Wedding blogs are fun!

Hello world wide web!

This is my attempt at becoming a wedding blogger: blogging all the joyful details of the highly anticipated Schweitzer wedding (AKA Schwedding) planning :)

I would be lying if I said I hadn't read other bride-to-be's blogs and wished I could be on their end of the blogging page. The whole wedding planning process just seems like so much fun (and stress too, btw), so why would I miss out on the opportunity to make it even more lively and interesting? Hence, the blog, for your enjoyment and mine!

Although John and I have only been engaged for 2.5 weeks now, we already have a bunch of details nailed down. Thanks to an amazing family and circle of friends, we're going to be able to cut some corners and alieviate stress by utilizing the following:

• Flowers will be done by my mother's friend, Nikki (a legit florist), who also did the flowers at my older brother's wedding (Matt). She will only charge us for the cost of the flowers.
• Speaking of my older brother, not only has he offered to make our invitations (he does graphic art) and only charge us for the cost of the materials, he's also going to be our wedding photographer... for free! Check out his amazing work at Matt Ferrara Photography.
• Oh, and he has a cool friend (Chris) who is probably going to be our DJ. Matt has all the music equipment, since he was in a band for many years, and his friend will DJ from an iPod. Perfectly inexpensive!
• Engagement photos have already been taken! We had an awesome time with photographer Brandice Pierre (a coworker of mine), who offered to take the pictures for free! She is just getting into couples photography, and wanted to practice on us. Perhaps it's because we're just so darn cute together? Check out our photos at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2283006&id=14300639&l=b2632f8dc5
• We've chosen a church! The wedding will be at Christ the King Parish in Kingston, RI, the church on the URI campus. I loved going to mass there during my college years, and it's the place where I really grew in my faith... so naturally, it's the best choice for our wedding mass. What's even more awesome about the church is that they don't charge to have weddings there! They only ask for a donation. Compare that so some churches in Newport that charge over $5,000 just to get married there and I say we got quite the deal!

John and I have also decided on our wedding colors. It had actually been on my mind quite a bit over the past few weeks. I knew that green needed to be a part of our big day (umm... hello! It's not my favorite color, it's my OBSESSION), but I didn't know what to put it with. I also knew that I didn't want to put my bridesmaids in too bright of a color, so any color we chose to go with green was probably going to be worn by the bridesmaids. Anywho, after debating between green/pink, light green/light blue, brown/green, green/coral, green/black, and so many other choices, we decided on the classy, yet fun combo of navy blue and apple green (with hints of teal/turquoise). Check it out... this neat lady over at theperfectpalette.blogspot.com puts together color palettes for to-be brides. I found one that looks a lot like what we're envisioning.

Living 1,794 miles away (yes, I just google mapped that) from the state that we're getting married in is certainly going to pose some challenges, but luckily my momma has accepted the title of Schwedding planner. The big up-in-the-air detail is the reception venue. I currently have my extremely helpful mother running around the state of RI, visiting each of the reception sites John and I are interested in. We're definitely going to have to figure out this detail soon, as the Schwedding is officially less than 9 months away! More to come...