Oh, No Wedding Planning
I swear, I'm going to talk about something other than wedding planning here soon, especially now that we've picked a date. It's just been wedding-a-palooza here lately. It's been a little annoying because I've had a lot of writing to do, but haven't gotten any of it done. Last Saturday at the bridal shop we bought this wedding organizer, which is supposed to be really helpful, but it's made me slightly more nervous and confused. I was really startled when I was flipping through it and it said the average wedding cost $21,000. That doesn't feel that can be right, on the other hand it is possible. But there's no way our wedding budget will be anywhere close to that.
I think buying the dress made things a little more real for Mike so he's been willing to make some decisions he'd put off. Ever since we'd been together and started first talking about getting married, he wasn't sure which of his two best friends he'd ask to be his best man. They're brothers and one is more quiet and Mike wasn't sure how comfortable he'd be with the toast. The other is more gregarious and Mike had the opposite and worried he'd be a little too comfortable and talk for twenty years. He ended up picking the quieter one, which is cool with me. I didn't really have a preference but I've spent more time with the quieter one. As I predicted it was a lot easier for him than it's going to be for me. It was basically "Do you want to be my best man?" "Sure." "Cool." I think there's going to be more conversation for me.
I said before that Mike didn't really want to pick a date until we had saved more money and had a better grasp on the budget. But after I'd bought the dress I said that our next most important decision would be picking a date. He surprised me by saying that we could pick one. Actually, more specifically, he said I could pick one out. I didn't want to pick out a date alone so I asked him to come up with some suggestions but he was no help ('Spring or Summer could be good. Winter or Fall would work, too.') I didn't want us to pick a random date. I was thinking a year from now would be a good idea. I started thinking maybe around May 15 because that was when my parents had gotten married. But I started thinking about dates more special to the both of us. And there were a couple of dates in August where we'd first started communicating on EHarmony. One was Aug 9, which was the first day I'd seen a picture of him and sent him a small little "hey" icebreaker. It took him a couple of weeks to respond. I started thinking Aug. 23 would be more perfect because August 22 was the day he finally responded to my icebreaker and August 24 was the day he sent his first e-mail to me. I thought it would be cute to have all three days have some significance. But I started thinking about when school starts back up and his sister said school starts back up around the 26th. His sister Amber's got young kids and she's going to have to come for the wedding from out of state. I didn't want to pick a date where she has to worry about a wedding and school starting again. Plus, I didn't want to wait that long anyway.
So I suggested to him either around May 15 next year or August 9 next year and explained why. Secretly I hoped that he wouldn't, but he liked the August 9 idea. For many practical reasons it's the best option but UGH I don't want to wait that long. I want to be married to him! But I agreed, so August 9 is now our date. And with over a year to go, I can relax a little and not worry about making a lot of decisions yet.
There's a long way to go, but my mom and Jean are making me a little worried they're going to drive me a little crazy. I know they're trying to be helpful and I do appreciate it, but they can both be a little much. Mom's texting me every day with suggestions and questions. She's made two "demands." Not demands really but two big requests. She wants her brother to perform the service and for my sister to be maid of honor. I'll probably ask my sister to do it. It sounds horrible, but I'll probably ask her because I don't have many other options. My sister and I aren't particularly close, though we got along a little better now. Her brother presiding over the ceremony is a little more problematic. We thought about having a friend or family member to do it. But my uncle is an elder in a Jehovah's Witness congregation. She said it wouldn't really be a religious service, but I'm not sure how exactly it would work or if Michael wants any religious stuff at all.
Jean's also letting her opinions and suggestions known strongly. She's constantly sending me pictures of heels even though I don't know if I want to wear heels. She also keeps showing me pictures of up do's. They're pretty and I could possibly pick one, but I don't really want an up do really. Today she asked me to pick between two guest book she found at a store. She just told me the colors and I said I'd have to see them. She wanted to take me there today, but when she asked I'd finally just got done cleaning and doing stuff around the house and didn't feel like going anywhere. She was insistent because she had a coupon for 50% off that expired that day. I said that I'd just wait and shop around for what I wanted in a guest book. She got a little irritated and said a guest book really wasn't important. Important or not, I still want to pick what it's in my wedding myself. She finally went to the store herself and sent me a couple of pictures. I didn't really like either. She came back with another guest book. It was nice. I liked it and Mike liked it and she gave me the receipt in case I wanted to return it, but I still got a little peeved that she bought one when I said I wanted to look around myself.
At one point we were walking around outside and Michael suggested that it would be possible to have the reception at our house. We have a really huge backyard and a lovely pond out in the back. If we cleaned it up, it could be nice. And it could save us a lot since in my wedding organizer it said that 35% of the budget could be spent on the reception. It's a nice idea but we're not sure it's doable since we don't know where everyone would park.
