Anatomy of....Winter Bride

This weekend I had the {honor/pleasure/terrifying experience...again!} of photographing a wedding.
I typically don't do weddings because:
A.  I think I need different equipment to fully do what I think is necessary at a wedding.
B.  I spend so much stinkin' time editing my photos that it would take me months of work to     edit all the photos I take at weddings which would mean I would have to charge a ginormous amount of money to make it worth my while which would mean that my target market would probably be very small so maybe I should go ahead and advertise for weddings?
C.  I have no desire to deal with bridezillas.


But, I had no need to worry about a bridezilla with my *fab* bride this weekend, Megan.  It was barely 30 degrees outside but she went along with my crazy request to get a few outdoor portraits (in her strapless gown!) since the church was so dark inside.   I only had about 10 minutes to photograph her and the groom  but we were able to get some great portraits in the afternoon light.


Here's one that I just knew was gonna be great as soon as I saw it in the camera.  Megan had an awesome vintage fur coat that she put on at the end and I loved the glam look it added~


I don't usually do this but I'll show you one of the final edits first...

Now for the editing part....I opened my original file in Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac:

First I adjusted the Levels just a little to whiten it up a bit.  Then I noticed that her eyeliner had come off at the very corner of her right eye.  This made her eye look rounder at the end instead of pointier.  {hope those technical terms don't confuse you!}  Anyway, I wanted to smooth out her eyeliner to the end of her eye so I went to Filter - Distort - Liquify...

While in the Liquify tool I used the "finger" tool and just smoothed out the eyeliner to a point just like I would do with my own finger if I were smudging it on her face.  Here's a close up with the eyeliner smudged:

It's those tiny little details that can make or break a photo:)
Next I used the Coffeeshop Baby Powder Room to smooth her skin then I flattened the image.


I decided to use the Coffeeshop Coffee with Cream action to give this image a very creamy look.  I ran the action then erased out the bottom part around the coat and lowered the gradient to 67% so it brought back a little more color...

After that I thought it needed a bit more dreaminess so I ran the Orton action....one of my absolute favorites for portraits these days!  I lowered the opacity on the Orton layer to bring back some definition...

Beautiful!  Here's my final again...

But, as usual, I couldn't let it alone:)  I wanted to see if I could add a little more of a high fashion look so I ran the PW Seventies action and lowered the opacity...

Here's my final with the Seventies look to it:

I like that one too!!  
I've got plenty more shots to show off from this incredible bride...and her handsome groom wasn't too shabby either~


So tell me, which version do you like best?