A New Plan, and the Comfort That Comes With It.

Dustin and I have been thinking about our wedding since the day after we got engaged (okay, so it's been mostly me thinking about our wedding--Dustin's excited to get married, but he pretty much doesn't care what color flowers he'll wear in his boutonniere).

Our first thought was to have a mostly traditional wedding in our hometown--wedding, reception, with cake and a first dance and photographer. But the more we got into planning, the more research we did, the less settled we felt about our plans. As much as we were excited to have a hometown wedding, with all of our friends and family in attendance, nothing felt right. We couldn't justify spending the money it would take to create the wedding we wanted. We didn't feel right limiting some family and friends to save money, especially when so many lived in our hometown. We couldn't decide on venues, on vendors, on how we would accomodate out of town guests when we would be out of town guests, too.

So we've changed our plans. We've decided to elope, immediate family in tow. At first, Dustin was worried that I would regret not having a traditional wedding. I was worried that Dustin would miss having all his fraternity brothers, WoW friends, and fellow Geek Squad Agents in attendance. But once we talked it through, we realized that as much we love our extended family and friends, there just isn't a way we can pay for a wedding that would accommodate them all.

So instead, we're taking our parents, grandparents, and siblings to a beach in Florida, where we'll spend Thanksgiving week in rented beach homes. We'll get married early in the week (who says weddings have to be on Saturday when it's just your family?), and while I'm sure we'll eat dinner together that evening at a nice restaurant, our "reception" will be the Thanksgiving dinner our newly combined family shares together. Other than getting married, that's what I'm most looking forward to. Thanksgiving has always been our favorite holiday, and I can't think of a more perfect way to celebrate our marriage (wow, that sounds good to my ears).

We've had this plan for about a week now, and already, we feel so much more comfortable with our wedding. There isn't the nervousness or the doubt. We feel good knowing our families will be there, and that we can treat them (and ourselves!) not to a day of stress, but a week of vacation. We feel good knowing that we're saving money to pay off our student loans and save for our first home. We finally feel like this is the wedding we should be having.