! Go away! Get back!" She was slamming the "close doors" button and I was trying to shrink back into the corner so that those in the hallway couldn't see my reflection in the mirrors. Turns out it was not Sphinx, it was just one of the groomsmen in the hallway, but we didn't have a long enough time to verify that and went straight to the freak out. It's a funny little story to tell now, but not exactly ideal in the moment.

Checking the mirror to make sure he wasn't peeking.

When we did get upstairs, the lounge area was completely clear except for one of the workers doing some cleaning up around the coffee bar. On the tour of the hotel, the booking manager had told me that if there were hotel patrons using the club lounge, they couldn't guarantee that we could use the space for any photos. We were willing to take our chances at 3:45 on a Saturday, but I was still nervous to get shooed away from our only viable picture location. I was prepped with my sob story: "Can I stand over here? We were supposed to take pictures outside, but it just won't stop raining, and it's our wedding day - please don't kick us out!" And the lady didn't care one bit that we were using the area, she just said congrats and let us be.

And that's how we find ourselves here. Both photographers and both videographers situated themselves up to not be in each other's shots, and positioned Sphinx in front of the window, all while I awkwardly waited behind a wall for them to tell me they were ready.

I walked up behind Sphinx and said "Hi," indicating he could turn around. In my mind, I didn't want to tap his shoulder, because I wanted to have my dress all fluffed out and veil perfect for the big reveal. Which did work - it just didn't prevent some really awkward arm placement on my part.

No seriously, Miss P, whatcha arms doing?

Oh who cares, look how cute this guy is!

His first statement when he saw me: "You look gorgeous." Can't ask for more than that, right?

I mean, I'm not going to tell you guys that Sphinx cried at our first look. He's a manly dude. But I'm just going to leave this picture here for you and you can make what you will of it.

And while my soon-to-be husband was getting all ~~emotional~~ some dust in his eye, I was just downright giddy to be reunited and finally showing him my dress.

I was spinning around showing him the whole thing. "Do you like it??"

I've said it before, I love surprises (and if this were a novel, I'd say this is a character trait that foreshadows a future event). Especially when I'm surprising Sphinx, so even though he knew I was going to come up behind him, it still gave me all the happies to surprise him with my look. And I just couldn't wipe my smile off my face, even though I was tearing up some too.

This picture. Why isn't this picture on a canvas in my living room? I need to get on that.

After all the hugging and kissing, we chatted a little bit. I asked him how his morning went, he told me he ate a lot of pulled pork. He asked me how I liked the letter, and I said that I loved it and noticed he wrote it on the shiny paper. He said he wrote so many drafts he ran out of regular computer paper and had to dig into my craft box.

We checked out his new goodies.

No ring! That'll change soon, my dear.

Then we stepped out on one of the tiny balconies and grabbed a couple of pictures before heading back downstairs to meet up with our bridal party.

We have a longer trailer than what I've already shown you guys, and in it the videographers edited Sphinx's letter with the scenes from the first look, and I just had to share that here as well.