Drum roll please ... our colors!

So I left you waiting for the results from the trip to Home Depot for paint color chips. So here are the results!

(personal photo)

I chose a beautiful cobalt blue. It is my very favorite color and I could wear that color every day and never get sick of it. On a slightly vane note, I have blue eyes and I love how this shade of blue makes them pop. I like how this would highlight some of the blue in the venue. The venue is a slightly different shade so so I don't think it will be too much (like you could have too much of the gorgeous color)!

(personal photo)

(personal photo)

When my mom and I were looking for colors she knew that this was my go to. We envisioned bridesmaids in cobalt blue dresses and then plum colored flowers! I felt like that was a beautiful combination of colors and not too girly for the Mr. I also needed a neutral and a silvery grey would be perfect. I can see the groomsmen wearing nice grey suits and cobalt blue ties ... <sigh> now I am feeling more bridal!

Do you think these colors will suite the venue? How did you choose yours?

Colors

So choosing our wedding colors came pretty easily to me. Once my mom and I saw some of the beautiful blue accents at our venue, we wanted to compliment them
.

Can you see the blue on the building in the background? (personal photo)

Beautiful blue! (Red bubble)

My parents were remodeling their house at the same time as I was beginning wedding planning. So my mom suggested that we visit her home away from home and the most logical place to choose wedding colors- Home Depot! We headed into the paint section and stated pulling out paint color chips. We ended up choosing paint colors that I couldn't ever imagine using to actually paint a room but it was a perfect way to choose wedding colors.

Stay tuned for more on our colors!

Visit home

Lesson learned via wedding planning #1- you get what you pay for.  The USF botanical gardens were lovely but for a different type of event but not a wedding. I loved the beautiful gardens and the gorgeous gazebo. I wasn't too excited about the port-o-potties or the dirt roads I would have to walk on in my wedding dress. So I moved on.

I looked into some more venues and I found the Postcard Inn!

(The Life of M)

I made an appointment after seeing some beautiful images online. This is what I found:

The lobby with a wall of books and mismatched chairs. (personal photo)

A seating area in the lobby with skateboards on the wall! (personal photo)

Another seating area Moroccan style. (personal photo)

The Garden ceremony area- it was December. (personal photo)

The area under the trees or cocktail hour space. (Postcard Inn)

The ballroom on the second floor with cool lighting and chivalry chairs. (personal photo)

Deck balcony off of the ballroom that overlooks the ceremony site. (personal photo)

So I was in love! I must admit that I might love this venue about as much as I love my fiance! In fact I am moderately obsessed with it. It is on St. Pete beach and is an old Howard Johnson that was turned into a funky eclectic hotel. Past the grassy ceremony site, is a beautiful pool.

(Hotel Online)

Then past the pool is a pool/beach bar. 

(Postcard Inn)

Then past the bar is the beautiful Gulf of Mexico. I loved the mixture of textures and venues for pictures. It also allowed itself to be turned fancy or casual. Tons of colors would be appropriate. Most of all, it was us: funky, eclectic, and fun.

How about you? How did you know that you found your venue? Do you love it about as much as your fiance?

Venue search

So as I was wedding planning long distance I turned to vendor reviews on Weddingbee and Project Wedding. I Google search some possibilities. Here are some I liked:

(Lange Farm)

Lange Farm was beautiful venue. You could have a ceremony under the beautiful Live Oaks with Spanish Moss. The reception could be in the antique barn. This all sounded pretty but when I contacted the venue, I wasn't thrilled by the price tag. The grounds looked pretty but the barn was a little to country form my taste. So I moved on.

(Florida Aquarium)

How cool would this be???? I loved the funky idea of getting married here. The Mr. thought it was a little weird and again it turned out to be a bit pricey.

(Simply Different Photography)

USF Botanical Gardens looked great. It was pretty, unique, and CHEAP! As in, under $1000 to rent the location, cheap. So I booked an appointment and planned a trip home to view the venue. 

How did you all approach finding a wedding venue? What were your requirements? Were you as shocked as me about the cost of a venue?

Dive into Google

So after swearing that I would remain calm and not turn into Bridezilla or cry over wedding details I tried to decide where to begin the wedding planning. I had not ever done much imaging what my wedding day would be like prior to getting engaged. I had never dressed up like a bride when I was a kid. I never had a bridal Barbie. I hadn't even peaked at wedding dress websites.

(Wedlok)

Where does a girl begin? Did any of you feel completely lost in the wedding world or were you all born to be brides?

So I dove head first into Google. I figured I wouldn't know what kind of wedding I wanted without knowing a venue. I figured I would work in this order: venue, date, dress. Remember, these were the important parts to me. I figured I would know the level of formality of the dress based on the venue and both would tell me a lot about the rest of the wedding.

