On Saturday, we went to our catering hall to choose our menu. I was so excited that things were finally coming together with the reception. But things went scarily awry upon arriving, and long story short, we’re not getting married there anymore.

That night was one of the toughest of my life. I wondered what Paul and I were going to tell our vendors who agreed to switch locations once before. Would we be able to order new invitations and get them in on time (At least I didn’t waste more money by ordering invitations for the 2nd time!)? How were we going to afford a new place? How would we FIND a place with our date open, since I wouldn’t book all new vendors or postpone our wedding?

The next day, I started looking for a spot. I called nearly every wedding hall in Staten Island. All booked. I called loft spaces in Manhattan, where I was originally hoping to hold my wedding. Many were available, but none were affordable.

My mom, who has been amazing through this whole fiasco, offered to call places in New Jersey. I accepted and did the same. Our luck turned around quickly. Not only were beautiful halls (that we formerly couldn’t afford) available on our wedding date, but they were also offering discounted packages–all the food (PLUS A WEDDING CAKE!) for the same price as we were getting at the last place! After a weekend of tears, and a year and a half of worrying, I was finally happy.

This Saturday, Paul, my parents, and I are visiting five wedding halls in north/central New Jersey. Our schedule is packed–10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with an hour break for lunch–but I’m confident Paul and I are going to know where we want to have our wedding by the end of the day. And I don’t need to be jealous of my engaged friends (who all have chosen halls now) because I get a second shot to do this right. After such a horrible weekend, it’s incredible how positive I am about everything right now, but I’ve got Paul (who also has been incredible, given the situation), my family, and my friends, who have all helped me keep my chin up and move on, so it’s no wonder I’m feeling good.

So, lessons learned:

• You can plan a wedding in 4 months. And you can get more for your money that way (though your options will be more limited).

• Don’t book a hall that’s not built. Ever. No matter what the deal is. And if you truly can’t resist, don’t order invitations until the place is 100% ready to go.

• When things get messed up while wedding planning (and they will, unfortunately; every bride seems to have a story), it’s easy to forget what’s important. Just remind yourself why you’re having a wedding in the first place (duh, to marry that great guy of yours!) and that no one else’s opinion matters as much as yours and your fiance’s. Do what’s best for the two of you, and you can never go wrong.

Countdown to the wedding: 138 days

I have a confession to make: I am addicted to my online registry. As stressful as it was to register in person at the Macy’s in Herald Square, it is intensely calming and satisfying to add and subtract items from my wish list with a few clicks of the keyboard. Tired of that table linen pattern? Click—it’s gone. Obsessed with that crystal vase? Click—it appears instantly. Want to swap those sheets for something with a higher thread count? Click—the old ones are history, and the new ones appear in their place.

When I have a bad day, I sign on to my registry. It’s the control freak in me, the person who to some extent believes that all problems will dissipate as long as they can be wrapped in an attractive package and placed neatly on a closet shelf (this explains my obsession with The Container Store). It’s as though all of my anxiety about the wedding—whether or not it will actually come together at the last minute, how Aaron and I will adjust to married life, the possibility that every single person we invited will actually attend and bring a guest without telling us and the wedding will be just a rowdy crowd of strangers—it’s as though the registry can solve it all, as long as I choose just the right shade of white for our bathroom rug.

My addiction is further enabled by the companies that send me gifts for simply adding a certain number of their products to my list. First it was a crystal votive holder, sent by a company whose name I can’t remember. Then All-Clad sent me not one, but two recipe files (I am currently selling the other one on eBay). Then KitchenAid sent me a cookbook detailing all of the delicious meals I can make with their products. Most recently, Waterford sent me a set of four beautiful pearl-colored placemats . . . all this for just indicating that I would like to own some of their glassware!

I do not consider myself a materialistic person by any stretch of the imagination. All of my worldly belongings fit into two suitcases that I lugged from California to New York, with a few other boxes from previous moves stored at my parents’ house. But all that moving around has made me extremely protective of the stuff that I do have. If I can’t be near my friends or family, can I at least have my fuzzy socks near me at all times? I made Aaron promise that whenever we move away form New York he would find a way to safely transport our wedding gifts. He knows me well enough to know that I do not actually care about whether or not I have access to china and sterling silver; I just want to know that the tangible extensions of our life together will be protected no matter where in the country we reside.

I always feel guilty when I talk about this. We have family friends who lost their homes in the California wildfires—does it really matter if a particular type of candlestick ever arrives at our apartment? Of course not. But at the same time, I can’t help but turn to my registry when I get anxious about all the change in my life. After all, no matter how bad things get, won’t that pink KitchenAid mixer whip up some fabulous desserts?

