Day Dreaming and Planning

While we were away on our trip, we spent A LOT of time talking about our wedding. We talked about what we wanted, what we did NOT want, what would be fun, what would be realistic.Dan thought we could have a wedding for 150 people on a budget of $2800 and I had to burst his bubble quite quickly. We had a lot of time to discuss these things while we waited for parts at various garages in small towns, or tow trucks on the side of the road... By the time we got home, we had already decided a few things:
1) We each picked a top priority. I think this was the best thing we could have done. Dan's was great food (surprise!) and mine was photography. We each knew exactly who we wanted to hire for our respective choices and pretty much had them booked within a week of our return!
2) We didn't want anything formal. We're pretty low key people. A few barbeques on someone's farm would have been great if we thought our parents would have approved!
3) We wouldn't get carried away. While this is a really important day, on the other hand, the leftover money we had would go towards our house renovation. We're not exactly $70 000 wedding people with lengths of tulle and bushels of roses. We'd rather have windows in our house ;)

My friend Elisa contacted me and asked if she could be our wedding planner. What?! Really?! Ummm let me think about that... OKAY! She had just gotten married herself right before we left for our trip, and it was a gorgeous wedding that I knew had a lot of thought and planning behind each detail. Elisa and I have been friends since we were 16, so she knows exactly what a detail oriented perfectionist I am, and thankfully she suffers from the same affliction! Plus it's so great to spend time talking with someone about weddings not worried that you're going to bore them to death or that they'll go home and say to their spouse "Oh my gosh, all Veronica does is talk about weddings. Enough already!". What I'm so thankful for with Elisa, is having someone to take care of all the little things on the day of the wedding that I would have been SO stressed about. She'll make sure the tables are set up, the flowers are in place, the band is there, etc etc etc. I've actually had a wedding nightmare that I showed up and there were plastic flowers but Elisa swooped in, fixed it, and crisis was averted! Amazing!

We're relying on our friends and family for a lot of "favours" for our wedding. This makes my mother very very nervous. Ask anyone, and Dan and I "know a guy" for just about everything. Tables, chairs, linens, china, sound system, check check check check and check. I'm asking a friend who works as a set decorator in the film industry to set up our white Christmas lights in the tent, another friend to take care of our iPod list, and a few other friend supplied surprises to come! My mom is pretty terrified that it will all fall apart, which is a definite risk, but really, if you're going to let a friend down it's more along the lines of canceling dinner at the last minute, not messing up their wedding day! We have the most incredible friends, and Dan and I wanted everyone to be involved in our wedding. They all contribute so much life and laughter to our home, of course we want the same thing on our wedding day!

If anyone has any great wedding memories or favourite moments to share I'd love to hear them! What makes a wedding special to you?