Wednesday, February 23, 2011

My Plateau - but it's a beautiful 500 days until...

My wedding. I am calling this my plateau because I have officially hit it. Smacked into it. Broke a couple of teeth. I'm just not excited at the moment, maybe it's stress, maybe it's that thing where you hate the dark and the cold because it makes you depressed. You know that whole piece of advice that says "don't talk about your wedding all the time with your friends and family because then they won't want to spend time with you." Welp, I don't want to spend time with wedding me.

I think I got too excited in the very beginning. Too gung ho - I got too happy in the beginning and on a roll to pick out colors and my dress and more and more stuff. But I didn't take a second to realize I need to soak up my engagement first. I need to appreciate time with my FI, not make every time I am with my FI about him being my co-wedding planner. It should be natural, I should be excited...but right now I just want a piece of pizza, a beer & some good TV.

I will get to the bag of wedding stuff from the Expo this weekend eventually, and I will pick out my centerpiece materials and my photographers next week. I just want to procrastinate this week. I want to hang my head low and just be engaged and happy about it. My FI is sooooooo excited about our wedding, he has the planning jitterbug now. I don't want him to see that I am not so excited and get bummed.

Wedding karma fairy, please give me back my engagement jitter excitement....oh please, please, please.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

"What - 20 months is plenty of time to plan without ANY stress"

The golden words that I spoke - oh 5 months ago. Let me tell you how that is working so far: I have 20 out of 525 things done, I have cried because I am overwhelmed 4 times, and I still can't so no to anyone. That means, the golden words aren't worth a golden crap.

Allow me to start at the beginning, we had a beautiful engagement on October 9th, 2010 and I knew I wanted to get married on July 7th, 2012. That granted me 20 (minus 3 days) months, 20 months to relax and do-it-myself plan my whole wedding without having to hire anyone. I was ready for this, I was BORN ready for this! I had put that my-size barbie wedding dress on when I was 5 and began the journey as the girl in 27 Dresses. Kate Heigl has nothing on me, I live that movie. I can tape a boob, do some hair, nails and feed the whole bridal party without a sweat, with 6 weddings under my belt to prove it - my wedding would be NO problem.

It all started with one minor (haha MAJOR) change. My fiance(FI) and I were planning a gorgeous big cathedral wedding in Pittsburgh. The whole nine yards, we even found a beautiful church and reception site that fit our colors. Yeah...that was until lunch with my Mom, where I was reminded I overlooked a HUGE issue. My family was not going to lug their WV/MD/VA butts up to Northern PA - so I either got my Pittsburgh wedding family-less or I had to have one of the hardest come-to-Jesus conversations with my FI I did not want to have. We moved it to VA, and I had to let go of one of my and my FI's biggest wedding dreams.

So, we are getting married in VA - at the church we attend together and it's a wonderful choice. We also found a place that will hold our guests. Which brings me to my next hair puller. The guest list. In PA a guest list of 300 isn't bad because you can find places to put them and feed them for $16 a person, and that is a beautiful thing. In VA, not so much. If there are places that hold 300, it costs $90 a person...and I am def. not Princess Di who could afford that. I did a long search, with no rescue. Until the Expo Center came to me. I know it doesn't sound very fancy, but it's perfect for us...and the 230-250 guests I decided we should cut it down to.

So, guests...guests, guests, guests, guests, guest. The battle I will never win. I finally got argued to 250. I gave my Mom(MOB) & My Future-Mom-In-Law(FMIL) a blank list of 100 spaces for names & addresses, and we got 50. Called it a day. Then, our 50 went to 60. So, now we are back at 300. Oh, 300 if you grow any bigger I will just book a trip to Fiji, and cancel this whole thing. Get a priest on a beach, and get married in front of the starfish. That's it!

Lastly, for my ramble today...we get to the fact that I can't say no. Ever heard the saying "opinions are like buttholes, everyone has one"? Welp, everyone is sharing theirs...and I am agreeing with all of them. NOT a good thing for a bride planning her perfect dream wedding, which is turning into everyone elses dream wedding. It almost happened to my dress, but I put my foot down. So, the objective for the next 5 months is learn to say no.

I will continue the daily battle with the FI, MOB, FMIL & $$$...keeping the updates along the way. Hopefully I come out of the next 15 months without a bald spot.