As part of Wedding Week (I'M MARRIED), today we are featuring Shanyn from Chick Loves Lit! Shanyn basically saved me during the planning process. She helped with invitations, save the dates, wedding music, and overall wedding moral. Shanyn, I can't express enough how much your support, excitement, and enthusiasm literally made this process for me. Thank you!!
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I'm not going to lie to you guys — I was not a girl who had all of her wedding details picked out by age ten. It's not that I hated weddings, but I hadn't been to many and didn't really understand why some girls were obsessed with planning something that had no future date in sight. So when I went to college, I went in with a major that would require me to work quite a bit right out of college — I hadn't met anyone and just figured I'd get married after I had done all of that. You can guess what happened next, I'm sure — I met my future husband at college, and kind of changed that whole willing to work eighty hours a week thing (and, looking back, I'm really thankful that it happened this way — I have worked forty hour work weeks and even that was tiring)!
Shanyn, this picture is literally to die for! I love it!
I met Steve my second year of college while playing frisbee. It was a casual meeting — we both hung out with lots of the same friends, as many relationships start — and a few months later we were 'official.' He proposed at a Coldplay concert a few years later (it was awesome and I was totally surprised), and about five years after we started dating we got married. Even through all of this I hadn't started fantasizing about any details — I'm pretty easy going in general. This didn't change much throughout our engagement or any of the planning stages — my biggest concern was that I was marrying Steve, so as long as we got that all sorted I was okay with everything else.
PS: Shanyn, I am also SO jealous of this picture! It's perfect!
This doesn't mean we just signed the documents in a backyard (and I didn't want to do that). Steve's sisters and mom loved the wedding process, and we did lots of crafts and shopping and trips. I found my wedding dress in one try (I love that dress so much I wish there were another occasion I could wear it!), my flowers were done by a friend (my only request was that they included lilies), and we laid decorations out on their kitchen table to play around with table decorations. Since I had a degree in graphic design, I made our save the dates and invitations, and our church happened to change the scenery in the sanctuary to something perfect right before our wedding day.
Thanks to a little luck and my and Steve's easy going attitudes, I think our wedding day went perfectly. The weather outside didn't help with travel (it was very icy, as we had a January wedding), but we had a very small list of friends and family that couldn't make it because of that — and the snow outside made for beautiful pictures. Everything from flowers to decorations to food was excellent. Most importantly, I was able to marry my love Steve, which was my goal in the first place:)
My attitude about weddings has changed a little now — I can't wait until Steve's sisters get married because I can't wait to be on the 'other side' of things to help with food, cake, crafts, dresses. I love to hear about my friend's weddings, and am always willing to offer my opinion or experience on wedding related things now that I've gone through it all (though I'm careful to not inject my opinion when it's not wanted, I know some brides are very particular:) ) .
I am very excited for Miss Remmers and I can't wait to hear all about her wedding when it's over. I've been able to hear a few things about it during the planning process, but hearing about the actual day will be awesome. Congratulations, Miss Remmers:) I hope that your day goes exactly (or at least pretty close) to how you want, and that you'll be able to share a picture or two with us afterwards:)
********************** Shanyn, I'm the same way. The theory to my wedding was "let's wing it" because I didn't really know what I wanted. I figured I wouldn't get married until I was in my fifties! I love all of your pictures and how everything came together! Congratulations!