Wedding background

Mr. Tango and I have been engaged for over a year now, and although I'm only now starting to write and really get into planning, I have indeed done some of my background work. As I will inevitably be focusing quite a bit on what I have yet to do, I figured now would be a good opportunity to let you in on what I do have done.

1. I have the venue, which is in Panama (cheaper than the U.S. and his family/friends will actually be able to attend). Mr. Tango and I went there before we were engaged, looked at each other, and said "We're going to get married here". It's beautiful and although we can't have the ceremony when and where we want (sunset right where the picture was taken), we booked it.

2. They do their own catering - at around $50/person, it was more than we wanted to spend, but decided food is important to us, so we'll suck it up.

(Picture FSIL sent from her wedding. Not my style!)

3. Photographer... Again, we spent more than we wanted to (almost $2,000!!), but found someone who we like and doesn't take pictures that look like they're from the 80s. That doesn't sound like a big deal, but every other place we found in Panama had posed pictures with blurred edges, pastel colors, and all around not my taste.

That's about it. Now to finally get started on everything else. Ideas on where to begin?

The Dress Saga

Finding a dress is supposed to be fun, exciting, and wonderful - right? Wrong! I am not a big shopper in general (give me a beer and a football game over the mall any day), and the idea of spending more than $50 on an article of clothing is not all that appealing.

On top of that,

1. My body is hard to fit. 34DD chest and a 10" difference between my waist and hips does not often lead to 'elegantly fitting' clothing.

2. My bridesmaids are all over the world! Boston, Puerto Rico, Spain, California, Panama, New York, and more. You would think with 10 girls at least a couple of them would be close enough to be able to give advice!

3. Our wedding is on the beach in Panama. It will be HOT. There will also be 200 people, meaning it will be formal. Hot + formal (aka needing structure) does not lead to fun. I like fun.

I went to many dress shops with my sister (huge mistake - she likes lots of bling, pick-ups, and other such things I don't want), various groups of friends, with the fiance (I know, very socially unacceptable but he really does have great taste), and by myself. I don't think the staff realizes that by being incredibly pushy they make some of us really not want to buy anything at all. I was losing hope and getting frustrated I saw this online:
Look how beautiful! It just might work - what do you think?

Wooohoo!

There are officially less than 8 months until the big day and wow do I have a lot to do! I'm continuously gaining respect for everyone who's done this all before. Soon-to-be brides really deserve quite a bit more praise for finding time on top of busy schedules to plan these enormously complicated events!

To keep me sane, to keep you all informed, and to provide a venue for feedback (9" lanterns or 12"?), I will be writing here as often as I can. Feel free to post comments, ideas, or anything else!



For those wondering - the name for the blog comes from our adorable, albeit huge, puppy. If you haven't met him yet, you really should!