The Water's Fine

Mr. Goodlaff and I are in the thick of it now.  Almost a year ago when we got engaged and started this whole planning process, the wedding was a ways away; we knew we were planning an actual wedding, but with the date so far off, it seemed more like I was playing "wedding planning" than actually doing it.  Not anymore!

Now it's becoming very real.  We're so close now, and it's like being only a few miles away from finishing a marathon--there's still a long way to go, but looking back: we've come a long way, baby. A few months ago, we were able to just set aside projects for "later."  Now, we're running out of "later" and more things have to be done RIGHT NOW (yikes!).

Our dining room table has been taken over by wedding projects: bridesmaids gifts, cake plates, the makings of my money-made toss bouquet, the start of my wedding necklace, all the pieces needed to make our invitations.  I suppose it's a good thing that we happened to have a seven-foot piece of plywood laying around to throw on top of the table; we tossed a tablecloth on it to make it pretty, and our new "banquet table" has become our latest crap catch-all/craft station (we eat on the couch--sad, I know).

But even with all this chaos, I can see it coming together.  All our plans and work and ideas are really starting to take shape, and it feels like all this work and all these plans are really starting to pay off--theory is finally becoming practice.  The planning process can get so overwhelming sometimes, but taking a step back and looking at the awesomeness that's headed our way helps calm me down a little bit.  The next few months will be a total whirlwind, and I can't wait. Our guests are making the effort to come and celebrate this moment with us, which is both humbling and a complete honor.  I can't wait to marry Mr. Goodlaff in front of all of my family and friends; I will get to see so many people that I rarely, if ever, get to see, and I'm beyond excited! 

When I think about that and all of the special touches we're putting into our wedding, it makes all of the insanity worth it. Plus, when it's all over, Mr. Goodlaff's going to be stuck with me forever (and maybe then we'll have a normal-sized dining room table free of crap? Eh, probably not...).

When did you start to feel the planning process pay off?

Learning to Share? Still working on it...

There's a scene right at the beginning of the movie Chicago (again with the musicals!), where Velma Kelly, having just killed her husband and her sister, tells the stage manager concerned about her sister's absence and its effect on the show: "don't sweat it, I can do it alone."

In life, as in wedding planning, this is very much my mantra. Though I wouldn't say that I'm not a team player, I will tell you that all through school, I loathed group projects, and even now in the working world, I have a hard time letting go of tasks and passing them off to someone else. When I do something, I know that it's being done right. My experience constantly proved that in a group, there was always one person who didn't do their part, pull their weight, or do it right, and not wanting to fail because of something someone else had done, I always ended up picking up the slack.   This lack of trust in people is certainly a failing of mine, and I really am trying to get better, but let me tell you, old habits die hard. 

I can do it all, and I can do it alone...

A Case of the Bridal Crazies

Planning a wedding is all puppy dogs and rainbows. Before you really get into it there is nothing more exciting than the prospect of picking out the color of the napkins, the perfect dress, and making a guest list. Then, one day, you realize that the dog bites and constantly craps all over your floor, and that the rain prior to the rainbow is not a light mist, but actually sheets of pelting, torrential rain similar to the kind that causes mudslides in China.

Please forgive me. I'm not trying to hate on the planning process, I'm just suffering from a case of the bridal crazies...

Put. The Chair. Down.

Bridal Crazies: when wedding planning insanity strikes down perfectly good people; i.e. insufficient supplies for making table numbers at the store causes a mini hissy fit; lack of enthusiasm for yellow shoes causes you to see red; lights for wedding decor at a reasonable price cannot be found anywhere, so you consider taking up glass blowing and learning the art of electrical wiring so you can make them yourself; when everything matters about 7000 times more than it does in real life because it's for your wedding.

People who succumb to the Bridal Crazies are different from Bridezillas because they still retain vestiges of niceness and can recognize that they've gone batshit crazy.  Bridezillas can't or won't acknowledge their insanity and tend to be kinda mean. Big difference.

Tick, Tick, Tick...

Source

I looked at the calendar today and got a bit of a shock: the Goodlaffs have barely more than four months until our wedding. 

*cue mini freak-out*

I know that we have a lot planned out, and that everything will get done, but right now, it feels like there's an overwhelming amount of work to do and not a lot of time to do it.  We have lists.  We have lists of lists.  We have books of ideas and inspiration and game plans. But I know that there are things we need to do that I haven't even thought of yet, that I can't even conceive of yet, and that's a little bit unnerving. 

Sometimes I wish I didn't have to go to work every day. I could easily spend 24/7 planning this wedding, but until we win the lottery (it's gonna happen this time--really!), that's not really possible.  I suppose that's the challenge of planning a wedding on your own without a wedding planner to handle every little detail; it's all about balance, and looking at the calendar has me feeling just a little off-kilter right now.

I'm pretty sure that no amount of planning will prepare us for what's coming these next few months, and though I can't say with any kind of certainty that we are ready for it, I can say that we are going to meet the Goodlaff wedding challenge head-on.

When did your wedding countdown start to give you the jitters?