Picking the Date

Hey everyone,
I’m starting a series of posts for a more behind the scenes look at our DIY wedding, mostly to document what we did, but also to maybe inspire others!

This week, it’s all about
picking the date.

Wait, but last week I said it was going to be the proposal story! Well, yes, I did say that. And then I realized that this had to come first. Because, we did in fact pick the date before we got engaged.

It will make sense when you read it, I promise.
Here we go:

Picking the date was never a hard thing.
We knew a few things:

1. We wanted to have the wedding in NY
2. It had to be in the summer
3. It had to be on a Saturday
4. Debbie and Jared had to be there.

Ok, that last one may need some explaining.
Debbie is my sister, Jared is my brother in law.
Of course they had to be there;
Debbie was my Maid of Honor,
and Jared is not ONLY a brother-in-law.
He’s also Danny’s cousin.

Which, yes, makes Danny and I cousins-in-law.
I REALLY wanted to make a shirt that said, in big letters:
I’M MARRYING MY COUSIN
and then in small letters: in law,
but Danny was against it.

We are married,
so I can still make the
“I’m married to my cousin-in-law” version.
Someday.

ANYWAY,
Debbie and Jared are also photographers, and do many weddings each summer.
So last summer, 2014,
I asked them what their schedule looked like.
The conversation went something like this:

Me: “Hey, so, when during the summer do you do the least amount of weddings?”
Debbie or Jared: “July.”
Me: “Ok, well, can you block off one of those Saturdays for our wedding?”
Debbie or Jared: “You guys are getting married?”
Me: “Sure we are.”
Debbie or Jared: “Ok, well, how about the 18th?”
Me: “Perfect.”
Jared (for some reason I remember he said this): “Ok, well, I’m going to put ‘Danny and Kathy Ellen’ on the calendar, nothing else, until it’s official.”
Me: “Thanks.”

So yes, we had our wedding date
before we were even engaged.
For a few reasons.

1. We had to book Debbie and Jared early.
2. We already knew we were going to get married.

I have a journal entry, three days into meeting Danny,
saying I was going to marry him. 
Yes, 2013 Kathy Ellen used YOLO and thought she might move to Syracuse. At least she was right about the marrying the guy part!

Danny claims that he knew it from the second he started dating me.

At this point we were ready to drive cross country together.
Danny had sold his house and was coming out to California to live with me.
We’re both straightforward Aries people,
so we knew what we wanted.

3. We were not engaged yet because that ball was in Danny’s court.

Since I asked him out, he thought it was only fair that he got to ask me to marry him. He had not done it yet (which was fine by me; I knew it was coming eventually.)

At this point, we had not been dating a year,
but, like I said above, we knew.

It turned out that the date fits in pretty well
with some other important anniversaries.
Our good friends Andrew and Erin,
who helped a ton at the wedding and are like siblings to us,
got married four years ago on the 17th of July.
Debbie and Jared got married on the 23rd of July,
also four years ago.

So now we sort of have this anniversary week going on.
My dream is to get us all out on a cruise ship
to celebrate it in ten years or so.
Debbie said she will not get on a cruise ship,
so it may not happen.

For their part, Debbie and Jared did a great job of keeping that date open for us.

Debbie would call me every few months, asking,
“So, is this wedding still on?”
because someone would call her
asking if they could book the date.

I answered, “Yes, still happening,” each time,
to which she usually commented,
“but you’re not engaged yet.”

Yes, it was a weird way to go about things,
but we are weirdos,
what can you say.

Next up will be the story of the proposal, for real this time!
Thanks for reading along!

Bye for now,
Kathy Ellen