The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Even though The Backyard Wedding is by no means as big and complicated as most weddings, I still manage to let myself get overwhelmed by all that we have left to do. And plan. And buy. Oh, the buying.

Of course, the nightmares don't help the stress, but I think a good chunk of that overwhelmed feeling probably stems from wanting to think about the wedding and read wedding blogs and twirl in my wedding dress while all the responsibilities of my full-time job, freelance work and everyday mundanities keep pulling me back to the ground. It's a tug of war, and I desperately want happy fun wedding thoughts to win. But when they do, I end up feeling guilty for neglecting everything else, which tempers the happy fun part a little bit. On the other hand, when responsibilities give wedding planning the heave-ho, I feel like my head and heart aren't always 100% in them, like I'm suffering from that oh-so-prevalent "bride brain" affliction.

So there are decisions left to be made, things left to be bought and responsibilities that have maybe been a little neglected. Those all contribute to the stress. But more than anything, Tom Petty was right -- the waiting is the hardest part. I've got just a smidge over two months to go before this shindig, and sometimes it feels like I can't wait anymore. I want that day to be here NOW. And honestly, it's not even so I can wear the dress or see how The Backyard looks all dolled up or add another piece of bling to my finger.

All I really want is to be married to The Backyard Groom.

When our wedding day rolls around, our engagement will have lasted just a tick under nine months, which is short compared to most. I'm not sure if I could make it any longer than that.

Until that day, I'll fill my time with planning, doing, buying and an unwinnable game of tug of war.

Are you playing the waiting game?

Honeymoon Hunting: Episode III

It's time now for the final installment of our gripping Honeymoon Hunting saga, wherein The Backyard Groom and I have travelled the globe (in our heads, anyhow) searching for the perfect honeymoon spot.

When we last left our would-be honeymooners, The Backyard Bride was anxiously awaiting Wednesday to find out what top 20 deals had made it into her Travelzoo newsletter. One such Wednesday, with less than three months to go to the wedding, one deal struck her fancy. So she told The Backyard Groom about it. Turns out, it struck his fancy too. In fact, they both got really excited about it, more excited that they had been about any other possibility. It just seemed so...different. It even fit The Backyard Groom's "epic" requirement.

And as an added bonus, it would give them the chance to re-enact scenes from one of their favorite movies.

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Yep, The Backyard Groom and I will be headed to Tokyo to celebrate our newlywed status. Crazy, huh? We never thought our honeymoon would be filled with sights like the one below, but we are both head-over-heels excited to spend our first days as smug marrieds in such an entirely different culture than our own. We've only been to Europe before, so this will be a big new adventure for us.

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And we plan on inserting some of the pretty bits of "Lost in Translation" into the trip, like drinks at the beautiful Park Hyatt Tokyo.

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We'll be in Japan for six nights, and we've booked a beautiful hotel in Tokyo for the first half of the trip. For the second half, we hope to explore some of Japan's other nearby wonders, like Nikko, Kamakura and Hakone. We also would love to get a glimpse of the elusive Mt. Fuji, shown below with all the splendor of the fall foliage that should be brightening up the trees during our trip.

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We'd also like to plan a stay in a traditional Japanese ryokan complete with a private onsen, or hot springs, like the one below.

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Any readers out there been to Japan? Do you have any tips for us?

We interrupt this broadcast...

I'll be wrapping up the Honeymoon Hunting series tomorrow by finally spilling the beans about where we'll be spending our first days as newlyweds. I'll give you a hint: we'll be spending one of those first days on a plane. Like the whole. entire. day.

Sorry about the interruption, but I had to get a confession off my chest before I could continue. If you've been reading about my adventures in planning The Backyard Wedding for long, you'll remember my early promises to add some DIY touches to our wedding. Those things are all still happening - the handmade bouquet, the candle jars, the twinkle lights. But it wouldn't be fair to include the Y in DIY. I am, along with other family members, actively collecting jars to use as candles, but I can't even figure out to get the labels off cleanly. And remember my dreadful bouquet attempt? The truth is I'm a DIY failure. I just don't have the patience or inclination, which makes me feel a wee bit inadequate because I'm pretty detail-oriented and meticulous in other aspects of life.

