By far one of the easiest decisions for us was choosing the location and date for our wedding. We knew that we wanted to be married in the Outer Banks. I’ve been going there since I was a child and Chris had been going for the past few years too. Neither of us wanted the big to-do back home where we knew that inevitably it would end up being controlled by people other than us. We wanted something nice but small and the Outer Banks fit the bill. We also rent the same house when we go down there so the location was easy. We’d get married on the beach behind the house and have the small reception inside. Done and done. We picked a week that the house was available that Chris could get off of work and chose Wednesday so that we had a few days before to prepare (all rentals are from the weekend to the weekend so the typical Saturday wedding was out) and a few days after to decompress. It also gave us wiggle room in case of a hurricane. I have bad luck so I literally planned my wedding around the question of “if a hurricane happens… I can change this.” Everything was fairly easy… on our end anyway!
However, his family wasn’t so keen on the idea of a destination wedding. Lots of grumbles and whining. One of his sisters actually told us flat out that she wanted to be there more than anything but since we were requiring people to pay to come see us get married, she wouldn’t be coming since they couldn’t afford the trip. There were more things but that was the whopper. Because of all of this, early on we decided to find cottages near ours to rent and pay for his family and our friends to come down and stay for the week. Instead of having a larger wedding, we had a small wedding with the people that matter most. While it was still a bit more budget wise in the end than I was hoping for, it wasn’t too far above what it would have all cost here to have the 300+ people we know that would have been invited.
By January the Save the Dates were created, our rental house was booked and the wedding planning was on. I had just over 8 months to plan a destination wedding and also the trip for 40+ people. It wasn’t easy! In the end though I am glad that we stuck to our guns and got married where we wanted to and didn’t have the big at-home wedding like his family wanted us to have. I bent a little by providing a place to stay for them for the week but still held my ground on the location and for that I’m very very happy.
Next up: Finding THE dress!
- Emerald Event Center Wedding with Haley and Nick - October 10, 2025
- Tudor House on Portage Lakes wedding with Megan and Ethan - September 12, 2025
- Gather at the Lakes Wedding with Megan and Landon - August 18, 2025
Scriptina was the font of 2007 😉 Way to do what you really wanted!!
LOL!!! It was wasn’t it? I still like it, it’s just a fun swirly script. I’ve always had a bit of an obsession with script fonts.