Registering

Throughout planning the wedding, on my downtime Jon and I have been registering at different places for gifts. We picked these places because we enjoy the merchandise from there and they are popular enough that someone who wants to get us a gift has no trouble finding one. One store that we registered in was Home Decor where we mostly picked kitchenware and a few decoration items. Then we went online and began registering at Bed, Bath&Beyond since there is not one in this town, but there is one in every city that our family lives in so they have a place to shop for us that they know they can find out what we want instead of guessing.

Legal Issues

After getting everything else set in stone, there was one more thing that Jon and I had left before we could make our wedding binding and legal and that was obtaining a marriage license/certificate. This we got at the City Hall where we recieved worksheets asking about our history and general information. Then when we return to turn in the applications, we were asked to bring our picture I.D.s and a $25 Dollar fee. After that during the wedding reception we would have the wedding certificate to sign there along with our Judge. Our judge is Stephen Aaron and together we set up an appointment to get to know him and him us when we ask him if he will marry us.

The Menu

For my menu I wanted to keep it simple so there was no mess to clean up after the wedding was over. I also realized that my wedding was in the middle of summer so a big hot feast was not a great choice for food. Instead I started looking around for meals that didnt require alot of work and were great for the season that we were in. Foods that agreed with my ideas were cold cut sandwiches, fruits and vegetables, cheese trays, meat trays, and chips. For beverages water would be just fine. After finding out that every caterer was booked in Evanston, I decided I was going to have to do it myself. So my choice for food was to order the trays from Wal*Mart, which had every choice that I had thought of for my wedding, plus their prices are low and the food is great.

Bridesmaids Dresses

I had more to do with this shopping even, however I still did not require much stress out of this one as well. The Bridesmaids dresses were all brown to match the men in the other line, while the flower girl I put in pink. We got the dresses from Davids Bridal. I let my ladies pick out their own style that they felt comfortable in and it turned out being a set that matched together anyway. Then I gave them the choice of me paying for their dresses and them paying for their hair and nails or visa versa. They chose to pay for the dresses and I said that I would pay for their hair and nails as my present to them for being in my line at the wedding. All in all it was a fun day with the girls and was a productive part for my wedding.

The Tuxedos

I did not have to do much with this except twist Jon's arm until he finally got his line together to go down and do it. He chose the tuxedos based on my color scheme. The Line of men would be wearing black tuxes with brown vests and ties, while Jon's tux would be black with a cream vest and tie. This would seperate him from his line and match him to me and my dress. The total of all 6 of the tuxedo rentals was $600 and that was including a fitting for each person and insurance on the tuxes in case of accidents. Jon picks those all up two weeks before the wedding.

The Music

It is always good to have friends everywhere which is the perk that I had with my D.J. Kevin and Angel Lanham are great friends of the family and together we have dont numerous things together and helped each other out. Last summer I was the photographer at their wedding and did their engagements. So when they heard that I was getting married they offered to be my D.J. Excitedly I said yes and set up an appointment to talk about my part in the music. All my job for the wedding was to make a couple CDs for them. The first had my ceremony music on for before and after the actual ceremony. Then there was a CD for the important songs like the First Dance, The Father Daughter Dance, The Mother Son Dance, the Grandparents dance, the Garter Song and the Bouquet toss. The one Cd was for a mix of fast songs that I wanted including crowd favorites like the Cha Cha Slide and the Boot Scootin Boogie and the other CD was for slow songs. I would give these to them and they would be able to mix them to play at my wedding.

The Invitations

This was a more important thing that we had to do because they invitations are what lets everybody know that there is going to be a wedding, the locationg and time of it. For the invitations, I took Brenda's advice and went to Westar Printing where she said I would find a large selection with great prices. They had 4 albums full of choices for invitations so luckily Jon and I agreed on what kind of style we wanted. We decided not to go fancy on the invitations because we didnt want to spend alot of money on something that would probably be thrown away after a while. We both wanted invitations that were a copy of one of our engagement photos with the writing on top of it. We found the perfect one and asked the sales associate to give us an estimate on 110 invitations. To our Surprise it only came to $94 dollars including envelopes. We were instantly sold. All we had to do was bring copyrights from the photographer and a digital copy of the picture we wanted to use. This was one of the easier things that we did for the wedding.

The Photographer

Something that needed to be done soon was finding a photographer that we both liked and that would give us the most for our money. Again I asked around and found that Pro Video Production was a great place for weddings as well as they not only took photos, but also made movies. This instantly drew us in because we both knew that you could not replace memories. We signed a contract for the full package that included Engagement photos, bridal photos, wedding photos, a wedding video and a wedding DVD all for $1000 dollars. Then when we did our engagments, he worked with us in every aspect and then set up a date on May 31, 2009 to do my bridals in the Red Butte Gardens.

