This week I sat down and interviewed our Head of fulfillment, Kilee! She has been busy with wedding planning the last two months. Kilee sat down and spilled all of the secrets to wedding planning. We talked about timing, budget, and how to curate a wedding to YOUR style. 

Tommi: Kilee, let's start by having you tell us about how you and your now husband, Cody met. How long you've been together, give us a little rundown of you guys.

Kilee: I met Cody two and a half years ago at Walmart.  Hahaha, we were co-workers for the summer and I was dating someone else at the time. So that was kind of weird. Then I went back to school and came back for the next summer. We were still friends the whole year, so then we just picked up where we left off. Yeah, the rest is history. 

Tommi: Then when did you get engaged?

Kilee: We got engaged on June 24th. 

Tommi: So it's been a little bit over two months and your wedding is on Saturday. I want you to take us through the planning process. What was the first thing you started planning?

Kilee: Yes, so my wedding is in two days. At first I was like, “I need to find a  dress.” Main priority. So I found my dress, then we were still negotiating the date. We really wanted it to be toward the end of September, maybe October because I've always wanted a fall wedding. I was hard set on that. I'm so hard set on my fall wedding, so it just had to be that way. The second huge thing was to find the date, which we ended up changing again a few days later.

Tommi: Yeah, because it was originally going to be in October? 

Kilee: Yes, it was going to be October 1st. We ended up moving it up 3 weeks, to September 10th. 

Tommi: Right, so why did you move it up? 

Kilee: I've always wanted a fall, outdoor wedding. Honestly with climate change, it's still so hot. Truly, I feel like it would have been fine on October 1st, but I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t going to be freezing. It was so important to me that it’s outside. I’m also picky with dates, “ten” just sounds like the perfect number. It’s going to be our anniversary for the rest of our lives. I liked that day and it sounded right. 

Tommi: I love that, I would have never thought about the part of having an anniversary be that day for the rest of your life. Okay, what part of the planning process has been the hardest part to figure out?

Kilee: The hardest part is negotiating with so many people. I feel like I sometimes got taken away by what other people wanted. It was really hard for me to be firm and say “no, this is what I want. This is our wedding.” So I would say not letting others dictate and change what I knew I really wanted. 

Tommi: That is so true, I’m sure it’s also hard looking at vendors and deciding what’s going to get the most bang for your buck, but also is exactly what you want. What was your experience with hiring vendors? 

Kilee: So true. For photography, I literally just asked everyone here at work who did their wedding and who they recommended. I looked at all of them and I messaged every single one. The only person who was available on such short notice was Kara, so that worked out great and she is so amazing. 

Tommi: Okay, perfect. So do you think that was one of the things that was the hardest as in  finding availability, because it was such short notice? 

Kilee: Yes forsure. I asked a girl on my drill team to do my makeup and she couldn’t. There were definitely a lot of “no’s”. I definitely think that was because we had waited so long to ask. Everything has ended up working out fine because some co-workers are going to do my makeup. 

Tommi: It's going to be perfect. Okay, so are you doing anything that is out of the ordinary or nontraditional? What is something you're doing in your wedding that you're like, “This is going to be unique and fit our style”?

Kilee:  I love to roller skate, so we will be roller skating at our wedding reception. We are so excited. We literally practiced with a group of friends two days ago. We just got it all together. I was like, “okay, this is perfect. This is exactly what I want.” I want people to come to our wedding and be like, “This is so Kilee. This is so Cody.” I don't want to just have another basic wedding. 

Tommi: That's going to be so cute. I am so excited to see it all! I agree with having things be unique. It is hard to be different but also weigh what is in and what is out, but it is also what you want. 

Kilee: Exactly, and it is hard to be different in our culture. We are literally doing a ten minute ceremony and then having private vows. It is so hard to say something so personal in front of a lot of people. 

Tommi: That is so cool, I love that idea. Short and simple. 

