I am currently sitting in my future married home in the spinny chair aka Kim and I's office. Which is weird. And REALLY EXCITING. Today I did something I have wanted to do forever and painted our dining room Tiffany Blue. It's absolutely gorgeous. I painted it today/last night and I am so pleased with it. (Like my pumpkin place mats? Me too.)
I told William recently that I am just so happy. Nothing is particularly different other than living in our home (alone, I'll remind you) I am just always busy making our home perfect for him to move into with me. I believe his official move in date is May 26th. Oy. But plenty of time to ensure that it's perfect. The wedding is seven months from tomorrow and I am LITERALLY counting down the days.
I recently took an amazing trip to NC. I left Wednesday and surprised my family by coming home a day early. I mostly just hung around with my Mom and Anna and Thomas on Wednesday and Thursday. The Friday was Weddingpalooza. Our first meeting was at 9 am with the event coordinator of the reception. My next move with that, is sending her our tentative menu and schedule. Thank goodness, lets get this show on the road.
Then at 11 we had our meeting with the music coordinator for the wedding. Now, let me just brag a little bit. I have been exceptionally cool headed, organized, simple and realistic when it comes to planning this wedding. I don't want anything too huge and elaborate because thats not what marriage is about. I have handled this whole thing exceptionally well, however I could foresee in the distance that there was going to be some aspect of this shin dig that was going to set me off and make me ill. However, I was hoping that it wasn't going to be planning for the mass. William and I, (obviously if you are reading this you already know this) are passionately Catholic and so for us the Mass is the most important part of the whole day. He and I slaved over picking the perfect music, and we are pretty well exposed to a wide variety of music so we knew exactly what we wanted. There was a little give and take from both sides, but we finally reached an arrangement we were pleased with. Now I explained this all to the poor unknowing organist of my beloved parish. However, I don't think she got it. She faced my Southern Bell wrath, which looks a lot like kindness but is about three steps away from 1st degree murder. I am happy to report though, while we did not reach an arrangement I was happy with in the meeting, a few passive aggressive emails seem to have cleared up the situation to my liking. Now the next step is getting all of this sheet music to the music coordinator at Holy Family and to William's lovely and talented cousin, Rose. Phew.
1 pm led into a much more relaxing meeting where we laid the ground work for the actual mass with the Wedding Coordinator and it was a breeze and only lasted for like 30 minutes and then I went to Charlotte and had an EPIC Bachelorette Party with all of my favorite girls in the entire world (sans Meggy, but you can't have everything). It was the epitome of perfection and definitely a night I will never forget. Being with those girls solidified my heart's desire to eventually go back to Charlotte where William and I belong.
PS if you are looking for the meat and potatoes of this post check VVVVV
This past weekend I was so blessed to be able to attend the wedding of a good friend of mine, Kelly and her husband Allan. Unfortunately, I couldn't go to the reception because of work but I considered it a huge blessing to even be able to attend the Mass. It was an absolutely beautiful celebration and it fills my heart with joy to see two such beautiful souls joined together and being an excellent example of marriage. As I was sitting there watching my beautiful friend and her adoring love of her life, the most awesome sense of calm about our impending Nuptials came over me. Here were these two people, totally in love and ready to pledge their lives to each other. And that's all that mattered. Nothing else. The food for the reception was cooking and may have been perfect...so? Kelly's dress was absolutely gorgeous and fit her perfectly...so what? None of that mattered at that moment. All that mattered is that these two hearts were ready.
For me that was the wake up call that I needed to stop worrying about the wedding and start planning for the marriage. What am I doing to prepare for immediately after the party is over? Is my soul ready to be joined to another one? Am I ready, not only for the responsibilities of marriage corporally, paying the bills, managing our money, cooking, and cleaning, but am I prepared spiritually for what's going on in the eternal sense? Am I giving enough attention to the preparation of sharing my soul with someone else? I am almost certain that answer is no, and so I dropped back and punted. For a night, I didn't address any more thank you notes or Save the Dates. I didn't prepare packets of music to be sent off to various artists. I didn't worry about what we are going to eat or drink, what I'm taking on my honey moon, how much money I need to spend out of this pay check on the wedding or what I should give my bridesmaids to wear for the wedding. I put that all aside and prayed. And that is the best preparation I have done for this wedding in a long time. Making the effort to prepare for this marriage, not the wedding, the marriage, needed to reclaim its spot at the top of the list of most important things to do. Luckily enough, I have a sweet fiancee that has been supporting me in this most important realignment of priorities and it has made all the difference.
Also tomorrow's my birthday and I always want to decorate a pumpkin for my birthday so here is this year's winner. Cute. Another pinterest original.
