Wednesday Wishes!

As I said, I am starting a new pattern so I can be inspired and motivated to keep sharing my story with everyone.

Wednesday needs wishes. It needs them because it is the mid point of the week. It is the day you decide if you are excited for Friday or dreading Thursday. It needs a pick me up.

So today's wish is for these Aspen (Birch?) wood candles for tables.

I found them on bhldn.com- a sister site to Anthropologie- and fell in love. They have little ones for tapers as well. I think they will match perfectly with fall colors and the surrounding atmosphere.

Christmas anyone? :)

52 Weeks Out

We are traveling through Colorado on a fall color tour, and of course our first stop was Vail for a preview of what our wedding back drop will look like next year! Here is what we found.

Fall color!

Donovan Pavilion- Our wedding venue

The Wedding Deck

My Holy-Crap-We-Set-a-Date Post

HOLY CRAP--WE SET A DATE.

Now I feel like I really have to start working on planning this whole wedding thing. I mean, my official "The Knot" wedding webpage tells me that I have a checklist of something like 150 things to do in the next 401 days, 5 hours, 2 minutes (precisely how long until our big day arrives, thank you The Knot).

September 29, 2012.

9/29. Should be easy enough to remember our anniversary. Not to mention it is only 2 days after my mother's birthday and 1 day after my brother-in-law's birthday. In this family, we like to keep things simple like that. (My birthday is the day before my father-in-law's, Kyle's is the day before his mom's). 9/29 will soon be the most significant day in our lives besides our own births and births of our future children.

The date is perfect. Want to know why? Because Fate itself picked it out for us. That's right, Fate. I wanted a fall wedding for as long as I can remember. Narrowed it down to September with the anticipation that we could Honeymoon over my fall break from school. Chose September 29, the first Saturday of my fall break, hoping for fall color and a 2-week vacation to recover from the wedding. And then, when touring the venue I am in love with, we asked to see the calendar of availability, and that is when Fate said "You must marry on September 29, 2012", because it was the ONLY SATURDAY LEFT NEXT FALL FOR OUR VENUE!

And that is how Fate helped us pick our wedding date. And venue.

So, Fate, now it is time for you to pick my wedding dress out for me. And then find me a good photographer. I don't have time to second guess myself, so I need you to be more involved in this process to make sure it goes smoothly from this point on.

We set a date. :)

Our Celebratory Tour of Venues

The Fateful Day we Chose the Date!

Wedding Location Cold Feet

So maybe literally getting married in Colorado will make all my guests, wedding party and family freeze their tootsies off. But what I am talking about here is the issue of second guessing myself over what I originally thought was the PERFECT plan for my wedding. And this post is for Kyle who says I am just going crazy right now and that I should just blog about it to feel better.

I will admit, getting married on the mountainside in Colorado may be a little self-indulgent. Besides going to summer camp in the mountains for 5 summers, attending Colorado College for 4 years, and traveling back and forth from the Rockies a minimum of 4 times a year (average for the past 7 years), what tie to I have to Colorado besides just being in love with the mountains?!

Darn you, Kyle, now that I write it, yes, I sound ridiculous.

I think that it is a very common issue that brides have, second guessing themselves when trying to set the details for the MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF YOUR LIFE (for now). I am finding myself completely caught up on the details of what my friends, family, and other guests of diverse backgrounds, economic situations, and interests would want at my wedding. I don't want to let anyone down, after all they have been waiting for 6 years for this to happen, and above all I want to make sure I am not let down on the day because I made a decision that prevented others from being there, having fun, or enjoying the day as much I enjoyed all their weddings. Above everyone else, I am worried that I cannot please my parents with my decisions.

Most of this anxiety is coming from, what Kyle calls, other peoples' "helpful advice" about what I should be doing. Like my previous post, the wedding magazines give so many contradictory options that I find myself spinning in circles. Like the mags, the event planners, caterers, venues, family, and friends all have something they want to suggest for my wedding. I love that they seem to care about helping make my day perfect, but what it starts to feel like is that I won't ever please anyone.

After another weekend away in the woods, and with a trip to Colorado coming up in just 4 short days, I feel like I am a little calmer and not as worried about my decision to get married in the mountains. But I still think that I will feel like I am letting everyone else down at times during this process, and that I cannot possibly be the only bride who feels this anxiety while planning. I'll just have to keep blogging about it so I can let that anxiety go a little bit at a time, and hopefully I will eventually get rid of it and replace it with the pure excitement of getting married to the man I love.

Is Franc available?

I did not know if I was going to want to use a wedding planner, or if it was in the budget, but I decided to go for it anyway and schedule some consultations so I could get a better idea of my options. As I have been dreaming of a destination mountain wedding, I knew that I might have to work really hard to find all the small details a wedding entails from a distance.  The night before I met the planner, I was more nervous than the night before a new school year begins.Would she be honest with me about the costs? Would she like my ideas or try to convince me to do my wedding her way? Would I get suckered into a contract before I even knew if I would need help?

The first planner I contacted suggested a meeting at my favorite bakery, Blue Moon, and I thought that must be some sort of a sign. When I got there, we found out that the bakery lacked internet access, so we had to transfer to a new location anyway so we could look some things up online to schedule some venue tours. But she was very genuine, seemed to be knowledgeable about the area, and offered to drive me to locations, in the rain, to let me see first hand what options I had. This by far extended the 30 minute scheduled consultation time frame, but showed me that the spirit of Colorado is what keeps drawing me to the mountains, the fact that the people there just want to make you happy...

After the trip to Colorado, and meeting a few other local planners, I still can't decide if I will be able to handle this all on my own or if I will hire out for some backup the weekend of the wedding. The favorite venue does not come with a representative, so it would be nice to have someone available for set up and take down who isn't a family member or bridesmaid, and therefore I can spend more time with the people who I invite to the wedding and seldom get to see or spend time with.

One Wedding Venue Option- Rentable Private House on the Mountaintop!

 All I know is that this won't be a "Franc" experience, dad... no Father of the Bride wedding swan nightmares for me.