And we return to our regularly scheduled broadcast....

So the wedding preparations are underway once more.  There is something about me that kind of hates it.  I was enjoying the break!  I find that once again I'm ready for this to be over!!!!  Ok, so I'm in a better place, but I have decided that at 32 planning a wedding I'm not anything like I would have been in my 20's.  In fact I'm pretty sure I don't make a very good bride in a lot of ways.  I'm discovering I'm definitely not traditional!  I am glad in a lot of ways we did go the route of wedding planning as there have been so many growing experiences along the way.  In fact we find ourselves wading through so many issues now as we plan the wedding together that otherwise we would have been addressing the first year of marriage and very likely been ready to kill each other over...lol.  Most recently has been the infamous money topic.  Dustin has a very practical approach to money while I admit it is definitely a more emotional topic for me to deal with.  We're quickly learning that I deal with money in pieces.  I can handle talking about it for chunks of time and then I need a break.  Not that I have hugely unhealthy spending habits at this point, but I need the breaks to regroup rather than discussing through to the end.  The nice thing is that we're developing habits that will make our transition into shared finances much easier after the wedding.  In fact the awesome thing about paying for and planning your wedding together is that we have a trial run to figure out the things we need to watch for and work on.  So it strikes me as rather humorous the other day when it occurs to me that most girls see their wedding as that fairy tale moment when their world is perfect and everything exactly as they want it.  Yeah, well, my world might be perfect if you are a bride who is a number obsessed accounting major, but that I'm not.  My world ends up being perfect because at 32 I've figured out that fairy tales in their truest form are rough.  They aren't the happy animal singing version we've been sold by Disney.  They are dark and filled with human emotion.  Ok, so my wedding isn't this depressing moment in time, but the truth.... Sometimes that planning piece is really tough.  There are times when since we're paying for things rather than waiting on my fairy godmother to make a moment perfect, I wonder if things are really going to work out.   I admit that for all the times I think to myself it's a matter of trusting God that there are moments I find that my prayer ends up being "I believe, LORD.  Help my unbelief."  There's this part of me that even at this time though I find myself with the thought that we're going to have an awesome story to tell our kids one day though about how God gave us an awesome wedding and prepared us for marriage at the same time.  Of course at the same time I really am ready to get this wedding over and get on with the future ahead of us, because as God's giving us little glimpses of it....  It looks incredible!!!

To Inconvenience or Not Inconvenience....

You know, I'm not sure that I make a very good bride...  I tend to think maybe I might have been better suited to a ceremony in our pastor's office with two witnesses.  Don't get me wrong, I truly want that special day and that experience, but I often feel that I'm inconveniencing people with any plans I make or dreams I have of what I'd like my wedding to be like.  I really struggle with believing that it's suppose to be a day that is about me in any way shape or form.  In fact I think I've come to realize why I want and in many ways need Dustin so involved in every aspect of this wedding that he's willing to step into.  If it were for just me I'd probably give up on the idea of a wedding settle on whatever would work with as little inconvenience to as few people as possible and try to not think about what I was missing and what I really wanted.  So you might be wondering exactly how that translates into Dustin being involved in wedding plans.  You see in a way just as important as that vision of all things princess that little Lauren, my flower girl inspires, Dustin makes me believe that it's important for me to experience that moment.  Wedding plans, budgets and wedding stress pretty much seem more than I'd be able to take on if Dustin were a hands off groom.  If left to myself I'd be one of those brides that you hear horror stories about.  I'd be cooking and cleaning in my wedding dress because I couldn't think to inconvenience anyone by asking for help.  In fact asking for help has been one of my biggest challenges in this whole wedding process.  Not because I'm a control freak, but because I struggle with the feeling that people have to have more important things to do than mess with helping me.  Now granted up to this point most of what we are doing has of necessity been done by only the two of us, but I've realized that many of my panic moments stem to that feeling that comes from the habit I've developed after being on my own for so long of "just doing it myself".  I truly believe that God gave me the perfect man in the form of Dustin.  Not that he's perfect without fault, but he's perfect for me in that he pushes and encourages in ways that help me grow or become stronger.   He helps me realize that people genuinely do want to help.  That they consider it an honor to be intimately involved in such a special moment in our lives.  I'm truly hoping that God leaves us together for 50 or 60 years since I'm pretty sure it will take that long for me to get this particular lesson that he's using Dustin to teach me...

