Guys…wedding planning took over my life this past week! With our wedding being only 32 days away (wait, what? When did that happen?) I am in crunch mode. In the past 10 days we have shopped for and purchased my wedding ring, shopped for groomsmen’s clothes and accessories, worked on fun surprises for the bachelorette party weekend coming up, found places for people to stay, finished my thank you notes, bought bridesmaids gifts, shopped for the honeymoon (aka bought too many books), took engagement pictures, had my dress altered and it’s ready to go, bought jewelry for the wedding, returned said jewelry and bought new stuff, and finalized the flowers with Stonecrop. Whew. I feel like I’m going to be busy like this for the next month, besides this weekend because we are escaping to Myrtle Beach to lay in the sun and eat too much seafood – and this break couldn’t come at a better time.

But since my wedding is occupying most of my August, instead of shooting weddings I thought I would let my story of wedding planning take over the blog. To show you what it’s been like for me – on your side of the camera as a bride :) It’s been so much fun and I have definitely enjoyed most of it, but this is a whole other side of weddings for me. I blogged about when I got engaged, but not much else since so let’s pick up with what happened 1st in the planning process…the venue.

I think the important place to start is having an idea of the type of wedding you want. Having been involved in so many I knew some things I wanted and some I didn’t. So that limited the venues I could choose from. Most I’d been to before, but a few I had in mind I’d only seen pictures of. Scott proposed on a Thursday night and my parents were leaving for Honduras that Saturday. So we all agreed to have lunch on Friday so they could see the ring in person and we could start to talk wedding things :) As we talked over venues I mentioned some that I’d seen as options, but that I couldn’t decide until I visited more. And because I didn’t want to wait over a week – we decided to drive out to Rockwood Manor after lunch and look around. And let me tell you, pictures don’t do it justice. As we wandered from room to room and around the grounds I just knew I didn’t need to see anywhere else. That this was the place I wanted. I even looked at my sister and said, “It’s perfect.” It had great rooms with tons of light where we could get ready and out of town guests could stay in, the grounds were gorgeous, they include the tent or barn for your reception, and it was a great backdrop for photos. It was settled.

So since I knew that’s where I wanted, it determined the date for us. I knew six months would be just about right to plan a wedding and not be too busy – and they had one weekend open in September, the 12th. So we asked to hold it and moved on from there. It seemed too easy and too good to be true. Well…that’s cause it was. A few days later I got the call that there was a mix up and they already had a wedding on that day and there were no more September dates available. And since I’m pretty booked with weddings in October, that meant we had to move it back to August! So after a frantic face time call to South America to confirm that date would work with my parents crazy schedules – we all agreed on August 22. I would have to say this was the only pretty stressful moment in all the planning. Once you fall in love with a venue it’s hard to think of having your wedding anywhere else. So if your date is un-changeable I would recommend making sure it’s available before you do a site visit! Thankfully our date wasn’t set in stone, it still worked for people to move it, we get to be married 3 weeks earlier, and it’s not a home game weekend like the 12 is – so it all worked out for the better!

Once the venue and the date fell into place, everything else started to come together. But whether you know what venue you want from the start, or just know the style of wedding you want my biggest piece of advice is to be flexible and know that it’ll all work out how it’s supposed to and maybe even for the better. And in the end you’ll still be married and it will be gorgeous.

So what was finding your venue like for you? Did it come easy? Did you have a hard time narrowing it down? I’d love to hear what your experiences were like. And come back next time when I talk about finding our florist!