So I promised I’d reveal our actual honeymoon destination, but to be honest, I was petrified of doing so until we bought our tickets a few days ago.  There’s one direct flight in and out of Newark on Continental that wasn’t crazy expensive (provided you’re OK flying on Sundays) to our destination, and of course I panicked about not being able to get seats for us in time, and we’d be forced to fly out of somewhere else or on a different carrier.

Needless to say, my fears were groundless (heehee, silly pun) and we have booked two seats each way to fly to…

(Here’s a hint:)

(image from imdb.com)

ITALIA!

Specifically, the Piemonte region.

We knew we wanted to go to Italy long before we made any other wedding plans, damn the dollar-euro exchange rate and all.  And it just so happens that one of my lovely bridesmaids has an aunt and uncle who run a gorgeous B&B in the little town of Acqui Terme, and we got an excellent rate on a room from them for the week.  We booked our reservation months and months ago and since then I have found myself trolling their blog to find out the dirt on all of the awesome renovations they’re working on and their website to salivate over the gorgeous pictures of the property, the town of Acqui Terme, and the surrounding cities and towns of Piemonte.

In fact, here are some pictures for you to salivate over (all photos courtesy of Baur BB):

Baur B&B:

Acqui Terme:

Sigh.

Needless to say, I’m already dreaming up my packing list–The Talented Mr. Ripley (and specifically Gwenyth Paltrow’s wardrobe) is a huge influence on what’s going into my suitcase.  Details to follow…

What made you pick your honeymoon location?  Did you indulge yourselves?

The reality that this thing isn’t all that far away has led the RG and I to get a little stressed out.  Couple this with some friend issues–mostly concern/annoyance at how others are reacting to things–and sometimes, you just gotta vent.

The RG was not in the best of moods when I made my nightly “I’m on the train” call, and it would be a lie to say I wasn’t feeling misanthropic myself.  Popping in a newish Charles Mingus CD my brother copied for me as I drove from the garage to the apartment, I made a resolution:  No television tonight.  Instead, we were going to drink wine, listen to jazz and write (we’re both enthusiastic writers) until the new Top Chef came on.

Image from amazon.com.  This is an a-maaaay-zing album, by the way.

The one thing we didn’t really do was write per se, but instead we talked about what we were working on (and I got a few good ideas on how to connect two parts of one story I’m working on), and we also vented about the problems with our pals.  It was at once a little depressing and a lot of fun–it harkened back to our college days when we hung out, drank wine, talked writing and listened to jazz at one of our dear friend’s houses. 

It was also a reminder of how important it is to talk to each other during the process, and vent your frustrations out loud instead of trying to act as if everything’s perfectly peachy.  Seldom is that the case when it comes to anything in life–why should wedding planning be any different?

How do you let off steam with your future spouse when the frustrations of weddings get you both down?

For a variety of reasons–not a lot of vacation time, many obligations bogarting said vacation time, plus not wanting to ask my grad-student FI to shell out a ton of money–this reluctant bride and groom don’t get to take real vacations much.  It gets to be a bummer at times, of course, especially in March when pictures start going up from friends going on cruises and the like over spring break (which, in of itself, is something that I haven’t recognized since college).  But we manage where we can–day trips to New York on the Metro North and jaunts to the local beach have gone a long way in adding some (relatlively cheap) fun to our springs and summers past and will be something we rely on heavily this year as well.

That said, we will be on a plane come October 5th, flying out to go on our honeymoon.  Where to, you may ask?  I’ll tell you…….later (I know, I’m a tease!) but for those looking for ideas on someplace different (but not too different) to go, allow me to make the humble suggestion of:

Malaga, Spain (accent on the first a).

Malaga is “the capital” of the Spanish Riviera, more commonly known as the Costa del Sol.  Happily situated along the Mediterranean, Malaga is the primary city (and also the birthplace of Pablo Picasso for all you art fans) and smaller resort towns close to the beach dot the majority of the coast.

