The Wedding Blog

Here’s a helpful piece of advice: don’t set a wedding date until you’ve made sure that your future in-laws will be in the country. I know it sounds basic, but you never know!

Even before we were engaged, Darren and I discussed a timeline for our wedding. It’s important because both of our jobs continue right through the summer (hypothetically speaking - I have to wait to see if my contract will be renewed, but that’s a minor detail.) I’m a teacher so I can’t just take off a couple of weeks in the middle of a term to get married, and our breaks between terms are never longer than a few days, except for Christmas but getting married in December was out of the question - too soon! So my boss was one of the first people to know that I was planning to get married since we had to discuss the possibility of working half a term.

All that is to say, we decided on early June. Hot weather and I don’t get along so well - mostly due to my inability to sweat sufficiently. While you may think that is a blessing, it actually leads to overheating and puffing…kind of like the blueberry girl in Willy Wonka, but red. Anyway, it was important to avoid the true summer. Early June seemed perfect - I could have a month off work before and after the wedding, it’s still cool-ish out and yet sleeveless or strapless is appropriate, and it’s not the most popular time to have a wedding so hopefully there would be greater availability when it came to renting halls and churches. Incidently, this shows how naive we really are. Some simple research would have shown us:

June and August are the most popular months to get married, followed closely by May, September and October. The fewest weddings occur in January and March. These months may prove to be a good time to get the best prices. [emphasis mine]Source: BRIDE’S Magazine Reader Study 2001

Sigh.

It’s amazing how a semi-major event like getting engaged, or now that I think of it, breaking your arm, deciding to move to another city, etc., demonstrate a societal phenomenon: I like to call it dittoation. I’m finding there is almost a prescribed set of questions that everyone asks when they find out that I’m getting married. These include “So, when’s the date?” and “How did he ask you?” It’s logical; what else could one ask in this situation? Perhaps we need more variety in our language. Ahem…the point is, we had been telling everyone that we had chosen June 3, 2006 for “the big day.” We didn’t mean to lie to anyone. Really! I truly believed I was giving accurate information. But that all changed this past weekend.

We hadn’t seen Darren’s parents since returning from Edmonton, so it was arranged that we would visit Friday night . It was a lovely visit, complete with nice conversation, delicious food and a surprising revelation: the Mediterranean cruise we knew they were taking place them in Europe on our wedding day…they think. We can’t get verification, mind you, until someone comes back from somewhere with something…it’s all so confusing to me (and I’m a Morris!)

To make a long story short, we decided that June 3 simply wouldn’t do so out came the calendar and a new date was set…TENTATIVELY! I’ve learned my lesson! We’re now looking at May 20th…maybe. I’m about to become educated in booking venues and how much time in advance one really should do such things. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Postscript: To be honest, I think it’s fabulous that Darren’s folks can have a vacation to recover from the wedding. I wish I were going on a Mediterranean cruise. (hint, hint!!)