On the topic of wedding planning, our friends and family have been hugely supportive in so many ways (financially and offering their time and services). I would have to say that it’s been mostly a breeze the past several months since the engagement. Two of the biggest items we knocked off our list was booking our ceremony and reception venues plus our wedding photographers/videographers (we actually put down our deposits prior to getting engaged; thankfully).
Even before getting engaged we had “the talk” about our family traditions. We knew that it would be impossible to make everyone happy. However we compromised by including what we thought were some of the biggest and most important of traditions from both sides of our family.
His Side
My fiance’s family wanted us to have our ceremony at their home church because everyone in their family has gotten married there. We thought it would be nice to incorporate that family tradition into our wedding. So here we are, our ceremony booked at a Catholic Church (i’m Christian but i’ve never been to mass before). This would be an interesting and new experience for me. Since then, we’ve realized how hard it is to get married within the Catholic Church. The requirement was that one of us had to be Catholic and registered at the church (Fiance was Catholic and he was just registered as a member). However, due to him working in the States, he was required to find a Catholic Church where he lived and register there as well. In addition, the only way the church is able to track his attendance is from his offering envelopes… This posed as a difficult hurdle as fiance worked most weekends. It’s been 3 months since and well… fiance has only given his first envelope. We are hoping that by December his church would be able to sign off on the little form he needs to complete to get married so that we are able to meet with our local church to complete our marriage file.
My Side
My family wanted us to pick a date that was “lucky” according to the Chinese lunar calendar. We ended up picking August 18, 2018 (plenty of lucky number 8’s). However, due to many other couples who also picked this date, we were competing with so many other couples for venues and services. I am pretty pleased that we finally found a venue that was able to accommodate the amount of guests we were hoping to invite as well as had the date we wanted available (so many venues declined to give us a quote as they were already booked). My advice for those who are thinking of getting married, to look for your venues early… more than a year in advance.
On another note, since the fiance is a resident, we both knew that I would be doing most of the wedding planning, getting quotes etc. Fiance left me with the researching and I would just present to him the choices i’ve narrowed down as to include him in part of the planning. Cheers to those who are also planning their wedding. I hope it’s an enjoyable process full of support from family and friends.