We’re in the home stretch ladies and gentlemen! The invitations have been signed, sealed and delivered and all that is left to do is tie together all the millions of details I’ve envisioned in my mind! While wedding planning has been a consistent part of my life for the last five months, I have a feeling it will be consuming my life for the next two. I’m trying to focus on enjoying the process rather than letting it overwhelm me – you only get married once!
Invitations
After an awful invitation debacle involving a shady Etsy vendor who ran off with my money (note to anyone who is in the market for a deceptively easy way to appear crafty without actually owning a glue gun or paint brush – always read Etsy reviews before purchasing and never purchase from someone with very few or no reviews!), a good friend of ours was able to design and print new invitations for us. I ultimately ended up liking the new version more and we saved $100 in the process! Even better, our friend is also designing several other things for our big day including our ceremony program, favor tags and thank you cards. Knowing someone who is savvy at graphic design is definitely handy!
Assembling, purchasing stamps, creating the belly band and addressing all 93 envelopes (for 173 people) was time consuming but enjoyable for me. It wasn’t nearly as painful to address the envelopes as I thought. I just tried to not be a perfectionist when it came to anything, otherwise it would have taken me a month to do it all! Having a return address stamp also saved a ton of time!
Ceremony
Our ceremony is coming along well. We’re getting married at the same place as our reception which is at a rowing club on the bay in San Diego. We are writing our own ceremony with the help of our officiant, a good friend of ours and a groomsman of Mike’s. He has been incredibly supportive and stayed with us for a whole weekend in June, during which he asked us a million questions about our relationship, why we love each other, and what we envision for our ceremony. Bret is an incredible public speaker and a really funny guy so I can’t wait to see what he comes up with. We also asked one of Mike’s friends to play acoustic guitar during our processional and ceremony and we chose the song that I will walk down the aisle to.
Beauty
I had my first wedding dress fitting the weekend before last and this past weekend I had both my hair and make-up trial. The best part of my dress fitting was that I chose the perfect height shoes because I need absolutely no alterations on the length of the dress which saved me a lot of money! I also purchased my veil while at my fitting and brought two pair of earrings I’m borrowing from friends (something borrowed!) so I’m nearly set with all my attire. I also ordered a cute garter set in our colors (white, grey, yellow) from Etsy (no I didn’t learn my lesson from the invitation fiasco). The hair and make-up trials were fun but I ultimately didn’t end up keeping the style that I left the hair stylist with in for the day. I’m not sure if I’ll go for a 2nd trial but I was happy that my curls stayed in all day from 10 a.m. to midnight! I really liked the woman who did my make-up and signed the contract then and there.
We also purchased a suit for mike and ordered the rental suits for the groomsmen. The bridesmaid dresses were ordered back in April but they arrive in the next week!
Details
Next up is all the details. I have quite a few crafty projects up my sleeve and I’m excited to get working on them. Mike has been great about designing the website as well as our highly personal escort cards and I’m focusing more on signage and other details. The next 7.5 weeks will definitely involve lots of craft time!
Wedding Nightmares!? Oh my!
The wedding nightmares have begun. Just as I was plagued with Ironman nightmares leading up to the race (taking a year to get out of T1, getting lost on the bike, etc), I’m dreaming up wedding catastrophes on the regular these days. This weekend I had a dream that we got so drunk on our wedding night that we didn’t even realize that no one did their speeches until the day after our wedding and then I was so upset that I didn’t get to hear them! (#firstworldproblems)
More events to come include my bridal shower hosted by my amazing MOH and training buddy Asia and another incredible bridesmaid Erin which will take place on August 25th. I can’t wait to spend more quality time with all my favorite women. Mike’s bachelor party is also that weekend (he and his friends are renting a house in Santa Barbara to surf and party for 4 days!).
Also on the to do list other than crafting are purchasing my bridesmaid gifts, reserving our rental car for our honeymoon (all other Italy hotels are booked!), applying for our marriage license, working on a timeline and seating chart, finalizing music selections, and many, many more tasks.
So here we go! Any former brides have any tips for mastering the final weeks of wedding planning?
I got married last summer and the last two months are pretty crazy. I would say to accept help when offered and just work on it little bits at a time. And just remember on the day if things are perfect it won’t matter because the day will be perfect no matter what.
Make a list of what is left, mark out the days that you have left to do things (like actual days where you have real time) and then assign tasks to the days. Try your best to stick to it or make sure to reassign tasks to later dates if they get skipped. But don’t overload a day, it gets too stressful! And yes, as Amanda said, it will be perfect no matter what–you have a dress, a groom and an officiant–the wedding will happen 🙂
This is all so exciting! I’m glad the initiations ended up working out, and that you’ll now have all the design stuff done by the same person.
I really love that a friend is playing acoustic guitar. Not only will it be so beautiful, but it will mean a lot more side it is being played by a friend!
Lastly, crazy you don’t need any dress alterations! That’s awesome!
Everything sounds so great. I can’t wait to see all the photos in a couple short months!
Hoooooray!! I love wedding details!! It looks like things are really coming together! So exciting. 🙂 In the home stretch for sure. What a bummer about the invitations though – man alive. Scary. Though good advice, I’ll have to be a little more careful with my Etsy purchases. I love Mike’s suit and your hair/make-up from the trail looks perfect! Congrats on all the progress 🙂 It will be just perfect, because at the end of the day you will be married!
I think your plan of staying calm is the best! For me, it came down to accepting that everything wasn’t going to be perfect (I’m such a perfectionist it’s terrible). And in the end, things were perfect for the day. The things that weren’t exactly like they were supposed to be worked out to be just fine. How exciting for y’all!!