I spent all of last week at Patrick Henry Elementary school shadowing Miss Carmen. The experience will be getting a post all of its own later today!
Last Friday night Ricky, Cari, Jessica, Ben, Ryan, Pam and Brian hosted an engagement party for Jim and I. All their hard work paid off and the night turned out great. Some highlights included:
- cheesy sausage balls and spinach balls
- mini Cadbury eggs
- fondue (cheese balls in cheese fondue - amazing)
-pork BBQ (which Jim and I ate right out of the crock pot in the back of Ryan's car later that night)
- peach sangria
- flowers, plates and napkins in our wedding colors
- a sentimental slideshow
The party room at Ricky and Cari's place was the perfect venue, Jim and I are considering getting married there... just kidding.
In all seriousness, Jim and I are headed to Cabins, West Virginia on Saturday with my parents to check out a potential wedding venue. I've been trying to come up with a list of questions and specific things I want to look at while we're there. Wedding planning seems to have consumed all of my thoughts and free minutes lately; if I'm not researching or talking about ideas, I'm thinking about them. We've settled on quite a few important details and I think we decided on an official "theme" of the wedding last night.
I wish I could say all the planning has been enjoyable and stress-free. But that would be a complete lie.
My mantra for getting through all of this has been, "Its our wedding. We can do whatever we want." Family and friends have been supportive, but its difficult for them to hide surprised looks when I tell them about our plans or ideas. Or their patronizing comments upon discovering I let Jim see my wedding dress.
We wanted to have an intimate, informal, non-traditional wedding weekend to ease the pressure of planning a big, expensive, formal bash. But as we get deeper into all the aspects of designing the perfect event, we've come across issues, and the stress that accompanies them, that we thought we could avoid. When should we hold the ceremony? How do we best accommodate out of town guests and travel arrangements to a location 2 hours from the airport? What do we write on the invitations? Can we make our own decorations and flowers?
Not to mention the Emily Post type questions like, who should be invited to the bridal and bachelorette parties? Do we need to send RSVP's with the invitations? Are seating arrangements mandatory? Can we just use a website to handle our guest information? Do we send thank you cards for engagement cards?
It all makes me want to elope.
To combat the stress, I've tried to savor tiny moments that make me smile. Blog post on those to come later.
Off to vent to Mom.
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