As I write this post, there are only 160 days until our wedding day. According to my calculator (because I really, really can’t do math), I have a little over five months left until the big day. When you factor in the upcoming holidays and birthdays, that number shrinks even further. In my rational mind, I realize that before I know it, our wedding day will be here.
But in the other part of my mind, the part that even I don’t really understand sometimes, I just want to be freaking married already.
Yes, I want to walk down the aisle at our beautiful venue with my dad, wearing my wedding dress, surrounded by friends and family, and say those vows that promise so much. I want to exchange rings, and be announced as Mr. and Mrs. HisLastName. I want the gorgeous photos and the even-better memories that just can’t be captured on film. But I would also be lying to the hive if I said there hadn’t been a few days I just wanted to toss my hands up and say let’s just go get married, already.
We’ve even discussed it. How could we make that work, both with vendors and with the family members that we have to have there? We’ve talked about different options, about how we could go about pushing the wedding up (or changing our vision for the wedding totally), but ultimately, we realized that most of this urgent desire to be married now, now, now comes down to my own impatience. We chose April for peonies (okay, Mr. O didn’t care about the flowers 
). We chose a spring month because I pass out when I get even the slightest bit hot. Essentially—all of our decisions were made for a reason. So why would we change all that just because I get impatient to be Mrs. Otter on occasion?
Hey, hive! I have an announcement to make!
That’s right! I’m PREGNANT! Just kidding. I got a haircut. Equally important news though. This is only tangentially wedding related, but I just had to post about it for reasons you’ll discover further down.
Throughout my life I’ve vacillated between long hair and short hair. I love dramatic haircuts, like Mrs. Mink, and I also am just too lazy to get my ass to a hair salon more than biennially. Once in high school a girl said to me, “I love your haircut!! Did you donate it?” And I was forced to say, “Um…no, actually. My hair was just dropped to the floor, swept aside and thrown out with the trash. But thanks for making me feel like an asshole.”
So that’s why, for the past six years, I’ve been growing my hair long, cutting it short, and donating my ponytails. I don’t think I’m God’s gift to kids with cancer or anything—I realize donating time, money, or blood would be far more helpful, but I do it because I’d be getting my hair cut anyway (and there’s no way I’m ever voluntarily having needles poked into me. Sorry).
We (I) started looking for a photographer pretty quickly. Several years ago, my aunt (the mother of our adorable ring bearer!) had an intimate destination wedding on the beautiful island of Kauai. She had a gorgeous ceremony, a handsome groom and unbelievable weather (and yours truly as a junior bridesmaid!). It was perfect! The only thing she didn’t have? Pictures.
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| My aunt and her husband |
My aunt is a smart woman, an artist, and not strapped for cash. She is also the last person who would hire someone unprofessional, untalented or suspiciously priced. He showed up to the wedding, did his thing, and that was that. He sent them a few sneak peek pictures a week or two later and then….nothing. Long story short, he skipped town. This was probably eight or nine years ago, and as far as I know, she still hasn’t heard from him. Thankfully my grandparents are never without a digital camera, so she still had a few pictures to treasure.
It’s interesting the level of trust we place in our vendors; how huge it is that we place our perfect day in their hands! Of course things like contracts protect our financial investments, but that’s hardly a consolation. I sometimes suffer from memory problems (I guess my doctor would blame it on ADD) and I’m committed to remembering every detail. Because of this and my aunt’s experience, I was prepared to do my research. I’m not sure how long Weddingwire or similar review sites have been around, but I creep those sites like nobody bidness.
