Planning the wedding has been a lot stranger than I thought it would be. I've never planned a wedding before, let alone a formal gathering of this scale by myself. When I first announced my engagement and it was time to start the planning process, my mom flat out said that she would leave everything up to me, all the decisions, all the plans.... everything. She said this, knowing her tendencies to run the show and turn it into some big stressful extravaganza where not a single family member can enjoy themselves due to the fact that we are all so high strung following the planning and preparing stages with my mom. I appreciate the fact that my mom understands thats the last thing I want to go through just to get married and have people there to celebrate my wedding.
Unfortunately, since I know nothing about planning a wedding and what needs to be done when, I've been floundering a bit lately. We're just under the five month mark before the big day, and the rest of my family (my aunt and grandma) are starting to worry. I received a call the other morning from my aunt...just wanting to check in with me and make sure the planning was going alright. Apparently, my grandma doesn't like how the planning process is going, so she asked my aunt to give me a call to tell me that she is here to help in any way I need her to. While I appreciate the offer....I didn't think we were doing too bad on the whole wedding planning thing, but I guess I was wrong. My aunt and grandma feel that my mom has too much on her plate right now, with work and all her business trips to Ohio, that she just isn't doing her job.....
My mom didn't appreciate that too much, and sort of kicked it up in high gear the past couple of days, to try and get as much done, crammed into my one Saturday off of the month. Our hourly wedding updates to my aunt and grandma seemed to appease them for the time being. Hopefully it'll keep them off our backs for the time being....
So here's a wedding update. I'm just under the five month mark until the wedding, and here's a list of things I've already done:
- bought the wedding dress and purse
- picked out the reception and ceremony location
- signed with a dj
- hired ceremony musicians (a string quartet)
- ordered the bridesmaids dresses and accessories (shoes and purses)
- ordered save-the-date cards
- ordered wedding favors (which are also place card holders)
- compiled a list of addresses of everyone we want to invite (now its just my parents holding us back from sending out the save-the-date cards; they don't have all their addresses together)
- picked out a photographer, although now I'm having second thoughts because his actual work that he's posting looks nothing like the album he brought to show us. I'm very scared and disappointed...anyone have tips on how to cancel with this guy?
I think thats about it.... That is a lot of stuff, but theres still so much more that needs to be done. If anyone out there has planned a wedding before, I'd appreciate all the tips you have! Leave them in a comment for me.....Thanks!