updated plan!

 since calling off the wedding earlier last year (feels weird that it's 2011 already), changes have been made to our original plan.  we loved the la conner flats, but unless we wanted to wait until next summer, early fall to have the wedding, we needed to find a new place.  preferably, one that had indoor and outdoor accommodations.  we found that in the rexville grange, located right in between la conner and mt. vernon.  you maybe familiar with the rexville grocery; the grange is right behind it!

the nice thing about the grange is that there's this inside,

and this outside,

the hall is huge and will easily fit a million people, while the amphitheater outside is a beautiful spot to have the ceremony itself (if the weather holds).  if the weather doesn't cooperate, we can do it all inside.  besides the huge hall upstairs is an equally large downstairs area, with a kitchen and the storage area with the chairs and tables.  one of the things that stressed us out before was knowing that in order to be ready for inclement weather we needed to rent a tent, chairs, tables and portable heaters in advance.  meaning that even if we didn't need to use all of that, we were going to have to pay for all of that.  if that's all you're paying for that's fine, but paying that in addition to the site fee adds up.   it also cuts way into the food budget, and let's face it--what we want to do is send our guests away full and happy and talking about how much fun they had. 

i also bought a dress last year that i like well enough, but am not totally in love with.  it was only $50, so i'm not too worried about replacing it, or perhaps altering it.  if i can find something else that i love, then yay! but if not, i can make the dress i already have work. 


we put off doing any real planning through the holiday season.  i made and sent out save-the-date cards, but thus far that's the extent of our planning and our prep.  we still have a lot of work to do, so i'm working hard to create a timeline that workable, and stay on task.  this month i'm going to ask D to create a menu and proposed shopping list for the food, while i work on the invitations.  i'm also going to hunt down Father Nigel and see if he'll perform the ceremony for us.  once those things are out of the way, we can start working on rentals (if we do the ceremony outside, i want to have some chairs set up just for that, so we don't have to move a bunch of stuff inside and out between the ceremony and reception), and then clothes and decorations. 

five months doesn't seem like a long time, but i know better weddings have been planned in less time, so i'm going to try to relax and just do what i can.