I haven't really had wedding dreams, I wonder why that is. Maybe it's just that I feel like all my waking moments are spent thinking about the wedding or moving, so in my dreams I want a break.

As for the sheet cake, my friend had sheet cake at her wedding to supplement. It was never in sight of the guests, they just had it back in the kitchen, where it was cut and put out with the other cake. That does sound like a rip-off.

I am really frustrated with my wedding site people. I have been trying to speak with someone there for a week now. I have also emailed, with no response. I need to get the rehearsal planned, but can get no response from anyone about availability of our amphitheater. A week without responding to a bride? It seems a bit mean to me. As a result of their lack of communication, I have been unable to relay the timing for our rehearsal to my in-laws, and now they have gone to Italy for a couple of weeks. That means we will probably have to book the rehearsal dinner ourselves. Sigh.... Sorry for ranting, I'm just tired.

My Fiance's sister is getting married three weeks before we are. I just saw her dress, and it looks.... very similar to mine. Hmmmmm....

Hey, Christine- vent away!

I wish you luck with your venue- you can always just show up on their doorstep!

Did your future sister-in-law know what your dress looked like before she bought hers?

I finally spoke to them. Yahoo!

Lafayette, we purchased our dresses independently, without seeing the other's. I actually bought mine after hers, but didn't see it until today. Oh well, I guess we both have good taste.

That's the spirit!

I'm freaking out about my mom asking the prices of everything. This is the woman who lectured me on/yelled at me for being self-centered and selfish when she read IN A BRIDAL MAGAZINE that brides print menus to set at each place setting.

I'm not printing menus, nor did I ever plan to, and I'm paying for everything anyway no matter what I chose to do. We haven't really had a detailed conversation about the wedding since but she called last night "with a few questions." Aaaah!

I’ve heard that wedding dreams are quite common, but I don’t really remember my dreams so I’m not sure I’d know if I were having them.

Lafayette – The bakery sure does seem to be trying to take advantage, jeeze! Sorry your mom is being difficult.

We have a wedding website, right now we just have the free level of service. Not sure if we’ll find the need to upgrade later or not. We don’t have much up there yet, but I think it will be a nice tool for communicating with guests as we plan.

We’re closing on our townhouse this Friday and starting moving on Sunday! Can’t wait.

Shananigans - the wedding website was GREAT. We ended up with all kinds of content on there...my favorite (and my guests favorite) was a song request form. People filled it out, I sent the songs along to my DJ, and people felt special. I also had an RSVP form for our guest shuttle service...as soon as my photographer gets the bleeping pictures back, I'll be posting a big gallery on the same site so people can look at them. This saved us a TON of money on invitations too...although technically Miss Manners doesn't like the idea...we printed one card in addition to our response card with our website address. From there, you could get directions and other logistics information for the wedding, so we didn't have to include directions or maps in the invitation itself.

I wish my guests were technically savvy enough to do the website! I loved yours, Mandalinn.

I really wanted to do an online poll to determine what the song for our first dance should be... I think we're going to go with whatever song is playing in the background when the two guys from Boondock Saints walk into the basement arsenal!

I am so excited I finally get to start planning my wedding!! My fiance will be here in a week and a half or so, so hopefully by the end of June we will have everything set. All i know that is official is the date 4/05/08 and hopefully the location Fabulous LAS VEGAS!!

Congrats! That's awesome!

My best friend got engaged just afew weeks after me and our weddings are one month apart. We went to a bridal show yesterday and let me just say, it's best to start with a drink, have a drink half-way through and end with a drink- I don't care which diet you're on! My God! The insanity!

Hopefully, I found a good baker who can make my cake at half the price the evil baker quoted me. Other than that and an alternative bridal shower idea/registry with Pampered Chef, I really didn't get much (other than an overdose of fake flowers and fake people) out of the experience!

On a high note, we've decided to do a joint bachellorette party- location TBD- on Feb 29 because, "If it happened on leap year, it didn't really happen... "

Anyone else with any great plans?

Oh, yeah... and I ONCE AGAIN restarted my diet today!

