The first time I ever planned my wedding in my head, I was 13 years old. I had this dream of a church wedding where HERE COMES THE BRIDE would play as the huge double doors of the cathedral opened up to the love of my life standing at the alter wearing a tux. Afterwards, we would be in some grand banquet hall of a country club celebrating.
As I got older and I truly did find the love of my life, I started to stray away from this idea. My FI and I talked a lot about what we wanted before we got engaged, and we were thinking more along the lines of a beach/tropical wedding where we could do a ceremony and then go to a nice tent where we could have our reception.
Well, then we got engaged and decided that the tropical theme wasn't for us. We finally decided that we wanted a "Southern City Wedding." A wedding that could take place in a little city without the dirty feel some cities can give off. We decided that since I live in NC, Wilmington would be our city. Since it is a "small city" it tends to have "small venues."
I thought we were going to be getting married in a country plantation that could be swapped for a ceremony. So imagine my surprise when I went to the Upper Room. When we got there, we figured we would just stay to be polite to the man who took time out of his day to give us the tour. I mean, from all the information I had gathered about this place, it was supposed to be a ballroom and here we were standing in the hallway of a Catholic School. Our "coordinator" finally arrives and tells us we have entered through the wrong door and takes us to the top floor where we are standing in a ballroom that is big enough to seat 300 people. He takes us down these steps and shows us how we can set up the room and all of a sudden I feel like I am seeing the same room I saw when I was 13. He then asks if either of us are Catholic (which I am) and offers to show us the church. We accept and he opens the huge wooden double doors and I am standing in the middle of this giant cathedral walking towards a beautiful alter, arm-in-arm with my soulmate. We decided right then and there this was our spot. As I was signing the paperwork, I unconsciously put my first name with my FI's last name. Coincidence or fate?
Funny how life happens. Turns out I knew exactly what I wanted for the last 11 years and still had to find my way to it. Today we found our venue and will be getting married on June 23, 2012 