5 Reasons I Know Our Wedding is Perfect for Us

In no particular order... 5 reasons our wedding is perfect suited for the two of us.

5) Chicago! Zach and I met in Chicago, and it is one of my favorite places. Getting married in the city seems like a perfect plan for the two of us, even if we don't live there.

4) Personalized Invitations. You'll see pictures of them later, but our initiations rock. However, they definitely wouldn't have "rocked" so much had I been inviting my boss and other extended family. Can you even consider "We aren't above public lashings." as your push to get RSVPs back with a regular invitation? We went with the much tamer, "Remember, Ashley works for the government, she knows people." We felt a vague (and very Chicago) threat was much more appropriate, at least for this wedding. Oh yeah, and we clearly invited the right crowd because I've already gotten 4 compliments on the invitations (only 17 actually got sent out). The only thing better than awesome handmade invitiations is people who appreciate them, and knowing those people are actually going to come to your wedding!

3) Sea Monkeys. We put sea monkeys on our registry, and have little or no shame about it, Amazon.com rocks.

2) Friends who Buy Sea Monkeys. After putting said Sea Monkeys on the registry, we were debating who would actually buy them for us. After talking about it for a little while I was worried we'd end up with a million sets of sea monkeys because at least 1/2 the people coming to the wedding would totally buy us sea monkeys. Our friends and families rock. We've also debating adding a few other "fun" things to the registry to spread the fun out.

1) Honeymoon! The wedding we're having is affording us the opportunity to take the trip of a lifetime and our friends and family don't care. No pressure for the "big event" just a few friends and family coming together, watching us get hitched, eating some lunchy goodness and moving on with their lives. We, on the other hand, will be living it up in the Mediteranean for a week, which in our opinions, is the best way to start the rest of our life together. And that's what really matters right?

We're signed up, paid for and ready to go!

So Saturday we signed-up for the wedding at the Cultural Center and got our honeymoon flights and cruise booked!!

Just in case anyone in the future is looking to do this, I'll provide a little breakdown of what we HAD to do.

Step 1: Obtain marriage license. We did this on Saturday, the office is in the Daley Center downtown (50 W. Washington to be exact), you can also do it at a variety of offices in the suburbs, but because of other steps that needed to be done we figured we would do it downtown. They have Saturday hours from 9 - 12. The license costs $40. Do not request information about Cultural Center Weddings here... they will tell you to go to City Hall during regular business hours. Well, at least our girl did. That is WRONG. Be sure you know how to spell your mother's maiden name, just in case you don't. :) The soonest you can get your marriage license is 60 days before the wedding day.

Step 2: Walk over to "Marriage Court" located in the lower level of 119 W. Randolph. You need to show your marriage certificate (I guess to prove you're serious?) to sign up. It is just $10, you sign a little form and you're all set. They have times of 10:45, 11:00 or 11:15. Multiple people can sign up for any of these three time slots, so it isn't an "exact" time for your wedding. They do warn you that you need to be ON TIME otherwise you might not get in for your wedding.

Trust me, You'll leave that office happy that you decided AGAINST a simple ceremony at marriage court. It looked about as romantic as getting married at your doctor's office (if your doctor's office was in the basement).

We got downtown at about 9:00, and we were done at both offices by 9:30. Easy peasy.

After that, (and a little breakfast at Corner Bakery) we wander down Randolph to see the location of our pending nuptuals! I hadn't ever been to the Cultural Center, and honestly, I was blown away. It is a beautiful building... I couldn't be happier with the option we've chosen. Luckily they were actually holding weddings there on Saturday (I heard there would be 8 that day) so we got to see the space awake with wedding excitiment. There was one bride there who was pretty decked out, and requested that her future husband not see her before the ceremony. Poor chap was wandering the halls all by himself! You'd think at least someone would keep him company!!

After that we hit up Macy's to look for Zach's suit (which we found easily with the help of a great employee there!) and I was even able to get a jacket (for every day wear) and a sweater to put on over my wedding dress if I'm cold. I'd never been to the downtown Macy's.. man that thing is HUGE!!!

