Hi!

My name is Ali and I'm getting married this May (let's all hope for good weather lol) Our story is similar to yours because we started dating at 15 and have been together for over 5 and a half years now :-)

My FH's parents are letting us host the wedding in their backyard, which isn't really big, but should be large enough to accomodate the 165 people we are inviting! I have five bridesmaids and they are all going to wear different colors (blue, yellow, green, pink and purple) in a pastel shade, but all dresses will be satin material and floor length... But the central "theme colors" will be a light green and ivory. I am planning on planting alot of flowers and stuff for the "decor" lol. the feel of the wedding is simple and classy- i'm going for the "twilight garden party" effect as the ceremony won't begin until 6 o'clock.

I found really neat mini watering cans i'm using for favors, i'm going to fill them with pastel colored m&ms. i also bought personalized matches and napkins from theknot.com - both are ivory with silver foil writing.

my center pieces are perhaps my favorite thing about the wedding- except my dress which is my mother's old wedding gown :-) I bought a bunch of different colored glass bottles from a craft store last spring and i am planning on putting 4 or 5 stems of different color gerber daisies in each bottle.

You've got plenty of time to plan, since your date is in 2011. but i like your idea of a coral/turquoise or peacock theme. think about where you would want to incorporate such colors-- just in the decor? the bridesmaid dresses? of maybe the napkins and linens too? lol so many decisions!

thanks for starting a post :-) i look forward to hearing more of your ideas about your wedding!!

*Ali

Hi, Ladies! This IS a cool thread! :) Thanks for starting it!

Well... my relationship with my FH is a bit different than all of yours. I am 24, and he is 25. We met just under two years ago in a class we had together - we are both Geography nerds. :)

To elaborate, I had recently (under 6 months) ended (for good, this time!!) a relationship with my ex of around six years. We dated in HS and through most of college, but I always felt like there was something missing. Long story short, I took an six month internship in New Zealand, completely found myself and realized he was totally not right for me. I had one year of school left and had accepted an amazing full time position working at the place in NZ that I had my internship at. All I had to do was graduate... simple enough, right?

FH and I went on our first date the day after Christmas in 2007 and have literally been inseperable ever since. Things started getting really serious, and I realized I had a life changing decision to make - the amazing job in the best place on Earth, or the guy who I had only been dating for a few months who I had totally fallen for?

Needless to say, I chose FH and never looked back. It was the best decision I have ever made! Our wedding (6/25/10) is going to be pretty small (under 50 people) on a Friday evening at a vineyard in WI. It's going to have a pretty 'chill' atmosphere, which is what we are all about. The following day/evening we will be having the reception/huge bash in my parents' back yard. We are SUUUPER pumped for both days!

The only bad thing we have run into is the small guest list for our ceremony. We have both always wanted a really small and intimate ceremony, rather than everyone and their best friend, uncle and cousin invited, and some people just don't understand. For example, I have relatives (my mom's family is huuuuuuuuge) who i haven't seen in literally ten years and have never really been close with at all, who are pissed off that they aren't going to be invited to the ceremony. ugh. Other than that, everything is peachy-keen and we have been having a blast planning! We have most of the major things set in stone, but there's always something to be working on.

Anyway, I am looking forward to chit-chatting with you girls about wedding stuff and whatever else! Yay! Have a great weekend, everyone! :)

You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams. 

~Dr. Seuss

Hello!! I'm 21, turning 22 in December. My FH is 24. Our families met at church when I was 2 and a half so we've known eachother pretty much all our lives. We were never really friends though until I came to the college he was already attending. We started dating my junior year.

We're tentatively planning a summer wedding. My colors are turquoise blue/teal and orange/yellows. We're getting married in my church and the 'reception' will be very unstructured and informal. I'm planning on having different desserts out on tables in the foyer of the church(it's a very large, nice looking foyer so it won't be cramped at all) and having people just mingle and visit for awhile. Our siblings will be the wedding party. I'm hoping to do almost everything on my own. My aunt has some experience planning weddings so I'm sure she'll guide me if I have any problems. I feel like there's no more planning left for me to do until we set a date and I can book the church and photographer!

One of the big things we're unsure of still is the size of the guest list. Our preliminary list is over 200 people, but quite a few aren't local and probably won't be able to travel. I've got time to whittle it down though so I'm not worried.

I love hearing everyone else's plans!! Congrats everyone!

Katie,

I too understand what you mean by not having a set date. In fact, we had originally planned on getting married in january, then september, then april!!! And finally we ended up in May lol but i guess alot of that had to do with our budget. January is our normal date- when we started going out-- and even tho it's the "off-season" for wedding, hall rentals were still pricey for us. September seemed nice too, but when we decided we def wanted to have an outdoor wedding in his parents backyard we knew spring would be better. And it rains too much in April lol. hooray for May! ;-)

Althought it may be a few months before you finalize your exact date, take advantage of this time to research possible vendors. There are SO many photographers, DJs, florists, etc out there! And it won't neccessarily be an easy task narrowing down quantity vs quality, who's available when, who you like (very important!!), and what fits your budget! :-) Thankfully I didn't have to learn this the hard way since i totally have OCD when it comes to planning haha ;-)

Caitlyn,

I am renting porta potties at my wedding too LOL Though my guests and family won't have to face a hill to get to the normal restrooms, my FMIL has expressed to me that having 165 people running into her house to use the bathroom is insane :-P And I quite agree with her!

I found some really nice ones at mrjohn.com-- the nicer ones even have running water and air conditioning! We are going to rent two because the "rule of thumb" one for every 100 people... i think, or something like that... it's nice tho cuz they drop it off friday and pick it up monday.

