Nine Months! Thursday, October 8, 2009

This week marks nine months until the wedding. It also means I am halfway through our engagement.

Holy moly.

I realize many people successfully plan their weddings in a lot less than 9 months, but for me, it's a milestone; not only is it the halfway point, but it's about the time that I've started to look more closely at our wedding as something more than some abstract day in the future.

When I'd speak with vendors, especially early on, it was just impossible for me to imagine the actual wedding. I knew I wanted to marry FH, sure. And I knew I wanted our family & friends there, and that I wanted things to be beautiful and interesting and for everyone to be happy. But I think that's all I knew, and all I needed to know. After all, isn't it more important to focus on the big picture of what a marriage and wedding means?

My abstract thinking was helpful in every instance but one, but I'm glad for my little photographer crisis. I could finally picture this wedding as something real, and relate it to me personally, and start to imagine myself as a bride. Maybe it's related to FH and I having a relatively short courtship, or maybe it's because for so many years I thought I'd only be relegated to taking pictures of brides, and not being one. Who knows? But it's here now, and there's no denying it.

In the next 3 months, I'd like to:
- Decide on: Floral/table décor, a dress (!)
- Book: Portrait photographer, wedding planner, officiant, ceremony & cocktail hour musicians
- Initial meetings with planner & DJ
- Finish our website
- Plan/book our upcoming trip (see below)

Let's see... what have I done so far?
- Finished: Budget, timeline, guest list.
- Booked: Venue/caterer, photographer, DJ, florist.
- Found: Fabric store/seamstress (for the dress!), wedding planner
- Purchased: Bridal jewelry.

And just when it seems that we've checked off another item, we end up adding another one. With the addition of our new photographers, who are out of state, we need to travel to have our engagement session done. We thought about having them visit us here in Dallas, but it seemed prohibitive for a 2 hour photoshoot. As it turns out, FH has some friends in their area, and for the same amount we could go visit a new (to me, anyway) city and have some great pictures done.

Can anyone recommend any must-sees in Chicago?


Previous "countdown" posts

One Year to Go! Monday, July 6, 2009

My fiancé sweetly pointed out that our "one-year" date is coming up pretty soon! I am *so lucky* to have a guy who's so unabashedly excited that we're going to get married. And I'm thrilled, too! But oh, wow... a year! I've already been engaged for six months. What have I done?

We've created our:
- budget,
- guest list,
- wedding website,
- store registries,
- timeline
We have chosen the following vendors (we haven't booked them yet):
- Invitations
- Florist
- DJ
- photographer
- hair/makeup artist
- wedding planner
And we've selected a honeymoon destination.

The last vendors to select: a cake baker, an officiant, and musicians (ceremony & cocktail hour).

What's holding us up? Well, we're currently working on the most important vendor of all: a venue! Once we find that, we'll be able to book the other vendors in no time! I won't even choose a dress until we have the venue in place.

In the meantime, I'm packing up to move to my fiancé's house, preparing for an upcoming photoshoot, and hanging out with my friends & enjoying my days off!

One year to go!