I'm getting married!

This weekend was a wonderful weekend of getting things accomplished.  Or at least closer to being so.

Friday, we stopped at the Gardens so I could look at things again.  The terrace cover that they were building is completed and it looks wonderful.  We measured the doors and the length of the room and the tables and figured out how many people can sit at a table and how many tables we can fit in the room.  We talked about decorating ideas and ways to use the space.  And I think we're both a lot more comfortable now with the whole situation.  Things there are looking really good.

I met with a SCAD textiles student about doing alterations to my dress--hemming up the bottom and changing the bodice so my boobs aren't falling out.  She's a darling girl and she's going to work really well.  I'm thrilled to have someone knowledgeable and experienced doing it, and for really affordable, too.  She's coming by the apartment on Sunday to do a fitting.

We also met with a photographer and that whole situation is pretty much nailed down now.  She and her husband agreed to do the wedding for $300, more if we want prints, but we'll get a DVD of the pictures they take and we can make our own prints.  I enjoyed her a lot and I'm looking forward to having her doing the photography work.  She's going to work with the girl we met last week, so we're having three photographers, which means oodles of pictures!  And for not very expensive, either!

I got more jars and filled them with sand.  I need more sand for some of the jars, but I don't need any more jars.  Unless we're going to have more than 66 people, but I don't find that likely.  I still need a lot more decorations--terracotta pots and river rocks and tablecloths and great swaths of chiffon--but it's getting closer.

I asked our hairstylist if she could do my hair, and while she'd love to do it, the mall doesn't open until 10:00, so that's not going to work.  I'm searching for more options there now.  I'm in the same boat for makeup, too.

And Flowerama, the place I was going to talk with about doing the flowers, has closed.  That makes two stores now, with Dat's Cake, that I was considering using for the wedding that have closed up shop.  Hopefully this is not a trend.

But things are moving forward!  I talked with E. over the weekend and she's blown away by the amount of things I've accomplished.  I hope to get more done this coming week--cake and food and flowers.  I might even talk with FMIL W. about the rehearsal dinner.  If I get really brave.

So, since we're on a crazy limited budget (especially since J.'s been unemployed the last two months), but because I still wanted to hire a photographer for the day, I listed our need on Craigslist.

Craigslist has been good to me.  It's not always predictable and it's not always even remotely helpful.  But I found my roommate for when I first moved to the area from that list and it's a good place to try to find things.  Plus, I figured, what could it hurt?

I posted before Christmas and didn't hear a word.  Not a thing.  The timing was bad or something.  I don't really know.  Maybe my title was too long.  But I didn't get one single email on that posting.

And then I posted it again a few days after New Year's.  And the emails have been pouring in.  I've had a bogus-looking one.  I've had a few that are obviously out of our price range.  But most of them actually sound like viable options.  When I can, I look at their websites and show them to J.  And then I email them back and ask if we can get together and chat.  We met with two ladies last weekend and I hope to meet with one or two this coming weekend, too.

It's a little strange to me.  We met with the ladies, sat and looked at pictures that they brought on their laptops, chatted about the wedding style and time and other details, and generally got a feel for each other.  She asked questions, I asked questions, and then we left.  And we liked the one we met on Friday and didn't care for the one we met Saturday.

I know that other girls interview professional photographers.  They meet with people who are going to charge them well over $1000 to follow the party around all day.  It's absolutely insane the price that people charge for this sort of thing.  We aren't doing that.  The lady that we're using so far hasn't ever photographed a wedding before.  She's started doing this as a hobby and we're helping her get experience.  I think we're paying her $150 for three hours and a CD of the photos.

Having really stunning photographs just hasn't been one of the biggest concerns for us.  I'd like to have pictures of the day, but it's not the most important thing to me.  I don't know many people who actually look back at their wedding photo album after the first year, if even that long, except for every now and then.  They're nice to have, but I'm not going to pay more than I absolutely have to.

