3 Days - The Non-Wedding Dream - The Road Back to Normalcy

I have been waking up a lot recently with dreams about the wedding and what can go wrong and it puts me in a weird, somewhat anxious, wedding planning-focused place. I wouldn't recommend starting your day with those kinds of feeling.

Today was a different story, though! Today, I woke up to a dream about going to dinner with a friend and then going to Ithaca to speak to one of my professors about statistical analysis. I felt refreshed and a little nerdy, and I loved every moment of it!  I think this means my sub-conscious is making the shift away from the wedding and back to my normal, nerdy life and that is awesome!

I am working hard to be in the moment for the wedding and to relish the coming together of our family and friends and making the ultimate commitment to Sam.  I'd be sad if I got so caught up in the stress of the day that before I knew it, our wedding would be over and I wouldn't remember a thing. So my focus the next three days is to take each moment in and focus on why we're all coming together.  Then I get to look forward to the future. There are so many good things that will happen after the wedding that we get to look forward to. On Sunday we leave for our honeymoon, a break we have been craving for over a year, but more importantly, I am excited for the day that Sam and I get home from work and we make a delicious dinner (something I haven't done in ages), go for a long walk, and watch a movie or a football game before going to bed. . .you know, normal things.  Soon, my friends, we'll be there!

29 Days - Damn, I'm productive!. . . and tired

I am knocking tasks off my wedding to do list like it is going out of style!   

Tonight, we went to dinner at our good friends'--Andrew and Marisa-- house.  They have this little thing that Sam and I dream of called "a yard" that allows you to do crafty things,  like garden or spray paint wedding stuff.  I alternated between discussions of a potential trip to the Bahamas in the Spring (yes, please!), chasing my baby love, Mia, around, and spray painting the cupcake tower and some other wedding decor on their sidewalk.  With exception to Marisa's and my 30+ bug bites, the endeavor was a huge success.  (Mia also got to see four doggies, which sent her into baby heaven.)  

I also crossed programs off my to-do list last night.  I remember when my sister's wedding came around, the programs were kind of a panicked afterthought.  I wanted to avoid calling my eight months pregnant sister in tears for programs, so I knew I just needed to get them done. Of course I didn't want to pay for them either, so I spent an hour and a half last night searching for a free template for wedding programs.  Boring! This yawnfest plus my 10 hour day at work resulted in me falling asleep sitting up, but I am proud to say that once I woke up, I found a template and typed up the programs!  Once I get paper, we will be golden.

You may be thinking, if Rachel is falling asleep while sitting up, she may need more sleep.  I agree with you and have instituted a new 11 pm bedtime.  Of course, its 11:26 pm right now, so that shows you how well I do with bedtime schedules. . .

66 Days - rolling with the punches

The past few days have been an exercise in acceptance and moving forward.  Dwelling doesn't help anyone, least of all yourself.

Examples:

• The Bachelorette Party was a great time with some wonderful ladies.  Unfortunately, it didn't start off on the right foot.
• One of my bestests had heat exhaustion and at the last minute couldn't make it to the party.  I was really sad to not see her, but it wasn't her fault that my bachelorette party followed a week of 100 degree weather causing her to spend the weekend sick in bed.  
• We missed the bus to NYC for my bachelorette party by five minutes.  Correction, they gave away our seats to standby passengers because the train to the bus stop was cancelled and made us late.  The next bus was booked, so Bridg booked us tickets on the next train, which was a lot more expensive but it was a solution that got us in town on time. 
• We got to NYC where my friends were waiting for us and I had a great time.  I couldn't let the negativity surrounding the start of the day affect me because my girls came a long way to see me and the last thing a bachelorette party needs is a pouty bride.
• My printer has become haunted by the spirit of Martha Stewart and the Etiquette Gods.  When trying to print the invitation envelopes with a pretty font, Martha et al. made my printer eat five envelopes, which couldn't be wasted.  I could have panicked, (seriously, I thought about it), but frankly, I don't have the time.  The invitations need to go out this week, which means Martha gets her way and I am handwriting the invitation addresses.  No picture perfect envelopes for this couple.  The wedding industry complex is probably gasping in horror.  Oh well.  I read a lot of blogs with picture perfect stationary and my first instinct was to worry that my handwriting wasn't good enough.  I didn't want people to judge our wedding because the envelopes aren't perfect.  Then I realized the people coming to our wedding love us and they don't care about picture perfect envelopes, so I shouldn't worry about them either.

