Venue searching

A little over a month after we got engaged (March 2nd to be exact) - we took a Friday off work to go look at venues over in the Palm Bay area. The day started off with my venue binder in hand, full of detailed questionnaires to fill out at each of the 5 venues we planned on visiting that day. Andrew took the driver seat, we set the Garmin to the first address and off we went!

In the time between getting engaged and getting to actually go look at venues I had done a lot of research online and even asked my mom to go visit a couple places for me to get a preliminary opinion. One of the places she went to, she loved – it sounded perfect, close to everyone, covered drop off area in case of rain, bridal suite, large enough to fit 150, beautiful inside – but (oh come on, you knew that was coming) – it only had one room. It didn’t have any area that we could do a ceremony, except possibly outside. This is when I began realizing that places just assume you want to be outside or in a church for the ceremony. We discussed possibly “flipping” the room, or trying to do the ceremony inside the same room… nothing was going to work for me, so it sadly got marked off the list.

Another place she went to visit was a contender and stayed on the list for Andrew and I to go look at – The Eau Gallie Civic Center. Now this isn’t a grand place by any means, but it worked. It had two extremely large rooms. It sits next to a park on the water that would be gorgeous for photos. It fit our budget. With that, it sat at the top of our list waiting to see if we couldn’t find anything better.

We stopped by a few places that are not really worth mentioning. They didn’t have enough space for both ceremony and reception, and only felt like a waste of time.

One place that I was excited to look at was the Cocoa Beach Civic Center. They have enough space to be inside the whole day, as well as rooms that could be used to get ready. My mom had stopped by to look for me but they were unable to give her a tour. She said the area was beautiful and would make wonderful pictures but there was absolutely no parking. Ugh, that is a pain. I don’t want to inconvenience our guests with lack of parking. But alas I decided we would go give it a try and see if we just fell in love. Unfortunately it was anything but love… the whole place had a strange odor, and the carpets were stained and old. Outside the buildings is beautiful, just as my mom said, unfortunately, the insides didn’t match.

We had just one place left to visit…

The first decisions

Soon after getting engaged we started talking about the first decision we would have to make -  when did we want to get married?!

Since I don't graduate until May 4, 2013 from the MBA program I was looking to do it sometime after that. I didn't want to worry about missing class for a wedding and honeymoon. But I also didn't want to do it too much later than that because that already meant a 14+ month engagement. My mom pointed out early on that their anniversary, May 25th, fell on a Saturday next year. I loved the idea - Andrew was not so fond. We debated whether a holiday weekend is nice to guests or mean to guests and ultimately decided that the 25th was not the date for us. We agreed to keep in mind the 11th and 18th as we searched for venues (even though we didn't think they would be booked already we wanted options... imagine my surprise when some venues told us they already had a couple weekends in May booked).

The second decision to make was - where do we want to get married?!

Since both of us are from Palm Bay, that is where the majority of our families live. It made the most sense to both of us to try and find a place over there to have the wedding. Boom, two decisions down - this wedding planning is going to be a piece of cake!

Finally it was time for the great venue search. The search for a venue is not some wonderful story of how I always pictured where I would get married, or some gorgeous place that I fell in love with instantly. It is more like me: realistic, logical, functional. I started online like any person in this century would do. There was an excel spreadsheet made with a list of all the potential venues surrounding Palm Bay, listing their maximum occupancies, whether they allowed off-site catering, and other important details (looking at you, open bar!). We knew we were going to have 100-150 people and I didn't want to be limited with the guest list due to the venue we picked so I immediately knocked off a couple of the smaller options. Another important feature to us was to have the ceremony and reception indoors. It gets HOT in Florida, especially in May, and we didn't want to endure that, let alone make the guests endure that. Little did I know that finding a place with two large areas, indoors, was tough so I knew we would have to check out other options along the way. I also moved all of the hotel options to the bottom of the excel list because I tend to dislike the food I've had at hotel weddings (I am extremely picky) and they are notoriously expensive, very expensive.

Next up, I tell you where we looked!

Proposal

Once the ring options were handed over I turned into a crazy person, anxiously waiting for the proposal. Over the next few months I started with subtle reminders that I was waiting and then got so impatient I threw in some angry pleas. I was tired of waiting - we both knew it was going to happen, I felt like he was ruining the whole experience for me.

Then my grandfather died. Two days after Thanksgiving. I was devastated. I was hurt that he never made it to Tampa to see my house. I was hurt that he wouldn't be at our wedding, or meet our kids. I was hurt that he wouldn't ever even know that Andrew proposed. It should have put things in the perspective of: life is too short to be angry. But instead all I could think was: life is too short to be waiting for something we both know is coming!

I felt like Andrew's window of opportunity had passed. I always told him I didn't want to get engaged around the holidays. So it was starting to look like it wasn't going to happen for 2011.

