Where to start?

Now that the initial blissful haze of getting engaged has lifted slightly I've suddenly realised "Oh crap! We have to organise a day-long party, wear the most expensive outfits we've ever owned and invite a whole bunch of people that we hope love us enough to turn up!" Dearie-me! Of course I know we don't have to do it that way but.... we want to do it that way. I think we're both imagining a beautiful day surrounded by close family and friends that we'll remember for the rest of our lives. I'm grinning just writing about it... Ok, ok, feet on the ground! We've made a few little decisions about the Wedding so first things first;

The Date

Now then. Ryan and I are by no means poor, we live comfortably, but extra cash is a bit hard to come by, any that we do come by we use to pay off debts, and its because of this that we've decided to have a long-ish engagement. We're currently working with late August/early September 2014. We want our wedding to be a big occasion with all the frills and trimmings and we've had to be honest with ourselves. We just can't achieve that on a shoestring budget. In order to live your fantasy you have to be realistic, and our reality here is we need to save up for a long time and we figured three and a half years ought to do it, but we're prepared to wait longer to get what we want.

Budget

We haven't the foggiest how much we're going to be able to spend. I really should pull my finger out and work out how much we're going to need to save up but I'm not quite ready to drag my head out of the clouds just yet! I have, however, been looking for ways that we can reduce the costs. For instance, I could make the cake myself. In fact I probably should because I want more than the bland tier cakes that fall into my price range. For the same reasons we'll design our own invites and menus and we're considering collecting vases and china from ebay or car boots instead of hiring them. I want the only major spendage to be on the biggies: venues, food, clothes, etc.

Some small details

I have to have a photobooth at the Wedding. Like a photobooth were you get you passport pictures from. It'll be so much fun! But I want to keep the pictures, well copies at least. Also, we both like the idea of giving disposable cameras to guests to take candids with. I love photos, lots of photos.

I've also seen advertised a stamp for a wax seal, custom-made with your initials. I love, love, love the idea of wax sealing our invites and Ryan seemed to like it too.

I've had loads more inspiration, I could write several epic blog posts about all of it but I think I'll leave off with those little titbits.