Well prior to the engagement we had actually been talking lots about our ideal weddings. So it’s no surprise that we had a fair idea of what we’d like rather quickly after it happened. Our idea was a rather traditional/typical wedding with a ceremony some place (perhaps outside) and the reception at a hall of some sorts here in Omaha. We’d invite the whole crew as basically the list of everyone we’ve ever known and would possibly think of inviting to a wedding was only around 100 people.
We set a realistic date of June/July 2012 and fortunately enough there was a Bridal Fair that first weekend. It was definitely fun walking around to the vendors and getting ideas and inspiration (who knew the local grocery store could make such nice cakes and floral arrangements!) and we were absolutely shocked at the price of photography! All in all it was a good day and it didn’t stress me out because I knew we had plenty of time.
Then I called my parents and began filling them in on the ideas we had. My biggest concern was my grandmother, I wasn’t sure if she’d be able to fly out here or not. The verdict was no she can’t fly but my mom was willing to drive her out here (a 2 day drive each way!). That really got me thinking about our plans. Sure it would be fun to have a big traditional wedding (though neither of us like to dance and the reception would be less dancing and more fun/games) but what was really important at least to me was to have the people I love there and what we started to realize after talking to both our parents was that if we had it out here most of our family probably wouldn’t be able to attend. So then we began considering doing this on the east coast but the idea of planning something big and formal from far away was not only daunting but somewhat disappointing. If we were going to spend all this energy and money on a wedding, I wanted to be visiting the venues and trying cakes and picking out flowers, not having to pass the few “fun” things over to other people. It was just going to be too stressful for me.
When we first started day dreaming about weddings, I had thrown out what had been one of my favorite ideas for a wedding, something small and low-key. A friend of mine had done something that I just loved. She got married at a local park with her family and friends and then went to a restaurant afterwards to celebrate. But when discussing this prior, Tim wanted something a bit more festive/formal. But now here we were, not knowing what to do. We could either have a wedding out here that most of the people we cared about couldn’t attend, attempt to not get stressed out by handing over our wedding to family and friends to plan or find another alternative. To me the most important thing was to have my grandmother there so we began discussing the small, informal park/restaurant idea and I was trying to come up with places that could work in NJ. Tim then mentioned that his parents had offered their lake cottage as a location and the more we talked about it, the more the idea really grew on us. It was in driving distance for my family so my grandmother could make it and it was a beautiful location that had lots of meaning for Tim and for me too.
And like a switch, everything changed. Our big, semi-fancy wedding turned into a small, intimate gathering of loved ones with a laid back, informal celebration afterwards. We figured if we are doing something smaller and less formal why wait so long and so we looked at this summer for the wedding. After a bit of working through options, we landed on the date July 23, 2011. And so now the planning stage begins . . .
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