But even with my crafty failings, The Backyard Wedding will still be full of these DIY touches and projects because The Backyard Groom and I have been blessed with some pretty doggone talented friends and family members. So maybe instead of DIY, we should call these projects DIFMP (do-it-for-me-please).

DIFMP Exhibit 1. Non-Bridesmaid C. designed our invitations, and they are AWESOME. Like seriously unique and cool and unlike any invites I've seen. And they are very us, which was really important to me.

On top of designing the invites, she is also screenprinting them herself with the help of a friend, which just makes them even cooler. I really didn't know anything about screenprinting before this, but she said she would send me some photos of the process along the way. Last night, she did a test run. Apparently the first step is to burn the image onto the screen using a high-wattage light and photo emulsion solution. Once the image is burned you wash off the excess emulsion solution, which you can see in the photo below.

Then there are inks and things to mix, which are eventually applied to the screen. (I'm winging the description that goes along with these photos at this point, but maybe I can persuade C. to do a guest blog about the process once it's all completed.)

The test run went well so now the invites will actually be screenprinted along with notecards about RSVP e-mail info and a design on the envelopes. I can't wait to see the finished product.

Do you have any friends tackling DIY tasks for you?

Honeymoon Hunting: Episode II

When we last left off, The Backyard Groom and I were on the verge of booking a two-week Central European honeymoon when I changed jobs, and the number of vacation days I had to work with shrunk considerably.

We talked about doing Prague by itself or maybe just Prague and Vienna, but we really wanted to do all those cities as one big trip so we opted to hold off. Instead, we started looking at other European cities we could do in a week. After seeing "Vicky Cristina Barcelona", I really wanted to visit Barcelona and see some of Gaudi's crazy architecture.

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But airfare prices to Barcelona were sky high, and the investment seemed too much for such a short period of time. We decided to keep Barcelona in mind, while looking at other deals and hoping that my beloved weekly Travelzoo newsletter would have some Spanish specials.

Each Wednesday, I hoped to find a deal in my inbox, but as the weeks went by, I began to give up hope. So I started looking into a more typical honeymoon experience that was also more reasonably priced, the Mexico all-inclusive. Honestly, after starting a new job, a week on a beach with a view like the one below sounded pretty dang good.

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Mexico is much closer to Texas than Spain is so we wouldn't have to waste too much time in the air. And the price would cover all our drinks and food. It seemed like the perfect solution. But honestly, deep down, neither of us could get too excited about it. Again The Backyard Groom tossed around the word "epic" so we abandoned the Mayan Riviera in hopes of finding something else.

Weeks passed, and suddenly it was August. We had less than three months until the wedding and no honeymoon booked. And then Travelzoo finally delivered, although not in the way we expected.

Did you end up choosing an unexpected locale for your honeymoon?

Honeymoon Hunting: Episode I

Now that we've finally booked our honeymoon, I'll share the story of how we ended up choosing our destination and all the many places that we considered spending our first days as newlyweds before we made that decision.

The Backyard Groom and I have created a tradition of taking one big vacation a year and spending the rest of the year saving up for our next journey abroad. In the past, we've always taken this trip in February, since it's the off-season in many places and prices tend to be much, much lower.

When we settled on November for the wedding, we weren't sure what to do about the honeymoon. We liked the tradition of having our big trip in February to look forward to each year, but we didn't want to wait until February to take our honeymoon. At first, we considered spending less on the honeymoon so we would still have enough to take our traditional bigger trip in February. Where could we go cheaply but still have a fabulous time and be spoiled as newlyweds?

(photo courtesy of The Backyard Groom)

Las Vegas, of course! Longtime readers will remember that we also originally considered getting hitched in Vegas before settling on The Backyard. We both thought a Vegas honeymoon would be fun, but at the same time, we usually make a pilgrimage to Sin City each year so we were afraid it would feel like any other trip there. So we nixed that option. Now I'm thrilled about that decision, because two of our friends will be marrying in Vegas in January so we'll get to take a trip there not too long after our own wedding. And we'll get to book the reservations as Mr. and Mrs. The Backyard Groom! Yay!

