Now that our wedding date is set in stone, the rest of the planning is a little less daunting.
While I love, love, love the date we've settled on, it wasn't necessarily the one I would have chosen for myself.
For the longest time, I'd predicted that we'd be married in May next year. I spent some time looking at Saturday dates that occurred in 2011, and had decided that the 21st would be perfect. Why? Because in a kind of nerdy and more than a little ME sort of way, I liked the way the date looked. For background purposes: I'm the kind of person who, when bored, has a tendency to sign her name repeatedly on any paper object in from of me. I'm not a doodler. I'm a signer. It's what I do.
And so I signed.
And I sketched.
And I wrote out mock invitations on paper.
And I played the date over and over in my head.
And after all of that, it just looked.. right.
Slightly odd and obsessive-compulsive, I know.
During our venue visits, I threw that date out there to see what the general vibe was. Our May date was always available, which was great! I assumed it was because I'd gotten in early with my madly efficient planning skills, but after a few different visits I soon figured out why - turns out that most venues have off season discounts, that become available from June 1st. Yes, you read that right - June in the Southern Hemisphere is the start of the Winter months. We're having a Winter shindig, and I couldn't be happier.
There are loads of reasons why I love our chosen date in June.
· It writes well. It has a swirly letter 'J' - yes, that's important to me. I know. I love the date in its shortened format* and it also still looks lovely when written fully in script. Bonus!
· As I've said, our wedding became classified as an off-season event - which worked out perfectly for us, as our reception venue gave us 10% off our booking AND threw in a few additional extras as well.
· I am a warm-blooded creature, meaning that even in the middle of winter, you can find me in short sleeves and sandals. A cooler wedding month will be great, since I'll be wearing a heavy wedding dress and will likely have had pretty hair and makeup plastered on me... the less sweat, the better! And don't worry - since both the ceremony and the reception will be indoors, my guests won't be freezing. :)
· My parents wedding anniversary is in June, close to the same time, so that's nice.
· The 11th of June happens to fall on an Australian long weekend in 2011, as we celebrate the Queens Birthday on the second Monday of each June. That means that we'll be getting married on the Saturday and will have an extended weekend to bask in our newlywed glory. This works really well for us, as we don't know what our work lives will be like next year and may have to delay our official honeymoon - we'll see what happens there.
· Following on from our long weekend wedding date, that means that every year our anniversary will fall on, or very close to, a public holiday. That means that Jase will have no excuse to ever forget our anniversary (not that he would, of course!) and will work out nicely if we want to celebrate it by going away or doing something special.
It's perfect. I love it! Now the count-down begins.
So my wedded friends, how did you decide on your wedding date? And for everyone else, do you think you would keep a special date in mind?
*Have you noticed anything strange about the way I write our wedding date? In Australia, the shortened date format we go by is 'day-month-year' - so 11-6 is NOT November, it is actually the 11th of June. It definitely confused quite a few of my Northern Hemisphere friends, that's for sure!
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15 comments:
Your wedding date sounds perfect! We got married on November 1. It was great for us because November is the start of the off-season in the US, so we got the discount, but it was so close to October that it was definitely a fall wedding, not a winter wedding (and actually it was sunny and warm and springlike on our wedding day). I too didn't want to get married when it was hot out, and also November 1 is All Saint's Day which made it easier for some of our European friends and family to attend. It was just the right date for us, and it worked out perfectly.
Omg, I *totally* though you meant November! Which is funny, since when I personally write the date, I write 30 April 10. But when it's all numbers, I automatically see the month first.
I want a September wedding, which is going to suck, because all I hear is that September is the most popular month for weddings. I want it for balance... Our anniverary's March, Matt's birthday is June and mine's December... therefore to have balance we need to get married in September!
OH NO. I TOTALLY THOUGHT YOU WERE GETTING MARRIED IN NOVEMBER. I was married in November, so I got a little reminiscent and everything. Ha! Ooops.
But, back to your question. We had been living together for almost 4 years when we got engaged and wanted a super short engagement, so we got engaged at the end of September and we set a date in November. I've always loved November; it's one of my favorite months. We wanted to do 11.23.11, but here the 23rd is Veteran's Day and the Courthouse will always be closed on that day. We ended up choosing the 15th, and it worked for us!
The year was important to us for calculation purposes. We'd talked about getting married in a year that made it easy to remember. We chose 2000, so that the last two digits of the year is how many years we've been married.
2010 = 10. Easy!
i totally thought that you were getting on november 6th, haha. but june 11 is just as awesome and so fun!!
we picked our date because we wanted it far away from our birthdays (april and may) and june is wary in LA and July is too hot so August it was and the other dates were too close to some other family events and anniversaries so the 28 it was, weeee wedding dates! :)
Yep, I definitely thought you were getting married in November. :) I doodled our 'pretend' date too which happened to be in April. I was so convinced we were going to get engaged in March, that I thought 13 months would be a great engagement. Ironically enough, even though we didn't get engaged til August (holy, T was slow on the uptake!) we still ended up with a 13 month engagement. :)
I'm excited that we are getting married pretty much within a couple weeks of each other! I had an obsession with our date too - in Disney, you get a discount if you hold your wedding on a Mon, Tues, Wed or Thurs. Monday would have been most logical but I hate the number 23 so that's why we went with May 24, 2011. It will be fun to plan together! :)
We chose June 21 because a few friends were already planning on being in town that weekend, so it would have been convenient for them.
Living in Las Vegas, there's no real "on" or "off" seasons as far as weddings go. It's a gambling town, so days like 7/7/7 are the ones that get booked up fast. The place we got hitched at said they did around 700 weddings that day. I can just imagine how that one played out - "Do you?" "Yes." "Do you?" "Yes." "Good, you're married. Next!"
I'm still totally going to freeze, just so you know. Maybe we should look at incorporating a bolaro jacket or a cardigan into the bridesmaid outfit for any chilly moments that won't be caught on camera by your wonderous photographer.
I like your date too. I can't wait to see what Invites and save the date cards you pick...
I, too, admit I thought you were getting married in November. Oops! :)
We picked our wedding date somewhat by default. My grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary fell on a Saturday the year we go married, so it seemed perfect, and they agreed to "share" their date with us. So our date was determined long before we, or even our parents, were born. :)
That's my mum's bday! :)
I'm not getting married, so no need to worry about such things :)
I totally thought it was November too, which is silly because when I write the date I write 3 May 2010. Anyway...my wedding date is January 11, 2008 and we picked it for no particular reason other than that it fit into our schedule.
We Picked 1st March, 2008. I wanted to wait for my sister to be 18 (October 2007) and for her to finish her HSC (2007), I knew she would want to do something for schoolies so that cancelled november, December is too hot and too busy, most my family go away in January, Feb already has Valentines day and 1st March just had a nice ring to it. Some silly reasons that all made sense at the time lol.
HA! I'm one of those northern hemisphere people who was confused after seeing the numerical date, wondering why you didn't just go with 11/11/11 if that were the case (haha). Then in this post you started talking about June and I was wondering where the in-between post was of saying "changed my mind! it's now June instead of November!" Ugh... you can say it... "stupid American."
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