100 Days!

WE'RE GETTING MARRIED IN LESS THAN 100 DAYS!!

I wanted to write about this yesterday, when it was in fact 100 days until the wedding, but I had to study for my Income Tax final. I took the exam at 8:30am this morning, and now I get to blog about the fact that I'm in the double-digits of my singledom.

As an initial matter, I was really disappointed that I missed my little countdown clock (yes, I have a widget that does that on my computer) clicking over from 100 days to 99 days 23 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds. Stupid law school. For some reason, I actually was really bummed. I had been looking forward to it all day and, as embarrassing as it is, I almost switched our wedding time to a different time just so I can see it switch over and pretend that it was the right time. Funny how we can be like that with certain things - first 10,000 miles on a new car (or 100,000 as the case may be!), New Year's countdowns, etc. It also made me think of it as yet another thing that law school has interfered with. I mean, I love what I'm doing (I can say that now that finals are over) but sometimes I wish I had more time to just enjoy life and take it slow. So, I guess that missing the switch over just triggered some bigger issues for me!

Anyway, onto lighter stuff... I've been trying to think about what to call this period. Someone recommended it be called our last 100 days of "freedom," but that doesn't quite fit us. I mean, I don't look at getting married as a loss of freedom. Sure, things will change, but E will still have his guys' nights and weekends and I'll still have my own things too. We are pretty independent people, and I don't see that changing much.

It is my last 100 days of technically being single but I haven't really been single for quite some time (7+ years)! So that doesn't work either. 100 days to plan the biggest event of our lives thus far, 68 days of which will be spent away from E in NYC. I told him about the 100 days and he was pretty excited. I was not as excited but that may be due to the above discussion and the fact that most of the planning is on me and I'm worried about running out of time.

Anyway, I haven't cleaned in the last 15 days so... I better get to that! As a side note: E put forth valiant effort to keep the place clean without any help from me. I'm a little worried about how it's going to look when I get back from NY. I bet that my FMIL will come down the week before I'm supposed to come home to help him!

4 Months To Go!!

It's hard to believe that the wedding is only in 4 months! I'll write more later but I just have too much to do tonight. :D Yay for finally being able to do law school stuff. Is it sad I missed studying more?

5 Months!

Okay, so it's one day less than 5 months. I didn't get a chance to blog yesterday because E & I were on the road for 6 hours! We drove up and back to his family's to celebrate Auntie Rose's 90th birthday. It was like a family reunion—I think there were 80ish people there. He has such an enormous family that it's overwhelming at times. Fortunately, there were name tags provided so I didn't offend anyone by forgetting their name. :P

I just have to say that going to the party yesterday (despite the fact it took ALL DAY) really made me more excited about getting married to Erik. His family is pretty much awesome. Also, being at the party made me realize how attached I've become to his family. We watched a video in Rose's honor and it just made me think about how much I don't want Erik's grandmother or mother to get older. I would miss them both so much! It just never dawned on me before that I think of all of his family as my family and care about them in just the same way as I do my blood relations. I guess that's what getting married is all about, but it was pretty cool to come to that realization yesterday. I mean, we've been together almost 7.5 years so it was bound to happen at some point!

I think that Erik's mother is pretty excited about how well I get along with the family. She was so sweet telling everyone how happy she is to be getting a daughter and how lucky she is. It was very touching if not a little uncomfortable for me since I'm not used to that much affection. As a side note, I think having her come to visit was a perfect thing to do—I have to say I enjoyed her bragging about my hostess skills. Damn right! (I thank B and Emily Post for this success). I really think that I'm the lucky one in terms of MiLs. Yes, we have our disagreements but on the whole we love each other very much.

As a final comment, I can't believe we only have 5 months to go! So much more to get done . . .

6 Months!!!

Six Months!! Six months until I am a wife! It's kind of crazy to think about. 6 months is not that long in the grand scheme of things. It feels, however, much longer than that—I still have to finish this semester, finish 3 papers, move to NYC, work in NYC and then move back (not to mention wedding related to do's).

Speaking of wedding to-do's, there a lot still left to check off our list! According to theknot.com, I'm 8 tasks behind schedule! What kind of Nazi-schedule are they on? Especially if I'm behind.

At any rate, wedding planning has taken a back burner to school the last few weeks. I'm still plugging along with the invitations and wedding dress but as far as other logistical matters, I'm not even going there. I'll probably pick it back up next week—or maybe tomorrow as a "reward" for completing my 2nd rough draft of my Note.

