Rhoad to the Altar: To wed or not to wed

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Christian proposed to me, and I said yes! Now let the wedding planning fun begin.

So in a little more than two weeks, I’ve gotten engaged, picked a ceremony and reception venue and a date. I’d say we’re a little ahead of the curve.

To back up, and introduce us a little, Christian, my wonderful boyfriend of almost five years, proposed to me, Abby Rhoad,  in the middle of the YDR newsroom on Aug. 7. Of course, being the journalists that we are (he’s a reporter in Maryland), we have multiple videos documenting me being thoroughly confused, him be genuinely sweet and then me still being thoroughly confused.

However, I finally got the message, and it all worked out in the end. I said “Yes.” of course, and then spent the next two days in a near panic attack thinking of all of the planning I’m going to need to do in the next year.

Wow. I’ve never planned a party for more than 15 people let alone more than 100?!?! Are you serious?

How am I ever going to pull this off?

The ring! It’s perfect!

I’ve never been one of those girls that’s planned their wedding day from the time they were six: knowing exactly what color the linen napkins were going to be; what kind of flowers I wanted in my bouquet; what kind of dress I wanted; how my hair should look … OK, getting panicky again.

Luckily, my boyfriend is the world’s greatest planner. He LOVES to plan. He looks forward to the planning of a vacation more than actually going on the vacation. I, on the other hand, am more nonchalant and laid back about having a schedule. I like to do things when I want or by when they need to be done. I let life happen as it may.

The day after we got engaged, Christian handed me a binder full of research he’s been doing for months on venues, photographers, limo services, photo booth rentals and more. He left food, cake and flowers up to me, understandably.

He started a wedding Pinterest page. (Which I’ve since gotten sucked into. Thanks, Pinterest.) He has his suit picked out and texted me three days after our engagement, “What about navy and cranberry for our colors?” I love him.

However, he was going about 120 mph, having thought about all of this for months, and I needed him to come down to a safe cruising speed of about 55 or 60.

Photo from our first date – New Year’s Eve, Dec. 2007

To give our life a little perspective, we work opposite schedules, so we only see each other on Fridays and Saturdays. The day after he proposed, I drove back to Ohio for a wedding, coming back Sunday night. So we didn’t see each other for almost two entire weeks after he proposed.  We were both chomping at the bit just to sit down face to face and finally talk about all things we had running through our heads.

We finally got to sit down together and  talk about what we see our wedding being and what we want out of the day. A co-worker of Christian’s suggested coming up with five adjectives that we want our wedding to be, and I thought this was a great idea. Being me, the first thing that popped into my head was affordable. And the second was fun.

I grew up in Ohio, where weddings aren’t necessarily extravagant affairs. It’s friends and family getting together to eat a little, booze a little and celebrate a lot. My other adjectives were outdoorsy, party (not necessarily an adjective, I know) and memorable.

Now that you’ve gotten to know a little bit about us, follow us on our adventure over the next 59 weeks as we work through the wedding planning process, trying to make it affordable, fun, outdoorsy and a memorable party.

Check out what we’ve found so far on our Pinterest page.

Next week: Choosing wedding venues.

What were the first things you did to prepare for your wedding planning? Leave a note in the comments or email me at arhoad@ydr.com.

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