What Are You Made Of?

As my fiance and I planned our wedding I was addicted to reading BRIDES magazine. I had every issue from the 15 months of our engagement plus any issues that my step-dad found while garage saling. In each issue there was always a section where a bride and groom would come up with 5 or 6 words or phrases that described them and then the magazine would challenge a wedding vendor to come up with something original for the couple. I always thought this seemed cool but challenging. My fiance and I never took the time to sit down and really define things for the wedding. Things sort of defined themselves over the 15 months.

I WISH WE WOULD HAVE SAT DOWN AND WRITTEN OUT SOME THINGS!
Our wedding ended up being made of us, but it took us 15 months to get there. I wish we would have just sat down and talked about words, phrases, and things that we were made of. I also wish that the magazines would not make it seem like you need to do this the second you get engaged, it is never too late to get focused (although the sooner the better).

So how do you exactly go about finding out what you are made of as a couple?
First, think about you personally. If you had to think of objects, colors, places, even smells that define you what are they?
For example: I am a teacher, I wear flip-flops as long as there is less than 1 inch of snow on the ground, I love the movie Singing in the Rain, and I love Mac-N-Cheese
E is incredibly creative and works as a marketing director, his favorite color is green, he loves animals, and he enjoys trying new restaurants.
As a couple we love eating good food, we love going on dates to the local patisserie, we met in elementary school, our nickname for each other is Sunshine.

How did these things come out in our wedding?
We had the caterer make a gourmet mac and cheese for dinner.

Our wedding cake was from the patisserie we frequented on many a date.

We incorporated blackboards as menus and the seating chart to represent us meeting in elementary school and my passion for teaching.

We chose colors that represented "sunshine" to us: red, orange, yellow, and bright pink or fuchsia if you will.

E made us a logo that we used on our wedding ceremony programs and on the thank-you cards attached to our favors. The logo was made from a photo of when E wrote "E+C" in the sand during a beach trip surrounded by sun rays to represent our nickname for each other of "Susnhine".

So this picture that E drew on the beach plus our nickname of Sunshine became

this wonderful logo that we used all over our wedding

Themes have become pretty popular with weddings (just open up any Oriental Trading Wedding magazine and prepare to be assaulted by visions of seashells and snowflakes) and that is fine and dandy, but please people, make the theme about you as a couple and your special love! Our wedding sort of turned into a Midsummer Night's Dream/summer fun soiree. Your wedding does not have to be a cookie cutter wedding, if you want to mix blackboards with lanterns and Dahlia centerpieces then rock your world!

Choosing a Timeline

The day I returned from work after I got engaged my dear friend said to me, "Prepare to be the happiest and most stressed out you have ever been in your life." I scoffed at this, I am great under pressure, I thrive in chaos. I am sad to say she was correct, even I crumbled under the pressure of those first few days. The way that I came out of it though was by getting organized and beginning to plan. The second you tell someone you are engaged they ask, "When is the wedding?" and you're like "What part of I just got engaged do you not understand?". How come as soon as you hit one milestone people are asking about the next one. Prepare yourself for this for the rest of your life. As soon as E and I got married people started asking about kids! Live in the moment people! Enjoy being engaged, enjoy being together, enjoy being a couple no matter what milestone you just hit or are working towards.
Got off track a little, I'm sorry. Back to getting organized and making a plan. There are many things that should go into your choice of a wedding planning timeline and the date of the wedding you choose. Here are a list of considerations:

• What season or month do you want to get married in?
• Is there are a particular day that holds special meaning or can you be flexible with the date?
• What day of the week do you prefer? Fridays are becoming more and more popular.
• What else will be going on in your life during the wedding planning? Any other stressors coming your way? Academics, job, family?
• How many guests do you plan on inviting?
• Who is paying for the wedding and how much time do you need to get all of the money together?
• How many DIY (Do It Yourself) projects do you plan on completing?