As I write this I’m back home in Scotland for a few days, we’ve just had a pretty productive weekend in Glasgow where we met our celebrant for the first time in the flesh, locked down our ceremony order, had a hair trial (me) and finally met the rest of my burgeoning family so there are not so many strange faces on the morning of the wedding (Stu).
Following that I decided to take a few days off and travel up north to see my parents. The idea behind this being to have some time away from work and general day to day admin to try and tick a lot of those niggling DIY projects off in one fell swoop, with the advantage of outside space (our tiny flat in London isn’t ideal for spray painting) and a DIY master of a Dad on hand to help (I’ve never been very good at measurements).
Of course so far what has ensued seems to be a whole load of sleep, something I haven’t been getting a lot of back in London and clearly my body needed.
Because guys, we’ve now passed the – 100 days to go – mark. Yup, we met that marker, shook its hand and waved goodbye to it reluctantly as we entered double figures (DOUBLE FIGURES! As in soon it will be single figures!). Ever since then things seem to have been moving at an extraordinary rate and it feels as if there is SO MUCH TO DO and SO LITTLE TIME. For me, the 100 day marker was quite a defining moment in the wedding planning journey and was met with a mixture of excitement and giddiness that said ‘We are almost there! This is real! We CAN do this!’ Along with fear and panic that said ‘S**t we are almost there (and I’m not ready)! This is actually real now?!! Can we do this??’
At the point of reaching only 100 small days until our wedding we still hadn’t sent any invites (or finished designing them) Stu still didn’t have a suit, my dress was still a pattern, we had no wedding rings, and there was a list of decorations and DIY projects that seemed like they might never get started, never mind finished.
And so, because we’re all friends here at Love My Dress, I thought it might be fun to share a little of the emotional roller coaster that has hit since entering the double figure countdown. So here are 15 things that may happen to you once there are only 100 days to go until your wedding. If you’re with me on timescale you’ll probably know exactly what I’m talking about (I hope) and if you still have loads of time left, trust me when I say tick some stuff off now. Like right now. You’ll be so grateful you did when this period rolls around.
Stage 1. All the excitement
All the excitement, all the feels! Suddenly this idea you’ve had for the last year is becoming real, this hypothetical event is becoming something tangible that you are almost reaching. And that is very exciting! You mark 100 days to go in your calendar and start to get a little giddy when you see it approaching, each day getting crossed off along with a little flip inside your stomach. Little flashes of what the day might look like keep appearing in your head at random moments and you find yourself smiling at the idea of actually doing it, getting married, saying the vows! Yup hitting 100 days to go fills you with excitement!
Stage 2. Panic
Of course swiftly following the excitement is the panic. ‘100 days. 100 DAYS?!?! How can this be? How can we possibly do everything we need to do in only 100 days? Tomorrow will be 99 days! OMG I have to do something, anything, right now! Even if it’s midnight. I can make some confetti or spray paint a frame at midnight can’t I?’
Stage 3. Wondering what on earth you have been doing for the last year?
When you first get engaged a wedding date a year or more in advance seems like A LOT of time. So much time. Enough time that if you want to spend three months pinning pictures to Pinterest and not actually making any real decisions that’s ok. Then suddenly before you know it there are only 100 tiny days left, you have no idea where that year has gone and your pining for those three months back so that you can actually do some work with them. When planning a wedding time has a funny habit of running away from you.
Stage 4. Patting yourself on the back
Usually by the time you’ve got to this stage, all the big tasks at least have been ticked off. However long your to-do list remains, you know that if you had to have your wedding tomorrow, you could. You have someone to marry you, you have a venue, you have food, and you have something to wear. It’s time to pat yourself on the back for all you’ve achieved already. The rest, as everyone tells you, is just a bonus.
Stage 5. Feeling like superwoman when you check, re-check and kick some butt check that all your suppliers are still on board, on schedule and doing what they should be
Yes, yes and yes! You are on a roll. This wedding is happening, suppliers are ready and you’re fist pumping the air regularly while feeling like the most organised bride on the planet.
Stage 6. Feeling like the worst Bridezilla in the world when you check, re-check and kick some butt check that all your friends and family are still on board, on schedule and doing the tasks they’ve promised you they will
This same format doesn’t work so well on family. Suddenly you’re no longer organised, you’re a total ‘control freak’ who needs to chill out and ‘trust’. Sigh.
Stage 7. Having a ‘moment’ over something superficial in front of people who don’t know you well enough to know it’s just a ‘moment’
Bridezilla moments come at the strangest of moments and over the silliest of things. Sometimes one question, or one thing going wrong is enough to set you off into ten minutes of rage/tears/hyperventilating. If you are around anyone other than your closest friends, this can prove terribly embarrassing after those ten minutes are up.
Stage 8. Getting the money sweats
‘Wait we’ve got to pay how much on the 10th of October? And we only have how much in the bank to cover it? How did we get those sums so wrong?’
Stage 9. Deciding that actually you don’t want a wedding anymore
You’ll have the marriage, but the wedding – no thanks. If someone offered to let you elope tomorrow and leave the whole sorry business behind you’re fairly confident you’d bite their hand off.
Stage 10. Buying a lottery ticket and convincing yourself that it’s the winner (and subsequent answer to all of your fireworks/ no fireworks debates)
‘This. is the answer to ALL of our problems. It HAS to be’… That’s what you tell yourself right up until the point you find out you’ve not even won a tenner and you cannot elope and leave this mess behind. Once again you decide you know longer want a wedding anymore. Nope. Definitely not. Cue sulking.
Stage 11. Having a ‘Hen Do’, feeling all the love in the air and deciding that if the wedding is anything like this then actually you do want one after all.
Ah the Hen Do. So much love in the room, you actually feel your insides going all warm and fuzzy. Somehow it always comes at exactly the point you need it, taking you away from all of the stress and giving you just a glimpse of how lovely the wedding might be.
Stage 12. Wondering if there will even be a wedding at this rate if your fiancé continues to be SO ANNOYING!
Why have you never noticed this about them before? They annoy you with every breath. You can’tfully understand why they seem to go temporarily deaf every time there is any wedding talk and then feel actual steam come out of your ears when they say things like ‘you never told me that’ or ‘are you sure we spoke about that?’ – ‘Are you kidding me??’.
Stage 13. The power through
You and your annoying other half stay up until 3am for a week solid to stuff envelopes/ write calligraphy addresses/ stamp names onto tags/ get invites out. You realise how quickly you can do things when you set your mind to it, you feel extremely grateful that you didn’t have to do that task on your own and you realise that actually your fiancé might be ok again. Maybe you will marry them.
Stage 14. Sleep.
Lots of sleep.
Stage 15. Excitement (again)
You’re almost there, you realise how much you’ve achieved and the excitement sets back in. RSVP’s start to flood in and you get those little tummy flips once again when you imagine walking down that aisle to the person you love most in the world.
WE CAN DO THIS!
Love Jaclyn x
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Jaclyn Craig is marrying Stuart Watt on 21st November 2015. Amy Shore will be taking their wedding photographs. You can find Jaclyn via her blog and on Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.
You can also read her other Lovettes features here.
Oh my gosh, everything in this post is dead on!! (except maybe the sleep part, heh heh) As I just passed the 100 days remaining mark myself, I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed reading this!! 😀