So long inspiration station.

So. We are not having a purple, gray, navy, orchid wedding. When we changed our venue to Waldenwoods, I realized that something about that theme just was not clicking with me. I wanted something fun, relaxed with a touch of sophistication. Wes and I are not “blingy” people. (Yep, I just made that word up.)  As beautiful as jewels dripping off of flowers are, I would just feel out of place as a bride at that wedding. And that is exactly how Meadowbrook made me feel: out of place. I love really fancy affairs, but I know that for some, they can be uncomfortable and I didn’t want anyone at our wedding to feel that way. Even if we had unlimited funds, I would still want my wedding to be more laid back than glam. We really don’t love modern looks. Well, I love a modern look done in the right way, but Wes really hates modern looking stuff. I know... surprise, surprise - Mr. Traditional hates modern. :) We definately love more natural looking things. Unfortunately, orchids have a way of turning a wedding into a modern affair. I really didn’t want that. I want our wedding to reflect us. I know that our wedding is not going to be everyone’s ideal wedding, but I hope that everyone appreciates that all the things we are doing, were chosen because it reflected us.

Instead, we are having a purple and gray shabby chic wedding with both relaxed and fancy touches.

Urban dictionary definition of "shabby chic": Something (maybe someone, i.e., Joan Collins) that's rather worn out/tattered yet has a touch of understated class.

It is probably THE most popular wedding theme right now in weddingland, but I don’t care. I love this theme. Think, mason jar meets mercury glass. Still don’t get it? Well it just so turns out that I have made you an inspiration board!

Unfortunately, I cannot remember where I got any of these photos... please don't sue me.

Oh yeah. I love everything about this inspiration board. Especially the chalkboards! Can I just say that chalkboard paint is awesome?! 

What does your ideal wedding look like? The inspiration point of my wedding planning in coming to a close. Now it is do or die time. I have already had one DIY project die on me! But, Kristen, our cousin in Miami, is just now pulling into inspiration station.  I am so excited for her because it was definitely my favorite part of this ride. Congrats to Kristen and Mike on their engagement!!!

The wedding that wasn't

If you remember from this blog post, Wes and I thought for a few months that we would be getting married at Meadow Brook. So, I started designing the wedding “look” with Meadow Brook in mind. Meadow Brook holds receptions in a big white tent and is generally a fancy place that can be dressed up or down. The big white tent is very very white, so, in my opinion, it needed some color in there. Call me crazy, but I just didn’t want my wedding to feel like we were in the middle of cloud. So, I ruled out having white linens. Sadly, this ruined my initial imagery of white long tables.

Long white tables

Love, love, love, love love, love (voice inflection goes up and down). However, that’s too much white in a white tent. So, I was thinking navy fabric on the standard round tables included in the wedding package. Round tables don't give the same family table feel that I love, but hey, I don't argue when things are free. And, navy table linens would have meant that the bridesmaid and mom dresses wouldn’t blend into the décor. We want those important people to stand out!

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I was also thinking lots of candles.

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Maybe silver chiavari chairs.

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A mix of purple flowers held in silver vases with orchids tucked here and there.

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Oh yes. At one point the wedding was designed around orchids! I was under the weird impression 4 months after getting engaged that a wedding needed an obvious theme. I thought long and hard about what sort of theme would fit into Meadow Brook and its fabulousness.

Birds? Cute, but not really us.

Maps? We have no money to travel, so certainly not us.

Then, my mom suggested orchids! Well, yes, of course! Wes and I love orchids! We grow them. We read a book together early in our relationship about Florida and orchid hunting, The Orchid Thief  by Susan Orlean. We bonded over this book because we found Susan’s search for life’s perfection moving and strangely close to home. Specifically, the book is about ghost orchids.

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This beauty is a protected species in the Everglades so obviously we couldn’t actually have them in our wedding, but certainly it could go on our paper materials!  So 4 months into our engagement, a purple/gray/navy orchid wedding was being planned. But, would that theme work? Well, no, as you can tell from the title of the post. A venue change to the much much better Waldenwoods changed a lot about how we wanted our wedding to “feel”. Yes, weddings have feelings. Fancy, glamorous, romantic, ordinary, warm, modern, stuffy, crazy, relaxed, fun. You know! Feelings! And two, I just couldn’t make the ghost orchid work on my own and I am determined to make the invitations myself.

