Tracking my "over-it" level but getting excited!

Have any of you hit the point where you start to doubt or second guess everything you've planned for your wedding? That was me several weeks ago. Maybe it's the fact that we're most likely going to exceed our budget, or that I feel like we're just working our butts to the bone planning and stressing, or maybe it's just run of the mill general second guessing that comes from contractually agreeing to many different people that it's hard to see the big picture! Anyway, I hit the wedding wall. My "over-it level" was at about 90%.

One thing that helped me get exciting again was a visit to our wedding venue - Cass House Inn. A few weeks ago Rebecca and I drove up the California coast to our wedding venue for the day. We needed to see our reception area for some measurements, have a food tasting, and look for rental vendors (for tables, chairs, linens, etc). Over-it level 92%.

When we got to the small town where we're getting married it immediately made me feel like we'd made the right choice in venue. The town is so peaceful and it just helped mellow me out. I could hear myself think. I could hear the ocean. It was so nice. Over-it level 76%.

Even though I'm on a diet (probably something else that's contributing to my hostility and irritation) we walked over to the Brown Butter Cookie Company. We've decided that we're not having a cake at our wedding for dessert. If you actively follow the blog, that won't be a surprise to you, but if you don't - let me fill you in quickly about my decision - cake is completely overrated, the end. So our venue is going to make small bite size desserts. You go over, you pop a truffle in your mouth, you have a glug of wine, and you get back to dancing. Sounds awesome. Well, Rebecca and I found this cookie company next to our wedding venue that makes some of the best cookies I've ever had in my life. They're made with brown butter, and sea salt. They're awesome. We decided to work with the 2 sisters that own the cookie shop, and in addition to the desserts our venue will make, we're also giving out cookies. I like sweets, sure, maybe not as much as people that would call themselves chocoholics or people that need a sweet fix, but I'm telling you, these cookies kind of make my knees buckle they're so good. Over-it level 53%.

Rebecca and I met with the owners of our venue, and they are just so easy going and cool. The chef (one of the owners) came out and talked to us quickly about our wedding dinner menu. He can basically do anything we want. He just needs a few keywords to go by, or needs to know what we like/dislike - needed to know who we are, etc. SO, we just told him that we've been going to the farmer's markets lately. So we're kind of on this whole eat fresh, eat local kick. He and his wife smiled and let us know that that's exactly what they're about. We told him we're also adventurous and while we will have many people at our venue that aren't we do want to introduce unconventional wedding ingredients to the menu. We were talking about small passed appetizers and the chef said "Pizza from our wood fire oven, but how about we do a duck and caramelized onion with brie and a balsamic reduction?" Um... Over-it level 39%.

After our meeting we had to drive about 25 minutes to the rental company that our venue suggested. Before we hit the road though we swung by our favorite sandwich spot in town. We ordered some sandwiches for the road. Ruddell's Smokehouse is a small sandwich shack that makes the most amazing smoked fish sandwiches I've ever had. I desperately want to buy sandwiches or tacos for everyone coming to the wedding the night before the big day, it just unfortunately doesn't fit into the budget. Sad. The sandwiches are awesome. I had to pull over to shove mine down my throat because the windy mountain roads weren't easy to navigate while trying to eat a Smoked Albacore sandwich. Plus I wanted to savor the sandwich. Delicious. Over-it level 22%.

We had our meeting at the rental company. It went well, but I quickly realized this is going to slam our budget. Damn it; over-it level 28%. The woman at the company couldn't have been nicer. I think I just underestimated how much goes into weddings. I think I just underestimated how much this stuff costs. Stuff sounds so cheap when you say it's only 45 cents per plate, but then when you multiply it in your head and then add it to the list of other stuff you need... damn it. Over-it level 31%. Again I want to reiterate that the company we may use couldn't be nicer. She's working with us... it's just AHHHHHH!!!!!!! FUUUUUUUUCK!!!!! (sorry, I really try not to curse on the blog because I don't know how you guys feel about it... but seriously... fuck... ) That felt pretty good. COME ON though... lights are so much more expensive than I thought they were. We're not having flowers.... lights are cheaper... right?! Yes, but still super expensive?!?!? DAMN it. This fork vs. that fork... round table vs. straight. It's so much to think about. The company couldn't have made it easier, but I just realized that there's so much to planning that I hadn't even thought of. Over-it level 34%.

I got back in the car... over-it level still relatively low compared to where I had been at the beginning of the day! Immediately I ate a cookie. Over-it level 30%. Lights and forks? What lights and forks. Me want cookie.

To cap off the day Rebecca and I headed back to our venue to do a dinner/tasting. Since the chef doesn't have a set wedding menu and will really work with us to make whatever we want, our venue doesn't do a conventional wedding tasting. IE here's your meat option, here's your chicken option, here's are your appetizer options. So we did dinner, and they also hooked us up with wine pairings so we can see how they roll w/ their food & beverage smarts.

