I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date!

I wasn't quite expecting the backlash of anger from people upset over the way I ended my last blog.  So to calm your anxiety, dear friends...here's how the wedding date decision went down.

When ideas of marriage first entered my head a few years ago, long before an engagment ring would actually make it onto my finger, I pictured myself having a summer wedding since summer is afterall my favorite season.  Plus, I'm a teacher so I already have my summers off to travel on a honeymoon time-restraint-free. 

However, as I came to fall in love with New England, the season of autumn really began to grow on me.  My friend Colleen had a wedding in October in western Massachusetts, and I remember that to kill some time since we were there too early, Dave and I decided to drive around.  We came across the entrance to a park reservation with an unpaved driving road running through it.  As we drove along through the reserve, instinctly we both became incredibly quiet, lost in looking through the windows as the gold and red leaves dropped and fluttered around the car as though God was casually throwing confetti on us.  My friend did not have an outdoor ceremony, but from that point on I started imagining my own Fall wedding outdoors.

When Dave proposed on Thanksigiving 2010 and everyone immediately began demanding to know when we would seal the deal, my gold and red ceremony vision skipped its way from the back of my mind to my vocal cords, and I began to tell everyone that I would be a Fall bride.  There was one problem though.  I wanted my father to walk me down the aisle, and I'm pretty sure that if I told him I wanted to get married just five months after my sister's wedding his wallet would have exploded in fire and brimstone and the poor man would have dropped dead right then and there.  Plus, there is a lot going on for me with her wedding as well that I need to be on my game for.  I've never been a maid of honor before, and my little sister is only getting married once.  I want to enjoy planning the bridal shower and bachelorette party without having to worry about financial suffocation because I would have my own wedding looming right around the corner.  She's already done too much wedding planning stuff without me since I live four hours away, so the stuff that I can be there for and help with I want to be 100% totally focused on.

So as far as we knew when Dave boarded the plane for Scotland, our wedding would happen sometime in October of 2012, over a year after Stephanie's wedding.  I checked a calendar for 2012 and saw that both Rosh Hoshanah and Columbus Day provided long weekends during that month, which would make travelling for our MA guests a little less of a burden, so these were the weekend dates I armed myself with when asking questions at the reception hall appointments.  I also knew that I needed to have a Saturday night wedding since our travelling guests would be too pressured to make it in time for a Friday night reception and too tired to drive back after a Sunday party.

As I continue to plan I am now learning that the second you think you are settled on any one detail, be it a minor one like the type of flower you'll use in your bouquet or a major one like the date of the actual event, the second you begin saying it out loud to people you will immediately start second guessing your decision.  As I began hinting to those who asked that we were leaning towards an October 2012 wedding, all of a sudden October 2012 seemed really, really, really far away!  Impossibly far away!  I would grow old and die before October 2012!  The sun would burn itself out and the world would end before October 2012!  How could we possibly wait that long?

Suddenly, although I'd been obsessed with the idea of a Fall wedding, other seasons were now seeming much more appealing.  I began pondering other times of the year that would be convenient for me and my travelling guests.  I have a week off in February which could be somewhat extended for a honeymoon, so that was an attractive option.  But alas, the more I thought about it, the more I realized it could never work.  For one, although I laughed a little at the thought, it would just be way too cruel to give Dave so many dates (a future anniversary plus Valentine's Day plus my birthday) to worry about all in one month.  More importantly, though, I couldn't risk a winter snowstorm stranding my guests in MA and Brooklyn while Dave and I sat alone and downhearted by ourselves at our wedding in Long Island.  February was out.

Late April was a safe bet for a snowstorm-free wedding.  Plus, it was way cheaper than the Fall wedding I'd originally hoped for.  Even better, I had a week off in April where I could extend for a honeymoon.  There was one unavoidable obstacle though...Shakespeare Festival.  What is Shakespeare Festival you ask?  It's a Renaissance Fair the 8th graders put on at my school in early May that takes a month and half of planning and long hours of hard work.  It's actually the most stressful time of the year for me, and the thought of tying up loose ends for a wedding while working my butt off for a showcase of the Bard made my back hurt and my eyelids feel heavy.  I wouldn't even be able to feel excited for my own wedding because I'd be too stressed out about work.  April was out.

In the end, we decided to go with early June.  School is still in session, but my major units will be over and the days will consist mostly of field trips, graduation assemblies, and watching movies (with educational value of course).  My summer vacation just a few short weeks later is a stress-free and flexible time to take a honeymoon.  The weather will be warm without being overwhelming, and the garden beyond the glass doors of our ceremony area will be in full bloom.  Was this late Spring wedding what I'd ever imagined for myself?  No...but that's okay because in the end it was right for us, and I'm happy with the decision.

Pencil me in: Saturday, June 9th, 2012.