Wedding Planning is not my forte…
April 8th, 2025 // By: Cabri Caldwell
Ive been pretty honest about it but now, I am breaking down the details!
If you read about my birthday reflections, you know wedding planning was not my favorite.. (If you missed it, you can read it here!)
We got engaged in the middle of June, and immediately the “When is the wedding” questions started rolling in. Everyone meant well, but it was a little stressful not having an answer for everyone..
How do you pick one of the most important dates of your life?
It was in August that Jacob finally said - “Okay. Weve got to start planning. Lets flip a coin.” Flipping a coin is kinda our thing. Its less about the actual coin flip, and more about that quick, intuitive feeling in the split second that the coin is in the air. It helps you decide, it can give you direction. It can be a beacon of decisiveness when you cant decide between Italian and Mexican for dinner.. 😜
The conversation went something like this:
“Heads for 2024, Tails for 2025”
2024.
“Tails for Fall, Heads for winter”
Fall.
“Heads for September, Tails for October"
October
“Tails for destination, Heads for Lubbock”
Destination.
And that is how we proceeded to pick a date, the exact weekend, the location, basically all the “big” things for the wedding. What can I say friends — wedding planning isnt really my thing… 🤷
My Dream Wedding
Like most women, I am pretty sure I have been pinning wedding ideas on my Pinterest board since 2012.. The perfect dress. The beautiful cake. The must have shot list for the photographer. All these ideas I had spent years collecting were beautiful images to a perfectly curated Pinterest board. But they weren’t me & Jacob.
So I went back to the drawing board..
Jacob & I are pretty simple people. We like what we like. Quality over Quantity. Simplicity wins.
And thats how we designed our wedding..
The Venue.
I use the term “venue” loosely. We didnt actually get married at a venue.. We found a beautiful airbnb with a gorgeous backdrop for the ceremony, enough rooms to host our immediate family, and deck big enough for our first dance. It was quaint, intimate, and perfect for us. Plus, we saved a -ISH ton of money by going the Airbnb route versus a traditional venue.. It was a little crazy sending messages to strangers over an app telling them “Hey, I would love to rent out your property for a couple days, Oh! And by the way, we are going to get married there with about 60 guests.. Thats okay right??” We got shot down a couple times, but in the end, the house we found was perfect for us and what we wanted to accomplish. We had the best hosts and they were so willing to answer all my questions so I could plan and strategize our “venue” without ever seeing it in person.
The Dress.
UGHHHH. This was the part I was dreading the most after the butterflies and excitement set in after the engagement. I hate shopping. I hate shopping for normal people clothes.. I was DREADDDDINNGGGG wedding dress shopping.. So much so that I found a website online that I could “rent” dresses to try on, and if I found the one, you just kept it and paid full price. Honestly, if I could shop like that always, I would. Unfortunately, I did not do a fabulous job of choosing a good style for the dresses I tried to rent. After they got here and tried on and I realized they werent going to work, Kelli convinced me to schedule an appointment at a local Bridal Shop here.. Stage right, enter Lillie’s Bridal..
We show up to the appointment, and I hate shopping so I assume I already had a little bit of an attitude about the whole thing.. Our sweet stylist Ashlyn listened to what I was envisioning and then asked one very simple question — “Are you open to other ideas?”. I open mindedly said yes (but in my head I was hesistant, ya know?). She brings me 2 dresses, exactly as I had described - boho, lace, and a framed neckline. I try them on, and they are beautiful, but they arent my dress. This is when the magic happens. I am pretty sure she TOTALLYY was picking up on my apprehension so she said, “I have an idea”. She brings me this dress, nothing like the ones I had previously tried on, and said - “Lets just see what it looks like” and HOT DAMN. That was the dress. I put it on and suddenly I am like - “Woah, there’s pockets!” “Its so cool and breezy!” “Omg, it hid my back fat so well” If you know, you know.. 🤷
I get on the little pedestal and I am feeling this dress. Ashlyn so sweetly says - “should we try on a veil?” HELL YES WE SHOULD. Once the veil was on, I was a goner. This was my wedding dress. A complete opposite of what I had in my mind. Even more beautiful than I could have imagined.
There is a solid life lesson here - sometimes it doesn’t look like you think “it” is going to look like. (Insert whatever you need to for “it” - life, health, wealth, family, goals, marriage, kids, business, all of it). Sometimes “it” turns out better than you could have ever possibly imagined.
The Guest List.
This part was kind of hard. We have lots of people in our lives - business acquaintances, old friends, new friends, clients, hometown people, Lubbock people, and everyone in-between. We knew we wanted our wedding to be fairly small and intimate. Once we got the list together for immediate family, cousins, we had a solid 40 people on the list. We decided that for friends, we would focus on the friends who have been in our lives for at least the last 10 years. Is that weird? Maybe. Other people had comments about it.. But it gave us a great boundary on who we invited and keeping our overall number within reason for what we had planned. And if I am being honest, it was PERFECT. Minus 2 people Jacob hadn’t met from my friend group, and 4 Family members I hadn’t met from his side, we both knew everyone at our wedding. It was great to enjoy everyone’s company instead of running around trying to make introductions.
The Invites.
When you plan a wedding in 60 days, two things happen..
One - everyone thinks you are pregnant. (FYI - Im not. Maybe one of these days but that day is not today.. Hahahahaha)
Two - you have to be quick and strategic to get everything done in time.
Luckily, I am a little dangerous when it comes to Canva and creating things on the fly. A couple Etsy templates, editing in Canva, adding in a font I really liked, and having them printed, invites were a breeze.
I did make one big error… On our “details” card, we invited everyone to join us at the rehearsal dinner for a little ‘surprise’. We had decided that we were going to get baptized in the pond behind the house where we would be getting married. Well, what I didn’t realize that between planning a wedding in 60 days, AND telling everyone there was a ‘surprise’, that every single person who was invited to the wedding would assume their was also a baby announcement coming as well. Next time (there wont be a next time but you know what I mean) I’ll just be straight with everyone and tell them we are planning a baptism. That will be 10x easier and a much less-awkward conversation with our family and closest friends… 😂
Getting it all done.
Once the house was books, invites were sent to the guest list, and the dress picked out - the rest was fairly easy. We pre-booked food for rehearsal dinner and wedding night. Jacob got his clothes ordered. Photographer and videographer were hired. I ordered his ring, had decor rented, and we booked an officiant.
It was fast and furious but honestly, I was glad to get it done.
In the end it was exactly what worked for us. Simple. Easy. No pressure. With our closest people. Enjoying life and celebrating our new marriage. What more can you ask for!?
Wedding planning is not my forte.
And I’m okay with that. Because at the end of the day, we planned a wedding that felt like us—not a Pinterest board, not a tradition for tradition’s sake, and definitely not something we felt pressured into doing “the right way.” It was simple, a little unconventional, and a whole lot of heart.
And while the wedding day was incredible, there was something extra special about the night before… Our rehearsal dinner. Full of unexpected emotions, personal touches, and one slightly misunderstood surprise (still not pregnant, thanks for asking 😅), it deserves its own moment.
So next up: the story behind our rehearsal dinner—and why it might’ve been one of our favorite parts of the whole weekend. Stay tuned. ❤️