all things wedding

Lately I have been perusing the wedding blogs with purpose!

(<--Hence the growing list to the left)

thoughts on my own wedding.  (4-years ago in 3-short-weeks!)

i never really planned our wedding.

well i sort of tried. i actually did the whole sit-down-with-a-planner to book the necessites like:
-the venue
-the reception location
-the hotel
-the transportation
-the photographer

i actually did all those things.  i remember taking a tour with mom around lake havasu looking at all the different hotels & other venues that could host the wedding. i remember our first meeting with cindy our photographer.  i remember reserving agave- now heat hotel where we'd spend our first night. i remember talking to the gondola man who would wisk us from the gazebo under the london bridge back to the other side of the channel.  i remember mom & dad talking about the things they would do to "clean-up" the back patio & pool area before the reception. 

but all that was in arizona & by the time we changed our wedding location to washington, i was over it. 

i wanted simple/effortless/budget friendly. 

-simple target photos with the wedding date printed on them. 
-i picked the color blue. zane picked the color yellow. for no particular reason did we choose these colors. more because having wedding colors was what you did. & those two colors happened to tickle our fancy that day.  looking back, they ended up looking rather awful, more appropriate like for a baby shower to welcome a little boy into the world.  but whatever!
-cindy ended up making "proper invitations" which was kind of her.  she picked out the paper, the embellishments, the design & spent the hours putting them all together.  but she did it because she knew i had no interest whatsoever in proper wedding invitations & didn't care whether they were ever done or not.  
-but still. when those ran out. i was back to stuffing envelopes with photo cards & writing addresses with my seriously awful handwriting to people i didn't even hardly know, but thought i was supposed to be including. & that was just fine with me.
-i never even considered having a bachelorette party.  i mean the thought didn't even cross my mind.  & i wound up getting swept away to a spa in spokane with my two best friends & my mom & grandma & the ladies on zane's side of the family.  ill always always be grateful for the really really awesome memory of walking into perkins to see ash & lace waiting for me.  & getting pampered in the forest with people i love was amazing too. 
-we got finger food the day before the wedding at costco. 
-we ordered our cake from one of zane's old teachers. i don't even remember how we found out about her, but that was one of our BEST decisions.  she was sooo cheap & she made the most delicious cake EVER!
-no professional photographers to capture the ceremony. all professional photos were taken weeks before the real wedding. boo.   
-ashley did my hair.  it wasn't in a salon, but she is as close to a professional as i could've hoped for! & syd, krista & ash did a fabulous job putting my hair in foam curlers the night before (& helping me unravel them the day of!) while we watched the wedding planner of course.  & then somehow we lost the movie & ended up having to buy it!
-i had a zit we named "bart."  bart never did make an apperance which was a total miracle.  but i felt him & he was painful.  i iced him a lot that week.
-only family was invited to the wedding. i don't regret that decision. it was intimate & personal. i still like that there weren't too many people that we couldn't all stand or sit together on kirk & kellys porch.
-i do however regret not including my two best friends. i should've realized that they are like my family & always will be.
-i also regret being so self conscious.  i was waaaaaay too aware of everybody watching us.  i couldn't even make myself walk down the aisle, let alone let myself get caught up in the moment.  & then we had to do "the kiss" over because we did it too fast. 
-a lot of our choices were because we didn't realize how mentally unstable i still was at this point.  i shudder at the memories i have of going to garage sales & stocking up on baby stuff. even car carriers because i was sooo consumed with thoughts of babies & trying to deal with the void i felt without landon.  it hadn't even been a year later at that point. 

ANYWAY. i don't live in the past & that isn't what the post is about. it's just that a lot of friends & friends of friends & sisters of friends, co-workers, etc. have been planning their weddings & it's this whole little crazy world.  so it's caused me to think about my own & why we did what we did.

i'm very much enjoying all the fun and excitement of wedding planning as i think of nay's approaching nuptials.