What’s your day going to look like? Take us through how you are planning the whole day to go. 

Kilee: For me, I’m always late. I know that I need a lot of time to get ready and feel prepared. I'm going to sleep in. I’ll wake up and shower, then do my hair. I'm going to take my time to get to my grandma's house. (Which is where the ceremony will be taking place.) Friends will be there to do my makeup. I'll be ready, then my mom will put me in my dress. We'll be all set and have the ceremony at 3:00. It will be very short. Not too short, but sweet, simple, and to the point. 

After the ceremony, we will celebrate and take photos. Then we will have a 

luncheon. A little lunch/dinner situation. It’s going to be Jimmy Johns which is going to be so amazing. I worked there for two years so it is very “Kilee”, and my family knows that. 

Tommi: Okay I am so obsessed with this day I love the simplicity of the ceremony. Is the meal going to be a family meal? 

Kilee: Yes, just those who were at the ceremony. Those invited to the ceremony are going to be very close friends, immediate, and extended family. We are all so close so most of my extended family will be there. 

After the meal, we will set up for the reception. At the reception, I literally just want the vibes to be so fun, loud, happy, and have music playing the whole time. I want to play the shoe game. It looks so fun. 

Tommi: Is that the one where they raise the different shoes? That's so fun.

Kilee: Yes, and then we will cut the cake and do some of the traditional stuff. We will do the first dance, then the dances after that. At the end of the reception, we will change into overalls. That is when we will put on our skates and do the hustle with all of our friends. 

I'm so excited for that part. Then we’ll take our skates off and we'll do a rose petal getaway. We're gonna get on the four wheeler for the getaway and that’s it!

Tommi: Oh my gosh, Kilee! That is going to be so cute. It will be so fun to see all of this. What time do you plan on starting the reception? When is the getaway?

Kilee: The reception starts at 6:00 and the getaway is at 8:30PM.  

Tommi: How do you feel about people doing a receiving line? 

Kilee: I don’t personally want to do that. It's too monotonous and I don’t know half of them who are hugging me. I know a lot of my friends have said that they’re not doing a line and it just ends up happening. The theory is to just keep moving so a line doesn’t form, haha. My problem is that I want to talk and catch up with everyone. I know I will need to keep it short. 

A lot of my friends have also said that they didn’t even get to spend time with their spouse at the wedding. That is a key thing I want. I want to be next to Cody the whole time and cut out time for just us. 

Tommi: I totally agree. You have to make sure you eat the food you paid for. I’ve also heard that after a significant part of the day has happened, you should take out your phone and film or voice record in the moment so that you can look back and really remember your feelings. You'll be able to go back and be like, “ That was such a fun time.” It really brings back memories that were in the moment. Just take five minutes to savor the moment and take it in and talk about your favorite parts of the day. 

Kilee: Okay I love that idea. We are definitely going to be doing that. That is so cute. 

Tommi: Okay, do you have any tips? Do you have one tip that you're like, “I wish I would have done this.” or, “this is what I did and it was so helpful.”

Kilee: I would say my biggest tip and regret is not giving us enough time to plan. Looking back, I would’ve gotten engaged sooner. I wanted a fall wedding so badly, so we were in a time crunch.

Tommi: So like a month sooner? A year sooner? 

Kilee: I feel like honestly even a few weeks or any more little bits of time, because we are scrambling the last details. Yeah, so I would say, because I didn't give myself enough time, I don't feel like I got to fully enjoy the process. I felt like everything was just needing to happen so fast.  Instead of being like, “Oh my gosh, I'm so excited I'm going to go dress shopping” Things were just more stressful. Not that I didn't enjoy it, because there are times that I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is so awesome.” But yeah, like I said it just went so fast. We definitely didn’t give ourselves enough time for setbacks. I was stressed to depend on other people for time crunch situations. 

Tommi: Well I know everything is going to turn out so beautiful. Thank you so much Kilee, I know your wedding is going to be so amazing!