I am now afraid of my to-do list...

With only 53 days left to go until the wedding and still needing to finish my job, find an apartment, pack, and move between now and then in addition to all the remaining wedding tasks, I am feeling overwhelmed!! I know it will all get done, but these days I am afraid to look at my to-do list because I know that there are so many things that need to get done like NOW! The likelihood of out-of-town bags and favors diminishes every day...



On a totally different subject, I apologize for the lack of pictures lately. For whatever reason, I have gotten out of the habit of taking photos myself (I sealed up our second to last invitation and totally forgot to take a picture of the liner to post!) and although I still enjoy looking at pretty wedding photos, they no longer provide the inspiration for me that they once did. Now, I see something pretty but I know its not what we are going to do, so I think "oh that's lovely" and quickly move on. So, that's why you haven't many photos around lately. I am trying to work on it because I know they make my blog oh so much prettier for your viewing pleasure!

Remember to Breathe

We had a wonderful long weekend and got most of our invitations done--envelopes addressed and lined and stuffed!! I haven't taken any pictures yet, so I'll have to update tomorrow. We are still waiting on our return address stamp that we ordered from Paperwink to get them out the door, but it should arrive this weekend, so we are looking good :)

Also, I wanted to send along this link with the reminder that breathing is a great way to help you get centered and deal with stress and feeling overwhelmed. It is so easy to feel overwhelmed in the midst of wedding planning--with sometimes towering to do lists, dealing with families who don't "get" your wedding planning, and the fact that soon you will be a "wife"--but simply breathing can help keep you grounded, centered, and calm.

To Do Lists

I have been working with my own to do list that I made based on a Real Simple Wedding list and a book we purchased (and I have avoided the Knot's list with one-million to dos like the plague). We are behind!! But, I was reviewing our list and realized there were a lot of things scheduled to do by July 1st, that I'm not planning to do until August. Because I am leaving my current job mid-August and won't be starting a new one until after the wedding, I will have almost a month to get settled and do some projects. Things I was planning to do: programs, favors (unless they get scratched), other signage, welcome baskets. I noticed that my list has me scheduled to be done with everything by August 12 (one month pre-wedding). While I know that's ideal, I think for me it makes time to use that time to do projects since I won't be working. Any thoughts? I'd love to know if you think I'm crazy for planning to do so much in the last month? I think it might actually be nice to have something to keep me busy and keep my anxiety down.

I'm baaaaaaaack...

Whew! That was a wonderful whirlwind weekend/ week. The best part was showing my Mom our venues on Wednesday. It was actually the first time I had seen our hotel, Church, and reception venue all at once and it was very exciting. I can actually finally see things coming together and the details all seemed really manageable, in part, because our venues don't require much in the way of decorations.

We also went to go hear our band play on Sunday night. It was a small crowd, so we got a chance to hang out with them during their break. They are going to be great! And I am really glad we got a chance to get to know each other a little better before they perform at our wedding.

It seems like our last big decision is... catering! Less than four months out and we still don't have a caterer, but we are working with a couple people to come up with quotes, so I think that will be resolved soon.

Wow... time flies

No updates today--I have been rather, er... distracted at work lately, so to get myself back on track I am swearing off looking at blogs at work. But I am ahead of schedule today (wow! not looking at blogs really gets me working), so I have about five more minutes to poke around. We are going to be doing LOTS'o'wedding stuff this weekend:

- Friday I fly to Chicago
- Saturday we are checking out Farmer's Markets to see about ordering our DIY Flowers, meeting with our priest, I have a make-up trial, we are going to look at rings and take a dance lesson
- Sunday we are meeting with the music director at the Church, checking out venues to get goodies for getting ready, Sunday "brunch," rehearsal dinner and welcome drinks, swinging by REI to check out packs for our RTW trip, and checking out our band
- Monday we are going sailing with the future in-laws and doing centerpiece trial runs
- Tuesday we have our tasting and our parents are meeting for the first time
- Wednesday my Mom and I are going to check out the Church, hotel, and reception venue (she hasn't seen them yet)
- Thursday morning I return to Memphis (early!)

Whew!! But it's been really nice to have this long weekend to get wedding stuff done. For the past couple months we have been adding to dos for the weekend and now we are pretty booked. Hopefully, it will be productive.

Sweet Snacks

My wedding is less than five months away. Eek!! My to do list is huge! I am planning to head to Chicago over Memorial Day weekend and stay through Wednesday to get some wedding stuff done. We have schedule our tasting and will, hopefully, pick out a bakery to order our desserts from. Our plan is to NOT have a giant wedding cake, but a variety of cakes and other sweets. At one time I thought that I could make these (along with some assistance from family and friends) and while I haven't ruled that option out yet, I feel like there will be enough things to do as the wedding approaches. Especially because, ahem, I don't even have a dress yet!

* Photo from Alliance Bakery

Thursday is Here

I apologize for the lack of interesting or informative posts this week. My honey has been in town visiting (yay!), so we have been playing and relaxing and trying not to make ourselves crazy doing wedding stuff. That, plus I feel like I am stuck. I have three major items on my to do list right now, which despite spending hours on the internet and looking at zillions of options, I haven't been able to decide on: (1) a wedding gown and (2) invitations. That and we need to book our caterer (which I have just been avoiding because... gulp... they are so darn expensive and I keep hoping that I will have an epiphany or a little elf will whisper a wonderful cost-saving idea into my ear before we sign on the dotted line, alas, that hasn't happened yet). So, because I have just been spinning my wheels on the same things (and been distracted by my honey), my posting has been a little lackluster.

Productive Weekend

Well, we spent some time this weekend working on wedding stuff and managed to:

1) Finish up our Save the Date design and order them
2) Launch our Wedding Website
3) Register for our pre-Cana class
4) Send off our contract for Entertainment

Yay! We actually got something done. And we also picked out an invitation, until I changed my mind. The good news is that we are making progress, so I will count this as a successful weekend.

6 months to go...

Image courtesy of Matthew Michael Photography

Our wedding is in 6 months from today! And boy are we behind. We don't have a caterer yet and I don't have a dress yet and we haven't even sent out our Save the Dates. What to do, what to do? Take a deep breath and realize that it will all be okay and that we will figure all these little details out. The important thing is that we have a venue and a priest, so I'm pretty sure that at the very least we will be getting married that day.

Second Try's a Charm?

I apologize for allowing my little blog here to languish without any new posts for over a month (not that I am apologizing to anyone but myself because I suspect I am the only way paying attention). But, nevertheless, I find other brides' blogs so useful and it is such a great way to keep track of whatever has tickled my fancy or sparked a thought for something that could work at our wedding. So, here goes my second try at blogging about my wedding-planning experience. Since I last updated this blog, we have made some fabulous progress on our wedding (though I suspect the knot would still label us as behind schedule).

I will post more details soon, but for now here is our DONE list:

• Ceremony location
• Reception venue
• Photographer
• Block of hotel rooms near the reception location reserved

Here are the next few items I think we will be completing soon:

• Day of Coordinator
• Band
• Save the Dates
• Wedding Website

Here are the things we need to do SOON SOON SOON, but are floundering with:

• Wedding Dress!!!
• Caterer

I will create some individual posts with more details on items that we have completed and are working on shortly. I hope that now that we are making forward progress, finding something to write about here (other than, I don't know what to do and cannot make a decision to save my life, eek!) will be a lot easier.

*image courtesy of etsy seller olivemac