HEE. On one hand I can’t wait and I’m going full steam ahead into this. On the other, I like the idea of this extended countdown and watching all the seasons come and go one last time before we’re married. Being together for over four years now, it’s nothing new, but it feels different. We know we’re working towards something a lot bigger now.
I also like this longer engagement because I think it gives us more time to plan for our future and work through any of the situations we might not have discussed yet. I think we both flourish with careful planning and structure. We don’t go on zany spur of the moment adventures. We plan ahead. And I know married life will not always be that way, but we can lay a good foundation for ourselves this way.
Some people have shorter engagements. In fact, I think a lot of people do, lol. But this is what feels right for us. And that’s what this is all about, right?
~
Some of the girls at work were excited to see what the day would look like this year so I could plan and prepare for next year. Wouldn’t you know it was 38 degrees and it snowed in some parts of the area? It was a gross day weather-wise, but I still took some pictures of the trees on my way to work so we could see what I have to look forward to next year. Purty.
If you’re from NEPA, and it doesn’t matter if it’s Scranton, Hazleton or Wilkes-Barre, you’ve heard of The Office. Not everyone watches it, but everyone KNOWS it. And if you know me, you know I was watching last night when Jim & Pam finally got married.
Before watching, I was a little bit upset. The Office is set in Northeast Pennsylvania and I was looking forward to a good, old fashioned NEPA wedding. How can a show that takes so much care to accurately reflect our region go to Niagara Falls for the wedding of two of their most loved characters? Though I can certainly appreciate the thought that goes into a destination wedding – the farther we go, the less people that can follow us, LOL.
Despite my initial misgivings, I wasn’t upset about the location by the time it was over. In my humble opinion, this episode was perfect. It captured the deep and long standing love Jim and Pam share, but it also kept it light with the ridiculous antics of Michael, Dwight and Andy. Even NEPA Groom was entertained, and I know sometimes he has to humor me with the Pam/Jim stuff.
The part that everyone is talking about is the JK Wedding Dance spoof at the end of the episode. Not only is it hysterical, but it’s really touching as well. Jim and Pam had the wedding they wanted. When things got too intense, they turned to each other and found their comfort zone. The shots of them getting married in the falls are some of the most touching I’ve ever seen on the series. I can only hope that NEPA Groom and I find our own special moment like that during our wedding day!
Getting married in a Catholic Church seems like it will be an interesting experience. So far, the mounds of paperwork have been! From what I’ve read online, it seems like the requirements can vary slightly from parish to parish, and that can get purty confusing for a non-Catholic like myself. I thought I might be able to shed some light on what the Diocese of Scranton requires for all the NEPA Brides & Grooms in a similar spot right now:
First and foremost, you both need to be baptized by someone, at some point. You’ll need to get a copy of your baptism certificate from your home church, dated within the last 6 months.
If you are Catholic, you will need permission to be married outside of your parish. I’m assuming this is fairly common cuz if you are both Catholic, you’ve gotta choose a church! This can be a written note or it can be a phone call between priests.
We are required to have 2 letters each confirming we have never been married before. This can be as simple as a hand written note, and it could be provided by each set of parents, if you are able to do so.
PHEW! Once your priest has all of these, he can begin to process the paperwork. In our case, he will also have to ask for an exception to be made to allow me to marry in the church. It’s a common thing, and is generally approved, but one you should be aware of. Our goal is to have much of this gathered and scheduled by the end of this month.
Were you surprised by the amount of paperwork involved in getting married?
I threw my last post on Save The Dates out to the universe and actually got a good amount of feedback (in comments and via Facebook). Thanks guys! I wanted to share some of the comments because I think a lot of them were very helpful.
J on Facebook (who has an Etsy shop of her own you should check out) had a great idea for saving money on STD’s: “Have you checked out Etsy? My friend did the Alchemy section (http://www.etsy.com/alchemy/) and submitted a price and what she wanted- and got an awesome deal. She did invites there too.”
K on Facebook offered a great DIY suggestion: “Joe and I made save the date magnets — printed business cards, then attached them to business card sized magnets from Staples — like 250 magnets for about $40!”
Bridesmaid L & Bridesmaid E both agreed, if we think we can pass on them and it doesn’t cause us any grief, then go ahead and pass. There’s a lot of “oh but you’ve gotta do this” or “EVERYONE does that at their wedding” stuff that goes around, and we should do what we’re comfortable with.
And last but certainly least, Candy Pam said: “YES! Everyone does it now!!”
Sooo…. where does that leave us? After some discussion, we’ve decided to skip the Save The Dates. Most guests are local, and it’s not summer vacation or a holiday weekend where they’d need extra notice. However, I do think they’re cute, and gosh darnit, even if you don’t need STD’s but you want them, then go out and get them!!! I just know they don’t rank highly with the NEPA Bride household, so we’ll be just fine without them!
Has anyone else decided to skip Save The Dates? Was it an easy decision?
Everyone seems to rely on their inspiration boards when conveying the style and feel of their wedding. They make them in photoshop or some other nonsensical program that I can’t use. I tried making one using another site, but after an hour of finding pictures and putting them into it’s uploader thinger, one slip of the mouse on the back button and all my hard work was gone.
