Two Weeks!

I was hanging out on theknot.com and I was on the July 2011 board.  One of the girls pointed out that at the beginning we just wanted our tickers (countdowns) to start moving since they don't start to move until after 12 months and now we are so close to them being done!
Most of me cannot wait for the wedding, part of me just wants it to be done. A little bit is jealous of the other July 2011 Knotties that have until the end of July, partly because they have more time to finish everything but also because planning a wedding has really been fun and I will be sad when it is over!

Some of my most notable moments of planning the wedding:

Picking a date and location. I obviously wanted July because it is my favorite month. The getting married in Nebraska thing was not expected though. Dylan and I had looked at a couple places in Colorado and fell in love with one up in Genesee. But it was just out of our budget. After a couple days it came at me from all directions that I should get married in Nebraska at Dylan's parents house. Initially we were going to do the whole thing at their house. It was going to be way too much work and not cost effective to rent everything to fit and feed 200 people. So then we looked at venues in Nebraska. I remember looking at the zoo in Omaha, but they make us leave by 8pm. Dylan suggested the Del Ray, said I would love it and I signed a contract without looking at it beyond their website. The date was mostly a matter of what was available. July 2, 2011 is almost here!

Building the wedding website: mywedding.com/dylanandrachel. I remember sitting at my girlfriends' house and going through other people's websites and decided what we liked and didn't like. It was such a big deal when I was designing it, ha ha.

Finding "The Dress": This was one of my more low-key moments. I had watched "Say Yes to the Dress" but had no desire to spend a lot of money on a dress that I will only wear for one day. I had spent some time looking at what I wanted. No lace, yes strapless. I tried on I think 6 or 7 dresses and for a while I was torn between two dresses that were really different. The one I didn't pick was satin and more jeweled, the one I did pick is a linen/taffeta material and has folds for most of the design. It kind of came down to the second one being more practical and my mom, sister and dress lady said I seemed a lot more comfortable in the second dress. So there you go. I got my dress July 2010, and in the last year I have come to love it even more :)

Save the Dates: This was my first DIY project. It was also one of the first times we had all of the bridesmaids together! A lot of fun and definitely one of my easiest projects (although I think the fans will be the easiest).

Cake Testing: Delicious! We decided to do cupcakes and we had a lot of options to choose from. I picked a couple flavor combinations I thought we would like the most and got to taste those. We each picked one flavor for a cupcake and then picked the traditional white wedding cake for the third cupcake. We also designed our cake, which is a fake-cake with real cake on top. I am excited to see what it looks like in real life!

Bouquets: Still in progress, but I knew that was going to be the case for a while. I LOVE them though! The paper origami is fantastic.

Registry: One of the most fun parts of the wedding! I loved making a list of everything that I want :) One of the most annoying parts was picking out our pots and pans. I had convinced Dylan to not get the All-Clad Copper Core, but then the set we did pick started being permanently out of stock, so we switched the the Copper Core. I am so excited to get it either as a gift or over the next couple months/years. It is SO pretty. It was also fun to pick items for out new house. The hardest part is waiting. We know that anything we don't get for a gift, we will be buying over the next couple years, so it was nice to have Dylan and I assess everything that we want.

Those are a couple of highlights of the wedding planning. Overall I would say that I am impressed at how low key I have been about the wedding. I have loved planning it and doing everything for it. I just haven't been stressed about it. My philosophy is that as long as there is food and alcohol, no one will really care about all the other details.

I think everyone will have a blast and appreciate being able to celebrate Dylan and I!