Wedding Week: Tough Decisions

Our original idea was to elope. I get pretty anxious in crowds of people and am super nervous when the attention is on me. I was never someone who had a dream wedding in mind, in fact, I didn't want a wedding at all. Even the thought of it made my armpits sweat.

Our original plan was to elope, then have our honeymoon immediately after. We were going to plan a giant, casual outdoor celebration for when we returned home, and have photos and a video of the ceremony to share with everyone.

I have to say that the majority of our friends and family were very supportive of any choice we were going to make, but, as you can imagine, there still some strong opinions from a few people.

One suggestion was to have a small, family-only ceremony. I was absolutely against this. Where do you stop? Where does your 'family' stop? Immediate family? Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins? None of that worked. Family is family, plus, Kelly and I both have people in our life who aren't actually blood, but we consider family just the same.

So let me give you the quick run down of how we decided to have an actual wedding. March 2nd was the proposal. We were planning to elope in late September. July came around and I decided that I should probably get started looking for a dress. So here comes Saturday morning on July 12th, I have an appointment at a bridal salon with my mom and sister. I am absolutely not a shopper. I was a tomboy growing up, hated wearing dresses and in my teenage years, the mall wasn't a place where I liked to hang out. Needless to say I was crossing my fingers that this would be a one-stop-shop.

We arrive and picked out about 12 gowns to try on- my mom and sister each got one pick that I didn't have to like, but had to try on. My mom's pick was somewhat my style, but my sisters pick, well, we have very different style. Let's just say rhinestones, tulle, and if there was a tiara, I would be wearing it! 

As I'm in the dressing room, the bridal assistant tells me that she didn't realize that I needed my dress by October 4th of this year. She thought I was shopping for 2015. Apparently shopping for a wedding dress less that three months before the wedding isn't normal? So anywhoo, she had to pull about half of my choices because the dresses wouldn't be ready in time. I think my sister about had a heart attack for me, but that's what I get, right?

I ended up falling in love with the first dress that I tried on, although I did still try on the other few I had left. We made some minor tweaks to the dress, I really wanted sleeves so they added them using the same lace of the dress overlay. It also had a pretty satin sash around the waist that I had them remove.

So that's when it happened. I have the dress on for the second time, we've makeshift pinned some sleeves on and have a good idea of how it will look. I say 'this is the one' and look back to see my mom and sister sitting next to each other on the sofa, sitting so super still with tears in their eyes and looking like they're holding their breath. Emotions took over and I said "I think we're having a wedding." (then the tears really came- Ha!)

The ladies at the bridal shop took some measurements while we picked out a veil and within two hours, my mom, sister and I walked out of the bridal salon. I felt like I had been in a whirlwind and little did I know the mass chaos that would ensue.

Once we got in the car, I did the responsible thing and called Kelly to...ask...him if it was okay. He just laughed and said thank goodness we only have until a couple more months or I'd be changing my mind nine more times!

So that fateful day of July 12th is when the wedding madness began. That left us 84 days to plan a wedding. Oh boy.