Help!
April 17th, 2008 @ 4:50 pm by Ms. Dahlia
With six weeks to go, things were looking pretty good. We’d sent the invitations, were working on the last details with the florist, sent our rings to be engraved- in short, we’d taken care of a lot of things. Same with 5 weeks to go- we ordered our guestbook, finalized some of the gifts for the bridal party, wrote shower thank you notes- and life seemed manageable. There were quite a lot of things left to do, but since classes have ended for the term, once my students’ exams are graded next week, I’ll be on summer break, giving me plenty of time to take care of the last things.
Cue yesterday.
For reasons completely unrelated to the wedding, the 4 weeks of summer break that I thought I would get has vanished, as things somewhat outside of my control have now inundated me with a ton of work to do. (My second comprehensive exam for my PhD is a paper defense. I thought I had the paper in good shape, but it turns out it needs a ton of work. Basically, I need to rework my entire paper in a different framework. I need to take the exam before the wedding, which gives me 2.5 weeks to redo the paper.)
Totally manageable, especially since classes have ended for the term, except that I am getting married in a month. Enter panic.
What have you done to keep things under control?
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13 Responses to “Help!”
Good luck reworking your paper! I’m a PhD student also, and I find that taking breaks from working on the PhD stuff is really good for having better ideas. Like sometimes, just going to get a drink of water is enough to cause a good idea to pop in my head. So maybe having other things to do will be good for your paper!
dont be afraid to ask for help!!!
I agree w/ Renee…DELEGATE! I didn’t want to do it, and I’m not sure why (closeted control freak? Didn’t want to feel as though I was burdening anyone?) but I got so many brain farts at one point that it became obvious I needed help, so BM’s stepped in and divvied up responsiblities. You have a major paper due so I think it might be time for you hand off some tasks to whomever you can trust to get things done.
Figure out who can help you and what they can do and delegate, delegate, delegate. You don’t want to push things off until the week before the wedding if you can help it because it will cause uneeded stress.
Good luck on your paper!
UGH thesis - sister I hear ya. Try NOT to cry for a day as I did. I had the same thing happen, all I can say is somehow it all works out, wedding and school…
Delegate, cut off the lower priority things that you won’t miss, lighten the DIY load and buy whatever it is, spend 1 hour each day on wedding planning and see how much you can get done in one hour! You will get a lot done and it will force you to make decisions and move on. Set boundaries and do not spend more than that 1 concentrated hour on wedding planning or else you will get stressed about not getting the other things in your life done! Also, think about how trivial some of these things will seem in 3 months…
I read weddingbee and realize that I’m not the only one freaking out!
Seriously, as much as I want the wedding to be near perfect, I want to be the near perfect bride, with near perfect stress-management skills who somehow perfectly balances working on my PhD, studying for comps, writing grants, AND planning a wedding. And the, I realize I’m not perfect, which causes me to panic and stress and cry…
And then I log on to weddingbee to find out that not only am I not perfect, I am normal - and that makes me feel better. I took the day off of lab to work on wedding stuff, and somehow it is 4pm and I have very, very little to show for it. I feel like a failure, and it is normalizing to read that we all feel like this sometimes and it helps me to try and not be so hard on myself. Good luck.
Make lists. Tons and tons of lists — in addition to delegating items from those lists. I find once you write everything out, it’s easier to manage and tackle the list because you don’t feel like there are a zillion things up in the air. I also second scrapping any DIY pipe dreams and just shelling out the cash for whatever it is — we’ve done this for a few things and it’s SUCH a time/stress/and sometimes money saver.
i agree with everyone in that you should delegate. call on every responsible friend and family member you have and put them to work.
My FH completed his dissertation last year. I have been in the trenches with him every step of the way so i am intimately familiar with your panice.
You will get thru this. but you’ve got to ask depend on others. You’re neither Super Bride nor Super Student.
I’ll keep you in th
Ugh ugh ugh I feel your pain 
I agree with everyone who said delegate - do not be afraid to let others handle details! Best of luck!!
My own personal story, not quite the same, but still gotta share the grad school horror stories:
I’d been frantically collecting data because I wanted everything done before the wedding, but then, I could not get in touch with my advisor my last few weeks at work before I was leaving for the wedding (I was taking one week off beforehand). Finally that Friday when I was heading home he called me (literally as I was walking from the train to my condo), so we could discuss my latest research results. He ended up telling me that the experiments were no good, and I would have to re-do them. I was so upset but put it ENTIRELY out of my head and managed to just have a blast at my bachelorette party that weekend, and the week before the wedding where I finally got to focus on purely wedding stuff, and the wedding day itself, and the honeymoon. It was great.
Coming back, not so much. Now, almost a year later, I just met with him yesterday about scheduling my defense. The date he picked? Our one year wedding anniversary.. though potentially the next day. I am so bummed because I wanted to take a special trip or something. Ohhhh well such is the life of grad school!
Good luck with your paper, Miss Dahlia. I would recommend going through your to-do list seeing what you can pass on to other people and delegating as much as possible. I’m sure people will be happy to help 
[...] the recommendations from a post a bit back for ways to get both my schoolwork and wedding stuff done, I took up the main suggestion [...]
Ms. Dahlia, Detroit/Cleveland
Age and Occupation: 24, PhD Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, IT System Administrator
Engagement Date: December 31, 2006
Wedding Date: May 2008
Blogging Since: September 19, 2007
Venue: United Methodist Cathedral & historic downtown hotel in Cleveland
About Me: I enjoy cooking, dancing and swimming. I am a geek and apply game theory to my everyday life. Winter is my favorite time of year, especially when spent curled up with good coffee and a book by Madeleine L'Engle.
Delegate! I’m having such a hard time with this, but asking close friends and family to help with some of the last minute tasks has been so vital.
I also have a great checklist, so when i have free moments i work on crossing whatever i can off, even if its small.
Good luck!