This past Sunday, I went to my first shower in three years–and last one before my own. My friend Stephanie, who’s getting married in Cancun a few weeks before my wedding, was feted at Alice’s Tea Cup, an adorable Alice-in-Wonderland themed restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

The 30 or so female guests (and 1 male one!) sat around a U-shaped table in a room with turquoise walls, decorated with sparkly butterflies. Stephanie looked amazing with her new haircut and a shift dress that complemented the aqua shade of the room (but was far from matchy, matchy).

Instead of an uninspired, plated meal, servers brought out three-tiered serving platters with moist, delicious scones on the top level (I will be going back for the chocolate chip one!), mini sandwiches with meats and cheeses on the middle tier, and desserts, like cookies and cake, on the bottom.

This was served with exotic, tasty teas. The flavor near my seat (an Indian tea, I believe) was so good, I drank about an entire pot on my own, much to the dismay of Stephanie’s aunt seated next to me.After the meal, Stephanie opened gifts. She was hesitant to do so because opening presents at a party is a strange concept, considering the last time most people did it was at a birthday party where many guests had pigtails. But a shower is really all about the gifts, and all the guests assured Stephanie that they were truly excited to see her winnings. So she proceeded: A blender here, a vase there (the vase was totally from me, but it was from her Crate & Barrel registry and really is a gorgeous shape!), a mixer, some sexy, but tasteful lingerie, the usual.

Over drinks the previous weekend, Stephanie and I discussed what an antiquated notion registries are. She, like me, has lived on her own since graduating, so she HAS all the essentials for successful apartment living. And she, like me, probably won’t live in a big, ol’ house for some time, so we don’t have room for the stuff we won’t use on a regular basis. Still, Stephanie was the epitome of graciousness as she smiled and thanked each guest for her gift.

The stand-out ones: Kiddush cups from the tea-loving aunt seated next to me that Stephanie could use for the wine part of her partly Jewish ceremony, and what I think was a basket of day-of-wedding necessities for Stephanie. Sure, they were taking a risk that Stephanie wouldn’t like them, unlike the rest of the stuff Stephanie had hand-picked (with the exception of a couple of lingerie items), but the gifts were so thoughtful. Not to put pressure on my shower guests, but I bet I’d get all warm and fuzzy if I got some gifts that weren’t straight off my registries.

And if you can’t think of anything, a basket full of Alice’s Tea Cup chocolate scones will do.

Countdown to the wedding: 145 days

The bridesmaids dresses came in! And according to my mother, they look gorgeous . . . except for one thing—the matching shawls don’t look the way we thought they would at all. Instead of being delicate shrugs that the bridesmaids can tie around their shoulders and behind their arms to make the dress look a bit more conservative, they are enormous, heavy pieces of shantung silk that are sure to trap plenty of heat on a warm June afternoon.

Plus, the color of the shawls is ever so slightly different from the color of the dresses (the dress pictured here is much redder than in reality—check out the image from this post, an image which has since inexplicably disappeared from the Internet). This is confusing because one of the reasons why we ordered the dresses so early and all at the same time is so that the fabric would all be cut from the same dye lot. According to the paperwork we filled out, this ensures no more than a 10% difference in the color of the material used on the different dresses.

So either the same guarantee does not hold true for the accompanying shawls, or 10% is far more noticeable than one would think. I don’t really care one way or another; the color is only part of the problem. There’s no way that I am going to force my friends and family to wear a giant silk blanket during the ceremony, no matter how cool the Los Gatos weather is that day (and historically speaking, it has not been very cool during that time of year).

Oh, well. My sister Elise is coming home this weekend to try on the dress and shawl combo herself. She has excellent taste and I trust her judgment more than I do my own, so we’ll see what she has to say. The current plan is to offer the shawls to the bridesmaids as something they can wear that evening if they wish, or to send them all back home with me so that I can channel “Project Runway” and try to sew something fantastic with all that silk.

I’m starting to think about other aspects of the bridesmaids’ ensemble, like shoes and jewelry and such. What sort of shoes go with a bright magenta dress? I’m thinking silver or possibly something black and simple. My bridesmaids’ heights range from 4’11” to 5’10”, so I may ask the tall ones to wear kitten heels and the shorter girls to wear higher heels. Although I don’t want to be that scary bride who demands that her bridesmaids alter their appearance in extreme ways so that they all look the same, so maybe I’ll just tell them to wear whatever they feel comfortable in.

As for jewelry, I’d like to find some pretty earrings that I can give to my bridesmaids the night before the wedding that they can wear during the ceremony. I’m thinking something along the line of these.

