Uh, so it's wedding week around here! How the heck did that happen?!

Here's a quick round-up of tips I've figured out to get through that last month:

Tip #1: Get so busy at work you don't have time to even think about the wedding.
The work stress I had the past few weeks was actually a blessing in disguise. It gave me a much needed break from wedding planning. Seriously, it eventually gets to the point where you just create things to think about if you're not careful, and I just had zero brain space left to think about anything wedding related while this work craziness was going on. The culmination of my work insanity was last Thursday, at which point I jumped right back on the wedding train, but with only a week left there was no time to worry, just time to actually execute our final tasks and check things off our lists. Other than bringing several boxes of centerpieces and other decor over to the venue, we're pretty much all done! Starting today, we no longer have work to do on this wedding, we just get to start spending time with our friends and family. (Bachelorette party tonight! Woohoo!)

Tip #2: Buy several umbrellas in advance.
The weatherman just said this morning that the weather through this weekend is "Chamber of Commerce weather" -- so perfect, it's as if it was specially ordered. Starting several weeks ago, I stalked the Target umbrella section for large umbrellas in our colors as insurance against the rain. It totally worked!

Tip #3: Hire a day-of coordinator.
Ours is a godsend. They actually go well above and beyond being just "day-of" - we've met with them 3-4 times already. They are SO amazing. Without them, this week would be a flurry of phone calls; now, we just email or call them as our one point of contact. Plus, they are just awesome girls and we love them.

Tip #4: Ignore the internet's advice.
So... I've decided to go with the silver shoes. I know, I know... the whole internet chose the blue over silver. I would have too! I wanted blue shoes so badly. The thing is, these blue shoes just aren't the right ones. Of the several pairs I bought and returned, they were the closest but (a) they were just so BRIGHT, (b) one of our wedding colors is blue and the two blues just don't really go together, and (c) they weren't uncomfortable, but they just weren't as comfortable as the silver ones, no matter how much I wore them around the house. I then ended up buying a clutch that pretty much matched the silver shoes exactly, and that was that.

So, if anyone wants a pair of 8.5 electric blue shoes, just let me know. They aren't uncomfortable... if I was only wearing them for 5 hours or so, I'd feel much more confident wearing them. But it'll be more like 10 hours and I'm just not so sure about that. (Also, I don't wear heels all that often, so there's that.) Sorry internet! I tried. :-)

to let you know my wedding day shoes are up for discussion over at Jodifur's Shoe Friday.

One of the questions I received all the time when we first got engaged, usually right after "did you choose a date?" was "what are your colors?" I could not believe how many people cared about colors!

Adam pretty much was opinion-less on this topic, so as long as I didn't choose anything totally girly, he was going to be on board. Before we chose a venue, I really liked the idea of having different shades of grey be our "colors," with some pops of something bright, probably either orange or yellow, here and there. (I have been obsessed with the grey-yellow and grey-orange color combos lately. I would love to decorate a bedroom or office around one of those palettes.) Adam approved.

After we chose Glen Echo, I thought that grey was just going to be too muted for that location. We chose Glen Echo because of all the great photo opportunities, so I wanted to go with colors that went with the park. If you google images of Glen Echo, you'll find that a lot of the park's buildings are in primary colors. Blue seemed like the best choice, plus the J Crew chiffon dresses I chose for the bridesmaids came in blue.

Apparently, "blue" isn't good enough, but I swear... we just wanted straight-up blue. Not navy, not cobalt, not sky. Just blue. You know, like when you're five and you pull a blue crayon out of the Crayola 8-pack. Eventually, we settled on "royal blue" as being the closest approximation to just plain old blue, which is apparently not a color in wedding world. (J Crew calls it vintage blue, but that doesn't mean anything in wedding world either.)

We (okay, I) had some trouble trying to decide on an accent color to go with the blue. I can't remember what we had been considering (Yellow maybe? I know Adam at one point said orange and I almost got him to go with that until he realized that we'd have Mets colors.), but in the end, our decision was driven by our centerpiece choice. We (a) didn't want floral centerpieces and (b) couldn't have candles. So, we decided to go with bowls full of Granny Smith apples... making Granny Smith green our accent color. (In the end, this actually ended up being "lime green" to many people, even though the color people call "lime green" is NOT the actual color of limes, but is more like the color of Granny Smiths. And "apple green" is darker, like the color of limes. Whatever.)

