We Have a Date!!

Having just gotten engaged a few days before Christmas, and wanting to get married by the end of May, these first three weeks of January have been a crash course in wedding planning.  Why, you may ask, would any sane person attempt to plan a wedding in less than five months whilst also attending law school, looking for an internship, and trying to get as healthy as possible for the wedding/honeymoon?  I no longer have a clear answer for that, but here's the original idea: Given my school schedule, we're limited to either a Christmas or summer break wedding.  We actually both always wanted a Christmas wedding, but neither of us wanted to wait a whole year to get married, so that leaves summer.  And the climate where we live does not make for a very enjoyable wedding during July or August (that's actually putting it mildly; walking around in multiple layers of a floor length gown in 100+ degree temperatures sounds downright miserable), so that leaves June or late May.  Aaaaaand, apparently a lot of people like to get married in June (who knew?) so many places were already booked up for the month when I started looking on January 2.  But, after many inquiries and a few painful weeks of brainstorming . . . we have a church for the ceremony AND a reception site!  Hooray!!

Getting married in a church or chapel was pretty high up my list of priorities, but finding one turned out to be a lot harder than I'd thought.  The church Fiance and I attend is a good 45-50 minute drive away (plus it's in a renovated Alberston's - not exactly the pleasing aesthetics I'd always imagined for my wedding pictures), so we decided to try and find a place closer to downtown.  A little tip for any future brides out there to keep in mind:  many churches won't let you use their facilities unless you're a member, and if they do, they'll probably charge you twice as much!  The first one I get - the second one really bothers me.  But that's a story for a different time.  Anyway, to cut a long story short, we got permission from my old church/my parents' church to use their chapel even though we're no longer members, which is GREAT news!

The next obstacle was finding a reception venue.  Fiance and I are both from this area, so we both have LOTS of family and life-long friends to invite to the wedding - and beyond that, we both really want all of them there, so skimping on the guest list won't happen.  However, we're also on a budget (another tip for future brides: weddings are expensive!!  Even with a lot of DIY projects, it's amazing how quickly things add up!), and with 150+ expected guests, you have to find places to cut back on costs and get creative, and food/reception site rental is definitely one of them.  And that, my friends, is how you end up renting out a Cowgirl Museum for your wedding reception.  Yep!  It is totally random, and that somehow makes it completely perfect for us!  Haha.

And so, the big wedding date is officially set:  May 25, 2013!