Marriage

So, I have the Timehop app downloaded on my phone that I look at every day. it's fun to look back and see what I was doing a year, 2 years, or even 5 years ago. The other day, I had a timehop back to some of my wedding photos. I just have to smile every time I see my wedding photos. I love looking at them. So, speaking of weddings and marriage...

One of the most important things to me in my life is my marriage. I have built my life and family around it over the past 2 years. My husband and I dated for 3 years when he proposed, we got married exactly a year later (4 years together), and now we will celebrate our 3 year wedding anniversary with our (soon-to-be) 2 kiddos this August of 2015.

That day meant everything to me. I remember it like it was yesterday, but oddly enough I dont remember much because of how much we had going on. Everything went perfect on our wedding day. Everything. I know everyone says that their wedding was perfect. But when I say it, I mean nothing actually went wrong. Everything worked out perfectly. Even if things did go wrong it would have still been the best day ever, but I was just really lucky I guess to have nothing go wrong.

Planning a wedding is stressful to say the least... honestly. If I could go back and re-do it, I would probably do a lot of things differently. I spent SOOOO much time on the details and on specific handmade projects that took forever. Also, weddings are SOOOO expensive. They just are. I also wish I would have listened to a piece of advice I got... I don't remember who said it to me, and I'm pretty sure it was after I had already chosen my date and venue and everything.. but they said "the longer your engagement is, the more money you will spend on your wedding". And I think they hit the nail on the head. The more time you have, the more intense and expensive things get.

In my opinion, these are the most important things to pay attention to when planning a wedding... Again, this is MY opinion.. lol Also, these are most likely the most expensive things at a wedding.

#1 The food- you want to have delicious food! Your guests will really apppreciate this. I went to a wedding one time and the food was nasty. I will never forget it. And I will never tell who's wedding it was. But as a guest, people will remember the food.. and they will also remember the booze..

#2 The booze- Now, this may not be true for everyone, but it definitely was for us. Both of our families like to drink and have a good time.. and so do we. We also got married young, so we had lots of our friends there ready to have a good time.

#3 The music- There have been weddings I have gone to and the music was terrible. They would play 4 slow songs back to back and then every line dancing song in a row.. It needs to be mixed up. Plus, if there is good music, more people will dance and thus more people will have a good time.

#4- Your Photographer- We splurged on our wedding photographer and our photos/album. Now, every person on facebook is a "photographer"... Nothing against these people, but we wanted to go with a professional wedding photographer. Yes, this did cost more. BUT, we got amazing photos and the most amazing wedding book ever. However, if you are trying to save some $$$ using someone less professional will definitely help you out. This was just really important to me. So, we didn't cut any corners.

Ok, so there are the top 4 things that are most important in my eyes. Only 4... thats not a lot considering everything that goes into a wedding.

A lot of people may think venue.. this is important obviously. To me, it was very simple to pick out a venue. There were several I had in mind but keeping these important things in mind, not many accommodated my needs..

These are the things I took into consideration when choosing our venue.

Capacity- I needed a place to fit at least 250 people. Our venue technically could fit 299 people. There were 0 other places in the area I could find that would fit that many people. My husband has a huge family, I have a split family, and we also are close to not only our high school friends still, but also have college friends as well. This adds up! We had a lot of people invited.

Price- We didn't necessarily have a price range, but I knew I didn't want to pay anything outrageous. This place was a good price for the size!

Location- I wanted to find some place that was located in a convenient area for our guests. I personally didn't want to have our wedding some place far. I wanted to be close to home and to our guests. (Personal preference).

Looks- I wanted my wedding to be very elegant. I did not want to have it at a venue that didn't match our wedding. I LOVED what our venue looked like inside because it was just all white. No carpet, no color on the walls, nothing. So, I had a blank slate to do whatever I wanted and that's what I was looking for.

Inside/Outside- Our wedding was in August (hot, hot, hot). I wanted our wedding ceremony and reception in the same area and all inside. I wanted it to be very comfy and convenient for our guests. No driving and no sitting in the hot sun.

ALSO, this is very important... some venues will only let you use their caterers, cake, DJ, etc. I already knew who was catering our wedding, who our DJ was, and who was making our cake... I was using all outside sources. So, I needed a venue that would let me use anyone I wanted.

Again, LOTS of things go into a wedding... These are just a few tidbits i learned throughout my wedding planning process.