As one of my goals on our 101 in 1001 list, I wanted to write a post or a series of posts related to our wedding including all details that I felt were relevant etc. Since Matt and I have been working on our blog series together and I've seen how much time it seems to take, I decided one post about the wedding etc would probably be best. Also, I likely won't post many, if any, pictures because they are on a post from last year. This may get wordy. Here goes...
We were engaged on July 10th and we knew that we did want to be engaged longer than 6 months. Our original plan was to get married on October 31st (I think) because it was a free weekend from football (not that that is a huge factor) and it was close. This got vetoed for reasons that I don't care to discuss anymore but we then decided that it really didn't matter what date we picked whether it was 4 months or 4 years from our engagement date, that it would always be a conflict for someone. That being said, we decided to get married on 1/1/11 at 1:11. We were so glad to have the date chosen and could not be happier that we chose that date.
Of course at this point I went into planning mode. I did not plan to go crazy planning a wedding because we knew our budget was tight, we didn't want anything extravagant, we just wanted to be married AND it wasn't about the wedding at all. It was about the marriage. BOOM!
Side note: To everyone who feels like they have a terrible marriage and thinks that marriage can NEVER be good. I'm so sorry. Please don't project that onto all happily married people. KThanks.
We chose our date 1st. Then we decided to get married in Louisiana because it was just the most practical. We then decided on details...flowers, dress, church, catering, groomsmen, bridesmaids, cake, photographer, favors, gifts, invitations, etc.
Flowers...We chose artificial because it was more cost efficient for us and Matt's aunt is a florist so she got us some great and simple flowers for a great cost for us.
Dress...Mom, Mandy and I went to shop for a dress and I found the perfect one after trying on 3. It was a little more than I wanted to spend but after talking to my maid of honor about my dress etc. She decided she would make our wedding gift from she and her husband, my dress. It was a great blessing. I went the next day and got the dress. Didn't even have to be altered. I got the perfect purple shoes to match and I was pumped! Also, another dear friend made my veil and gave it to me as a gift. Another blessing.
Church...We decided to get married at Mom's home church, House on the Rock. It's a great setting with an attached fellowship hall that we knew would be a perfect size for us. Since we picked an afternoon wedding on a major holiday, we knew the crowd would be smaller.
Catering...We chose a local lady, Ginger Tastet, to cater our wedding. She does a lot of events in Amite and she did great. We went with a mainly dessert reception including an ice cream bar. It was simple and fit within our budget and we liked it.
Groomsmen...Matt knew from the day we get engaged (probably before). Just who his fellas would be...Ben, his brother, Chad and Jeff, his buddies and Drew, his friend and mentor
Bridesmaids...Again, I've known for years who would be in our wedding. Jill, Brittany, Rebekah and Rachel...The BFF's Neither of us could have chosen better
Cake...We went with a simple sheet groomscake shaped like an open Bible with Matt's life verse on it and we did our cake as cupcakes. We loved them.
Photographer...We originally chose a photographer named Jody Herring because she photographed a friend's wedding and we liked their pictures. However, after shooting our engagement photos she discovered that she had a prior engagement and we were back to square one. We chose Mary Degruy because we loved her simplicity, her price and her photography packages. We LOVED her and are so glad we chose her. We loved our pictures.
Favors...We went with a candy bar and CD's with our favorite songs. We were glad to have the candy bar but the CD's weren't marked (our fault) and there were many left. Oh well. Along with the candy in baskets, we decorated the table with self portraits of us that we took all throughout our courtship. It was a piece of us.
Gifts for people involved in the wedding...We gave some people personalized Tervis Tumbler cups. The bridesmaids received personalized canvas that I had made for them. Some received gift cards that suited them. Others received mugs with the "ingredients" for the perfect cup of tea. There were also some fun items thrown in with most of the gifts just because that is SO us.
Invitations...We ordered these from The Prints Well Store where one of our dear friends works. They were simple but we liked them a lot.
As it always goes with posts like this, I'm sure I'm leaving something out but those were the main details of the wedding. The planning was fun for us most of the time and very little stress was involved. I know that the wedding wasn't extravagant and at times, I wish more people had been in attendance, etc. BUT at the end of the day, we were married and we have lived happily ever after.
Also, parents helped a tremendous amount with the financial aspect of it!
Til then-
Did YOU Hear about the Morgans?
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