Choosing Our Date

The obvious first step in wedding planning for a couple is to choose the date on which they'll be married. 

Piece of cake, right?

Well, as much as we both thought it would be, picking the date wasn't exactly a simple task.  B and I had already been considering prospective dates before we announced our engagement to our families.  We knew that we had to wait until the end of this year for his visa application to be approved so that he could move to the US and get married.  That was fine; I liked the idea of having months to plan our perfect day.  We narrowed our range of dates down to March and May, 2010. 

Then we let everyone know we were engaged...

My stepdad is a team roper and immediately he started naming weekends during which ropings were planned.  "You can't get married that weekend, that's Three Rivers!"  Ugh.

Then B told me that the earliest his dad would be able to take any time off work would be the second week of May.  This was completely understandable as his dad is working on organizing the 2010 winter olympics in Vancouver.  I didn't anticipate the massive amount of paperwork he'd have after the olympics were over.

Our range of dates was drastically reduced by two months.  But, May!  May is a great month for a wedding, wouldn't you agree? 

We figured we would compile a list of possible venues and call around to see what was available.  There really aren't a whole lot of options around here for a pretty, outdoor wedding; I think I called six different places.

• Option 1- Booked until July
• Option 2- Had openings in May, but wouldn't let us have alcohol or go past 10pm
• Option 3- Booked until OCTOBER!?
• Option 4- Had an opening.  This was our first choice.  We told the woman who owned the location that we were definitely interested in May 29 (that was the only day available in May) and would have our deposit money when we had a tour.

I was so excited to see our prospective wedding location.  It was bittersweet because B couldn't be there with me to make the decision, but exciting nonetheless.  I get there, it's gorgeous and I've already decided May 29 would be perfect.  When it comes time to write the check the woman says, "What was your date again? May 29? Oh, I booked that this morning."  No other openings.

It was all I could do to hold back tears.  I know it wasn't a huge setback, but it was our FIRST setback.  This place really would have been perfect, and I didn't have B to commiserate with.

So.  I drove home, cried, and booked an amazing gem of a venue the very next day.

 

*swoon*

So, in the end our venue availability chose our date for us.  It worked out really well, as it's a holiday weekend in Canada.  Hopefully the three day weekend will allow more of B's friends and family to make the long trek to our wedding.

How did you choose your wedding date?  Was it a date that was meaningful to you or did you just happen upon it?  Did you get any input regarding your date from those close to you?

Comments

[{ Joy } at Wedding Planning with Joy]

That’s so awesome that you have a date already set, we were not so brave and decided to wait until I have the visa on hand to set the REAL date, but we do have an estimate of December-January; and last week we started talking about how cool would be to get married on our 3rd anniversary January 7th. So that’s what we would love to do :)

[Jenna]

Well, despite having heard some horror stories where the visa takes over a year, we decided to just assume he would definitely be here by May of next year. (Though we're hoping for late September/early October)

We're technically getting married as soon as he gets here to satisfy the 90 day requirement. We'll probably just go to the courthouse. I haven't decided yet if I want to make a big deal about it... I'm not going to consider ourselves "married" or change my name until we exchange vows in front of our family and friends.

I think January would be really nice for your wedding. Is the ceremony and reception both outdoors?