Another month down and a whole new list of things to work on this month in order to stay on track for our November wedding. Now, last month we’d already completed all the suggested to-dos but had plenty of DIY to get done, still. Let’s see how we’re looking for this month:

• Hire the photographer and videographer (photographer: check! videographer–would be nice, but we’ll have to see how the final numbers shake out)
• Book entertainment (it’s not that type of a wedding, folks)
• Meet caterers (they came with the venue and we won’t sit down for a tasting for a few more months)
• Purchase wedding dress (done!)
• Reserve a room block for out-of-town guests (there’s on-site lodging at HLP, but it might not hurt to reserve some rooms in-town, too, huh?)
• Register for gifts (we’re opting out of this one)
• Create your wedding website (started, not yet complete)

So, not to shabby on the to-do front, only a couple things left to be dealt with for this month: the room block for folks wishing to stay in town as opposed to in the country, and the wedding website.

The above is based on the Ultimate Wedding Planner on RealSimple.com. It’s fabulous and this month so stream-lined that it’s more of a quote than a paraphrase. Other sites also suggest I start my wedding workout routine now (um, hi, have we met? No) and to book a florist. Since we’re not using one of those, we’re good, thanks. They also suggest finalizing the guest list.

See, now this is one of those sticky bits for me. We have a working list, it’s more or less set, but it’s short on family and tall on friends. Frankly, friends have a way of wandering away over time, and 8 months is still plenty of time for someone to piss me off enough to where they’re no longer welcome in my house, much less at my wedding. (It’s already happened once, sad to say–only not really, life is much sweeter without toxic people around, right?) Also, whose to say we don’t meet a fabulous new friend in 4 months? And we’ve got a strict body count to work with for our reception venue, so I’d hate to make one of those instantaneous, we-must-have-known-each-other-in-a-former-life type of friends and not be able to invite them because we’re friendly with but not platonic crushing on is already taking up a spot. So the guest list will likely not be finalized until 2 months before when we start prepping the invitations.

As for the Save the Dates, we’re sending them (because I love the idea of them and the idea I have for them, more on that soon), but only to the definites: family members, long-time friends, select coworkers.

Gosh that sounds mercenary, but considering the hell I go through with who to invite to the house parties we regularly throw, I’m really not wanting to chance it, ya know?

And, yes, I’ll be putting together one of those template-based wedsites that just about every plugged-in bride and groom use and you know why? Because our guests don’t necessarily need to see all this rambling I’ve got going on up in here. It’s just not relevant. Not to mention it’ll spoil what few surprises we might be planning, ya know?! To that end, though, I’ve had one started via theknot.com since last fall (last fall meaning 2011, way before we had anything to put up there other than the date…I liked to look at the countdown). Now we actually have information to fill in the blanks!

 

When did you start your wedding website?
Did you use one of the templates through a big wedding site or make your own from the ground up?