Mela and Brandon are a super cute couple that we are working with to help them plan their November wedding this fall at Bay 7 in Durham.  Mela is not only one of our lovely brides but also a dear, childhood friend of mine.  Mela and I met in the 4th grade at the age of nine and became inseparable.  We’ve kept in touch through all these years (Mela and her family lived in Germany for a few years and we both went to different colleges hundreds of miles away) so when Mela told me she was engaged to Brandon and planning her wedding here in North Carolina, I was so excited to help out!  Mela and Brandon booked Martha Manning as their wedding photographer and the pictures in this post are from their engagement session in January!  One of these pictures is not from Martha Manning- see if you can guess which one it is. 🙂

I asked Mela a few questions about her wedding below:

Tell me how Brandon proposed:  Brandon proposed on Friday, September 23.  I had to work late that day, but Brandon left work early to pick up the ring. He was so anxious having the ring that he couldn’t wait to propose so he decided he would propose as soon as I got home.  When I got home that night I was so tired from the week, so I just grabbed some snack mix and a glass of juice and sat on the couch.  Brandon was standing in the kitchen acting really strange and asked me to come over there.  I grabbed a handful of snack mix and stuffed it in my mouth.  When I got in the kitchen he got down on one knee and proposed.  I couldn’t answer right away because I was still chewing on my snack mix.  By the time I could say anything I was crying and could barely get out any words, but of course I finally said yes!

What aspect of planning the wedding has been most/least enjoyable?

• The most enjoyable has been learning more about my fiance and becoming closer to him.   Brandon has been a great support and calm voice of reason for me while we handle the stressful parts of planning our wedding. I’ve also really enjoyed being able to have special moments with people I love, like shopping for my wedding dress with my mom and getting to spend time with Megan again.  I think this is the most we’ve been able to see each other since we were in high school. 🙂

• The least enjoyable has been understanding that we won’t be able to please everyone in every aspect of our wedding.  Its definitely been a learning experience to politely express our decisions that may differ from a family member’s wishes.

Advice for any recently engaged brides to help them stay stress-free thoughout the planning process:  Yes!  A few things…

1.  Hire a wedding planner!  Having Megan be able to guide us through the planning process, help us select vendors and make important decisions that we may not know how best to approach has been invaluable.
2. Take wedding planning at a pace that you’re comfortable with.  Brandon and I didn’t want to feel rushed in planning a wedding, so we gave ourselves a year to plan everything.
3.  Take a break.  If things get stressful, just step away, breathe, and take some time to think.  Usually whatever upset me in the beginning really wasn’t a big deal when I take time to think about it.  Yoga is great for this!
4. Accept people’s offers to help!  Your friends want you to have a great wedding day and they want to help make that happen.

On the day of, what are you most excited about and why?  I’m most excited about being able to see our friends and families in one place.  Our friends and families live all over the country, so we rarely get to seem them. It will be so nice to be able to get everyone together and celebrate with them. 

Favorite childhood memory with Megan:  Most of my childhood memories are with Megan, so its hard to choose a favorite.  Something that has always been special to me is a Christmas card that Megan gave me in 5th grade.  The card was one that had a voice recorder and Megan recorded a message that said “Merry Christmas!  I hope you like your present”.  I thought that card was the coolest thing ever.  I kept the card and it made me smile everytime I found it in my boxes when I moved around over the years.  I still have the card, but unfortunately the recording stopped working years ago.