GOOD GOD the food was awesome. I won't completely bore you with course by course details, but holy eff the food was good. They started us with an amuse bouche (amuse the mouth, a small little bite to start the meal) that was a king crab fritter on some type of aoli sauce with a piece of parsley on top. WOW. So that's how you do things here, huh? Over-it level 22%. Then we had about 5 courses, each one better than the last. My steak was unbelievable. Perhaps one of the best steak dishes I've ever had. It was perfection. I can easily be a self proclaimed foodie snob when it comes to food so I'm not just giving props to our venue because we've put a non-refundable deposit down. Over-it level 12%. The wine pairings... oh man... all of these wines were very very good but then once you began eating the dish the wine was paired with its flavor transformed. It made them GREAT. The food and beverage just worked so harmoniously together. 5 glasses later: over-it level 3%. I decided that it was probably smart to have some coffee for the trip home. French press (see post below) awesomeness.... over-it level 1%.

As I walked to the car to head back to Los Angeles, I really felt so great about every decision we've made so far. What a great feeling. You know what? Before we hit the road, let me go back into our venue and go to the bathroom real quickly.... oh man, even their SOAP is awesome.

Over-it level 0%.

Here's what's going on:

Wow, I'm in awe of how wedding bloggers can juggle daily life, work, wedding planning, and STILL find time to blog. Not only do some of you find time to blog, but yo also find time to find awesome and interesting wedding stuff online, THEN blog about it! [slow clap that builds to a standing ovation] I have not been that good! Perhaps I overvalue sleep.

So, we're steadily moving forward with our wedding plans. It's 165 days away. Which seems like such a short amount of time, but I've realized as friends have gotten engaged then married within the time we've been engaged, is plenty of time to get things done. No need to panic about things that aren't done yet!

We've made some progress in the last couple weeks or so! As you've read, we finished registering which took way longer than expected. We also came up with the idea for our E-Session photographs (you'll have to wait and see). I think we potentially found our wedding ceremony musicians, and our reception DJ. OH! I bought my wedding suit! That was awesome. Thanks to a blogger named BowieBride (http://www.bowiebride.com/) who gave me the tip that Barney's Warehouse sale was happening. The suit is beautiful. As soon as I can fit into it, I'll take pictures. Kidding, I can fit.... kind of. Okay, I confess, I bought a suit that has pants that are a little snug. It's my inspiration to lose weight....it's working. Anyway - it's a Michael Kors 3 piece suit. Awesome. Now I just need to find a great shirt, and my sneakers.

On our plate right now we're thinking about videography. I think I came up with one particularly great way to cut costs which I'll share with you later if it comes to fruition. One thing I decided I'm going to do to help combat the astronomical rates I've seen on some of these videographer websites is edit the footage on my own. I know that it's most likely a LOT to chew, but I think that I could easily lay "I had the time of my life" over some reception footage as well as the next guy. Capturing moments on video has always been very important to my family so it's something we need to book, but we're having trouble budgeting it. My dad has been converting all our family videos to DVD and he's been sending me copies. It's been awesome to watch them all, and it makes me realize we really need a videographer.

We're also trying to figure out what our tables are going to look like. I'd really like to go with that "casually eclectic looks effortless but really wasn't" tablescape. SO, at some point we're going to hit up some flea markets and look for cool mismatched vases and potential knickknacks. Also, we're thinking more candles - less flowers.

Which leads me to the next morsel of business! We're going down to the flower district this weekend. Any fellow wedding bloggers out there want to meet us? We'll most likely buy our chuppa poles - and I think Rebecca wants to get some ideas for flowers to carry. I also think she wants to buy flower seed to potentially make her own bouquet.

I know I'm forgetting a whole bunch of stuff we're doing. We need to start designing our invitations. I'm so worried I've bitten off more than I can chew with Gocco. I know we'll eventually understand it, then fall in love with it - I'm just apprehensive. We also need to make time to get up to our wedding venue and meet with rental houses about certain things. Wow.

Oh man... So much to do. Anxiety and panic setting in. Overtaking body. I need a brown paper bag to breathe into. Maybe I can find a cool vintagey decorated one on etsy, or better yet regretsy.

The Diet's Back

Ahh... it was a real good run off the wagon... a real good run. Sure there are things I wish I had eaten when I was off, but I can't really look back. I just need to look ahead, maybe play it a little more cool next time - instead of a 3 week frenzy of shoveling food into my mouth, maybe make a list of the items I need to eat. That way I won't get back on the wagon with regrets longing for what could have been.

The diet I'm on, if anyone cares, is the Belly Off diet invented by Men's Health. I know you're already rolling your eyes and thinking that diets don't work. You're about to comment "dude, you can't diet, you need to change the way you eat. Diets don't work, a different lifestyle does." Well, guy, don't tell me how to live my life. Belly Off is kind of great. It tells me what to eat, when to eat it - and I even get a pdf of recipes and my grocery list for the week. It's teaching me how much to eat, and when to eat it, and what kind of stuff to eat for each time. So, look, it's good for me.

ANYWAY, while we're on the subject of food, what are your favorite "fall off the wagon" meals? This last go around for me was the 8piece chicken for $4.99 @ Popeye's. That was awesome. Notable mentions were: Rocket Pizza (the other night I successfully shoved an entire slice in my mouth at one time), D-Town Burger bar (burger and a chocolate shake), and Mike's homemade bread pudding. I know I'm leaving something out. Maybe Ms. Temple of Groom will remind me what I'm leaving out. Comment with your favorites!