So, straight-up blue and Granny Smith green. Those are our colors. The girls are in blue dresses (I gave them the option of any of the J Crew chiffon dresses and they all chose the same one!), the guys have blue and green striped ties, Adam has a green tie with small blue squares. Our linens are "royal blue" and white, our centerpieces are white bowls filled with Granny Smith apples. We got fabric from a baby bedding company (again, with the royal and lime!) for our aisle runner and chuppah cover. The girls will have bouquets of green flowers (I am super excited to see the florist's vision in action... I never would have thought of green flowers!) and mine will be white with touches of green and blue. The guys will have green button mum bouts. I think it's going to be fun and come together pretty well. Plus, blue is my fallback favorite color (my favorite of the moment is always changing), and green is Adam's favorite (I think), so it all works out pretty nicely in the end.

(But I would LOVE to see someone plan a grey and orange or grey and yellow wedding. I think it'd be fabulous!)

In six five weeks (pretty much exactly to the minute I am writing this), I will be married.

(Um, wow... that just made me feel older than turning thirty did.)

We've actually done a pretty good job of getting as much done ahead of time as possible, so hopefully these last six five weeks will be relatively wedding-stress free. (This turned out to be an excellent strategy, considering it's turning out that work is going to be INSANE over the next several weeks... 11 days vegging out in Hawaii cannot come fast enough!)

Still on our to-do list:

1. Get a marriage license. (Obviously, this one is the most important.)
2. Finalize the ceremony. (Just gotta work on the vows. We are not writing our own in the sense that they are super personalized, but we still have to choose something. Everything else in the ceremony is pretty much set.)
3. Order favors. (Probably doing this tonight.)
4. Decide on music selections. We've got our first dance song down, and a general idea what we want for the pre-ceremony waiting music, but that's about it. I'm not too worried about the reception itself... it's all the "music moments" (processional, recessional, intro, dessert) that we need to worry about.
5. Order the dessert. (Although we were instructed by the vendor not to do this until a couple of weeks before the wedding.)
6. Decide on and order wine. (Wine tasting scheduled for this weekend!)
7. Decide on and order final beer selection. (Anyone have a favorite stout?)
8. Pick up stuff for welcome bags. (This weekend.)
9. Finalize menu, which pretty much just means choosing our hors d'oeuvres. Everything else is set. (And SOOOO delicious!)
10. Find a damn lipstick or lipgloss I like that stays on for more than 10 minutes. (Recommendations?)

I'm sure there must be other things I haven't thought of yet, but that's all I've got at the moment. What am I missing? (Clearly not the use of parentheses... wow there's a lot of them in this post!)

*Um, I totally wrote "Six Weeks" for the title at first. The wedding is five weeks away. Five!

(Because why not start yet another series on this blog, right?)

Our wedding website tells me that our wedding is just 44 days away... I think that's officially less than a month and a half! I haven't divulged too many of the details about our wedding on here because I wanted to keep some of it a surprise for our guests, but I think we're getting close enough that I can start talking about some of the details. First things first, the venue.

Once we realized we weren't going to be able to have the small backyard wedding we envisioned without disappointing a lot of family and friends, we started to look for larger venues that still had something of a laid back feel. One of the first things we did after getting engaged was make our invite list and then figure out how many people from that list were actually going to come. We ended up with an estimate of about 140-150 guests (still too soon to determine how accurate that was), but we also wanted to make sure that wherever we chose could handle all 190+ guests if all of them miraculously were able to attend. But we didn't want anything too formal for our wedding - it just wouldn't be our style. At first, it seemed tricky to balance the size we needed with the relaxed feel we were looking for. I had looked into several parks in the area, but all of them had one restriction that we just could not deal with: no alcohol. There was just no way that would fly with a lot of our friends (and some family members!).

We researched several places online and then found two that we wanted to check out in person. The first was the Torpedo Factory. I loved the idea of getting married in Old Town Alexandria... it's such a charming area. The Torpedo Factory is a great space. Open, spacious, fairly blank slate. We flipped through the photos of other events that had been held there and it was really funky and modern. If we went with a "fancy" wedding, this was the sort of fancy we could do. We envisioned food stations, great lighting, a lounge area. It was reasonably priced compared to a lot of other venues in the area. We could also tent the back, right on the waterfront, for cocktail hour if we wanted. We decided to keep it on the list.

