I'm going to preface this by saying that I can't wait to marry David. It will be the best day of my life and I literally get reallyyyyyy antsy thinking that I have to wait a full 4-more months!
On the other hand, there's this pesky thing of a wedding to plan. And in that regard, it's ONLY 4 months away! I am in some ways really okay with this amount of time: we already have a venue for both ceremony and reception, a photographer, ideas on caterers (but admittedly, no actual phone calls have been made on the food front), and I have a dress and I think bridesmaid dresses/color picked out with the help of my one local bridesmaid (
http://www.etsy.com/shop/thejerseymaid). My mom has blocked off some rooms in the hotel across the street from the reception venue.
I was nervous about the photographer thing because I put it off until this week, but it seems like having an off-peak wedding date is really helping us in our procrastination category since the ones I contacted were all available.
I am kind of psyched about our photographer though. When I actually sign a contract with them I'll share a link, but they are a young couple I know through school things that started their own photography business last year. They're Christians, and their photos are beautiful -- I've been admiring his photos for years now. And totally affordable since they're newbies. And since all photos are digital nowadays, our package includes getting digital copies of ALL of the (edited) photos they take? Is that a thing now? It's awesome!
Next big step is a DJ. I don't know anything about DJs. But I want people to have fun and dance, you know? A good or bad DJ can make or break that fun-ness of the reception.
There will be no idiotic bouquet toss or garter toss, there won't be hours of toasting, and our first dance will be as short as possible. We might not even have a cake (I mean, pie? mmmmm, pie). Pretty much, we want to arrive, have best man/maid speak briefly, and start the eating/dancing part of the reception.
Maybe we'll have a mini-cake that we can cut and shove in each others' faces, because that's kind of fun.
The tables MIGHT have centerpieces.
Basically, I'm going at this in the "I want my guests to have a good time" attitude and not a "planning a wedding" attitude. Then, they might not notice if we sneak out early ;-).
And if we wanted to sprint on all this, we could totally be done by now. We put off a lot of things and are kind of taking our time. My mom asked me the other day where my bridesmaids will be getting their hair done. Like, WHAT? Should I already know that?? 4 months, mom!
The hardest part will be guest-list related. I hate it. Our reception venue will fit 100 people and no more. Which is fine, and actually quite a sizeable wedding. If Dave got to choose everything, he'd have 10 people at our wedding, so 100 is big for him. So we're happy with it. And the venue is really gorgeous, comparably inexpensive due to its size, and conveniently located in downtown State College.
But with my huge family, things get nerve-wracking, figuring out who to invite. And this is one of those times where being one of the later couples to get married among our friends is annoying, because there are SO MANY COUPLES. And children. Easily doubling/tripling the number of people that we would have invited years ago. I mean, we'll probably have a no children policy (do kids actually have fun at weddings anyway? Nah). And a "nobody gets to bring a guest unless you're married to them or we're friends with them too" policy. And a "if we haven't seen you or had a real conversation with you in a year then we aren't inviting you" policy. Which I think are reasonable, but also have the potential to offend. Blah.
Or maybe it'll make people happy. I can honestly say that if I don't get invited to another wedding ever again, I will be happy about it. I've been to SIX in the past year. With another coming in December (barring any snowstorms), and then ours in March. After March, I am soooooo done. Please, let me be done.
But I know, in the end, it will be awesome. I will get to marry the man of my dreams and start the rest of our lives together. Wheee, so excited!
And I get to wear a pretty dress. Teehee.
