Team '76 : The Engagement

If you are just seeing this, don’t forget to go back and read the first four parts of the Team ’76 series:

The Intro | The Meeting | The Dating | The Question

Paul and I were engaged on December 24th, 2010 and our wedding date was scheduled for June 10th, 2011. That gave us just about five months to get everything planned and organized for our Friday evening wedding at the gorgeous Edgewater hotel on Seattle's Puget sound. 

We already had our venue booked, so it was really just a matter now of deciding on all of the other things you have to decide on for a wedding. Cake, DJ, Photographer, decorations, menu, dresses etc…I am quite sure it felt overwhelming at the time, but now that I look back on it, it was so much fun! I completely enjoyed every part of the wedding planning process and it still blows my mind just how massive the wedding industry actually is!! 

First things first however, we needed to take engagement photos!! I was so excited to actually get some professional photos of my very own after watching so many others have engagement photos and wedding photos. I knew nothing about the photography industry at this point, so I was clueless how to proceed. I had seen some awesome family photos of some friends of mine on Facebook so I asked who took them and ended up with the fabulous Angie Arms to take our engagement photos in late January. We loved her so much that we ended up booking her for the wedding as well! 

I attended a bridal show in January which surprisingly didn't produce anything major for me. I hired a designer my invitations and also found a paper vendor the packaging my wedding favors would go in. Paul and his groomsmen would be wearing the Army dress blue uniform which has navy pants with a yellow stripe down the leg, so he had the brilliant idea to match our favor boxes to that. They were probably one of my favorite aspects of our wedding. 

We decided to keep the colors similar to his uniform for consistency and to avoid anything crazy clash-y. I picked out grey bridesmaid dresses and yellow accents (flowers.) A friend of mine was getting into the cupcake business so I hired her and got some cute blue, grey and yellow cupcake wrappers. Another friend of mine was venturing into the DJ business so we also hired him to be our DJ. And believe it or not, he was married to the cupcake friend! Perfect! 

I sent out magnet save the dates and ordered what I considered to be the most beautiful wedding invitations ever. Paul and I also decided to make table cards for all of the different tables at the wedding so guests would know where to sit. Since it is popular to name your tables with something unique to you as a couple, we chose our Team ’76 theme. We decided to look up things that happened in 1976 and then name the tables that way. We ended up with things like “2 dollar bill” and “Apple” and quite a few other fun names for events that happened or things that were invented in that year! I don't think most of our guests picked up on that fun little nugget of information but we certainly appreciated how clever we were! 

Throughout these five months, Paul and I continued to live 75 miles apart, tried to see each other every weekend when we could and enjoyed our swoony, googly eyed phase to the 'nth degree. We found a rental house to move into after we got married that was halfway in between his work and mine. I got ready to rent out my condo. We went to pre-marriage counseling at church and joined a group at church for engaged couples and newly married couples (which is one of the best decisions we have ever made!) We have made so many lifelong friends from that group! 

We both had countdown apps on our phone and every day seemed to last an eternity.

Oh we also booked a honeymoon to Jamaica.

Hello wedding day….you can not arrive quick enough!!