We started talking more and more about what we wanted out of our honeymoon. (1) We're not really beach people, but we love exploring cities so we wanted to visit somewhere with lots of history, art and food options. (2) We wanted to leave the U.S. (3) We wanted cold weather, which may seem crazy to anyone north of the Mason-Dixon line, but as Texans, we tend to think of cold weather as more romantic than the boiling temps we're accustomed to. (4) When describing what he wanted out of a honeymoon, The Backyard Groom may have used the word "epic." After looking at these considerations, we finally decided that we would just use the money we typically put toward our February trip and use it for our honeymoon.

One of The Backyard Groom's dream destinations is Prague so we started working on building a trip around "the Golden City," pictured below.

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We mapped out a two-week itinerary of Central Europe, flying into Prague, taking the train to Vienna then Salzburg and finally Munich, where would fly out from. We priced airfare, researched romantic B&Bs on TripAdvisor and checked rail schedules. I may or may not have started singing songs from "The Sound of Music" when I looked at pictures of Salzburg.

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We were ready to make it official and book.

Then I got a new job. And the oh-so-lovely 25 vacations days that I had been accustomed to at my old company dwindled to a meager 10, which I have since learned is the corporate standard. With just 10 vacation days for the entire year, a 14-day trip to Central Europe wouldn't work unless I committed to not getting sick the rest of the year. I couldn't take the gamble, so we were on the hunt for a new honeymoon option.

Did anything affect your honeymoon plans at the last minute?

Picture Perfect

In early September, we'll be taking our engagement portraits. Sure, we'll only have two months until The Backyard Wedding at that point, but better late than never, right? I posted a few months ago about different locations around town we had been considering, and we've finally decided on the historic Paramount Theatre, since it's one of our favorite places in Austin and where we went on a few of our very early dates. So we're hoping to time the shoot for when the marquee bears the name of The Backyard Groom's all-time favorite movie, "Lawrence of Arabia," which we see there every year.

Our photographer is a friendor who has never shot a wedding before (although he's worked as a professional portrait photographer for years), so I can't wait to see how the photos turn out. Since the engagement session is so late, we won't be including photos in our awesome invites (which I'll be blogging about soon!), but we might like to include a few in our wedding album. We've always been planning to make our wedding album ourselves using one of the many options available online.

For example, The Backyard Groom and I try to take one big vacation every year, and after each one, he makes me a photo book of the best pictures from the trip. (Since he's a professional photographer, there is no shortage of great pictures!) In the past he's used, Apple's iPhoto and Shutterfly to make albums, and they've all turned out great.

For any readers out there who have never ordered photo books online, they are usually around 20 pages in length and combine photos and text. For basic books, you can add additional pages for a price, and you can also customize the cover to be a hardcover with a photo, leather or suede or a soft cover. You can choose from a template or design the book yourself using their client software. The photos are all flush-mounted, meaning they are printed directly on the page, so no messing with photo corners or tape. The paper is usually glossy but a little heftier than what you'd find in a magazine. Basic prices for Shutterfly albums range from $25 to $50.

Here's an example of a Shutterfly book:

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I recently made a very special non-wedding related book of my own using a different company that we'd never tried before, Mpix. A 10x10 book with 20 pages and a custom hardcover came out to only $50, and the turnaround time from when I uploaded the finished design to when I received the book in the mail was just five days. The custom hardcover looks incredible in person, and I'm really pleased with how the inside turned out as well. We may use them to print our wedding albums or possibly albums for our parents. Below is an example of an Mpix book:

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Or we may splurge on our wedding album and order one of the gorgeous KISS Books. They don't list their prices online, but I'm thinking they run in the $300 to $400 range. Each book has a black leather cover with thick pages that lay flat when they are opened. Take a look at this beauty below:

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Has anyone had a good experience making their own wedding album? I'm always interested in other options.

Un Repondez S'il Vous Plait Vert et Bon Marche

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Did I impress you with my rusty college French? I'm pretty sure it's wrong so don't be too impressed.

For non-Francophones, I'm talking about our RSVPs, which I hope will be both green (toward the planet, not in color) and cheap. However, I've noticed throughout this wedding planning process that there is another factor that overrides both budget and environmental concerns. That factor? Etiquette. Sadly, I feel like many members of our generation, including me, are uneducated when it comes to basic etiquette. Blame e-mail. And the Internet. It just makes things too easy and cheap for us, to the point where snail mail seems both inefficient and expensive.

