Merry Christmas from Ryan and Katy!

Merry Christmas!

It's been quite some time since we've noted anything (I would say of importance, but really, anything at all would be more appropriate) here, but I figured since the holidays are upon us, now would be a good time to come back, wish everyone a happy holiday season and update y'all (assuming there are any of you left reading) on what planning has been done.

Wedding planning for me (and Ryan...he's been involved in this too) has moved through several stages in the preceding months. At first, Ryan and I had an idea of what we wanted to do, but no real idea of how to make it happen. We knew that we didn't want to have the wedding in Shreveport as we are not (very) near a large airport here and none of our family and most of our friends would have to travel a fair amount of (inconvenient) distance to attend an event in Shreveport. We figured New Orleans would be better because it has got the benefit of the large airport and being close to at least some of our relatives. I called at least a half dozen hotels, restaurants, and other venues in the New Orleans area to no avail. (One hotel's wedding coordinator went so far as to set up a meeting with us and then never bother to show up, leaving Ryan and I waiting for an hour.) Ryan and I were getting exceedingly frustrated with these potential venues and each other as the time went on.

(The one bright spot in this whole thing was a photographer we met, with whom we fell in love. If any of you in the Baton Rouge/New Orleans area are ever looking for an event photographer, do contact The Photography Shoppe. We LOVED their work and would have loved to hire them. I believe that they have locations outside of Louisiana, as well, and I'd extend the recommendation to those of you not from Louisiana. They were truly fantastic and willing to answer any and all questions we had and they seemed like they genuinely knew what they were doing. Also, their style is gorgeous! I'm still trying to figure out if there's some way we can hire them to photograph something.)

Anyway, after several failed attempts to set up meetings and a multitude of un-returned phone calls, Ryan and I sat down and re-evaluated our situation. We talked and came up with a plan that suited our personalities, our budget, and our hopes and dreams for the day perfectly.

We had been planning from very early on in the process to go to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida for our honeymoon. While researching honeymoon packages and information on the website, I discovered that Disney World hosts weddings, as well. They even offered a package that would allow us to have exactly the wedding we wanted.

We've decided to have a very small ceremony and reception at one of the hotels on Disney property and celebrate our honeymoon there afterwards. We have been strictly limited in our guest list for the event we have planned so we've restricted the event to our immediate families (parents and siblings (and one sibling's spouse), only). After much discussion we decided that this event would fit our personalities and relationship the most.

We appreciate greatly those of you still interested in our story as we figure out all of our plans and hope any of you still reading will continue to check back with us. We can't guarantee frequent updates, but we'll do our best.

Thanks, all, for reading!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!