Subtitle: it can be done.

Of course you need to clear up immediately what kind of wedding you want. Luckily we were pretty much on the same page: civil marriage, nice and quick, possibly in the afternoon, a buffet in a park and in five hours top, see ya!

Ah!
Ahahahah!!!
Ahhh…

First thing first: pick a date. Call the municipality to learn about bureaucracy, end up asking simply
“I was wondering… is it possible to know already if the date we’d like is ok…”
“What day?”
“3rd or 10th Ma…”
“MISS! MAY IS HECKTIC! YOU HAVE TO COME STRAIGHT AWAY WITH ALL THE PAPERS. IT WILL TAKE AT LEAST A WEEK THEN TO TELL YOU IF THOSE DAYS ARE AVAILABLE!!!”
(can I remind you it was the 3rd week of november?)

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!
But gosh, anxiety!!!
The following day I was at the municipality with all the documents they asked
“Ok miss, now, as soon as we get communication from the municipality of your fiancé, we’ll need his signature and we’ll publish everything”
“Ehm… what about the day?”
“With the communication from the other municipality, but we’ll call you as soon as it arrives!”

Oh well.

The following week I call in the municipality “Ehrr… Don’t mean to be rude, but… did you receive the communication?”
“Oh, yes, it’s been a while”
No comment…

Final papers.
“So, what about setting a date?”
“When did you think?”
“3rd may?”
“What time?”
“Ehm, I don’t know, what time is it possible to choose?”
“10 am, 11 am, 12 pm”
“I’d say 12”
“No, can’t be done, 3rd may, 10 am and 12 pm are taken”
“Then let’s make it 11 am!”
DUUUHHH

This all took less than two weeks. In this time we managed to pick a restaurant as well. It wasn’t hard either, as long as you know what you’re looking for.

First: big enough for everyone and with some kind of park or field or “nature” around, because we didn’t want to stay seated forever eating and eating and eating and eating.
Second: quite close, less than 30 minutes by car, because we didn’t want to drive and drive and drive and drive.
Third, my personal pet peeve: a low key place, I’m not one for fancy frills, they bore me quite fast.
We googled, we emailed everyone with the set date. Went to visit the three that had room for our date. Picked the only one that had a single room big enough for everyone, and that was quite pretty as well. An agritourism, with lots of greenery, quite rustic…

Basically, to choose our weddng style, we thought of eeeeeeeverything we never liked in other weddings (endless ceremonies, endless waitings, endless driving, waste of food, aching butt, immense boredom, going home way too late, etc.) and we didn’t do it!

Then get yourselves a checklist. A way to tick off things when they’re done or where to write a date by which it needs to be done. Persnickety and tech-savvy as we are, we had a online shared excel documenti (with, like, seven sheets in it). Veeery handy!

We kept it easy: date, municipality and restaurant, done in less than two weeks (yes, even before our families knew we were getting married).
Dresses, invitations and cards: all done in the same store, in a morning, four months before the wedding.
Music: a playlist with our favourite songs, we picked and put on a pendrive in spare time.
Wedding favours (yeah, don’t say anything): online, a few months before.
Flowers: a little goes a long way, reservation made a month before the wedding, in one of those big greenery stores.
Photos: we asked a couple of relatives with very good Reflex to take an extra memory and an extra battery and feel free to snap pictures of everything. They would have anyway, and nowadays everyone has a smartphone of sorts, so we’re collecting people’s pictures now. Kind of an “insider reportage” 😀
Car: my dad’s one, the big and black one, polished for the occasion.
Wedding list (aka our honeymoon): arranged with a traveling agency and put the link on the website for our wedding, we made ourselves, a few months before.

And that’s it! (yes, aunt, yes, I’m writing about the dress as well, yes, about the hydrangeas as well, I can’t avoid the one about hydrangeas!)

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