No Perfect Date for the Perfect Day

In terms of importance on the wedding-making decision scale, the actual date of the wedding is a pretty high up there, wouldn't you agree? You can't book any vendors or places until you know what date you need them for - so that's a good place to start right? Pick a date!

But you can't pick a date blindly. It's an iterative process of seeing what is available for when and adjusting if there isn't a match with what you originally thought.  It's like which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Or in a more math-nerdy way, it's like trying to solve for two unknown variables when you only have one equation!  Picking a date made my head swim with the options, but here's how we finally got there.

One of my favorites./Source: someecards

We were engaged in December 2012. First, I started out with the biggest picture: we wanted to be married within one to two years.  We didn't have a desire for a short engagement, but knew something more than two would be pushing it.

Next, I considered the time of year we would be looking at.  Summer is just entirely too hot in Louisiana. Not happening, moving on. 

December was OUT of the picture completely.  All of the Pyramid gift-giving holidays are currently in December - both of our birthdays, our dating anniversary (and now engage-aversary), and Christmas.

Between hurricane risk and football games every weekend, the fall just has too much going on for my liking.

So that leaves us with springtime!  And the timing works out for Spring 2014 to be right around the year and a half for the engagement.  From there we narrowed down on dates from March to June.  

One of the first things I did was to print out a calendar and start crossing off the NO GO dates.

Something like this. 

New Orleans isn't a very big city, and we were looking at doing everything downtown.   Most of our guests were local, but some are coming in from out of town, so picking an "off" weekend will help with flight prices and hotel availability.  Obviously we crossed off the two weeks before Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest weekends. Getting around the city during these times is bad enough, I couldn't even imagine trying to contract a limo, band, or hotel.  

We also had to take into consideration when the church would perform weddings.  Many churches, understandably, do not perform weddings on the weekend of Palm Sunday or on Holy Saturday.  The days between Mardi Gras and Easter are the season of Lent - all the churches I contacted were still performing weddings during the season, but I think there are some churches who do not.  Make sure to check with your church about specifications during Lent, some had restrictions on the music or flower choices.  Not the biggest deal, but something to consider. 

Holidays and other special events are important too.  We tried to steer clear of Mother's Day because of the cost and availability of flowers.  Memorial Day offers an extra day to travel back home, so some see it as a great time for a wedding but others may have standing plans with family during such a holiday so they are against it.  

I also kept June on our list, just in case, but I was worried about the heat factor. As much as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers makes it sound so romantic to be a June bride, it just starts warming up too much here in that month.  (Sphinx's favorite musical movie, y'all!)

Dorcas, loosen that corset, girl.  You are in the mountains now. You can breath. 

As it turns out, March is one of the most popular months for weddings in New Orleans, so most of those Saturdays were starting to get booked.  Each weekend seemed to bring its own complications, but eventually we decided that moving the date back to May would give us our top venues and avoid some major conflicts.

While I had a little panic attack about the possibility of the heat, we just went for it.  Honestly, there's no way to know if it won't be scalding hot as early as March, so no date is really safe here. And both the church and reception are indoors, so we really only have to worry about pictures being warm and the outdoor courtyard at the reception.

One more favorable point for May is that it puts most of my balance due dates in April; at my work we are paid our annual bonuses in March, so this worked out perfectly for me.  Cash flow - whether it's the timing of a payday or the number of months necessary to save - is a big consideration when picking a date.  

As you can tell, we didn't try to aim for any special dates here.  I think this made it easier because we were more flexible with dates.  With the anniversary being an already overactive December, we never wanted to try for that day.  Our wedding anniversary will become a whole new special day for us to celebrate.  

And while writing and summarizing our journey towards churches, receptions, and the date seems easy enough months later, in the moment it was downright madness.  I'm terrible about making up my mind and I went back and forth on every single decision.  But looking back on it, we were able to sign the contracts for the venue and this date exactly one month after the proposal.  With the first week spent in Disney World, plenty of our big decisions were made in about three weeks!

Actually, looking back at my emails, we moved from looking at dates in March to May in only about 3 days.  I swear it felt like so much longer.  Let's hear it for venue coordinators who are prompt at following up on emails!

What did you have to take into consideration in picking your date? Did you shoot for a meaningful date or are you making a whole new one?