Wedding Visions

My fiancé (I'll refer to him as “The Cook” since he's a cook) and I want a simple wedding. He's lucky that I'm a girl who only wants simple at her wedding. :) If finances are really tight, I'm OK with wearing a cocktail dress and having only our immediate families and some friends at the wedding. Afterwards, we'll go to a good restaurant where we'll celebrate our union with delicious food. I am THAT simple. He's lucky.

But, since we have time to save for our wedding, I'm thinking of having a wedding which is in the middle of a lavish wedding and a Civil-type wedding. A wedding which is not so over-the-top but also not so simple as the one I described above.

Here are the things that I want our wedding to be:

1. A reflection of who we are. A wedding which shows our guests our values and personalities as a couple and as individuals. I want guests to take a glimpse of who we are and not just know our names. I've been to weddings where I only knew the bride and I have no idea whom she married. I have relatives and friends who are not from my province and I want them to know The Cook even for a short period of time. And I want his relatives and friends to know me also aside from referring to me as “Yung girlfriend ni _____” (She's the girlfriend of (insert name of the boy).

2. Family-oriented. I want our families to join us in the wedding preparation and be included in the wedding proper as well. I'm thinking of asking family members to do the Bible readings, cook their specialty dishes for the reception, provide the music, etc. Families are there to support us and what better way to bond with them but to include them at our preparations.

3. Fun. I want our wedding where we and our guests will have fun. Many weddings are so structured and with so many rules there's no element of fun or adventure in it. If you're a guest, you go to the ceremony, take pictures of/with the couple, go to the reception venue, eat in a buffet, take pictures with tablemates, watch the traditional bouquet/garter toss (which only involved the bridesmaids and groomsmen), the cutting of the cake and opening of gifts, get the favors, then go home. Sometimes I feel like a robot when I attend weddings and getting the favors is my trigger that the wedding is over and I have to go home. No fun. What are the fun things I want to include at our wedding? I'm still thinking about dancing. The Cook is hesitant.

I'm an avid reader of Meg's wedding blog and I'll use her by-line.

4. Creative. My college is in the Arts and Sciences and there should be some creative juices in me. I've been in play productions, poetry reading sessions and I have friends who are artists which could help me in my endeavor to be creative at our wedding. This is where “personalized” comes in.

5.Thrifty. I don't want us to spend an arm and leg to pay for the wedding and then be broke the next day. There are other things more important to save and spend money on. Like payment for a lot where we'll build our home, doctor and lab fees when I get pregnant, tuition fees of our future children, etc. Which one do you like, a grand and expensive wedding or your own nice home in a safe surrounding? I'll pick the latter.

6. Sane. Who wants to be a bridezilla? Definitely not me.

These are the things which will help me in planning our wedding. I'll look at it everytime to guide me in my quest of having a personalized and simple wedding that we can truly call our own.