October 2007

In October, which really was only a few days after we got engaged we started planning for our big day.

We already knew that we wanted a church wedding so we called our parish, All Saint's Episcopal and made an appointment with our favorite rector, Rev. Marian Fortner .

Marian met with us and we really only had three options that did not include summer, because really, who wants to get married in Phoenix in the summer?

Since I am a teacher we get scheduled breaks throughout the school year. One in October, another in December, and one in March. We wanted to be able to go on a real honeymoon after the wedding so it was important that we try to set a date within one of those scheduled breaks. We both absolutely love the fall so we sought after October 11th and fortunately for us it was available, so we set our date!

After we established a date and ceremony location it was time to start looking for a reception sight. This was such a process! We used very helpful web sites such as www.theknot.com and www.weddingwire.com .

There were several places that we were interested in but it was their policy to have ceremonies and receptions together if performed on a Saturday. Also, many places that were in our price range were already booked even a year in advanced!

We went and looked at a few places but we were very disappointed in the locations so we continued to look.

At the suggestion of a friend we decided to search for "banquet facility" instead of wedding reception and we found the ACC Banquet hall. Josh made the phone calls and on Halloween we went down to view the site and it was perfect. We decided to "think about it" before we made a decision. We didn't even make it to the freeway before we called the manager and booked it for the 11th!

So within a month we had a church and a reception hall. Two major items off the check list!