And here’s the second post from our private wedding website. Enjoy!
It’s been 5 months since I last posted on this website and we’re 3 1/2 month away from The Great Wedding Day of 2010 so you can be sure that quite a bit of planning has happened since I last wrote. Rather than spend the next few days telling the story of each and every step of the planning process, I thought I’d sum it all up with a list of the lessons we’ve learned thus far on our quest to get married:
1. While dessert is typically reserved for the end of a meal (unless you eat at Skinny Pancake where you can pass off dessert as your actual meal), in the meal called Wedding Planning, you actually get to eat your cake pretty early on in the process. My fiance and I tested wedding cake samples at the bakery at which she held down a part-time job in high school and when thinking about the best parts of the planning process, this step most definitely takes the cake. We designed our cake both inside and out, we ate more cake than should be allowed in one sitting, and we got a great price with the old friendly It’s-Who-You-Know discount. When the stress of planning a wedding starts to get to us, the perfect antidote is a moment spent imagining the next time we taste wedding cake.
2. Everything in the world is Made in China. My fiance and I spent days upon days driving from store to store, Internet searching from site to site, looking for kitchen appliances, sets, houseware stuff, and dishware made in the USA and were disheartened to find limited and mostly discouragingly-expensive options at every turn. The biggest disappointment for me was when we selected a dish pattern that was both traditional and hip only to discover that Pfaltzgraff had moved its manufacturing overseas. In the end, we decided to skip registering for dishware altogether and keep the plates we had purchased secondhand for the wedding reception. Speaking of …
3. I’m having fun planning a wedding on a budget and searching for shortcuts and work-arounds and cheap alternatives, while still guaranteeing a great celebration. From the save-the-date cards to the invitations to the reception dishware to the party favors to the cake toppers to the ring designs to this website, we’re definitely making this wedding our own. Of course, it wouldn’t be possible without a lot of help, which brings me to …
4. Our loved ones. We have been given an amazing gift in life by being blessed with the love of so many wonderful people who have all helped us throughout this planning process. The advice, gifts, energy, creativity, volunteered time, and all the other countless contributions we’ve received since February have made our goal of planning a wedding in 7 months not only possible but, for the most part, stress free. But speaking of stress …
5. When it makes Mama Benchly cry, you can rest assured that compiling the guest list is the most stressful part of the planning process. Finding that balance between what we want and expect from our day, what our families want and expect from our day, and what we can afford our day to look like is a delicate dance. And we all know how much I love to dance.
6. Getting a puppy while planning a wedding is probably not an accurate example of “good timing.” We love Agatha and now that we have her, we can’t imagine our lives without her, but having her around has definitely complicated the planning process a bit. For instance, it’s tough to concentrate on the task at hand when there is a super tired and cuddly puppy resting her head on your lap.
7. Most every wedding-related decision you make carries with it a worst-case scenario that isn’t all that bad and, in most instances, is something that will fade away over time, but the choice of photographer will affect you positively or negatively for the rest of your life. Considering the fact that finding a photographer who is qualified, creative, with a similar vision, and affordable is next-to-impossible, and it’s safe to say that choosing the photographer is the most difficult step of the process.
8. I’m not exactly known for dressing up, and I’m most definitely not known for wearing rings, but it was pretty awesome to see myself in the mirror wearing the suit I’ll be wearing on my wedding day, and it felt incredible to try on my wedding ring.
Benchly'sword 