right on task

A girl's best friend may be diamonds (and when you get engaged they become your best friend forever, resting peacefully on your left finger), but a girl-planning-a-wedding's best friend is lists. I recently found myself doing exactly what I had been warned would happen, keeping myself up at night making mental lists of all the things that need to happen in the next 6 months before the big day. How could I possibly #1 ever sleep or #2 ever remember all the things that kept me up all night the next morning. I couldn't. So I started to make a written list of everything. Even that didn't relieve the looming "IShouldBeDoingEverythingRightNowOrItWillNeverGetDone" thoughts. Then I realized that was exactly my problem, I was making everything a top priority and thinking I needed to get it done right away. So I further organized my list. I opened Excel, made a tab for each month from now until the wedding (including a separate tab for the week of the wedding, the day before the wedding, the day of the wedding, and even the day after), and started sorting all my to-dos. Now, I have a short, manageable list of things to accomplish each month and I never have to wonder "should I be working on 'this' or 'this' or 'this'?" And guess what I've done this week. I've gone to bed and slept wonderfully knowing the planning is completely under control.

One to-do list item I am particularly proud of getting accomplished was our save the dates. I had a specific vision of what I wanted, and while it took a few tries talking to the designer to get my vision across, they turned out exactly how I imagined. I am so happy with them.

FRONT:

The captions read: "boy meets girl", "boy and girl fall in love", "boy asks girl to marry him", and "girl says yes"

BACK:

The blank space on the back allowed for me to write a personal message to each guest. I especially loved this aspect. It gave each one a personal touch. I was able to write a special note for those in the wedding party, tell guests how much we look forward to seeing them, or simply test out my "artistic side" with some light hearted doodles. Here is the artwork for my brother and sister-in-law's save the date. They live in California and will be flying back to Kansas for the wedding.

I'm looking forward to all the upcoming to-do's in the next 6 months and I appreciate those that will be helping with any of these. It means so much to me. With each task we're one step closer to the big day!!