Lots of Planning...

Well, I know I haven't been the greatest at blogging...ok, ok, so it's been like this since last October. Understandably so, if you ask me. I've been being wooed and do you know how distracting that is?

Quite.

So anyway, you wanna know my excuse now?

I sure hope you said yes, cause I'm about to tell you even if you said no.

I'm planning a wedding. Yeah, y'all knew we were engaged, so this is natural, right?

How about 5 weeks from today?

Here's the skinny. As soon as Jacob asked me to marry him, I started thinking about dates. We had a couple family things that we were planning on doing in September and October and I didn't want to try to have a wedding around those things. So, that put it either in August or we'd have to wait until November. Our philosophy is that there's no need for a long, drawn out engagement, so November didn't sound too good. After a couple weeks of discussing it and weighing the options, we made our decision. The options were soon or not soon. And we decided soon.

Jacob and I will be getting married August 25th, 2012. When we decided, we had about 40 days. Now it's down to 35...five weeks. In those five days we've already gotten several things decided on and I'm working on the wedding pretty much every day. We've had a glitch as far as location goes, so I'm trying to get that ironed out, because I can't see about invitations until after the location is final. And I really have to see about invitations since it's pretty close. I know I have some family coming in from out of state and I've already let everyone there know, so they can start planning a trip if they want.

We're trying to keep this as small and simple as possible. I know that, as far as weddings go, it will be small and simple, but there are still an awful lot of details to think about. People keep asking me stuff, and I have no answer...I haven't thought about that yet! We possibly got a location today, I had a trial run done on my hair...things are getting done...but there's still a lot to do!

I do have a lot of help, and for that I am soooo grateful! Jacob's mom (I have a wonderful future mother-in-law!) is helping me soooo much and it is wonderful. Next on my agenda is seeing about invitations. Then I have to decide what to do about flowers. I think my colors will be coral and turquoise. We aren't having any attendants, so that cuts down a lot of worry about detail, but I did need colors for the cake so I decided on some colors. I'm going to try for coordinating flowers...maybe coral flowers wrapped in turquoise ribbon. By the way, I'm making the cake.

I did order a dress a couple days after he proposed, and I've had it for a couple weeks now. I ordered the necessary accessories to wear with it and will be taking it to get it altered this week sometime, hopefully. And in the middle of everything, mom and I are meeting my granny and aunt in Chattanooga next weekend for a Friday and Saturday and she's (granny) going to take me shopping. It will be a LOT of fun, and a nice break in the middle of all my crazy planning.

I've also been shopping around for a cabin in a nifty town somewhere in east TN, for the few days after the wedding. I spent all day on the phone one day this week getting prices for different cabins...stuff over there is pretty expensive!

While I've been doing all this, Jacob has been working like crazy on our house. He brought me paint samples over one evening this week and I picked a couple colors. ("Whatever you like, Honey" YIKES!) He's going to be ready to paint at the beginning of next week. He's already gotten some temporary (i.e. until we can afford hardwood...but I don't care) flooring and will put that in and stain it after he paints. We still need all our appliances (stove, fridge, washer, dryer...yep, that's it,) as well as lower cabinets in the kitchen. We do have cabinets on top!!! Yay!

Money is a little tight right now...on my end with all the wedding planning going on, and on his end, with the house. Jacob's been out of a job for several weeks now and has worked odd jobs. He'd like to wait until after we're married to get a regular job, so he doesn't have to try to get vacation time right away for our honeymoon.

Honeymoon. After we're married. Marriage. I am talking about me here, right??? I still have to pinch myself every now and then, or twist my beautiful ring, to make sure this is all real and happening! It's incredible!

So, we're both being stretched a little thin (hey, that doesn't sound so bad!!!) and are working like crazy to pull this off, but we'll get there. God has been so good to us already, and we have a lot of help. People are so nice, when you make known that you need certain things or could use help in certain areas. A friend of mine is a photographer and is cutting me a great deal of photography (thanks Elisabeth!) Jacob's cousin will be doing my hair, someone (you know who you are!) sent me stamps for the invitations, Jacob's mom is helping me out tremendously with the reception details, my granny is taking me shopping....it's just incredible!!!

I really don't know what'll happen to my blog in the near future. I'm sure we won't have internet at the house for quite a while, and access will be unpredictable at best. I will be much easier to get in touch with if you send letters (snail mail...old-fashioned) or call, instead of emailing, after I get moved out to our house. (End of August)

Well, that's the update. :)