Weddingbee boards

I moved from the midwest, where I grew up, to Alaska, where I curently live, work, and love every second of it. It is important that finances be in order, and I am glad one of you would be getting a job before you head out. Something that I didn't realize when I took the job here is that though my employer paid for relocation, they didn't do it until after my 3 month probation period. All in all it took about 3000 for me to move the distance, I had a small appartment and found a bigger one when I knew the area better.

I reccomend looking for groups in the area and asking them questions if you can, I found some local groups for things I was interested (climbing, skiing, knitting, ect.) and they were very helpful in helping me get a feel for the town from an insiders perspective. They also becuase some of my closest friends once I finally did move. Its not easy to move to a new place where you don't know anyone, even though you have you SO its a good idea to branch out as soon as possible.

We moved out of state - we're both from the same hometown, so our situation was similar. However, we moved so I could attend graduate school. We LOVE our new city. We are close enough that we can drive home for holidays, but we only go home 3-5 times during the year (and only for a weekend at a time).

Definitely check out the living situation. We made the mistake of not doing our research before first moving here and ended up in an overpriced apartment that was not well-maintained. Try to schedule visits in apartments at a few different areas of the city. Obviously this is different if you plan to buy.

Good luck! I would suggest at least a long weekend (3-4 days) to scout out the city's potential. 

We are in the process of making the decision of doing the same thing. DH would have work, it is just a matter of making that decision of what we want for our future.

I've been doing lots of research online of the area, jobs, housing. Finding out about activities, groups, rec centers, shopping, restaurants, gyms etc in this town. Definitely save to move as it is expensive and you want to be able to afford to live for a while if one of you isn't working.

2 years before we were married we moved 15 hours from where we were. He moved about a month ahead of time to get settled into our new place and into his job and make sure it would work out. It was a hard month but we made it through. If we do decide to move this time he would do the same thing again but this time he will probably go 2 months before me and I will go for a visit after a month and check out the area and then if we like it a month later I would move to joing him and if we decided not to go ahead, he would just work another month or two and come home. He works for himself, so it is not a big deal.

Good luck with your decision, it will be fun and exciting!