Hello all~
I'm back with another post, detailing all the bits and bobs I've been thinking about since... well, pretty much since I got engaged, really!
A LOT goes into a wedding. I get that. I'm starting to realize that the more reading and asking around I do. Catering, venues, dresses, colors/themes... Questions such as, "Are there any dresses that I'll look decent in without looking fat and bulky?" or "My bridesmaids should look good in spring green or aquamarine blue... right?" and my personal favorite as of late: "Should we even bother with a venue? There won't be many people there."
I know I'll answer those questions along the way as my wedding date isn't til early 2016, so until then, here are the ones I've answered for myself personally.
Are you having a theme? What colors are you going with?
This was the first thing that came to mind, to be perfectly honest. (And I kind of unintentionally spoiled what they'd be a paragraph or two ago.) I'd been walking around Hobby Lobby with my future mother and sister-in-law looking at things for her wedding to get ideas. My mother-in-law owns a pet clothing business on Etsy, so of course a waltz down the fabric aisle was a must. I glanced over numerous bolts of fabric and -- BAZINGA (kudos if you get the reference, FYI), I found something amazing. It was a sort of whimsical white Paisely-type print over a medium-aqua color that faded into a light spring green. It just so happens that not only are those two of MY favorite colors, but Casey's as well. Not to mention that I feel blues and greens are colors of life, vitality and renewal. Sucker for subtle symbolism.
Those colors brought to mind my theme the moment I saw them: lagoon. Somewhere warm and slightly tropical. Perfect for a winter wedding theme because Lord knows we'll all wanna be somewhere warmer next year! Also, I got some neat ideas from that theme to put into the decorations. Nothing gaudy like bright flowers and palm trees everywhere, but something elegant and understated. (I'm forming ideas as we go, so I'll be sure to detail more of them along the way.)
What traditions will you be keeping about your wedding?
As far as traditions that I know of, I'll be planning on all the basic proceedings in the ceremony: presentation of the wedding party, the procession, the vows, etc. We'll be having an early dinner reception to follow it, where we'll have the first dance, cake cutting... yada yada! You get the main picture, right?
However, there are a few common traditions we'll be omitting for our wedding. Bare in mind, we've talked about these together and agree that it's just not what we want.
No bridal shower or bachelorette parties for me.
I have moderate to severe social anxiety. It's not that I don't love my friends and future family members, but I simply can't handle having so much attention put onto myself for an extended amount of time. As a kid, I couldn't even handle going to parties with friends without hanging around corners by myself or clawing to escape the front door all after the first hour. I'm really not that fun to be around when I feel trapped, so I'm just gonna forgo it.
No alcohol at the wedding.
I come from a family that made up occasions just to drink and never could handle it well; Casey comes from a family that doesn't drink hardly at all; he and I don't really drink because of that, so we're gonna pass on the alcohol.
I will be walking down the aisle by myself.
I elaborated on my Facebook a bit better as to why I'm walking by myself and why I wasn't inviting my family to the wedding. To keep it short and sweet: Because I want to. My father was not a patriarch. He was barely even a decent human being. After all I went through with him, my father doesn't deserve to be at my wedding. The rest of my living family doesn't either. My sister and I were cast out thanks to my mother and they let that factor in to whether or not we're a part of the family? Yeah, not gonna open that can of worms much further, either. My walk down the aisle will be my own personal celebration of having come this far, practically raising myself and being raised by those I've met in life. And they'll be the ones surrounding me at the wedding, not my blood relatives.
I think that's about everything... OH WAIT. The most important part, duh!
We'll be having the 'unofficial ceremony' on a weekend.
Let me briefly explain what I mean by unofficial ceremony. The date we have our eyes on falls on a Monday. Our solution was to do the celebrating of us (if that's the alternate name to give it) on the Sunday before it and do all of our wedding things then. So then on that Monday, we'll just go down to the courthouse and get officially married on our preferred date. That way we can say we had a proper wedding and still get the date we want. The only thing that really changes is that we won't have an officiant to say we got married on Sunday... because we'll be doing that the day after in front of the judge.
If anyone has any questions or comments to make, please feel free to leave them below or shoot me a Facebook message.
Til next time!
-- Katie
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Introduction to Us.
Hello everyone!
I'm Katie, a 21 year-old Indianapolis native who works retail full-time. I started this blog to document my journey of getting married, and how I plan to do it all with no wedding planner, a smallish budget and with the support of my loved ones.
Let me start with talking a bit about myself and my fiance.
