Maddie Gets Married: Engaged, Now What?

Well first things first, as you read in last week’s post, Nate and I celebrated with our friends and family, but we also took the time to celebrate just the two of us! I think one of the sweetest parts of the proposal was the time we had together before sharing it with everyone else later that day.

Following the day-of celebrations, we popped some bubbly, opened our engagement presents, and Facetimed family and friends who couldn’t be with us in person. Once the celebrations died down and the big news had been shared, it was time to get started on the day I had dreamed about and Pinterested for so long!

I should be honest in saying that our wedding planning process actually began before the proposal. After all, when Nate and I had the marriage talk, he said “We’re old, let’s go!“ So that conversation lead into more of a timeline conversation. We both loved the idea of a late summer/early fall wedding in 2020 and landed on September, if venue availability allowed it. Given my experience in the industry and our decision to keep it local, I knew I was leaning towards a particular venue. I was actually working their wedding showcase over the summer, when I saw the date availability for 2020 and just about had a heart attack. There was only one Saturday left in September, and I knew I‘d be heartbroken if I didn’t have it. Since we knew we’d likely be engaged for under a year, Nate was completely fine booking a venue before the proposal for date availability purposes, if need be. He was in Sweden for work at the time and unable to check it out himself, but when I told him the venue was only a few blocks away from Krispy Kreme, he responded with, “Say no more.” I think he’ll be fairly low-key during the planning process.

We decided to move forward in booking the venue and are so excited to share we’ll be married September 5, 2020 at the Merrimon-Wynne House in Raleigh, North Carolina!

Photography by Ally and Bobby Photography

Another big to-do on our list taken care of pre-proposal was our photographer. My sister, Olivia Suriano, is a wedding photographer with Nancy Ray Photography. Obviously, she’ll be a little busy during our wedding, but one of her closest friends and former colleague, Callie Davis, was so generous in offering to shoot our big day!

Keeping it short and sweet for now, but I’ll be sharing more details on why we chose the Merrimon-Wynne House and our photographer in later posts!

So with both our venue and photographer booked by time we were engaged, our next step was to secure a wedding planner. I was in Winston the Tuesday after the proposal when the RRE team surprised me with a celebratory champagne toast at our staff meeting and the sweetest gift in offering to plan, design, and produce our wedding. Given my experience with and position on the team, there was no question this was the perfect fit, and Nate and I are thrilled to be working with Rebecca Rose Events to bring our wedding weekend to life!

Our full-day creative session is next Thursday, December 19, where we will go over Nate’s and my vision for the wedding design, review a comprehensive budget, and so much more. Nate and I will start out the session in the morning, and my mom will meet us for lunch and the rest of the afternoon. Stay tuned next week for live updates on our first meeting and a first-hand look into a Rebecca Rose Events creative session!

Want to read more of the Maddie Gets Married Series? Follow along:

Week 1: The Proposal

Week 2: Engaged, Now What?

Week 3: Preparing for Our Creative Session

Week 4: My Biggest Takeaway from Our Creative Session

Week 5: Why We Chose Our Photographer

Week 6: When Decisions Get Hard

Week 7: Nate’s First Visit to the Merrimon-Wynne House

Week 8: Save the Date!

Week 9: How to Handle Late RSVP’s & A Free Guide to Creating Your Guest List

Week 10: The Event Design Process

Week 11: Surprises and Challenges from Our Design Meeting