Wedding Rambles - Why Have a Wedding?

Throughout our relationship Mr. B and I have been asked and at times a little pressured to just go to the courthouse and get married. For many couples that's exactly what they want to do and they don't even think twice about having a marriage ceremony and reception. But for me, that was never an option. And no, I wasn't one of those girls who has had dreams about her wedding day since she was 6 but I did know that I wanted to have a ceremony and reception.

I've only been to 1 wedding in my lifetime but for that one I really felt the love and commitment between the two individuals and for that short time, I really felt a part of their love celebration. And that was one of the main reasons why I decided that there was no other way. I would love to save money and just elope because I can be somewhat of a penny-pincher at times, but after these 7 long years together I think we deserve a day to celebrate our love on a grand scale with our closest family and friends.

Another reason I wanted a wedding was because my parents never had a wedding. Although they are divorced now, I always wonder what my parents wedding would've looked like. And for my children I want them to be able to experience our wedding day and see the love that we have for one another.

I'm not going to lie, as we start to shell out more deposits and think about the money we've committed to vendors, eloping is a great and frugal way to go. But I have to continue to remind myself that the wedding isn't just about our love story but its about the all the wonderful individuals that we'll be celebrating with as well and sharing the beginning of our lives together as husband and wife.

Why did you decide to have a wedding celebration vs. just eloping?

Sailing Away

It was sort of a no brainer when we started talking about our honeymoon destination. We pretty much knew that we would be taking a cruise on one of Royal Caribbean's new line of ships from the Oasis Class, either the Oasis or the Allure. These ships are basically small cities roaming the seas, complete with a neighborhoods like Central Park and the Boardwalk just to name a few.

Mr. B and I had the wonderful opportunity of going with my side of the family on a 7 day cruise over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2009. We were with my rather large family of about 20+ aunts, uncles, cousins and my grandparents of course. And we had a blast! When the trip was over we knew we definitely wanted to go again in the future. And there is no better time to take our second cruise together than as husband and wife.

I've been on about 4 cruises, all of them Royal Caribbean and we never considered any other cruiseline. I get some major perks from being a past cruiser and I've loved my experience with their company. We're going to take an Eastern Caribbean itinerary which makes the following port stops:

• Fort Lauderdale, Florida
• Nassau, Bahamas
• Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas
• Philipsburg, St. Maarten

We haven't picked an actual sail date but we hope to go within 3 weeks of our actual wedding date, of course the sooner the better.

Was picking your honeymoon destination a no brainer?

Dresses for the Ladies

I've put it off for a while now and without my fantastic MOH there still wouldn't be any new news regarding dress shopping or selection. It just hasn't been one of my priorities thus far. However, throughout the process I knew a couple of things:

1. I would select the color of the dress
2. I would select a range of dress designs that I liked within a specific line (i.e. Dessy, David's, Lela Rose)
3. The girls would have free reign within those two restrictions to select the gown that they wanna rock on my big day

Based on #1 here's the color that we're gong for:

Pantone Merlot

From #2 here are some of the dress options that we're considering:

Top Row: All Alfred Angelo via Dessy.com; Bottom Row: Lela Rose and Cynthia Rowley via Dessy.com

Before I got deep into wedding planning bliss, I received some advice from a wedding planner friend...whatever you do, do NOT take all your bridesmaids with you dress shopping, you will only leave with a headache and possibly be very annoyed with your ladies. With this advice, me and a 2 of my girls, one being the MOH, went dress shopping on Saturday in Old Town Alexandria to a Le Star Bridal to scope out some of our faves. Did I mention that this was the first time I stepped foot into a bridal salon (besides David's) and I didn't even tempt myself into looking for anything for myself...it took a little will power because there were some lovely dresses on display as we walked in, but i digress...

I think overall it was a successful trip despite a couple things that annoyed me about the shop (but that's another story). We used this shopping trip to narrow down our options and we left knowing that we had found all of our dress options. Shopping success!

I'll reveal the finalists in a later post.

How was your experience dress shopping with your bridesmaids?

We've Hit the 6 Month Mark!

Let me start by saying...wow, where does the time go! I feel like it was just yesterday when we settled on a wedding date. But we've been planning this wedding full-on since August 2010, which has given us a lot of time to get things booked and scheduled. And now that most of the big ticket vendors have been locked in, it's time to get to the small stuff...the details.

But before I start in on the next chapter of our wedding planning frenzy, here's a peek into what we've accomplished most recently:

• Booked our caterer, mmm!
• Ordered our Save the Dates
• Booked our DJ
• Officially booked our photog (we had locked him in, informally, but now we've have our contract in and signed)
• Picked our honeymoon destination
• Set a date for our wedding shower
• Scheduled our first bridesmaid dress fitting

I love writing this stuff out because the small (and big) accomplishments really seem to get lost in the shuffle sometimes. But every now and again, this reminds me that we're definitely making progress.

The Road to My Dream Dress

As some of you already know I found my dress at the Running of the Brides event here in DC last summer, if you didn't you can read about here. I like my dress but when I bought it I knew there were some things that I would like to change about it, namely the neckline and tweak the shape a bit. To me they're minor things but I have an alterations appointment tonight and I guess she'll let me know what's minor and what's major including costs.

I'm sure you want to see what my dress currently looks like, well...

Feeling a Little Guilty

Source

I've been going back and forth on whether to post this or not but here it goes...

I know there's someone out there who has felt guilty about a wedding related purchase. Well for me, I'm feeling guilty about hiring a full-service wedding planning team. I started out planning the wedding solo (with Mr.B in tow of course), gathering vendor options, inspiration galore and creating my gameplan and timeline. Then we met with a wedding planning duo for the purposes of just DOC services. They sounded too good to be true and we ended hiring them full-time, we couldn't pass up this deal and great opportunity, plus it would help ease some of my planning related stress.

And in the couple months since, I've had great design discussions and they have gotten us great vendors to choose from. Not to mention they've helped us bring to life some of the wonderful details I've dreamed of early on. Yet, from time to time I find myself feeling a little bad for choosing to go with a planner. I guess I'm feeling sort of like a DIY wedding failure. Browsing various blogs and seeing how other women have courageously planned and put together fabulous weddings on similarly tight budgets without the help of a planner and sometimes not even a DOC makes me think that I took the easy way out. At the beginning going at it alone, I felt a sense a pride in that I was doing everything myself. But now not so much. And especially with such a tight budget sometimes I feel like other brides at times in that I could have definitely used that money towards something else.

And don't get me wrong, I feel like our planning team has done a fabulous job and they have been worth their investment thus far. I guess there's just some internal struggles going on here that I'll have o work on reconciling.

Have you felt guilty about a major wedding related purchase?

E-pics are Here...Go Terps!

If you weren't aware, UMD plays Duke tonight, hence the title of this post. But back to the real reason you're here...the e-pics! I received the cd with all our photo selections last Friday from my cousin who did an awesome job. And here are our top choices for your viewing pleasure!

 *Some lovey dovey photos ahead :)

If you missed any of the posts leading up to the big reveal check 'em out here:

• Brr! It's Cold Outside
• How to Survive a Winter E-Pic Session