Small unexpected worries

There are the typical things brides worry about as the day gets closer. Is everything booked? Is the schedule/day of plans good? Will vendors and guests show up on time? How do I logistically coordinate all these small little aspects. For the most part, I think we have these things well handled. There was a slight worry with the planning as I didn't realize where we wanted to take the parents for lunch on Friday was as far as it was from the nail place, but luckily I was able to push back the nail appointment. There have just been these small but manageable, oh wait this isn't going to work or we should do this moments.

But there are two things I couldn't even imagine I'd have to worry about/come-up with back-up plans for that have presented themselves in the past few weeks. The first, I think is completely manageable and we already have a potential solution to. In exciting news, NY has finally allowed same-sex marriage! The law happens to take effect the day after our wedding, so I'm a bit concerned at how busy some of the clerks offices may be leading up to that date. As Tim and I won't both be in the state until the Thursday before the wedding and there is a 24 hour waiting period from the time you get the license until you can get married, that leaves us a window of about 6 business hours to get to a clerks office and get the license. I'm just worried the lines might be busier than normal. But we have found one smaller clerks office, that does marriage licenses by appointment only so we can reserve a time to get it done. I think we might just go that route so there will be no worry or stress when I get in.

Which leads to my main worry, that I have very little control over and can develop a plan B for as it would be out of my hands; our airport flooding. For the past month we have watched the Missouri River rise but have been told that it was going to affect the Iowa side more. Well apparently that seems to be changing as rain water and the rising ground water level have started causing issues in Omaha. Of course the airport happens to be surrounded on three sides by the river an has been working really hard to secure the levees, add pumps and build wells (for the rising ground water). It really seems like they are working to bail out a sinking ship. While all the news reports seem optimistic that they will stay ahead of the water, it's not going away any time soon. It seems to have gotten bad enough, that the city just sent out flood evacuation information flyers to areas that would be affected should the levees fail which includes the airport. So I just keep crossing my fingers that the airport will be open for both of us to fly out in a couple of weeks. Even if it is open to fly out, a coworker made a good point about parking the car there in case it floods while we are gone. So now we are trying to figure out a way that isn't super expensive to get to and from the airport without us having to drive. I really don't want to spend my honeymoon worrying if I'll get back to find my car under water. Part of me just wishes if it's going to happen, that it happens soon as we'll have more time to figure out a plan B. There's a small airport at Lincoln but that can't handle a lot of traffic. Kansas City which is much bigger than Omaha and could handle the traffic is now really hard to get to as the interstate heading down there is closed for the majority of the way so the 3 hour drive now takes 5-6. That leaves Des Moines which could be doable, we'd just have to get hotel the day before. But sadly there is nothing to really do besides keep an eye on it and hope we can fly out. Ugh

1 Month!

Not much to update but just wanted to say one month from today is the big day!!! So exciting :) And while not completely stressed out there are a few things I'm worrying about. After going over things with Tim about the nail appointment, we realized that where we'd like to take the parents is further than I realized and might not work with a 1pm appointment. I really don't want to change the lunch location as it's a really pretty and nice place and there aren't many others that would work, so hopefully I'll hear back from the place to see if they could move it to 1:30. Doesn't seem like it should be a huge problem as they'll still have 2.5 hours for everything.

I'm also freaked out about the airport here flooding. It's currently surrounded by water and every night on the news the airport is always on updating on the things they are doing to keep the water out. It seems to be working but the water issues seem to be getting worse each day. It just has to hold out 28 more days!

The final details

Well we are down to 35 days or exactly 5 weeks and the final details are falling into place. This morning I called about nail appointments and boy is that more involved than I ever imagined. I figured an hour or two since most places can do multiple people at once but it sounds like it's going to be more like 2-3 hours and that's with cutting two pedicures. But it should be fun and they said I can bring some food and drink (they have a small kitchen/fridge to keep things), so I'll have to pick up some things to enjoy while we are there. The schedule for the weekend is really starting to fill-out but hopefully it won't be too jammed packed. I think the last things to schedule for that weekend is reservations for lunch with the parents on Friday and Brunch on Sunday, though I really need to find out who all we be going to that before I can make reservations.

