Bride-to-be Blogger Carly: Experiencing Wedding Planning With My Best Girlfriends
Hemera
I’d always heard that engagements (and ultimately, weddings) come in waves. I’ve heard friends talk about going to five-to-ten weddings in one year, and often multiple in the same month. This, however, has yet to be my experience. I’ve been to a good number of weddings, but the mad dash to the altar has yet to happen for my group of friends.
In the last three months, however, three of my closest girlfriends have gotten engaged, and I am so very excited. Part of my excitement, I must admit, is selfish, because I now have some friends to go through the wedding-planning process with! But, more importantly, I am thrilled because, after all we’ve been through, these very special girls are in such great places in their lives.
Despite what you might think (since having a blog might seem to refute this) I actually don’t like talking about myself all that much. So, I feel funny always talking about my planning; I don’t want to bore people with all my details! Now, I have three great friends who are going through the experience at the same time, and I’m excited to share with them what I’m finding/planning/doing and hear the same in return!
My friend Sophia is getting married to Randy next September, and is in the midst of planning their wedding. She and I touch base a couple times a week to share ideas, updates and frustrations. Sophia and Randy live a few hours away, so I don’t really get to see them, but it’s been really great to connect across the distance through the wedding-planning experience.
Megan got engaged next. She and her fiancé Erik started dating right around the time I met Sean, and are so great together! Megan just started her planning and is in the process of searching for a venue. She came with me to a bridal expo last weekend and it was really great to have another bride-to-be with me!
Jill, my best friend, got engaged last Friday night. I was with Jill when she met Andrew, at the end of our senior year at St. Joe’s, In fact I dragged her to the party where they met! And I’ve loved them together since. Back when I was a single girl, I would hope to find someone who could make me as happy as Andrew makes Jill. So I’m overjoyed that they are heading down the aisle to make it official. Jill accompanied me on my final dress-shopping endeavor and cried when I walked out with the winner. She cried when I asked her to be my bridesmaid, and cried when she saw me at my engagement party. If you know Jill, she is not a crier, so this is a side of her I’ve rarely seen. But now I completely understand, because since she called me with the good news, I have been a fountain of joy. She and Andrew are still enjoying being engaged, but I’m excited that we’ll be planning our weddings at the same time!
Sophia, Megan, Jill and I are all different in our styles and tastes, and because of that, I imagine our weddings to look and feel very different from one another. However, in the grand scheme we will all need to choose a venue, color palette, and florist; we will all need to decide between band or DJ, and where to seat our guests. Planning a wedding can be a very overwhelming experience. And while I really appreciate the ability to read reviews online, personal recommendations from people I know and trust are so much better! I look forward to the emails, texts and phone calls that lie ahead of us to talk about dress styles, centerpieces, and how excited we are to marry the men of our dreams.
What wedding-planning experiences have you been able to share with your girlfriends?
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