So, after more than 3 and a half years, John Hoyt finally proposed! We got engaged on January 2, 2010 in downtown Historic Buford, GA. If you want to read the entire proposal story, you can see our wedding website (still in progress) at: www.theknot.com/ourwedding/EvinWinkelman&JohnHoytRichardson
I decided to create a blog to remember everything that happened during our year and a half of planning this wedding. So far, things have been going pretty smoothly. On January 17th, we visited our dream location, the Braselton-Stover House in Braselton, GA. The tour was so much fun and we were extremely impressed. As of right now, that is where we are planning on having it. It will be an evening wedding and an outside wedding with the reception held in their ballroom.
As far as a date goes, we are still debating. Our two options at this point are May 21, 2o11 (my pick) or June 18, 2011. Taylor (my younger brother) will be graduating from high school in June of 2011 so we're trying to get information from his school about dates of senior activities. We're praying that he doesn't have anything the weekend of May 21st.
We have pretty much decided on a videographer. On January 29th, I met with Melody Hendricks, an amazing photographer located in Athens, GA. I was immediately in love with her photos and her work. Once we have a for-sure date and location, we are planning on booking her.
I have talked to Heather Lawson and Amanda Winkler about doing my hair and my bridesmaids hair. Stefannie Wilkes is going to do our makeup!
As for wedding party, I've asked all of my bridesmaids and all of them have agreed. Bethany Ullrich will be my maid-of-honor. My bridesmaids are Jackie Richardson, Katelyn Hebert, Nicole Hiett (soon-to-be Nicole Hancock), Jessica Ortiz Loggins and Michelle Herring. John Hoyt has chosen most of his but still hasn't asked them all yet.
John Hoyt, his family, and I went to Pennsylvania last weekend (the first weekend in February) to visit my family and discuss wedding. There we decided on a budget, a guest list, and talked more about the date. My mom, Janie (John Hoyt's mom), and I went dress shopping for a few hours, and found a few that I definitely fell in love with. Mom is supposed to come down during the first weekend in March to help me shop some more.
We have decided on colors and flowers as well. We are going to have marine blue as our main color. The bridesmaids will be wearing short dresses, but they will be able to choose their dress, just so long as it is marine blue. Our accent colors are white and apple green. We are going to have blue hydrangeas and some accent flowers as the bouquets.
We've talked about catering, but have not made any final decisions yet.
Today, I spent some time looking at videographers. It's difficult because they are so expensive, and I really didn't plan for a highly priced videographer. I've made some progress though. I now know what I want and what I don't want and hopefully that will be resolved soon as well.
As of right now, that is all that I've done so far. It has really been a lot of fun so far and I can't wait to keep planning. More importantly, I can't wait to marry the Man of my dreams next summer!
