11 May Our Big Wedding Takeaway…and What’s Next

It’s been a bit quiet around here, as we took off a few weeks from posting between gearing up for our big day, and some time to recover after it was over.

After all of the excitement has passed, we have finally had a few minutes to catch our breath.  Planning a wedding is HARD, ya’ll! Adding all that extra work onto our plates made for some very hectic days (weeks, MONTHS). We were definitely some stressed out business owners!

Now that the dust has settled, we’ve had a chance to take a look around and reflect on what the heck just happened in the last year! It’s been a whirlwind of a year, and we have certainly come with a few takeaways after our experiences.

The best thing we did during wedding planning:

Throughout the wedding planning process, we were sure to do it all our way. 

At first, we were pretty certain that we would elope and come back to celebrate with family and friends. Fiji, Italy, the Caribbean, all kinds of exotic locations were on the list…but nothing really stuck.

So when we decided to do a ceremony and reception in town, we were absolutely unapologetic about doing it our way. We set the expectations early on, and we stuck with them. This is the best thing we could have done. Each and every decision made was our own. We had complete control over everything – down to the color of the napkins! This was so empowering! We loved having the opportunity to make our day extra personal and intimate.

Not only did this make decisions easier, we were also able to get super creative. By keeping the ball in our court, we ended up with an amazing wedding day, with every detail designed just for us.

Looking Forward:

We’ve never been so happy to be back to “business as usual”. 

After 18 months in the business, it felt like we were really catching our stride in the summer of 2016.

And then we got engaged.

We were so over-the-moon ecstatic, but if you’re reading this, you know how we are about our business. Lugo & Co. is our passion, and it’s meaningful work to us. So, the pressure was SO. ON. when we realized we wouldn’t have much help with the planning. Juggling two businesses with eight months of wedding planning on our own was difficult, to say the least. It will definitely take some time for things to get back on stride.

Now, we are revisiting the projects that got sidelined during the last few months. We have the time and focus to take a 10,000 ft view of our business, and plan for what’s ahead. We’ll get to take a step back and kick the tires, oil the gears, and get everything running in tip-top shape.

It kind of feels like this: Commercial aircraft are designed for continuous flight. When the aircraft are grounded, fluids tend to coagulate. Critters can get into places they shouldn’t be. The whole thing just tends to get a little rusty. So, planes stay in motion, and receive regular maintenance at varying intervals of flight hours. We are in a period of inspections and maintenance, and it feels really good to grease up the gears.

What’s Next:

We know we are our own toughest bosses, but no one can run at full speed, 24/7 and expect for things to continue running smoothly. Over the last few years, we’ve gotten into the habit of only going on vacation once every 12 months or so. We definitely don’t take many days off while in-town, because it’s just too easy to hop on the computer or phone and respond to emails. You can see how that leaves us with very little balance between tending to our personal lives and relationships, and the business. Going forward, we are hoping to spend more time nurturing our new marriage and getting away.

And…a honeymoon!

Our honeymoon is going to be in mid-June (yay!). While every day we wake up counting down the days till beach time, we are so happy to be relaxing back into our routine! Okay, it is a little nerve-wracking to think that in just a month we will be out of town for 10 whole days. But we are really looking forward to reconnecting and getting inspired again! Somehow, we realized that we haven’t travelled together – just the two of us – in almost two years. TWO YEARS! We are SO ready to have some quality time together!

For the honeymoon, we will be traveling to Grenada. It’s a tiny island country just north of Venezuela on the top end of South America. Sandals La Source is known for their adults-only, all-inclusive accommodations. One look at this photo has us dreaming of that white sandy beach and the beautiful resort pools! This resort has been calling our name for some time now, and we can’t wait to pay them a visit! We are so excited to chronicle a bit of our stay with beautiful images and videos to share when we return!

While we won’t be completely off the grid, we will certainly spend some time journaling and getting back to the basics of what we expect from this life together. We can’t wait to share some of the things we have in store when we return!

Stay in touch — we will have a full wedding day recap once we have the video and photography in! We are so looking forward to dishing on our special day with you!