It's the only part of this whole thing, though, where I've actually done interviews.  I probably should have other things that have involved interviews, but I don't.  I'm meeting with a seamstress to see if she can help me with my dress, but if she looks nice, I probably won't shop around.  I'm not shopping around for florists.  And I don't think I'm going to do much shopping for the cake, either.  I'm getting down to the end of the time I have to get things accomplished, and I'm taking what I can get.  And that's fine.

It's going to be so nice to have everything figured out and finished.  Eventually.

Wow.  Two months gone almost.  That's a really long time in an eight month engagement.

I've been busy.  I've been lazy.  I've been absolutely insane in the brain.

What it all boils down to is that I'm ready to be done.  I'm ready for all this planning and worrying and scurrying to be over with.  I just want to be married to my man, settling in to life, and moving on to better, more important things than this one-day event.

I don't know how other girls get so excited about this.  Maybe it's more fun if you have more money to play with, if you have more friends to use the money with, and more encouragement from all around.  I have the notion that I should make this a nice, fancy event for the people coming; I want it to be something that people enjoy since they have to travel so far to get here.  I want it to be something enjoyable for me and J. to remember, though, too, and the more fuss I make about it, the less we enjoy it.

We sent out invitations before Christmas.  My sister E. made them and they're beautiful.  Lavender and light green and opening in the center of the front, they're textured paper with embossed stamping.  They're wonderful.  We've heard back from a few people about them, but not very many yet.  Hopefully the RSVPs will start coming in more quickly.  If they don't, we'll have to start doing follow-up and I'm not thrilled about that one.  I have other things to be thinking about.

My dress arrived and it's wonderful.  Slightly lower cut in the bodice than the picture presented online, and about four inches too long, it needs a little bit of altering.  But I've been in contact with a girl in town and we're going to get together and chat about options on that front.  I even got shoes for it--Payless Shoe Source for $9.  I haven't tried on the dress with the shoes and the bra that I might use with it, but maybe I'll get there this weekend.  I definitely will if I get together with the seamstress.

My sister and I went shopping the day after Christmas and bought several things for decorating the reception site.  I have hundreds of feet of twinkle lights., including several feet with bamboo covered lights.  We got a dozen plus two old-fashioned jars that I've filled with decorative sand.  I'm going to put paper roses inside and they're going to decorate the tables.  I found a place online that sells 2 pound bags of rocks for $.99 a bag if you buy 12 at a time and as soon as I can afford it, I'll be picking those up.  I need more jars and more paper flowers, but I don't know yet how many.  This weekend, we're going to stop by the Gardens and figure out measurements--how big the walls and doors are, how big the tables are and how many there are, how many can fit in the space we have, etc.  Once we have all that, I can get the exact figures for the decorations figured out.  And then I can figure out how much I need, exactly.  Once we know that, I'll know how many centerpieces we need.  I was thinking that we'd have boxes with rocks in them surrounding terracotta flowerpots with flowers in them.  Today, I'm thinking of ditching the boxes and scattering the rocks across the tables and just putting the flowerpots out.  It's still in works, obviously.

We've interviewed two photographers and we're hiring one of them, but we'd like to find another one to help the first.  I have several that I'm in contact with, but I'm waiting for a response from them to find out if or when we're going to meet with them.  Hopefully soon that whole thing will be figured out and completed.

The baker we were going to use for our cupcakes is no longer in the mall.  We hadn't actually asked them to do the work for us, so it's not really a big deal, just a surprise.  We don't have the food figured out at all, right now, so over the weekend, J. and I are going to sit down and work out what exactly we're looking for and where we're going to try to get it.  This is one of my largest worries right now.

J. and I had a major discussion last night about this whole thing.  He's frustrated because I get so disappointed when he doesn't support me very well with this, but he doesn't know how to support me well.  It's a vicious circle and I don't like it either.  I think we're heading in a better direction now, but it's still going to be a troublesome area for us, I'm sure.  He doesn't understand the time involved in getting some of these things done--and maybe he's right.  Maybe I want to get things completed much earlier than is really necessary.  But I would much rather have them done significantly early than try to get them all done at the last minute.  And there is so much to get done.  I don't think he really understands how much there is to do.

