The Rabbit Hole...

Despite my best efforts... it's happening!

I suddenly find myself awash in a bunch of little things I'd "like" to do for the wedding. Here is just a list of a few:

1) Invitations on the Gocco. Which requires my actually designing the whole thing... could be dangerously time consuming. Not to mention soul consuming. But secretly, that is really why I bought the Gocco, so I can't not do it now!

2) Gifts for our Guests. I really want to make something for the guests. Last night I was thinking custom buttons (you know, like the little ones you get passed out by bands and stuff). I saw the idea somewhere on the internet... and it looks soo cute! I figured I could do some flower pins for the girls (I can easily make those) and then some of the button pins for the guys in attendance. I've thought about other things, but so far, this is all that stuck.

3) Custom veil. This is mostly because I'm CHEAP! There is no way I'm spending $40+ just for a veil. No way. $12 in (the netting was purchased from the internet this week - I bought two kinds so that was already more than necessary!) we'll see how much it really ends up costing me.

4) Cupcake flags. I love cupcakes... and I love the idea of little flags in them! Necessary? Not even CLOSE. There are going to be 20 people there for goodness sakes... 20 people who just want to EAT the cupcakes... not look at my flags.

On top of that, I'm trying to plan everything for our honeymoon. I've now had 2 seperate nightmares where we were on the cruise and 100% unprepared for anything on the port stops. We didn't know where to go, what to do or anything. It was horrible. We were in Rome... but couldn't get anywhere! Hopefully I can clear some of those fears up this Saturday when we actually get down to booking things and I get started with actually planning things. I'm scared to do it now for fear I'll jinx it. I know. I'm dumb.

Waiting Game...

So as I said in my last post... we're waiting to book our vacation until we get everything set "officially" this coming Saturday. Zach wants to make sure that we get the wedding set before we make the reservations and such, which makes sense I guess.

With that in mind though... we're in a bit of a holding pattern. We can't really officially invite anyone until we know things for sure, so it's like it's real, but well, it isn't exactly. So knowing that we have 2 months until this thing goes off, and knowing there is much to do, what have I been doing? Plotting.

1) Invitations. Although Zach would be happy with an evite, I'm looking to put my Gocco to good use and making some homemade invites for our handful of guests. I'm already working on the wording for them, something lighthearted but that has the details our guests will need. I'll post something when I get it more finalized.

2) Honeymoon planning! I love vacation planning, and coming up with a plan for the length of time we'll be gone requires some serious research. I'm already trying to figure out just what we want to do in each port, and I'm looking at some private tour options which are surprisingly inexpensive if you work with a full group. Luckily cruisecritic.com is a great place to meet up with other cruisers to do tours together and save some cash!

3) Veil planning. I want a bird cage veil. Those things are EXPENSIVE! So I'm going to do it myself. How hard can it be? Famous last words right? I ordered some netting from an on-line store so we'll see how it goes!

It's Official...

I'm finally excited!

We've ran it past parents, I've ran it past my boss (for vacation/furlough day considerations) and we've reviewed our schedules. All things considered... this new plan is 100% doable!

In all of the excitiment of talking to parents and really thinking about moving forward... I started to get excited. I finally started to think about this happening... and how wonderful it is going to be!

So what is the next step?

1) Apply for our marriage license. Evidently, once you apply you have 60 days to use it, but you can't use it in the first 24 hours (I guess they want to make sure you have time to sleep on it?). Luckily, the downtown Chicago branch has Saturday hours from 9 - noon, so we can apply then.

2) Sign-up for the Cultural Center Wedding! We have to sign-up in person at the Marriage Court downtown. We also need to have our marriage license in hand. The Marriage Court also has Saturday hours as well, so we can knock these both out next weekend, since the "60 day" mark will be hit next week Wednesday.

3) Once we get the cultural center situation and our marriage license, we'll be booking the cruise and our flights. We figure we will wait until then JUST in case....

A Crazy Idea... Turned to Reality!

After that last post I got to thinking about seriously considering changing up our plan for the wedding.

So I did some more research (Google and I are basically best friends these days..) and determined that I could get a 12-day Mediterranean cruise, that includes an overnight stop in Egypt, for $1,200 per person. Pretty sweet. Of course, it also left in March, which is pretty darn soon. Oh yeah, and being on vacation in Europe for 12+ days has a few extra expenses beyond that $1,200 per person cruise cost (most of which I think I've attempted to capture in one serious spreadsheet!)

I started mulling it over and thought... we could actually maybe do this. Wouldn't that be SWEET? Who doesn't want to start married life off with a trip to visit PYRAMIDS!? Not to mention we could stop over in Paris and visit Zach's sis on the way back, which is something we were really hoping to do.

So I ran it past my man. And he thought it was a decent idea. So I started doing more research... and of course March is a busy time for the cultural center, so no wedding there in March. What does that mean? We can move the cruise back to FEBRUARY and go for even cheaper. Please disregard the fact that it will actually be COLD in Paris in February. Whatever, we'll be in Paris!

What does it mean? Well.. it means we'll be having a tiny ceremony at the Chicago Cultural Center (immediate family only really), going out to lunch, and then hitting the airport for our flight out to Barcelona. Talk about a great first "night", we'll be on a plane, but whatever. We've got plenty more nights of married bliss to enjoy after that...

It will be a tiny wedding... but that is really just fine by me. We'll be heading on a once in a lifetime vacation to start our married life, and I think that is what is most important to us. Little fanfare, big on the amazing, totally selfish, vacation time! :)

I'm Seriously Losing Motivation...

