Selecting a Honeymoon Destination

In my relatively short life I’ve been blessed with the fortunes of travel. Lots of travel. Born in Colorado and lived there for my early childhood, then off to Germany and tours of Europe for three years, then back in the States living on the East Coast but road tripping north, south and west, not to mention trips to enjoy both the mountains of the West and the islands of the Caribbean capped off with an adulthood semester in London working, traveling and enjoying the vast differences in Great Britain, and a short stint in both France and Egypt.

I have this not-so-secret wish to visit all of the continents but Antartica (though once I’ve hit 6 I’ll probably want to hit Antartica too, simply to say I did), and as many countries in the world as I possibly can before I die. I simply love traveling, and I think due to my expereince with planes, trains and automobiles as I child I don’t get easily lost, overwhelmed or confused when it comes to finding my way around. (It’s either this expereince or the inherent ‘map-in-my-brain’ I’ve inherited from my father and his father, we may never know.

Needless to say choosing a honeymoon destination was semi-hard, and all of the above explains why we chose the destination together. Bryan was born in Africa, but once his family returned to the US he never left North America, so he wanted to leave the country. We wanted a place I hadn’t been to before, so we could both experience something new, and we wanted something that would provide some adventure, and plenty of time for relaxing. Even though it would have been amazing to sight-see of a lot of cool places we knew we’d be tired and just wanting to relax. Relaxing and jet-lag don’t often go hand in hand, so all of those stipulations ruled out pretty much everything other than the Caribbean. (Though we did briefly consider Central American Costa Rica, there were too many snakes to consider it. Yes I have a fear of snakes.)

Breaking out the map of tropical destinations in our relative time-zone we immediately ruled out Mexico, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos, Aruba, and the British and US Virgin Islands. These were ruled out due to either political and socio-economic climate, cold ocean temps (Bermuda!), or past travel. Most listings of Caribbean countries also include Central America, but not many of them drew our eye.

Instead we seriously considered Antigua(known for sailing), St Lucia and the Bahamas.

There were other islands we could have looked at, but at some point you have to stop including everything! We also had a budget to consider, so we were looking to get the best bang for our buck. Hours were spent on tripadvisor.com, allinclusiveoutlet.com, and expedia.com.

Discovering that the big sailing expo would happen the week before, literally our wedding day was the end of it, we decided we’d save Antigua for another trip, when we might actually experience a little of the fun. That left us between St. Lucia and the Bahamas. Our research has pointed out that St. Lucia had a bit more adventure, but only on one island, while the Bahamas had more than one island and lots to do everywhere. Eventually the multitude of islands in the Bahamas led to us selecting St. Lucia as our destination. That way we would be sure to have seclusion, adventure, and allow us to sight see, without the risk of missing anything by being stuck on this or that island.

Did you help your husband select the honeymoon spot? How did you choose where to go? What were you looking for?

10 Day Forecast

Wow. It’s finally getting here. Looking ahead for the 19th, the ten day forecast is showing a high of 76 degrees,mostly cloudy, but only 10% chance of rain. Of course it so not even accurate since it’s so far away, but it’s nice not seeing rain forecast that day! Everything is wrapping up. Props for the photobooth have been made, or bought. The photobooth is ready to go (thanks to Bry). The programs are being printed and will be on their way soon. The candy for the candy bar is chilling in the jars. My dress fits. The girls are all sorted. The guys had a last minute change to bow ties instead of regular ties (more James Bond like). We confirmed with all of the vendors, everyone is on point. Our honeymoon was confirmed, and re-confirmed! I’ve started packing and I know I’ll have more than enough, but I’ll have a husband now to roll my bag…kidding. I mean I will have one, but I’m tired of what I typically do which is: pack what I need and end up wishing I had something else, so that’s not happening this trip! So, everything for the wedding is rolling along fine. What about at home?

