4-5 Month Mark

The coutdown is on. Less than 5 months until our wedding day. The girls dresses have been ordered. Tuxes have been selected. We've booked our cake, DJ, ceremony music, linens, and flowers. Our invitations have been selected, the Save the Dates are out, mom and soon-to-be mom have booked the shower date/location, and we have registered. My dress and veil are in and we have ordered our wedding bands. The only things that are left are the favors, programs, flower girl dress, and finalizing the alcohol selection (we supply our own and have chosen a fabulous company that continuously re-stocks throughout the night!). "Only" is a poor choice of words. Although we have had about 2.5 years to plan, you can't really do TOO much until the year of the wedding. January came along and made me suddenly realize all the appointments that needed to be made and decisions that needed to be finalized. Regardless of the whole payments thing, there are so many details that you don't account for until right before. For example, the invitations must be ordered by the 4 month mark. We are getting menus and accomodation cards with these invitations. Therefore, we need a finalized menu (hence a meeting with the reception hall), booked hotel, and exact directions to that hotel prior to ordering the invitations. We are getting programs. We need to meet with our officiant (Matt's dad haha) AND ceremony musicians to finalize the ceremony details before that. So much organization is involved that I need my wonderful MOH (Nina) to teach me a thing or two! It's getting so close though and I am getting so excited for all the festivities! Our shower is being held at the Dearborn Inn, which is gorgeous! My mom and aunts have been working hard with the preparations. I'm going to Chicago with my girls in May for a bachelorette party. Matt's going to New Orleans with his guys in June for his bachelor party. Lots of plans have been made and they are rapidly approaching!

What else is going on in our lives? Well, Matt and I are both nearing the end of our first year of full-time graduate school! Things are starting to get busy and before we know it, we will be done. We are both taking a summer class and Matt is looking at internships. I will continue working full time, of course. A break from full-time school will be nice though! The weekend after my last class for the semester I will be flying out to Seattle for a long weekend to present on brain oxygenation monitoring at the American Association of Neuroscience Nursing (AANN) conference. The girl that I am doing it with and myself just about finished that up yesterday and will be sending it to our hospital marketing department to make it pretty for us. Two weekends after that the girls and I head out for our Chicago trip. The weekend after our shower, in June, Matt leaves for New Orleans. Matt is trying to figure out a time before the wedding to visit his buddy that lives in Manhattan for a "guys" weekend (apparently the bachelor party does not suffice!). We have actually changed our honeymoon to St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. We are staying at the amazing Marriott Frenchmans Reef Resort and are thrilled to spend our days at the infinity pool (with a bar in it!) overlooking the ocean! We had originally booked Costa Rica, but determined that St. Thomas seems to have more of what we are looking for. Then there is Chris and Kristi's wedding in the Dominican Republic in Novemeber. It was rather stressful ensuring that I had time off work for all of these trips, but the amazing co-workers and management that I work with made it all possible!

School, work, wedding, and travel sums up both mine and Matt's lives right about now. It is a busy and FUN time in our lives and I have to make a concious effort all the time to stop and really take in all the wonderful things that are happening and about to happen. Matt and I have had conversations on how thankful we are to be in it together. We understand each other's feelings of stress and excitement.

We are looking forward to sharing all the funness that is about to ensue in the coming months with each and every one of you! Until next time...