Home Of The Soon-To-Be Patented Hyper-Active (And Neon! Glowing) Wedding Goo*
Exhibit A:
An email received from the knot dot com, a site on which I perused for clearly far too long, and on which I definitely provided too much information, as they now see fit to joyfully! and I’m sure wholly unintentionally! remind me that I am nowhere! near finished with the preparation, for the pre-planning for what is to come, that is, of course, being the actual day set aside especially for the taking of the vows (and forcing friends and family members to dance enthusiastically for hours upon hours, or at least, take pictures! of those friends and family-members dancing enthusiastically, and video cameras? Completely! welcome, but thank you for asking):
kerri & chris,
You’ve got 6 Months to Go!
Here’s what you should be focusing
on this month:
› Shop for invitations.
› Plan the rehearsal dinner.
› Finalize your menu.
Exhibit B:
(After reading the email aloud to Chris)
“Did you hear that? And they capitalized the word ‘go.’ They mean business.”
(While Chris stares at me and blinks a few times, I pause for dramatic effect and for further pondering of how I have no interest! in thinking about ANOTHER meal when I haven’t finished started thinking about the food we are serving at the reception. I have SIX months, they said. Right? Right. SIX. Five more after one. Months, that is. Am I just entirely too relaxed right now? Should I be freaking out? Compulsively buying veils? Calling my mom to tell her WE HAVE TO GET THE DEVILED EGGS, OR EVERYTHING! IT WILL BE RUINED?)
(And then, and this is me again, talking (mostly to) myself–God save The United States, and this honorable court, and Chris–)
“Well you can bet your white linen britches! that I will be finalizing our menu this month.**”
“You are SO on top of it, baby.”
“Yes. But, I should warn you. Shopping for invitations gives me gas.”
*What happens when I’m allowed to compose post titles on no sleep, whatsoever. It made complete and utter sense to me last night. And then again this morning, at 3am, when I was STILL awake, and helping Chris pack. Now? I have NO clear (or muddled, for that matter) idea what! I was talking about. Pity. Neon goo sounds vaguely interesting.
**But only because my mom called last week to coerce me into meeting with the potential caterer tomorrow, which leads me to one, and only one, conclusion: She is secretly the founder and purveyor of the knot dot com. That’s right, Mom. I am so totally on to you.
Relax. I prepared our whole wedding in 4,5 months! and got it all done ;) you have plenty of time [well, according to me! not according to everyone else in the business ;)].
I did the whole the knot thing. And then I didn’t even have a wedding — we just got married in front of a judge.
Six months? You’ll be fine! Nobody will remember what they ate, unless it’s really, really gross. And it won’t be. Deviled eggs are always good!
My fiance and I can’t even bring ourselves to set a date because then we’ll have to make fifteen million decisions about things like deviled eggs and table settings and appease-the-parents-or-piss-them-off. We’re sorta liking city hall right now.
That site is really very useful. We used it when we were planning our wedding and it did a lot to help us stay focused and on schedule.
The best part of using their Suggestions (notice the capitalization) is that it helps keep you from freaking out at the end when you realize how much work you still have to do.
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I live for “to-do” lists. And Random Capitalizations. (That last part might have been a Fib.) But still, I agree that the lists and promptings are useful. Especially for we Procrastinators. ;)
oh, don’t be silly, you have 5 months and 3 weeks until you freak out, at least. perhaps even 5 months, 3 weeks and 6 days (give or take). be proud that you’re handling all the planning in stride. and everyone forgives you (in advance) for any freaking out that may (but i’m sure will not, really) occur. yay wedding!
——
“Yay! wedding.” That’s totally going to be my new mantra. :)
When we found out my sister’s fiance was going to be deployed, our planning timeline went from a year and a half to 6 weeks. And in those 6 weeks we managed to put together the most beautiful wedding you ever saw, for 200 people, and on a budget of about $25,000. (About $1,500 of that was the wedding dress, two maid of honor dresses (me and my other sister) and all of our dress-related expenses.) It can and has been done on less money and with less time than the ‘professionals’ want you to believe.
Lesson being: The Knot exists to drive fear into the hearts of engaged women everywhere. There is a reason it’s sponsored by companies that profit on weddings, they want you to get worked up and stressed out and start to believe that YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET MARRIED IF YOU DON’T FOLLOW THEIR GUIDELINES, and OMG, if you don’t have this done by X date then your marriage is DOOMED!
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A year and a half! to six weeks! Yikes. You guys deserve an award for that time-change. I would have just started sweating profusely and looked for the nearest plane to Vegas. ;)
You have PLENTY of time! My entire engagement was a mere 4 months and we pulled everything off. All of the mind-numbing details will come together whether it be five months, or five minutes, before you say I Do.
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That would be a fun! experiment. Becoming engaged ten minutes before you said “I Do.” Or wait, maybe those were called “arranged marriages” back in the day. Maybe not so fun. But still, simpler with respect to wedding planning. ;)
I didn’t start freaking out about my wedding until about a month before. You are doing good!
I agree - you’ll have plenty of time. My husband and I had less than 3 months to plan the wedding, and when people found out we did it all in only 3 months, they were like, “OH MY GOSH. IT LOOKS LIKE YOU PLANNED IT FOR A YEAR.”
This is true: As much time as you give yourself is as much time as you’ll need to plan it.
If you have 6 months, it will only take 6 months.
If you have a year, it will take a year.
If you have 8 weeks, it will take 8 weeks.
hun, never done it myself but i’ve been part of the planning-comitte A LOT over the last year(s) so i can second the other ladies by saying: relax! you’ve got all the time in the world to get everything done. still, it’s exciting! wehee! :)
And in the end you will be married, no matter if the devilled eggs are devilled.. :)
——
I feel compelled to tell you that my mom scoffed! at the thought of us having deviled eggs at the reception. (Granted it was sort of a joke, me bringing it up in the first place, and we do have key family members allergic to eggs, but, still) I like! deviled eggs. And I like your point. ;)
I so remember those knot emails too. They are totally stress inducing, but they have a great wedding site!
You have plenty of time. We had a year and a half engagement and our menus didnt need to be finalized until about a week before hand.
Planning a wedding can be so stressful. J and I just had a small deal in front of a judge at a bed & breakfast and I was still frazzled. Hang in there!