Our Mother/Daughter activities of last weekend went well. We enjoyed the banquet, and the beach was so refreshing. We walked the boards, and the beach, and got the requisite seafood, salt water taffy, and fudge. It was a fun relaxing time. Kenzie loved riding in her stroller up and down the boards. It helped that almost every store was having major stores so it was worth while to stop and browse! Of course we still have all the relaxing things to do, like coffee on the porch, laying by the pool, and painting in the kitchen. Painting in the kitchen probably won’t happen because all my stuff is packed and when the weather gets this nice outside who wants to sit inside?

Of course, just as mom and I have things we have to do when I’m around my dad has worked hard to have fun things to do with his kids as well. Breakfast with dad was started several years ago, and each week during the summer he would rotate through who joined him for breakfast that week. Dad and I had breakfast this week, and we will do so again next week. It’s always nice to hang out with dad.

Who knows what this next week will hold weather-wise, but all that really matters is that we will be married at the end of the day. Everything else is just sugar on top! Have a good week!

 

Where do you draw the line?

I’ll be the first to admit updating every detail of one’s life on Facebook is enough for me to want to hide someone from my newsfeed. I don’t care about every little detail. And I’m sure there aren’t many who care about every detail of my life. So I hold back from sharing all the wedding things that excite me, I don’t want to ever act like it’s all about me.
That’s where wedding planning gets hard. I’m still me, but my life is changing. I’m certainly not the girl that is involved with every little detail, but this wedding is the biggest visible thing in my life that signifies how so very much will be changing. And when you see an old friend or you catch up over a cup of coffee you ask and tell about things that are new in your life. I’ve had a couple friends tell me to feel free to share because they know what it’s like, or they just are interested. I did have one interesting interaction though. I was conversing with an interested party about the wedding. They mentioned it was coming up soon and I responded “that it really is. At some point this week there will only be a hundred days to go!” an eavesdropper piped up, “you’re really scary you know that?” I guess they meant that I knew how many days were left. Little do they know the various wedding website places all send emails with countdowns in them nearly every day! Needless to say I was a bit flabbergasted and didn’t have a response, so just turned back to my conversation. It definitely made me reevaluate who I share things with, even when they ask.

But because change is pressing on my mind today, ill share some of my thoughts. Once our wedding day passes for the first time ever I won’t think of my parents house as my house. I’ll have my own that I’ll share with my husband. There will be no more spontaneous target trips with mom, ski days with dad, or a random weekend at the beach. I’ll be to far away for any of that. I’ll miss Andy’s 10th birthday and Alex will start high school without me around. Don’t even get me started on what I’ll miss in Kenzie. Brandon is away at college, so hopefully it won’t be that bad, as I’m hoping we come home for the holidays.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’ve been looking forward to marrying Bryan for a very long time. Four years to be exact. But no matter how excited I get about the prospect of the future, it will be big learning curve. College was one thing, I’d come home every couple months, but Mr Sailboat would go to his house, and I’d go to mine. Sure, I guess we are lucky our families live near each other, but that just means that once we are married we will spend every weekend we come home together, but will be splitting our time with our families. I’m sure that won’t be easy, but we will make it work.
How do the married people out there handle spending time with both families? Anyone in our situation?

Wedding Website

Ok, I’ve had this website thing done for a while now. But there were some details still to hash out. Makenzie-my baby sister mainly was what we needed to figure out. What role would she play? How would she be incorporated into the ceremony/processional. Well we’ve solved that. Mainly it involves my old wagon, some ivory spray paint and Andy my 9 year old brother. Now that it’s all sorted out the website is ready for it’s real unveiling (sure it was included on the save the date) but for reals now.

Wedding Website

Now I’m sitting here thinking about a program for our guests during the ceremony. I really like the introduction of the wedding party and a lot of our guests probably aren’t going to read the blurbs on the website, with some tweaking and sizing down what I wrote I’m considering a program with a list of the important people but also a brief intro to them as well. More so than just Nancy–Friend of the Bride.

Does anyone out there have any thoughts? Guess I need to contact some of my old college friends and see what their pricing would be like for designing some of this for me…too bad my computer doesn’t have the adobe suite on it….

