08 January, 2010

Happy New Year! Time to UPDATE!

Happy 2010 everyone!! I know that I have not updated in a while, but I really am trying! I have months & months of updating to do so I'll start with wedding stuff so that I can get it over with! Alex & I have been engaged for almost 2 months, and they have FLOWN by. We will have an 8 1/2 month engagement until we are married on July 31st of this year. A lot of places and vendors book up a year in advance so we were really crunched for time when it came to planning. Planning has been a little different than what I expected it to be. I guess I just feel so rushed because the wedding is less than 7 months away, and there is still so much more to do. It also seems unreal that all this time & effort is going towards planning a single event that will be over in a matter of hours. It's crazy yet I am looking forward to it at the same time. I'm trying to enjoy the process, but it is just a lot of work! I feel like all I do is make appointments, compare & contrast different vendors, make decisions & write a check. It just gets tiring after a while! I don't want to sound like I am complaining, I am just trying to describe how it is making me feel!!

Well so far I feel that I have gotten a lot accomplished, but looking at my to-do list makes for a giant dose of intimidation. Here are a few of the things that we have already done: we picked the date! That was an event all in itself. I had to call all our close friends & relatives to make sure that the people that had to be there could be there. I also had to think through my sister as being a candidate for GSP (Governer's Scholar Program) in the summer. Danielle is my maid of honor & if she gets into this program she will be gone for 5 weeks starting at the end of June. I want her to go so bad, but she won't find out until April if she got in and then she won't find out which session she is going to (if she gets in) until May. It was just so frustrating! But we picked July 31st because we have too many friends getting married in May/June, and Alex thought that those months were too soon anyways. We didn't want to get married in August because it was so close to the start of the fall semester, so we decided on July and then our venue only had an opening on the 31st so that was set! We chose our wonderful wedding party (it's pretty big!) and ceremony/reception location. We are getting married at my home church, Southeast Christian. I have grown up there my whole life, and it really means a lot to me to get married there. There was a good bit of paperwork that we had to fill out and send to get approved, along with our wedding date, and that got done. We start our 12 week premarital classes in April. They will be done in June, and we are looking forward to meeting other couples at our church who are at the same stages in life! What else... I bought my wedding dress in mid-December. They say to give it at least 6 months so that you can get it back in time for alterations. Putting the down-payment on the dress so close to Christmas killed me, but I am excited that it is ordered & currently being made. I love it, and it is just a really neat dress. I can't post pitures because of Alex, but you can just send me an e-mail at bmerante@insightbb.com if you're interested. I understand nobody really cares about any of this, but I just love talking about it every now and then. I haven't picked out the bridesmaid dresses just yet, and that is my next big goal along with the cake. I have looked at some but want to go to a couple more places to see what else is an option. Our colors are chocolate brown, ivory and purple. They go so great together, and I am hoping that it all goes well. We have booked our photographer as of YESTERDAY! Josh Perkins from Red Tree Photography is going to share our special day with us. He does an amazing job, and I am so glad that we chose him! We also looked at Studio E & Eric Graf as well, and I would recommend them second to Josh if you are ever looking for a photographer! Lastly, we decided on who would be doing our flowers. There is a florist right next to my dad's store that he really wanted to use. We were supposed to meet with them and pick out everything yesterday, but there has been a lot of snow, and they asked that we reschedule. So that is pretty much it so far! Oh yeah, I HAVE set up one block of rooms at the hotel I work at for some out-of-town guests. I need to do that at about 2 more hotels because we have a lot of people traveling, but I will do that later.

So my next big goals are picking out the bridesmaids dresses & cake. Also, I am looking for suggestions. Should I get a videographer? To those who are married are you glad that you did/didn't hire one? Would it be a good investment? Just let me know! Thanks for reading!

- b -

3 comments:

Jessi said...

Hey! About the videographer thing, I don't think it's really necessary. You'll remember the important stuff, and you'll have lots of pictures. I think wedding videographers were just invented to give the bride something else to pay for. ^_~ I don't regret not having one at all!

Briana McCall said...

My mom is set on having a videographer! She just decided on having one after the bridal show on Sunday. I guess if she really wants it... :) It'll be nice to have it.

Brooke and Brian said...

We did. and we LOVED IT! We used Complete Music as our DJ and Video. To me I had to have it! I dont remember half of what we said or did so it was nice to be able to look back and see! It was funny to watch the dancing stuff too!