Lafayette – I went to the wedding expo at the Alliant energy center in Madison before we were even engaged. We were doing research for our friends that are getting married here in September (they still live in LA). Those things are ridiculous! We did find a florist that we liked and our friends say they’ve had a really good experience with them so we plan to use them as well. We also found a photographer we like, our friends ended up going with someone else, but we just put our deposit down to reserve him for our date. Funny that we kind of started doing some wedding planning before we really knew there was going to be a wedding. A joint bachelorette sounds awesome by the way!

I went to David’s Bridal last Saturday with my future MIL since she was in town and really wanted to go. It was a little overwhelming with her gushing constantly, she is really more excited about the gown than I am. Of course I want something flattering, but I am just not that into formal wear. When I mentioned that I would be happy in a simple white sundress and would just as well skip the formality of the gown if it didn’t matter to anyone else she looked at me like I was crazy and said something along the lines of “no, you really don’t mean that.” She just doesn’t seem to understand that not every woman has been dreaming of her fairy tale princess wedding gown since she was a little girl. Oh well, at least it’s nice that she’s excited and supportive and means well.

I had a work event for most of the day so I wasn’t able to make it in for an appointment but we browsed around a bit and I got to see the colors I was thinking about for my bridesmaids in person. I like them a lot. I think what I might do is have my bridesmaids in the celadon green and have my maid of honor wear the cornflower blue? Or maybe half & half? I’m not sure.

We’re mostly moved into our new house, I love it! It is going to be in chaos for some time, especially since we’ll be away this weekend and won’t get a chance to do any serious unpacking for a while.

Shan- Glad you survived the bridal fair! I hope it goes as well with the move!

I'm not into the "pretty, pretty princess" thing either. I just want a simple, elegant dress to go with what I hope will be a simple, elegant wedding. I keep reminding myself that, while this will be my only wedding, this is not the last party I am ever going to throw, not the last flowers I am ever going to order, not the last dinner I am ever going to plan, etc. It takes off some of the pressure to make everything perfect!

Well, I am working on diet bliss today to offset the cake I had to "sample" last night. Boston cream... I think Mandalinn calls it "food porn" so I will shut up now.

Thanks, Lafayette! Appreciate that perspective!

Oh man, I had a wedding dream!

In it, I was going up the aisle.Lots of things were weird, but the biggest part was that some guy I had met twice was standing up to marry me! This guy I am not attracted to in any way, but for some reason I had agreed to marry him years ago. And as we were standing up there, I kept on asking him why on earth do you want to marry me? You don't know me! And my wonderful fiance was standing as a groomsman, crying like crazy. And I kept arguing with this guy that I couldn't even remember the name of, saying things like, did you see the invitations? They had mine and MICAH"S name on them. That means HE is the one I want to marry. Then finally, I threw a big fit and finally yelled out to the world, obviously I want to marry Micah, not you! And it was a huge scene. At the end, I needed to wait until later to marry Micah, so no wedding took place. My bf told me it wasn't the worst wedding she had been to.

Random

Christine – That is one freaky dream! I have read that you can “train” yourself to remember your dreams. Maybe it would be worth the while to see if I’m having any bizarre wedding dreams.

Lafayette – I hope you’ve found a reasonable baker. I can’t wait to go cake testing!

Did another round of moving last night. Looks like we’re down to one more trip, then we’ll be cleaning up and done with it. With the small exception of getting someone to rent the place. We’ve got a couple more interested parties this week, keeping our fingers crossed. We’ll have this weekend free (finally!) so we’ll get some time to take care of all that and get properly settled in the new place.

We have a consultation meeting with the photographer tonight. The owner of the studio has already been booked for our date, so we’re meeting with one of his associates. Hope all goes well. Any tips for these types of meetings? Questions we should ask?

Hope everyone’s planning is going well.

Shan-

The most important thing, I would think, would be to see pictures of the individual's work. You want to make sure this person has a style you like. You may also want to know their preferences for posed versus informal pictures, and talk to them about having your pictures, whether those will be before or after.

Planning is hectic for me at the moment. I feel stressed and tired of it all. BUT, I know it will all come together somehow in the end.