Where to Start?

My husband and I got engaged in the beginning of May of 2013 and then got married at the end of June of 2014, I know right now I think back and those 14 months FLEW! But, at the time it seemed like I had forever until the big day. One of my issues was deciding where to start... Do any of you have that issue? 

So I obviously started with the basics by booking the Church, Reception Hall, Caterer, Florist, DJ, Photographer & Videographer... so on. Those were all simple planning items for me you see.

I went to a private Catholic school 25 minutes from the town we live in, the Priest is actually my husbands second cousin, and as a bonus the Church was newly built in 2010-2011 (I think) so the word gorgeous doesn't even do it justice!

Then when it came to the reception hall my husband had already claimed that he would give me FULL REIGNS over the wedding planning (surprise, surprise), the only think he cared about was having the Reception at the local K.C. Hall. His reasoning you may ask... "it's in walking distance to our favorite local Tavern of course, why wouldn't you have the reception there." I of course already anticipated this, so that worked out great! Also, the reception hall could accommodate our guest list of nearly 450 people. Those of you from a large city may find this odd, however, it is a common place for the area we live in. We don't have extravagant and fancy venues. We do have one convention center, but that wasn't our style or budget. 

As for the caterer and DJ, I already had them in mind. Having been to over 20 wedding in this area in the last two years we had a good layout of the best and not so great caterers and DJs. 

That leaves the photographer and florist. Well lucky for me my husband has always liked sending me flowers, so it only felt appropriate to use the florist that delivers me gorgeous arrangements such as this one he sent me just this week!! 







I was so happy with how my flowers turned out. I love lily's and personally I think the real flowers as opposed to artificial for bouquets definitely popped!

As for the photographer I originally thought that my cousin who had a photography business with a friend of hers would be taking the pictures. I asked her and she immediately said that she'd love to. Well then she had some personal issues come up and she didn't know if she could commit to be able to take the pictures. She told me in July so luckily I still had plenty of time. I went with a photographer that had been appearing on several of my friends facebook for taking picture they were in. She seemed to take good picture and when i met with her everything checked out and prices were reasonable. Well stay tuned about that. Unfortunately, here it is December and I'm still waiting to get all of my photos. I also booked a videographer which I highly recommend. I am absolutely in love with how our wedding video turned out. I couldn't be happier.