I first had to choose the city we would get married in. Remember, we are nomads! I lived in one city, the Mr. in another, his hometown is a third, and mine a fourth. We settled on my hometown because it was halfway between our college town where lots of our friends still lived and his hometown. No one lived where he or I currently lived. My mom and I would be doing most of the work so this decision was also convenient.

Personal picture

So after deciding we would get married in the Tampa/St.Pete/Clearwater area I began looking for locations that met my description of unique, beautiful, and a little funky.

How about you, was the city you chose to get married in a challenge? Is anyone else a nomad?

Where to start

I'm not sure the proper order to start wedding planning but I had some priorities with my wedding that I wanted to be perfect and I had a list of things that I wanted to be pretty, but were not a priority.

Priorities:

• A very cool venue where we could have a ceremony and a reception at one location. I want the location itself to be interesting in decor so I wouldn't have to spend a ton of money on making a blank space pretty. 
• A beautiful dress! I didn't know what it would look like, but I wanted it to be beautiful. 
• An intimate, love filled ceremony.
• A party with plenty of drinks for a reception.

Things I didn't care much about:

• Flowers
• Cake
• Bridesmaids that were matched head to toe (including matching toe nail polish)

I sound super bridal huh? Are all the other brides going to kick me out of the bridal club house? Let me explain myself. It's not that I didn't love the look of beautiful flowers but it was just low on my priority list. At the end of my wedding day I had a pretty dress on, I was married to my Mr., and we had a fun party in a funky location I would be happy. 

So I might not have made a formal budget, I had decided where to put the emphasis. My priorities would get more money and the non-priorities would get the budget of- "as cheap as possible". Remember I already told you I was very frugal and practical. 

How about you? Did you take a very non-bridal approach to your wedding? What was important you? What was low on your priority list. 

I vow to not cry over paper and flowers

I am highly organized and ordered so once I checked off the engagement photos from the list, I felt prepared to start really thinking wedding details. When would it be? Where would it be? How could we afford it? Would it be elegant evening or cutesy day? What kind of DIY can I get my hands in? The Mr.- "Can we elope?" My dad; "Why don't you elope?" My friends- "what are your colors/theme/vendors/flowers?" I'm sure every bride can relate to the barage of questions and things that you need to accomplish.

My response- "we will figure it out in time". I don't mean to pretend that I wasn't excited about planning the wedding or that I the idea of putting on some beautiful dresses wasn't appealing. I just have seen brides go slightly, ummm ... ape sh*t when it came to planning their wedding.

Crazed bride (Illuminate)

I have had friends that are brides to be say things like "If he didn't give me a ring that wasn't x carats I would say no" I have been a bridesmaid when other bridesmaids were so jealous of anyone getting married that they couldn't force themselves to even smile. I have seen a few too many episodes of Bridezillas and I refuse to become one of the crazies!

This being said I have looked through magazines and blogs. I have gushed at beautiful images like these:

(NYCityweddings)

(Weddings-place)

(Yes Bride)

I might have started to gush over these images but I decided to be very careful to not teeter into the land of the crazy brides. I also promised myself that I wasn't going to cry over wedding planning. That's right, this highly emotional bride is going to take a vow- "I will not cry over a wedding detail. Tears will be reserved for happiness about my Mr., excitement over getting married, and the love that we have and that surrounds us from our friends and family."

Have you succumed to the crazy bride syndrome? Or have you sworn to remain calm? How has that worked out for you? Am I naive to think I can stay calm?

Engagement photos!

So here are some of the beauties our wonderful photographer did for us!  I wanted someone to capture the love and the beautiful scenery ... I also didn't want to spend money on the engagement shots. So I turned to craigslist and I posted an add looking for an up and coming photographer that wanted to build their portfolio. I asked to have the edited images but no prints and they could use our pictures in advertising to gain experience and status as a good photographer. 

Get excited this is the first you will see of me and the Mr.!

  Aren't we cute and in love? (J Squared Photography)

We relished in the leaves (J. Squared Photography)

I wanted to make sure we got some of this beautiful scenery.

(J. Squarred Photography)

(J.Squared Photography)

Jenny graciously responded to my craigslist post and gave us these beautiful images we treasure. She was branching out on her own and needed to build her portfolio. She caught a perfect moment in time for us and didn't cost us a penny. Furthermore, she got to build her portfolio for future clients.

(J.Squared Photography)

(J. Squared Photography)

What did you do for your engagement shots? Would you take the risk on a less experienced photographer or would you splurge for the expertise? 