Did anyone else change their wedding’s entire concept? Or is it just me because I’ve had SUCH A LONG ENGAGEMENT! Can we get married already!?!

Dealing with initial budget blues.

The to-be-hubby and I got engaged last March. Woah. How 10 months have flown by. We knew that we were going to have a long engagement for the following reasons:

1. We needed to save. We really didn’t want our wedding to be a source of large financial burden for anyone in our family.

2. We have a large family. Ok, Wes has a large family… and they are super close. Therefore, a large wedding was a need.

3. Why rush a good thing? I spent my whole life rushing to the next “step”. With Wes, it seemed natural to stop and smell the roses.

We spent the first few months of our engagement enjoying just being engaged. Very few serious “wedding” thoughts went through my mind and we had a very nice engagement party thrown by Wes’s mom for his side of the family in his homestate, Florida.

But, when we did start talking about the wedding after the spring semester ended, we started with dreaming big. Now we aren’t your typical big dreamers. Our idea of a grandiose evening is dinner at Carrabba’s. It seemed like a good place to start before all the financial realities humbled us. So, we wrote down the things that inspired us, things that seemed like fun extras, and all the things we wanted to be a priority. This was such a fun thing to do. We thought of long tables, white linens, bright flowers…not too many flowers, great photos, mojitos. We decided we would rather have a simple reeeeeaaaaallly good cake and a DJ. And, an open bar was a must. I usually am not a big flower person, but I saw this bouquet on TV so I paused the TV and took a pic of it.

Before we had got engaged, we looked at a place called Deering Estate in Miami, FL and we loved loved loved it. Because we loved this place so much, I think a lot of our initial ideas came from having Deering Estate in our minds. Well, I am from Michigan. Cue reality #1.
I knew it was going to be a source of tension, but deciding where to have the wedding was tough. Most of you know this by now, but the wedding will be in Michigan. I am so happy with our decision. My family is there (mostly) and my mom and I are very close. Having it there means she can help me more. And, I grew up there, so it means a lot to me. It wasn’t a tough decision because our families made it hard, it was hard because we really like Florida. I like to tell people that Wes bleeds Florida. Also, it should have been more obvious but Miami, Florida is also more expensive. Cue reality #2.

We have a tight budget. For good reasons! We want a nice wedding, but we also want a nice future! Maybe a college savings account for a baby one day instead of loans we can’t pay off. Michigan was chosen because it meant a lot to me to have it there, but it is a nice side bonus that it will be cheaper there as well. Cue reality #3.

I actually had no idea how much a wedding costs… in any state. I had bought these great wedding books that said that you should spend this percentage on such and such. Ok. So, what is the big number so you know what the percentage means? You know, the sum total of one day of your life (granted a beautiful, wonderful day), but only ONE day of your life. We picked a number based on the national average and how we thought we could do better than that since I love do-it-yourself projects and finding a good deal. We were driving to Michigan getting ready to look for wedding venues when we came up with that number. I will never forget Wes asking me how much these things cost….my answer was, “I have no idea. I have never gotten married before.”

Cue reality #4. We were greatly mistaken for what weddings cost even in MI. So, we greatly altered the “percentage based crap budget” we started with.

Has anyone else felt like this planning their wedding?

For any recently engaged brides reading this, please take this suggestion: Enjoy your engagement for a while and make your “idea board” and have fun doing it. And, when you get budget blues go back to your inspirations and know that you will find a way to make sure all the important things get worked out that day. Most importantly, at the end of all of it, you will be married to a great person.

Also I want to say, throughout this blog, I will give out all my ideas for saving money. In the end, I hope that I will get to post the budget breakdown on certain things so people can see what a real wedding costs! No stupid percentages. I saw another bride do this on a wedding website that I have become obsessed with “weddingbee.com”. It was immensely helpful.