A few months ago when Mike and I started informally talking about the wedding we kind of worked out a guest list. We figured out the most important people we wanted to invite and it came to about 50 people. We knew, since most people would be coming out of state that the final number would be far less than that. So we thought we might be looking at a guest list of 25-50 people. This week, I decided to sit down and formally write down a list of guests. We divided it up into who we had to invite, who we should invite, and who it would be nice to invite. I started on a sort of small piece of paper. Quickly, it got filled up and I was shocked. I had to move to another piece of paper. We had mostly only done Michael's side of the family and it was already at fifty. By the time I was done, the list was up to about 91. So it might be a guest list of 60-90.
Mike and my biggest stumbling block might be the honeymoon. Due to our financial situation Mike doesn't really think we can afford a big honeymoon and keeps looking for stuff around Florida. For me, I want our honeymoon to be really special and I don't want to go somewhere we can go to any old time. Even if we don't go out of the country, I do want to get out of Florida. I asked Mike if money was no object what his dream honeymoon destination would be. Most of his spots are beaches. He mostly just wants to relax on the beach where waiters hand us drinks constantly like in beer ads. :) I am not much of a beach person. There was one place he suggested that I really liked. Colorado has always been one of his favorite places and he said he'd love to be sitting in hot tub while also getting to watch the snow falling outside. That is something that appeals to me. I want to find a compromise that both of us will like.
I've been meaning to do it for a long time and finally went online and started pricing plane tickets to different destinations. You could only look up tickets less than a year in advance so I only got to check as far as April of next year. I decided to start with Cardiff since that's where I've wanted to go the most recently. I was actually shocked when Cardiff ended up being the most expensive ticket. I thought since it was a smaller city than London it wouldn't be as expensive but a ticket from where I am in Florida to there was almost $1400 dollars per person. For London you could get a ticket for $1000, depending on when the flight was. For Rome, Italy it was the same as London. To got to Dublin, Ireland was a bit cheaper. You could get a one for about $730 per person. That's slightly more doable for us.
Since Hawaii is such a popular honeymoon destination, out of curiosity I decided to check it out and was shocked to discover tickets cost like $1200 and even more shocking to me was that the plane ride could take up words of 29 hours. I can't believe it takes that long. New York is another place I suggested that we could go. I was born there and lived there for awhile, but I haven't been there in ages and never really did anything tourist-y there. Tickets there were pretty inexpensive for $285 dollars.
A pattern I saw was there weren't a lot of later flights and the later flights are more expensive than the earlier ones. We still haven't decided what time we want to start the wedding. I'm guessing that with a non-religious ceremony that part won't take more than an hour and the reception could be about three to four hours. We could potentially start the wedding at noon and catch a flight at 5 or 6 o'clock. Or we could wait and catch the flight in the morning. My big problem with that is there aren't a lot of non-cheap motels in our city and I'd rather not spend our wedding night somewhere crappy.
So, still a lot of decisions to make and I'm not sure exactly where to start but at least we know when the wedding will be now and there's time to decide.
Stacey
I think buying the dress made things a little more real for Mike so he's been willing to make some decisions he'd put off. Ever since we'd been together and started first talking about getting married, he wasn't sure which of his two best friends he'd ask to be his best man. They're brothers and one is more quiet and Mike wasn't sure how comfortable he'd be with the toast. The other is more gregarious and Mike had the opposite and worried he'd be a little too comfortable and talk for twenty years. He ended up picking the quieter one, which is cool with me. I didn't really have a preference but I've spent more time with the quieter one. As I predicted it was a lot easier for him than it's going to be for me. It was basically "Do you want to be my best man?" "Sure." "Cool." I think there's going to be more conversation for me.
I said before that Mike didn't really want to pick a date until we had saved more money and had a better grasp on the budget. But after I'd bought the dress I said that our next most important decision would be picking a date. He surprised me by saying that we could pick one. Actually, more specifically, he said I could pick one out. I didn't want to pick out a date alone so I asked him to come up with some suggestions but he was no help ('Spring or Summer could be good. Winter or Fall would work, too.') I didn't want us to pick a random date. I was thinking a year from now would be a good idea. I started thinking maybe around May 15 because that was when my parents had gotten married. But I started thinking about dates more special to the both of us. And there were a couple of dates in August where we'd first started communicating on EHarmony. One was Aug 9, which was the first day I'd seen a picture of him and sent him a small little "hey" icebreaker. It took him a couple of weeks to respond. I started thinking Aug. 23 would be more perfect because August 22 was the day he finally responded to my icebreaker and August 24 was the day he sent his first e-mail to me. I thought it would be cute to have all three days have some significance. But I started thinking about when school starts back up and his sister said school starts back up around the 26th. His sister Amber's got young kids and she's going to have to come for the wedding from out of state. I didn't want to pick a date where she has to worry about a wedding and school starting again. Plus, I didn't want to wait that long anyway.
So I suggested to him either around May 15 next year or August 9 next year and explained why. Secretly I hoped that he wouldn't, but he liked the August 9 idea. For many practical reasons it's the best option but UGH I don't want to wait that long. I want to be married to him! But I agreed, so August 9 is now our date. And with over a year to go, I can relax a little and not worry about making a lot of decisions yet.
