Hello our lovely followers and friends! This post is a little different, I’ll be writing about my very recent, personal engagement! We at Class Act thought it would be nice to have a post about wedding planning coming from the perspective of the couple. I first wanted to talk about how I planned my engagement. We all want the proposal moment to be magical, thoughtful and planned perfectly but… your engagement is still 100% valid and meaningful even if it does not go according to plan.
I decided I wanted to be the person to propose and go the non-traditional route. My partner and I had many playful discussions about getting married throughout our relationship and they were becoming more frequent a few months leading up to the proposal. Also, the more I thought about it, the more I was sure I wanted him by my side though all of life’s challenges. I was not sure how to properly propose coming from the woman because usually men do not have engagement rings but it felt wrong to propose without any ring. I decided we would both wear rings during the engagement and to transform his from an engagement ring into a wedding ring, we would get it engraved shortly before the wedding. So I got his ring size when we went grocery shopping at Fred Meyers and tried to make it lighthearted and act like I just wanted the information for the future. He did not freak out, which was a good sign! Later I ordered rings for both of us and I planned on presenting his to him during the proposal and if he said yes then I would also put mine on too.
This is also all during lockdown so I wanted to get creative and make a nice dinner sense we could not go out to a fancy restaurant. Well, everything was ready and still secret but then the rings came in the mail and my partner saw them… so the cat was out of the bag a few days early. But we still had a tender and loving conversation about our relationship and I proposed without a fancy dinner or any of the other romantic flourishes I had planned. He said yes and we made a nice dinner together instead. Just by ourselves, in our home with our kitties as witnesses. It fit our quiet and private lifestyle very well and it is SO hard to keep big plans secret from your partner. So I have to say one more time, your proposal moment does not need to be a huge, grand affair. As long as it is thoughtful and loving, that can be just as meaningful and romantic.
The most important piece for us when getting into the wedding planning process was determining the timeline. This is a bit interconnected with the venue too. Mainly deciding if you want an indoor or outdoor wedding will be really important to determine what season you will have your wedding in. I think both have a lot of appeal but I was really drawn to a casual backyard BBQ style with lawn games. So we decided the warmer season was when we wanted to have our wedding, because that is coming up pretty soon and we are still affected by the pandemic we decided to push it to next year. I recommend at least 10 months for planning a wedding so pick your season and if it is sooner than 10 months, plan on doing it the following year. Otherwise you risk having to settle on a date or a venue that you do not really want but is the last one available.
That brings me to the next step, venue. This is something you can start looking at the day of your engagement (or if you are the one proposing you can even start this search before the official engagement). Browsing venues is really helpful to give you a basic understanding of the average cost of the type of venue you like when you build a budget. Next week I’ll continue this topic and go over budget building, vendor searches, wedding websites and catering. Plus add some tips I have learned that I didn’t find through internet research!
-Riley McCann
Class Act Event Assistant