We have been together for 6 years, and have two awesome children. We never thought we were the marrying types, until I was pregnant with my second child and soon thereafter was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. You can read about that story on my other blog. But don’t worry, I’ve been in remission for a year and a half, and now we’re planning a wedding!
You can imagine that we don’t want to spend a crap-load of money since we have other obligations, not to mention our ideas about the over-priced wedding industry. It started when we cooked up our idea of a perfect wedding together and attempted to follow-through with the planning. Dan and I want to get married on July 3rd, 2009 which is a Friday night. The river market area in Kansas City puts on a fireworks display that night so we thought it would be beautiful to get married in the dowtown area so our guests could view said fireworks.
So we looked into a venue (which I won’t name here) that was advertised to be $1000 for a 4 hour time period. We were delighted and began envisioning our wedding in this outdoor rooftop venue! Our next step was to talk to the event manager and sign contracts. When he caught wind it was for a wedding the price suddenly rose to $5000 which we of course were not willing to pay. My heart was broken. So I decided to ask my friends and family for help.
I posted a Craig’s List quandry asking people with apartments, condos, or business buildings downtown if we could rent their rooftop for a wedding. I emailed friends and family. I IMed my friends. I posted the link on Facebook. I started getting responses! After a few leads that didn’t pan out, I got a link to an article in the Kansas City Star from a friend on Twitter about a community park being built on the roof of the parking garage next to the new Cosentino’s Market downtown.
Read the article here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/story/977977.html
I called the journalist who wrote the article and the Marketing Director for Cordish who manages the park. And then I realized what I was doing. I was using my mad social networking skills to plan my wedding my way with help from some very nice people on the Interwebs. So this blog is all about how Dan and I are bucking the system to make this occassion our very own, using help from our friends, family, and online community. You will find me most often “tweeting” about it on Twitter.com by looking here: http://twitter.com/twig1gy, or on Facebook.com. I also use IM, or chat, email, and now this blog.
Thanks for visiting!
Hillary and Dan
“And then I realized what I was doing. I was using my mad social networking skills to plan my wedding my way with help from some very nice people on the Interwebs.”
This is a very cool focus. I’m looking forward to what’s next. Oh and congrats!!!
This is so cool what you are doing. I just started a wedding blog a little while ago http://www.weddingpenguin.com I will keep my eye out for cool stuff for you guys. You can also follow me on twitter http://www.twitter.com/melissaleon. Looking forward to your next post.
So did you get the rooftop park?