Wedding Planning Updates

           I haven’t really talked much on my blog about my wedding planning process or plans.  If you didn’t know, I have been engaged since October 1st, 2017.  Check out the post about that engagement.  We both wanted to have a pretty long engagement.  With longer engagements you have more time to save money, without it affecting your lifestyle too much.  You also get to really enjoy that engagement period because you only get to experience that once.  I wanted to really make the most of it.  Since October, we have done a lot to plan for our wedding.  We still have a lot to do but here is the progress that we have made:

          We set a date and decided the type of wedding we want.  We are having a private ceremony (just us and the officiate) and then having a reception with friends and family.  We chose and booked our venue and decided that our ceremony will be in Big Sur, California.  It’s a bit of a destination wedding because it’s 6.5 hours from home.  Our reception is at a garden that is near my hometown.  We wanted to have an outdoor reception because it is just more of our style.  There aren’t too many nice venues near where my family lives so we wanted it to be outside.  The ceremony is in less than 2 months!
          We have chosen and booked our honeymoon location.  We will be going to Hawaii for our honeymoon between the ceremony and reception.  I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii for my honeymoon because I think it is the most amazing and perfect location.  It’s exciting and adventurous enough to make a honeymoon feel special, but it is still relaxing.  I wanted it to be someplace that you won’t continuously go back to over the course of your lifetime because I want those memories to stay special.  I mean, I do plan on going back to Hawaii, but I won’t be going there over and over again because it’s expensive.  I like that it is exotic but it’s still in the United States.  I wasn’t sure about going to another country for a honeymoon because I feel like that opens up more opportunities for things to go wrong.
          We decided on a “theme” for our reception.  It’s not really a theme, so much as a combination of all the things we like.  We want the reception to be very colorful with lots of flowers (since it’s in a garden).  It’s going to be a combination of styles.  It’s a bit of beach-y boho, classy garden feel, whimsical, and fun.  It’s hard to explain.  It’s like that super trendy garden style but with our own spin and minus any shabby chic elements.  The colors are lilac, sea foam green, and pink, with hints of rose gold, light blue, and green.  We will have a few french elements because we got engaged in France, some pearls and natural elements because our ceremony is on the coast in California, Flamingo cake toppers to represent our honeymoon (and because they are super cute), and the rest is floral.  It’s a bit Alice in Wonderland but toned down.  We have chosen a lot of our decor but we have a lot to get still.
          As far as my dress goes, I have decided to design and make it myself.  I looked at a few places for one and wasn’t sold on any.  One I was really considering was from BHLDN, but it wasn’t perfect enough.  I just decided to make my own because I couldn’t find one that was everything I wanted.  I have been working on it and it’s about halfway done.  It’s going really well.  The style is super feminine and a bit whimsical.  It’s A-line with a Swiss dot mesh bottom.  The bodice has lace over the Swiss dot fabric.  On top of that are some colorful flowers with beading and rhinestones.  There is a bit of pinky lilac color under neither.  I am very happy with the progress that I am making so far. I have all of my accessories except for my hair.  I’m not sure what I want and I haven’t found anything super amazing.
          We have also chosen our save the dates, invites, and thank you cards.  We mailed our the save the dates.  The photo on the top is the one that we used on it.  We took it ourselves.  If you want to know more info about that, I wrote a post about it.  Our wedding is on a pretty tight budget.  I am planning on doing a post about ways to cut costs and save money.  I’m not sure if that will be going up before the ceremony or after.