The Many Weddings of Jill

My engagement fever probably started 3 months before Mike proposed (approximately).  That’s when I started planning my “options” as I like to say. Each one was different, with a different guest list, and a different price tag. I figured when we got engaged I could just pick one and adjust as I saw fit!  So here were the options:

Justice of the Peace
Super simple, easy ceremony by a JOP. Maybe our parents would be there, maybe not (depending on how spontaneous we wanted to be). I would probably pick up a cute white cocktail dress and he’d wear a polo. We might have rings, maybe not. I was attracted to this idea because it was simple, it was inexpensive, and it focused on the two of us.

Elopement
My first elopement idea was to go big: a cruise.  I could not imagine a more romantic wedding/honeymoon.  We’d be married out on the open sea by the ship’s captain. We’d find a couple on board to be our witnesses. It’d just be us, and we wouldn’t have to share our honeymoon with our friends/family. It sounded beautiful, but it was also expensive.

Planned Elopement

This was my second elopement idea. There are a number of places in the state of VA that have elopement packages, and many of them let you have a small number of guests. One B&B in Luray caught my eye because their elopement package was cheap and included a lot (like champagne, and dinner gift certficates) and it was only 2 hours away! Very easy for our few guests to get to, and they could leave the same day while we stayed for a mini honeymoon.

Intimate Ceremony/Reception

My next idea was to have a very intimate (30-35 people tops including the Bride and Groom) ceremony and reception. I loved this idea because it would include everyone that was important to us, but it wasn’t over the top. It would be about us, and about joining our two families. And it wouldn’t put us at the center of 100+ people’s attention.

Traditional Wedding/Reception
My guest list for this one was 120+ people! I didn’t even know I knew that many people. Some people I didn’t know because I subbed in ‘friend’ and ‘friend +1’ for Mike’s work buddies (he just started a new job where he is incredibly close to his co-workers). By the time we were engaged and getting married who knew which of these guys would be there! This wedding would go all out, with the big pretty ceremony and a crazy reception. I liked it because a wedding is something I was only planning on doing once in my lifetime, so I should do it right! 

My first thoughts after the proposal was to start planning for the Traditional shindig.  That night while on the way out to my mom’s house to show her the ring we tentatively said we’d tell people we were thinking of a Spring 2013 wedding. That meant we had a while to think about it anyway, but to me, it also meant we had a while to save up money.  Like the kind of money it would take to throw a big party of a wedding.

But we weren’t just having a wedding. The plan wasn’t: proposal, wedding, the end.  It’s: proposal, wedding, marriage.  The marriage is the end goal, and sort of the point. So why save up a whole bunch of money, throw a big party, then have to start re-saving after we are married?  We have lots of things to save for other than a wedding. A house. A 55” LED HDTV (Internet Connected, for anyone who wants to give us the best Christmas present ever). And heck, college for the children that we will have someday far, far down the road.

So we made our choice: the Intimate Ceremony/Reception. It feels the most like “us”.  It will include the people who are closest to us and who we love. It will be special and it will be right, for us.

Next post: Venue visit