Probably my last post before the wedding

I'm sitting here counting down the final minutes of work before I can head home, finish packing, drop off the dog and attempt to get some sleep tonight before I'm off to Rochester! I go through waves of it sinking in that I'm getting married in 3 days and other moments where I don't really realize how close it is. I'm just getting anxious for it to get here. Tim is off hanging out with family and getting the last minute details all set and I'm here, alone and working. He's already in wedding mode and I'm just dying to get to that point. I was sort of worried that handing over all the last minute details and decoration decisions was going to be tough as I'm a planner but it hasn't been to hard. Tim has showed me what him and Erica have been up to and it all looks great. The rough part has been not being there to hang out with Erica or spend some time with his family. It really sort of bums me out that I won't get any time to spend with Liz or Bud or his brothers as by the time I'm in the same area as them, my family will be around too. It would have been wonderful to get more bonding time but sadly thing just didn't work out that way.

I'm also starting to get a bit nervous about the big day. Not the marrying Tim but doing so in front of people. For as outgoing as I may appear, I'm not a huge fan of being the center of attention and having everyone staring at us as I attempt to make it through the ceremony without bawling is somewhat nerve racking. I know they all love and support us but it's just rather scary. But everything really seems like it's going smoothly and while there are little worries about timing and the such, I think things will go rather well. It's just that these last few minutes of work are crawling, I just can't wait to actually get there and do this thing!

What's in a name?

I never really thought much about it before and I always joked that I couldn't wait to get married and change my name because having people always misspell it or make jokes about "How's George?" get really old. But now that I'm a few short days away from becoming Larissa Krayer rather than Busch, it feels rather strange. I just approved the proof of my new business cards and it just looked weird and not real. After spending 29 years seeing Larissa Busch, it feels like a lie to see it any other way. Like it's not me. Don't get me wrong, I'm super excited to become Mrs. Krayer and I've never even considered not changing it but it is a bit sad to be saying good-bye to the old name. I know that I won't become a different person but it's just odd to have one's identity change like that. It's going to take some getting use to and I'll most likely screw up a lot in the beginning, especially with my signature. But now that we are 5 days away from it happening, I'm slowly saying good-bye to seeing Busch. What a strange sort of feeling it is. . .

On a completely different topic, to help me fall asleep at night I've been watching movie, wedding themed movies. Saturday night was The Wedding Planner and last night was 27 Dresses. It actually helps watching them as they help trigger things I've forgotten to think about. Like last night in the opening scene of 27 Dresses, I notice the main character (who is always the MOH in lots of weddings), holding the bride's bouquet. And then I realized, I had no idea what my plans were for my bouquet. But at least now I have some time to figure that out rather than having to do it on the fly when I'm presented with that issue on Saturday. Watching these movies actually calms me down as I realize we really have thing together and there's not much left to do. I really thought this final week would be hectic and stressful but so far so good. I know Thursday through Sunday are going to be a whirlwind but I think they should be a fun whirlwind rather than frantic. At least that's the hope ;)

Sleep eludes me

For the past week, sleep has been difficult. Falling asleep has gotten easier as I'm so exhausted from the lack of sleep the night but staying asleep seems near impossible. I always seem to wake up about 2 hours before I have to, around 4am and my brain just kicks on. I'm thinking about the wedding, which is a bit odd as there isn't much left to think/worry about but my brain comes up with stuff. I also think about work as it has been super crazy and I have a lot to do to prepare for my 7 days off. So I've just been exhausted lately.

This post at 3:45am, however, is not just about me not being able to sleep. I'm actually suppose to be up this early (which of course meant my brain kicked on at 2am so I've gotten a grand total of 3.5 hours of sleep today) because I'm about to drop Tim off at the airport. I'm really going to miss him and I'm rather jealous of the fact that he gets to spend the next few days hanging out with friends and family, relaxing and finishing up the wedding stuff. It's tough for me as an uber-planner to relinquish control of these final details that can only be figured out when in Rochester but it's how it has to be and I totally trust Tim's decisions. Again just jealous that he gets to do some of the things I count as the "fun stuff".

