Who? Wed? Where?

Even before we were engaged, The Backyard Groom and I had talked about having a small wedding. We'd been to plenty of weddings where the bride and groom are so busy making small talk with their third-grade teachers and second cousins that they miss out on more meaningful interaction with their closest friends and family, not to mention each other. Also, we're both kind of shy except around people we know really well, and who wants to deal with social anxiety on their wedding day?

We decided to come up with a list of the people who our wedding simply wouldn't feel complete without. The list came to a grand total of 15. We also planned on paying for the wedding ourselves so budget was a big concern. With a small guest list and an even smaller budget, a destination wedding seemed like a good choice.

A couple years ago, we'd taken a trip to Ireland and fallen in love with the castles and landscapes. The idea of getting married there felt irresistably romantic. Just look at these photos that The Backyard Groom took during our trip.

The first one is Ross Castle in Killarney National Park, Co. Killarney, and the second is the small town of Cobh in Co. Cork.

I started researching small venues and hotels and came across this truly unbelievable church in Co. Cork called Gougane Barra.

(source)

Seriously. It seems impossible to me that a place like that exists. It's too gorgeous. Unfortunately, you have to be a practicing Catholic to wed there, and although we were both raised Catholic, we've lapsed a bit in the church-going department.

I kept looking for other venues and places to stay, but when I started to factor in the cost of airfare on top of everything else, I snapped out of it and realized it was too much to ask our families and friends to travel that far.

So we started talking about stateside locations, and of course, the one that immediately sprung to mind was lovely Las Vegas. (Again photo courtesy The Backyard Groom from a past trip there.)

I've got lots of love for Las Vegas. I've been there many times, and it's always been a blast. I think you could pull off an amazing Vegas wedding with the right amount of fundage. But without it? Well, everything I looked at that was wallet-friendly felt sort of impersonal and generic. We both also worried how our older family members would like it.

As I looked online for alternative destination wedding ideas, I came across the totally inspiring 2000 Dollar Wedding blog. Not only was it a budget I could get behind, but I loved what the blogger had to say about having goals for the ceremony. Particularly No. 6:

"We will have real time to spend with guests. We want to be able to spend quality time with our friends and family. We don’t want to follow the traditional pattern of a few wedding “events” where the bride and groom only have time for a “meet and greet”: rehearsal dinner, reception, brunch the following morning. We want more of a family & friends reunion."

A family and friends reunion was EXACTLY what I wanted our wedding to feel like. A few days later, it felt a little like serendipity when we paid a visit to The Backyard Groom's mom and her recently landscaped backyard. Suddenly I could see our entire wedding in my head, all within the confines of her beautiful backyard. I filled The Backyard Groom in, he loved the idea and our easy, breezy wedding plans began.