Priorities and Steps of Faith....

I have a feeling of accomplishment tonight.  It feels like we're actually getting somewhere in the planning process.  Save the Date cards have been ordered and have arrived, my wedding dress is ordered, tux style selected and today the wedding rings chosen in a rather unexpected trip to the jeweler.  Somehow the selection of the rings makes everything seem real.  Sometimes it's easy to feel like I'm just a little girl playing wedding.  To feel that even when I'm planning certain things or choosing certain things that it's not really me or for me that I'm just planning a party of sorts.  The rings somehow make it seem real.  I think it's maybe because ultimately the rings are the physical symbol of the purpose of the entire day.  Oddly enough to the point that me the one who spent the first 2 months of our engagement freaking out and ending up with headaches every time the budget was mentioned or the cost of things had to be discussed without a moments hesitation found myself stepping up and telling the jeweler we'd take the ring that I could tell Dustin really wanted when he started to settle for his second choice.  This from the girl who in the fist month of our engagement slashed through the wedding budget like it was an expendable extra in a horror movie cutting every conceivable extra expense.  Yep!  I'm the one who made the call to go over our budgeted amount on rings.  You see there are some things that I find to be non-negotiable in the big picture.  The wedding rings are one of them.  Everything else from that one day pretty much goes away.  The tux goes back to the store, my dress gets put away in a box, the decorations go away to be re-purposed, but the rings... Well, since neither of us plan to make a habit of repeating this event every few years the rings become the one thing that remains when the day is over.  The Gift of the Magi is a story that while it always struck me as cute and sweet is one that with Dustin in my life I've come to appreciate in a way that I haven't before.  I understand why the couple in the story were able to part with their most prized possessions.  It meant that it made the one they loved more than anything happy.  I find that is a large part of the reason that I love having Dustin involved in every area of planning the wedding.  I love to hear what he likes, what's important to him and if it's something that I realize I don't have the passionate connection to that he does I find it easy to turn over that part to him to turn his dream into reality.  Some of my happiest moments in wedding planning happen when I stumble on an idea that gets him excited because by listening I found a way to incorporate an element that makes that day even more ours in its uniqueness.  I realized the moment I could look at the one doll I consider the prized doll of my collection, the one that I've always said is the last one I will ever part with and say that if making a certain part of a dream Dustin has come true means I need to sell it that I would part with that prize possession that at one time I never thought I'd be able to let go I realized that the value of things has changed.  I've found the one earthly thing that is more important than that beautiful little doll.  It's the way that a certain smile lights up Dustin's entire face when I do something that makes him happy.  It's the way that smile leads to excitement that nearly has him bouncing like a little boy on Christmas morning.  Thankfully, while I've definitely indicated to God that I am willing to part with that little doll if necessary he seems to be planning on letting me keep it for the moment as he continues to expand the potential budget in a way that Dustin and I can't quite make sense of...  Every time we make a decision that is made with the thought we do this and we'll look at the list of things we could cut and we'll cut something else God seems to send the money to cover the step of faith moment in a way that causes us to take the next step of faith just a little easier the next time...

To Stress or Not To Stress....