When we got home we booked all of our cruise and flight stuff. So we're official and set to go!!

The Rabbit Hole...

Despite my best efforts... it's happening!

I suddenly find myself awash in a bunch of little things I'd "like" to do for the wedding. Here is just a list of a few:

1) Invitations on the Gocco. Which requires my actually designing the whole thing... could be dangerously time consuming. Not to mention soul consuming. But secretly, that is really why I bought the Gocco, so I can't not do it now!

2) Gifts for our Guests. I really want to make something for the guests. Last night I was thinking custom buttons (you know, like the little ones you get passed out by bands and stuff). I saw the idea somewhere on the internet... and it looks soo cute! I figured I could do some flower pins for the girls (I can easily make those) and then some of the button pins for the guys in attendance. I've thought about other things, but so far, this is all that stuck.

3) Custom veil. This is mostly because I'm CHEAP! There is no way I'm spending $40+ just for a veil. No way. $12 in (the netting was purchased from the internet this week - I bought two kinds so that was already more than necessary!) we'll see how much it really ends up costing me.

4) Cupcake flags. I love cupcakes... and I love the idea of little flags in them! Necessary? Not even CLOSE. There are going to be 20 people there for goodness sakes... 20 people who just want to EAT the cupcakes... not look at my flags.

On top of that, I'm trying to plan everything for our honeymoon. I've now had 2 seperate nightmares where we were on the cruise and 100% unprepared for anything on the port stops. We didn't know where to go, what to do or anything. It was horrible. We were in Rome... but couldn't get anywhere! Hopefully I can clear some of those fears up this Saturday when we actually get down to booking things and I get started with actually planning things. I'm scared to do it now for fear I'll jinx it. I know. I'm dumb.

Waiting Game...

So as I said in my last post... we're waiting to book our vacation until we get everything set "officially" this coming Saturday. Zach wants to make sure that we get the wedding set before we make the reservations and such, which makes sense I guess.

With that in mind though... we're in a bit of a holding pattern. We can't really officially invite anyone until we know things for sure, so it's like it's real, but well, it isn't exactly. So knowing that we have 2 months until this thing goes off, and knowing there is much to do, what have I been doing? Plotting.

1) Invitations. Although Zach would be happy with an evite, I'm looking to put my Gocco to good use and making some homemade invites for our handful of guests. I'm already working on the wording for them, something lighthearted but that has the details our guests will need. I'll post something when I get it more finalized.

2) Honeymoon planning! I love vacation planning, and coming up with a plan for the length of time we'll be gone requires some serious research. I'm already trying to figure out just what we want to do in each port, and I'm looking at some private tour options which are surprisingly inexpensive if you work with a full group. Luckily cruisecritic.com is a great place to meet up with other cruisers to do tours together and save some cash!

3) Veil planning. I want a bird cage veil. Those things are EXPENSIVE! So I'm going to do it myself. How hard can it be? Famous last words right? I ordered some netting from an on-line store so we'll see how it goes!

It's Official...

I'm finally excited!

We've ran it past parents, I've ran it past my boss (for vacation/furlough day considerations) and we've reviewed our schedules. All things considered... this new plan is 100% doable!

In all of the excitiment of talking to parents and really thinking about moving forward... I started to get excited. I finally started to think about this happening... and how wonderful it is going to be!

So what is the next step?

1) Apply for our marriage license. Evidently, once you apply you have 60 days to use it, but you can't use it in the first 24 hours (I guess they want to make sure you have time to sleep on it?). Luckily, the downtown Chicago branch has Saturday hours from 9 - noon, so we can apply then.

2) Sign-up for the Cultural Center Wedding! We have to sign-up in person at the Marriage Court downtown. We also need to have our marriage license in hand. The Marriage Court also has Saturday hours as well, so we can knock these both out next weekend, since the "60 day" mark will be hit next week Wednesday.

3) Once we get the cultural center situation and our marriage license, we'll be booking the cruise and our flights. We figure we will wait until then JUST in case....

A Crazy Idea... Turned to Reality!

After that last post I got to thinking about seriously considering changing up our plan for the wedding.