There are 66 days left until W Day and I would be fooling myself if I thought everything would be perfect and obstacle-free.  Nothing is perfect and that's all right.  The best thing I can do is accept the imperfections and move on because at the end of the day, Sam and I will be married and that's all that matters.  (I read this post from A Practical Wedding, one of my favorite wedding blogs, which kind of hit it all home for me.  I was never one that wanted to get married at 20, but this young girl seems to have everything in a proper perspective.  At such a young age, her thoughts on marriage and wedding planning are objective and display a maturity that I didn't have as a sophmore in college.  Check it out if you have a few minutes to spare.)

So, moving forward. . .This will be the last update for a few days.  Wedding planning, and work are about to get nutty.  Thank goodness Sam has been good about making me dinner and keeping me sane.  Here are some things on the wedding radar:

• The invites will be out by the end of this week/beginning of next week. 
• My first dress fitting is this Saturday.
• Our friends Paige and Will are getting married this weekend! :-)
• I must must must send the cake topper to Laufa to paint!
• We need to finalize the ceremony readings and our vows.
• Wedding programs!

Ugh, I'm done thinking about it.  See you next week!

74 Days - Wedding Day Perspective

I read this blog post a few months ago and I immediate thought to myself, "Exactly."  

I found this post again last night and I am so glad.  Now that we are nearing the end of planning our wedding, its nice to remember that whatever the outcome of our wedding day, the most important part will come during the days, months, and years to follow:

"How you live your married life, each and every day, or rather the sum of your days, eventually becomes a much more powerful testimony of who you are as a couple. . . Were it up to me, and were my husband and I so extraordinarily lucky, I’d rather let our fiftieth anniversary than our wedding be that ultimate statement of who we are together."

412 Days - We did it! Well. . . he did it!

The bar exam is over!! Sam took the exam on Tuesday and Wednesday in Baltimore this week. He said there were parts he felt really confident about but there were a lot of difficult multiple choice questions. It was stressful, but now its over. We'll find out on November 6th what the verdict is on his scores. It seems far, but I think it will be nice to not think about the bar for a little while.

In related news, my promise to not bug Sam about wedding details until after the bar exam is officially over! Kidding. Sam was really open to looking at ideas I had while he was studying. I just tried to keep planning down to a minimum in his presence. But now. . . . I get to ask for all sorts of opinions with none of the guilt!! And he will be free to give me the ultimate guy responses, like "I dunno" or "Whatever you want."

Actually, Sam has been thinking really hard about what our first dance should be. We are big living room dancers, so I think we will be testing lots of songs out. We want something upbeat. Yes, romantical ballads are beautiful, but they are also BORING to watch after 30 seconds. My friends, Heather & Ryan, did a tango for their first dance, which was the opposite of boring. In fact, it was quite sexy and the guests loved it! I don't think that Sam and I will tango, but we do want to be fun. Maybe this. . .

Too sexy!! hahahaha

And so it starts. . .

I have been planning this blog for a while.  I actually messed around with the templates and colors weeks ago, but I never got around to posting anything.  I call the delay detox from final exams. But I am going to try the wedding blog out and hope for the best.  This blog will detail Sam's and my planning for our wedding next fall.  Also, we have big plans beyond our wedding, including moving to Virginia, saving for a home, and paying off student loans as we start our careers in DC.  YAY!! . . . and realistically YIKES!  I have no misconceptions that this next year and a half will be easy, but it will be good prep for the rest of our lives.

I started a wedding website a few weeks ago, which I will continue to update as our planning becomes finalized.  Here is the link: 

http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/RachelMunn&SamBatkins

If you have any questions or ideas, please feel free to leave a comment or email me.  I would love the help or inspiration.