Wedding

Wedding: Setting the Date

It has been a little while since I made an update about how planning our wedding has been coming along. One thing I mentioned in an earlier post was how we set our date the day we got engaged. That was one of the easiest parts of wedding planning, even though it took us a little while to select a date. 

In the years we have been together, I originally thought that if we got married it would be in my hometown in October. I grew up in Athens, Ohio, which is filled with bricks and tree-lined streets and in October is gorgeous with colors and the smell of crisp autumn leaves. I always get homesick in autumn because it is my favorite season - in part because of where I grew up. As The Boy and I got closer and closer to engagement and marriage, a few reasons to not wed in a cooler month came up, and thus, the idea of getting married in July or August developed.  

Eventually we expanded that date range, because July and August in Ohio are incredibly hot months, and we wanted to be comfortable on our wedding day, and try to ensure our guests would be comfortable, too. That led to The Boy and I brainstorming dates between May 1 and September 30 - in 2013. There were a few minutes where - jokingly, I must say - we used random number generator, which was very attached to Labor Day weekend next year. We didn't want to get married over Labor Day, so we started combing through our iPhone calendars for dates and ideas, before getting into an involved conversation about getting married next may. That was when I piped up "I was really hoping to get married on our seventh anniversary, but it's mid-week. I don't know how that would work for our families." 

You see, our anniversary is May 21st, which falls on a weekday in 2013. We debated and hemmed and hawed about dates, about times, and narrowed our dates down to two, one a few days after our anniversary, one a few days before. After much deliberation, we settled on the first Saturday after our seventh dating anniversary. On May 25th, 2013, we will be starting our lives together as Husband and Wife. I can't wait.

So, About the Ring

I’m not talking about that one creepy movie, either, but rather, the engagement ring. This post has been a difficult one to write, and I am not quite sure why. It’s mostly because getting engaged is such a personal decision, and every person’s engagement is so different, that it’s just a bit hard to write about the jewelry that comes with getting engaged.

For starters, The Boy and I mutually decided that we were ready to get engaged. We had a fun conversation that ended with the question “should we go look at rings together?” and just a few short days – and many websites – later, we made our way up to the mall to look and see.

Now, before I go on, can I just say that shopping for a ring, especially one you are going to be wearing for quite some time, is not an easy task. We didn’t know where to set our budget – because we didn’t know what we liked or what would work for my small fingers. We definitely did research, but pricing for engagement rings was all over, so we really didn’t know what to expect. Our goal when we began shopping was to scout it all out – figure out what we liked, and how much we could expect to spend. At least, that’s how it began.

Our ring search led to me trying on over a dozen or so rings, of all different shapes and styles. The rings I loved in the case and on the screen – ones with diamond bands accompanying the center stone – weren’t what I thought they would be on. Other rings I tried had settings that were higher than I liked, or bands that were gorgeous but not very comfortable. The more rings I tried and saw, the more I began to realize what I wanted – and what I wanted was simple, yes, but very me.

The woman helping us at the jeweler saw the styles I was gravitating toward and very gently asked what I preferred. That’s when I asked for simple, white-gold solitaires to try. She brought me four, and the third one I slipped onto my finger was the one. A simple solitaire that was perfect. The Boy agreed, saying that he thought that we should get it and that it was perfect for my hand, my ring finger, for me, and for us.

Not long after we purchased the engagement ring (along with our wedding bands, but that is a post for another day), we texted our friends, called our families, and announced that we were officially engaged. I had to wait a few days for the ring to come back from being sized, but as soon as it was in I was thrilled to be able to wear it full-time.

While our decision to get engaged was mutual, and we didn’t have the traditional proposal moment, we are both beyond excited with how our engagement began. We have never been for the traditional proposal, so how we decided to get engaged was exactly how we thought it would be, in the end. Now, we have 13 months to plan our wedding and take the next big step in our lives together. I can’t wait.

Wedding Planning: The Great Big Book of Everything

Today, my lovely Maid of Honor, Jessica, came over along with a few books she bought, filled with tips and tricks for planning our wedding. In addition to the books, she surprised me with an amazing binder she put together, to help The Boy and me plan our Big Day together.

The Binder, which I have dubbed “The Great Big Book of Everything,” (which is a reference to the kids’ TV show Stanley) has everything I need to successfully, and hopefully stresslessly, plan a wedding. She filled it with checklists, lined paper, graph paper, lists, pockets, and folders, and each section is marked with it’s own divider and tab.

The binder definitely plays to my organized side, and we spent a good deal of time sitting down with The Boy, discussing some details related to planning, organizing, and started filling in bits and pieces throughout our binder. As we did so, we realized just how much we have already decided, and our wedding isn’t for another fourteen months! It went a long way toward helping me feel less overwhelmed and more prepared for the planning that is ahead.

In the coming weeks, The Boy and I are going to sit down, look at venues, choose our photographer, start a registry, and pick out some save-the-date cards. I’m excited to see how this whole process will go, and especially excited for our wedding day.

All About the Wedding Planning

It wasn’t until I sat down with a stack of wedding magazines that I got from Erica that I realized I did want to blog about planning our wedding, the wedding itself, and all that I will learn throughout this whole process.

So far, wedding planning is off to a slow and easy start. We’ve chosen our wedding colors (red, black, and white), and have begun to ask friends to be our attendants. We’re working on making decisions about a photographer, venue, and attire, and the date? Was set the day we got engaged.

The purpose of this section of my blog is as much for me to have something to look back on, as well as to share bits and pieces of our wedding-planning process with you.

I hope that you enjoy.