So I'm really hoping I can get some more sleep when I get back and somehow figure out a way this week to get some sort of sleep or Tim will be marrying a zombie bride by the time next Saturday comes along. I better look into some concealer to cover the dark circles under my eyes when I go make-up shopping today ;)

10 days!

Tomorrow we'll be in the single digits which is just sort of crazy. It feels just like yesterday we were counting in months and saying things like "Oh that can wait or can only be done the week or two before." And now that time is here. We don't actually have a ton left to do which is nice. All the appointments are made, all the vendors have been confirmed and we are double checking our numbers to make sure all the money is in place to pay people. Now all that is really left is to pack and stalk the weather. It's like a roller coaster, yesterday it looked nice and today it says hot and humid. I really don't care about the heat but humidity will be rather tough. I guess that's what we get for having an outdoor summer wedding. But the weather stalking is sort of fun.

I was all prepared for these last two weeks to be hectic and crazy as that's what I've been told by a lot of people but either due to the size and style of our wedding or my crazy need to prepare and plan, it's sort of boring. So much so that I've turned my attention to the NJ party. We won't have all that much time to plan things for it as we'll only have 5 weeks but not much really needs to be planned. Invites are out and I'm not sure how much other things we'll do for it. But I at least want to start thinking about it since the wedding seems under control

Create-atuity

I'm not even going to apologize for not updating...  Here we go:

Throughout the preparations for the wedding I have discovered sort of a new hobby.  I really enjoy graphic design/publishing/layouts whatever you want to call it.  I've had a lot of fun making the programs match the invitations and the invitations match everything else.  Taking graphics and colors from one thing and using them on others.  I don't have a lot of fancy equipment- it's all been done within Microsoft Office, but I'm pretty proud of what we've come up with.  It's neat to do it yourself and come up with something you're happy with while at the same time saving money by not using professional printers (although, some of our stuff has come from Vista Print).

I've done this sort of thing in the past, making worksheets and such for school.  I guess this is the first time I've done it in this quantity, and been this concerned about the final product being produced.  It's all a little ironic... I'm the first to admit, and Larissa would readily agree, I generally have the attention span of a flea.  So it's impressive I'm able to focus on graphics and layouts and margins and measuring as long as it takes to get things to an acceptable level of "good enough".

So that's what I've been up to- knee deep in desktop publishing.  I hope my printer holds up for a few more days.

Only FIFTEEN more days until the Big Day!

So it begins . . .

The wedding dreams. Friends told me to except strange dreams of the wedding as it got closer but last night was the first one of the actual wedding that I remember. I had some a few months ago but they were more related to flights and getting to the wedding/honeymoon. So all I really remember from the dream is bits and pieces and emotions. It definitely wasn’t the wedding we are planning as it was in a huge church (with a zig zag aisle, I had to walk halfway up the church make a left turn walk a bit more and then make a right turn to head up another set of pews) and there were tons of people. Far from the small gathering at the lake we are going to have. I was also walking up the aisle by myself which felt really strange, like something was missing (duh my dad!). I also remember the anticipation I had waiting to see Tim. This was a strange shaped church and so while walking up the first set of pews I couldn’t see anything but the backs of people standing in the other set of pews. But when I turned the corner and saw Tim, I can still recall the wave of joy that washed over me in the dream. I then realized there was no music but that quickly cut in (it was the correct song, the one we’ll be playing that day, though at the wrong place where we will have the song start from). I finally get up to the front and the last thing I remember before waking up and the part that has been bugging me a bit is that when the priest goes to speak, no one can hear him. I mean we can barely hear him and he’s right next to us. So I’m all freaked out that people are missing the words. Then I wake up. Now I’m a bit nervous that since there will be no sound system people will not hear the beautiful ceremony we created. I’m sure I’m worrying for nothing as it will be a small group and the Reverend is use to speaking up, I just worry about us. Still it’s prompted me to at least look into having some sort of microphone, if I can figure out something that isn’t super expensive.

But with 17 days to go I can happily report the wedding dreams have begun :)