[lemonadelife_blog]

When we last left our hero and heroine, they had just booked their ceremony and reception venue for July 9, 2011 (that’s in exactly 13 months… if you’re counting).

Everyone says that biggest thing you have to decide is WHERE and WHEN you are getting married. This is true. There isn’t a heck of a whole lot you can do before you have those two items in place. Trying to find both of those within our budget here in New York City proved nearly impossible, or at least not without severe concessions that we were reluctant to make, so we boldly made the choice to get married three thousand miles away. No one ever said I liked to make my life easy.

Now that we’re getting married in Oregon and we have a venue, it is now time to find our vendors. There are a few key vendors that we have to get locked down. Namely, we have to find a florist, baker, photographer, videographer, and DJ. Since cake and floral designs are done a bit closer to the actual event and typically don’t book up as quickly as other vendors, our immediate concerns are finding our photographer, videographer and DJ.

Photography is our type priority. At least for me it is. I am a lover of good photographer, am an amateur photographer, and after working for Nikon’s PR agency for two years, I like to think I know a thing or two about cameras as well. I have never had the best memory, so photographs have really helped to fill in the blanks for me and also help jog my memory when details start to blur. Finding a good photographer is hard for two reasons: First, I think most photographers are really good and everyone has their own unique style that I keep thinking “Oh, I like that… I like that too… Yeah, that one’s nice too” so it’s difficult to be productive. Second, photography is expensive! Finding the right mix of budget and style is not the easiest.

Videography was not something I was planning on spending a dime on. I don’t know anyone who has watched their videos and I don’t know if we will ever watch ours either. We did watch some wedding videos at my cousin’s wedding because my family and I weren’t able to make it to her wedding in California. A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend of mine about how I wasn’t planning on having a videographer, and she said that was one thing they wished they spent money on. She said that the day is such a blur that you don’t really remember things clearly and she said that she wished she had some of the toasts on camera so that she could watch them again and have it really sink in. Like I said, I have a pretty lousy memory and knowing me, I won’t remember a damn thing that was said. So a videographer was added back into the equation.

DJs are also a main attraction at a wedding. Not only do they serve as the entertainment, but they also help to keep the wedding flowing in the right direction. DJs make me nervous though, and I suppose that comes from watching The Wedding Singer far too many times. Not that I wouldn’t mind having Adam Sandler sing at my wedding. I have just heard so many horror stories that I’m already nervous and we haven’t even met with anyone yet.

But I already have at least one person helping me out through all of this. We hired a wedding planner! Actually, we hired a Month Of Coordinator, which is kind of like a Day Of Coordinator except they really help ramp up the wedding logistics at the end. Our wedding planner is Mandi from Champagne NW and she’s on Twitter! So clearly, I already love her. And she has a quote from Ever After in her email signature, which is only one of my favorite movies of all time! A girl after my own heart. Mandi is helping me sort through various vendors we can meet with, but since she’s only my Month Of Coordinator, she won’t be going on any of the meetings with me and Erik. But it’s nice to have someone experienced look over who we think is good and vet our choices. Wouldn’t want anyone crazy showing up!

Our trip to Oregon for our vendor meetings is directly after Roche, so I won’t be attending Friends for Life. I get a four day weekend over Fourth of July so it made more sense to use those days off to meet with vendors. But I am still so excited to see everyone in Florida!


Filed under: Favorite Things, Oregon, Relationships, Wedding Stuff

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