Though born in Tennessee, I grew up in a North Carolina home with just my sister, Amy, my mother and myself. My mother and my sister were my only real close family growing up. We were outcast by my uncles and aunt because my mother really just... well, we'll just say my mother was not the best of people. It's because of that stigma over her head that left my sister and I without any real opportunities as adults now to get to know our families and why we grew up rather isolated. I spent time growing up with my mom and grandmother from 2002-2005 in Indiana after my grandfather passed away, while Amy had gone to live with her dad and his relatives during those years. (We're 8 years apart, mind you.) It was me on my own after that point.
Once our grandparents passed away, all familial interaction was completely cut off in my own books. This meant no chances to go to family parties, weddings or anything of the sort, really. Except funerals...
[sighs] I digress.
The back story I'm telling you is to illustrate the fact that I've never once been part of a wedding or real family function. Well, scratch that. When two of my friends got married in 2014, I kind of tagged along as a plus one to it... but that was a very minimal exposure to the whole wedding idea. I remember a guest list, a procession of sorts and the vows. I didn't go to the reception because I'd risked a 3 hour trip up to the wedding, broke down with a flat and needed to get home pretty quickly after that. Wished I would've stayed now, because I sure as heck don't have much of a clue as to what should go on before, during and after a wedding!
Now, my fiance, Casey, on the other hand, has had much more experience with family and family get-togethers than I.
Casey was born in a lovely part of California with his twin sister and his older brother. They lived out there up until about the time he was about to learn how to drive, if I have my timeline right. They moved out to the Indianapolis metro area for family, and boy it's a big family. His mom alone has several wonderful sisters I've had the pleasure of meeting at -- [gasps] -- family functions I was invited to!
... I digress again.
While we may come from two different sorts of worlds, I'm happy to have met Casey. He's been my solid rock since 2009. When I would waver about what I wanted from life because I was young and afraid, he was always waiting for me. We had a period or two of serious separation, but no one could change the love I felt in my heart for him. No matter how much time had passed, we were still madly in love with one another because we were true to ourselves together. He's not only my partner, but my best friend.
Even from day one when we met in that tiny park in Shipshewana, after hours of passing messages on the internet in the wee hours of the morning, I knew this man would be important in my life. We knew we wanted to be together, marriage or not. As the years had passed, we'd talked about marriage and the like, but because of my wavering those thoughts were put on the back burner. I'm kind of glad they did because now I understand more of what I'm wanting from life and what I want to make of myself personally.
So when he proposed around Christmas of 2014, you can imagine my delight. :) He'd had this planned months beforehand, even before his sister was proposed to at Thanksgiving that same year. Casey felt so bad because he knew we'd waited so long to finally make an official statement of being engaged, and had seen my happy-yet-forlorn face I'd made afterwards. Anyways, let me go back to setting up the scene, so you can relive the moment with me.
After having been taken on a shopping trip with all of us 'kids': Casey, myself, his sister, HER fiance and his mother and father, we were set to go to a Christmas dinner theater show on the west side of town. The table had us right by the stage (which was a really cool experience, BTW) and the whole house was decorated for the Christmas season. The scent of food was gently wafting through the air as diners were lining up to grab food and eat. Sort of an all you can eat in an hour sort of thing, but with finer foods. Once dinner was nearly over and everyone had begun to settle into their seats, his mother had accidentally spilled some water onto his pants and... WHOA. Angry Casey. I couldn't really figure out why he was so mad. So off he went to get his pants as bone dry as possible. Thankfully, he knew people at that particular theater after having worked there 9 months and was able to get access to a dryer. Success!
Moments later it seemed, he went off to the 'restroom', iPad in tow, claiming an upset stomach. He'd been saying that most of the afternoon, so I thought nothing of it other than, "Really? Hurry before the show starts!" The iPad should've seemed like a bigger tip-off than it was, but I didn't say anything to that. Casey always has to be distracted, having the higher IQ than I and always needing two computer screens to game and watch movies at the same time. It's not that foreign he'd want the iPad safe in his hands and want something to do. [shrugs]
As the lights began to dim a bit, I heard an announcement come over the speakers and -- oh WAIT. We have footage of this whole moment! I can let it paint the rest of the scene for you all. :)
I'm Katie, a 21 year-old Indianapolis native who works retail full-time. I started this blog to document my journey of getting married, and how I plan to do it all with no wedding planner, a smallish budget and with the support of my loved ones.
Let me start with talking a bit about myself and my fiance.
