Weddingbee Blog

Even before we were engaged, Mr. Snow Cone and I had pretty much decided that we would get married in our hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

Image via Card Cow

We came to this decision for a couple of reasons: it’s where we met/grew up/started dating, my parents still live there, we both have a good number of friends who still consider Johnstown “home,” and we’re both super familiar with the town in general. With all of these fabulous benefits, obviously planning a wedding in our hometown would be a breeze…or so I thought.

Currently, Mr. Snow Cone and I are living in Pittsburgh, which is Johnstown’s nearest big city. It’s one of those situations where when strangers ask you where you’re from, you say “Pittsburgh” because no one really knows of Johnstown. This falsehood always seems like a good way to avoid receiving a blank stare from the other person when they realize they have no idea where the crap the town you’re talking about is located. Even though this little white lie always has the best intentions behind it, you inevitably make the mistake of meeting every single Pittsburgher in a four-mile radius, who then proceed to ask you what neighborhood you live in, and what high school you went to, and so on. And about eight seconds into that conversation, you’re totally outed as a big, fat, geographical liar-pants when you mumble, “Um, actually, I’m not from Pittsburgh. I’m from Pittsburgh-ish. Near Pittsburgh. Johnstown.” LIAR-PANTS.

Image via SodaHead

Nevertheless, Pittsburgh to Johnstown—not that big of a distance. At the same time, it’s big enough to make wedding planning a bit more difficult. Somehow, this wedding has partially transformed into a destination wedding without me noticing. Mr. Snow Cone and I only get to Johnstown about once a month. I’m more interested in taking advantage of free laundry, my beloved hometown iced tea, and visiting with my parents than hopping right back into the car to scoot around town and visit photographers, DJs, florists, lighting specialists, caterers, coordinators, and the like. As a consequence, we’re doing the bulk of the planning from Pittsburgh. Instead of meeting with vendors face to face, signing contracts in person, and viewing sample photos together, I’ve had to resort to having phone meetings between grad school classes, scanning various contracts and documents, and emailing photos of other weddings I’ve found online in order to make sure everyone’s on the same visual page. Not exactly what you see in movies, but it’s what has to be in this case.

I have to keep reminding myself that it is a wedding in our hometown, fulfilling the homey, comfortable feeling of a hometown wedding we were originally going for. All of the hoops to jump through that resemble destination-wedding planning are behind the scenes. When push comes to shove and this grand affair actually takes place, all of the important people will be headquartered in Johnstown, and all of the phone calls and emails will be a thing of the past.

So, in short,

hometown wedding + destination wedding = homestination wedding!

Please tell me I’m not the only one in the homestination-wedding boat!