I’m so happy to be sharing my planning process with you all on BridalBuds.

Lilac Dude and I are currently students in Canton, Ohio. We’re both from the area and are going to get married here. I will be the last of three children in my family to get married and he will be the first in his family.

We have a very long engagement and I’m very excited to plan our wedding and life together, and in the process share with you everything along the way!

Here we are on our 3rd anniversary, shortly after we got engaged.

I’ll be honest, I really did not want a bridal shower.  I’m so not comfortable with being the center of attention.  All that attention on the wedding day itself is more than enough for me.  I told my matron of honor that I did not want a shower, and she has respected my wishes.  However, my cousin very much wanted to throw a shower for family and family-friends. I couldn’t say no.

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Thank you guys for your advice to my last post about the engagement photographs.  It was wonderfully helpful.  An unforeseen complication was that it was forecasted to rain, and rain hard, all day.  When I discussed this with our photographer a couple days beforehand, she told me not to worry because it would just force us to be creative.  So I tried my best to take her advice and not worry about it.

Lotus Dude and I picked her up at the airport in the morning and we spent the day together.  She definitely put as at ease pretty quickly and we were soon able to act relatively natural.  I think there were definitely moments that I forgot about the camera completely, and those seem to have led to the best photos.  Here’s one of the photographs from her blog.

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Well, I’ve already found Lotus Dude, but now I need to find the right outfit to wear for the wedding. Somehow, I need to manage to strike a balance between looking special and still looking like me. Unfortunately, I’ve never been all that well versed in fashion. I have tried to brush up on the fashion lingo and scope out wedding blogs. I’ve even watched “Say Yes to the Dress” on TLC.

So while I now know the difference between an A-line skirt, a sheath and a mermaid cut dress, I still don’t know which one is right for me. I’ve read that A-lines are almost universally flattering, but my mom has been suggesting a trumpet cut. (I haven’t quite figured out what that one is.) To make things even more complicated, it is expected for Hindu brides to have 2 separate outfits, one for the wedding ceremony and one for the reception. The ceremony outfit is easy as it will be a traditional red and white sari.

Photo from flickr.com

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The first thing we did after getting engaged (well, other than announcing it to everyone) was try to figure out where we wanted to get married. Both Lotus Dude and I live in the Washington, DC area. I have friends that married here and I had already done some research on wedding planning in this area, so it seemed like an obvious choice. However, none of our family lives in this area. Lotus Dude’s parents live in Atlanta and mine live in Ohio. We never really considered getting married in Atlanta as his parents were fine with having the wedding in DC.

My parents, however, are another story. It is traditional in Hindu culture for the bride’s family to host the wedding and the ceremony is generally held in their hometown. My mom kept asking how she was supposed to plan things in D.C. I explained that I would plan everything, but she was not too happy with it.

Of course, things rarely go as initially planned. Lotus Dude and I began to look at venues in the D.C. area and were shocked at the high prices. I knew that it would be more expensive than other parts of the country, but I was still not prepared. So we began to contemplate getting married in Ohio and discovered that most things were around half the price in Columbus as in DC. Yes, that’s right, half. It just made more sense to have the wedding in Columbus. Of course, my parents have agreed to do much of the legwork. So far, it hasn’t been too difficult planning a wedding in Ohio while living in DC. We have crammed as muh as possible into our trips to Columbus, and things are proceeding right on schedule. Hopefully that’s how they continue to go.

I’m a new bridalbud, and I can’t wait to start getting to know all of you I guess I should tell you a little bit about me first.

I was born in India, grew up in Ohio, and live in Washington, DC. My fiance is a southern boy who agreed to move to DC for me. He is absolutely wonderful and I am one of the luckiest girls in the world. Though, I guess all brides to be say that! While neither of us are perfect, I do think we are perfect for each other. I’m not one who has been planning my wedding since I was a little girl, but I am a big fan of planning. So I have to admit that I started looking around for planning tips and reading wedding blogs before Lotus Dude proposed because I knew it was coming. I had to be prepared!

I already know that the wedding won’t be “my perfect day,” but that’s ok because we’re not striving for perfection. We’re planning a Hindu ceremony with some modifications. We’re hoping that we can manage to put together a day that will be enjoyed by all our guests as well as by us. When people look back on our wedding, we hope that they remember that it was fun, and that it showcased our personalities. I’m not the craftiest person on earth but we have several DIY projects planned between us, not only to save money, but so that there are unique elements which better represent us. Here’s hoping we pull it off!

I’m looking forward to sharing with you, and reading about your wedding planning in return.