Check Lists

I absolutely love checking things off to do lists. Sometimes when I need to extra motivation to get things done I add things to the checklist to really help me get my butt in gear. I’m talking obvious things I already do, like brush teeth, get dressed, check email. Seeing those little check marks get me every time.
I’m at the stage in wedding planning where I’m checking off a lot of little details and that feels great. But it’s crazy how much I waffle on a decision, even something simple. Choosing a cake flavor was hard. Especially because at the tasting the bakery guy is sitting right there. I can’t exactly be completely honest to Bryan about this flavor is dry when the salesman was sitting right there! Thankfully though by this point in our relationship we can read between the lines. And we didn’t chose the flavor that we agreed was dry, or the flavor that seemed a bit out there. We chose something simple and I really don’t care. However it turns out on the wedding day I’m sure it will be fine. It is ok I’m a bit apathetic? I guess it stems from not even being a big cake eater.
Don’t get me started on the other little time eating details, like choosing stamps. My parents used the love stamp from the year they got married when they sent out their invitations. And I somehow got it in my head I’d use them too, but when I saw the new stamp, I hated it. Red is so not me and it looks like a Valentines stamp. It took a quick browse but I found one I liked. Im ready for the little details to be over and done with. I am getting pretty tired of the checklist! No more adding silly things to my list to feel accomplished! Plenty of silly things are already there.

Back from the brink…

Literally. I’ve just returned from the brink of civilization. And a hiatus of wedding planning. Mr. Saiboat and I went with his family (read: parents, two brothers and their girlfriends, plus one yipping dog) to their family cabin in the wilds of PA’s state forests. This was my second trip up to the cabin. It was a very nice time, but not exactly my sort of a trip (I’m a sunshine and beach girl). But my goal was to sit back and unplug-this location was unparallelled in succeeding at meeting this goal. It was a 45 minute drive from any cell service, let alone 3G. There was no internet, phone, or tv. Our heat was supplied by wood and we were all alone in the vast forest, except for the rabbits, of which the dog was very fond of chasing. So forgive me dear reader as I spent the time with future family to be, whooping them in board games and taking long walks along “Young Woman Creek”. Very creative name I must say.

Due to my paralyzing fear of snakes, winter is the only time I venture up to the cabin so we also got our walk on. (I would have said hike, but I’m not much of a hiker). The scenery is gorgeous though, and you can appreciate it even without climbing the mountains (I prefer to ski down them!) It often times felt like we were walking straight through a Narnia or Lord of the Rings movie.

Now, to get back to wedding planning, I had determined as we were getting close to the holiday season, that I would have a million and one things to do and consequently, wedding planning, or even wedding blogging would not get done. Instead I swore it off until ‘next year!’ and focused on family time when I wasn’t wrapping gifts. Not to mention, Mr. Sailboat was actually in the area for more than a weekend and I wanted to see him! The break was nice, not to mention it coinciding with a slow bit of the to-do list, more like the calm before the storm.

It’s now 4 months and 19 days until the wedding. While I was lost in the wilds, the bridesmaid dresses came in and my mom was kind enough to pick them up for me. I’m loving them! They look so gorgeous hanging in my closet as they wait for their maid to receive them. I almost wish I could keep one, I love them so much.

On my many checklists for wedding planning there are lots of to-dos to do that I haven’t done yet… I can order the invites this month. We need to book the honeymoon, and the night of hotel room. I really need to start working on that pesky ceremony, decide on and order the favors and did I mention sending the maids their dresses? I’m glad we have finally gotten back into a ‘busier’ bit of the to-do list. Those boring doldrums were killing me!! It makes the wedding seem so much closer, now that it’s ‘our year!’ I can’t believe so much times has gone by! When we first got engaged it seemed as though May 2012 would never come. I came up with this list of all the things that would happen to make it seem like January was just around the corner. First, we had a beach trip with my family, school would start, Mr. Sailboat would have a birthday, I’d have a birthday, my parents would have their 5th child, it would be Thanksgiving, then it’s basically Christmas, then before we’d know it it would be the New Year, and then we would be so busy the wedding would be here before we knew it. Well, it’s the New Year! Here comes the craziness.

Did you take a hiatus from planning at any point?

I did it.

