My project manager (Sarah Furger) was married earlier this year and I thought it would be cool if she'd share the things she wished she'd done differently to help out our readers.
Thanks Sarah for being so open and sharing your story and your gorgeous photos (as soon as I saw just a couple, I instantly felt that they were "blog-worthy"!)
Hello everyone! I am the newest addition here at
CT Designs! Here is my story: I was married in April to my high school sweetheart. The wedding was in our hometown of Green Bay, Wisconsin and it snowed AND rained on our wedding day. This wasn’t actually as bad as it sounds. While I loved my wedding, nothing is ever the way we hope it will go, so I thought I’d share with you a few things I wish I had done differently.
1.) I wish I would
have planned locally.
As a
college student in Iowa, I was planning a wedding in Green Bay. My bridesmaids
were in either Iowa or Michigan, my husband was in the southeast corner of WI,
my family was in Green Bay, and so was the wedding. It caused a lot of undue
stress to be so far away from all of the planning. I also had to
rely a LOT on the kindness of my family, putting even more stress on my Mom. I
also couldn’t take advantage of all the bridal shows in either Iowa or Green Bay. Bridal shows are a really great
way to meet vendors face to face without having to drive all over the place.
2.) I wish I would
have spoken up when I didn’t like something.
I watch a
LOT of Bridezillas. One of my biggest fears was that by saying I didn’t like
something, I would hurt someone’s feelings and come across as a jerk. This went
really well until the day of my wedding. I had a stylist I had never gone to
before, and she started doing my hair and I didn’t like it AT ALL. I was too
afraid to say anything, so I just broke down. There is nothing wrong with
speaking up when you don’t like it, just remember to do it sweetly. As you can
see, my hair looks ok, but it really wasn’t what I wanted.
3.) I wish I would
have budgeted for calligraphy
I know, it
sounds like a shameless plug for CT Designs, but it’s true. I wish I would have
had someone do place cards and invitations for us. With invitations, I didn’t
know that you had to write the name of every person who was invited, so when I
was addressing them (by hand, in my normal handwriting, no less), I just wrote
the parents names. This caused a lot of grief for my family and I ended up
having to call and apologize to half the guest list for the misunderstanding. If
I had budgeted for a calligrapher, not only would my envelopes have matched the
beautiful invitations inside, but also that kind of mishap would have been
avoided.
4) I wish I would
have had engagement pictures taken.
This was
mostly a timing issue. We were apart all summer – Jeff working in Madison and I was working in Green Bay. We then went back to our respective
colleges and just didn’t get our act together in time. My photographer was
FANTASTIC, so I wish we could have utilized her skills even further. That would
have made us both a lot more comfortable on the wedding day too!
Other than those 4 things, I think my wedding was everything
I wanted. Big thanks to my family, because without my Momma and my wonderful
aunties I would not have had such a perfect day. Please check out some of our photos
below. J
I adored my centerpieces! Bouchard's Floral
Gorgeous cake by Bernie's Cakes (I made the cake topper myself!)
The groom and his two best friends being... Well, themselves! Ever the charmers...
This is by far everyone’s favorite photo – it was meant to
be kind of a silly shot but turned out very well!
From l to r: Riley, my Maid of Honor, me, my friend Katie and my sister Rachael
One of my altar flower arrangements... I gave Bouchard's a vague description and they produced exactly what I wanted.
This is our church! We were married at the Heritage Hill Moravian Church, originally built in 1851 in Downtown Green Bay but was moved and re-dedicated for preservation in the 1980's. Its simplicity and beautiful windows made our day so beautiful! Its small - only seats 150 guests so even our full church made our ceremony feel intimate
Photography Credit for all photos: Tricia Dewar Photo
