'Twas the week before my wedding....

I'm breaking my blogging silence to announce that by this time next week I will be getting ready to walk down the aisle! One week! One week! 

I cannot believe that Christmas is over and we are officially in full on wedding week mode. It was a quieter Christmas this year, just my parents, my sister and I (plus two dogs) around our tree this year. I didn't really anticipate how planning a wedding for the weekend after Christmas would affect all our family's holidays. We just did a little bit less since we're doing so much in the coming week. But we did still manage to fit in some of our favorite Christmas traditions, like a trip into the city to see the Rockettes and the big tree, and to enjoy a nice dinner out. And we made sure to still attend the candlelight Christmas Eve service and read "The Night Before Christmas."

On Christmas day I put down the checklist and guest list to enjoy the most wonderful time of the year. It was a time to unplug, and sleep in, and not wear makeup, and rest and find peace, before the hullaballoo begins. It was really special to get to spend this last Christmas as an unmarried gal at home. (Short-Arm-Shannon took a wonderful selfie to commemorate it.) It's a little strange to not know what next Christmas will look like, but one thing's for sure, T.J. and I will be Mr. and Mrs. and we'll be together. I've got a new ornament for our tree and butterflies in my stomach to prove it!

So what does the weekend before the wedding weekend look like around here?
Well, our dining table is covered in big poster-board floor plans which are covered in sticky notes with each guest's name. I haven't blogged in two weeks because I've been slowly and steadily checking things off that big long list you see below. The list which, at the start of those two weeks, had exactly zero things crossed off.  I'm trying to detox from the Christmas cookies so my skin will look glowy and my dress will fit. And one of the guest bedrooms has officially been renamed "the wedding room" and is filled to the brim with welcome bags, tags for the favors, menus and place-cards,  gifts for my bridesmaids, and every other little thing you can think of that we will be packing up into two cars, along with my wedding dressing, and a partridge in a pear tree.

There's a lot of emotions (I think compounded by the Christmas spirit and memories of holidays past), some teary eyes, but mostly just a lot of excitement around these parts. And it's doubling by the minute. Everything feels a bit surreal and I have to give myself a reality check every once in a while. I don't want to miss it while I'm too busy trying to plan it. This is it. This is the week before my wedding. The last days of being T.J.'s fiancee before becoming his wife.