• Real Weddings

Wedding planning can be a full time job. Thank goodness I am a teacher and have the summers off. Well partly off, because the last two summers I have had a full time job of being a wedding planner. We are currently three weeks from our wedding and have so much to do! You would think we would be more prepared given we have been engaged for a year and a half.

We chose to get married in Minnesota where my extended family lives. At the time, we thought this was a fabulous idea… Bride’s family lives there, we will be living in Michigan so we won’t be that far away, and Minnesota is beautiful in the summer. This would be a lot for anyone, but the fact we also had to plan an out-of-state wedding as well made life a bit crazy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAUjb7SNuEE

We also chose to not have a wedding planner and do almost everything ourselves. We leaned a lot on Chrissy (my sister) who lives in Minneapolis, but it was still a lot to find all the vendors, negotiate all of the contracts and make sure everything was ready to go…We decided to have a true “Twin Cities” wedding and have the reception at the James J. Hill Reference Library in St. Paul and the ceremony at the Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church in downtown Minneapolis.

Now that we are sitting here three weeks from the big day, I can start to see where this vision we’ve had is moving towards. We spent the weekend in the Twin Cities having all of our final meetings.  We left at 7 am on Friday for Minnesota from Detroit. That day alone, we had seven meetings! We were absolutely exhausted but were feeling much better than we had about the process and how everything was coming full circle. We met with the church coordinator (Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church), photographer (Camelot Photography), day of planner (Simply Elegant Bridal), caterer (Lettuce Catering), beverage company (Minathoe), rehearsal dinner venue (Salut), and met for our marriage license.

On Saturday, we were down to three meetings. We met with the hotel (Crowne Plaza Riverfront), reception venue (James J. Hill Reference Library) and our florist (Munster Rose). Our vendors were amazing and continued to put our minds at ease as we went through the weekend. Sunday was our shortest but longest and hardest day. We spent three hours at our church meeting with our wonderful pastor for our marriage counseling session. When we left the church we were both ready for bed. It was an emotionally exhausting experience.
We have a bought a house so we are closing and moving a week and a half before the wedding. I will then head back to Minnesota to enlist my family for help and finish up the rest of the fun and tedious details that go along with planning a wedding. If I do not have grey hair by the time of my wedding it will be a miracle!