I am finally taking the time to start my <3 <3 <3 wedding blog <3 <3 <3!!! It's always something I figured I'd do as soon as I got engaged, but it has been eight months now with no blog, so here it goes!
I'll start with a summary of our engagement. I might post a longer post about it another time, but here are the important details:
Josh proposed on August 28th, 2015 at Disney World. It was amazing! We were on a family trip with his family and I was Disney Bounding (as Snow White) with Josh's sisters. After an amazing day, he proposed in front of the Walt Disney statue, in front of the castle, before the fireworks and parade. It was truly magical! Here is a video if you would like to see:
My amazing cousin Mary then threw us a Princess Engagement Party in Big Bear at the family reunion (for my dad's side). It was a lot of fun, I wore a big beautiful sapphire blue gown, and my hair and makeup looked like a princess. We got some wonderful gifts, made some crafts (my family made me a memory book for Josh and I with advice), and ate cupcakes that we ourselves decorated!
After Josh's marriage proposal, it was my turn to propose to my friends! I asked 11 girls to be my Princesses in Waiting, 9 of them said yes. I am perfectly happy with this! The two who said no are off to pursue bigger better things (college!) and would be too busy, so I support them in their decision.
I asked my friends at "Tina's Tea". I had made each a mini photo album with pictures and memories of us. I put them in small hand crafted jewelry boxes that my dad (who is an architect) made out of rose wood. Here is a video of the tea:
Looking at all this now, I realize I should have been blogging this whole process! I've been so busy with school though--I am taking university classes through NAU to become a teacher, doing service learning in elementary schools, and working a job as well. I am so busy!
No excuses though! I will try to keep this more up to date--I want to always remember this process!
The Venue
Josh and I discussed our most important desires for the venue and when it all came out, what was most important to us directly contradicted.
Tina's Desires:
To have a Musical Disney Princess Wedding with singing and dancing.
To be able to invite EVERYONE.
Josh's Desires:
To be able to provide (we pay for it) free alcohol to all the guests
To serve high quality food
To only have his closest friends and family
As you can see, there is a big problem in our desires. Josh said if we could find a reasonable way to finance a big wedding, he would be okay with it.
Josh and I have looked at a few places for Venue's here and there. We have played around with the idea of getting married in Los Angeles versus Las Vegas. I grew up in LA, so a lot of my family and friends on my dad's side are oriented out there. Josh's family (oriented all over) would have to travel, and so would my mom's side of the family.
We looked at a nice, and affordable reception room at a park, Barbara J. Riley Community Center. It looked great, but it only fit up to 150 people and we felt we would have many more than that. Also, no alcohol, which was something that was important to Josh.
The other place we checked out was actually an Elks Lodge in Norwalk, CA. We determined it might not be the best place for us.
We decided that the most affordable way to have a big wedding would be to pay for all the catering and alcohol ourselves, and basically do everything ourselves.
We decided to look at the Henderson Convention Center in Henderson, NV--it would be $3,000 to have the wedding there and we could use their amphitheater for the ceremony and their convention center rooms for the reception. It was pretty bare, but it had everything we thought we were looking for, and we were going to see if a relative would cater for us, once we found our venue for sure.
Here are some pictures of the Henderson Convention Center:
After we left the Convention Center, we thought we had found our place! We went to talk to my Aunt Annette, who has a lot of experience with weddings, and she starts pointing out all these expenses that we (at least I hadn't--Josh says he had) hadn't thought of yet, like how decorating a wedding takes around at least $1,000, and how it is a lot to ask of a bridal party. My cousin, her daughter, Teresa is also engaged and she is getting married in November 2016, so they had been looking at venues for her. They told us about one that they had checked out, The Ritz of Las Vegas, that was all inclusive and within our budget, so we asked them to take us to check it out.
When we got there and saw it, and talked to the owner, Gloria, we fell in love with it! It was everything we didn't know we wanted, and it covers everything except the photographer and videographer. We were ecstatic!
We don't want to give too much away, but here is a sneak peek:
It was raining the day we went, so it looks wet outside, but if you go to their Facebook page (just look up The Ritz of Las Vegas) you can see more pictures and it is so beautiful!
We left knowing we had found our place, we just wanted to reassess our guest list and consider the date.
A few days later, we contacted Gloria, she sent over the paperwork, we paid the down payment, and took the first step in paying for the biggest, most expensive thing that either of us have yet encountered in our life.
We are so excited! I can't stop thinking about our big day and making plans! Soon, Josh is going to ask his groomsmen, we are going to start fine tuning details, and figure out where we are going to honeymoon and the ball will really start rolling! I can't wait to set up our wedding website!
In the mean time, I will see you all later. ;)
