How I do love checking off a checklist!

So my longtime readers may know that I am not a particularly girly girl. Normally this just manifests itself in having to buy new makeup every time I go back on the job market because that's the only time I wear any. But, since I am the bride (or, as Fiance's hometown newspaper put it, the bride-elect) most of the wedding planning falls to me. This is not to say that Fiance is not able to help out, but somehow despite my lack of girliness I have absorbed more wedding knowledge than I actually was conscious of possessing. So Fiance has specific tasks, but I am generally responsible for picking up the ends and pieces - which is fine by me since I like to organize things.

We set a date for next June, and we have got contracts down for our ceremony location, reception location (which is also the caterer), cake, photographer, photo booth, and musicians. The wedding is being held in Fiance's hometown which is not far from my own, so we did reserve some hotel rooms but not a ton since not that many people will need one. And we are meeting with a florist next week. All in all I feel like I have checked off all the important boxes on the checklist.

So why do I feel like there MUST be a million things that I haven't done and need to do? To be honest, I am now really unsure what it is that women who are planning their wedding are DOING, since so many of them seem to regard it as a part time job that they must work at for a whole year before the wedding. I mean, we aren't having a huge blowout, but we're inviting a lot more than just immediate family, and we're having a bridal party and all that. But so far, this just hasn't taken as much time as I thought it would and so of course I think I am missing something.

Part of it may be that there are a great many details I just don't care that much about. For example, the dress - I like dresses, I own a lot of them, but I am unwilling to pay four figures for this thing and I am unwilling to try on 298347597 of them just because that seems to be what people do. I'm going to try on a few, see if I like them - if I don't, I try on a few more, and pick the one I like the best, and if I do, I buy it on the spot. This is how I approach cars, and I have spent a lot more money on those than on dresses!

But I feel pretty good about the progress I have made on getting things done. In my mind, even if all we do from this point forward is send out invitations, we've got places reserved, there'll be food, photos, and music, and places for people to stay. I figure I have covered my bases well enough.




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One down!

I am very happy to report that as of Tuesday I will have completely paid off one of my longstanding credit cards. I had three credit cards that had large balances, and when I was unemployed four years ago, I got all three onto payment plans. The payment plans were a good thing because they had low fixed interest rates, but they also had high payments because I had to pay them off in five years. My plan for this year was to put all the extra money I could towards the one I could pay off the fastest, in order to get rid of the large monthly payment, and I'll make my last automated payment on Tuesday. (Of course, now I have to call them to cancel the rest.. ) That, combined with our (still trying to) refinancing the house, means I'll have an extra couple HUNDRED each month that I didn't have before. In general, I had planned to spend this year putting all available extra money towards debt payoff, and then next year put all extra money into savings for the wedding, and this will enable me to actually make good headway on both. So while I could have paid off higher-interest items, or used the "snowball" method and paid off the smallest, I think paying off one with a bigger monthly payment will ultimately help my cash flow a lot. And that comes even more in handy since I acquired two additional monthly payments this year in order to pay off my gallbladder removal surgery and my braces. (Ah, the indignities of adulthood.) But I still feel pretty yay about the whole thing, and it's kind of fun to do the math and think about which card I want to attack next.



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