We’ve been receiving an abundance of advice on how to plan a wedding from friends and family. It’s so neat how information comes right when you need it most.

A good friend of mine was telling me about a life changing realization she has had since being married for over 30 years. She told me something that will most likely resonate with me because it touched me so strongly. She relayed to me that her marriage hasn’t been easy – she said no marriage is. For such a long time she was trying to change her husband – to help him become a better person. Then it dawned on her – she shouldn’t worry about changing him, she should worry about changing herself. The more she worked on bettering herself, the more their marriage started to get better and become the fairytale she’s always wanted. Interesting thing, isn’t it? I love the fact that you should work on being the best you and that will in turn help you to treat your spouse better and increase the love and compassion in your marriage. I want to remember this. It is so easy to see each other’s flaws, but we have to look at the positive and realize we both aren’t perfect, but we are both trying to do what’s right and that’s what matters most.

If you can’t tell yet, this has been a very contemplative week. The magnitude of this amazing decision Michael and I are making is becoming a little clearer every day. I’m grateful for this. I’m glad we can be aware of it and enjoy the fact that we are doing this together!

The video shows a few of the things we’ve done this week to plan a wedding and of course, below there is also a bullet point list of everything. Enjoy!

WEEK 7

• Family Bridal Shower! So much fun!
• Started a “Thank You” list on our Google Docs spread sheet so we remember to thank people for their specific gifts
• Ordered our wedding cake from our friend!
• Wedding Invitations and inserts for dinner and sealing/ceremony completed – now just waiting for them to be printed! Ahh…we’re cutting it close!!! I was counseled that things always take longer than you think in planning a wedding, and even though I accounted for that, it still took even LONGER than my time cushion. But never fear, things will work out. Michael and I always tease that as long as the both of us are at least there then we’re good. We definitely want to make sure everyone is notified with enough notice though. We’re excited to celebrate with family and friends!!
• Michael’s wedding ring is being made as we speak! I went to the same place Michael got my ring: The Gem Smith in Bountiful It will be done soon!:)
• Working on the address lists still. We’re hunting down people for their addresses and compiling them in a manner more efficient for easy conversion to labels. We’re also making notations on those individuals we need to invite to the wedding dinner and sealing so it will be easy to stuff the proper items in each envelope. We’re having the envelopes with our return address printed on the flap. That way we just have to stuff them, seal them, put the invitee address label and stamp on and send it off to the post office! Woo!
• Learned I need to get my marriage license before I get married to take to our wedding sealing/ceremony. Then I change my name on my social security card when we get back from our honeymoon.
• Michael and I are making time to plan for the future. We’re talking about the different things we want to accomplish and how we’re going to merge our two lives together. Talking finances, family, emotions, etc. This is so important to keep the future things in perspective even amongst all of the right now excitement of planning a wedding.
• Wedding Dress fitting #1 – done!

For additional info and the video, go to http://www.templesquarehospitality.com/blogs/weddings/?p=1788