The Final Countdown

A lot of perception of life is based on what you see other people do and hear stories about how things should work. When I think about planning for a wedding I always hear about how much time it takes and the amount of planning that is necessary. In my situation I really haven't noticed any issues with the planning. My fiance and I have been pretty smart about how we planned things and got a lot of stuff out of the way.

First major thing was the hall and food. We found a good deal at The Sterling and they provided a package for us. The package included the hall, 8 appetizers, 5 main course items, 3 desserts, alcohol, mocktail bar, and a three layer cake. These are standard that most halls give you but there was more in the package. In addition we had our full floral decorations, a 3 tier stage, a photographer, videographer, 10 passenger limo, DJ, and matradee services. We liked the package but we added extras to it. We got a full set of corsages and boutonnieres for the families, bridal bouquet, 8 bridesmaids bouquets, an MC with the DJ, an extra 10 passenger limo, an extra photo guy, and an 18 piece cold display. I am sure that there are more items that we got that I am just forgetting.

Alright so that is the base of what we started with but there is a lot more to setting up the wedding. It took us a bit to find a church that we liked, but we ended up going with a beautiful church that most of the weddings that I went to have been held in. Tuxedos were easy since we just went to the men's wearhouse and picked out the styles that we liked. We had to go talk to the DJ to make sure that he understood what we wanted and tell him what we want out of our MC. We went to the photo guy and payed for an extra guy in addition to paying for extra hours considering we are starting at 8 am and are probably gonna go until 5 pm. We also went to the limo company and upgraded one of the limos to be a 16 passenger one and we needed an extra hour to get to the reception hall.

As far as me being the groom, my part is a bit easier then my fiance. She has to get 2 outfits, the bridal gown and the traditional manthragodi which is the Indian sari wore to the reception. Getting the outfit is not enough, there are alterations to be made and getting the right accessories and shoes take up more time then getting the outfit itself. Then there are invites. The process of picking an invite, getting them shipped, putting them together took a descent amount of time. We also had to plan our guest list. This probably took the most amount of time. There are people I want to invite, my mom wants to invite and people that we are obligated to invite. Remembering all of them and getting their address took some time. We over invited knowing that people would say no. While we did get a descent amount of RSVP back we still have people who just haven't responded and even when we call they haven't answered.

It is less then 45 days left to the wedding. I am trying to think of what I have left to do but I always feel like I am going to forget something. It is the small details that you forget up until the last minute. We have our ushers set, we just have to tell them what we want them to do. We are in the process of creating the book that people will see during the reception. We have to create a play list of items that we want the DJ to play. We did our food tasting but we just have to finalize the food that will be available and pick our flavoring for the cake. We still have to finalize our itinerary for the wedding day itself and find out who is planning anything for the wedding. The seating chart can't really be done until we find out who is coming and who is not. We still haven't made preparations for the rehearsal dinner but that is going to be a strain on the budget.

I am feeling pretty confident about the wedding but I feel something will go wrong. I don't think it will be anything major but something small like the limo's coming late, or family missing when we are trying to do pictures. The wedding is just one day that has a lot of money and planning that goes into it. What I am more excited about and nervous about is after the wedding. We have our honeymoon planned and booked and that will be great but we will start to live together after that point. I am very comfortable with life right now. I see my fiancee a descent amount but I cherish my time that I have to do my own thing. She also enjoys her time and space that she gets to do whatever she want to with. We will have a lot more time together and I feel we won't know what to do with it. We will find our flow eventually and things should smooth out but I wonder what she will get annoyed with me about. I like to nap a lot and she finds that weird. She is worried that she will be messy since no one ever comes to her room now.

The days leading up to the wedding are going fast. Soon enough we will have our wedding day and be Mr. and Mrs and start the beginning of our lives together. God help us.