Picking a Wedding Date

I'm cross posting this from the Wedding Blog.

For those not in the know, Amybear is Jewish and I'm a Christian. This makes setting a wedding date a little trickier. Christians usually get married on Saturday. Jews cannot get married on Saturday because it's Shabbat. Amy's parents were married after sundown on Saturday to get around this, but they recommend against this tactic. It's a late wedding and a later reception and it really isn't much fun getting married in the dark.

This means a Sunday wedding which is unusual for Christians but not explicitly forbidden. My Church has had one in the last year or so. Not that we're going to get married in my church mind you.

The problem with the Sunday wedding is one of scheduling. Both my family and Amy's family is spread out all over the East Coast (oddly enough a lot are in Philadelphia and Hartford). So we really need to plan a travel day after the wedding.

This lead us to pick Memorial Day Weekend. It's in late May so the season is right and its a three day weekend so people can travel. We're not getting married until 2006, so we have ample time to schedule it. Yes Memorial Day weekend fills up fast, but most weddings and the like occur on Saturdays so Sundays are cheaper and stay free longer.

Unfortunately Memorial Day Weekend is also Graduation Weekend for a lot of colleges. A few cousins have already told us that they won't be able to make it because of that. They aren't students, they work in operations at a college in Connecticut, so Graduation weekend is their busiest weekend of the year and they can't take off even for a family wedding.

Amy and I discussed it and we're going to stay with Memorial Day anyway. We're going to send those cousins invitations anyway to let them know they're wanted. We may want to have a tape or DVD of the ceremony (possibly with reception highlights). We can send that to people who can't make it because of conflicts to show them we missed them and smooth over any residual tensions.