There's a long way to go, but my mom and Jean are making me a little worried they're going to drive me a little crazy. I know they're trying to be helpful and I do appreciate it, but they can both be a little much. Mom's texting me every day with suggestions and questions. She's made two "demands." Not demands really but two big requests. She wants her brother to perform the service and for my sister to be maid of honor. I'll probably ask my sister to do it. It sounds horrible, but I'll probably ask her because I don't have many other options. My sister and I aren't particularly close, though we got along a little better now. Her brother presiding over the ceremony is a little more problematic. We thought about having a friend or family member to do it. But my uncle is an elder in a Jehovah's Witness congregation. She said it wouldn't really be a religious service, but I'm not sure how exactly it would work or if Michael wants any religious stuff at all.
Jean's also letting her opinions and suggestions known strongly. She's constantly sending me pictures of heels even though I don't know if I want to wear heels. She also keeps showing me pictures of up do's. They're pretty and I could possibly pick one, but I don't really want an up do really. Today she asked me to pick between two guest book she found at a store. She just told me the colors and I said I'd have to see them. She wanted to take me there today, but when she asked I'd finally just got done cleaning and doing stuff around the house and didn't feel like going anywhere. She was insistent because she had a coupon for 50% off that expired that day. I said that I'd just wait and shop around for what I wanted in a guest book. She got a little irritated and said a guest book really wasn't important. Important or not, I still want to pick what it's in my wedding myself. She finally went to the store herself and sent me a couple of pictures. I didn't really like either. She came back with another guest book. It was nice. I liked it and Mike liked it and she gave me the receipt in case I wanted to return it, but I still got a little peeved that she bought one when I said I wanted to look around myself.
At one point we were walking around outside and Michael suggested that it would be possible to have the reception at our house. We have a really huge backyard and a lovely pond out in the back. If we cleaned it up, it could be nice. And it could save us a lot since in my wedding organizer it said that 35% of the budget could be spent on the reception. It's a nice idea but we're not sure it's doable since we don't know where everyone would park.
A few months ago when Mike and I started informally talking about the wedding we kind of worked out a guest list. We figured out the most important people we wanted to invite and it came to about 50 people. We knew, since most people would be coming out of state that the final number would be far less than that. So we thought we might be looking at a guest list of 25-50 people. This week, I decided to sit down and formally write down a list of guests. We divided it up into who we had to invite, who we should invite, and who it would be nice to invite. I started on a sort of small piece of paper. Quickly, it got filled up and I was shocked. I had to move to another piece of paper. We had mostly only done Michael's side of the family and it was already at fifty. By the time I was done, the list was up to about 91. So it might be a guest list of 60-90.
Mike and my biggest stumbling block might be the honeymoon. Due to our financial situation Mike doesn't really think we can afford a big honeymoon and keeps looking for stuff around Florida. For me, I want our honeymoon to be really special and I don't want to go somewhere we can go to any old time. Even if we don't go out of the country, I do want to get out of Florida. I asked Mike if money was no object what his dream honeymoon destination would be. Most of his spots are beaches. He mostly just wants to relax on the beach where waiters hand us drinks constantly like in beer ads. :) I am not much of a beach person. There was one place he suggested that I really liked. Colorado has always been one of his favorite places and he said he'd love to be sitting in hot tub while also getting to watch the snow falling outside. That is something that appeals to me. I want to find a compromise that both of us will like.
I've been meaning to do it for a long time and finally went online and started pricing plane tickets to different destinations. You could only look up tickets less than a year in advance so I only got to check as far as April of next year. I decided to start with Cardiff since that's where I've wanted to go the most recently. I was actually shocked when Cardiff ended up being the most expensive ticket. I thought since it was a smaller city than London it wouldn't be as expensive but a ticket from where I am in Florida to there was almost $1400 dollars per person. For London you could get a ticket for $1000, depending on when the flight was. For Rome, Italy it was the same as London. To got to Dublin, Ireland was a bit cheaper. You could get a one for about $730 per person. That's slightly more doable for us.
Since Hawaii is such a popular honeymoon destination, out of curiosity I decided to check it out and was shocked to discover tickets cost like $1200 and even more shocking to me was that the plane ride could take up words of 29 hours. I can't believe it takes that long. New York is another place I suggested that we could go. I was born there and lived there for awhile, but I haven't been there in ages and never really did anything tourist-y there. Tickets there were pretty inexpensive for $285 dollars.
A pattern I saw was there weren't a lot of later flights and the later flights are more expensive than the earlier ones. We still haven't decided what time we want to start the wedding. I'm guessing that with a non-religious ceremony that part won't take more than an hour and the reception could be about three to four hours. We could potentially start the wedding at noon and catch a flight at 5 or 6 o'clock. Or we could wait and catch the flight in the morning. My big problem with that is there aren't a lot of non-cheap motels in our city and I'd rather not spend our wedding night somewhere crappy.
So, still a lot of decisions to make and I'm not sure exactly where to start but at least we know when the wedding will be now and there's time to decide.
Stacey