Engagment Photo inspiration

Once we were engaged and moved. I knew the first thing I wanted to check off the wedding check list was engagement pictures. I know I'm not the only bride that swooned when I saw intimate pictures like these:

(Fairmont Photography)

(tfreephotography)

I bet many brides wanted to capture playful moments like these:

(Weddingbee Gallery)

(Jason Mark)

Living in a new city has it's perks. The Mr. and I are Floridian born and raised. When he moved to this new city, it came with a very strange change for us. Yes food and culture were fun to explore but the oddest change was this thing that northerners call SEASONS! In Florida we have summer from about April-November (I have swam in our family pool on my birthday, November 5th). Then a few weeks of "fall" where no leaves actually fall. Then January and February are bitterly cold with lows that sometimes get into the 30s at night. So now that he moved out of the Sunshine State, I was just transfixed by fall photos because it was so new to me. I bet other brides loved beautiful Fall images like these:

(Miss Clemintine Weddingbee)

(Maile Lani Photography)

What type of images inspired you? Did you want to capture that moment in time or a place that was uniquely yours like the coffee shop where you me? 

After she said yes.

So we were very excited about being engaged, we called friends and family, we kissed and hugged. I took pictures of my ring ... the Mr. immediately cut the grass ... I think he was still nervous and had to work it off, what do you think? Then I found out some other news.

So like I have said, the Mr. works in business that is all about territory when it comes to making money. He had been doing well in this new office for the past year and a day before he asked me to marry him, his boss offered him a change in territory that would mean him moving 5 hours away from me. This would mean again more opportunity to make money except this time I had a specific career track and I loved school so I couldn't and wouldn't move. So we were now faced with a hard decission: be a part most of our engagement and take this opportunity or stay together and regret the lost opportunity.

Long distance relationship (The Black Collegian)

We had no children, didn't own a home and the only thing that tied us down was each other. We decided if there was a time in our lives to sacrifice for a career move it was now. If he took this opportunity now it would not only put him in good favor of his company, he would have the opportunity to do even better for our family in the future. Would we want to have to make these types of sacrifices when we had kids?

So with that we got engaged and started looking into moving ... AGAIN! I needed a smaller place and he needed one in a different city. Within two months of getting engaged he moved 5 hours away. The once joined at the hip couple was now separated by 5 hours of interstate driving.

The Mr. was really nervous that me, being the emotional person I am, would quit school and move on a fleeting thought. I was nervous he would be very lonely by himself. There have been very hard times but it has allowed us to grow in our strength. I have learned to be less of an emotional basket case and be strong through the loneliness. He has learned to allow himself to be more emotional over a phone call or an email. It has been really hard but we both knew we had the history and the love to get through this tough time.

What would you have done in a situation like this? Have you and your man ever been in a long distance relationship? How long did it last? How have you worked through the hard times?

She said YES

So lets make a list of things that we did "wrong" in our relationship:

• I threw myself at him unlike a proper coy woman.
• We started dating even though we were coworkers.
• Clung to each other in the first few months like any therapist would warn against.
• Moved in together after only about 9 months
• Got a pet while we were just dating
• Mixed our money before we were even engaged. 
• I moved with him for his career.

I don't regret any of these decisions because we didn't flippantly make them. In fact we deliberated over them and made the decisions even though they were the "wrong" choice according to most relationship self help books, they were the perfect choices for us. 

So why would we follow the rules when it came to getting engaged? So in the summer of 2010 the Mr. and I had been talking about getting engaged. I had made it clear that I want to get married around the time I graduate from my Master's which was around the 5 year mark. He laughed at my timeline but was fine with it after wrapping his head around it. He knew he wanted to get married but was being a typical man and acted like he had cold feet. I of course, like most women, was beyond ready!

After a lot of discussions on how to go about getting engaged we decided to go ring shopping. We had joint finances so it's not like I would be surprised after seeing a big jewelry store purchase go through our bank account. 

I am not the kind of girl who has been dreaming about a Kimmy K sized rock since I was a little girl. In fact I am extremely practical and frugal. I told him that if he spent more then $1,500 on a ring I would be mad.  He on the other hand would have maxed out every credit card he could get his hands on to get me the "ring I deserved". Sweet sentiment but I won out. 

At first I wanted to look at Moisonite because I could get size and clarity for cheap. This was fine with me and I had several picked out. The Mr. couldn't bring himself to buy me a "fake ring" to start out our lives together. In his words, "it isn't a I-think-you-are-pretty-cool piece of jewelry, it is a this-is-forever piece of jewelry" I guess I can't argue with such a sweet thought even if I am frugal as hell! 

