After the excitement of the proposal and the anticipation of starting this journey, the first task was setting a date.  How do you possibly come up with a day?

I mean this day is going to represent the rest of your lives. The start of husband and wife. The start of, “when are you going to have kids?” questions. We probably won’t get through the wedding before those questions start coming up. Alas, James and I were excited to figure it out…. And we did! It was simple, we wanted a summer wedding, some of our friends that also recently got engaged had already swooped our first pick and so we decided on JUNE 25th.  No significance behind it. Maybe we went to our first concert together on that weekend 7 years prior, but it just seems like a good day to have a wedding.  So once the date was set the tedious task of a guest list was next.

Now some advice to any future brides….. start now.  You think about everything, from flowers to cake. Even the music. But the guest list is something that you really just don’t think about when you’re 5 years old with a bed sheet as your dress. You know the obvious family members, but what about the other people in your life? The people who have helped shape you since you were a kid? Do you talk to some of those people still? It’s hard. You’ll probably change your list about 10 times.  James and I had a list and it hit 300 people. That wasn’t going to work. Not for a backyard wedding.  So we made the edits we needed and finally came up with the list.

My second piece of advice… Open a google docs excel sheet. You can change what you need and you and your fiance can both edit it. And then you can add parents to make changes to the list.

Then you need to contact those on your list and get their mailing information.  Now don’t get over zealous on the first list and start asking people. Simply because you’ll reach out to an individual and then realized that they may not make the second list…. oops.

Once you have all the information and you sent the save the dates out. Sit back for a moment and revel in the fact that you accomplished one thing on your wedding list.  It’s a wonderful feeling filled with excitement and a huge dose of reality…. Once those suckers go out, your in. No looking back now.

Just one more thing…. getting married is so much more than this big production. You are marrying and making a commitment to the person of your dreams.  This person is the love of your life and you are telling the world that no matter what gets thrown at the two of you, you’re deciding to do it together. Cheers and good luck to anyone else out there starting this journey.

-C

The Author:
Ciera

I like to do fun things! Like walking our dog Leroy and going to the river. Most of all, I love James.