Over Halfway There

MANDIE SLEDGE PHOTOGRAPHY

The picture above was taken at the end of that Christmas card photo-shoot that I helped Mandie with a few weeks ago.  We decided to have a little fun at the end with the chalkboard :) I totally love it, but now I'm wishing that I had spent a little more time getting ready that morning!

Speaking of becoming Mrs. Camp, we are officially more than halfway through our engagement.  About a week ago marked the end of the first half of the planning period & I feel like things are going to be getting even busier from here on out.  Today, my mom & I have a meeting with Beyond Details at 4 pm to get a quote for flowers for the wedding; the terms of our contract with The Cotton Warehouse stipulte that we have to use BD for our caterer, but not necessarily our florist.  I still want to check them out, though, because I really like Jakob & he's creative like me.  I also have an appointment for a quote with The Garden Gate Florist in Monroe on January 3rd to get some comparison.  Anthony's cousin-in-law (is that even a word??) Anne Marie suggested them to me, as they did her & Michael's wedding & she used to work there.  I have a feeling that we'll definitely be using one of these two companies...it just depends on who offers me the better price & can see what I want for the wedding.

I have also been in touch with a potential DJ, Lou, of Spectrum Entertainment Events about doing the sound & lighting for our ceremony & reception.  They are also the preferred vendor of TCW, so more than likely we will wind up hiring them.  From the contact that I've  had with these people so far, they're extremely professional & will bend over backward to help you & give you what you want for your event, so I'm very encouraged by that!

As far as some other things with the wedding go, I was pleasantly surprised by an email that I received from BD last week.  The way the payment plan is set up for both the venue and catering contracts, you pay 1/3 of the total payment up front, 1/3 60 days before your event, & 1/3 30 days before your event.  However, this email was a little "Christmas bonus," offering that if you go ahead & pay your second payment now, you get 25% off of that price.  I assumed that this would only be good for one or the other (& it was only good for the first 10 customers who replied), so I had planned on using it for catering (because that is significantly more expensive than the venue, especially since we had already gotten the site on a 30-ish% discount).  However, Krystal from BD let me know that I could use the discount for both!  This is seriously great news & will end up saving us several hundred dollars! 

More holiday cheer: last week I was in American Eagle shopping for Anthony's birthday presents.  He will never tell me anything that he wants (& he's impossibly picky), so this year I've kind of just had to fall back on clothes & shoes.  Anyway, when the cashier asked me who I was buying for, I told him my fiance.  He was so super nice & asked me what my favorite part about being engaged was.  Of course, I told him everyone wanting to see my ring :)  Anthony did such a wonderful job, so I love showing it & him off.  He was genuinely interested in the wedding & gave me some great advice on it being just our day & not trying to worry about pleasing anyone else.  When we were discussing how much planning, effort & money goes into a wedding, he suggested that we just have a tiny wedding & spend the money on our honeymoon! Ha!  On the other hand, when we got to talking about my least favorite part, I said people asking how wedding planning is going.  It's such an awkward question & I never ever know what to say.  Usually it's either the words "good" or "busy."  There is hardly ever a time where I've recently done something major (like buying the dress) worth talking about & it's just a really hard question to answer easily.

I think if we were talking about my least favorite part again today, I would completely change my answer to people talking about us having kids (or giving unwanted opinions in general).  It's pretty common knowledge that I don't want kids for a while.  We are really young & I don't want to start a family until we are both mentally, emotionally & most importantly financially ready.  & that won't be for a loooooooooong time.  Plus, I want to focus on being a wife & getting good at that before I even think about becoming a mother.  I want to do something with my education first, too.  Anne Marie warned me about this part, but somehow I doubted that it would happen because most people are shocked that we are even getting married at our age.  Without a doubt, we were at Anthony's cousin's son's (that's a lot of 's's) 1st birthday party on Saturday & the comments started rolling in.  It always amazes me how bold people are, especially those who just met me or when it comes to criticizing our age or now bringing up when they think I ought to procreate.  Kind of like my Grannie's friend telling me that hosting a party for her was "wonderful practice for my new role."  For anyone reading this, probably not the best idea to butt in on either of those subjects! ;)

MANDIE SLEDGE PHOTOGRAPHY