We got the place, now we need some music.

My fiance and I were engaged a little over a month ago, and a lot has happened since then.

First, you deserve some background on us, our plans, and the people helping us make it happen.

I am from NJ, and she is from NY. We currently live in NJ together. We had been dating for a little over 18 months when we got engaged. She decided that she wanted to get married close to home, and I am ok with that.

Fortunately for us her parents are very excited about the wedding, so they have been helping out. To save us the trouble of driving out there to scout out places, they spent some time weeding through many of the banquet and reception halls for us. They narrowed the pack, and we made a trip out on a Sunday to see their top two. The choice was pretty clear, and we picked one.

I'd like to tell you the name of the place, but in the interest of keeping this anonymous, I am not going to list the name of the venue or our names. I may list the vendors we are using, but I may hold off on doing that until after we get married. I haven't gotten that far yet with deciding how it would be best to handle that. If you think you know who I am, please don't post my name. Email me and I will gladly get back to you, so thanks in advance for not outing me.

Picking the place was a lot easier than I thought it would be. It was actually a no brainer. It is close to my fiance's home, it is competitively priced, and the people that work there seem great. When visiting with other halls, I thought that they would all put their best foot forward, but I learned that this isn't always the case. One place smelled bad, and the woman giving us the tour seemed disinterested. It probably didn't help that I told her that I was having a really hard time getting past the bad smell. Oh well.

Since then we have checked out music options, learned about photographers, and did some light research regarding hotels and invitations.

A great resource for us has been friends that have also been married in and around NY. We like recommendations, and I am pretty confident that at least one of them will come into play, but more on that later.

I am going to quit typing for now, but promise to return later in the week with updates, questions, and my take on the whole process.