I’ve had a surprise party thrown in my honor exactly once in my life. It was for my 18th birthday and it involved a stripper named Dylan showing up at my dorm room dressed as a pizza delivery boy. I was none too pleased. As a result, I’ve had high hopes for my next surprise party: my wedding shower. Admittedly, I’ve been particular about what I want:

“It can’t be in New Jersey, Staten Island, or the parts of Brooklyn that are like Staten Island,” I told my mom and sister. “And I’d rather not have Italian food,” since that’s all that’ll be on the menu at my reception, save the lone sushi station at the cocktail hour. “I want the place to be pretty, and I don’t want you guys to spend a fortune on it.” And despite also having to be wheelchair accessible, I’ve been informed that a spot has been booked!

“And I want it to be small and intimate, just with people I’m close with.” Apparently, that was one thing I wasn’t allowed to request.

Right before they bought the invitations, my mom and sister showed me the guest list to make sure the friends and family I’d like to attend are invited. There were more than a handful of names I didn’t recognize. I told my mom that there must be some mistake–I’d never met these people. “I was told you had…” she said. My eyes welled up with tears. I hadn’t met these people, and if I had, our meetings were little more than sharing the same air space in a crowded room for a few hours.

“Why do you care if there are people you don’t know at your shower?” Paul asked me. It was hard to articulate to him because he rarely remembers anybody, so he’s used to celebrating life events with a host of people he doesn’t know. I told him that I was unhappy about our huge wedding guest list (208 people, currently), but I understood that the party is for us and our parents, so I wasn’t going to limit anyone too much there. But, since the shower’s just for me, I wanted it to be a chance to share some girl time with the women who mean the most to me, since it would be hard to do that at such a big wedding.

A big fight ensued, easily the biggest one we’ve had in all our wedding planning. And what sucked the most is that Paul, ultimately, wants me to have the shower that will make me happy, but certain obligations are preventing that, and he thinks that it’d be easier for me to get over having people I don’t know at my shower than it would for those people to get over not being invited.

“But why would someone who doesn’t know me want to be at my shower?” I asked him. “Because they’re crazy,” Paul replied.

My mom and sister, who have been working feverishly on the shower details while my sister was home from college, assured me that the presence of these people (if they even show up!) will not affect my good time. And hopefully it won’t. But I can’t help but feel hurt that, when it comes to my own shower, the preferences of people who don’t know me outweighed mine.

Countdown to the wedding: 152 wedding

We found someone to marry us! Another pastor at the church is available on both our wedding day and the weekend we’re flying back to California. We’ve heard some great things about him, so hopefully everything will work out for the best. I’m a little nervous about establishing a relationship with this guy and planning out the ceremony all over the course of one day, but I’m hoping to alleviate some of the stress by extensively working out the ceremony details with Aaron beforehand. Here’s what we’ve talked about so far:

-The Moment: Our photographer had the interesting idea of setting up the moment where Aaron and I see each other all dressed up about an hour before the ceremony. This way, Ashley can capture it on film in a pretty setting like the church’s chapel, and Aaron and I will be able to share that moment privately instead of in front of everyone at the ceremony. It sort of flies in the face of doing everything in the most traditional way possible, but in this case I like the modern twist on the old ritual.

-The Bench: Aaron’s one request for the ceremony is that there be “lots of kneeling,” i.e. making use of the little benches often found in Catholic churches (I don’t doubt that he wants to include Catholic components into the ceremony, but I also think he’s seen the Italian wedding scene from “The Godfather” a few too many times). Our church doesn’t have those benches on every pew, but they do have a special bench that they can bring in for the bride and groom to kneel on.

-Communion: Although we aren’t planning to follow every part of a traditional Catholic mass (we are, after all, getting married in a Protestant church), we are considering taking communion in order to add another sacred element to the ceremony and to make the whole thing a bit longer.

-The Unity Candle: Both of us really like the idea of the Unity Candle ceremony, in which our mothers light two tapers at the beginning of the ceremony, and then toward the end of the ceremony Aaron and I use the tapers to light one large candle together. One idea I had, which would allow us to incorporate Scottish symbols into the ceremony, is to tie two pieces of tartan—from the MacBean (my mom’s family) clan and the Kennicott (Aaron’s mom’s family) clan—to the unity candle itself.

-The Procession: At the end of Megan and Quentin’s ceremony they played “I’m a Believer” by The Monkees, and it was quite possibly the cutest thing ever. Can they play this on the organ and the harp? I’m definitely going to ask.

