It’s hard to know where to start when you’re planning a Big Day like a wedding. It’s also hard to start that conversation when you’re in a long-distance situation where all of your time together, be it in person or on the phone, is limited and precious. Even still, the DZR and I have come up with a rough list of things we want to consider when starting to think about our ceremony and reception.
We’re working with a budget.
We set a budget of $10,000 – $12,000. This was before our parents came into the conversation about their guests. Honestly, with the exception of a select few family and family friends, I was thinking our guest list would primarily be made up of our friends (his, mine, and ours) and we could limit it to 80 people. After listing my very closest friends on an index card, and thinking about their kids and plus-ones, I realized that I have 50+ friends alone, on my side of the list. I want all of them to be there with me. Eff. Our budget wasn’t counting on that.
Our budget also didn’t consider tangible financial input from our parents either. We assumed, initially, we would save money and put together a plan without their help. Since talking with my mom and the DZR’s mom, I realize that many parts of this whole ordeal will need to be more of a group effort than I initially anticipated (with us having the “final say”).
We want everyone important to be there.
I’m willing to swallow my pride and my aesthetic sensibilities if it means that we can have our most cherished friends and family gathered around us when we say our vows and that they can all be seated at dinner. The DZR is way more easygoing than I am and would probably marry me in a cardboard box if I asked him. I think there’s a way for us to get a space that will fit everyone while remaining true to what we envision. I don’t want to get married in a hotel ballroom, unless that hotel is haunted or incredibly interesting and unique. I will do it if it’s the only way we can have everyone there and the open bar is $7 a head. California Dreamin’…
The venue has to be interesting, historical, and/or unique.
Like I said, I don’t want to get married in a hotel. We would like to get married in late Fall, say the Saturday after Thanksgiving, which limits our options to …inside. Most of the historical buildings around the Pennsylvania/Delaware/Maryland border do outdoor weddings, which for us would mean Spring 2013. There are a few museum-type options which could be really cool also. So many choices. I’m starting the venue search this week with an appointment at one of my top picks.
The location has to be local.
Our parents live about twenty minutes from each other. I would like the venue to be within 45 minutes from at least one of our houses. I don’t want to spend my entire wedding day driving back and forth from my parents’ house to the site when I inevitably forget something incredibly important. I also don’t want to spend the day before my wedding day setting up decorations an hour away and stressing out every unnecessary minute of the commute. For everyone’s sanity, the closer, the better.
We’d like to be able to bring in our own alcohol, if possible.
Do you know what’s trendy? Featuring local wines and microbrews at your wedding. You know what I’m not? A hater. Yup. This is one trend I totally support and aspire to execute. Most places supply the bar, offering you either super-limited selections or some crazy open-bar situation (No Rules! Spring Break!) I would trade all of the Miller Lites in your open bar for one keg of local, handmade root beer or some crazy brown ale. Not only will supplying our own alcohol allow us to have tools to manage our budget, but it ensures we can get some kick-ass drinking done on our special day.
We want to have the ceremony on-site.
This is an issue causing discussion and contention with my parents. I don’t think he’s talked about it with his. We don’t want to get married in a church. Going to a whole mass on your wedding day is NOT romantic. I go to mass because my family is Catholic (my family is, not me). He goes to…service? He won’t tell me/doesn’t know what genre of Christian his family is, so that’s another part of it. Independent of our relationship, neither of us is big on organized religion at this point in our lives so it seems silly to care about it now.
We actually want to have a self-uniting ceremony, which is not only legal in Pennsylvania, but is also awesome. My parents are not fond of this idea either. The easy way out would be to get married in Delaware, where self-uniting marriages are not recognized, but we’ll see. The idea of making a life-long promise to someone, in the company of people you care about, without third-party mediation, is more our style. We’ll see how this plays out.
Also, we want to get married at the same place where the reception is held. It’s no fun traveling all over for weddings and I like it when everything is self-contained. You get to focus on making one location awesome, instead of worrying about two venues…and if you want to have a little “wedding spirit” before hand, you don’t have to get up and drive anywhere. We should drink, be merry, and stay in the same place out of convenience.
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These considerations are shaping how we imagine our wedding. It’s nice because they act as guidelines and ground rules for future discussions. Neither of us is so committed to any one of these ideas that we wouldn’t be willing to compromise or even go in another direction but, naturally, we like our ideas and want to see them fruition.