We finished the pre-marital requirements for the church.  We had to go through a Song of Solomon class on Sunday mornings for 11 weeks, watching a video series on the book and participating in discussions afterward.  And then we met with a mentor couple who walked us through our results of the PREPARE inventory.  We did well--we matched up a significant amount of the time.  It was interesting to do, too--going through the issues that people have and where we stand on all those things.  Plus, our mentor couple are really wonderful people and we've enjoyed their company a lot.  We'll continue meeting with them, just for the sake of each other's company.

There are so many things that I want to get accomplished soon.  I want to set out the decorations situation exactly.  I want to get to the florist and get that all worked out.  I want to make sure that everyone has what they're going to wear (including J.--who doesn't).  I want to get the catering and the cake and the photographer situations all ironed out.  I want know how the music situation is going to work.  There's so much!

I just get so burned out so quickly because it doesn't seem like it really matters that much.  And then it does matter, enormously. It's just a wedding!  But it's my only wedding!

79 more days.

I bought my dress yesterday.  Sight-unseen.  Never tried it on.

It's probably one of the craziest things I've done yet for this wedding.

I decided early on that I didn't want a foofy, ballroom gown.  I mean, they're beautiful and all, but they're not me and they're certainly not the feel I'm going for with this more informal garden wedding.

So I looked online and found a dress at Dillard's that I absolutely loved.  It's gorgeous!  And it was $170.  How awesome is that?  Get my wedding dress for less than $200?  Awesomeness in silk.

So I went to the store to see if I could try on the dress.  The store in town doesn't carry that dress.  They carry other dress by the same designer, but not that particular gown.

Well, then.

I kept on looking at the dress online, though.  I figured I'd go back to the store and try on a gown in a similar style by the same designer and get an idea for the fit and everything.  I started working on how I'd like accessorize that dress.

And on Tuesday, I went to the site and saw that my dress was on sale!  On sale for $113.90!  Until selections were gone.  Wait . . . does that mean they're getting rid of my dress?!

So, serious dilemma time.  Money right now is tight.  It's not a good time to be spending a lot of it.  This dress, however, is on SALE.  For, like, lots.  I emailed my sister and my sister-in-law and asked their opinions.  And they both pretty much suggested I get it.  There were different opinions on the size I should get, but they only offered three sizes, so my options there were seriously limited.  Get the size I am right now or the size I might be by the wedding.  I've been this size for a very long time, but I am trying to lose the weight.

So I ordered it.

I got the dress in the size I am right now, though, because I don't want to have that worry if it doesn't fit when March comes around.  And it's a great dress for altering, easy-peezy.

The total for my dress was something in the $135 area with shipping.

It should arrive sometime in the next few weeks.  And I am so unbelievably excited and nervous.  If it doesn't work, I can return it to the store and no worries on all that.  But I'll have to start the dress search all over again.  And I really, really like this dress and I really, really want it to fit.  It's an amazing gown, absolutely beautiful.  And I can't wait to try it on for the first time!!

Lord help me, I'm starting to care what stamps will go on our envelopes . . . .

My primary site is moving servers, which means all my photo links are fouled up. So if you're looking at, for example, the post from Monday, and it doesn't make any sense, it might be because there's supposed to be a picture there, but there isn't.

We hope to have everything back up and running by the beginning of next week.

This is where we're getting married.  :)

So, the last few days I've been thinking a lot about the music I'd like to have during the ceremony.  We've split up responsibilities for the music--J.'s responsible for the reception music and I'm responsible for the ceremony music.  It makes sense to divide it up that way, so long as we each get some input into the final decisions.

Anyway, I've been thinking about what I'd like to for the prelude, processional, and recessional.  I already know that I'd like to have brother N. and his wife A. to sing "When You Say You Love Me" by Josh Groban for special music in the middle, so that's not really something I'm worrying about too much.  Although maybe I should make sure they'd be interested in singing and ask E. if she can play the piano for it . . . .