The other place we decided to visit in person was Glen Echo Park. It was an amusement park in the early 1900s and has been restored back to that era. When we were there, we knew it was the place for us. Quirky, fun, different, yet still historic. It was less expensive than anywhere else we'd considered, especially because we ended up off-season on a Friday night. Our ceremony is going to take place under the Cuddle Up, which used to house the tilt-a-whirl (one of my favorite rides!). Although the carousel is closed for the season, we will be able to use it for photos, which seems fitting since my grandmother (whose diamonds from her engagement and wedding rings are part of my engagement and wedding rings) loved carousel horses. The reception is going to be in the old Bumper Car pavilion. (I was always terrible at bumper cars! I'd always get stuck in the corner.)

That's it! We only visited two venues. Once we saw a place we liked and could envision our wedding being (and was in our budget), we went for it. We aren't having a "themed" wedding -- there are a few little touches that were inspired by having our wedding at a former amusement park, but it isn't an amusement park wedding by any means. But I'm getting ahead of myself... I'll discuss those in the coming weeks.

My aunt sent an email to me (and a few family members) this morning with the subject line, "Countdown..."

The text? "Only 100 days until the big event!!!"

I have a feeling she may be even more excited for this wedding than we are.

Also, one hundred days. We probably should get back to checking things off that to-do list soon.

No, I do not want red carpet service, or a nonalcoholic champagne toast (really? FAKE champagne?), or complimentary water. I don't care what the chauffeur is wearing... if he is in a tux, he will just better dressed than everyone else at the wedding, including the bride and groom. I just don't want to drive myself to my own wedding, and don't want the wedding party to either. How hard is that?

Yesterday, I met up with two of my friends for drinks in Georgetown. Both of these ladies are recently engaged and in the early stages of planning their 2011 weddings, so naturally there was a lot of wedding chatter. It's no surprise, then, that I had a dream about our wedding last night. (The first of many, I'm sure.)

Most of the wedding dream would probably be more accurately described as a total nightmare. For some reason, I had a whole bunch more bridesmaids (I think they were supposed to be Adam's cousins?), plus apparently six flower girls and two ring bearers (more cousins?). Apparently, all of the bridesmaids who were not my actual bridesmaids hated the dresses I had chosen (even though, in my dream, they had previously okayed them), and also decided that they hated what the kids were wearing, and so on the wedding day, they all showed up wearing completely different clothes. The bridesmaids were in these ugly grey and tan dresses with yellow belts, the flower girls were in poofy mint green dresses, the boys were in some weird knickers with no socks or shoes. The girls all yelled at me for my hideous taste just before the ceremony started. I was upset, but decided we just had to go ahead as planned and everyone got ready to start the ceremony. Instead of calmly walking down the aisle, they all sort of half-ran down it in a jumble, talking to each other and generally ignoring what was going. (We also were not at our regular location, but some barn type area that was totally dirty and gross.) It was basically a disaster.

Then, it was my turn to walk down the aisle. I got to the end of the aisle with my parents on each arm, looked up the aisle and saw Adam standing at the front, and I broke out in a smile so big my cheeks hurt and didn't give a damn about everything else going wrong around me.

In the end, it was a pretty fantastic dream. I can't wait for the real thing.

Wedding planning is taking over my life, and I do not like it one bit. Well, maybe that's a little harsh. Thinking about how much fun everyone will have, how fantastic and delicious our very personalized menu is, and how awesome photos will be at our quirky wedding location make me very happy. All of the major decisions (location, photographer, day-of coordinator*, DJ, caterer) were really easy for us to make... they just fit perfectly. Even the dress, once I finally found a salon that carried dresses that were more my style, was a pretty easy decision.

But now... oh now we are down in the nitty gritty details. Details that I don't really care a whole lot about, but that only seems to make the decisions that much more difficult. Decorations, bouquets, website, invitations... and a million other details I never could have imagined existed 5 months ago are driving me crazy.

I am a planner. More accurately, I am an overplanner.** For example, last year when I hosted a holiday cookie swap for about 10 girls, my brain did not get out of planning mode for SIX weeks. So you can only imagine what planning a reception for 140 guests is like for me. My brain is constantly running in overdrive. Wedding, wedding, wedding, wedding, wedding. ACK!

