Taking a breath...

Lots of happenings personally since my last article here.  Nothing that has derailed my (and my fiance's) plans for later this summer though we've certainly hit a few snags and roadblocks to work over in our planning.

The stress of planning things has gotten to both of us and left us both a bit overwhelmed, though as I told her earlier today the worst of the stress really should be behind us at this point.  Most of the stress has related to the guest list and to just how we'll fit everyone into the limited space that will be available for the persons we are able to invite.  The church proper (sanctuary area) holds well more than the fellowship hall does so we could have more people come for the ceremony than we could reasonably handle for the reception after.  Ugh.

Leaving off friends/relatives and extended family drives people crazy and yet from this planning I can see all the more why and how it happens at times.  I wish we had unlimited space and funds to work with, but we don't and won't, and since we're paying the freight ourselves we've had to be selective about what we're doing.  I don't want things done on the cheap, but at the same time there's no need to spend untold amounts of money to have a party that most people won't remember a week later.

We wound up "fighting" a bit over how to deal with getting everyone we'd like to have at the ceremony and reception handled.  The church is one that is more progressive in the use of their building and eating and drinking in the sanctuary isn't as out of place there as it would be with some (many?) churches.  I steadfastly said NO to any talk of eating in the sanctuary because doing so doesn't feel right to me (even as I regularly take along a cup of Starbucks or something similar when I attend weekly services).  As I eventually realized it wasn't so much my own issues (though that was a big part of it) that made me say NO about such things, it was the idea that others wouldn't understand and would be put off by such things if they attended our wedding and reception.

I hate the idea that we'll possibly have to have multiple rooms used and even then not be able to hold everyone comfortably, but we don't want to have to leave off those we really want to have there.  No good solution no matter what we do.  Again, ugh.

I think we have things figured out (for the most part), but we'll see.  The idea of just running off and getting the marriage ceremony done over this holiday weekend certainly was appealing to me, despite contracts for catering services, deposits paid for same, etc.  If I hadn't done that the first time I got married (courthouse/civil ceremony, just my parents in attendance) I'd probably have insisted on doing just that this time, but not having been involved in a bigger ceremony left me feeling a bit that yes, we should do something bigger and nicer.  It's just a shame it's coming with so much stress.