Choosing a Date

November 14th, 2008 @ 3:19 pm by Mrs. Cheese

As I mentioned before, my favorite man and I will be getting married on the property surrounding our house with a fabulous (is there any other way?) outdoor party to follow. We live in Knoxville, TN, as does his family, but my family lives 1500 miles away in and around Las Cruces, NM. Both of my siblings are in college and my mom works at a high school.

We therefore need to choose a date that is convenient for my family in terms of travel, so school holidays are good. In choosing between Spring Break and Memorial Day, the latter made the most sense and also ensures that our property is at it’s prettiest.

Thus began the second productivity-black-hole of my week: the Wedding Planner on Weather.com. I popped in my zip code and got two graphs, one for temperature and one for precipitation. Let the obsessing over the weather begin! (Seriously, have you tried it? You can click on the month and get a day-by-day version.)

knoxweathertemp

source

knoxweatherprecip

source

Which brings me to my two concerns: that it’ll be rainy and gray, and that our friends will be upset that we’re taking over their holiday weekend (well, assuming that they want to attend our wedding).

As far as the rain goes, that’s a whole post all by itself (coming soon!). In terms of the holiday weekend, I can’t help but wonder if our friends will be put out at having to attend a wedding over a holiday?

In the end, the needs of my family win out. They’re making the longest (and only) distance trip to be here, and we need to grant them the ability to travel AND have a good time. Our close friends will be involved, helping us out (if only by putting drinks in our hands to calm the stress) throughout the weekend.

As for our acquaintances? We’re not inviting most of them. Our goal is to keep our gathering as small as possible and only invite the people we couldn’t imagine being without. {Note that while this is our current goal, having not set a guest list or conferred with the parental units makes me suspect that this is a pipe dream.} Since it IS a holiday weekend, we think we’ll host a wedding weekend with a variety of activities… and perhaps even a trip to the lake!

Since our planning hiatus is almost over, we’re about to clue our families in so that they can weigh in, and I’ll admit it, I’m nervous. How did you let your families know, and in what order? I suppose we’ll start with our immediate families to make sure there aren’t any scheduling issues. Should we then ask extended families before making it final, or do we just assume that some people won’t be able to make it?

Are any of you getting married on a holiday? Have you received any complaints about the scheduling? Are you making it a longer shindig to make up for it?

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16 Responses to “Choosing a Date”

Guest

valerie

I’m getting married in Knoxville on memorial day weekend as well.

Because East TN weather is the way it is, I just planned my whole shebang inside. (I don’t know if you were around for the blizzard of ‘93. Which happened in March.) I knew worrying about a rain/snow/hail/sweltering heat location would make me a basketcase.

Chances are, though, that maybe it’ll drizzle, maybe it’ll be a little warm, but it will definitely be gorgeous.

11/14/08 @ 3:40 pm (reply)

Guest

kate01

I’m getting married this Thanksgiving weekend (!), and it’s an out-of-town wedding for me, which makes for an interesting guest list. We settled on the date because my brother was deployed all summer, and I’m in grad school and the semester ended really late this year. We confirmed the date with our immediate family (and super-close friends), and then decided to go with it since it worked for us. This has meant that some of my extended family decided not to come because of the cost of travel. On the other hand, almost all of my FI’s family is coming up early, and we’re doing a massive Thanksgiving celebration on Thursday with his extended family, my immediate family, and a bunch of family friends. It’s a little bit nuts, but I think it will be great, and I love extending the weekend time together!

11/14/08 @ 3:47 pm (reply)

Member

mlglass (message) 22 posts, Newbee

I’m getting married July 3rd. Since my parents live on the beach, we are making it into a 3 day event which includes fireworks!! We are having an afternoon reception so we can have a bon fire that night, then sleep on the beach under the stars. The next two days will be filled with beachy fun!!

11/14/08 @ 3:53 pm (reply)

Member

IdahoSummer (message) 192 posts, Blushing bee

I’m getting married on the 4th of July. So far, no complaints, but only the STDs have gone out so we don’t know how many people will accept. We had exactly the same reasoning you did. Both families will have to travel. My mom and all of my aunts are teachers. Our venue is about 2 hours away from Boise, where we and all of our local friends live. So, everyone will have to travel some and almost everyone will be staying up there for at least one night.
We’re hoping to make it a wedding weekend with activities. The only possible hitch in our plan is that we might not be able to have fireworks at our resort venue because of fire concerns.

11/14/08 @ 4:04 pm (reply)

Member

mary-alice-me (message) 1,870 posts, Buzzing bee

I am also getting married over Memorial Day weekend! I think it’ll be really pretty in KY, although possibly rainy too. We are spending a couple of days with immediate family close aunts. Everyone else is welcome to come but not expected. We ran the date past all the major players prior to booking it, but I did have concerns about the holiday at first. In the end, though, it’s an extra day off work to spend celebrating!

11/14/08 @ 4:05 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Cheese (message) 647 posts, Busy bee

@valerie: Blizzard of 93? OMG! Well, I suppose I’ll go ahead and write the post where I debate the merits of an indoor versus outdoor wedding!

