Being that Lilac Dude and I are both students we approach wedding planning like we do our education. We have been setting deadlines, crafting assignments and taking field trips.

My command center for wedding planning AND school work (Personal Photo)

Since we obviously don’t hate school this has been a pretty good approach. I feel like I’m “studying” venues and traditions when I’m browsing through blogs and the articles that I send to Lilac Dude are “assigned readings”. I just finished a very large “art assignment”… the flowers! I’m proud to say that all corsages, boutonnieres and bouquets are done!

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Have you ever felt like you’re walking and just not getting anywhere? That’s kind of what I feel like at this point with wedding planning, except I’m not even getting exercise from it! We’ve hit a wedding planning wall.

Photo from jenniferpowter.com

I feel like we’re living and breathing wedding planning but not getting any closer to having a wedding planned. This feeling is mostly due to thinking we’d found our reception place and then having it yanked from under us. Now we have to start back at square one with the reception, also pushing back our DJ search.

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Lilac Dude and I received an email from our photographer letting us know that he had scheduled a wedding on May 27th that was out of town. While he was sure that he’d be able to return in time to shoot our wedding on May 28th, he would have his two assistants available to shoot it in case of delay. It was a generous offer considering that our photography package calls for only one photographer, but it didn’t make me feel any better. How could he book a wedding that may make him miss ours?

I was pretty mad. After a new contract and some back and forth we still have our photographer.

Photo from celebratewithstyle.com

Then in our reception hall search we called a certain place and asked if our date, May 28th was available. Yes, they said, it is available. So we take an evening to visit and talk with the manager. And we asked, are you sure you have our day? He assured us that they did have it available.

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Well Garden, I think it’s time to address my sometimes severely Type A personality. Most of my Future In Laws already know that my shout of “I WIN” to making good guacamole or winning at Banagrams is just genuinely me. I like to make everything into a “fun little game” and then focus intently on the way to WIN said game. To quote Maria Bamford’s set “Life isn’t a game, but if it is- I’m winning.”

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No one would be grading my “wedding work” so why did it all matter? Because I am a self-confessed-sometimes-perfectionist. I found reading blogs about less than perfect people to be quite helpful. But the greatest gift any wedding blog has ever given me was this one simple article… Your Wedding is Not a Contest by the Offbeat Bride. Finally someone telling me in no uncertain terms that it’s okay to break tradition and it’s okay to be somewhat traditional too- and that there was really no way to get it wrong. It’s just about us.

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I’m one of those girls who actually understands maps, in fact I actually have a map in the map pocket of my driver’s door (old fashioned right?).

I’m starting to feel a need for bridal GPS assistance however. It’s slowly starting to dawn on me how crazy the next 12 months are going to be and how much of a work out my GPS is going to get!

The bulk of wedding preparation will be done from my apartment on the University of Mount Union’s campus. My parents are a 3 hour drive into Pennsylvania and my future in-laws are 30 minutes south. I purchased my dress at the Alfred Angelo store in Boardman, Ohio. Our photographer, my good friend (and crucial planning buddy!) as well as the good bridal shows are all in Cleveland. Thankfully, lots of things can be done online! But sometimes you just have to head to the store for things, and my stores are another 30 minutes away in Canton, Ohio.

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If you read my second blog about having wedding dress nerves… you’ll know I was afraid of falling out of love with my dress.

I received so much encouragement for you awesome buds and blossoms and some great advice for long term storage (fabric bags hanging bags, not plastic!).

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So you may remember my recent post about pricey chairs for our beach wedding.   I just bit the bullet and placed the order for the chairs.  Then I felt sick.  I am the girl who designed my own invitations, got a wedding dress for less than $50, and have tried to save money whenever possible.  Spending $629 for chairs my guests will sit in for about 30 minutes or so has put me over the planning edge.

REALLY Expensive White Wedding Chairs

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I can vividly remember when we first told Dahlia Dude’s parents that we wanted to have a destination wedding in South Africa. Dahlia Dude’s Mom blankly stared at us for almost a whole minute, and Dahlia Dude’s Dad scoffed and rolled his eyes. Encouraging, right?

First of all, who wouldn’t want to get married here?

Cape Town Beach

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When I read on a website, “Make your wedding dreams a reality!” I thought, “No thanks!”

Even with my wedding being a year away I’m having dreams about weird wedding things. And I can only expect them to get weirder.

A few weeks ago, I had a dream that we visited a jewelry store and asked to have my engagement ring resized. In this dream, we were sitting in the workshop where a man would cut metal out of my ring, fuse it together and I’d try it on. Every time my ring would slide off my finger and fall on the floor.

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Our wedding is in less than 60 days and I have SO much to do.  I cannot even begin to type the list here because it is that daunting.  Some major things I still need to do include booking the rehearsal dinner, confirming the steel drum band for our ceremony, and ordering the chairs for the ceremony.  A friend of mine is getting Married June 5th. She had everything planned, booked, paid for, etc.. by last fall. I thought she was crazy.  Now I am jealous.

Has anyone else just hit a slump? I want to be married and am looking forward to our wedding I just feel like there is so much left to do.