The Decorator

Working more into my wedding my greatest fear was that no one would know what to do except for me, so at first I decided I was going to do everything myself. This of course did not work. So I asked around and found out about Brenorma Weddings located here in Evanston, Wyoming. I called Brenda Welling and set up an appointment to meet with her and try and work something out to where I wasnt doing everything. When I went to meet her, I took my Maid of Honor Sydney and right away I knew I had made the right choice. She worked with my budget and actually gave me great pointers on how to manage a budget and plan a wedding. We then sat down and I looked through an album of hers full of previous weddings that she had decorated. After a while I picked my favorite layout and style of decorations. There was going to be a beautiful backdropping with double columns, silk and tulle and lace along with lanterns and trees. She was also doing set up and take down along with setting up the layout of my wedding. I was perfect and the whole thing came to only $1000 dollars, which was a great price for the services.

The Flowers

My flowers were an easy thing to figure out. I work at Home Decor on Main Street with the owner Bonnie Davis. Bonnie is amazing at floral arrangements and I had seen her abilities at bouquets before, which means all I had to do was ask if she would be willing to do all the flowers at my wedding. She of course said yes and I gave her a list of what all I would need with the flowers and what flowers I mainly wanted at my wedding. My choice of flowers were cream calla lillys, asiatic white lillys and light pink gerbera daisies. I needed a bouquet for myself, a bouquet to throw, a bouquet for each of my bridesmaids, five boutonnieres, three corsages, flowers for the cake and flowers for my centerpieces. I told Bonnie that I had a strict budget of $300 dollars and she said that would be no problem to stay under. I had also asked her to try to incorporate brown in my main bouquet as well, which she did very nicely.

The Cake

After the I had picked out and purchased my dress, the next step that Jon and I took was picking out the perfect wedding cake for our wedding. So far the wedding we both envisioned was not fancy to say in the least, but we did want elegance and more of a less formal wedding. I think that the cake says alot about how the wedding is designed so I started to ask around and find out different prices on caterers and what their capabilities were. The first caterer I went to was down in Salt Lake City and I brought a picture of the cake that I had really liked. After she had looked at the cake and gave me an estimate it came to $260 for me to come and pick it up and $380 for it to be delivered and set up. I decided that I would shop around some more before making my final decision. At my job I was referred to Gale Sattherwaite whom I was told did a beautiful job and wasnt very expensive. Jon and I went to meet her and she had a scrapbook full of previous cakes of all different designs. When Looking through the album I came across a cake that I loved. I instantly picked that cake and we wrote up a contract. My cake is a three tiered round cake with real frosting and three flavors of chocolate, banana and white. This all came with delivery, set-up and take down and it only ended up costing me $130.

Shopping For My Dress

Like anyone would, I was very excited to get my wedding dress, which is one of the main centerpieces for a traditional wedding. I had been looking online for quite sometime and had found some styles that I really liked and thought might look good on me. Some sites I went to were www.weddingaccess.com and davidsbridal.com. Wedding access had more dresses that I liked but they were an online company and you could not try on the dress and then decide, you had to buy the dress first and then decide and by that time, there was no way you could just return it, you could only exchange it. So I decided that I would make an appointment for Davids Bridal down in Salt Lake City to try on some styles of dresses and find out my sizes. That way I could order the dress over the internet without worrying if the style would look great and I would know what sizes to order for everything. So I called and set up a date to try on dresses at Davids Bridal. I took my dad and my maid of honor with me. When we got there it was an amazing experience. My consultant was so nice and made me feel so important. I had brought with me a list of styles that I had liked when I looked on the internet and my consultant went and found them all for me to try on along with a bra and a wedding slip. I then got to see what I looked like in all the dresses and I was pleased but they didnt look what I wanted them to on me. Luckily my consultant was able to summarize my preference in dresses and she found more styles that I ended up liking more. Then toward the end of the day she brought me over one that didnt really match my style that I liked and I ended up liking that one more than all the rest. In fact I liked it so much that it ended up becoming mine. I also bought with it a bra, flipflops, a preservation kit, a veil and a wedding gown bag.

Setting My Budget

After doing the basics of finding out how many guests were attending, it gave me a rough estimate on how much I was going to need for the wedding. Weddings are not cheap by any means, but even on a small budget, there is alot that you can do and get to make your wedding look gorgeous. I knew that money was an issue for Jon and I because we also have a daughter to provide for. So I did some researching on basic prices for everything and who paid for what in the wedding parties and went to my parents to talk about it. I roughly estimated that we would need about $3000 dollars to get everything that the bride pays for done. My parents were more than supportive about my wedding and said that they would help us with the wedding. So that night the four of us sat down and planned out what all I needed to do to make this wedding possible. What we came up with was a location for it (which was already paid for), food, DJ, Photographer, Florist, Dresses, Wedding Gown, Decorations, Cake, Tuxedos, Wedding Rings and invitations. Then after we figured out what all we needed, we started to figure out who paid for what. We came up with my parents paying for the food, DJ, the photographer, wedding gown, decorations, invitations, cake and we took the normal responsibility away from the grooms parents and decided to pay for the florist as well. The groom's party responsibilities were paying for the tuxedos and the rehearsal dinner. Our responsibilities as a couple were to pay for the place, the rings and the extras that we might encounter as we began planning. Then even though we went through all of that, we needed to choose our best man and maid of honor because they have responsibilities to the bride and groom as well. Such ones like the wedding shower, the bachelorette party, the bridesmaid dresses and the bachelor party.