Anyway, Tuesday, I think it was, I discovered the website for Jim Brickman.  Apparently I'm a little slow because he's been around for ages and he's quite a sensation, but I hadn't ever really heard of him.  I've heard a few things on the radio, but never really paid attention.  Until this weekend when I heard him on the radio again and actually wrote down the name of the song, forgot to bring that information to work with me, and J. worked diligently to find it for me online.  And now I know!  Jim Brickman.  Fabulous piano player!

I had been thinking that I'd play the "Passionate Strings" CD by Eric Larkins while people were sitting and waiting.  But now I think I'm going to get "The Romance of Jim Brickman" instead.  It's more flowing and romantic.  I love it!  And I might take one of the songs and use it as the song the bridal party walk in on.  But I'm not altogether certain about that one.

And then I read about someone's great idea for a recessional--using a song from the Star Wars anthology.  And that's perfect!  John Williams is amazing, we're both geeks, let's explore that avenue!

So, right now I'm thinking about walking in to "A Tree for my Bed" from the Jurassic Park movie.  It's delicate and quiet, but still majestic.  Gorgeous.

Which leaves the recessional and I'm not really sure what to do there.  We could do "The Throne Room/End Title" from Episode IV--it's a march, so uplifting and upbeat, and then it goes right into the obvious Star Wars theme, which, you know, amusingly geeky.

I have to talk with J. about it.  He's got John Williams CD galore and he'll have lots of ideas.  Plus, I really think he'll like this idea a lot.  :)  Bonus!

Last night, we did one of the most exciting things in our wedding preparations:  We booked our honeymoon!!

When I first started thinking about our honeymoon, I got a little stuck on the thought about how exciting it would be to not know where we were going--just get into the car with  my, then, husband, and go off where ever he took me.  After we started planning more seriously, though, I realized that there was not any possible way I was not going to be involved in this.  In fact, I had a very definite idea of what I wanted to do on our honeymoon.

I wanted to spend a week in the mountains.

Now, when I was thinking about this originally, I was still thinking we'd be honeymooning in September.  So I thought, OH!  Pacific northwest, Rocky Mountains, fall colors, fabulous!  Mount Rainer.  Washington state is gorgeous and we both love the mountains.

Unfortunately, the wedding got moved back to March and our budget got squished considerably and I realized that Mount Rainer just wasn't going to be feasible for our honeymoon.  Maybe we'll vacation there some other year, but for this particular excursion, it just wasn't going to make the cut.

So I started thinking about other options and decided that, really, the Smokey Mountains, right up the road from Savannah, are quite pretty, and March is springtime after all, so why not just find a cute cabin somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains?

And that's what I did!  I found a great honeymoon package at a resort just off the Appalachian Trail, in the middle of the mountains, off in the middle of nowhere!

Here's what the site has to say about the cabin where we're going to spend our honeymoon:

• Like having your very own tree house, massive oak trees surround your romantic cabin at The Oak.
  
• Your hot tub is the perfect place from which to gaze upon the large boulders nestled just in front of the porch.
  
• Beyond the boulders and oaks, panoramic winter mountain views make this spot very special indeed.
  
• In the summer time, you can peek through the branches at the distant mountain view, or just enjoy the honeysuckle spread across the rocks.
  
• The Oak is the perfect honeymoon cabin in the mountains.
  
• The Oak Porch features spindle railing & includes a gas grill and hot tub!

(All photos from the resort's website)

I'm so psyched!!!  :D  We are going to spend the week after our vacation relaxing!  We're going to soak in a hot tub, watch movies, sleep, "sleep," and walk/drive around enjoying the prettiness that is the Smoky Mountains!!

This is the best part of the planning so far!  I'm probably twice as excited about the honeymoon than I am about the wedding.  Hopefully the wedding excitement will get up higher as it gets closer, but so far, I'm more excited about the vacation afterward!