About our Date

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!