If you follow me on Instagram you probably know Cameron & I made a special trip to Hilton Head, Savannah, & Charleston to hunt down the perfect wedding venue for our November wedding. I got a lot of questions as to whether or not we found our venue yet, so I wanted to do a post over that & add in some tips on how I'm trying to try stay relaxed with all these big decisions coming up.
Let me start off by shedding a little light on how we decided on doing a destination wedding. This whole venue hunt was going to be tough to begin with because Cameron & I live about 7 hours away from our family. So when I first started deciding on the "Where" of our big day I went back & forth between Alabama & Ohio. I was thinking Alabama at first, that way Cameron & I will be close to work with our vendors. However, I just couldn't get excited about having an Alabama wedding. Alabama isn't really somewhere I was planning to live forever so I didn't want to have my wedding somewhere I couldn't imagine building a life in.
That left me with the idea of having my wedding in Ohio since both of our families are there to help take care of vendors if need be. Plus that would only leave Cameron & I commuting for the wedding. After weeks and weeks of searching venues online and on "the knot" app, I just couldn't find any venue I was dying to go back to Ohio for. Don't get me wrong there were really nice places but 1.) they were wayyyy over priced for what you get & 2.) November in Ohio can be either really pretty or it can be below freezing. The weather alone had me already counting Ohio out since we were wanting to do more outdoorsy for our ceremony.
Now, that leads me to here. Searching for Venues in a more warm setting so we can still be outdoors & be in a place we want to end up with our lives, Savannah. Although everyone (including Cameron & I ) would have to drive to our wedding destination, it just seemed to be the ideal location for the wedding we had in mind.
After visiting multiple venues in Savannah & Charleston I can say, we still are searching for our perfect venue. There were some great places to get married here but I can't get married somewhere that I don't love and have to force myself to like. Although there was one in Georgia that had me swoon, but after checking out the location around the venue and searching for places for our guest to stay I just couldn't ask our families to drive or fly all the way there to stay in an area like that.
So here we are, back to square one with our venue search. But I will keep you all updated as we search for the perfect place for our big day. I think were going to look around Huntsville, Al next to see if we can find anything close to us to make this planning process a little easier for us both.
After all of this I've been feeling a little depressed & just 10 levels of stressed since we are coming up on the year mark for our wedding day. I've been researching how other brides deal with stress along with things I know can help and I wanted to share 3 ways I'm dealing with this wedding stress.
#1- Take Time to Breathe
I've been so focused on wanting to make myself like these venues that I've completely stressed myself out. I was tossing and turning all night last night trying to think of ways I could fall in love with the venues we looked at, which lead to me trying to find venues we could look at last minute, which then lead me to researching ways to deal with stress. After hours of just scrolling and thinking I turned off my phone I walked into the other room and just cleared my mind. I was thinking way too much into this. I sat up for about 20 minutes just clearing my mind of all this crazy wedding stuff and just took time to reflect on myself and breathe. That right there took pounds off my chest and made me feel so much more relaxed.
#2- Talk it out
Cameron is such a great person to talk to about things weighing heavily on my chest. No matter what the situation is, I know I can talk to him and he'll listen. This decision for a venue is as just much of his at it is mine, but he doesn't let it bother him that we haven't found one yet. Which makes talking to him about it even easier. Talking to someone whether it be your significant other, or best friend, or mother, or sister, can be very helpful for releasing some of that stress. I tried keeping it bottled in because I thought by me being upset about not finding a place would make Cameron start to stress, in reality I think we both feel better that we are on the same page about the venues.
#3- Prayer
Every night before bed I say a prayer thanking God for all the things he's blessed me with. Last night I said my usual prayer thanking God for Life, for Health, for Family, and for all my blessings. But after being up and down and taking time to breathe, I felt like I had to talk to someone about feeling so disappointed and needing a sense of guidance. I closed my eyes and said a prayer asking for help, not so much for finding a venue, but for help finding the path God needs me to follow. I need to stop thinking about what Ellie needs when in reality God already has a plan and I need to follow that rather than try to put all the control in my own hands. I need to let go and give it to God. After that I felt like a whole new women. I felt like I handed away everything weighing on my shoulders, from being depressed about the venue, to worrying about the costs, to feeling like i'm lost. The power of prayer is amazing!
