I had been joking for a while that all my boyfriend (now fiance!) needed to do was propose, and I would have the wedding planned within minutes. After all, I’ve spent more than enough time on Pinterest pinning gorgeous goodies (check out my boards here – the wedding planning ones are at the bottom), and prior to my current job I was a professional event planner. Easy-peasy, right?
Wrong.
Within just a few days of becoming engaged, things have started to get complicated, fast. (Actually, the first dramatic thing happened within a few hours of getting engaged when I made my first bridal edict and informed the female members of my family that I wouldn’t be taking a large entourage with me to go dress shopping. No one was happy about this.)
Turns out, selecting a date is a lot harder than I ever thought it would be! My parents have graciously offered to pay for the large majority of our wedding, although they’ve asked us to stick with a certain budget. We also anticipate having around 200 guests, which means we’ve got to be flexible with some things in order to include everyone that’s important to us while not bankrupting my parents (or ourselves!).
With that in mind, I decided to nix the idea of an “in-season” wedding and opt for something in the spring (March-April) or fall (October-November).
The idea of a March wedding really appealed to my fiance and I, since our anniversary is March 21 and in 2015 it falls on a Saturday. (Bonus: I checked the Farmers’ Almanac and it hasn’t rained on March 21 in the last 10 years!) I also wanted to stay away from the fall for 2 reasons – #1: Planning a wedding this fall would be way too quick (less than 1 year!) and #2: I didn’t want to wait until next fall. I mean, we’ve been together for so long that I just want to get this show on the road! (Is that not romantic? Whoops!)
As it turns out, though, booking a church on March 21 is a bit of a pain since it falls during Lent. Apparently churches aren’t keen on weddings in general during Lent, but if you insist then they are only willing to do them at specific times. Times that, of course, kind of ruin the “flow” of a wedding. (IE: Either very early in the afternoon, where there would be a big gap before the start of the evening reception, or around 5:30pm when we would lose the opportunity for outdoor photos and our guests wouldn’t be eating dinner until nearly 9pm!)
So now, we’re looking at the last two weekends in April (along with keeping March 21 in consideration)… but one of those weekends is my father’s birthday. And while he says he doesn’t care, my fiance and I don’t want to take away from his day.
And that’s where we’re at! I’ll keep you posted on how this all shakes out, but in the meantime …
What did you find were the most challenging aspects of choosing your wedding date? Let me know in the comments!