11/14/08 @ 4:12 pm (reply)

Member

mooreshugar (message) 103 posts, Blushing bee

we are getting married on labor day weekend of ‘09 mainly because we just moved across the country from EVERYONE we know….(i call it a kinda destination wedding, as everyone else is destinationing but us) ….i too have wondered if people will be upset that our wedding will be “ruining” their big weekend-o-fun - thus, I have decided to make our wedding THE MOST UNIQUE CRAZY FUN WEDDING WEEKEND EVER- so that no one is upset about said ruining, as no said ruining is to be had. this will include: wedding reception at childrens science museum :), the wedding playlist of wonders, and untraditional fun family food to please the tummys (think mac&cheese, texas bbq, and a COOKIE bar: cause honestly, who doesn’t love a cookie of some variety)

And with the few things I’ve learned about your wedding so far, Miss Cheese, I’m sure your nearest and dearest will not be upset about the weekend, either- such a wonderfully inclusive individualized celebration in the comfort of your home. There is something about a wedding at home that just warms my heart in a special, special way (father of the bride, much?) you get to carry those memories with you every single day- when you walk by the room you got dressed in, pick flowers from the yard where you said “i do” and forever and ever tell stories to young ones about your very special day. you are blessed.

and by the way, Kate01- I wanted a thanksgiving weekend wedding with a thanksgiving dinner rehersaul dinner SO BADLY- but my MOH refused to be misplaced for her “favorite holiday”….i.am.jealous.

11/14/08 @ 4:45 pm (reply)

Guest

Becky

Isn’t it funny that the weather is still the ONE thing that we can’t control? It snowed 8 inches on my wedding day (12/15/07) and it was the most magical thing I could have asked for (of course, that’s taking into consideration that everyone was transported safely).

I’m sure it will be beautiful - no matter what mother nature is doing.

11/14/08 @ 4:52 pm (reply)

Bee

Mrs. Tulip (message) 615 posts, Busy bee

As a guest, I’ve been to several holiday-weekend weddings and actually *appreciated* the chance to travel over a 3-day weekend. Might have missed the occasional Memorial Day barbecue, but it was worth it by FAR not to have to make the choice between a crammed fly-in-just-in-time-for-the-rehearsal weekend or an extra day off work.

11/14/08 @ 4:58 pm (reply)

10.

Member

AmyM83 (message) 246 posts, Helper bee

I am getting married Memorial Day weekend 2009 as well! I am a teacher and we are getting married in Southern California wine country, so it is sort of a vacation destination anyway. This way, we only have to take 4 days off of work for our honeymoon (I couldn’t bear getting married over summer and sweat through the wedding). The only thing I feel bad about, is that EVERYONE has to travel (except his parents on whose property we are getting married) and holiday weekends mean more expensive hotels. Oh well, if less people come than were invited, it wouldn’t be the worst thing (my family is HUGE and he still talks to every friend he’s ever made). Go for it! End of May is when all the best flowers bloom, anyway.

11/14/08 @ 5:20 pm (reply)

11.

Guest

budgetbeautiful

I love that wedding weather planner! Good to know that it hasn’t rained on my wedding day the last three years. It’s raining and crappy today (and I’m getting married one year from today) so hopefully it won’t rain next year!

As for having a wedding on a holiday weekend, as long as you let people know as soon as you can, I don’t think it would be a problem.

11/14/08 @ 5:20 pm (reply)

12.

Guest

sarsk624

My fiance and I have huge Italian families and have 175 out of town guests coming to our wedding so we opted for a Labor Day 09 Saturday evening reception. So far our families has thanked us for giving them the extra travel time so they don’t have to take off from work. To make it worthwhile we are inviting all immediate family to the rehearsal, plan on hitting the bars in center city philly after the reception and are hosting an informal open house BBQ on Sunday so people still get a Labor Day get together in. I also figured by having it Saturday if people still want to hit the beach Sun/ Mon they can. I bet your guests will appreciate it more than not.

11/14/08 @ 8:34 pm (reply)

13.

Guest

ChrissyM

I’m getting married over a long weekend too, and I’m hoping most people will appreciate the extra travel day. About asking your family to weigh in, we decided that we’d make sure our date worked for our parents and siblings before booking it… but that’s it. Beyond that, we figured asking too many people for their opinions would just drive us crazy. The more people you allow to weigh in, the less likely you are to find a date that pleases everyone! And I figured, especially since we’re sending out STDs a few months before the invites, very few people will actually be booked up that far in advance. So if they really want to be there, they’ll be able to find a way to make it work.

11/14/08 @ 11:43 pm (reply)

14.

Guest

MISS STOUT

I was in a wedding in Boston last Memorial DAy weekend, and it was a delight!

Now, more importantly, you just literally provided me with yet another HUGE TIME SUCKING place to visit. Before I finished reading your post, I logged on and registered for my wedding weather. Given that we are also getting married outdoors, on our property, and in August, these things are important!

Thanks Miss Cheese!

11/15/08 @ 1:40 pm (reply)

15.

Guest

Claritapita

We got married on memorial day weekend this year and it was great. All our guests traveled from Seattle and England to our destination wedding in phoenix Az. We chose the location partially because of the almost guaranteed perfect weather due to weather trackers like the ones above. It is always sunny and warm in phoenix in Memorial day…..well not THIS year. It was 50 degrees and rainy for most of the time our guests were in town!!! Don’t rely on those historical weather trackers!

11/15/08 @ 1:56 pm (reply)

16.

Member

lmdh (message) 71 posts, Worker bee

We were also married on Memorial day weekend this year and I think that our guests (both local and out of town) appreciated the long weekend. We had a post-rehearsal dinner party on Friday night, the wedding on Saturday, and a leftovers party at our house the next day.
One week before the wedding the weather reports said “rain.” Nothing but rain. Day of - 0% chance of rain, sunny, no humidity. Being in Pennsylvania, where May is the rainiest month, I knew that having a May wedding had it’s risks. We made sure that we had back-up plans for everything happening outside, and in the end, didn’t need any of it! But the back-up plans are definitely essential for your own peace of mind!

11/17/08 @ 9:15 am (reply)