Twelve years ago today, there was a blizzard in New York (you’d never know it from the 60-degree weather we’ve had the past two days here), and Paul and I decided to become boyfriend and girlfriend. For the past 11 years, the anniversary of the day we became a couple has been really special. In fact, last year, we went to one of my favorite spots in Manhattan, La Lanterna di Vittorio (where I not-so-secretly wanted my shower, but alas, it’s not handicap-accessible for my grandma and her wheelchair), and sat in their indoor garden and drank a fancy bottle of champagne. This year, we ordered Chinese food, and we’re now sitting on the couch in our pajamas; he’s playing video games as I write this.

Granted, we still said happy anniversary to each other today. My mom and sister even wished us a happy anniversary. And tomorrow, we’re going to see the Broadway show, Avenue Q. But despite all that, I can’t help but wonder if January 9th will become more and more like any other day once we get married.

“You’ll have a new anniversary to celebrate, so this one won’t be as important,” my mom told me years ago. I don’t think she even remembers the month she started dating my dad–and that’s so sad to me! Maybe I’d feel differently about relinquishing one anniversary to celebrate another if we hadn’t commemorated this day 12 times over.

And how will we distinguish our wedding anniversary from this one? We said we’d go to Italy for our one-year anniversary, but who knows if, after a wedding, my friends’ weddings, and (hopefully) buying an apartment, we’ll have any money left to celebrate. I also feel like, no matter what we do, it won’t feel as special as some of our first dating anniversaries.

For instance, one year, Paul surprised me with a visit to the ice skating rink where we had our first date–if skating around holding hands while my mom and 7-year-old sister looked on counts as a date. And, on this anniversary, we kissed on the bench where we shared our first kiss (we’re huge dorks, I know). How can we top that for wedding anniversaries? What will we do–visit the place where I’m getting my hair and makeup done, or drive by our wedding hall, which probably still won’t be finished?

I’m sure we’ll find some unique way to mark the day, but do we have to stop celebrating January 9th in order for the new anniversary to feel special? Will we even want to celebrate January 9th anymore? I hope so, but if this year’s any indication, maybe we won’t. Truthfully, as much as I don’t want 1/9 to fade away, going all out this year would have felt strange, sort of like throwing a party for a co-worker who’s about to get fired.

We’re going to go bake a brownie now. And I assure you, us turning on our oven is a special occasion.

Countdown to the wedding: 159 days

Well, we’ve encountered our first major snag in the wedding planning, and it’s kind of a significant one—we don’t have anyone to marry us. That’s right, no big deal. Our pastor left a voicemail on my cell phone saying that he just found out that his daughter is graduating from college on June 14th (and not the previous week as he had thought) and thus he will be unable to perform the ceremony.

To say that I was disappointed would be a gross understatement. The ceremony is the most important part of our wedding, and I had handpicked this particular pastor be our spiritual guide for the event. But what could I say? It had been an honest mistake, and the thought of angrily venting my frustration to a member of the clergy made me more than a little nervous (vindictive tirades against men of the cloth can’t be looked kindly upon by God). I accepted his apology, vented to my mom, and quickly sprung to plan B: recruiting the assistant pastor who had supervised our premarital counseling.

Unfortunately, that pastor will be in freaking CHINA of all places this coming summer. I was devastated. Now we will have to use a pastor we have never met before and have to go over every detail of the ceremony on our one trip to California before June and who knows how the whole thing will turn out.

I realize that in the broader scheme of things this really isn’t that big of a deal, but there is a part of me that would really like to get a call from the church saying, “We screwed up. We’re really sorry. Here’s a free Get Out Of Damnation Free card for your troubles.” I mean, we followed every possible protocol and jumped through every hoop to make sure that everything was scheduled AN ENTIRE YEAR IN ADVANCE, and still, things fall apart.

Aaron and I have already started to brainstorm creative options to address the inevitable situation in which, due to unforeseen circumstances, every person remotely associated with the church and qualified to perform a marriage is somehow incapable of being present on June 14th. Potential substitutes include Aaron’s uncle (who married Quentin and Megan), a friend from college (who has completed an online course in How To Marry People), and my calico cat Patches (who spends a good portion of her days batting her own turds under the couch but does it quite authoritatively).

I’ll end on a slightly more upbeat note. Here is a picture of Aaron and I, on New Year’s Eve, on the Brooklyn Bridge, in happier times:

Now that it’s 2008 it’s high time I take care of all the stuff I told myself I’d do “‘next year.”