After I did those three little tips I feel happy. I'm not upset about not finding a venue because we still had a great vacation. I'm happy I didn't just settle for a place I wasn't absolutely in love with. If you're a bride-to-be, I hope these tips can help if you come to place in your wedding process that leaves you feeling lost. Always feel free to message/ email me about any thing. I'm obviously no wedding planning pro, but I'm always here to listen and chat.
If you all have any other tips to help a bride out , feel free to leave them in the comment.
That left me with the idea of having my wedding in Ohio since both of our families are there to help take care of vendors if need be. Plus that would only leave Cameron & I commuting for the wedding. After weeks and weeks of searching venues online and on "the knot" app, I just couldn't find any venue I was dying to go back to Ohio for. Don't get me wrong there were really nice places but 1.) they were wayyyy over priced for what you get & 2.) November in Ohio can be either really pretty or it can be below freezing. The weather alone had me already counting Ohio out since we were wanting to do more outdoorsy for our ceremony.
Now, that leads me to here. Searching for Venues in a more warm setting so we can still be outdoors & be in a place we want to end up with our lives, Savannah. Although everyone (including Cameron & I ) would have to drive to our wedding destination, it just seemed to be the ideal location for the wedding we had in mind.
After visiting multiple venues in Savannah & Charleston I can say, we still are searching for our perfect venue. There were some great places to get married here but I can't get married somewhere that I don't love and have to force myself to like. Although there was one in Georgia that had me swoon, but after checking out the location around the venue and searching for places for our guest to stay I just couldn't ask our families to drive or fly all the way there to stay in an area like that.
So here we are, back to square one with our venue search. But I will keep you all updated as we search for the perfect place for our big day. I think were going to look around Huntsville, Al next to see if we can find anything close to us to make this planning process a little easier for us both.
After all of this I've been feeling a little depressed & just 10 levels of stressed since we are coming up on the year mark for our wedding day. I've been researching how other brides deal with stress along with things I know can help and I wanted to share 3 ways I'm dealing with this wedding stress.
#1- Take Time to Breathe
I've been so focused on wanting to make myself like these venues that I've completely stressed myself out. I was tossing and turning all night last night trying to think of ways I could fall in love with the venues we looked at, which lead to me trying to find venues we could look at last minute, which then lead me to researching ways to deal with stress. After hours of just scrolling and thinking I turned off my phone I walked into the other room and just cleared my mind. I was thinking way too much into this. I sat up for about 20 minutes just clearing my mind of all this crazy wedding stuff and just took time to reflect on myself and breathe. That right there took pounds off my chest and made me feel so much more relaxed.
#2- Talk it out
Cameron is such a great person to talk to about things weighing heavily on my chest. No matter what the situation is, I know I can talk to him and he'll listen. This decision for a venue is as just much of his at it is mine, but he doesn't let it bother him that we haven't found one yet. Which makes talking to him about it even easier. Talking to someone whether it be your significant other, or best friend, or mother, or sister, can be very helpful for releasing some of that stress. I tried keeping it bottled in because I thought by me being upset about not finding a place would make Cameron start to stress, in reality I think we both feel better that we are on the same page about the venues.
#3- Prayer
Every night before bed I say a prayer thanking God for all the things he's blessed me with. Last night I said my usual prayer thanking God for Life, for Health, for Family, and for all my blessings. But after being up and down and taking time to breathe, I felt like I had to talk to someone about feeling so disappointed and needing a sense of guidance. I closed my eyes and said a prayer asking for help, not so much for finding a venue, but for help finding the path God needs me to follow. I need to stop thinking about what Ellie needs when in reality God already has a plan and I need to follow that rather than try to put all the control in my own hands. I need to let go and give it to God. After that I felt like a whole new women. I felt like I handed away everything weighing on my shoulders, from being depressed about the venue, to worrying about the costs, to feeling like i'm lost. The power of prayer is amazing!
After I did those three little tips I feel happy. I'm not upset about not finding a venue because we still had a great vacation. I'm happy I didn't just settle for a place I wasn't absolutely in love with. If you're a bride-to-be, I hope these tips can help if you come to place in your wedding process that leaves you feeling lost. Always feel free to message/ email me about any thing. I'm obviously no wedding planning pro, but I'm always here to listen and chat.
If you all have any other tips to help a bride out , feel free to leave them in the comment.
