To save-the-date or not to save-the-date

That was the question but now it seems a bit irrelevant.  In my last post I mentioned that our save the dates were and sometimes still are a topic of contention between me and the future husband.  I had a plan, and it was a pretty cute one too.  But now that plan is, well in the same place most of my plans end up.  Sometimes I’m resolved with the decision we made and sometimes I’m down right resentful.

You see I happen to be the proud sister of an immensely (IMO) talented artist.  Using my sweetest politest suck holing voice I was able to convince my bother to design a picture for our invitations.  Not only did he oblige us with what is exactly the dead on the vision I had in my head but he also provided us with a beautiful water colour picture to use for our save the dates!  This was perfect! Totally original art for both the save the date and the invitation.  My plan was to collect all of our addresses and have the save the dates printed on magnets and send them out in January followed by the invites in May… 

… Has anyone received our save the date?  NO???? Oh right that’s because my plan got scrapped.  Why? You ask.  Well I asked Aaron to email and call everyone on his side of the family in November for their addresses.  I reminded him again in January.  I begged him in February.  It is now March and he received the last of his addresses last week.  So needless to say it is a bit late to send out save the dates.  Aaron and I discussed it and we decided that the word of our wedding has already spread to all of his and my family and everyone knows the date of the wedding so we would save the money on printing and postage and just send out our invitations a month earlier.  

On the one hand I am sad about not using the beautiful art my brother created, but on the other hand I am okay with saving the money and putting it towards something else like the food or the booze.  It is getting a little tiresome being asked constantly when we are planning on sending out the invites but I guess that goes with the territory of planning a wedding.  It is actually a compliment since everyone is excited to receive our invitation.  

This is a screen shot of a mock up save-the-date from vistaprint.

I’m curious when it became so common place to send out a save the date.  I don’t remember it being so main stream.  I think it is just another “must have” item invented by the wedding retail industry to spend more unnecessary money on.  Well you can’t have my money cause my fiancé is a procrastinator, so there!

This is enough

Sometimes, more frequently than not, I reflect on my life and I think to myself that this is enough.  I take stock of all that I have and I am content with the blessings that have been bestowed upon me.  Yes it is true that there are days where I fret over what other people have or how little they struggled to have such gifts or privileges but then I shake the crazy out of my head and thank my lucky stars for what I do have.

It makes me wonder why we are placing this burden of a wedding on ourselves.  I have always said that I refuse to forfeit special moments for other advantages. ie. I refuse to not have a  beautiful wedding in order to buy a house tomorrow instead of six months down the line.  But when I reflect on my life I realize that what I have is enough to sustain my happiness.  It's fear that pushes me to want things for myself that are not necessarily as important as say, having a solid support network or finding your soul mate... twice.  I fear that if I don't give myself the things I have always really wanted, you know the important things like a wedding, a house, kids etc. not the things like a flat screen tv or an ipad, I will look back on life and have regrets.  I already have so many regrets that I don't want the really big ones to be part of that.

I have an amazing step-mom.  She CHOSE us.  She knew going in that she was marrying a guy coming straight out of a divorce with three kids.  One still in diapers.  But she jumped in.  She forfeited the big fancy expensive wedding because buying a house and starting a life was the priority.  They lived out of boxes because they sunk all of their money into a home and she forfeited having her own kids because she agreed having another mouth to feed meant reducing everyones quality of life.  Now I'm not saying she made the wrong choice and I'm not even saying she has regrets but she made choices in her life that I don't think I would ever be strong enough to make.  And trust me I am thankful she decided to tough it out and help raise a bunch of kids that weren't hers! 

I guess I'm a bit of a contradiction because I am content.  As I write this I am looking at my future husband sleeping on the couch and I am filled with a feeling of thankfulness.  I am thankful that he saw something in me that made him want to stick around.  I am thankful that I have someone in my life that accepts me for all of my annoying idiosyncrasies, controlling tenancies and unapologetic craziness.  It's times like this that I appreciate as grounding moments.  I get caught up with the whole "keeping up with the Jones" mentality and then I have nights like tonight where I feel like telling the Jones to keep their facebook updates to themselves and shut the eff up!

And then I realized time was slipping away

Where does the time go?  I was sure just last month I was agonizing over what venue to book and what date we were going to choose.  The wedding is four and a half months away and what used to feel like a well oiled and efficient machine is beginning to feel like an over worked, seizing nightmare. 

I now know the significance of the engagement ring.  It’s to remind a future bride of all the work there is still left to do.  Just when you forget for a moment about the mile long list of to- dos for the wedding and fall back into the relaxing weekend routine you were once acquainted with, you look down at the beautiful symbol of your love and commitment only to think “Shit!” I haven’t booked the florist yet!  This is where I am. 

I allowed myself to take a break since I was right on schedule with booking all of my vendors.  I started a new job in February so there was no possible way I was going to be able to balance everything and keep my cool.  As organized as I like to think I am, I am also an avoidant personality and if I feel overwhelmed something gets put on the back burner.  So I hit pause on the wedding plans.  Now that I am feeling a bit more comfortable and confident with my work situation (even though it is still chaos working two jobs) I am realizing I am so far behind on my wedding planning. 

I asked Aaron in December to collect his addresses so we could send out the save the dates and invites.  Yesterday he finally got all his addresses and we have decided to scrap the save the date and just send invites.  This was something I was not happy with but he did have a point.  Why are we going to spend over $100 on save the dates only to send the invites two months later?  So we are sending the invites out a little earlier than customary.  This may be the biggest mistake when it comes to ensuring people are going to be able to come, but this was what Aaron though would be the best for our budget and our timeline so I am putting it in his hands.  I was able to talk him out of printing our invites on our home printer so this seems like a pretty good compromise.

I started making a list today of all the things I half started but have not quite executed and the list is quite a bit longer than I had estimated.  Looks like it’s time to hitch up my stalking and get back to business. I have a dreadful suspicion something is going to give though and I’m not really willing to lose anything I have in motion right now.  This is why people hire coordinators.  If anyone would like to be my coordinator for free or gift one to me I would not turn away help!