I had seen Polyvore before but forgot to bookmark it. Finally, after some searching I opened an account this week and started throwing all my pictures and ideas into a board. The nice thing about Polyvore is that it’s free and very simple to use. The system will try to crop around the item in your picture so that you can overlay them in more interesting ways. It doesn’t always work (take the wedding dress in my board, for example) but you can turn it off if it mucks up the picture.
So without further ado, here’s my first stab at an inspiration board (click on it for an enlarged version):
Whatcha think? Has anyone else used Polyvore for making inspiration boards?
I’ve been agonizing over Save the Date styles and colors, even ordering samples of the 2 above (along with some invites) from WeddingPaperDivas.com. Then it occurred to me – do we even need Save the Dates?
Our wedding isn’t in a faraway land, the majority of our guests are local or already know about our plans, and we’re not going to be getting married close to a holiday. All those very good reasons for saving STDs (make your own joke this time, I’m pooped) don’t apply to us.
I also read something that made me stop and think: I’ll have to send an invitation to everyone that gets a Save the Date. I know, that sounds obvious but stay with me here. In my excitement, I’ll send out my STDs about 6 months before the wedding. Maybe some of those people will leave our office, or we’ll have a fight, or just grow apart… but they still expect an invitation to the wedding (except for the fighting. No fangz allowed at my wedding). More importantly, what if we need to slash our budget as we get closer to the big day? Of course, we don’t expect to, in fact I’m looking for ways to trim or save up extra money so we can include MORE of the people we want, since we do have to limit ourselves. We still have to prepare for the possibility of it up until we’re ready to send the actual invites. It’s much easier to cut the guest list when they haven’t already been ‘pre-invited’.
The pros to this debate are… um, I want purty papers? Ok, so there aren’t a lot. I could save a couple hundred bucks for something else in our wedding if I pass on Save the Dates. We probably will skip this, but it vexes me.
Did you have Save the Dates at your wedding? Why or why not?
While I was brainstorming some upcoming blog topics, I realized something. NEPA Bride is a pretty far reaching term. Northeast Pennsylvania covers pretty much everything from Scranton to Clarks Summit to Berwick and Hazelton.
I’m a Wilkes-Barre bride planning a Wilkes-Barre wedding.
Ok, ok, I know this isn’t any kind of amazing revelation but it kind of struck me. So many people are looking to get as far away from NEPA as possible, and here I am trying to figure out how I could actually have done this any closer to home without it actually being IN my home.
There are a lot of benefits to being a local bride. We don’t need hotel rooms to get ready in (though it would make for some swanky getting ready photos. Most of our guests don’t need a hotel for their stay either. I don’t mind traveling for weddings myself, but I know it can be a hardship for some people. I have a pretty good idea of all the places we should go for pictures on the big day, and I have the convenience of meeting all my vendors face to face before the big event. In fact, I have an open invite to pop in at the reception venue should I need to discuss something.
I really would like to craft up some Out Of Town (OOT) gift bags for traveling guests, but there’s probably not going to be a need. I’m planning to do bathroom baskets, but in all reality most guests could easily drive home between the ceremony and reception to freshen up.
Maybe we’re not going to need all the snazzy crafts from some weddings (though I still might do them ) and maybe we won’t have the exotic locales that some people choose, but my Wilkes-Barre wedding suits me just fine.
What do you see as the pros and cons to having a very local wedding?
All right, this has been all over all the wedding blogs today. If you’re reading those, you’ve already seen it. But I just watched this video and words fail me. So cool.
Well, we had our first meeting at the King’s College chapel tonight, and I think it went pretty well! The priest in charge of the chapel remembers me from my time at the school, so it was nice to catch up a bit. We used the time to get to know each other a little bit, since he didn’t know FH that well, and he also let us know what we had to do next. It looks kinda (meaning SUPER DUPER) overwhelming in list form, but here we go:
FH needs to get a letter from his parish priest saying we can marry at the college chapel
We need to find a pre-cana course we can attend and knock that out of the park
We both need a copy of our baptism certificates from our churches, dated within the last 6 months
4 letters (2 each) from people close to us who can verify we’ve never been married before
The priest will have to fill out a request for a dispensation as I am not Catholic
It sounds like a lot. It feels like a lot, but Fr. Hockman assured us it’s a lot of paperwork but nothing that will be a problem. He’s never had a wedding denied, so that makes me feel better. He was also really open to how we want to put our ceremony together. I’ve been reading about other brides’ experiences getting married in the Catholic church, and it seems to vary a lot. Some priests are so strict with their rules! I think we’ve found a good fit and we’ll have the flexibility to have a meaningful ceremony for all parties.
So now, it’s up to FH to get things sorted with his church while I research this marriage preparation business. Has anyone else gone through this? If you know of a good course to take in NEPA, I am all ears.
I’ve been doing my best to keep my anxiety in check while I waited to hear back from King’s College and I was rewarded today with an email from the priest in charge of the chapel.
FH and I are set to meet with him next Tuesday to go over the particulars, but it sounds like our ideal date in October 2010 is available. YAY!
Doesn’t some good wedding news just brighten up your whole day?
I wanted to share some of the comments because I think a lot of them were very helpful.
(source: 
