One year "Engagement Anniversary" and looking ahead to 2013

On the evening of December 31st, 2012, we walked into our friends’ house on Treasure Island for their yearly New Year’s Eve party. As soon as we entered, our friend Jimmy announced loudly to everyone: “these two got ENGAGED at last year’s party!”
It’s true. It’s been one year since we got engaged. And while we waited a bit before embarking on any sort of wedding planning (around 8-9 months, I believe – I guess I was too busy showing off my sparkly ring), much has happened since then, and much will continue to happen in 2013.
Obviously, we’ve set a date, picked a venue and hotels, and Jeffrey made this fantastic website. But what else have we accomplished?

1. I got a dress! This has been the most exciting part for me thus far (for obvious reasons). My mom convinced me to go shopping over Thanksgiving, emphasizing that we just needed to look, there was no need to make any decisions yet. I think she could tell how intimidated I was by the whole process.

   Thankfully, my wonderful band of wedding dress helpers (my mom, my friend Allie, my sister and her friend and their two babies) plus the excellent staff at Wine Country Bride made the process exciting and easy. I tried on about a dozen dresses, and lo and behold, the last one I tried on was perfect. There’s really not much else I should say, lest I spoil the surprise – but let’s just say that the whole process was 100% more pleasant than I ever expected.

2. We decided on catering! We’re going to go with the catering provided by the Winery, where we are getting married. We attended a tasting provided by the venue, which was a very nice touch – they gave us our own little table with linens and everything, brought out the courses in order, and even gave us some wine tastings to accompany the food. The food was tasty and will be a great fit for our particular event.

3. I am (almost) decided on dresses for my bridesmaids and for Jeffrey’s sister and female friend in his wedding party. My sister (my matron of honor) and I returned to Wine Country Bride with our mom over the holiday break to check out the bridesmaid selection, and I think we’ve found a couple of great choices that will go well with my dress and compliment all of the ladies who will be wearing them. I just have to check out the color options again in person – looking at swatches and colors on the designer’s website just doesn’t cut it.

   Ultimately, I’m pleased that I’ve been able to wade through the many, many bridesmaid options and find some choices that everyone will (hopefully) like. But man, it’s tough trying to decide on styles and colors for other people. The last thing I’d want is a wedding party not happy with what they’ve been chosen to wear.

4. We booked a DJ! This is actually sort of huge and amazing and I can’t believe I only just thought to include it now. Drumroll please . . . we booked DJ PURPLE! For those unfamiliar, DJ Purple is a local karaoke DJ who puts on amazing karaoke dance parties. He has an extremely well-curated song book, and he plays saxophone during the song interludes. And he’s well-versed in providing his talents for weddings. If we haven’t yet mentioned this, our wedding reception is going to be a big giant party. Enough said.

Looking forward, there is obviously much still to do, but here’s a list that’s currently at the forefront of my mind:

• Book photographer. Do you have a recommendation for a wedding photographer? Send it along!
• Choose suit/tux options for Jeffrey and his groomsmen. Oh boy.
• Decide on overall wedding colors and a theme. Hmm. This has been difficult. There are so many colors and ideas! How does one choose?!?
• Decide on a florist. I’ve collected some great recommendations from one of my sister’s friends and am looking forward to choosing once we have a better idea of what we want.
• Schedule a tasting and move forward with Sift Cupcakes for our dessert. CUPCAKES. YES.