Spring Hibernation

Well, Joey is back in Omaha and I am back in New Orleans and school has recommenced for the both of us, which means that wedding planning (and, consequently, blogging) is going on the back burner for a while.

In the meantime, we will be starting to look through venues, though it's rather difficult to get a good feel for a place from two thousand miles away.  If anyone has any great suggestions for LA venues, I am, as I told my mother, "happy to accept all information (for now), with the understanding that I reserve the right to reject it all".  I'm currently liking the idea of places that will allow both indoor and outdoor areas at the same time, since it will be spring or summer (warm), but also nighttime (cool).  My parents kindly visited Huntington Gardens yesterday to scout it out and learned two very important things: first, that the capacity at Huntington Gardens is something like a thousand.  Second, the cost of renting the space, before even considering music, catering, or equipment, is one hundred thousand dollars.  Then again, I guess you don't have to pay a florist...

We're also working on figuring out the guest list, which will hopefully help us figure out what kinds of places we can look into (the options for a 100-person wedding are vastly different from the options for a 300-person wedding).  Joey and I are wonderfully cursed that we have so many people in our lives that we love, it's difficult to figure out how to draw the line between creating a wonderful experience for our loved ones that isn't impossibly large, and not feeling like we left people out.

There's also the added complication that, at this point in our lives, most of our friends have come from schools that we have since left.  There are many people who I consider no-brainers, of course they'd have to come to the wedding, we've been friends for years!  ...only to realize that we haven't actually seen each other in years.  When you're only 22 years old, your best friend from age 5-17 seems like a huge deal because you knew her for half your life, but I haven't been 17 for five years now.  This is not to say that I don't deeply care for these people anymore.  Quite the opposite.  Like I said, my first instinct is to absolutely invite them and sit them at the family table, but perhaps I am being a little bit unrealistic in that belief.

As it turns out, the August 2013 date is not going to work out for us, so we are now hoping for May 2013, though of course we are waiting to hear when Joey's test is going to be, which further contributes to the strange limbo we find ourselves in.  It's very sweet and a little strange discussing the date with Joey.  Contrary to one of my least-favorite stereotypes of men and women, I am the one saying that I can wait until 2014 if that's what works out best, while Joey thinks next weekend looks nice...