I've come to the conclusion it's going to be an extremely long 6 months.  I'm a little over a month into an engagement and already I'm sick of wedding budgets, pricing items and lists.  This from the person that according to my co-worker lives by my lists.  I'm already tired of spending money on paper I've yet to make and the overwhelming magnitude of the numbers for what is considered a low budget wedding.  I'm totally convinced at this point a wedding planner is the way to go, but alas....  that's not in the budget.  It's funny to be at that place that I've dreamed of for so long only to find my priorities have changed to the point that I cringe at the thought of spending money on things that are only going to be around for one evening.  There's a part of me that thinks in the middle of all of it that the price of tablecloths would pay for a new sweeper.  Flowers, well, they're beautiful, they smell wonderful, but again why do I want to spend money on those things when for what they cost I could replace my living room lamps?  It's funny how as a teenager and even in my 20's I had my wedding planned out in detail.  My colors, my dress, the number of attendants, I had it all planned down to the songs I would have performed.  All things considered I suppose the ceremony is not a piece that causes me undue stress.  I'm pretty good with things where the church portion is concerned, it's the reception that truly makes me cringe in the planning.  It's funny how now that I'm spending money I've actually worked for how hard it is to part with for something that doesn't feel like mine yet.  Maybe I'm waiting for that magic moment for the inspiration to strike that says this makes it yours and no one elses....  Sometimes the overwhelming thing about "being in charge" is that you have to come up with the idea before you can hand off the project to your eager volunteers.  I think I'm kind of feeling a little like one of the brides on My Fair Wedding.  She was so overwhelmed with everything being thrown her way she tried to incorporate all of it into her wedding.  Now I'm not quite to that point, but I have come to one realization...  While the ceremony definitely feels like it represents Dustin and I the reception not so much so in the ideas sitting out there.  To borrow from my favorite wedding planner...  It feels like the ceremony is one couples wedding and the reception belongs to a completely different couple.  Not exactly what I had in mind...  So I believe I shall scratch my current thoughts on the reception and go back to the drawing board...

I HATE number crunching, but I LOVE number changing...

And today we tackled the infamous wedding budget.  Plugging in numbers and then figuring out could we make the numbers work the way we would like them to...  Do you know it's amazing how many costs you can cut when you start to think outside of the box.  I'll admit there were times it gave me headaches, but sitting down to figure out what is it that we can't give on and what is it that will just be an added expense that we'd prefer not to incur?  Bottom line I think the only thing we found we couldn't adjust expense on was our photographer.  That was the only number that remained unscathed as based on our original numbers I sat down quite determinedly with a pen and a copy of the first budget draft and started slashing items deciding that if it could end up determining the length of our engagement I was set on cutting out anything I deemed unnecessary!  It's amazing the things you find yourselves looking at each other and asking if it's really important in the scheme of things?  Does having a unity candle or unity sand matter to one or the other of you?  Because if neither of you really care, then why waste the expense?  One thing we discovered early on was that the wedding cake was something I cared nothing about while Dustin very much wanted to have it as a part of the day so... being the good little DIY bride that I'm planning to turn into I implemented rule #1 in the unwritten DIY bride handbook.  I delegated...  Yes, my fiance is picking the cake for the wedding (fortunately he has excellent taste and will probably pick something classier than I would have thought of.  No armadillo cakes at my wedding, thank you!)  I do have to confess that God has sent me quite the perfect man (no, I'm not blind to any faults with that statement).  He's willing to take an interest and help in my quest to make it our day.  While he insist very emphatically he will not break tradition and show up at any bridal showers that might be given, he is willing to give input and support in whatever way I need it.  So back to my budgeting crisis moment...  When I handed my idea of the next date based on the rough outline of the budget we had come up with he very lovingly told me if it took that long to put the wedding I wanted together we would wait until that date.  That was all it took to send me into slash mode.  The poor budget looked like an expendable extra in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre!  There were colored marks everywhere on the page as I started to dig determined to make the numbers look different.  After debating over the items that we would consider necessary and what was essential, I had determined a LOT of things could go.  So then my loving little brainiac crunched the numbers once more and we discovered something amazing!  Thanks to my little fit we had managed to slash a cool $1200 in evaluating necessities vs unnecessary tradition vs a desire that really didn't matter that much.  I'm discovering one thing on this journey to the alter.  My list of necessities grows much shorter when compared with the desire to marry the man I love.  The dreams I had of this perfect wedding with every tradition met has changed to an approach to a wedding that would make Dave Ramsey proud!  The realization that by slashing that much there were obviously a lot of extra unnecessary baggage we thought we'd cart along on that trip while it would appear we didn't really need most of it.  Part of me feels that maybe the lesson in this is that God is trying to show me that less is more.  Less of the extra unnecessary drama and baggage of life means more time invested in relationships.  A real life illustration of focusing on a few things well has a lot more impact than trying to spread myself in too many places.  The reality... the "extra" things we slashed were things that just added one more thing to my to do list... One more hour of my time that left me distracted by things that really didn't matter in the bigger picture.