The Domino Effect.

This whole wedding planning thing has been SO. EASY. Seriously, this week, I was thinking, "I don't know what everyone gets so stressed about!" The only thing that was really pressing on my wedding to-do list was figure out the invitations. Since I am planning on making them myself, I was going to use my time off this weekend to prototype the invites and figure out the exact amounts of supplies I needed.

Simple, right? I thought so, too. Bear with me on this rollercoaster...

Ok, invites. First thing -- location address. Only... we hadn't quite finalized that. Hm. Certainly, things were a bit backwards here. I mean, I couldn't make invitations for something that had no venue. Where would I tell the guests to go?!

We had been tossing around a ton of ideas for venues, but the favorite (and most affordable) ended up being the last one we found, a suggestion from Deane's mom after a slightly sporadic stop in a bar downtown. We found out that the bar was renovating the old upstairs so that they could start renting it out for parties and "intimate gatherings". Deane and I made an appointment and looked at the space. Once I got over all the half-painted walls, piled up kitchen equipment, and stacks of extra furniture, I knew the space would work beautifully. There will be plenty of room for all of our guests to dance and mingle, a nice area for the dessert buffet, and a beautiful outdoor deck with a view of historic downtown. I took a deep breath and asked about price. We had to wait a day to get the exact quote, and then I had to suppress my screams of delight and excitement when I found out how dirt cheap it was. We were also thrilled that the bar has an outside courtyard which we can close off privately for the ceremony (no extra charge!). We dropped off the deposit Saturday, and I managed to snap a few pictures of the (still very unfinished) space...

The courtyard in which we will be married (still a ton of work to be done here, but will be v. cute).

The stairs leading up to the upstairs space/outside deck (vice versa, the stairs I will walk down to the ceremony, hopefully gracefully...)

More of the stairs, this time showing the lovely gate.

An outside view of the upstairs, from the courtyard.

The last step I will walk down into the courtyard! And the first step we will walk up together as a married couple!

I know it's really hard to envision by just these pics (and the massive amount of work still to be done), but I think it's going to be just perfect. Right in historic downtown, walking distance to choice after party locales, and close to hotels for out-of-town guests. I scooped up the address and came home to get to work on some invites.

I started the same way I start all projects -- by making a list. This list was all of the information I needed to include on the invite. Only, by the time I was done with my list, it looked more like I would be sending my guests the equivalent of a college freshman's orientation packet. When you're handmaking invites, that was not an option. I needed to streamline my info so that I would not be left with arthritic talons for hands on my wedding day.

Enter the wedding website. I hadn't made one, because I thought it was silly for the type of affair we were planning -- my guest list was so small, I figured I could answer everyone's questions personally by email or phone. But the more I thought about it, I wouldn't have time to be repeating the same info over and over, or finding hotels for everyone, or suggesting things for them to do during their stay. The website made a lot of sense. I can just list the address on the invitation, and everyone can hop on the web for our wedding deets.

A few hours and a lot of hissy fits about formatting restrictions later, I finished our wedding website! I was pretty pleased with the information I was able to get on there, and I think our guests will find it really helpful.

I was revelling in my two HUGE accomplishments when I noticed the top banner of the website and suffered a mild stroke: "83 DAYS". I thought for sure I had at least 3 months?! Now I have an actual countdown to wedding day, and it sent me into a slightly panicked tailspin. I gathered up my Lilly Pulitzer planning notebook, a fresh Sharpie pen, and an unopened Diet Coke, and hunkered down with Deane at the kitchen table to bullet point everything that needs to happen in the next (*GULP*) 83 days. He was calm, collected, and sweet, pointing out things that he would like to accomplish around the house, as well, since a lot of our family has never seen where we live.

We made it through list-making without a single tiff, and I am feeling really good about the timeline we have set forth for ourselves. Funny how my one fun task this weekend ("prototype invites") was not completed at all, but instead I cleared two major hurdles (venue, website) and tried on my dress, to boot!

It was quite the rollercoaster weekend as my emotions ran all over the spectrum of harried bride to calm and collected recently engaged girl, but I am finishing out my Sunday night feeling pretty in control. On to the next checkmark...!