So we went to Zales and Kay, etc. I found a couple I like such as:

Zales promise ring 1/10th CT. T.W. (Zales)

Zales promise ring 1/4 CT. T.W. (Zales)

This was not ok with the Mr.! A promise ring? A center stone so small? He hands down refused. So I looked bigger.

Kay 1/3 CT. T.W. (Kay)

Kay 1/3 Carat solitaire (Kay)

I liked the first of these with the intricate detail. The Mr. liked it but insisted on a larger center stone. I ended up not going with that one because as much as I liked the detail, I felt like a lot of the detail on the sides would be hidden by a wedding band. I went in not thinking I would like the plain solitaire but once I had seen it with more detailed wedding bands and wraps I loved it. Again, he insisted on a bigger stone so this is my beautiful ring:

Personal photo

It was a compromise, not as big as he would have like but not as cheap as I would have liked. Marriage is about compromise, so why not star out with the ring?

Love it! (Personal photo)

(Personal photo)

(Personal photo)

Yet, I didn't get to keep that pretty ring. We checked out. They put it in a box and a bag. We started to drive home and the Mr. held on to it. He put it in his closet and every once and a while when he wasn't home I would sneak a peak. For the next few months he would tease me that he was going to wear it as a pinky ring and not actually give it to me! On August 6th 2010 the Mr. went to the gym in the afternoon. It was a weekend afternoon and I continued to lazily watch a Real Housewives marathon. When he came home from the gym he pulled me into the guest bedroom where his closet was. He was sweaty but wanted a kiss and a snuggle. 

One of our constant inside jokes is "make you a deal". It goes something like this: if you bring me the ketchup from the kitchen I will make you a deal- I will give you a back massage. So while we were snuggling he had his hands around my back. He said "make you a deal?" I said yes and rolled my eyes. "You can have this" at which point he pulled out the ring "if you promise to love me for the rest of our lives" Even though I knew it was going to happen eventually I was shocked! I cried, gasped yes, and gave him a big hug. 

Turns out while he went to gym he called my dad to ask him permission to marry me. One point to the "follow the rules category".

Did you pick out your own engagement ring or was it a surprise? Who wanted the rock and who wanted to be conservative? Who won that argument? 

A dog, a job, a promise ring, several apartments, a move, and an ultimatum

So in the 3 and a half years that followed (that means for those of you keeping score at home, we were together 4 years before we got engaged) we experienced a lot of change. Some was good, some was bad, but we were by each other's side the whole way. We grew up! When we met I was 19 and when we got engaged I was 23.

After that first teany tiny apartment, we moved to a larger one (that was still a little grimy) so that we could get a dog! I grew up with Boston Terriers and I NEEDED TO HAVE ONE! Meet Bella

Bella (personal photo)

She is our stand in baby because that life choice is a long way off. She has brought us even closer together and is a constant source of entertainment. In this picture she has a cherry eye that we had fixed a few months later.

At this point we had been together for a year and a half, the Mr. ended up getting a great job and because he was having success decided to forgo the decision to go military (which secretly made me ecstatic). This is the job that he has now and is loving (on most days). I also graduated from college with my Bachelors degree and began a Master's program. We were still very young but we knew we wanted to spend our lives together. We also knew we could in no way afford a wedding and there was no reason to jump into things too fast. So on our two year anniversary, he gave me a beautiful blue sapphire promise ring.

personal photo

After my first semester in graduate school I dropped out because the department was suffering budget cuts and I could not find a professor who would take me on as my thesis adviser. I took a receptionist job while trying to find a job in my degree field. I was fortunate enough to graduate in August 2008, right around the time of the recession- lucky me. So I spent the next year as a receptionist.

The Mr. was doing well at his job but was hoping for a bigger territory and in October of 2009 he got his wish with not only a promotion but a transfer three hours away to a bigger market. I was thrilled because I didn't mind moving, it wasn't like I had my dream career at this point anyway. So we moved ... again and found ourselves in a new city. Once there I decided to apply at a different college and was admitted into a Master's program where I had a thesis adviser. 

After I had spent some time in school I knew I wanted to pursue a career in research. I also knew that my name is very important when it comes to my career. If I start publishing under my maiden name and then switch to my married name and then back to my maiden if we got divorced it would be catastrophic to my career. So I did what any rational woman would do- I gave him an ultimatum. I told my Mr. that if we didn't get married before I began my PhD. that I wouldn't change my name. Of course this was slightly in jest but it switched our conversation of marriage from "if we get married" to "when we get married". I also knew that the Mr. would support me whatever my choice on my name be because we had a good conversation about it. 

What kind of change did you and your Mr. go through to get to engagement? Did you have to force feed him the idea? Did it go over easy or did you need a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down?