3 Months to go!

There are now only 13 weeks, 91 days, 2184 hours, 131,040 minutes or 7,862,400 seconds until we're saying our vows in New York City. That makes it 15 weeks and 2 days until our wedding reception in the Malone Lodge Hotel - yay!

It's almost time to dust off our suitcases and start packing (light, hopefully - we are going to one of the world's shopping capitals after all...)  It's almost time to apply for our marriage license and it's almost time to start making a nuisance of myself at Perfect Day demanding to know when my dress is due to arrive. Almost, but not quite. There are already Christmas cards and selection boxes creeping into the shops and once Halloween is over, we'll be thrust straight into the Holidays and that is when it will get scary. 

I have compacted all of our planning into one handy ring binder (just a small one...I told myself that if I reach Lever Arch capacity I've gone too far) which includes dividers for Hen Party, New York, New York Wedding, Las Vegas & Reception.  I have printed out photographs of everything I've already bought for the Reception and pictures of what I still need to get, and I've been scouring the internet for everything that I need.  It's been important to keep photos as a point of reference so that I don't veer too far from our general style/theme when buying decorations and other bits.  I've gone into quite a lot of detail, again, I'm going to blame being brought up by a Florist for that!

This week, we got a call to say that our Wedding Co-Ordinator at the Malone Lodge Hotel was leaving to go to a new job and that our plans will be handed over to another girl called Jenna.  We've already met Jenna a couple times now, so that should be grand - I'm just a little nervous that all the agreements have been passed over. We don't want to get into the situation where our old Co-Ordinator agreed to let us have/do something, that the new one knows nothing about and maybe disagrees with, or will charge us for!  We'll have to get down to the hotel for another meeting very soon - and some dinner! Yum!

Michael has pretty much been zero help (as expected) in the Reception planning - his interest at this point being very minimal.  "I'm focusing on New York", says he.  His lack of interest frustrates me most of the time - I'd hoped we'd do this as a team - but I'd rather just get on with it than sit and watch him stifle a yawn every time I drag him up to the spare room to look at a photo frame I've bought (who could blame him though...) I do of course keep him up-to-date on everything I've done, always seeking his approval, but when I hand him the ring binder to look through you can guarantee that he has one eye on the football while he's flicking through it. I hear that this is pretty much the norm when it comes to the male species and wedding planning, though, this week we sat at the dining room table together and put all our invitations in envelopes and addressed them as a little team of two. Yay!

When I first started planning I wanted, like everyone else these days, a gorgeous handmade vintage wedding reception.  I had visions of my friends and family coming round to stitch bunting and glue fabric to jam jars and hoped that these would make great bonding opportunities for the females in both our families. However, now that we've gone more vintage "glam" than "rustic" there hasn't been much "making" to be done just yet.  Closer to the time there will be more opportunities for people to help out, but so far it's all been a one person job (well, Mum has of course helped me along the way). I have an idea which I would love to ask various family members to contribute to and I'll be making contact with everyone soon to see if they'd like to help :)

I feel bad that this year has flown in so quickly and we've been so busy that we haven't had much time to spend with various family members on the run up to the Big Day.  In October we plan to rectify this as we have no plans and we really want to take it easy and save some extra money this month, so lots of tea, coffee and chats with our parents, please!  We'll be sending the first batch of invitations out this week to those who live further afield so that they have time to book flights etc. if they want to come over. We've been blown away by the amount of people making the effort to travel over to celebrate with us - we're so excited to see everyone again - it'll be such a fun night!

Speaking of fun nights, last weekend we had the pleasure of attending the wedding of one of my oldest and best friends Heather and her lovely new husband Darren.  The whole day was hosted by the gorgeous Slieve Russell hotel in Co. Cavan and everything went perfectly. Heather and Darren had Humanist Celebrant Joe Armstrong perform their very personal ceremony and he was fantastic - he made everyone feel very relaxed and involved and spoke some beautiful words about Heather and Darren and friendship and love and relationships and happiness. They had a ring warming, a ceremony of light and a hand fasting ritual - it was all very interesting, personal and just...lovely.  I looked at Michael during the hand fasting and said "are you sure we're making enough of a fuss about our wedding?" and he quickly said "Yes -  don't be getting any ideas." ha-ha!  On my birthday two years ago Heather asked me to read a passage about Friendship at her ceremony and it was an absolute honour to do so.  You can read the passage here (or just ask me, I know it off by heart by now!)  Heather was the most stunning bride, her dress was unbelievably beautiful and I won't pretend that I didn't cry on more than one occasion! 

An aspect of Heather's wedding that we really enjoyed was the speeches.  Heather's Dad had me running to the bathroom to fix my eye makeup - it was just so lovely to hear declarations of pride and love between families.  After the meal we retired to our room for a break (and a sneaky cocktail) and Michael piped up that he'd like to incorporate speeches into our evening Reception.  Blown away that he actually made a suggestion, I was all for it.  Take your idea and run with it, my love! So that could be happening.  We'll have to wait and see!

So, three months to go and plans are still evolving. Here's to a relaxing October....