Wedding Planning: Entry One

Okay, Richard and I have now been engaged for a year. The wedding is supposed to be 7 months away.

Checklist:

Wedding Date: So far, none, other than a vague idea of late September. (We want after the main wedding-rush season is over, but while it's still warm!)
Wedding Location: None, and no good start on getting one. (Other than 'not in a church' and 'not outdoors') If I could have everything I wanted in the world with price as no object, I would choose Franklin Conservatory, which is not only extremely beautiful, but is where my dad got married! Unfortunately, they are $2000, which is more than our Total Wedding Budget!
Reception Location: None, same as above. Although given that I want to dance for several hours, we are looking for a late-afternoon to evening timeslot.
Budget: We have NO money saved yet, and are paying for this entirely ourselves. (which is why I know that whatever our budget ends up being, Franklin Conservatory is too much!)
Catering and Cake: We're planning on cooking ourselves (us and friends) and having a buffet-style dinner, and just last week I started taking a cake-decorating class, so that hopefully what we do will be very pretty and someone will ask, "oh, where did you get your cake done?". So far, it seems like something I'll really enjoy (of course I haven't made cake #1 one yet! LOL)
Music plans: no idea for the ceremony yet, I think that will depend upon our location, but I know I want a DJ and dancing at the reception, and have been slowly making a list of songs I might like them to play.
Photography: I know I want to pay a professional, and not just have an amateur friend do it, and I also know I want LOTS of pictures. There's a possibility we may drag my friend Davroz down from Michigan to do it (he does this stuff for a living!), and see what kind of deal he might give us, but that hasn't passed beyond the possibility stage yet.
Officiant: Ideally I would have someone I know do it for us for cheap. My friends Davroz and Ray are both ordained, and I've considered asking my dad's friend Shadow to do it. Since Richard and I are not overly religious, I'm not overly concerned with the denomination of our officiant, but more with their cost.
Decoration/Theme: This is another thing I think will depend upon our location, and another thing we will be doing ourselves for as cheaply as possible. We have thought about the colors Black, Blood Red, Silver, Cobalt Blue, and Forest Green. Obviously we wouldn't use all of them!
Invitation: Another thing to make cheaply ourselves.
Bride and Groom Clothing: I was planning on having my dead grandmother's gown altered to fit me, even sight unseen. I dug it out of my grandad's attic, and it is beautiful. It is solid heavy cream satin, with long sleeves and train. Unfortunately, my grandmother was an extremely petite woman... only 5ft. tall! And while I'm only 5'3", I'm much more voluptuous than she was. My tiny little wrists are too big for her sleeves! I couldn't actually try the rest of the dress on, because the first step, the arms, were too tiny! So I imagine the rest of the gown would fit (or not) similarly, and the material is so heavy, it would show the hole where each stitch was removed for resizing! This is very unhappy for me. Other family gown options: (a family gown would be my preferred choice, both for cost and sentimentality) My stepmother's gown that she bought at a thrift store, and which I've tried on, is a little too lacy for me, and would require about a foot of extra material across the back to fit me... she was a gymnast in high school, and is not a curvy woman. My mother's gown that my godmother made for her... looks in pictures to be both too lacy for me as well as an unflattering for my body-type straight-line kind of cut... my mother is 5'11" and lean. My other grandmother's gown is off limits. She told me flat out over the phone that it would not fit me, and is apparently worried about me stretching it out. She is tall for a 75 year old woman (5'9"?), another tall lean build like my mother. The other option we've considered is sewing our own, but that seems fairly unlikely to happen. For the Groom, he ideally would want some vintage style like Regency? or some other Medieval style, and it would need to be custom-made. Now we both have beautiful dress cloaks which we never get to wear; Richard's is black velvet with a dark blue satin lining, and mine is deep green velvet with a silver satin lining. So we were thinking of wearing those over our clothes for the ceremony, and my friend Billie suggested we do something along the lines of 'house colors' for the Bride and Groom in our decorating, since we like Rennaisance-type things.
Guests: Basically I want to invite everyone I'm even distantly related to, and everyone I know. I want a BIG party... that's the whole point, right, to share this occassion with others? So I know I want a lot of people, but specific numbers for the guest list need to wait until I know what our (as yet undecided) venue will allow.
Bridesmaids/Groomsmen: We may not even have these people, because I feel that it is unfair to ask them to shoulder the extra costs associated with being in the wedding party... specific clothing, etc. Although if we did have them, I love the idea of different brightly-colored Indian Saris for the women... and of course that doesn't mesh with any of our other theme ideas! (I can just picture, bridesmaids in saris, groomsmen in kilts, me in a traditional gown, and the groom in some Rennaisance outfit!)

well, that's all the details I can think about at the moment... at least I have the most important part taken care of: THE GROOM. We're in love, and it's awesome. :)

My Most Recent Bit of Writing

The Lady Who Dances

There is
a woman dancing
cocking hip and slowly sliding foot
Her arms describe
an empty space
with arcs
and curves
and lines
She moves
with careful grace
against the insistent
Beat! Beat! Beat!
She sways
and a hand slides
down her body
and she
turns
and extends a leg
She is a willow
wilting
and a bud
stretched toward the light
With hips
with hands
with hair
she dances
smokily seductive
like a siren
she calls
with her body
Against the beat
she dances
music pounding and persistent
cacophonous frenetic heartbeats of sound
But
Still
she sways
so slowly

~Brooke 12/11/05