Complete Overhaul

So the past week or so has been fairly crazy, wedding wise. I originally had planned on doing the most casual wedding imaginable, and then not a reception for another year or so. That changed once we moved home, because that super casual wedding kept expanding. As of last week this wedding had turned into a "real" wedding. We looked at reception venues and it seemed like things were just getting more typical wedding... and more expensive. Seeing the numbers makes me think of what else we could be spending this money on. Yesterday Zach and I went on a hike and decided we're taking this thing back to basic. We'll find some local place to rent for the day, have some BBQ and some very casual food.. fruit platters, cheese displays, desserts, you know. Food, but not anything close to a sit down dinner. It feels more like us. THEN instead of spending that money on just one day, we are going to go on a mini honeymoon right after the wedding, and then next summer we will go to Europe for a few weeks with my family (but I don't think we'll stay together the whole time). This has me WAY more excited. Zach is rightfully concerned that if we don't do a traditional wedding I will regret it, but I'm fairly certain I would regret spending the money on one party instead of the trip of a lifetime.

Blah, Blah, Blah

Not much new to report. Went shopping for weddings dresses a couple times recently, and I think I may have found the dress I want. I went and saw a bunch at Tysons II with my mom, and I had already found a particular dress that I liked, and as I was looking at these other dresses, I kept thinking of the first one. So, maybe thats the sign? There are parts of it that aren't 100% perfect, but I'm figuring that I can have a tailor fix those. We shall see!

Venues.... oh venues... I have found 1,000 places that are great, but some just don't have the right feeling, or are crazy expensive, or are far away and everyone would have to get a hotel. I like the idea of a mini-vacation... but I don't want to force people to spend more money than they want to. Still a chance it will be somewhere that requires a hotel, but I am looking at a more local venue on Thursday, and I am really hoping that it will work out, because I need to get this thing figured out.

Things I have figured out... I like the idea of keeping this wedding as close to home as possible, which has worked so far. Ceremony officiant? Zach's friend's mom. Who will make our wedding cake? My friend from work, Kristen, who is going to school to be a chef. Photographer? Friend's boyfriend. I love it.

So hopefully by my next post I'll have more major things figured out (hopefully enough that I can send out invitations).

Decisions, Decisions

Well, I would say that I'm awful at keeping up with this blog... but there still isn't much to report so I guess theres a good reason I haven't been updating?

I've looked at a lot of venues online, and ruled a lot out. I'm SO picky (more on that to come later). Its not so much that I think I'm going to find a perfect venue... I just want one that will let me have a lot of control over the wedding, since I don't want your traditional wedding. One of the things I HAVE decided (for now..) is that I want it to be a cross between what a BBQ and a garden party would feel like. Garden party because I want it to be pretty and class, but BBQ because I want it to be fun. Zach's mom always said to just have a fun party, and I think that is what I want to do. I'm not so into formal.. I can't imagine myself doing some grand walk down the aisle to all these people waiting in chairs staring at me. I rather just do a quick ceremony with people gathered around (like my uncle Todd had) and then have a bunch of food and fun. Maybe even fun little things like a photobooth so people can take crazy pictures or ladderball.

Anyways, I thought I had found the PERFECT venue.. partially because it isn't really used for a lot of weddings so it could feel more like a party. Its also fairly close by, in Winchester, which is better than one of my favorite venues so far, which is down between Richmond and Williamsburg. I like the idea of having a mini destination wedding, as I've mentioned before, but my mom isn't so into the idea. Anyways, the venue said there is no access to a BATHROOM!!! This is not the first venue to have a bathroom issue (since I want to be outdoors), and some of them even include the rental of "nice" portapotties in the price of the property. I can't even imagine. Maybe there are some nice ones, I guess I'll have to look into it and give it a chance... but uhhh, wow. Way to make things difficult.

The other news is the wedding dress. I went to the Running of the Brides in DC two weekends ago with my mom, Tracey, Kristen, Katie and Sarah. It was SOOO much fun. Most of the dresses looked really cheap, though, and the ones that were nice just weren't the style I was going for. Oh well, I kind of new ahead of time I was too picky to find something there.. but we had a blast anyways. I have wanted to go since I heard about the event years ago, and I would definitely recommend it to everyone. People are CRAZY.

Isabella comes home in June for a couple weeks and we are going up to Kleinfeld in NYC then. Hopefully I will have a dress by then, but she is trying to pick hers out. I also hope to have a wedding date and venue picked out by then so I can send out invitations! I hate that I haven't been able to send them out yet. But when she is here we are going to do a lot of crafty wedding things together, hopefully including making the invitations, so my goal is to have everything figured out by then. A bonus to wanting to be all crafty for this wedding? I read an article the other day that one of the popular trends this year is crafty weddings! Sweet. We were way ahead of our time.