Taking a Break from the Wedding Planning...

Taking a side trip from wedding planning…Mr. CC and I are trying to plan a trip to New Orleans. Last year we went down to NOLA to meet up with some good friends of ours that live in CA. Her family is originally from NOLA, so this is a combo trip for them, and just an opportunity for us to see them while they are “semi-close” to where we are. Not that NOLA is that close to Austin, TX, but one state away is MUCH closer than 4 states away…

Anyway, last year at the end of our trip we all discussed making this event a yearly thing. So a few months back, we started talking about it. But, Miss CC being normal Miss CC, I only just now got serious about searching for accommodations and thinking about paying for this shindig. Mr. CC and I did discuss not going along on the trip this year due to the wedding. There is a certain amount of money that we’re trying to save up each month to pay for the wedding in cash, and taking a trip to NOLA will take a chunk out of that savings. But we both decided that we would like the break, even if it’s just a long weekend to save on costs.

But if you’re trying to take a long weekend to save on costs, I don’t recommend visiting NOLA during Jazz Fest! Hotel rates are higher, sometimes up to double what they normally are. So I’ve started trying to think outside of the box on our lodging situation. A friend of mine finds all kinds of deals on craigslist.com, so I thought I would check there for vacation rentals. Because if renting a one bedroom condo/apartment is the same price as the rates that the hotel is charging, I would MUCH rather be in my own space than stay at a hotel with a bunch of strangers, that can tend to be loud since it is a party weekend in NOLA.

I know…that begs the question of what weekend ISN’T a party weekend in NOLA? LOL!

So check out a few places that I found that fall into my budget guidelines…aren’t they SO cute?

So cute....

LOVE the french doors on the windows...

I would be SO lucky to find somewhere like this with a courtyard...

So my question is has anyone else ever gone this route on vacation? Staying in a vacation rental rather than a hotel? My aunt and uncle do this on most of their trips and they say that they are rarely disappointed with their decision, but I’m a little apprehensive. Probably just because it’s a new thing.

And of course, I can't stay completely AWAY from wedding thoughts, so while searching for somewhere to stay in NOLA, this got me thinking about my honeymoon…wouldn’t this be a great alternative on a honeymoon versus staying in a chain hotel? It would be more intimate and possibly free up some $$ for other activities, if I found a steal on a rental place…

Is anyone else opting to stay in a vacation rental for their honeymoon? Do you think this is a good alternative to consider?

Yes, I'll marry you, but not right now...

It all started almost a year and a half ago. My fiancé and I were on the phone one day, after we’d been dating about six months. I was driving to my daughter’s day care to pick her up from school and he was driving home. It was “date night” for my daughter and I - so my fiancé and I were enjoying a quick phone call before I spent the evening with her. During the course of the conversation, marriage came up. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but a part of me knew that it was a semi-serious question.

I didn’t say yes. But I also didn’t say no. I said not now. We had only been dating for about six months. But there was a part of me that wanted to say yes. I knew, deep down in the bottom of my soul that this man was the one for me. That he was the man of my dreams – the one that I had spent the last thirty years looking to find. And I wanted to say yes. And I know that I would have said yes if it had just been me. I would have married him in a heartbeat.

But the reality of my world is that it wasn’t just me. I had someone else who depended on me to take care of her – to make the best choices since now all of my choices also affected her. And my reality was that I had a five year-old daughter who had spent the last year coming to terms with my divorce from her father, and she was still having struggles with seeing me date. If it had just been me, we would have gotten engaged that day. And she was doing very well with me dating my fiancé, but there were moments that you could tell that she just wasn’t sure about the whole thing.

So I said not now. But at that moment, I knew that I loved him. Not just enough to date and be with for a while, but truly, deeply loved him. I knew that I had found someone who would stay by my side each and every day, giving into the relationship just as much (if not more) than I did every day. Someone that I cared for more and more deeply as every day passed.

From that moment on, we started planning the logistics of WHEN all of this would happen. Maybe we couldn’t talk about the marriage aspect of things yet, but we could talk about our life together and how we would take care of this or that. We started to plan what each of us wanted to do with the house that he owns, how to improve it and make it better for the four of us to live in. We talked about money and finances and our personal thoughts on debt and credit and how to handle major purchases. In short, we started to merge our lives. Slowly but surely, we made plans for the future and for the day when we knew that my daughter would be as ready as we were to take the next step.

So we talked all around it, but never really talked about the actual event. By that I mean that we talked about the day that we would be married, but not about the actual day that we would get married. We talked about everything except the wedding. Most of you girls out there are wondering how we could skip over the most important part of getting married, but it just wasn’t what was on the forefront of our minds. But all of that changed this past September…stay tuned for those discussions….