Wow. I can’t believe I did it. I just hit send and watched a very important email get downloaded out into the black hole that is the www. I’ve applied to be a bee. They asked for 2 weeks of blogging or 15 posts. I’ve got more posts, hopefully that enough. It’s hard to believe that just a few short days ago I decided I would even try and now I’m sitting here anxious, excited and nervous.

Fingers crossed in a few weeks I’ll be a bee. If not, I’ll just try again. As a voracious reader I spent a lot of time reading many, many many posts on Wedding bee. I’d read as much of every single Miss and Mrs. Blogger that I could in my spare time. I love how reading about someone’s wedding makes it seems as though you, the reader, are invested in their day as well. Even though many of the wedding I spent time reading about were long over, I still found myself rooting for them, their choices and the weather! It would be such an honor to have others agree I have something to say that might make wedding planning that much more fun!

Is it silly that I think I’m more nervous to hear about this then I was college acceptance? Maybe, but it’s true. I applied to several colleges. There is only one Weddingbee.

Venue Selection and a Photographer

The second thing I knew I needed to have was Mike Landis Photographer.

Mike Landis Photographer

A family friend who just so happens to be ranked by several wedding lists? It was almost like I needed him to have an availability and I would work my whole wedding around it. I had emailed him checking for April of 2012. He was pretty much wide open, except for one weekend and very excited to shoot my wedding. Funny Story (not often actually funny, just a quirky thing I say, in Miss Sailboat world, ‘funny’ can mean crazy, weird, interesting, ironic, funny, annoying, sad, pathetic, etc): Two summers ago he approached my dad and I in church and asked my dad if he could shoot my wedding. my dad just about had a heart attack and said it was way too soon to be thinking about that. Mike semi-apologized and conversation moved on until his wife walked by and asked Mike if he’d asked my dad about shooting the wedding. This time I think dad really did almost have a heart attack. He was definitely not ready at that time to have to start preparing for me to be married!

So I went into venue search mode keeping that one date in mind. I figured I just had to be able to find something that worked. Speaking of venues, where did I leave off? Oh yes, the classic cliffhanger at the end of a blog post. Oops! 😉

We last left off  having seen two venues and contemplating an at home wedding reception. Let’s review.

Holly Hedge: pros: rustic, from like the 1700s or so, so very early stonework, great outdoor ceremony area,  pretty pond, very helpful staff, great food options. cons: on the pricey side, weedy garden, poor bad weather plan, not very handicap accessible, age of buildings led to mustiness.

interior of cocktail area/bad weather plan

Manor House at Prophesy Creek Park: pros: attentive staff, luxuriously appointed bridal suites, gorgeous ponds, gazebo, white glove service, great reviews on caterer, not as expensive, handicap accessible, faith connection with head-honcho. cons: grounds weren’t finished, public bathrooms were very sterile (not luxurious at all) tent wasn’t finished.

Entrance to the Manor House

The Backyard Option: pros: personal cons: so much work!

What did we choose? Why the Manor House of course. Literally, hearing all Mr. Robert Fair had to say, my mom and I had teared up. It was so precious to hear someone in the industry seem very passionate about giving his clients their best, and who was adamant that his prices were the way they were because he didn’t think wearing white (being a bride) meant you could be billed out the wazoo. As we were driving home we discussed dates, we were basically convinced that this would be the place and had tentatively decided on May 12th, 2012. (I was pushed away from April due to chance of rain) We called the Manor House to let them know and were penciled in for that day. They faxed me a contract. As I sat there filling it out some niggling little thought in the back of my neck was telling me that was the graduation weekend of our Alma Mater. O cool…wait a second!!! Mr. Sailboat’s younger brother N graduates this year! We can’ t take this date!! I called back embarrassed and slightly annoyed only to have Mr. Fair also embarrassed; they had just received a deposit for May 12th, and he had told me I had the date. Both of us were very apologetic until we realized this was clearly a matter of providence! May 19th was now our date.

Less than an hour later that warm bliss that was having a wedding date wore off and the subtle desperation of my dream photographer being booked already began to grow in the pit of my stomach. The very next thing I did was email the date off to Mike and pray he was available.

