We’re excited to announce that the coming months we’ll have a guest blogger on our blog! Her name is Monique and she’s getting married to Jeff in July next year. She’ll share some of her personal wedding planning experiences with you and today is her first post about the vision she has for her wedding.
Who knew wedding planning could be so stressful, but yet so fun and exciting at the same time? Usually those words don’t combine together, but when it comes to weddings that seem to be the case! My name is Monique and I am bride-to-be, tying the knot next July, 2011, and I’m super excited to share my wedding plans with you!
It all began on November 7th, 2009 when my fiancé Jeff proposed in the Inner Harbour in Victoria after having a romantic dinner at the Keg Steakhouse. It was a night that I will never forget. Everything about that night was perfect and special.
Now, before I jump right into my wedding planning, a little about us. Jeff and I met in June 2004 on an online dating site (Lava Life). At this point I was going to University in Victoria but my home base was in New Westminster. I was finishing up my degree in Music and was heading into my last year when I hooked up with him. He had just finished up his degree in Computer Engineering (what a nerd!) and was working full-time for a local company. We talked online for a couple of weeks before we decided to meet in person. I wasn’t expecting much at this point but one date lead to the next and before we knew it, we were an official couple. This was our first relationship for both of us so everything was new and exciting. Every moment since then our relationship has grown stronger and who knew 6 years from the day we met that we would be getting married and starting our life together! Certainly not me!
Before writing this blog I’ve never really envisioned fully what I wanted for my wedding other than just simple bits and pieces of ideas which I hoped would come together to create a my dream wedding. A lot of my wedding planning has come about from observing weddings myself. I’ve played at a lot of weddings in the past few years (I’m a cellist) but have never really thought about my own wedding with great detail, obviously. Since getting engaged I have become more aware of what goes on during one’s wedding. For example, venues, color combinations for flowers, dresses, all the way to decorations.
I started the planning of my wedding really early, and when I say early, I mean 16 months early! I had my venue picked along with our photographer (Orange Passion!) and reception hall booked 16 months in advance! I was an eager bride to get things rolling! I knew I wanted a garden wedding with a reception site on site or close at hand. This was hard to find. In fact, so hard to find that we had to move our location to New Westminster on the Lower Mainland, which is where I’m from. My fiancé and I are getting married in a Rose Garden with a reception hall to die for! When looking for a reception hall I knew I wanted something large enough for dancing, but not just any kind of dancing, a barn dance! I came up with this idea mid-planning our wedding! For those of you that don’t know what a barn dance is, a barn dance involves having traditional fiddle music being played with a caller to call out the dance moves. I chose this kind of dance because it will allow everybody, young and old, to participate in the dance. You don’t need dancing experience and everyone will have fun; well that’s the plan at least!
Music is going to be the center of my wedding and there’s no doubting that (besides me, the bride of course!) because music is my second love! What musician can’t have music at their wedding? For my ceremony music I can easily say that I don’t want the typical “Here Comes the Bride”, “Jesu” or “Pachelbel”. I want something unique and fresh. I already have some ideas but nothing concrete yet. I might even write my own ceremony music, who knows! We’ll see how ambitious I am!
The image below is from Monique & Jeff’s recent engagement session.