Our Guest List

This is probably one of the easiest things that I did all through this whole wedding. Of course it was one of the first things so I didnt have anything to compare it to at the time. However it was a nice way to spend time with Jon and come up with who we wanted to share our wedding with. When we first started, we were just saying names and writing them down on a list in no particular order. This didnt go on for too long when we both decided that it was not worth having to go and look for the names when it came time to get the addresses for everyone. So we broke it down in a sense and made our one big list into 4 smaller ones. The four categories were my family, my friends, Jon's family and Jon's friends. This turned out to be much easier and the list was broken up so when we got addresses it was very easy. First Jon called his mother for the addresses that she had. Most of them she did have and some she didnt so we had to call around to finish getting his family's addresses. Although this didnt take too much time, it was still somewhat a hassle to call around to get addresses especially when we had to leave messages to get the addresses. So by the time it was my turn to get addresses from my family I thought it a better way to E-mail two people, one from each side of my family, and give them a list of people who I needed addresses from and ask them to email me back with the addresses. This worked so much better. It was more organized, took less amounts of time, and there was no possibility of misspellings. Then for friends and such we just decided to send an email to them all and also a mass text just in case they did not have email. Finally the guest list was done and it turned out that we were planning on inviting 206 people. About the size of a medium size wedding.

Inspectiong Our Site

Even though Jon and I had decided that we wanted to be married at the Depot and had paid the $250 deposit on it, we still needed to go and look at it to make sure that it was what we wanted and had all of what we had. When we rented the depot, the tent and the square came with the option of renting the B&C Building or the Station. However I was worried that if I did not rent all of it then there was a chance that someone else could rent it on the same day and then I would have to share my location with another party. I told this to the lady that was renting us the place and she gave us a deal on renting the whole square for the day so there was nothing that could interfere with my wedding. There was a contract involved that both of us had to sign and it gave the overview on what was and wasn't allowed. It also gave information on when we get the keys, what the expectations were about renting the place and also that there was a $400 dollar deposit due the weed before the wedding just in case anything was broken or dirty, that way they could insure that we would take care of the site. Then after the inspection we recieve that $400 back depending on the state of everything. So then after we rented the place and paid for it, Jon and I went over to the square to decide roughly how things would work. There are hookups in the ground for a DJ when I found him, and plenty of space for the guests that we were planning on inviting. Our wedding site seemed perfect enough that we even decided to use it as the ceremony and reception site all in one.

Picking The Date

The first thing that I encountered when we began to plan my wedding was picking a date that it should be on. Both of us agreed that we wanted it on a weekend so that more people would be able to attend it. However we found a dilemna when we began to try and pick dates that sounded good to us. Jon and I both seemed to have an uncanny knack to be able to pick dates that just so happened to be other's birthdays. So finally we picked the date August 15, 2009. We began telling people the good news and one night when we were at his Parent's house for dinner we anounced our engagement. When we told them the date, one of Jon's many brothers said "Hey thats my Birthday!" Once again we were at square one. Then one day we were wondering where we even wanted to get married and we had decided on Depot Square in Evanston, Wyoming. I called curious to see what dates were even open. July 25 was open and to Jon and I it seemed perfect. The middle of the summer month would be beautiful in Wyoming and it would ensure us to have an outdoor wedding without the chance of snow. At last!!! We had picked our date and even reserved the Depot for our wedding. This was just the start of all the preparations for our wedding.

The Engagement

Planning a wedding is stressful and I know this first hand because I am in the midst of planning my own wedding for July 25, 2009. When I was proposed to, my dreams were so extravagant about how my wedding was going to go. At first I wasn't too into planning my wedding, so for the first few months that I was engaged, I did nothing but think about my wedding day and became very pre-occupied with my school work and job. Then when Senior Projects started to become manditory and students were introduced to the idea, I chose to create a work out plan for out-of-season swimmers to keep in shape. This added to the pressure of school and all the projects and assignments that were due which pushed my wedding farther out of my mind and created a larger work load and a higher stress level for me to deal with. Then when I decided that I needed to start on my wedding if I wanted it to become a reality, my senior project was pushed to the back of my mind instead. Obviously things with all that I was dealing with were not working out. I needed to find a smarter way with dealing with all that was needed to graduate my senior year. Then one day when I was setting up some appointments for my wedding, I got an idea that turned out to be a great stress reliever. Instead of trying to do two completely opposite and both demanding projects, I would combine my wedding and my senior project into one. Thus my senior project became my wedding. This helped tremendously because I could put my full attention to my wedding while still being able to work on my senior project at the same time. My wedding also provided me with all I needed to have included in my senior project. So for my senior project I decided to plan and create a wedding as my research for my website that I created as an advice site for brides that needed help in planning the wedding of thier dreams. My project was to find out what all went into planning a wedding and then finding an easier way to do it for others. I know when I began to plan this wedding I was lost and didn't know where to start and I would have loved to have had a site like mine to refer to.