Did anyone else have to venue hunt without their mister? Was there a specific vendor your heart was set on that you knew you would plan your wedding around?

Venue 1: Barley Sheaf

Within 24 hours of getting engaged we had notified all integral family and friends that we had in fact gotten engaged. As per usual, the responses were overjoyed and quickly followed by, “When’s the big day?”

Unlike several friends of mine, I knew that I’d spent enough time being Mr. Sailboat’s girlfriend and was ready to move on. I didn’t want to wait around a couple weeks to ‘enjoy it’ because I wanted a date set. We had wanted a fall wedding, but with a family wedding in September, and my parents expecting a baby in November, there really wasn’t going to be any weekend in the fall that would work. Skipping right past winter we landed in April. April sounded perfect to us.

Literally that very same weekend I emailed two places that I had read about in 2009 to set up a tour and get pricing info. I wasn’t waiting around. The very first day Dad and Momma Sailboat could come along I scheduled full with several appointments.

1. Barley Sheaf Farm: I fell in love with this quaint inn and spa, rolling grounds and pretty landscaping. The images on the website were to die for. Perfect, quaint, vintage, bliss. I excitedly called them first. Unfortunately, all Saturdays were booked until the following fall (October 2012!) and unless I wanted a Sunday wedding,  my options were in March or August, though there was one possible Saturday in April because a deposit still hadn’t come in. I waited with bated breath until the pricing came to my email. This place was more expensive then I ever could have imagined. Clearly I was new to the world of wedding finances. To hold a wedding here I would be required to rent out all of the rooms (16!) for at least one night (preferably 2), in addition to an on-site wedding fee, and a per plate charge that was exorbitant. They were billing it on the phone as ‘a “weekend wedding” complete with any sorts of lawn games (extra), rehearsal dinner (extra), spa treatments (extra), morning after brunch (extra) etc. this was really the Hollywood-type escape on the east coast. ‘

gorgeous inside and out

The tree lined drive had me envisioning all sorts of lovely bridal party photographs. I could have almost been drooling at this point.

The details were wonderful. It was very Pride and Prejudice (English Countryside) meets Bucks County PA.

Really. Click through to the website and you’ll see what I’m talking about. It was adorable, but disgustingly expensive. I’m really not the Hollywood-wannabe kind of person. As nice as it would be to jet-set all over the world, I  don’t want a Kardashian lifestyle, especially when it comes to longevity of weddings! I like my own thank you very much. So I cancelled the appointment. For a place that would blow any sort of budget out of water without a dress, flowers, or photos I didn’t even want to look at the place, I had learned my lesson from TLC’s “Say Yes to the Dress”. I didn’t want to fall in love with anything that would murder my budget. On to number 2!

How We Met

So you’ve seen the pitiful “About Me?” Here’s the more detailed overview.
As I mentioned earlier, I’m a recent grad. I graduated in May of 2011 from a Christian liberal arts college in central Pennsylvania. A lot of my story begins there.

Mr. Sailboat and I waiting to commence!

As a freshman, I often found myself making fun of the people who had just started college and within the first few weeks of freshman year were in a new “very serious” relationship. I had told myself I wasn’t getting serious until much later in college and I was fully intent on focusing on classes. Well November rolled around (two months later) and one Wednesday night I found myself playing doubles pool with a girl from my floor and two very quiet boys from our building. One of the very quiet boys managed to say, ” hi.” and, “will you be on my team?” I acquiesced and we lost terribly. The only thing I really remember was he wore a yellow (my favorite color!) Cheerios shirt.

The next day, a fellow male freshman from Mr. Sailboat’s floor hacked his computer and left me an instant message that said he was going to pinch me. I was moderately annoyed and eventually I figured out that it wasn’t Mr. Sailboat but CJ (immature prankster). Mr. Sailboat asked me out to coffee to apologize and we hit it off; daily after class we worked together on homework in the library and after two short weeks he went from the guy asking me to play pool quite bashfully to asking me to be his (first! and only!) girlfriend! Who would have guessed I’d turn out to be someone I made fun of?