Weekday Wedding

Please keep in mind it is an evening wedding starting at 6:30pm. Local guests probably won't even have to leave work early. Also, (I'll discuss this more later) we won't be having a bar so there's no risk of everyone hung over the next day. From the FAQ section of our guest website: Isn't the 21st of March a Wednesday?!? Yes, we are getting married on a Wednesday. It will be an evening ceremony starting at 6:30pm. We hope this gives everyone a chance to make it from from work, but if we've given you a good excuse for a day off in the middle of the week, you're welcome! All that being said it has it's good and bad points.

Pros

• Discount on Venue
• Discount on/greater availability of venders
• Less schedule conflicts for local guests
• Cheaper travel options for out of town guests
• Weeds out people just coming for the party
• Amazing date.
• We can set-up the day before because there's no other event that day
• What's more fun than a midweek excuse to party?
• People who do laundry on weekends will have most of their wardrobe available to wear
• More options for emergency plan B vendors if something goes wrong
• Wednesday Wedding is alliteration

Cons

Wedding events will either be well in advance of the wedding or during the week

Getting time off work may be tricky for wedding party and out of town guests

We may have to wait several days to leave for the honeymoon depending on which option we pick (ie not many cruises leave on Thurs)

We may throw a wrench in our kids' schecdules

It's one more thing we're doing differently than tradition dictates for people to grumble about

Pick A Day...Any Day

We have a date and have notified guests of this date via our wonderful save the dates. That was a project and a half! I saved up the deposit and my dates (all 3 options) were booked. Along came summer camp and car trouble eating up all the money I saved. I saved again and amid a sea of family events, major religious holidays, the heavily booked event calendar at our venue, Florida weather considerations and impending births we compiled a list. It was amazingly frustrating.

I was stubbornly refusing to consider non-Saturday options in the beginning. When push came to shove we weren't thrilled about any of the Saturdays the venue had open. One of my brilliant bridesmaids had said something to the effect of "The people who love you will find a way to be there no matter what." A few weeks after that comment one of my friends told me she had been married on a Tuesday. That really opened my mind. I'd seen the wedding pictures, it was beautiful and there were guests in attendance. I decided Mike and I should consider the whole calendar. That made things much easier.

We soon had a decent list of options and a potential money saving plan, weddings Mon-Thurs are 20% off at our venue. I did refuse to consider Mondays though because nobody wants to party on a Monday night. Mike was pushing hard for February 29th. It was different, my flowers would still be in season and it would mean my birthday, Valentines and our anniversary in the same month. It occurred to me why he liked the date so much:
"Do you want to get married on leap year so we only have an anniversary every four years?"
"Yeah!!"
In the end that one didn't work since one of our groomsman is an expectant father and his wee one would be too tiny for his family to venture out. On top of which I don't like the idea of an anniversary every four years.

I had always wanted a St. Patrick's Day wedding, but that was taken at our venue. It's a good night for fairies. Leap year was out and April 21st was also taken at our venue. At the point that we opened up the calendar we liked the Friday the 13th option in April and March 21st (3-2-1, 1-2). Those were the front runners, but we had 4 back-ups all in April.

I went armed with my list of options, my checkbook and butterflies in my stomach to the venue. In the end we're having a weekday wedding on 3/21/12. Honestly, we loved the numbers and the discount. After booking the date I found out it is the vernal equinox, day and night are balanced equally. It's also the Baha'i observance of the vernal equinox symbolizing spiritual growth and renewal(a href="http://orl.usc.edu/religiouslife/holydays/page/13">Holy Days Calendar).

Sounds good to me. I like the idea of spiritual renewal on my wedding day. I also don't think Mike's likely to forget our anniversary being 3-2-1 (blast-off!).

Just For Fun

Yes, while searching for an image to a not-quite-as-interesting post I found this. I spun my computer around to Mike who said "I love it! Is that rice krispie treats and duct tape? If it's not it should be!".

Puppet proposals? Why not. I don't think the internet makes people more creative I just think it gives creative people a bigger audience. Sigh..proposal videos. Or if you don't have mad Jim Henson skills there's animation :

Fun stuff! While we're on the subject of fun, I'll be assembling my last 10ish save the dates and mailing the would lot out by early next week and publically (as in blogside) announcing our date. As a teaser though I'll share a bit of the date picking process. Weeks ago Mike and I sat with respective lap tops staring at on screen calendars discussing dates we could live with (and were in love with). In the process Mike discover 2012 is a leap year and thought 2/29 would be a good day to tie the knot. That didn't work logistically, but I was curious so I asked "do you want to get married on leap year so we only have to celebrate our anniversary every four years?" Mike answered excitedly "Yeah!" He's such a stinker.