And the planning begins :)

So as the engagement settles in, G and I have begun planning our wedding :) Exciting huh? We are looking at an early fall wedding in the states next year and have come up with an initial checklist that we’d like to complete before we think of anything else (I’ll get into the checklist for our traditional wedding we are having next June in Nigeria in another post). The  items on the checklist are as follows (in order of priority):

1. Find a wedding planner (complete – yay)
2. Find venues for the ceremony/reception (pending)
3. Find a wedding photographer (pending)

The wedding planner: We wanted someone who lived in Philly or in the Philly area (although I live in NJ, G lives in Philly and we’d like to get married in Philly), someone who knows the city, someone who understands the vision we have for our wedding and isn’t going to push or force us to do anything we don’t want to, someone I can get along with for the next year and send a million emails :) – just joking Kathy! -  and just generally someone we’d love working with. I know a couple planners but none of them lived close by and then I remembered during Nicole and Roosevelt’s engagement session I had asked Nicole who her wedding planner was (side note: Nicole by the way is one amazing chick and I’m so glad to call her my friend now – check out her blog here). So after Nicole’s wedding, I asked her about her planner again and she told me she was amazing and I just had to meet her!

Kathy Bado owns The Wedding Factor and as soon as I met Kathy I knew she was perfect for us. She’s an amazing lady with so much insight, I mean there’s so much I assumed about planning weddings that I was totally way off about, the first being that it’s not easy peazy (and you’d think I’d know this being a wedding photographer lol). We are so happy to have someone to guide us through this process because I wanted to think of my wedding day as perfect and fabulous which I know I personally do not have the time or expertise to plan all by myself. Kathy has been one step ahead of me – it’s almost like before I think of something she suggests it and she’s totally on top of the vision we have for our wedding. Love it! For all you Philly bride’s to be searching for a planner, definately check out TheWeddingFactor.com.

2. The Venues: We are having a large wedding here. 300 to 350 guests. It’s daunting but we’d love to have all our close family and friends be a part of our special day which pretty much comprises of 300 to 350 people lol. That being said finding a venue we love is proving to be a bit of a challenge. Philly has a million gorgeous venues, majority of which are too small for our wedding size :( I’ve also kinda limited our options majorly because I don’t want a hotel ballroom reception. Hotel ballroom weddings can be amazing and absolutely stunning but it’s just not our style…but perhaps we’ll have to settle? I won’t give up though (and Kathy our rock star planner is totally on this). We have two places in mind that could possibly work…or not. Fingers crossed!

3. The wedding photographer: No venue = No photographer hahahaha. On a serious note our wedding photography is a huge deal for me. I’d get married in a shack on the roadside if that’s what I’d have to sacrifice for the photography I want and love. I could look at photographers I love forever and ever but I’ve settled on two of my absolute favorite photographers that fit within our budget (budget, this is a very important word in wedding planning). I’m finding it hard to choose but then I can’t really think about it until I have a venue with a confirmed date and then we can make our final decision hoping and praying that one of them is available. Fingers crossed here again :)

So there’s my first wedding update. If you feel like hearing about the emotions and all the other craziness involved stop by my Lookbook here.

I’ll be back soon with more engagement sessions and wedding posts – and of course more updates on planning my wedding :)

Thanks for stopping by!