On the 3-6 month engagement period: I think I would want a long engagement, preceded by a long dating period/courtship, preceded by a long friendship (and all followed by a long marriage). The way I see it, every phase has its own advantages, and I would want to fully enjoy each step in the process. A long engagement would allow me and Miss Perfect to continue to hang out, have fun, learn each other, work on the things we need to work on, and prepare for married life, but without the stress of wondering whether he-will-ask/she-will-say-yes or how to afford the wedding/married life and so on. Being young and single, but engaged, is something most people will only go through once.

However, it seems that most girls are usually a lot more rushed about tying the knot than the guys. I’m not sure if this is the whole biological-clock thing, or a result of the female fixation with weddings, or if I’m just misreading the situation.

And for the record, I’m not really that creepy. Just a friend of a friend of a friend that followed blog links to get here. I just don’t feel like working on work right now…

1. Grooms come in handy. At least mine is. He’s been an absolute godsend!
2. Dress–purty! I swore up and down I’d never get a strapless wedding gown…here I am staring at one. Go fig.
3. Ring: I wouldn’t trade mine for anything, especially since I didn’t think I’d even be getting one. When we talked about getting engaged, I “said” I didn’t want a ring (reality: I did), and Riley is a little on the cheap side, so I thought one wasn’t coming. I’m thrilled to have a beautiful white gold ring!
4. Bridesmaids: ooo ooo pick me!
5. Flowers: are expensive.
6. Location: Good call on the church, but you had better hope that when you get married your sister in law isn’t nine months pregnant. Then she AND your brother would not be able to go, and instead would be looking up “labor poetry.”
7. Vows: I wanted to write our own, but we aren’t for two reasons. One, the vows we write wouldn’t do justice to what we are wanting to promise each other, and two, there’s something awesome about repeating the same words countless other couples have used.
8. Engagement: Short engagements are ideal, but not always practical. I cannot imagine planning a shindig in less than a year. Wouldn’t happen.
9. Reception: I’m really balking at dancing, too. Riley’s insistent, however. Thus, we will have a first dance.
10. Cost: We are managing to do ours for under 5 grand. That’s a feat in and of itself.
11. Attendees: Plan on about a bajillion more people than you thought. If you want a “small intimate affair”, elope. That’s what we wanted…our guest list now tops over 400.

Go fig. Weddings are such a contradiction: they stink to put on, but you can’t wait for them to happen!

What would I change about mine? Not the groom! :) Since my color choices have changed a lot over time I would definitely pick different colors, plus I don’t really have any idea what flowers were in my bouquet. Since we got married when we were 19 y.o. between our freshman and sophomore years of college, our wedding cost very little money by necessity.

I love your idea of gerbera daisies, and I would pick fuschia and orange ones as my color choice now. I would have that as a band around my dress maybe, which would be very simple with no beading probably. Maybe even an empire waistline.

I think I would also write out some or all of the ceremony/vows, and also pick different music. My cousin walked down the aisle to a beautiful instrumental version of ‘Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee’ instead of the traditional wedding march and it was just beautiful.