So I did some more research (Google and I are basically best friends these days..) and determined that I could get a 12-day Mediterranean cruise, that includes an overnight stop in Egypt, for $1,200 per person. Pretty sweet. Of course, it also left in March, which is pretty darn soon. Oh yeah, and being on vacation in Europe for 12+ days has a few extra expenses beyond that $1,200 per person cruise cost (most of which I think I've attempted to capture in one serious spreadsheet!)

I started mulling it over and thought... we could actually maybe do this. Wouldn't that be SWEET? Who doesn't want to start married life off with a trip to visit PYRAMIDS!? Not to mention we could stop over in Paris and visit Zach's sis on the way back, which is something we were really hoping to do.

So I ran it past my man. And he thought it was a decent idea. So I started doing more research... and of course March is a busy time for the cultural center, so no wedding there in March. What does that mean? We can move the cruise back to FEBRUARY and go for even cheaper. Please disregard the fact that it will actually be COLD in Paris in February. Whatever, we'll be in Paris!

What does it mean? Well.. it means we'll be having a tiny ceremony at the Chicago Cultural Center (immediate family only really), going out to lunch, and then hitting the airport for our flight out to Barcelona. Talk about a great first "night", we'll be on a plane, but whatever. We've got plenty more nights of married bliss to enjoy after that...

It will be a tiny wedding... but that is really just fine by me. We'll be heading on a once in a lifetime vacation to start our married life, and I think that is what is most important to us. Little fanfare, big on the amazing, totally selfish, vacation time! :)

I'm Seriously Losing Motivation...

So remember when I bought my dress? Yeah... that was pretty much the last time I really actively planned anything for this wedding and I couldn't really care less.

Zach and I have been focusing on other things... most specifically exactly how we are going to get him through a year long piano tuning school that starts next year (and for which we can probably NOT take out student loans.) I'm so excited that he has decided on something to do and I think we both want him to get started as soon as possible. We'll probably already be moving the date up a week or two at least due to his potential school schedule next fall.

I am SUPER excited about this big change for Zach. I think it is a perfect fit for him and I think it will be a good fit for our future. I've already even been researching the stuff and books he will need for school, despite the fact that we haven't actually figured out how to pay for it yet. :)

I can safely say that I am really more excited about this opportunity for HIM than I am about the wedding. You see, I'm a selfish girl that way and I'm very excited about getting married and going on our honeymoon...

BUT...

There are a number of things I'm dreading:

1) FAMILY - I'm getting a little nauseous at the thought of ACTUALLY having all of our family and and close friends in one place at the same time. Really, it's the family that is the problem. You see, my mom and dad are, at the very least, ackward in each other's presense, but they'd probably be fine (they were both at my brother's for Thanksgiving, and all was well.) Zach's mom and dad on the other hand, well, we've been dating for 4+ years, and I've never even seen them in the same room. They got officially divorced not too long before Zach and I started dating. Thinking about them in the same room definitely makes me feel a little bit freaked... especially if Zach's dad's girlfriend would be there too (which I imagine she would, unless of course we just don't invite her, which I guess is an option...). Frankly, girlfriend issue aside, it could be ugly and I don't want ugly on OUR day.

2) LOGISTICS - One of the things I like least in life is figuring out how to make everything happen. Figuring out the logistics of getting about 28 or so people with varying degrees of Chicago knowledge to the same places in downtown (read, EXPENSIVE PARKING) Chicago on a Saturday relatively early in the morning is a little daunting.

3) GUEST LIST - I've already created a mock guest list for our small wedding... and I already see some potential problems of hurt feelings here or there. I know this sounds silly, but I'd rather offend everyone by not inviting them, then only offend some. Silly hey?

4) HONEYMOON LUST - I really want a wonderful honeymoon. So bad I can taste it. In fact, as I'm writing this I am trying to figure out once again how I can pull off a Mediterranean cruise on a REALLY limited budget (with a quick layover in France to see Zach's sis too). I dream WAY more about the honeymoon than anything else, which probably means that's where I should put the cash right?