Brett H Perkins – Murfreesboro, Tennessee

So… as I said yesterday, Eric and I made some ad hoc plans to head to Opryland Hotel for pictures. He invited Victoria and Chris and we all met at Opry Mills. After a few minutes of parking mayhem and some shopping, we headed to the Hotel. It was, as expected, VERY pretty this year. Victoria and Chris had never been, so it was awesome to introduce them to the place. It really is a magnificent hotel! We went to some pizza place in the Delta, an area of the Hotel, where we had some dinner and started the picture taking fun!!!

It started with a few risqué pics on a light pole and move onto some very nice pics of some other areas. We were going to go to the water-fountains show, but we missed the last one, so we will have to catch that another time. We walked through the Hotel, taking routes we had never taken before. See, usually, we do the same thing every year. We get there, hit the water show, then walk around, go to the spinny bar (a bar on a round platform that rotates very slowly) in the Cascades, then take pics around the Sky Garden and other areas before heading outside to play with the Three Wisemen. Well, we changed that up this year, and QUICKLY learned our lessons. We kept hitting dead ends!!! So, we went back to our old route, which seemed to work much better, anyway.

We walked through the hotel and finally got to the Cascades areas of the Hotel. We took a seat in the Spinny Bar and had a drink. It was funny, though, when we sat down, V and Chris were surprised… They were like, “Are we moving.” Awesome! After one full rotaion, our typical duration of the spinny bar, and some fun picture taking with the drinks, we hopped up and went through the Sky Garden. In the Sky Garden area, there is a Jack Daniel’s restaurant… so we took a picture with the sign there when a few girls asked the hostess a very obvious question: “Do you have a bar?” I CRACKED UP!!! I was like, really? Why would you have to ask if there is a bar at a Jack Daniel’s Restaurant. The more appropriate question would be “Hey, do you have to be 21 to get in here?” Anywho… we moved onto taking pics with a lit up bear that was next to the restaurant. Or did we do that before the question? Oh well… that was fun. We then did something new, we went out in front of the Hotel. They do a REALLY good job of lighting up the trees outside of the Hotel, and they have some really pretty sculptures, nativity scenes, light poinsettias, etc… I was able to get a LOT of really good pics of the lights, so I will be able to use them in art for next Christmas! W00t! We got some pics by the lit trees and then moved back inside to finish the night. We took some great pics by this REALLY big fireplace in the main lobby of the Hotel then headed back to the Delta to get pics in front of the large Christmas Tree. Unfortunately, during those pics, Victoria slightly injured her foot. She jumped down off of a platform and a sharp pain travelled up from her foot. She was down for the count and couldn’t walk for a bit. We headed out and I grabbed the car to come pick everyone up. Luckily, her injury was short-lived as the pain went away pretty quickly. Thank goodness for that!! I was worried.

The pictures all came out really good!! I got about 90 good pics. They are all posted on my Facebook, so you should head over there and check them out!!

We’re going to get dressed up on Saturday and head back to take more pics! I can’t wait!!

-=brett=-