For now.

True, our wedding is over. But I can’t say goodbye. So, I promise to write an anniversary post, announce a baby Seashell (not yet), or find another excuse (or two) to check in along the way. For now, today, I want to say Thank You.

Seashell Wedding Highlights from Seashell on Vimeo.

Our wedding would not have been the same with out you. Thank you, hive, for sharing in this journey with me. You have made the process of planning a wedding infinitely more fun, more memorable, more detailed, and more rewarding.

Every bit of going from a giddy bursting-at-the-seams with excitement engaged girl to becoming a now-almost no longer newlywed reminds me of my time at Weddingbee.

Before I was lucky enough to blog here, I soaked in every bit of inspiration I could find. Thank you for posting your DIY projects, your inspiration hair photos, and your vendor reviews. Someone is eating every bit of that information up. Thank you, bees, who have taken the time to so beautifully share the details of your wedding journey with us. I can say that recapping is a daunting task, but following someone’s journey from start to finish is what makes this place so special. That’s what drew me in – the stories.

Thank you for letting me share my story.

xoxo,

Seashell

P.S. For those of you (like me) who refuse to say goodbye, come say hello to me and Mr. Seashell at The Fix-Its. Supposedly we blog about marriage, home ownership, renovation projects and the like, but somehow I got sidetracked and talked about sunglasses in two posts this week. We’re always up to something!

I know I am getting ahead of myself because I haven’t even shared our venue with you yet, but I wanted to talk about the decor that didn’t happen. When I first started looking at wedding porn, there were so many things that I wanted. Looking at all those delicious weddings can be completely overwhelming and definitely set up unrealistic expectations for me. I finally had to quit cold turkey. Not before I completely fell in love with Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling, though!

Image via Fete Event Planning

Image via Luna Bazaar

Isn’t this just completely gorg!?! Not having (yet) spent a lot of time obsessing over weddings, I thought it was the most original idea I had ever seen and had to have it at my wedding. As time went on, the list of things I HAD to have at the wedding grew longer and longer. I think we are now up to 27 things I have to have at the wedding, which is entirely too many.

Sadly, I realized with our venue, hanging the lanterns would be almost logistically impossible. There is zero room in the budget to hire someone to do it. I suppose I could always convince friends and family to hang them the day of the wedding, but it could take hours and I want them to enjoy the day as well. Besides, I don’t even know if the venue would allow us to hang things from the ceiling. I am definitely hiring a DoC, but there are so many other projects I am hoping she will set up that this one just fell off the priority list. It is still nice to look at pictures and dream, though.

Image via Heather Gilson / One Love Photo

Image via Big Wedding Tiny Budget / Photo credit: NE Sound

Image via To Suit Your Fancy

Sigh.

Maybe it was this song that started it for me. (Lord knows I’ve had an obsession with Sesame Street for as long as I’ve been alive.)

Video via YouTube

Or maybe it’s a classic case of “middle child syndrome,” but for some reason I’ve always felt like I had to be different from my peers. Growing up in a family of three girls (plus a cousin who stayed by my side 24/7), standing out was a daily concern.

I really thought this was behind me—I mean, once I grew up and left home it wasn’t an issue anymore. There wasn’t a need to act different, because I was myself.

So why do I feel like I have to be unique again? Ever since I started planning our wedding, I’ve felt my inner middle child tugging at my sleeve and whispering, “You need to be unique…be different.” It’s starting to get on my nerves.

I’ve started caring about things that really shouldn’t be an issue. Here’s a great example: the color of my bridesmaids’ dresses. I had two rules: no taffeta and no purple. I’ll admit that I don’t really like taffeta, so no issue there. But do I have anything against the color purple? No. Absolutely not. I kind of love purple. But in the last year or so, I’ve been to about four or five weddings that featured purple bridesmaids’ dresses. I just wanted to be different. But now that I’m looking for dresses, I’m beginning to think that purple might be a good choice. There are so many gorgeous dresses! Sue me, I like purple bridesmaids’ dresses! So why can’t I just let go of this whole “different” thing?!

After all, what’s so different about getting married? People get married all the time! But when you look deeper, past the dresses and the flowers and any other design detail, the wedding is different because it’s ours. Because it’s the most important day of our relationship so far. Because it’s the day we get to celebrate our relationship with all our friends and family.