First crisis: HANDLED!

Bradley and I have known that we were going to get married on a cruise WELL before he proposed. So the day after he proposed, I began researching cruise lines and wedding packages and destinations. After a few weeks, I decided that we were going to get married on a Princess Cruise to the Caribbean in August, 2011. I called Princess and they told me that their schedule for that time of year would be out in May. Therefore, starting May 1, I began checking their website every day to see if the schedule had been put out yet. By June 1, still no schedule. Patience is not a virtue I possess, so I called them. The woman assured me the schedule would be out soon and to just be patient. I hung up and tried to be patient.

The way that the Princess Cruise Line website works is that there are a list of destinations, a list of ships, a list of cruise-lengths and a list of departure ports. When you click on one, the Caribbean for example, the options still available to you turn blue and everything else remains white. I'm so used to clicking "Caribbean" and having everything after May, 2011, go white, it took me a moment yesterday to realize that there was MUCH more blue than usual!!!! In fact, it appeared they had put out their Caribbean schedule until March, 2012! The one month that was still white? August, 2011.

Nervous, I called the cruise line. After a very long time with a woman who was very kind, I finally got her to admit that Princess Cruise Lines would NOT be going to the Caribbean in August of 2011. I hung up the phone and proceeded to panic.

After several hours of e-mailing my friends, calling my family and forcing Bradley to drive up to my work during rush hour traffic to have dinner with me and "just talk this out," I finally came to terms with what I really wanted: I wanted to get married to Bradley on a cruise in the Caribbean with the greatest possible number of my friends and family around me. Initially we had decided that it was important for us to be married by the captain during a "day at sea," but that was going to have to go by the wayside (Princess and Celebrity - who also isn't going to the Caribbean in August - are the only cruise lines that can marry you at sea). We were also hoping to use a more elegant line, but that isn't going to be possible either.

In the end, we decided to go with Carnival Cruises. There are two possibilities, both during the same week of August, just with different destinations. So we've contacted our travel agent (my step-mother) and have asked her to talk to the cruise line about getting us booked on one of those two cruises.

I'm afraid to say more for fear of jinxing us, so I will simply close by saying that my first wedding crisis has officially happened and even Bradley said that I handled it well. I will admit to panicking for a few moments, but once the panic was over, I just tried to figure out what my options still were. Luckily I have a great support network around me who quickly started pointing out other options and ideas. And now I just play the waiting game...again... ;)

Easily Pleased

Though I ask a lot of the people in my life, I am very easily pleased. I ask my friends to attend celebrations and, yet, am delighted when they arrive. I ask Bradley for a date night and giggle unendingly when he makes it happen. And my happiness is always sincere; I am always touched when someone does something for me or with me in mind. This has not changed in regards to my wedding.

The first person to help me out was Jen Estroff, my maid of honor. The first month of Bradley and my engagement, she went through magazines with me, scouring for ideas and inspiration. More recently, she spent an afternoon helping make the paper flowers that will replace real ones throughout my wedding (the US Department of Agriculture doesn't allow transport of real flowers). I know that this is just the beginning of what I will ask Jen to do in the next 14 months, but I'm amazed that she has been so overwhelmingly willing to help!

Craig Big Eagle and Molly Beier have been instrumental in creating save-the-dates. Once Princess puts out their freaking schedule, we will be all set to go because of these two! Molly's ideas and photo manipulation have been extraordinary! I'm so lucky to have such a talented friend. Craig's patience has been fantastic, as well, tweaking tiny details until everything is just the way I want it! As the Queen of Everything Paper and a groomsman, I know that I will ask these two to do even more throughout the planning process, but I am touched every time one of them asks me how the Save-the-Dates are going or what else they can do for me.

Last week, however, the cake goes to Bradley. Bradley will take the LSATs tomorrow (it's technically Sunday right now, so tomorrow) and just received his last final two days ago to complete his undergraduate degree, so I've vowed to not bother him with wedding stuff until all of that is over. And I've been very good!!!! Imagine my surprise, then, when I open an e-mail from him on Wednesday tell me that he has found a wedding band for himself! This long before our wedding, he is asking for my opinion on one particular band. In my crazy brain, of course, I realized that this means that he has been looking for a band on his own! I happen to think that the band is perfect and, even more important, Bradley really likes it. So he bought it! He bought the band that will make him my husband!!!!!!!

This is certainly not the last thing I will ask him to do in the wedding process, but I'm so amazingly happy that he has done this!!!!!!!!!!!