1. Get wedding bands. I’ve been casually looking and I’ve found a few rings I really like! I’m drawn to antique styles–white gold, with micro-pave (tiny and round) diamonds, with engraving or milgrain (metal dots along the top and bottom, basically) like this one. And because the diamonds are tiny, these rings are within my meager budget. But my modern, almost masculine engagement ring, which I plan to continue wearing, kind of clashes with this vintage, dainty style. I could wear the rings on different hands, but I’m going to try on the band that matches my engagement ring before I officially decide.

2. Figure out favors. We may donate to charities that are meaningful to us, one being the Parkinson’s foundation (my nana’s living with the disease) and another being Save the Music, the VH1-sponsored organization to restore music education programs in public schools where they’ve been eliminated. The latter’s importance: Paul and I probably wouldn’t have started dating if not for being in band class. But in addition to those donations, we’d like to give a physical token of thanks to each guest. We’ll probably end up giving out decadent truffles, which I know I always appreciate, instead of a useless tchotchke. But after the dessert bar at our wedding, another piece of chocolate may be the last thing they want to see.

3. Nail down our registry. Just before our engagement party, we registered. Our moms joined us at Fortunoff in Woodbridge, NJ (little did we know then that we’d be getting married nearby), as we chose random items we were told we needed. Over a year later, I’ve removed many things we registered for that day, except for this mixer that someone seems to have already bought for us! The shower’s not til April, my mother accidentally told me–what’s the rush? I’ve added new items to that registry and also registered at Bed, Bath & Beyond (my friend told me you can return things for cash there!) and Bloomingdale’s. I decided I didn’t want formal china (my mom’s never used hers once), but rather everyday dinnerware that can double as formal china should an occasion call for it. After scouring Crate & Barrel’s, Linens ‘N Things’, Pottery Barn’s, Williams-Sonoma’s, Sur La Table’s, Kohl’s, and Target’s online catalogs, Paul and I liked exactly one pattern that was exclusively Bloomingdale’s. We haven’t seen the plates in person, so we’re going to head over to the Upper East Side location soon just to make sure we actually like them.

And we also still need to put a deposit on our cake, re-order our invites, order yarmulkes for our Jewish male guests (or anyone else!) to wear at our ceremony, pick a park for our photo session, make our programs, book our rehearsal dinner, reserve a block of hotel rooms for our out-of-town (read: Long Island) guests, and probably lots of other stuff I’m forgetting about right now. I better get to it.

Being home for the holidays, and reading Marie’s most recent post about her slide show, inspired me to look through old photos for the photo montage that will kick off our wedding video.

There will be a series of 20 photos: 7 of me growing up, 7 of Paul growing up, then 6 of us together. By our wedding, Paul and I will have spent nearly half of our lives together, so it seems funny to dedicate 14 photos to our pre-relationship years and just 6 to our time together. Nevertheless, we’ll try to adhere to the rules.

I’m having trouble deciding which baby/toddler photos to use, but I found four shots of me that I’d like to include:

The one with a heart drawn on my cheek: I was 3 1/2 and at a friend’s museum birthday party. A frilly dress with a strap falling down is so me.

The slightly askew one: I’m about 6 here. My sister had just been born, so I was thrilled to pose for a picture without her (sorry, Gillian!).

The one by the beach: At the height of my awkward phase, this is the best photo I could find of 9-year-old me. The hot pink bow, shirt, and shoelaces have 1992 written all over it.

The one on the stairs: This is me after getting ready for my friend Jared’s bar mitzvah. I danced with Paul for the first time that night–remember what a big deal dancing with a boy used to be?

As for photos of me and Paul, we’re definitely including the one from our 8th grade banquet that we featured on our save-the-date, but picking five other photos from our 12 years together is tough! There are many special occasions, like prom, high school graduation, and college formal (all below) that we want to include, but then we’re neglecting all the holidays and birthdays we’ve celebrated, not to mention the vacations we’ve taken!

I’m thinking I’ll just make my own montage of all this stuff, separately from our wedding video. I do owe Paul a Christmas present…

As if figuring out which photos to feature isn’t hard enough, we have to pick just one song to provide the soundtrack for this montage. To make our decision, we’ve been “auditioning” songs by watching random people’s montages on YouTube (just search for “wedding photo montage” or “childhood pictures slide show” or any combination of those words), turning off the volume of the video, and playing the songs we’re thinking of using while the montages play. We’ve decided we want something upbeat, and not sappy (otherwise “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town,” by Pearl Jam, would have been the clear winner), and narrowed it down to a few options:

“Only Wanna Be With You,” by Hootie & the Blowfish

“Such Great Heights,” by Postal Service

“Sweet Child of Mine,” by Guns N Roses

The first was popular around the time we started dating, the second has the sweetest lyrics ever, and the third is the quintessential childhood photo montage song. Any suggestions?