“Let’s start at the very beginning…”

…a very good place to start.” I love that song! For those of you that don’t know, it’s a line from Do, Re, Mi from my all time favorite movie The Sound of Music. I’m kind of a nerd when it comes to musicals; just ask Chris who was talked into seeing a midnight showing of High School Musical 3 when it came out in the theaters.

So where to start when it comes to wedding planning? For me it was a tricky question to answer. I am not one of those girls who has had their whole wedding planned out since they were 6, but I will admit that after I knew I would be spending the rest of my life with Chris (before he proposed) I did start to collect some ideas. While I have been to weddings (4 so far this year alone), I have never been involved in the planning of one. I’ve never been a bridesmaid and don’t have a sister or close relative or friend who I've been ask to help plan her wedding. So my first stop was to the local Barnes and Nobel to pick up some bridal magazines. I’ve secretly always wanted to buy one, but felt that the cashier would think I was odd with no ring on my finger. With my beautiful ring on (Chris got exactly what I wanted, actually more then what I wanted) I picked up a couple, ok maybe closer to 5, bridal magazines and flipped through the ads and pictures, and read any article that looked interesting to me. While a large percentage of the magazines are ads for dresses (mostly not the type I’m looking for or can afford), there were some very good articles that I found in Martha Stewart and The Knot – Texas issues. I gained some good insight on what a wedding can actually cost, my brother and father were shocked to learn that the average wedding is around $27,000 these days.

Setting a date is one of the first major things to decide on for a wedding. The date could determine the feel or theme of the wedding. Chris and I originally wanted to set the date for April 24, 2010 since it was the closet Saturday to our dating anniversary (April 26), but after reality set in we knew that it wouldn’t be feasible for the ideas that we were thinking. In order to save for the wedding and not start our marriage out in debt (after the clear thinking of Chris, I love him for helping me see the other side of things!) we decided to move the wedding date to April 23, 2011. We set up a budget in excel and calculated what we would need to save each month with the help of my amazing, loving parents who are putting in the other half. I’m a numbers person, my bachelors is in finance, and being able to see an actual dollar amount really allowed me to see that it is possible.

At first I was nervous to tell friends and family that we were now planning on a 2011 wedding. What would they think of a 25 month long engagement? But our friends and family were all very supportive! They told us that they would be there whatever day we choose and that we were very smart for taking the time to save rather then charge it up and be in debt after the honeymoon. We are so lucky to have such understanding and loving people in our lives!

So with a date set and numerous ideas from my stacks of bridal magazines, we were ready to start planning the day that Chris and I become “we”.