Today, I decided it had to stop. I unsubscribed from all but one wedding blog I had in my Google Reader, because all the others just made me insane about all the must! have! little! details! Because you know what? We do not need them.

We scrapped our slightly complicated centerpiece idea for a simpler one, because it's more along the lines of our style and easier to put together in the days before our wedding and, frankly, no one remembers centerpieces except if they are (a) hideous, (b) blocking your view of everyone at the table, or (c) totally taking over the table and getting in the way of the food and drink. So we don't have flowers in our centerpieces... so what?

We had originally had a rule of "no wedding talk at bedtime," but that fell by the wayside recently as my brain needed to talk all this stuff out before it could turn off and go to sleep. I'm reinstituting that rule, starting now. If my brain isn't turning off as I am falling asleep, I will write down whatever I'm thinking about in a notebook and revisit it in the daylight hours.

We are going to start to go on "date nights" once a week -- and wedding talk will be verboten. (This is not just wedding-planning-driven... we've gotten terrible about retreating to the couch with our computers and the television as soon as dinner is over. Even though we are in the same room, it certainly isn't quality time, by any means.)

I am reclaiming my brain from this wedding-planning parasite that has apparently taken over. Details be damned... it'll all work itself out, everyone will have a fantastic time, and we will freaking be married, which is the coolest thing ever. Amen.

* I can't believe I have a coordinator, but considering there are so many different vendors, it was pretty necessary. I certainly don't want us to be worrying about all of them that day, nor do I want to put that burden on my family or a friend. Our coordinator came recommended from our photographer, and we got a 30% discount off her normal rate, which was already HIGHLY competitive. Plus, when we met her, she was totally awesome.

** This is a genetic condition. My mom and my aunt are notorious overplanners. So much so that they totally stress themselves out over planning family barbecues... and we get together as a family ALL the time! I make a conscious effort not to let myself be like them (as I could easily do)... to not get so wrapped up in the planning that I forget the big picture, which is that we all like each other and will have a good time!

(Wedding related post -- feel free to skip over if you're just not into that thing.)

Adam and I got engaged a few days before Christmas, so we saw pretty much everyone in our family immediately after the engagement. It was still so new to us that all the wedding talk was quite overwhelming. It made me wish that running away and eloping wouldn't offend our families so much, but alas... I'm the only girl (out of two grandkids) on one side of my family and I think they'd be pretty upset if they missed out on such a big event. (Adam has eleventy-bajillion cousins, so I don't think people would care as much on his side.)

One of my Christmas gifts from my aunt was a stack of wedding magazines, with photos of wedding dresses already tabbed. My mom and my aunt are very excited about wedding dress shopping. They both wanted to come down and go dress shopping with me, and I put them off for a few weeks saying I wanted to wait until after my birthday before going to look, but inevitably, I had to begin planning "Dress Weekend."

Can you tell how little I am looking forward to this? I am pretty much not at all excited for wedding dress shopping.

It has nothing to do with my mom and my aunt. I love spending time with them and would be excited for them to come visit any weekend... that didn't require me to try on dozens and dozens of white dresses. My aunt and I have similar taste, so I trust her to be helpful in making decisions. Plus, she has very generously offered to buy me my wedding dress, with the only caveat being that I don't worry about the price. (HA! As if I could justifiably wear something for only 12 hours of my life that costs more than anything I own, except my car.) It's just that the idea of dress shopping sounds really, terribly awful to me. I just don't like trying on clothes in front of people. I don't really like shopping for clothes, period. And the two of them are going to be there, SO super excited, and I am going to want to run away screaming.

I've already set up five appointments for Dress Weekend. It gives me heart palpitations to think of it. I am really, truly dreading it. Ideally, I'd go into J Crew on my own, happen to like one of the two dresses I've been eyeing online, get it on sale or off of eBay, and be done with it. What's next?

