Do we, on Sunday?

After being engaged for one month,  I realized that wedding planning is MUCH different than it was before I got engaged.  Hmm. What's that you say? Planning BEFORE you got engaged?  Not really, but in my head, yes.  I had the whole thing planned.  We had the perfect venue (the library), our date would of course be available without ANY conflict, we'd have our choice of all the best vendors - because money would be of no issue, and of course I'd be a DIY genius, garnering inspiration from flowers and nature (or um, Pinterest & Etsy), our photographs would be effortlessly beautiful but candid, and did I mention that money would be of NO issue.  And then the magic happened, Mr. Ly proposed and I said yes and there were were, engaged, and we really started to plan.

First up: find the perfect venue. Done.

Image via Mike Landis Photographer

A new vision.

With the library completely out of the picture for our venue, I was left with little to go on for my venue ideas.  I stalked websites, blogs (mainly the bee), wedding magazines, Partyspace (which is an AMAZING resource for anyone planning a party of any kind in Philly, Baltimore or South Florida), and blogs of some wedding photographers that I had been obsessing over, long before I was engaged.

My requirements were they had to be able to accommodate 150 guests with a seated dinner and dancing, not be a catering hall/ballroom, and it had to be in Center City Philadelphia. Non-requirements (but would prefer) were a library-ish space for pictures, a historic building, and dinner and dancing in the same room.

I narrowed my choices down to 5 venues:

Dashed Dreams

We hit the ground running with wedding planning, a few weeks into being engaged.  I was sure this is going to be a piece of cake. That is until we hit the first bump in the road to our marital bliss.  Not that there was a problem between Mr. Ly and myself... but a bump in the plans I've had in my head for years.  I've dreamt of getting married at the Free Library of Philadelphia, for as long as I remember planning my future wedding in a real tangible thought process (read: not when I was a child, this isn't a scene from Bride Wars and the Plaza) But I had this idea of my wedding, on the roof terrace of the library, overlooking the parkway and the museums, and it was a beautiful image.

Loraine Daley Wedding Photography
Gorgeous, right? 

On Bended Knee

VERY PICTURE HEAVY POST! You've been warned.

Before Mr. Lyre asked me to take that fateful walk with him, on a blustery November afternoon, I knew what was going to happen, and where. But that didn't make that day, that walk, that question, any less meaningful.

We were in NYC for a long weekend, staying in Brooklyn, experiencing all the best that Brooklyn has to offer. We stayed in an apartment in Williamsburg, which was such a great experience.

Thursday 11/10/11

Our AirBnB apartment / Personal Photo

At Pies-n-Thighs in Williamsburg, AMAZING. / Personal Photo

At Barcade / Personal Photo 

Detective Lyre, at your service.

Or, How I kind-of-ruined Mr. Ly's perfectly planned proposal (for myself).

The day Mr. Ly proposed to me was by far the happiest day of my life, to date. I'm not going to lie, I had my strong suspicions, and maybe had already told a bunch of people that I had these strong suspicions that Mr. Ly was going to propose to me on a specific date, at a specific place, and they better be ready for my phone call.

Here's the story of how I figured out what was going down, before he got down on one knee:

Teachers in NJ get a long weekend in November for a teacher's convention in Atlantic City. It's always on a Thursday and Friday, making a nice 4-day weekend, and last year it happened to coincide with Veteran's Day.  Mr. Ly works for the government and gets Veteran's Day off anyway, so we had been toying with the idea of going away for the weekend.  One thought was to go visit his family in Arkansas, but flights were a bit steep and we didn't really want to waste 2 of our 4 days traveling. Another idea was to visit my sister in Boston, but my mom had already claimed that (she's a teacher, too). Last year on Veteran's Day, we went to NYC just for the day, as part of Mr. Ly's birthday present.  Mr. Ly has never been a huge fan of the city, but I was certain if I could show him the city I know and love (read: NOT Times Square), he would be a fan too.  Maybe not to ever live there, but at least being okay for a day/weekend trip every now and then.  We went to the "touristy" stops first on our trip (I was taking to him to see Avenue Q - so midtown was truly unavoidable), In keeping with the birthday themed surprise, I took Mr. Ly to FAO Schwartz to build him his own "whatnot" (a puppet that you can customize to look like someone).

At FAO Schwartz with Mr. Ly and his "Whatnot."  Success! / Personal Photo 

Needless to say, it was a good trip, and after we left the touristy areas, we went to the Lower East Side and Brooklyn, touching on some of my favorite spots, and he was much more impressed with the city than he had been in previous trips. So... we decided to go to Brooklyn for our long weekend. I was thrilled. I miss living in the city sometimes, and a weekend there is always a good fix to cure the suburban blues.

Once that decision was made, the clues start rolling in that the proposal was going to happen THAT weekend:

A "Match" Made Online.

Before meeting Mr. Ly, I was a serial dater.  Mostly in my mid-twenties, I was living in NYC and dating everyone and anyone.  Now, don't get the wrong idea about me, I really was just dating.  I thought of it as a fun social experiment, and blogged like mad about the crazy dates I went on.  I wasn't looking for a life partner, I was looking for entertainment, and a big city like that is chock-full of entertaining dating partners. I met guys all over - on the subway, bars, online, I even tried speed dating.  Seriously, all I did was date. Once I moved back to the Philly burbs, the bars didn't seem like a good place to meet someone anymore, clubs are not my scene, and I work in an environment that is about 99% women. I shop online, job hunt online, why not find a boyfriend online, too?

All that dating in my twenties doesn't mean I didn't have my fair share of heart-break and disappointment before Mr. Ly.  He is my third serious relationship in my lifetime (serious to me constitutes a relationship where I actually saw a future leading to marriage with that person, at some point in the relationship.) I was about a year out of my last serious relationship and finishing up a year of not-so-serious dating online.

 I really was ready to call it quits with the online scene for a while and look into other avenues of meeting people, when a younger guy who lived close by, winked at me. I was in the phase of "I should choose the people I date" and only respond to people I contacted first. Also, I didn't want to date someone younger than me (I had a lot of these "rules" when I was dating), but I only had a few weeks left. Live it up, it's only a date - I thought.  I checked out his profile, thought he was cute and geeky (which is 100% my type), and I liked what he had to say.

This was Mr. Ly's dating profile pic, him with Wil Wheaton at a video game conference. Did I mention he was geeky?
Personal Photo