Speaking of which—back to work!

200 Days!

Hard to believe that in 200 days I will be "Mrs. Erik C. Nelson." This is technically speaking. In actuality, I will be Meaghan Bayer Nelson (see previous post). Mrs. Nelson sounds like a 3rd grade teacher — not a lawyer! At any rate, I'M SUPER EXCITED to be married and do married things. I've heard things change in your relationship but I'm curious to see it. We've been together so long, I have a hard time believing that things will be that different. (I know all you married people are laughing at my naivety right now!).

So, here are where things stand planning wise:

• Monogram: In designing process
• Invitations: Same
• Wedding weight loss: 2 more pounds!
• Dress: Redid top part - hopefully draping soon!
• Menu: Selected
• Ceremony: Need to plan readings, vows, etc.
• Bmaid Dresses: Need to pick up

So far so good. This wedding is totally going to be planned by May. No problem!

7 Months

Yes, I'm still posting on the 15th of every month. I cannot believe it's been 7 months since we got engaged, and we still have another 7 months to go. The planning is going well and there isn't much left to do. Right now, it's just finishing up on the invitation design and figuring out wedding day logistics—hair/ makeup stuff. I'm not completely familiar with the area so it'll be interesting to try to figure everything out.

Right now, I'm in Sacramento visiting my family. It's 66º F here whereas it is -27º F in Champaign. Yeah... happy I'm not in town.

Anyway, not much to update people about so I'll post some more at a later date.

8 Months!

Yes, I am going to post every month on the 15th with a countdown. I can't believe it's only 8 months away. The time has just flown by! To think it's been over 5 months since Erik proposed!

Things are going pretty well as far as the wedding planning is going. We are still trying to finalize the guest list, which is proving much more difficult than anticipated. We are limited by our venue as far as how many total guests we can invite. That being said, we'll have it finalized by Christmas.

The Save the Dates came in the mail last week (they look perfect!!), and I'll be sending them out between Christmas and New Years. My bridesmaids are going to help me assemble them and put return addresses on them, but I'll be hand addressing all of them. . . Maybe. With about 100 being sent out, I'm not sure my hand can hold up that long and still be legible, but we'll see. I'm going to consult Emily Post for the etiquette on that one.

• Our honeymoon is booked and insured now, which is a relief. I can't wait to buy travel guides and think up cool things that E and I could do!
• Our officiate had surgery in October, and I haven't heard anything about how that went. I hope that he is okay. I'll probably touch base with him after the holidays.
• The taste test for the appetizers, entrees, sides, wine and cake is scheduled for January. After finals, Erik and I are going to have to make some decisions as fair as entrees are concerned. Maybe I'll post a survey. :)
• Flowers are decided and the centerpiece vases are picked (as of Thanksgiving). I'm not sure if I need to do anything with that now.
• I'll have another fitting for my dress on Friday. I have to talk to Tina to see if we could do the final fitting before I leave for New York this summer. I'm going to be flying back, but it would be easier to have that done. That would accelerate the timeline by about 2 months, so it may not work out.
• The big thing that's left to do is stationery. This is a big one and I've been avoiding it. I really want there to be the same theme throughout - with the invitations, response cards, programs, and seating cards. But picking a theme is SO HARD. My goal is to have that taken care of before I go back to school. In fact, my goal is to get all the remaining things finalized before I come back to school, but I'm not sure how realistic that is.
• Hair/ makeup appointments and primping the day of the wedding are another big one that is weighing on me a little bit. I'm not sure where my bridesmaids and I are going to get ready and chill the day of the wedding. I want us all to get ready together and get our hair done together, but I'm not very familiar with the area so logistically I'm a little worried. I think I'll break out a map and start plotting things over break as well.

Anyway, that's the update. Back to studying for Complex Litigation!

300 Days

300 days from right now (5:19pm) Erik and I will be getting ready to walk down the aisle. I guess that's if things run on schedule (which they will!). Actually, I'm not sure how Nazi-esque I'm going to be about the wedding day timeline. I would like to think that I will just be relaxed and laid back and not be worried about things not going according to plan. Knowing myself, that will not be easy. My goal is to have everything planned and delegated so the day of the wedding, I can just sit back and enjoy all my hard work!

Three hundred days seems very far away. Sometimes I wish we were getting married next month! Then I start thinking about how much I have left to plan and then am happy that I have 300 more days to get everything together.