Picking the Date

The lovely Katie writes again...


With the holidays fast approaching, I have been working ahead to get my work schedule figured out so I know when I can travel to visit family, and of course, eat lots of delicious food. While perusing the November and December schedules, it came to my attention that there are weddings at one of our locations both the Saturday after Thanksgiving and the Sunday right after Christmas. These seem to me like days that get reserved for eating Turkey and opening presents, not usually for getting married (but what do I know). Perhaps the couples think hey! Everyone will be in town anyway, let’s plan the wedding then! Or perhaps the couple is Jewish and Christmas is just another day.

I was on the phone a while ago with a lovely girl who would like to have her wedding in Wisconsin, but is trying to plan it from the East Coast, while her fiancé studies abroad in London. She was hoping for a summer wedding outside, on a Saturday. Our Saturdays book like they are going out of style, and even Saturdays in 2012 are becoming hard to come by (in the summer). After rejecting a few of her dates because we are already booked, I asked her if a Friday or Sunday event would work. You would have thought I asked her if the sky was purple. Without skipping a beat, she said no way! She was Catholic and absolutely had to get married on a Saturday. I empathized, as I recalled being appalled a few years back when a friend of mine from high school got married on a Sunday. (Who gets married on a Sunday, I thought?!) I have obviously since then been put in my place, several times over, as Fridays and Sundays are also very popular days to book events.

As I write down the dates of new couples and contracts that come through our office, I often wonder, how did you decide on that particular day? In Wisconsin, the summer months are popular because of the weather. But there are still more than enough couples who decide they want to set the date for the middle of winter. New Year’s Eve is popular, for example. If you get really lucky, a soft snow of the large, puffy snowflakes will fall the night before, coating every surface, making your wedding look like you are in the middle of a winter wonderland. Or 12 inches of snow could fall, delaying flights and causing the city to declare a snow emergency. What then? Similarly, this summer we had a flash flooding event right in the middle of a couple’s ceremony and reception. Most of their guests (as well as the officiant!) were delayed several hours because the highways were flooded and cars could not move.

All that aside, I can’t help but wonder what motivates a date selection. Perhaps a dating anniversary can influence a wedding date. Or a specific time of year (for example, a little girl growing up always dreaming of a fall wedding). What about the availabilities of the members of the wedding parties or family members? And, of course, what about the location? My guess would be that there a two ways to look at picking a date and a location: either the date is important and the location can be worked around that, or vice versa, the location is important and the date must be flexible around that. However the date gets selected, it will go down in the couple’s history as one of the most exciting, important and happy days of their lives together. And each year, on their anniversary, on that specific date they chose during their engagement, they will celebrate their accomplishments and the successful passing of another year.