Right now, Non-Bridesmaid C is pulling double duty as a member of my non-bridal party and as a friendor designing our invitations. The designs she's come up with have been AWESOME so I can't wait to see the final product.

One of the things I've got to figure out before that product can become final is how our guests will RSVP for The Backyard Wedding. There are many different options:

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The option that makes most sense to me is e-mail. All of our guests are proficient in e-mail. It's free. It doesn't kill any trees. I won't have to worry about additional postage or anything getting lost in the mail. Plus it opens the lines of communication, in case our guests need help with hotel accommodations or have any other questions about our non-traditional nuptials.

But would Emily Post approve? This is what concerns me.

What do you think about e-mail RSVPs? Tacky or trendy?

The Backyard Groom's Inspiration

Meet The Backyard Groom's biggest inspiration:

I should probably clarify that I mean his wedding day style inspiration and not his marriage inspiration, since Don Draper clearly doesn't pay too much heed to those pesky marriage vows.

We love "Mad Men," not just because it's arguably the best show on television right now, but also because the cast is definitely the best dressed. When you can get even The Backyard Groom to comment on the style of the characters, you know it's good.

In fact, I love the look of the show's characters so much that instead of the ever-popular post-wedding chop, I've been considering coloring my blonde hair Joan Holloway-red.

But back to The Backyard Groom. We knew that a tux wouldn't feel right for The Backyard Wedding, so we have been planning on a suit. Although the search hasn't begun in earnest, The Backyard Groom has commented several times that he wants a suit like the kind Don Draper wears: fitted, skinny lapels, skinny tie, even the pocket square. Check out the full effect below:

He's not sure if he wants Don's favored charcoal gray or a more traditional black suit. But if we were having a daytime wedding, he would definitely want Don's commuting accessory, the fedora.

Anyone out there have any luck finding a suit in this style?

Bridal Boogie Shoes

I showed you my red hot shoes I'd like to pair with my wedding dress. As much as I love them, I'm doubtful that I'll be able to handle dancing much in them, especially on the flagstone patio that will serve as our makeshift dance floor. I haven't yet decided if I'll chuck them after the ceremony and photos or else try to persevere until the pain gets to be too much. (The things we girls do to look good...)

Whenever I do change out of them, I'll need something comfortable to put on. Brides in flip flops have become more and more common, but I'm not sure I want to go that route, both for fear of getting stepped on and also because it may actually, shockingly be relatively cold in Texas by November.

So I'm sort of toying with the idea of changing into the most expensive shoes I own. No, they're not Louboutins or Manolos. They're my Lucchese cowboy boots.

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I love my cowboy boots, but before you get the wrong idea about me, let me clarify that I'm not really the typical Texan cowboy boot wearer. I don't know how to do the "Electric Slide" and neither "Boot Scootin' Boogie" nor any other country song will appear on our wedding playlist. So my musical tastes don't exactly align with my footwear tastes.

Knowing that I won't be two-stepping, do you still think I can pull off the boots and bridal couture look? Or should I opt for something more traditional, like a nice pair of ballet flats? Come to think of it, I do have a cute red pair...

Registration Temptation

The Backyard Groom and I didn't plan on having a registry. We've lived together for a couple years now, and we each lived on our own for a couple years before that. We've got everything we need basically. Sure, we'd take better pans or a fancy vacuum if someone handed them to us, but we get by pretty well on the stuff we have.

I think registering for towels and cookery and such was necessary back in the day, when most couples didn't live together or even on their own before marriage, and I guess that practice has just continued out of tradition. But in all honesty, we both find registries kind of dull, and we often wonder if the bride and groom really get excited about receiving housewares. Maybe they do. Maybe we're weird for not. (Actually that second one is a distinct possibility.)

Another factor in our decision not to have a registry was the fact that a good chunk of the guests attending The Backyard Wedding will be coming from out of town. If they're already spending money on gas, plane fare or hotel rooms, I really don't want them to feel obligated to bring a gift too.

So having no registry was the plan. If people showed up with gifts, well, we certainly wouldn't throw them back in their faces. Non-Bridesmaid R. said we were taking the Lloyd Dobler approach to registering.

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For those of you unversed in the philosophies of Lloyd Dobler (iconically pictured above), that basically means that by having no expectations, any gifts that come along will be a pleasant surprise.

So that was the plan.

