A Vision Emerges

As our friends and family began to learn about our engagement, they all began asking the same question: WHEN?

For a few days, we promised to just relax and enjoy the high of the engagement. But it didn’t last. I was already deep in wedding inspiration land. Finally, we sat down and really started to talk about when we should wed.

We knew that we needed to give ourselves plenty of time because we also had been talking about buying a house. The housing market was at its prime, and it was time to take our living situation from apartment living to home living. So we needed to be able to save for a down payment and for a wedding.

We narrowed it down to two time frames: early fall of 2013 or summer of 2014. A spring or winter wedding was out of the question for me, I had always dreamed of a warm wedding day.

Summer of 2014 seemed much too long, so fall it was. August was too humid still, and October was starting to get cold, so September it was. And there we determined when to marry. We got the WHEN, now we need to figure out the HOW.

I have been dreaming of my wedding day for like, ever. I’ve always wondered what it would look like, what I would look like, and most importantly, who it would be with. Now that I finally knew who, it was time to discuss the what!

Once Jon and I began discussing our wedding vision, we knew these things:

 1.       It must be local. For a split second we talked about an elopement far off in an enchanted destination, but quickly realized it was far too important to have our dear friends and family surrounding us.

 

2.       It must be a laid-back, semi-formal type affair. We didn’t want a stuffy, black-tie event. We wanted everyone to feel comfortable and enjoy themselves, without losing the class any wedding should have! No redneck wedding here…

3.       Lastly, it must be on a Saturday. I know that often time weddings are cheaper on Fridays or Sundays. However, we both agreed that it would be well worth the money spent to have our guests enjoy the whole weekend without having to take off work or leave early because they worked the next day.

With these things in mind, I knew I wanted something more than a simple banquet hall/country club wedding. And in the great state of Minnesota, it’s hard to come by because of the generally unforgiving weather.

Now, I have always been completely and utterly enamored with southern weddings. I love the traditions, the music, the food, the atmosphere, the style. I love living in Minnesota, don’t get me wrong. But part of me feels like I was meant to be a southern gal. So when it came time to plan the wedding, I immediately began researching how to bring a southern style wedding north of the Mason Dixie line! After sharing this dream with Jon, he gave me the thumbs up and away I went!!