One Year Engaged and A Peek at Wedding Planning
Last week, Eddie and I celebrated one whole year engaged! I can hardly believe it’s already been a year since our magical trip to Japan – time moves so quickly at the moment. (I mean, look, I’d planned to write this post last week and now it’s already Tuesday?!) We didn’t do much to commemorate the anniversary, but we have been busy planning our wedding, squirrelling away at our ever-busy day jobs, and all the rest of life in your thirties as an engaged couple binding lives together. So, now that we’re roughly a year away from our wedding, I thought I’d share a tiniest peek into our planning process.
Our venue is booked!
We decided to finally start properly looking at venues around the time of our anniversary, and were very lucky to almost-immediately fall in love with The One! We visited armed with the list of ‘lucky’ dates that Mum’s family monk in Hong Kong had given us. In Chinese culture, the birth dates and times of an engaged couple are used to discover auspicious dates for everything from weddings to house moves. We were even more lucky to have snapped up an auspicious wedding date – only one of our three dates was available! When we visited, we realised how wholly underprepared we were for the whole situation and mustered through with the help of the venue owners.
Thank goodness for a wedding coordinator
On that note… thank goodness for the venue owner who is also our wedding coordinator! I knew from my research that a wedding planner would come in very handy, and was thrilled to find out that our wedding ‘package’ includes coordinator services. Our wedding planner is the grandson of the venue owner, so he is incredibly close to all that the venue is about, and he’s incredibly passionate about creating magical moments for wedding couples. We’re in good hands! So far, we’ve secured catering and décor, with upcoming appointments for a florist, MUA, and photographer.
Wed-min dates
From the start, Eddie and I were keen to make the wedding-planning process as smooth and as enjoyable as possible. Plenty of people around us that’ve gotten married warned us that it’s a super stressful and unenjoyable task, but we’re glad that that hasn’t been the case at all. Instead, we’ve worked it into our lives by planning wed-min dates! In short, we visit a different local independent coffee shop every couple of weekends and make our way through the lengthy wedding to-do list. We get to enjoy coffee and cake – plus each other’s company – and we’re productive to boot! It’s replaced the more expensive dinner dates – perfect for this expensive season of life.
Venue visits
It’s so exciting getting to see our wedding venue every so often! We’ve another visit coming up, and we’re just over the moon about it. We’ll be finalising our wedding breakfast menu, scouting out welcome party options, and generally soaking up this exciting ‘engaged’ chapter. Eeek!
Designing our invitations
As a big design, typography and crafting nerd, I’ve been ecstatic about having a huge project to work on in the evenings. Now that my TCM course is complete, I spend a few evenings a week working on our invites. Next month, we plan to get them printed and sent out to our darling guests. I cannot wait to share them with you sometime next year, after the occasion has passed.
