day 1: the when.

well... here we are. day 1 out of 31 of blogging about wedding planning! i'm no expert, just an average almost-30-year-old trying her hardest to plan a fun, creative wedding for 300 of our closest friends... oh yah, and i'm on a super tight budget.

if you are finding this blog and don't know me, allow me to introduce myself. my name is marisa and i am marrying the man of my dreams on january 14, 2012. we met in january of this year, dated for 6 months, and are having a 6 month engagement, making our wedding date exactly one year from our first date! (awwww).

and picking the WHEN was super important to us, for many reasons. for one, my fiance, jeff, is a touring musician. and all of his friends (and the groomsmen!) are in that same boat. so the odds of finding a day when the majority of our very musical community is around is not an easy task. but, january just so happens to be one of the slowest months in the music biz (post-christmas-tours and pre-spring-tours). and finding out that the band was playing on a cruise in february & the wives get to tag along for free? yah, that works out well for us to be married for, too (can you say free honeymoon?) and then the wedding weekend marking the one year anniversary of our story is just the icing on the (wedding?) cake (sorry, i couldn't help myself).

bonus: jeff and i are totally "winter people" -- we'd prefer january over june every time.

so with a ring on my finger and a date circled on my calendar, the wedding planning has begun...

*marisa's marks: pick a date that's important to you as a couple, and one that will be easy to remember - it will be your anniversary date for the rest of your life! :)

so what's with this 31 days thing? i'm so glad you asked. and i'd love to explain it (i tried to here). but the nester does a much better job -- it was all her idea anyways. and i highly recommend checking out my friend annie's 31 days of courage over at annieblogs - guaranteed to be inspiring!