A rambling (wo)man...

I think this is my first blog post. Ever. Of the two of us, David is better at using his words to describe things and working out his thoughts so I usually leave the word-smithing to him. Even so, here I am.

I've had this week off of work. Don't get too jealous-- it's a result of having work an insane week last week while we welcomed the new corps members to Detroit. Since we're about a month out from the wedding (EEP!) I've used this precious time off to get caught up on quite a few wedding tasks. It's really funny how much stuff goes into a wedding, even with something small and a little non-traditional. It's even funnier how there are times that I've spent hours looking at inspiration boards, creating and looking at spreadsheets, and drafting things and yet, after all those hours of "work", I still can't cross anything off the list. On top of that, I feel like every time I cross something off the list, something else hops on it. Like filling out an application for and picking up our marriage license. Yeah, we forgot to add that to the master to-do list until today. Whoops.

Speaking of the master to-do list.... David and I made this beast of a list about 2 weeks ago after getting really overwhelmed by ALL OF THE THINGS that had yet to get done. If you know me at all you know I'm a bit OCD and am a list-maker by nature (as is David), so this shouldn't come as a surprise. What was surprising though, is when I finished tallying all those tasks, they added up to 115! Some of them were little tasks-- "call to book nail salon"-- but others, like "write ceremony" were...a bit more massive. YIKES! On the one hand, in wedding terms, it's my understanding that 115 things to do in 6 weeks doesn't seem like that much. But still, 115 things left to do. Whew.

So here we are, 2 weeks after the creation of the list and we're down to 77 tasks. 77 little (or not so little-- we still haven't written our ceremony) things to do and 35 days standing between us and our wedding. Part of me wants to just get those 77 things done right now, but I know that's not possible, nor will it make our wedding day come any sooner. Another part of me-- the more practical, rational part-- realizes that all this planning isn't just about crossing things off a list. It's about making sure we've thought through all of the parts of our wedding weekend to ensure all these people we love and are celebrating with us have a chance to do just that-- love us and celebrate with us in a way that fits us and our "vibe" and style.

Now, pardon me while I go attack a few more items on this list before the weekend.

Once More, With Feeling

It's hard to plan a wedding when you're doing a wedding and a reception, but you're not doing a wedding and reception. I find myself hesitating when restaurants ask what type of event I'm doing, mostly because when I saw a wedding reception, I clarify by telling everyone that we aren't doing dancing and table settings and things you might think of with a reception. Maybe I should tell them we're doing a rehearsal dinner?

When you say the word 'wedding' lots of things pop into my mind. Oddly enough, the first thing I see is a giant white gown and brilliant teeth from people smiling and posing in photos. I see dances and clinking glasses and people dressed up for celebration. Yet this isn't really what Janel and I wanted for our wedding. We didn't want to end the night having seen everyone in our life for 10 seconds each and waking up the next morning exhausted wondering who we saw and who we didn't.

When we started to plan our wedding we focused on one thing: the feeling. What did we want our wedding to feel like? We spent some time thinking up words to describe what we wanted the wedding to be like. Relaxed and comfortable, fun, enjoyable, jovial: these were all words we thought about and feelings we wanted to invoke. It is no coincidence that we aimed for something simple with our wedding celebration because we don't want people to be stressed or uncomfortable, we want things to be fun.

Coming up with words for the feel of a wedding are pretty easy when compared to figuring out what those feelings look like. Janel and I hope we have done that. But at the end of the day, we don't care so much about the flowers and the decorations and a theme for our wedding, but more about what everything feels like. Our family should be relaxed, our friends should be relaxed, and we should be relaxed. And happy. That's important. Oh, and married.