We set a date!

So far the planning process has been fun for Nick and I which is apparently a feat in and of itself.

Well, all except for one hiccup, early on…

Within a week of being engaged we were being barraged with questions:

“When’s the date?”

“Do you have you colors picked out?”

“Ohhhhh what kind of dress are you going to get?”

and the worst… since most of my family is in another state: “Where’s the wedding going to be… are you going to do TWO?”

While I appreciate the excitement and know it was coming from a good place, it got really overwhelming really quickly. Apparently unlike most of my female counterparts, I didn’t have this day all planned out in my head. The idea of buying a bunch of bridal magazines to “help me with planning” made my head spin. I don’t really do mags, let alone fashion or bridal magazines. Five minutes on “theknot.com” was all I needed to decide: “not for me.”

One event in California AND one event in Minnesota? Two events in both places? Destination wedding? No matter what we do in some way, shape or form we would be leaving somebody out, making somebody compromise, compromising ourselves. A good friend advised me “Congratulations… now save yourself the hassle and just elope!” (The best advice I’d received so far!) People were telling Nick he had to let me do whatever I want, or else. People were surprised that I didn’t already have it all planned. Ahhhhh! (Apparently I’m not THAT domestic.)

After a momentary panic at the onset about what this “should” be, we decided we’re just going to do whatever we want. =P We’re obviously not out to offend anybody. We don’t want to make it a nuisance or trial for anybody else, either. We want to get married, we’re so excited we’ve found each other, and we’d like to celebrate a beautiful, fun day with our friends and family. I’m probably going to break a bunch of wedding etiquette as I go through this with “fun” as a mission… but I’ll do my best.

The first, biggest, and looming question was of course:
Date? Date? Date? Date?

The thought process went something like this, and took a couple weeks to settle through:
Fall. (We were pretty sure about that from the get-go.)
Early fall. (J-me’s a freezebaby.)
October? (J-me also loves October)
Saturdays?
10-9-11? (Nick wants an interesting number.)
10-1-11? (YAY! that could be perfect. but wait… another wedding already set for that day…)
9-24-11?

Which also happens to be the 40th anniversary of Nick’s parent’s wedding – 40 years to the day. Sentimental. Fall. Perfect. It’s done. Barring any unforeseen emergencies, we’ll be getting married on September 24, 2011.

WOOOO!

We also want to keep things as minimally complicated as possible. We’ll be getting married in the early afternoon/evening and have a party nearby later that night – in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This is our home, we love it here, and we want to get married here. I want my California family to be able to experience some of what I love about this place, and what better way to do that than this?

More to come gradually as things develop. Oh, and why our own site? Well, I might not be a magazine nerd, but I’m a ‘puter nerd. Having our own site saves you from the advertising on other wedding sites, plus the development of it is fun for me. The bloggy part may very well be just for us and for our memories… but that’s okay too. For anybody that’s interested in hearing about things as we go, feel free to keep reading. 🙂