Weddingbee Blog

After the Black Friday engagement I told you about last time, Mr. Mink and I didn’t have any time to fall into the newly engaged haze.

Camera phone picture taken right after the proposal / Photo by Miss Mink

Right after Mr. Mink slipped that beautiful ring on my finger, I called my mother. The conversation went like this:

Me: Mr. Mink proposed!

Mama Mink: That’s lovely. When will it be?

Me: Um…it happened about ten minutes ago and we haven’t really set a date yet.

I chalked that reaction up to Mama Mink being a very practical, proper woman. Amazingly, as we told others, they asked when and where we were getting married without missing a beat. What’s more, someone planted the idea that if we held off on planning, we’d lose some of our vendors to the “rush” of couples who would get engaged over the holidays and New Year’s Eve. There were only so many weekends in the year, after all.

Our first task was to set a date. Working in education, my calendar is fairly cyclical. I have a travel season and a busy season that lasts most of the winter and early spring. Summer made the most sense. We originally discussed Saturdays in late May or early June, figuring that the weather in central Virginia would be pretty ideal during that period. After thinking about the logistics for my family, most of whom would be flying in for the wedding, I started to wonder if a Friday wedding made more sense.

For out-of-town guests, a Saturday wedding would probably require flying to Virginia on Friday, attending the wedding on Saturday, and flying home on Sunday. The idea of my family making a “touch and go” visit made me sad. I fell in love with Charlottesville and I want them to do the same. What’s more, I wanted a chance to see them for more than the four or so hours of the reception. A Friday-night wedding would leave Saturday open to visit with my family and let them explore the area.

It’s said that Friday weddings are also less expensive, but I’m not convinced. Many venues gave a slight break to Friday weddings, but plenty didn’t.

Living in a University town, we had to avoid graduation and reunion weekends. Graduation weekend was a well-publicized date. Reunion weekend hadn’t been publicized, but I projected when I thought it would be based on some internet research. The possibilities dwindled to the point that our date was pretty clear to us. With that done, we’d be ready to start the vendor search…but that’s a discussion for another post!

Did anyone else consider a Friday wedding? If so, did you find that vendors offered reduced rates for Friday events?