Oh, September

Have no fears, your Google Reader didn't glitch. There was no post last week. Douglas came home! It's a bit bittersweet because we were hoping the his internship would turn into immediate full time work, but we'll take it as long as we're back living together.

Not wasting any time, Douglas set up another internship, this time locally. He starts after the holiday weekend. We're both glad that he'll be working, but man would September be easier if he wasn't or if we could afford to have a second car. As always, we'll make it work. Other than my job and his internship, we have a trip to Roanoke next weekend which doubles as a wedding trip and a networking trip and two weeks later we're attending a wedding in South Carolina on Saturday and then a wedding in Charlotte on Sunday! Busy busy bees. Then we're in October!!! AH!

Of the many things we have planned to knock out on our next Roanoke visit, we were going to try to squeeze in applying for the wedding license. Having a delayed stroke of genius, I double checked what ID documents we'd need for the state of Virginia. A copy of a birth certificate isn't good enough, it has to be a certified copy. Not having one, we jumped online and researched how to apply for a copy, how much it would cost, and how long we'd have to wait for it. Average waiting time is between 5-10 days for the order to be processed so we don't really expect to have the document in-hand before the Roanoke trip. So the marriage license will have to wait for another trip.

Speaking of marriage licenses and contracts, we ordered our ketbuah! I love the wording on our ketubah. The language is so heartfelt that we're probably going to combine the reading of the ketubah with the vows and just have the language serve double duty.

Oh, and another thing we have done, we have our first dance song narrowed down to two tunes.

I apologize for how my posts as of late seem to break off after a short time. It's difficult to keep a train of thought going when there's a lot going on in the house. Since both Douglas and Louis won't be home until after 6p starting next Thursday, I'm hoping that I'll be able to squeeze out better posts in the hour or so of downtime between work and chaos. :)

Who Needs a March?

Not I!

From Day 1, I knew I would not be walking down the aisle to the Wedding March or Canon in D or Greensleeves. I love classical music and love when a bride walks down the aisle to airy strings. However, it's just not my style. We've been doing our best to avoid making any part of the ceremony or reception feel like a performance. We want to be in the moment and experience it and the best way to do that is make sure you're comfortable. When it comes to the ceremony, the music is going to make or break the mood. I can only imagine the nerves that couples experience as soon as the groom heads up to the front and the bride gets ready for her entrance. I really started thinking about these nerves after this past weekend. Louis, Douglas, and I went to IHOP for my birthday dinner (I looooooove breakfast!). The waitress heard Douglas mention that it was my birthday which prompted her to withhold our check until she could round up the trainees and have them sing to me. I have never been comfortable being the focus of attention, and apparently still am not, even if it's just a handful of people (the restaurant was mostly empty). The boys enjoyed the fact that I turned fire engine red. So I can only imagine that in those penultimate moments, I will be latched onto my poor Dad's arm so tightly!

The good thing is that if I have a few wits about me, I'll remember to focus on the music. While I won't spill the beans on the full processional line-up, because there may be a gem or two in there that will be better realized while you're there, I will divulge the artist we are focusing on for most of the ceremony music.

If you know us as a couple, this won't come as too much of a surprise.

Oh yeah! We've found a way to work Coheed into the ceremony! Coheed has been in our lives almost as long as we've been together. "A Favor House Atlantic" was on a CD Douglas made me shortly before we started dating. It took me a while to warm up to the band, but Douglas fell head over heels. The albums and comics kept coming and our relationship kept growing. Now I can't help but dance around when "Blood Red Summer" or "Feathers" comes on either of our iPods. Monday we went (migraine and all for Douglas) to our fourth Coheed show. They never put on a bad show and their music always strikes a chord for us. It's only fitting that the music that we can literally chart our relationship by is the music we hear on the day we get married.

This makes so much sense, that it may sound like it was a no-brainer. It was, when we finally got around to it. If there is one lesson I've learned through wedding planning, it's that seemingly simple choices get infinitely harder when you give them significance. The more significance you pile on, the closer to impossible the decision becomes. While compiling the STD CDs, Doug and I had put together at least four pages, front and back, of song that had some meaning to us. Having that done, I figured we'd just have to shave it down to figure out our ceremony music and reception dance music. WRONG. The STD CD ended up going through several re-imaginings before we ended up with something that was us and something we felt was the right tease/lead-in for the wedding. During our night walks with Kaylee we'd brainstorm on the music we'd like to walk down to, both with serious suggestions and ridiculous ones. Some we hated less than others, but nothing really struck a chord. Sometimes you just need to hear the right version at the right time for it to click, and when it clicked with Coheed, it felt right. Another lesson learned during planning - you'll know when it's right.

Sadly, we're not having as much luck with our reception music (first dance, father/daughter, mother/son), but we have plenty of time to work it out. Note to self - 6 months out, can't use "plenty of time" for much longer.

LESS THAN 200 DAYS!