Wedding Wednesday: DIY Time and Comin' to Terms

66 Days 'Til the Wedding

Oh wow...I am getting prrrreeetttty excited about this wedding y'all.  A few months ago, if you had asked me, I would have said that I didn't want the wedding to come up soon, only because it felt like I had so much planning to do.  Now that we're nearly 60 days away from the wedding, I still have a ton of planning to do but I kind of don't care! I'm just excited to see family members I haven't seen in a while. And hopefully friends I haven't seen in a while too.  And I'm excited to just be married and stop saying things like "Oh, I can't wait until we're married!" Anyhoo, the weekly breakdown. 

What We Did:

• We submitted our playlists. After a year of collecting songs that we liked, we still ended up doing most of the song-picking in a few hour long listening sessions during the last week of March.  I'll admit, I'm kind of nervous, to hear what our DJ thinks.  He just seems soooo cool and like he likes a lot of cool music. And we hired him because we liked how cool he is, and we think we're sort of cool too.  But what if we're not really?!  What if we're lame and our music choices are lame?! I've already decided that I'm dancing no matter what. Even if no one else does.
• I tried on veils. I know, I KNOW. We are getting down to the wire. But you know, something is just holding me up. I think it's the fact that there are real, living, breathing human beings out there who think I should pay $200 for a long sheet of tulle connected to a comb.  I think that's what's been keeping me from pulling the trigger. I swear it's probably just the addition of the word "wedding" onto wedding veil that jacks the prices up a full 75 percent. 
• Ben and I got serious and drew up a few wedding day timelines for our wedding party and our parents.  We figured it's about time we got them involved in the happenings up the day.

What We're Not Looking Forward Doing:

I think I mentioned this before, but over the past few weeks, Ben and I have been preparing ourselves mentally and emotionally to cancel our honeymoon.  I think I'm little more prepared than Ben though.  Here's the deal: Six months ago, Ben and I hired a honeymoon planner to help us navigate the world of Greek tourism.  This awesome planner found us two hotels to stay at, and a couple excursions and private tours that we could take during our 10 day visit to Greece.  Upon booking him, we put down a little less than half of a deposit on the honeymoon.  Next week, the rest of what we owe is DUE.    

I asked my nephrologist his serious thoughts on the issue:  with the way things are going with my health, would my nephrology team give me the thumbs up to go to Santorini for my honeymoon.  He gave me an honest "no, probably not."  On one hand, he thinks that while I've started the preparations to go on dialysis, he doesn't think I'll be experienced enough to try out my new dialysis skills in a foreign country by June.  On the other hand, he thinks that if I do get my transplant before the wedding, the transplant team would recommend that I not go overseas just yet.  He recommended that I postpone the trip. 

I cried when he told me this.  I love traveling so much. And I haven't been on a real vacation in a year.  All because I've been saving up for this honeymoon. I have a TON of vacation days saved up just for this occasion. 

But...silver lining...sort of? Maybe?  Ben and I have vacation insurance. So even if we did have to cancel what we booked of our honeymoon we would get our money back.  And I am 100% open to the idea of post-poning the honeymoon with our planner, if he'll let us. As long as I get to go, I'm good.  But Ben I can tell, has not come to terms completely with this. If it were me, I would be emailing the planner right now to let him know the situation and discussing options for how to fix it.  Ben wants to wait a few days.  He says he's still optimistic.  We have exactly ONE week for something to happen.  Basically, this week I need to AT LEAST get scheduled for a kidney transplant.   And if....IF...that happens, then I'll ask my transplant team what the chances are of me traveling after the wedding. 

A lot of things are working against us here for a Honeymoon taking place on June 17.  I've already started entertaining the idea of a minimoon somewhere on the East Coast in the U.S., or even here in D.C.  United With Love, a popular D.C. wedding blog is offering a giveaway for a free "minimoon" at the Mandarin Oriental.  I've only been there once, for a conference. And let me tell you: the lobby is pretty swanky. I'd love to see what the actual rooms look like.  

But I really admire Ben's optimism.  It reminds me that while a situation may seem impossible for us, there's also a higher power in control. It would be pretty awesome to look back on this time after the wedding, recalling everything that's happened--all the negative health reports and recommendations to postpone the honeymoon--and say "But God...But God, had something else in mind. Something better, in spite of everything."  I'm still hoping...

Other Things on Our Radar:

• We received the first set of materials for a sign DIY we're doing.  So we might get started on that this weekend.
• We have to finally purchase our wedding bands this weekend.
• I'm buying a veil. That is all.