my craziness

I know nobody cares about any of this, especially since it's been almost 5yrs since we said I do, but I wanted to post this anyway.  One of the main reasons we had the wedding we did was because every place we looked was really expensive- every single thing cost an absorbent amount of money if you said it was for a wedding.  My mom was getting stressed out.  I was getting stressed out.  I'd never dreamed of what my wedding would be.  I'd thumbed through wedding magazines in High School and even torn out 2 or 3 dresses, but other than knowing that I wanted to be married outside in the sunshine, I had no clue what I wanted.  Chris wanted to get married on the beach and I was game.  Except that he imagined a bathing suit clad affair in the Keys and I was not and am still not that comfortable in a bathing suit.  So we tried Panama City Beach where his parents have a house.  I imagined having the whole family together for a long weekend of forced vacation in October (my favorite beach weather) and it was perfect.  But you aren't allowed to serve food on the beach.  Boo.  So I'd still have to pay for two separate locations, chairs, flowers, etc. because since my mom wanted to invite a ton of people- I was terrified of getting kicked off the beach and having no where to go.  (apparently nobody cares because they have seen several wedding and receptions on the beach where they live- another boo! that we missed out!!)  see here for the wedding I would have loved-any of them.  $5k for the locations alone...wamp wamp waaah.  We checked every possible location here and I vetoed a few that were reasonably priced because, well lets just say there was a reason the price was good.  I even tried to plan a surprise wedding over Thanksgiving in Savannah, but Lady and Sons was booked and if we couldn't have that for dinner, we wouldn't have the wedding there.  We had tentatively set a date for May 2006, knowing that the location could change the date.  Enter more stress as October passes by and I haven't found a location or a dress.  I'm giving up at this point, wanting to elope, but knowing it would break my mom's heart if she missed out.  So when my mom's best friend offered up her barn, I said yes...I think.  I couldn't remember what it looked like and wanted to see it first because rustic is cute but it had to be just right.  Well my mom was pushing for me to send out invitations because we had said if the barn worked out, New Years Day sounded fun.  Everyone would have the next day off and I'd never forget our anniversary ;)  Soooo, I ended up sending out the invitations...in jpeg form (how awful) before ever seeing the barn.  And then I saw it.  And I cried.  A lot.  Especially since I had given up caring about the whole darn thing and just wanted to be married and move on with life.  I never did find "the dress" or even one I thought looked great on me for the price I wanted to pay.  That part I'm jealous of.  And having good photo journalist style pictures like I asked for.  But we made do and it all turned out mostly ok.  Everyone says they had a great time :)  We had live entertainment, decent food, and copious amounts of drinks.  We had a new year's eve celebration of sorts even though I forgot you could have fireworks in TN.  And the most important part, besides being officially married, is that my mom's best friend- who lost her only daughter as a 21yr old, got to plan her (my) wedding before she was taken away by cancer.  They got to spend a LOT of time together before Sue died and that I am so very grateful for.
So this is where my planning went:

(I wanted a simple dress for the beach for me and loved these subtle stripes!)

(I also totally loved the pale pink)

And the make the barn work inspirations:

And the dress I would have loved to have had at the barn:

(it was in my budget but came out just after we got married)

So there you have me being crazy.  I don't want another wedding, I just would have liked to have had better pictures.  And even if I could go back and change things, I wouldn't because Sue was worth it all.