Last night, I was still awake after midnight, thinking about how awful it sounded to be trying on a dozen dresses at each store with my mom and my aunt there. I thought about how I might be influenced by their excitement, and choose something they liked because they cared more than I did and it was my aunt's money, rather than choosing something I felt comfortable with. I thought about the possibility of them not liking the dresses I loved, or loving the dresses I didn't care for... and my agreeing with them because I can be too much of a people-pleaser at times, especially with them. I thought about the last time I went shopping with the both of them for something to wear to a family event, and how they both commented about my weight. (It was legitimate -- it was my senior year of college and I'd gained about 15 pounds and it was really obvious... still, not something you want to hear while trying on clothes and it's pretty much turned me off of trying on clothes with other people, ever.)

Anyway, as I was awake and fretting about these things, and realizing how much I'd just prefer to go dress shopping on my own, I remembered... it's MY wedding. (Well, it's OUR wedding, but Adam is not interested in dress shopping.) I can do whatever I want. I can make appointments at all these places ahead of time, go on my own, choose maybe 2 or 3 dresses at each place I really like, and then take my mom and aunt back to see only those dresses. I can cut out a bridal salon or two from Dress Weekend if I want to. Just because there are many options out there, doesn't mean I have to see them all before making my decision, even if that's the way they would do it. That process worked for our venue, photographer, planner... why not for my dress?

So now, I'm on to making new appointments at a few of these places again. For someone who is not interested in dress shopping, I am going to be spending a LOT of time in bridal salons over the next few weekends.

*I've actually never seen an episode of Say Yes to the Dress, but my coworker was trying to convince me to go up to the salon where they film that show in New York. HAHAHAHA!

We're not having floral centerpieces at our wedding, so the only flowers we'll have are those that will go on our chuppah and the bouquets and boutonnieres. (I think I might do mini-bouquets for those women who would typically get corsages, because corsages make me think of prom. But I'll ask them their preference. And we might not even have floral boutonnieres, or any at all... I'm leaving that decision to Adam.) After the flowers fiasco at Adam's sister's wedding (florist had the wrong date, so all flowers were arranged the morning of the wedding), and considering how little we really care about the flowers, we (um, I) decided that we (again, I) would just make the bouquets ourselves (myself). Most people I've mentioned this to have thought I was a little nuts, so I'm starting my practice bouquets early. I don't think this one is too bad for my first attempt (using so-so flowers from Trader Joe's).

Perhaps wishing the groom got a bouquet too? :-)

And now I have a vase full of pretty flowers!

I haven't talked about wedding planning too much on here (which is probably the main reason I haven't posted lately as it is taking over our lives -- I can't wait to have all the vendors booked so I can relax for a few months), but several people have expressed an interest in seeing the engagement ring. First, the story...

Adam knew that I was not really interested in a "traditional" diamond ring. Many are quite beautiful and I have nothing against them for other people, but they really aren't "me." In fact, I didn't really care much about receiving a ring at all, but he insisted... and who is going to turn down free jewelry? :-)

When Adam proposed, he used a birthstone ring that I had that he knew I had wanted to have reset anyway. He had even gone to a jeweler to talk to her about different options for resetting it before he proposed. We went to the jeweler the day after we got engaged and chose a setting that would have my birthstone (aquamarine) in the middle and a small diamond on each side. In the original ring setting, all three stones were diamonds. We were going to come back after the holidays to finalize some things.

(By the way, Adam had picked out three settings he thought I would like, and even though the jeweler told me to make sure I looked at all of the ones they had, my favorite was one he had chosen. Good taste, that man.)

Then, on Christmas Eve, my grandfather gave me my grandmother's engagement ring and wedding band and said that we could use them however we wanted. (My grandmother passed away when I was 11.) The settings were not really my style, but I knew right away that I wanted to use the stones from her rings in mine. Her engagement ring had a round diamond (in a square setting, oddly) with six small diamonds (again, round diamonds in square settings) on the side. Her wedding band had seven small diamonds set in it (same square settings). I decided to use the main diamond from her engagement ring in my engagement ring, and the 13 small diamonds in my wedding band. (Particularly fitting, as my birthday is on the 13th and 13 is my favorite number.)

I still loved the original setting I had picked out for my birthstone, but instead of having my pale blue birthstone in the middle with accent diamonds on the side, I decided to use my grandmother's stone as the center ring and with two light blue sapphires on the side. I really loved the idea of having a punch of color in my ring. Plus, even though it was based on a setting they had, my ring was truly custom and unique.

And, now onto what (some of) you have been waiting for... photos of the ring. (Please ignore my scary scaly looking hands... it's winter!)