So, not gonna lie… it’s pretty awesome to be planning my own wedding after watching so many friends and clients go through the same exciting process over the years. I always wondered when I would be the one hunting for a venue, picking out a cake flavor, choosing a wedding photographer… and it’s finally happening! Of course, if you know anything about me, you know that I am MOST excited about marrying Justin and getting to live with him after 5+ years of dating! But the wedding details ARE a pretty fun bonus! When the wedding planning process first started, it was very overwhelming almost right off the bat. Just picking a DATE seemed like it was going to be a battle. I remember my heart just sinking when the words “mid-2017” were being thrown around in early conversations. Justin and I aren’t made of money… and neither are our parents. My dad is a single father to three girls, and we are grateful just for him putting us all through college! I knew that we likely wouldn’t be getting much financial contributions from my family. About a month after we got engaged is when it was officially made clear that we were, for the most part, going to be on our own for this whole wedding thing. Talk about scary news when you’re just two young kids trying to start their own life together in this world!
After five years of dreaming of our wedding day and then hearing that we had to find a way to pay for it ourselves… I was devastated. I truly thought we weren’t going to be able to have a wedding. It was hard enough figuring out how we were going to be able to live on our own for the next 50+ years let alone drop thousands of dollars on one day! Literally the day after I was sitting crying about all of this, Katelyn James announced her Wedding Collective Giveaway… and then I was crying tears of happiness and excitement because I thought that was our only chance!!! Well, thankfully, God always has a plan in mind… the BEST plan… even if it looks nothing like what we expected! Being a part of the giveaway allowed us to share our story with so many people, and the 2nd place prizes were pretty awesome, too! More on that later! Justin and I were completely blown away by the response after we lost the giveaway. We had dozens of people offer to help us plan and even a few vendors who offered their services discounted or for free! We then knew that waiting until mid-2017 to get married 1) probably wasn’t really necessary and 2) wasn’t considerate to any vendors who had offered their services. We couldn’t just say “rain check in two years!” to the people we wanted to be a part of our wedding day and who were going to help us make it happen! Most importantly, there was just this feeling of something big starting up. Like a train starting to warm its engines and the wheels just beginning to turn. I knew without a doubt it was time to hop on and just dive in head first and trust that God would lead where He would have us go! So we did… and here’s where we are now! (Please excuse the iPhone shots!! ;)
-We have the help of an amazing wedding planner named Lacoya Heggie of Hello Love Events to make our dream wedding day a reality! Fun fact: She’s been featured on Style Me Pretty, and she LOVES Kate Spade, sushi, and calligraphy!
-We spent two weekends venue hunting and visited about a half a dozen places, but we had a favorite venue as soon as we laid eyes on it! I can’t wait to share all about the gut feelings we had that it was just RIGHT! :)
-We are in the process of finalizing our date and venue booking! Ahhh!!! (Words can’t contain my excitement!!)
-We are hoping to announce all of the details VERY soon!!! Hopefully in a super fun and creative way!
I am so excited to share about our wedding planning journey as time goes on. I know I’ve already learned SO much about my brides and how they must feel about certain aspects of the wedding planning process! I can’t wait to share all the newfound knowledge I’m going to gain as I experience this whole wedding thing firsthand with the love of my life. I am over the moon excited and most days I feel like I am walking on air… being engaged is truly such a joy-filled and beautiful season!!! And I didn’t expect that at all after 5 years together… because I didn’t think it would be all that different. But it is! So it’s been that much more amazing!! Stay tuned for more wedding updates later this month, and the first official Wedding Wednesday post will be all about choosing a venue! Woo hoo!!! If there are any specific topics you’re curious about or really want to follow along with (like how we chose a theme, colors, our photographer, etc.) just leave a comment below or shoot me an email!! :)
This is Justin and me during a REALLY awesome venue visit… I can’t wait to share more!!
