Wedding update

Our wedding website tells me that today we are 81 days away from the big day. Everyone says it will be here before we know it, but given my excitement level I'm not so sure. Luckily we have a few trips planned in between to make the time go a bit faster.

I wish I could give myself a bit more credit by saying how exhausting the wedding planning has been, but it's untrue. In fact, it has been (mostly) a pleasure. Strangely enough, I think that planning from afar made things go smoother. Mainly because I did not get bogged down with all the options. I found my vendors mostly through word of mouth. Plus the wedding business is big business and thus rather efficiently priced, so I knew that meeting several vendors and trying to bargain hunt in the end wouldn't save us much money at all and would just cause more stress and waste time. And though if I were in the US I may have done more DIY things, it was just more convenient to work with professionals. Ultimately I'm very happy with all the vendors I've chosen to work with, and I must say that my vision is really coming to life.

Probably the hardest thing for Matt and I to decide on were our wedding colors. I personally went back and forth on this many times. We decided on green and ivory after I had a dream about using those colors. I woke up all excited and told Matt and he was in total agreement. Those colors just seemed very much like "us", as you can probably see by the design of this blog! We decided to throw in some purple to make it a bit more elegant, and I haven't looked back from that since.

Now is around the time where I should be second-guessing all of my decisions. The one thing I keep going back to is the dress. I fell in love with my dress on my first visit to a bridal salon. It just suited me and the location perfectly - comfortable, soft, bohemian, beachy. Probably the reason I'm stressing over it now is because it's been months since I've seen it in person. I'm still waiting for the dress to be made so I can have my first fitting. I'm sure when I see it again there will be no more doubts. For someone as obsessed with fashion as I am, it's of course difficult to make a decision on your wedding dress, the dress you'll remember for the rest of your life. It's a funny idea - I've been to several weddings now, and I must say I don't remember any of the brides' dresses - not to say they were not stunning, I'm sure they were, but isn't that the whole deal with weddings? You pretty much want people not to remember your wedding, because if it's nice and everyone is pleased, they won't remember those details, just that they had a great time. The only time people really recall the details of a wedding they've been to is when something was tacky or if something goes blatantly wrong. So, plan a wedding they'll forget!

Another difficult decision was the invitations. I definetely had a vision, after bouncing back and worth on it for a bit. When I first met with my invitationalist, she didn't have the right paper I wanted, in terms of the color and texture. I spent a few hours with her, just going through samples and trying to compromise on what I initially wanted. This was especially difficult because Matt wasn't with me. I kept choosing very romantic things, but I knew that it wouldn't be fair to choose something very girly without discussing it with the other party to this wedding first. Fortunately, as I was perusing a sample, I found the perfect paper. We had to do some finagling with the manufacturer, but in the end we got what we wanted. My mom just picked the invitations up last night and said they look beautiful - I can't wait to see them!

Other than those things, everything else just fell into place - we have a wonderful florist with a great creative eye, a highly recommended DJ, a very talented Brazilian bossa nova band that I found online, a friendly reverend that wrote us a beautiful ceremony (also found him online), a photographer that takes the most stunning pictures in the photojournalism style, a Zagat-rated chef and a beautiful location on the beach. But most important of all, we have the best guests, which is the key to any great wedding. We can't wait for this day to finally get here, so we can celebrate with all of our friends and family!

So my wedding tip for any brides to be: Expect to second-guess everything, but in the end stick to your instinct. Don't sacrifice yours and your grooms' personality by just going with the latest trends (can anyone say chocolate brown?).