When I was in high school (5 years ago) I had a group of girlfriends that I swore up and down I would be best friends with forever. We were inseperable. Now, 5 years later it’s definitely changed. Between going off to college, jobs, and changes in lifestyles, I’m only still close friends with one of those girls. Now, I’m not the social butterfly of the world, by any means, but I’m also not unfriendly. The college that I went to was a commuter college, and I was a commuter myself, which made it difficult to make and keep friends.

Fast forward to today…when I’m trying to plan my wedding and I only have two female friends that I consider close enough to be bridesmaids. All of my other friends are either boys or I’m just not close enough to them to feel comfortable asking them to be in my wedding. Now, I would be completely fine having only two bridesmaids, except for the fact that Violet dude has about 5 guys in mind for groomsmen. This creates a bit of a number problem.

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Everything from deciding on a wedding party to what they would wear to Lilac Dude finally asking his best man was a bit stressful. Please note that our friends do not stress us out, we just had some interesting choices to make.

My bridesmaids were originally to be: my sister, my sister-in-law, my good friend from high school and my good friend/roommate from college.

That didn’t happen…. more accurately most of it happened.

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The venue that Morning Glory Bear (MGB as I will put him for short) and I picked to have our ceremony and reception is a nice waterfront venue tucked back in a neighborhood. It actually used to be a crappy little restaurant/bar and the catering company bought it and completely gutted and remodeled the place. I love the view and it will make for some great photo ops, but I’m worried about the lack of variety and creativity available for pictures after the ceremony. Since 75% of the venue is physically on the water (see below for picture) it’s literally just the docks for pictures. There’s no beach or really anywhere to go on-site to make for different pictures.

Copyright Cesar Chavez Photography

So, basically MGB and I talked about going offsite after the ceremony to take our bridal party/family pictures. Luckily, there is a nice park about 5 minutes away with a beach, pavilion and another dock to take pictures at. I was worried about finding somewhere that was close enough to not take time away from the reception time and was pretty enough to allow the photographer some creative leeway. In my nervousness to make sure everything goes according to plan, I don’t want this to end up being chaotic! I still want to do pictures at the venue on the docks, especially something like this at the end of the night.

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I was going to write about this topic at some point in the future but since Martha Weddings tweeted brides asking what the biggest challenge is I thought I’d talk about the theme issue now.

So here is my take on the topic: I guarantee that the first 3 months or so after you get engaged you will do nothing but scour every wedding website known to man and write down dozens of things you think are neat, cute, pretty and memorable.  Therefore, you will inevitably become totally confused and disheartened about the fact that you have no clue what you want.  Well, my tip is this, do all of that until you are blue in the face and then give yourself a break from the planning as it will all come together in time.  It all comes down to budget and the initial feeling of how you wanted the wedding to go.

Me and Mr.Pom initially wanted to go to an island and have a really small ceremony followed by a party closer to home.  Thinking all of it through I am now, after 4 months of deliberating with myself, going with a simple theme.  I never wanted to pick colors and I also never truly wanted a theme.  So here goes, I’m thinking of classic white – because it’s classic AND simple – with pops of yellow, because yellow brightens even the gloomiest days.  This would not only give the whole reception tent an airy feeling but it would also keep true to our original desire of having a simple and effortless wedding.  The fact that we are getting married on a lake only adds to the simplicity and fun.

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I have officially found a part of wedding planning that I don’t like….blocking hotel rooms. Now, I must say…I think this is because I encountered one of the worse “customer service” representatives ever but still, this is not a fun process. Another disclaimer, it may be because I was completely unaware of how the process worked entirely so let me educate those who do not know. First, I found a few hotels in the area of our reception and started with some phone calls. Most of the hotel reps are nice to you because you are booking a good number of rooms but my dear friend from the Hilton (the hotel we wanted) was not so nice. I admittedly did not know that if you set aside a portion of rooms and do not use them, you are on the hook for paying for a portion of the unused rooms. Maybe I’ve been living under a rock but I had no idea that this was part of the contract. Who knew!? Apparently not me….and my Hilton friend made me very aware of it.

The Hilton Garden Inn where our out of town guests will be staying

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No….I do NOT have a bun in the oven BUT I found out last week that one of my bridesmaids does!!! What an exciting time for all of us! Her and her husband have been trying for what seems like forever, which makes this little miracle baby so much more of a blessing. Guess what her due date is? June 3rd. Guess when our wedding is. June 9th. I love it!

When she first told me, I honestly didn’t even think about my wedding. All I could think about was how happy I was for her. She was so scared that I would be mad or not want her to be bridesmaid, which is 100% the opposite of how I felt. She will still be my bridesmaid no matter if she is about to pop, in the hospital or a new mommy. We’ll just have to wait and see!

My preggo bridesmaid and I on HER wedding day!

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I know I’ve been a bit absent from here lately but I promise I have a good explanation. Like I’ve said before, I work in college athletics and well…..it’s football season. Need I say more? Nonetheless, I’ve still been wedding planning and have plenty to share! We are about 7 months away from the BIG DAY and honestly, I’m not stressing too much about anything except for one: bridesmaid dresses. We don’t have them yet and I’m certainly beginning to stress a bit. Here are some that I have found but am not totally sold on them yet. Let me know what you think.

Love these..from JCrew. Only issue is price, $225-just a little high.

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The week before the wedding is a total blur. I can not believe how fast it went.  I was fortunate enough to have had a ton of vacation days so I took the whole week off prior to the wedding, which really helped cut down on the stress level. My mom and I sat around and watched a lot of scary movies and started the off-the-air tv series, Jericho! Thank you Netflix instant! Exciting, I know!

Here is the week summed up in one little blog post!

Part #1: Wedding Prep

Poinsettia Dude flew back from San Francisco and we got our marriage license.

I got my hair highlighted at Glynn Jones Salon by the best colorist (personal opinion) in DC!

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Me and mr. Pom live on the East Coast and my parents and brother live on the West.  I really don’t think about it much, until someone brings it up.  In this case the nice lady who called me to remind me about the event Crate & Barrel is holding for engaged couples.  Mr.Pom is out of the country so I was totally planning on going by myself.  No big deal.

The lady on the other side of the phone said, oh, well if he’s gone you can bring your mom or friend.  Unfortunatelly all of my friends and bridesmaids don’t live in the same state or have babies which is perfectly fine.  I’m sure I could ask a baby less friend, I’d have to think about who that might be, but I never want to inconvenience anyone.  I’m one of those people who always feels bad or is shy when someone does something nice…take for example my bachelorette, I kept trying to give people money because I felt bad that people were paying for me, until one of my bridemaids took my money away from me so I would stop.

Anywho, so I had to kindly tell the lady, that it’s great that I could bring someone but I was pretty certain I would be coming along.  And no, my mom won’t be able to make it.  I just felt so sad and pathetic when all along I was so excited for the event.

How are you gals getting through some of the wedding moodswings?

I recently looked at some photos from my friend’s wedding, I was in it.  The stress of the wedding could not have been shown any better than in my face, on almost every photograph.  I feel awful about this but at the same time, I cannot put all of the blame on myself.

This made me think about my own upcoming wedding.  The last thing I and Mr. Pom would want is unhappy people.  Yes I know, you can’t please everyone.  However, I want everyone to have a great time and not be stressed about silly things such as their dresses, how they look and whether sashes are tied correctly.  I have already thanked my bridesmaids, yes we finally settled on two people each, and told them that the bridal shower will be the only stressful and time consuming thing they’ll have to do.

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