Countdown Checklist: 8 months

Time for my monthly wedding planning check in to see how I'm coming along with the details, according to Real Simple Weddings magazine. For the record, I would like to point out that I got gypped by 2 days this month because of stupid February having only 28 days. Messing up my stats. The nerve.

And now for the "8 Months Before" checklist:

• Book the photographer/ videographer. Check! For photographer anyway: Cory Ryan is our gal. Video is something we've contemplated cutting out of the budget, but now I'm having second thoughts. It'd be pretty cool to watch our wedding video 30 years from now and comment on how good looking and skinny and young we were. TBD on that.

• Book the entertainment. Check! Well, halfway. Again. Clay's in charge of this one and has made initial contact with a talented friend of ours to play ceremony music. For the reception, we'll probably go iPod, with maybe a short live music set in there somewhere to keep things interesting. Still need to solidify all of this, but we definitely have a plan. I give myself credit for vision (sort of like when your mom used to give you an E for Effort).

• Book the caterer this month or early next. Check! Salt Lick BBQ. Oh yeah.
  

• Purchase a dress. Nope. Not yet. I have a couple things up my sleeve, though, so I'm pretty sure I'll have this done by the end of this month. It can't come soon enough, believe me. I think I might have to buy myself a pint-sized serving of Blue Bell Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream in personal celebration after checking this one off the ol' list. What? Don't judge.

• Book a block of hotel rooms for out-of-town guests. Check! This wasn't too bad considering that, both Clay and I having grown up in Austin, most of our guests are local or have local connections via family and/or friends. Although who knew that it'd be mildly difficult to secure courtesy blocks with downtown Austin hotels during the month of October? Two words: football season. Most places I called wanted some sort of payment up front, or an 80% commitment, or some other ridiculous demand. Long story short, I got a low rate and a higher rate with the Wyndham Garden Inn and the Embassy Suites downtown, respectively. Hopefully that should cover it.

• Register. Check! ... Although we're still fine tuning the third registry. Crate & Barrel and Williams-Sonoma are solid after Clay and I spent an entire Sunday up close and personal with a merch gun. I'm afraid I can't tell you about the third registry site in fear that you'll look it up and see all the crazy/ fake things we registered for, all in good fun of course. Again, I feel like being nice to myself today, so I'll let me have this one, too: the little Check! exclamation and subsequent green explanatory paragraph. All yours (mine).

• Set up a wedding website. Working on it. I actually have 2 in the works right now. And if you count this blog, 3. I'd say this wedding is pretty viral so far, but no, still no *official* wedding website as of yet. That will have to be its own exciting blog post.

And if you will recall from this posting over a month ago, I still had some unfinished business to attend to from the last Countdown Checklist. In the spirit of being thorough, here are last month's incomplete items and their current status:

• Book the officiant. Ugh, so close. Gimme like 2 days, I'm on it, I swear.

• Settle on a head count. Nope. Still unsettled. And I have to admit, I'm gonna drag this one out until April 28-29 when Save the Dates are dropped in the mail, because yes, it is that hard.

• Determine the bridal party. Yes! Still need to tell a few people, though, which we're trying to do in person as much as possible. That too will be an exciting blog post to look forward to, once all our peeps have been notified.

So there you have it. Ahh. That's nice. I don't know about you, but lists make me feel better. Out of my head and onto my computer screen. Even an old receipt or my hard-back journal will do. Better out that in, is what a friend of mine's mom always used to say. Although I think she was referring to it in grosser terms, considering we were about 8 years old when she first said it and I'm pretty sure we had just gotten sick after gorging ourselves on movie theater candy, but it works here just as well. Sometimes wedding planning can make you feel gross and icky and semi-nautious. Especially when you haven't made much progress in a while and have started to let big things pile up (dress! officiant! help!).

What I'm saying is that it makes me feel better inside knowing that I can vomit all of my syrupy junk onto my blog and then feel an immediate sense of relief afterward. Better out than in. It's weird the things you keep with you after all these years.