We visited in early March of 2005 and stayed in Torremolinos, the first town out of Malaga and a crazy cute little town.  Getting an awesome deal on Expedia where most of the cost was spent on the ticket price, we stayed at a four-star hotel suite with marble floors, a massive, blue-tiled bathroom, and not one, but two balconies–one overlooking the Med, and the other providing a mountain view:

The view from one of the balconies

It was a fifteen-minute walk between it and downtown, but being that we had no real itinerary save from exploring everything by foot (an excellent way to work off the massive quantities of food and wine we ate and drank), it mattered little.

If there’s any interest, I can post more pictures if you like, but I have to hook up my scanner–all of these were taken on a (gasp!) film camera.    That will not be the case when we end up going to…

Where?  Stay tuned!

One of the challenges in planning a wedding long-distance is the fact that I cannot visit every single vendor when we need to make the decision about choosing them or not.  When it came to where we were going to have the reception, I had to charge my parents with doing the visiting for me–I had to sit down with the wedding issue of Main Line Today on Christmas and look at the the nice chart they provide that breaks down criteria such as price/head, basic amenities provided, the style of the location (traditional, modern, rustic, etc.) as well as the location itself.

When it came to picking a venue, I did have some criteria:

• Since Center City was out as an option (too far from the church), the reception had to be somewhere with local tourist attractions and a few options for people to stay in if they wished to
• Had to have good word-of-mouth
• Had to be reasonably priced
• Couldn’t be cheesy or too theme-y–no lame country motif

With this in mind, I drew up a shortlist of places for my parents to visit in my stead come January:

• The Inn at Mendenhall:  one of the highest-recommended locations in the area, and known for years as one of the best places to have a reception.  Located in the heart of Southern Chester County, it has easy access to local attractions and provides a nice guest experience
• The Concordville Inn:  Sister property to the Mendenhall, and located on US-202, it was a little more conference-oriented, and less scenic
• The People’s Light and Theater Company:  The site for many a field trip growing up, it boasted the closest distance to the church but I knew little of its reputation for food and service.

So off they went, going first to the Concordville and then to the Mendenhall.  The day of their expedition found the FI and I at BJ’s buying our bulk groceries (we go through an impressive amount of olive oil in our house!) and my mom called me, clearly excited and gushing when it came to talk about the Mendenhall.  Yes, it was one of the more expensive options, but listening to the litnay of amenities that were included such as the honeymoon suite and the cake, I was definetely swayed to agree with her.  The deal-maker?  The famously persnickety neighbor down the street had her only daughter’s wedding there, and she was completely satisfied with the whole experience.

The only caveat?  We had to make a decision that day because the larger of the two ballrooms on the property had already been reserved for the date–keep in mind that this was JANUARY OF 2007.  Any reservations about starting out so early quickly washed away, and after conferencing with the FI, about a half hour later a call went into the sales office and the smaller Gold Ballroom was ours.

So far I’m not regretting making such an impulsive decision, but has anyone else out there rued the day they did?

Coming up:  photographs of the site, plus a rundown on the tasting we had this past October…

Hey kids.

So…I’m about seven months out from D-day, i.e. my wedding.  I’ve been planning this shindig for a year and a half now but recently it’s all become very, very real.  As in, “Lady, you finally have to get up and DO all of those wonderful projects you have planned for this party!”  Plus, I’m a long-distance bride living in New England while the event is in Southeast Pennsylvania outside of Philadelphia, so even though I’ve enjoyed a year and a half of being an absent bride, that honeymoon is decidedly over.

 So why the reluctance?

It’s not due to the man I’m marrying–he’s absolutely wonderful and we’ve been together for nearly eight years.  Had this been up to us entirely, we would have been married by now, preferably having run off to Vegas to do the deed.  That, however, is not an option as our families would never forgive us, so instead we’re trying to take on the traditional wedding on our terms.  I pledged myself to not get caught up in the melodrama that surrounds so many weddings, and up until recently I’ve stayed far, far away from places like TheKnot.com and the forums contained therein.

So if I’m seemingly so against the industry machine, if I’m “just not that into planning,” why on earth am I blogging about it, you ask?

Even though I’m not loving having to go through this, I still have to do it.  And I’m getting tired of hearing myself talk endlessly about it with my poor friends (as they say, no one ever cares as much about your wedding as you do), so it’s clear I need an outlet for this.  So here I am, filling the internet with more tales of working with vendors, completing DIY projects, and praying that everything comes together smashingly.

So here we go…