Back to business.

This week felt awfully long in comparison to the last few - in fact, I think it was my first full work week since before our vacation in January - which also now seems like a century - and 10 feet of snow - ago.

I'm not very good at this blogging thing. Besides the fact that I haven't posted in a few days, I haven't stuck to my topic very well here. So today it's back to the business of talking about this whole wedding thing.

With our tentative date of September 2012, our wedding is still almost 20 months away. Most people in the wedding planning process are looking at 2011 dates, pricing, etc. and I've already run into a couple of issues with actually reserving a date/location this far in advance. It's silly, because you would think with all this time, I wouldn't feel stressed or pressured at all, but the fact that I haven't set an "official" date and can't really make any decisions are this point is very difficult for type-A me. I beginning to believe the bride of the longest-engagement-ever who told me last year "6 months or less. trust me. you do. not. want. a. long. engagement." What it does, is perpetuate the overwhelming feeling of having everything left to do...  everything still up in the air... no answers to the thousands of questions everyone in the world is asking me... I'm ready to start checking things of lists! Give me a pen, give me a budget, give me a break!

That said, I am trying to enjoy the engagement phase of the process. My first order of business was to contact a photographer to set up an engagement shoot. I knew exactly who I wanted to photograph my wedding as soon as I met her. Last spring, a friend told me about a woman up in the Portland area who did Modern Boudoir photography. I thought it would be a lot of fun and a great gift to Johnny. I contacted Tess, decided to do it, and had an amazing experience.  I also became totally obsessed with all of her work, photography, and art. I absolutely loved the results of my shoot, and more importantly, felt like I really clicked with her. I knew after meeting her, and after seeing Johnny's reaction to my images, that she would be the perfect person to shoot our wedding. I was so sure I wanted her, I contacted her the day after we got engaged to tell her (she also loves to find out when clients get engaged after shooting with her!) and ask her to put us on her list of 2012 wedding clients.

With such a long engagement, one of the things we can do is an engagement announcement, since save-the-dates won't be happening for quite some time, and my immediate vision was to do two sets of engagement photos - one in the winter, to commemorate our engagement on Christmas Day in the snow, and and another set later on, in spring or summer, that encapsulates our personalities, how our relationship began, and more what the feel of our wedding will be. I'd love to send out an official engagement announcement, as well as put it in the local papers, so I wanted to set up a shoot right away so we'll have a fabulous picture for this purpose! Plus I just love pictures, and want as many great ones from this happy time in our life as possible.

Then there is the matter of an engagement party. We both agreed we wanted to have a great, fun party to celebrate this step in our lives, especially where the wedding itself is so far away. We're thinking something very us and very different from what we plan the wedding to be. Probably something more casual, along the lines of lobster/clam bake, in true Maine fashion. We're right at the beginning planning phases, but you can be sure it'll be a good time when it happens.

So these are the things I am currently focused on, in addition to the dress, of course! It's never too early to start looking for the dress. I have a LOT of ideas about what I do and don't like, but I'm really not sure what things are going to look like on me, or what I'm going to end up with. But you have to start somewhere, and today I will do just that, with my first appointment at Madeleine's Daughter in Portsmouth. Wish me luck!