*Ali
Live, Love and Laugh

LoverForever, I will definitely check out the company. My FMIL insists that everything is "no problem!" She even wants to set up tables IN the house. My parents are really worried about it being too much of a burden on her...she is used to having a full house, though. FH is one of 7 kids, and FMIL is remarried...at one point they had 10 kids living in that house! Family get togethers are crazy.

FutureMrs, I was planning on DIYing my own flowers, but when Iwas looking at the craft store, I found amazing bouquets that were already made! I ended up getting seven of them for $40. It's not a great picture, but I'm holding two of them. They were a good size individually for the BMs, but the large versions they had were soooo overpowering we decided to put two together. We're going to add some things (I'm thinking feathers) and rewrap the stems to give them a little uniqueness.

I'm planning on doing my own flowers for the centerpeices, if I end up using any. I'm not a flower person, really, and I hate/am really allergic to bees, and since October can be hell for bees in Indiana, I don't want to have real ones. If I do I will probably just find whatever is seasonal at the supermarket that week. :) I did bouttenieres for prom in high school, so I will probably make those, too. I found some cute little "vases" for bouts that have safety pins on them and the flower just sits inside.


I really want to have centerpieces like this, but with something inside the upside-down vases. I love the candles, but they're flameless...and the whole centerpiece came around to like, $45 each. Ridiculous! Maybe I will find similar, cute, real candles somewhere.

Future Mrs. Millington

My planning blog: 

 http://michaelandcaitlinforever.blogspot.com/

This was such a good idea for a thread. I was intimidated by the other young brides forum as well. Ha.

There are so many of you that are marrying your high school sweethearts!!! That's so romantic. Mine's a little different I think but also pretty reflective of our personalities.

My FH and I have actually known one another for about 10 years. (Since high school.) I'm 24 and he's 25. It was sort of a funny situation where we were best friends who CLEARLY were not interested in dating one another. He was kind of a weird hippie with dreadlocks and I died my hair black and hung out with a goth crowd but for some strange reason we had a lot in common and were both very accepting of one another, which is pretty refreshing in high school, ha! He was also on the BC Snowboard Team so he was traveling a lot (in Europe and South America) and I moved around in Vancouver, BC for quite a while but we kept in touch over the years and then 2 years ago he moved back to Vancouver to "meet babes". (To quote him.) We'd both gotten haircuts and wardrobe make-overs since our school days, don't worry. We were hanging out quite a lot and after a year I broke up with my then loser boyfriend and about a month later we realized we were perfect for one another. On our one year dating anniversary he proposed (actually the day before, because he bought the ring and decided he couldn't wait anymore.) and we're getting married on August 8th, 2010!!! YAY!

It was easy to make decisions for our wedding because our theme is favorites. Our favorite colors are orange (mine) and yellow (his) so those are our colors with white accents. My girls will be in burnt orange bridesmaid dresses and the guys will all have yellow ties and pocket squares. I'll have yellow accesories (shoes and a bright yellow orchid in my hair) and my FH is going to wear an orange tie with an orange pocket square. (We thought that would be a neat idea.)




My bouquet is going to be made up of orange gerbera daisies (my favorite flower), white orchids (his favorite flower) and sunflowers to add in some yellow.



We're also asking our family members to include something in their wardrobes to show which side of the family they are on. :)

Our venue is the Prestige Hotel in Salmon Arm, BC (in the middle of wine country, SO BEAUTIFUL!) and the ceremony is taking place in a park with a gazebo right across from the hotel.)

Our centrepieces are oranges and lemons in glass vases surrounded by candles in different kinds of candle holders (from the dollar store to save on costs, but they look really cool) and our favours are citrus peelers with our names and the wedding date stickered onto the handles with little gelatin candies attatched. They are super cute.





I just found my dress!!! I can't believe it. I'm pretty low maintenace so I didn't want anything spectacular. No beading or anything like that, and I was GOING to go with a simple white dress that had a small flower accent on the side with straps, but THEN I tried on a cheaper and MUCH more glamourous Anjolique dress and I had to get it. I'm going to wear a crinoline underneath to make it extra big and it's got a pretty extensive train, which makes it the opposite of what I THOUGHT I was looking for but I completely fell in love with it when I tried it on.





My FH also let slip that he thought I should really go all out as far as the dress is concerned. After all, we're only getting married once. Ha. And since the price was WAY better than the simpler dress I was looking at I was sold. (This dress is about $1050.) I'm a very lucky girl. Ha.

All we really have left to do is pick a DJ. We're hoping to find someone in Salmon Arm but our choices are limited since it's such a small town. But we're keeping our fingers crossed.

I'm hoping to really get all of the big things out of the way early on so that we can spend more time picking out the smaller (but usually more time consuming) things, like renting chairs and finding all of the fabric for chair covers and reception hall decorations. I can't wait!!!

I love all of the ideas here! :)

Hi all! I'm Jeanie, and my FH is Eddie. We've been dating since we were in 8th grade, so for, gosh, eight years now! We did the long-distance thing for our four years of undergraduate school while he was at the University of Minnesota and I was at New York University. This summer he made the big move out East to CT where we're both attending school now! (He's working on a masters in English Literature and I'm starting my law degree at Yale). We're getting married on May 21st, 2010 (a bit unconventional, as it's a Friday evening) in MN. So far we've booked our site, which is the Mill City Museum and I've got my dress. I've also picked flowers, and started planning the menu with our caterer, but I still have lots of time! If you're bored and have some free time, I made a wedding website, and Eddie's been blogging, although that's mostly a bit embarrassing (the blog, not the website). It's www.jeanieandeddieswedding.brides.com
Anyways, it's nice to meet you all! :) Now I should get back to work, as I have about 600 pages to read for my con law class! ugh!