February

5 months to go! It is starting to seem a little more real each month. I think when we hit four months it will feel soclose. This past month we have worked on quite a few details. One of the first ones was to figure out what we wanted to do for our honeymoon and make the registry for it. We decided we want to go to Italy for about 2 weeks . We will spend one week in Florence (where Chris lived) and then one week down south in the little town of Positano, on the Amalfi Coast. The only thing that would get in our way of going is if Chris gets a full time fire job and his schedule would not allow. I would be so upset! I am worried that we will make reservations and then find out we can't go. I really don't want to lose any money paid. We registered for our honeymoon because we have been living together for almost three years. We have all kinds of stuff and a small apartment. It might be different if we had a house, but we loooooove to travel and the gift of that is really what we could hope for. We went with the website Wanderable because of the ease of creation, they don't charge a fee, and their design is nice.

Shoes
In other news I finally found (I think) my wedding shoes. Finding shoes was hard. It seemed like ones that I liked where too expensive or looked uncomfortable. I'm pretty sure that the ones I have now will be the ones. They are not too high, and not too low. They are comfortable and sparkly!

Hotels
Another thing we nailed down was the hotel for night before and night of the wedding. We are staying at the Coronado Island Marriot. The grounds are pretty, it is right by the ceremony location which makes it very easy. My parents room will have a small kitchen that will be helpful if I have any DIY stuff left to do (I may make the boutonnieres for Chris and all the dads). We will also be staying there for our wedding night. Since we don't plan to leave right away for the honeymoon we just wanted somewhere to crash. I am sure we will be exhausted.

Party
Last month my mom and I checked out some locations for the rehearsal dinner. We looked at Il Fornaio and Candelas. Both are close to the ceremony site. My mom has been very gracious in planning the rehearsal dinner and I am very grateful because I am busy enough with just the wedding. Our ceremony site is in high demand so we are most likely going to have to do the rehearsal in the morning. We would hate to show up while some other people are getting married and we can't do it! Our rehearsal will be a lunch at Il Fornaio. I am really excited because I like the restaurant a lot and it is in a gorgeous location along the water. Hopefully our wedding weekend has amazing weather because that is the best time to be along the bay in San Diego.

Bridesmaid Dress
There is only one bridesmaid in the wedding party, so I told her she could pick her own dress within some guidelines that I gave her. I think we have different styles, so finding something she is comfortable in and that goes with my idea will be the goal. Below are pictures of what I am looking for:

The pink one shoulder

I am looking for something floaty and romantic. In a fresh pink (not too pale). Below is a dress that my bridesmaid says is her style. It isn't floaty like I want but it would work. Overall I want her to be comfortable in what she is wearing!

Invites
The last thing we have been working on this month are the invitations. I designed them all myself and I finally finished them. I found the perfect script font for our names. The task was to figure out how to get them printed. I thought it would be nice to have a printer do that and then cut them. We got a good quote from a printer for $75 bucks to print them all. That seemed nice, but I designed the invitations on Microsoft Publisher. This isn't a program that graphic designers use and when he opened the file in his better program it was (his words) "a disaster". However I had done it, made it so that he would have to go in and try to redesign some stuff. Also, one of the special fonts I had was not showing up. I would have to go purchase the font ($100). So it ended up looking to be more expensive than $75. Our printer at home prints them just fine (no disasters). I decided I would just suck it up and do the printing and cutting myself. I bought some heavy duty paper and then all of the gray envelopes. I also bought a return address stamp. I can't wait to start printing and assembling them. I hope they turn out how I see it in my head. They are totally of my design and I am very proud of them. I have also been practicing my calligraphy for the addresses!

Here is what we are working on between now and April
1. Bridesmaid dresses
2. Decide on men's attire and buy ties and pocket squares
3. Finish and send out invites
4. Finalize my wedding day look
5. Start wedding day timeline
6. Continue working on DIY decor