The only hitch in our non-registry giddy-up was when people started asking where we were registered. Did this mean these people actually wanted to buy us gifts? Would we let them go it alone or should we offer them guidance? And if we did offer them guidance, what could we guide them to instead of crockpots and hand towels?

Enter the honeymoon registry.

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Honeymoon registries are a pretty controversial topic on wedding message boards. You'll see just as many people decry them as tacky blemishes on a wedding as you will see people singing their praises. I'm still pretty torn on the whole thing myself. On the one hand, it seems like an obvious plea for money. But on the other hand, money is what makes those gift-wrapped hand towels appear at your wedding.

We do want to go on a nice honeymoon, and we're fully prepared to pay for the entire thing ourselves. But through sites like Honeyfund.com and TravelersJoy.com, guests can buy you specific add-ons, like dinner at a famous local restaurant or a snorkeling excursion or a massage or even transport to the airport. When setting up the registry, you pick the amount and the activity, offering guests a variety of price points to choose from. So in a way, they are still getting you a gift, but just not one that you'll be whipping up casseroles in.

What do you, whether you are a bride or a wedding guest, think about honeymoon registries? Should we do it?

The horror!

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I hope I'm not the only bride going through this, but I've had recurring nightmares lately about the wedding. They all have the same basic premise: I wake up, I realize it's the day of our wedding and then panic when I remember that we haven't finished planning and are missing crucial elements. Like the groom, who had to be out of town for work. Or the ceremony, because I never wrote it. Or my dress, because the seamstress never finished the alterations. All key things. Hence the panic.

With less than 100 days to go, the finish line of this wedding planning thing is actually looming on the horizon. It's both terribly exciting and a little bit stressful. Even with our short engagement, we've been in somewhat of a holding period because the wedding seemed months and months away, and we kept telling ourselves that everything could be put off until closer to time. Well, we're closer to time now, and the calendar says it's time for us to get busy. We still have several important wedding components to check off before the big day.

Who knew a wedding planning wake-up call could be so scary? Have you had any wedding related nightmares?

Waaaaay More Than 27 Dresses

This past weekend I visited The Backyard Mom and Dad with the sole mission of dress shopping. Well, The Backyard Dad didn't plan on doing any dress shopping, but after hours and hours of fitting rooms and dresses, my mom and I begged him to accompany us to Macy's at 9 on Saturday night to help us with a crucial decision. And by the time the store closed, my mom had finally bought the perfect dress for The Backyard Wedding.

Isn't she one hot Backyard Mom? She also found the perfect shoes (backyard-friendly silver wedges!) to go with the perfect dress, but they had to be shipped from a different store, so that's why the photo purposely omits her feet.

I also emerged from the weekend with the perfect dress. Presenting The Backyard Wedding Dress:

Ha! Since The Backyard Groom (infrequently) reads this blog, I couldn't risk posting a photo of the actual dress. As you can tell from its temporary home, it came from Alfred Angelo, and despite being everything I thought I didn't want (strapless and beaded), it makes me swoon and feel unbelievably bridey. I tried taking a close-up photo of it that wouldn't show off the actual dress, but I couldn't get my camera to focus because of all the lovely light-reflecting beads.

I also purchased a veil and a bustier (also known as a longline bra) to go underneath it. Can I just say that bustiers are awesome? They hoist the good parts up and keep the rest locked up tight. I kind of want to wear it everyday.

My visit also gave me a chance to finally meet my cake topper face to face. Look at this dapper couple:

I can't wait to see them on the cake on the big day, but I know they won't be outshining my mom and me in our two beautiful dresses.

How long did it take your mom to find the perfect dress?

Adventures in Man Jewelry: Episode III

We have a winner! Here in all its glory is The Backyard Groom's wedding band:

Yay! Can I just say how deliriously girlishly happy I was to see that ring on his finger? There may have been squealing and giggles involved.

Anyway, for those of you have been following Adventures in Man Jewelry since Episodes I and II, he ended up liking the style of one of the original three Titanium rings we ordered from Amazon, but we couldn't get the size quite right until the lucky third try.

Even though I didn't get refunds on the shipping charges for the rings I had to return, the final ring's bargain price of $45.99 still makes me smile.

Did you go with titanium or tungsten or stick with a more traditional style?