It wasn't until January that I really lost it. We were going to be visiting my best friend in Boston at the end of the month and I knew if he hadn't already ordered my ring that it wouldn't come in before we left (the original saleslady told me it would take 4-6 weeks to come in). I was furious. I flat out asked him one day why he hadn't done anything yet and told him how mad and hurt I was. That I felt stupid for thinking for an entire year that it was coming, and nothing happening. He apologized and said there was no reason behind it that he just hadn't done it yet. After that I started to get the feeling that he took me seriously but still assumed he would have to wait 4-6 weeks for the ring to come in. I suspected hoped maybe he would propose on January 22 - two years after we met. We had already planned on going to try a restaurant we always wanted to try and it was just a few days before we left for Boston - and a ring would have been a nice addition :).

Sidenote: the weekend before, Tiffany (the girl from the night we met story) got engaged and it was all I could do to keep from crying when he told me that night as we laid in bed. I was devastated - and learned after our engagement that he was disappointed too. I wanted to be next. Everyone expected us to be next. Looking back I know how stupid and selfish that is, but in the moment I couldn't think clearly.

His plans did revolve around that week. However, I was rear ended on Wednesday night on my way to class. On Thursday I ended up in the ER with a sprained shoulder and was planning to work from home on Friday so I could keep ice on it. This serious of events made him change his plan. I guess he was clued in that I was hoping for expecting the proposal on Sunday (the 22nd) so he was planning on beating me home Friday night to make dinner and do it then. Since I was going to be home all day now this was obviously not possible. He formulated a new plan and stopped on his way home Thursday night to get the necessary supplies.

Thursday night I went up to bed as Andrew stayed downstairs to finish watching tv. Around 2 or 3am I woke up and noticed he had never come to bed, which has never happened. I walked downstairs and found him asleep on the couch. I decided not to wake him up just to make him go upstairs because I was afraid he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep and our couches are sooooooooo comfy.

Friday morning, my alarm goes off as usual at 6:45 but something was different, I smelled bacon. Could my wonderful boyfriend be making breakfast because I had a rough week? As he entered the room with a tray (that he bought the night before just for this) and came around to my side of the bed it hit me... this was more than just breakfast in bed. This was it. I saw a ring lying on the tray as it set it down next to me. He started to kneel but then stopped, our bed is pretty high and this moment seemed a little awkward. I could tell how nervous he was - he was about to ask me a question that would change his life forever. And then he said it... those magical words. However, they were not proceeded by a beautiful speech with all the reasons he loves me. Instead Andrew looks at me and simply says "I made you breakfast with a side of will you marry me?" Perfect. Absolutely perfect. He is never the mushy, tell me all his feelings type of guy and I surely wouldn't expect a proposal to be any different... it wouldn't have felt natural. But I must be honest, I do have one regret: that he didn't get down on one knee, that is what I had pictured for months and was disappointed when it didn't happen. The proposal will only ever happen once and I had made it up in my head to be something that ended up not happening. But I couldn't have been more excited that it was really happening. I quickly snatched up my ring as if I thought he were going to take it back or it would get up and run away. I'm not sure I ever really answered him just started kissing him out of excitement. Soon after that we called to wake up tell everyone the good news! We were engaged!

Rings, pretty rings

A little over 7 months after meeting, Andrew moved in with me in Tampa. Shortly after that the marriage talks began. Simple things at first, the usual conversations of the future that show we just assume we will be together. And then they got slightly more serious with time. At this point I knew I needed to bring up an issue - I wanted to pick my own ring, or at least give a couple options.

See, I didn't want to have a typical ring and... I have slightly smaller than a size 3.5 ring finger. Yes, you read that right. I knew that not every ring would look good and I really wanted to try some on first. He agreed that this was logical and made it easier on him so I started looking. The search began online as most things do. Originally I LOVED tension set rings and had my heart set on one but was extremely disappointed when I went to look in person and they looked awful (read: gigantic) on my hand and a jeweler even told me they weren't sure they could be made that small. Oh well, disappointingly, the search continued.

One day in the mall with my mom I fell in love with a ring set that had a green diamond! Lime green is my absolute favorite color and this ring was perfect. Except when I showed it to Andrew and he cringed. I could not have a colored diamond :( Ok, again I was to keep looking.

Sometime in August I went on a trip for work to Ohio and my mom decided to join me to keep me company. One night as we were driving back to the hotel from dinner (or, more likely, shopping) we thought it would be fun to stop in Jared's. The lady there was extremely nice and very helpful, showing me the rings that could be sized down, explaining the process, etc. My mom was looking a case ahead of me and says "I see your ring!" When I made it to the case, I picked the one I loved and she was right. I tried it on and absolutely loved it. Mom suggested I keep looking to see if there were any others I liked to give Andrew options and I did find another one that was a wedding set that was also very beautiful.

 

 

The saleslady wrote down both numbers on the back of her card (starring the one I found first) and we were on our way. I was so excited to get home and give the card to Andrew. I could feel that the proposal would soon follow!