Though born in Tennessee, I grew up in a North Carolina home with just my sister, Amy, my mother and myself. My mother and my sister were my only real close family growing up. We were outcast by my uncles and aunt because my mother really just... well, we'll just say my mother was not the best of people. It's because of that stigma over her head that left my sister and I without any real opportunities as adults now to get to know our families and why we grew up rather isolated. I spent time growing up with my mom and grandmother from 2002-2005 in Indiana after my grandfather passed away, while Amy had gone to live with her dad and his relatives during those years. (We're 8 years apart, mind you.) It was me on my own after that point.
Once our grandparents passed away, all familial interaction was completely cut off in my own books. This meant no chances to go to family parties, weddings or anything of the sort, really. Except funerals...
[sighs] I digress.
The back story I'm telling you is to illustrate the fact that I've never once been part of a wedding or real family function. Well, scratch that. When two of my friends got married in 2014, I kind of tagged along as a plus one to it... but that was a very minimal exposure to the whole wedding idea. I remember a guest list, a procession of sorts and the vows. I didn't go to the reception because I'd risked a 3 hour trip up to the wedding, broke down with a flat and needed to get home pretty quickly after that. Wished I would've stayed now, because I sure as heck don't have much of a clue as to what should go on before, during and after a wedding!
Now, my fiance, Casey, on the other hand, has had much more experience with family and family get-togethers than I.
Casey was born in a lovely part of California with his twin sister and his older brother. They lived out there up until about the time he was about to learn how to drive, if I have my timeline right. They moved out to the Indianapolis metro area for family, and boy it's a big family. His mom alone has several wonderful sisters I've had the pleasure of meeting at -- [gasps] -- family functions I was invited to!
... I digress again.
While we may come from two different sorts of worlds, I'm happy to have met Casey. He's been my solid rock since 2009. When I would waver about what I wanted from life because I was young and afraid, he was always waiting for me. We had a period or two of serious separation, but no one could change the love I felt in my heart for him. No matter how much time had passed, we were still madly in love with one another because we were true to ourselves together. He's not only my partner, but my best friend.
Even from day one when we met in that tiny park in Shipshewana, after hours of passing messages on the internet in the wee hours of the morning, I knew this man would be important in my life. We knew we wanted to be together, marriage or not. As the years had passed, we'd talked about marriage and the like, but because of my wavering those thoughts were put on the back burner. I'm kind of glad they did because now I understand more of what I'm wanting from life and what I want to make of myself personally.
So when he proposed around Christmas of 2014, you can imagine my delight. :) He'd had this planned months beforehand, even before his sister was proposed to at Thanksgiving that same year. Casey felt so bad because he knew we'd waited so long to finally make an official statement of being engaged, and had seen my happy-yet-forlorn face I'd made afterwards. Anyways, let me go back to setting up the scene, so you can relive the moment with me.
After having been taken on a shopping trip with all of us 'kids': Casey, myself, his sister, HER fiance and his mother and father, we were set to go to a Christmas dinner theater show on the west side of town. The table had us right by the stage (which was a really cool experience, BTW) and the whole house was decorated for the Christmas season. The scent of food was gently wafting through the air as diners were lining up to grab food and eat. Sort of an all you can eat in an hour sort of thing, but with finer foods. Once dinner was nearly over and everyone had begun to settle into their seats, his mother had accidentally spilled some water onto his pants and... WHOA. Angry Casey. I couldn't really figure out why he was so mad. So off he went to get his pants as bone dry as possible. Thankfully, he knew people at that particular theater after having worked there 9 months and was able to get access to a dryer. Success!
Moments later it seemed, he went off to the 'restroom', iPad in tow, claiming an upset stomach. He'd been saying that most of the afternoon, so I thought nothing of it other than, "Really? Hurry before the show starts!" The iPad should've seemed like a bigger tip-off than it was, but I didn't say anything to that. Casey always has to be distracted, having the higher IQ than I and always needing two computer screens to game and watch movies at the same time. It's not that foreign he'd want the iPad safe in his hands and want something to do. [shrugs]
As the lights began to dim a bit, I heard an announcement come over the speakers and -- oh WAIT. We have footage of this whole moment! I can let it paint the rest of the scene for you all. :)
Engagement proposalKaitlyn Arlene Rinehart
Posted by Casey Alan Hermanson on Saturday, December 20, 2014
So from here on in, I'm going to attempt to faithfully write down my whole journey about the before, during and after the wedding, and life after it. :D I don't really expect many people to read this except those I share it with on Facebook, which I'm okay with. I'm doing this for myself for several reasons: Writing is therapeutic for me, for memory's sake and because I have a lot of cool ideas for what I want for my wedding to be that might inspire someone else!
Bare with me as I go through Before and After 'I Do'!
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