How to plan a wedding in less than 3 months (part 1)

According to the Huffington Post, the majority of engagements last anywhere from 13-18 months. Ours was less than three months. Three months and 8 days to be exact. Or 10 weeks if you're in to that. Either way, it was WAY less than your average engagement.

Some people called me brave, but most called me crazy.

Let me start from the beginning: I knew before I was engaged that I would be getting married before the end of the year. Getting engaged was not a surprise to me (though I was surprised at when/how he did it). Does that make sense? Derek and I talked often about getting engaged and getting married - we had even been ring shopping several times together - and I knew before I was engaged that I wouldn't stay that way for long before I was married. I would say knowing beforehand that it was going to be "short and sweet" helped with any anxiety/stress/bridezilla issues I would have had.

So... how did I do it - how did I plan a nice (in my opinion) wedding in 70 days without driving myself (or anyone else) crazy? Simple. I had one rule: be flexible. I think being flexible and having an open mind were the number one things in planning my wedding - and they should be the number one rules for planning any wedding, no matter the length of the engagement.

After telling myself I would be flexible I got down to the nitty gritty: budget, venue, food, flowers, and photography. How much was I willing to spend/sacrifice on each? Where did I want to spend the most money? When did I want to get married? Were my dates firm or flexible? These were the first questions I asked myself and once I had those answers, I started the real planning.

After setting a "tentative" budget, the first thing I did was research venues. Since I "knew" I would be getting engaged (at some point) I had already done a little bit of online research - looking at websites, at former wedding pictures, and getting an idea of the cost of each venue. Questions I asked were: how long was the venue available to me (or did I have to pay extra to have the rehearsal on Friday night)? Did the price include tables, chairs, linens? Would I be required to use a "preferred vendor" list? Did it include or require event insurance? This really helped narrow down our potential venues.

The week after my engagement I started making phone calls to the few I had narrowed down. I had three dates I was willing to use: October 18, October 25, or November 1. I was really leaning toward the 25th. My most FAVORITE venue was not available that day. Or the other two. So I called a few more and my wedding date ended up being 10/18 (which just so happened to be Auburn's by-week, which was great). The venue we chose actually ended up being more beautiful than I could have imagined. And think! I might not have been married there if I wouldn't have been FLEXIBLE on my dates/choice of venue.

After setting the date and booking the venue - it was all downhill from there. Tune in next week for part two and (hopefully) a detailed timeline of my wedding planning process.

Linking up for Wedding Wednesday!