July 11th = Married at my Alma Mater

[sulygirl]

I just realized I should probably post here!

I'm a doc candidate (on the job market and hoping to have a "real" job soon!) my fiance is a supervisor at a regional ISP.  We are getting married July 11th at my alma mater (a beautiful location which we both could agree on) because it's half way between the two main "hubs" of our families.  We've been planning from Missouri for about 7 months now.  We got engaged at the start of July last year and had to launch into planning because summers are the most convenient time for me as a grad student and for my MoH (who is a teacher).  And because we work in a college town and DF provides internet, August and September are big blackouts for him.  Our venue is about 5 hours away and will do almost everything for us!  Yay!  It's good because the venues here would not accommodate my food allergies and I was expected by most just to "not eat" at my own wedding.  No, thank you!

We only have about 65 guests invited.  Our chapel only holds 65 - 70 comfortably.  We are looking to probably have about 55 guests at the wedding.  It's small and secular (because while the majority of both families is a Catholic majority, my mother left the church after my dad converted because of issues with the priest and they got married in a Methodist church).  Religion is an issue we'd like to leave out of it.  A judge that taught me and I shadowed in undergrad is marrying us.  She's awesome and we are very excited.

We're happy to share our wedding anniversary with my godparents who were married the same day many, many years ago.  Our theme is "beer, bikes, and green".  The green was inspired by my cyclocross bike and engagement ring.  The beer is something we love and brew and will be woven into most of our wedding stuff.  We're serving craft beer from a local (and nationally-acclaimed) craft brewery, we have hops on the boutineers and tables and in our chapel cones.  It's going to also be a child-free zone and while that has ticked off one person thus far, it's not bothered anyone else!  Overall, we tried to maximize guest happiness with good food, top shelf booze, and an open bar.  The rest will be DIY'ed by me.  I've already done all of our stationary (I have experience in graphic design), so most of this is actually done already.