I'm am so relieved that the last undecided/unknown project has fallen into place. For the last month or so I've been trying to figure out an easy way to decorate the ceremony space. I wanted something more than just a plain aisle between white chairs to the small table that will be the "altar". I just had no idea what I wanted or what we could actually do. I'm sure I have been driving Tim nuts with all my ideas but never settling on one. I was just going to leave it up to him and Erica to decide that week before since anything we did do would have to be bought or made that week anyways. But recently I've been liking the idea of pinwheels or wind spinners or something. They are fun and whimsical which if we had a theme, I think that would probably be it. But of course we haven't been able to find any that would work, as most are really small or really expensive. So then I started thinking about making them ourselves, could pinwheels be that hard to make? Well the answer after some googling appeared to be no, so today we ran out and got the supplies to test run one. I wasn't really sure how this was going to turn out, thinking it either wasn't going to work or was going to look like a 5 year old did it. Shockingly though it turned out really nice. We are thinking of having a few of these lining the aisle and perhaps the table if they can't find something different to do up there. So Tim and Erica have one more small DIY project to do that week before but it's really quick and easy to do.

Now we just need to start making lists of things to bring and do that week before :)

It's all coming together

We haven’t been as good at updating the blog as I would like but at least I’m being better than Tim is. I might bug him to post as now that he is out for the summer, he’s been the one working on a lot of the wedding projects. It just amazes me how good he is as phrasing, wording and writing. I’m not good at being clever, funny or witty. I’m definitely glad that he enjoys doing the graphic designs, layouts and writing because I dread that stuff. It’s fun to come home and see something new he’s whipped up. Right now though most of it is for the NJ party part as the majority of the things for the wedding itself are done. So there has been some work on invites and RSVP and address printing for that set of things as I’d like those to go out in early July. We get to pick the menu for that event rather soon but I think we are going to do a simple buffet as a plated thing seems silly (and overly expensive) for a lunch time gathering.

We’ve officially booked our flights to NJ for the party and we really lucked out, not only were there flights into Allentown, which is closer, smaller and much easier dealing with than Newark or Philly, but there was a night flight on Thursday. That means we’ll have all of Friday to spend with family and I’m really hoping to get down to the shore. I’ve realized I haven’t been swimming in the ocean in a super long time as most of the oceans I’ve visited in the past 5 years have been too cold to swim in. While booking the flight I also had to stop for a moment and figure out what name to use for the ticket. The trip is only 7 weeks after we get married and I wasn’t sure if I would have my marriage certificate by then and have the time to get to the DMV to get a new license to use for airport security. After doing some research on how long it normally takes to receive the cert from NYS and contacting TSA. I decided to go under my future new name. Of course it then wouldn’t let me use my frequent flyer number as the name didn’t match but I think I can get it credited in the future. It just sort of dawned on me that while it might be easy to get my name changed, the fact that it’s changing is going to cause some minor hassles for the time being. Even if I tried to make a list of every place I need to contact about the change, there will always be a few I don’t think of such as frequent flyer programs. These next 6 months or so should be fun as they pop up randomly.

Finally in dress news, I had my final fitting a few weeks ago and the dress now fits really well. The goal is to not change size either way between now and July but definitely not put on weight ;) I was a bit worried in the way beginning about getting a dress from David’s Bridal and having it altered there as my previous experience with another store wasn’t great and I’ve heard horror stories about the alterations from friends. But I must say that my whole experience was super wonderful from start to end, all except for the very last thing. With the alterations complete, the last thing I needed to do was arrange shipping of the dress to Rochester. It’s was one of the main reasons, besides their dresses being in my price range, I went with David’s Bridal. I was not looking forward to flying with the dress. Though in actuality, Tim most likely would have ended up trying to fly with it as he’s getting to the area earlier. So I went up to the front to arrange shipping, a little worried that for some reason they weren’t going to be able to do it after assuring me each time I was there that they could. The lady up in the front wasn’t someone I recognized but I told her what I wanted to do, she didn’t seem to have an issue with the shipping but then asked where I was going to get it pressed. I said I was told that the Rochester store would do it and she asked if I had set it up. I responded that I wasn’t aware that I needed to set something up but that I had planned on calling a few weeks before to let them know. She then became a bit worked up saying that we needed to call the store and make an appointment and all this stuff. I also found out that she is actually from another store and was covering which is why I didn’t recognize her. I was secretly happy she was going to handle it all so I didn’t have to but then when she called the store and told them about the situation, they didn’t seem to understand what she was saying. She asked if they wanted to put me down in the books or make an appointment and apparently it didn’t seem to matter. She seemed confused and a bit put off that they didn’t want advanced notice on me coming in but she told me I should probably try calling again and setting something up and that I’d want to bring the dress in two weeks before rather than a week before. I was sort of under the impression that pressing was something I could have done same day but again I’ll and check. I really hope this goes smoothly though if it doesn’t I’ll just find another place to press the dress. It also shipped rather quickly as the dress is now hanging up in the Krayer home, having safely arrived in Rochester :) One less thing to worry about.