Wedding bells are ringing... and trying to live in the moment.

Once again, I have fallen off the blogging bandwagon, in all the efforts to plan a wedding for 150 guests. It's been only about a month since we've been engaged, and I think I've made significant progress!

Photo from our engagement photographer, Tina Jankowski. She did a GREAT job!

Week 1- exactly one week after we got engaged, I was trying on wedding dresses. It was the second dress that I tried on that I fell in love with, and decided that was the one. Of course I still tried on a bunch of other dresses because it's fun, and it only happens once, and it didn't seem like it'd be so much fun to try on wedding dresses after getting married. So I thought I'd have fun with it and enjoy it. I bought my dress that day.

Week 2- I was so worried that 5 months would not be enough time to plan a wedding as extravagant as I (well, my mother, rather) wanted. The fiance and I were fine with a small beautiful ceremony near the ocean at sunset. As long as he wore his beautiful uniform and I found the perfect dress (and shoes, of course) I was fine with an intimate cocktail reception. Classy, elegant, simple. But my mother would have none of this. She claimed she and my father had a large wedding, they had almost 300 people, and that a wedding half that size was not really all that big. Ummm, ok. By week 2 the fiance and I had scouted out a beautiful place that was available around the dates we wanted, but were still searching to make sure all our options had been exhausted.

Week 3- The next thing of course was to show the venue to the parental units. They fell in love with it also, and the venue was booked. Between making invitations and making sure I'm on track with our wedding to-do list, I was booking appointments with DJs, florists, etc.

Week 4- DJ interview went well. Met with a florist. The bridesmaids picked out their dresses. Sooo many details! I found my shoes!!!! Those of you who know me know that I have a great love of shoes. So it was no surprise to me that finding the perfect shoe was going to be a big undertaking. I absolutely had to be in love with these shoes if they were going to be on my feet when I marry my Prince Charming. I went to several different stores, looked online, but nothing really caught my eye. I was frustrated, I love shoe shopping, but nothing had piqued my interest! That is until I walked in to Macy's on Saturday and had a very lovely salesman help me out. He took me straight to the Badgley Mischka table and said "If I could show you a 'bridal shoe table' it would be this one." There were about 4 other women, who all happened to be brides, looking at this table. I knew I was in the right place. He picked up a pair of gorgeous shoes. I tried on a pair. For the 5 minutes I had the shoes on, 4 women stopped, looked down at my feet, and were in awe of the beauty that lay below. I was sold.

Week 5- We found our photographer! So excited! A very good friend of mine I've known since high school informed me that a friend of his that we used to all hang out with has a photography business with his wife. Awesome. Only leaves us with our cake (it was included with our venue, so next week is cake tasting!) and flowers. Oy, flowers. Sooo expensive!! I've decided that since I'm taking the week before the wedding off from work that I shall be the one to put the centerpieces together. It should be fun, I hope.

And so has been the story of wedding planning. It's a lot of fun planning, it's all going by so quickly. I don't think it has quite sunk in yet that I am getting married, much less that I'm engaged. I am enjoying every minute. One thing our DJ told us is that the night goes by very very fast and it's important to streamline all the introductions and hugs and all that because especially after dinner, it's like a whirlwind and it's all over.

Funny how we spend so much time and energy planning for a 5 hour event of 1 day of the rest of our lives. It's so much fun and you're looking forward to it, then all of a sudden you blink and you're married. It's something that I have been looking forward to since I was just a little girl, and it will soon be behind me, a moment I will never get back. Kind of bittersweet when I reflect on it that way. But I plan on enjoying every minute.

I leave you with a poem that has stayed with me since high school, about the passage of time. I memorized it 11 years ago and it's a fitting poem about life and bittersweet moments.
"Caminante, son tus huellas, el camino y nada mas.
Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace camino, y a volver la vista atras,
se ve la senda que nunca se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante, no hay camino, sino estelas en la mar."
-Antonio Machado

My roughly translated version to make sense in English:
Traveller, there are your footprints, the path and nothing more.
Traveller, there is no path, you make the path as you go.
As you go, you make the path, and when you look behind,
you see the path that you will never return to step.
Traveller, there is no path, only wakes in the sea.