With My Dogs By My Side: 69 Days

Behold: the wedding to-do list. Nearly everything on it is due now, if not overdue, and plenty has been added since this picture.

69 days 'til the wedding.

What has really struck me as weird/interesting/maddening/cool about it all is that when you're meeting one vendor, or planning one aspect, it seems so important. When you're picking the music (and don't even get me started on the music...), it seems like the music is such a huge part of the wedding. It's always playing! While I'm walking up the aisle. While the wedding party does. While I walk back down the aisle. While we cut the cake. When we're introduced as man and wife. The father/daughter dance. The mother/son dance. The anniversary dance. The kids' dance. It's all about the music.

And then we meet with the bakery, and there's so much to be decided. What flavors? What fillings? What sort of frosting? What design? What cake base? Who's going to return the cake base after? What cake topper? Oh my god, what cake topper? Do we want a basic, man and woman, regular one? Do we want a quirky, unusual one, like a lion and lioness because we like lions? Do we want to forgo a couple and just do letters? What about birds? I love birds? Or oh-em-gee how about a custom topper with both of us and the dogs? Truly, it is a world unto itself.

Then, the officiant. That guy is pretty important. So many important questions to be addressed there. Do we want to write our own vows? Use the traditional ones? Is anyone doing a reading? Who? What reading? Do we want him to do a blessing? These things seem to encompass like 90% of the wedding.

Well then it's time to deal with the dress. Oh, hell, the dress. If you play fill-in-the-blanks, and you say "Wedding _____," you will fill it with "dress." It's that important. What do I remember most about most of the weddings I've gone to? Specific song choices? Cake color? The catering? No. The dress. So there's that. Can I wear the heirloom dress that was my stepmother's mother's? Can it be altered drastically enough? If no, what the hell dress do I buy when I like them all? Truly, going into this I expected fully to go try on dresses and hate them all, have none fit right, none wow me, feel weird and out of place in them all...oh, no. I loved them all. I wanted to buy every single dress and have 20 outfit changes during the wedding. Do I want the beautiful mermaid style vintage-looking dress? The classic princess ballgown? Something drapey and flowing? Truth: I want every single one. Once a dress is chosen, God, then I need to coordinate shoes, jewelry, a headpiece, a veil, a clutch, makeup, hair...

I see, I completely see, why wedding planners exist. Any one single element is completely consuming, and there are dozens. How some people manage to pull this off in just a few months is beyond me.

Recently Checked Off:

Pick reception songs
Pick ceremony music
Buy cake topper
E-mail accessories coordinator with questions
Buy a guestbook
Figure out vows
Pay off venue
Buy wedding dress
Buy clutch
Buy bubbles
Trial run eyebrow threading
Start registries
Buy wedding shoes
Buy veil

To Be Checked Off In the Next Day or Two

Order invitations
Figure out how to word directions to venue
Schedule tux fittings
Make programs
Pay remaining vendors
Buy unity candles

And the list goes on.

My nephews while my sister tried on maid of honor dresses. We were worried about keeping them entertained, but it turned out the mirrors were all they needed.