Command Central

My life lately looks like this:

My dad calls this "Command Central," and it's my set up of Excel to-do lists, tasks in my planner, my wedding binder, and a much-needed cup of coffee. We're two and a half months out, and I woke up crazy early Saturday with a compulsive need to organize our growing list of tasks.


It's huge. We need to print and assemble programs, meet with our band, choose ceremony music, finalize ceremony plans, I need accessories, I need more fittings, he needs groomsmen's gifts, menus have to get printed, but tasting has to happen first, flowers need to be finalized, my mom needs accessories, my dad insists I take dance lessons, must make a cardbox, must stuff invites, need stamps, only one girl has picked up her bridesmaid dress, and on and on. I assume most of my readers are brides- you know how it goes.


I love planning my wedding and am usually pretty levelheaded, and insanely advance-prepared about it all, but I have to admit that as I thought about all this, a knot began to squeeze itself around my chest. I felt stressed and overwhelmed. Luckily it was St. Patrick's Day, and Mr. B and friends dragged me out to spend the afternoon boozing it up in the West Village:

And then on Sunday, Mr. B and I began to tackle some open items. We finally ordered wedding bands (and saved $250 thanks to a gift certificate from BM Kelly!) and our favors. My glorious saint of a mother went through our guest list and every single envelope, carefully typing out any errors (mostly people I left off the guest list, ack) and sending a neatly packaged box of spare envelopes and new instructions down to our calligrapher.

And now I feel a lot better. It's a lot of things to do, but most of it is extras that I'm choosing to do, because I want to- which means I shouldn't allow myself get stressed about it- I don't have to do any of it.

And the other thing I realized is that this is all really fun to me. Yes, it's a lot and that can make it stressful at times, but honestly I'm shocked at how fast 16 months went by, and I really want to savor and enjoy these last two. 

How are you guys handling a gigantic to do list?



Addressing Etiquette

Sending our save the dates meant that Mr. B and I had to learn all those rules about how you properly address an envelope. You know, does the wife go first? Doctor first? What if the wife’s the doctor?

So I figured I’d put the rules down here, to save someone out there the trouble of looking them up. I compiled with the assistance of my girl Martha, the ladies of the Knot, and our calligrapher on the “right” way to address things. Do it your way, of course, but if you want the official “rules,” here they are:

Spell Out:

• House numbers smaller than 20
• State abbreviations (New Jersey)
• Street abbreviations (10 Main Street)
• The word “apartment”
• Post Office Box

Addressing Rules:

• If husband is a doctor, it would be “Doctor and Mrs. Daniel Brummel.”
• If wife is a doctor, it is “Doctor Sally Brummel and Mr. Daniel Brummel”
• Both doctors, “The Doctors Brummel.”
• If they have different professional titles, it is “The Honorable Rachel Hayden and Lieutenant Ryen Slegr.
• If the wife kept her maiden name, it should go first: “Mrs. Rachel Hayden and Mr. Ryen Slegr.
• Unmarrieds living together are separated by a line, as in:
                 Miss Britney Spears
                 Mr. Joseph Hawley
• If children are invited, the outer envelope is only addressed to the parents, as in “Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Horowitz.” Then, on the inner envelope, include the kids, as in:
                 Mr. and Mrs. Ross Federman
                 Jack and Jill
• For single people, address the outer envelope with their name, and include “and guest” on the inner envelope.
• For a same-sex couple, it is like any other couple: Mr. Jose Galvez and Mr. Robert Cantor.
• Children over 18, even if living with parents, should receive their own invitation

Doing the save the dates also brought up some of those fighty, awkward questions, like who really needs to bring a date, and must we honestly invite those people’s kids?  Things will still change slightly by the time we do invitations, I’m sure, but it’s a good time to hammer out all those details.

Hope this helps!

Further Resources: The Knot, Martha Stewart Weddings

The Lull Stops Now!

Source

I spent most of this summer putting wedding work on the backburner, but now Labor Day is over, signaling the end of summer, and with it, the end of my laziness. We're 9 months out, and it's time to get back to work.

I'm putting my goals for September on here in the hopes that it will somehow hold me accountable for the things I need to do. You have my full permission to harass me via comments if you don't see posts about this stuff at some point this month!

So, the September To Do List:

1. Call the church up about Pre Cana. Yes, they told you they will always make room for parish members, even if the Diocese says Pre Cana's full. But Pre Cana is 9/17, and you knew about this since last March, there's no excuse for forcing the church to accomodate you at the last minute.

2. Make a decision on save the dates!! Unfortunately this also means tackle the unpleasant guest list, since we need to know who to send them to.

3. Order STDs mid month, send end of month.

4. Start bridesmaid dress shopping. I made some plans with my cousin Katie to start looking, so hopefully I'll have some posts on that soon!

Four things, that's it! Surely I can accomplish these four things!!

Anyone else have some September goals set up?

Organization

I’m interrupting the regularly scheduled photography complaints to write about something that might be a little more useful to other people: organizing your wedding planning! There’s so many things to keep track of, but I happen to be an incredibly Type A person who gets a sick thrill from a carefully organized binder, so I have loved this element of planning my wedding. In case you haven't, I'm here to share the strategies that work for me, after the jump.