The plan.

Many of you have asked when our big day is. Some of you may be wondering if there's a "save the date" coming your way. For many people, a wedding is a wonderful way to blend the families in one big event, with aisles, flowers, a band, liquor, food, cake, and general merriment. I love those weddings. Big festive weddings are glorious, wonderful events...for other people. It's just not for us. 

We have our reasons for going about our plan the way we are, and none of them are meant to exclude our friends and family or make anybody sad. We thought early on about trying to have an intimate family and closest of close friends wedding. It was impossible to draw the line. For those of you married folks reading this, hats off to you. I can't imagine how rough it is to draw up a guest list. For me, it would involve guilt, fear, a half dozen kolaches, tears, and a fifth of whiskey. (Or the components to a good country song!)

Then I thought about the day itself. I'm a planner by trade. I'm not in operations. I support writing plans, but very, very rarely do I get out in the field to implement them. I think I could plan a pretty nice wedding...for someone else. Also, a stressed Mel isn't a good Mel. If you've ever seen me before a big meeting at work, you know that there is an evil, type A, zilla-bitch that lurks within. If she shows up, she wouldn't make a very nice bride. We didn't even make it to the point of discussion where you talk about wedding logistics. Those first two points made it clear that elopement was our best path.

So we decided on a private, convenient ceremony (not technically an elopement since we're telling people). We'll work out some family visits after the event. I know this sort of thing isn't for everybody, but it's our day. Oh, and we're going to buy a bigger boat, so visit us, and we'll take you fishing.