So remember when I bought my dress? Yeah... that was pretty much the last time I really actively planned anything for this wedding and I couldn't really care less.

Zach and I have been focusing on other things... most specifically exactly how we are going to get him through a year long piano tuning school that starts next year (and for which we can probably NOT take out student loans.) I'm so excited that he has decided on something to do and I think we both want him to get started as soon as possible. We'll probably already be moving the date up a week or two at least due to his potential school schedule next fall.

I am SUPER excited about this big change for Zach. I think it is a perfect fit for him and I think it will be a good fit for our future. I've already even been researching the stuff and books he will need for school, despite the fact that we haven't actually figured out how to pay for it yet. :)

I can safely say that I am really more excited about this opportunity for HIM than I am about the wedding. You see, I'm a selfish girl that way and I'm very excited about getting married and going on our honeymoon...

BUT...

There are a number of things I'm dreading:

1) FAMILY - I'm getting a little nauseous at the thought of ACTUALLY having all of our family and and close friends in one place at the same time. Really, it's the family that is the problem. You see, my mom and dad are, at the very least, ackward in each other's presense, but they'd probably be fine (they were both at my brother's for Thanksgiving, and all was well.) Zach's mom and dad on the other hand, well, we've been dating for 4+ years, and I've never even seen them in the same room. They got officially divorced not too long before Zach and I started dating. Thinking about them in the same room definitely makes me feel a little bit freaked... especially if Zach's dad's girlfriend would be there too (which I imagine she would, unless of course we just don't invite her, which I guess is an option...). Frankly, girlfriend issue aside, it could be ugly and I don't want ugly on OUR day.

2) LOGISTICS - One of the things I like least in life is figuring out how to make everything happen. Figuring out the logistics of getting about 28 or so people with varying degrees of Chicago knowledge to the same places in downtown (read, EXPENSIVE PARKING) Chicago on a Saturday relatively early in the morning is a little daunting.

3) GUEST LIST - I've already created a mock guest list for our small wedding... and I already see some potential problems of hurt feelings here or there. I know this sounds silly, but I'd rather offend everyone by not inviting them, then only offend some. Silly hey?

4) HONEYMOON LUST - I really want a wonderful honeymoon. So bad I can taste it. In fact, as I'm writing this I am trying to figure out once again how I can pull off a Mediterranean cruise on a REALLY limited budget (with a quick layover in France to see Zach's sis too). I dream WAY more about the honeymoon than anything else, which probably means that's where I should put the cash right?

Getting the dress... part 2

So Drew and I were feeling pretty close. I couldn't stop staring at myself in the mirror and I was pretty in love.

I continued to try on dresses, and I think I made it through almost everything in the collection.

Then, my sales lady starting bringing out the sale dresses. First I tried on a dress whose name totally escapes me. I had been a pretty heavy stalker of Melissa Sweet and POB but I had never seen this particular dress. I liked it a lot and the longer I looked at it the more I liked it. Oh yeah, and it was on sale. I'm a sucker for sale.

I twirled around in it for a while... and everyone seemed to like this one best. Drew was still on my mind.

To help make the call I decided to try on some other dresses. Great way to make a decision right? Instead of looking at the two you love, add another one to the mix. So out came Nell.

It was LOVE at first try-on. I'd say love at first sight but that would be a big lie. I had seen Nell on-line and I wasn't actually all that impressed. She was nice, but I just didn't think it would be that exciting. So its ok if you see the picture above and think, REALLY? Once I got it on I was SOLD. And it has POCKETS?! Who doesn't love a wedding dress with pockets!? Zach's thought, "I just sort of guessed you'd get one with pockets. It just seems right."

After a few more twirls I was sold, Nell, who was also on sale, would be mine.

Did I 100% loose my mind? Probably. But with my future husband standing there telling me to buy it, how could I not? So it was at least 3 times what I thought I'd spend. Oh well. I can always sell it after the wedding, and make at least half of that back, so it won't be to bad. Or at least that's what I told myself as I handed over the credit card to do the deed. :)

So I have my dress!! I couldn't believe it... I really didn't plan on leaving with a dress. In the car on the way home Zach admitted that he figured we would spend at least $1,000 for my dress, despite all my earlier musings about finding a white bridesmaid dress. Just one more reason I love this man.

Sometimes I get a *little* Jealous...

And even I know it is silly to wish they were in someone else's shoes... but isn't it hard some times?

Lately I've found myself wishing that I had a different set of circumstances to deal with surrounding our engagement. I by no means wish that I wasn't with Zach, but I wish that somehow our engagement could be at a time when we could truly focus on celebrating our engagement and the commitment we are making and plan a wonderful wedding together. That at this time we weren't so burdened with so much other "stuff" that we can barely see the "woods through the trees" so to speak. Zach's unemployment really makes everything so up in the air that the idea of trying to even save the extra $5,000 or so necessary to pull this thing off is almost too daunting to mention.

I guess I just wish I could have someone else's engagement period (and maybe wedding budget) so that I wouldn't have to worry so much right now and could just enjoy it. Instead I find myself worrying so much about how we're going to pay for the damn thing that I can't even focus on what it means. I want our wedding to be a meaningful wonderful day but right now all it is is stressful... and it isn't even going to be a big wedding! I guess maybe someone else's problems would only be worse if they were trying to plan something grand.

Maybe my problems aren't so bad after all...