Wedding Nightmare!

Last night I had my very first (and hopefully last) wedding nightmare. It was completely vivid and so real that for a while after waking up, when I was still in that half sleep state, I was still nervous and panicked about the whole thing.

Having served tables for a number of years at two different restaurants I am used to having vivid server nightmares that seem so unbelievably real they leave you worried for at least a few hours after you wake up. For those of you who are not familiar with server nightmares (and I envy all of you) they can really be stressful. These dreams usually involve getting sat more tables than is possible for you to take care of at once, having demanding guests, dealing with separate checks that are never right, forgetting to put in orders or having food that doesn't ever hit the table, etc., etc. Basically anything that can go wrong does go wrong in these dreams nightmares. For some reasons, these nightmares seem to last much longer than any other nightmares and especially longer than the nicest of dreams. (It's really messed up, right?!) While I've had my fair share of server nightmares, I have never experienced a wedding nightmare and I'm hoping that I won't have to ever again.

So in this wedding dream my mom was over at my house askng me questions about when both the dj and the hair stylist would be arriving at the venue. My answer wasn't just that I didn't know but the reason that I didn't know was because I hadn't hired them yet. My mom of course freaked out. She couldn't believe that it was so close to the wedding and I hadn't yet chosen and hired two key vendors. I assured her that we still had plenty of time until the wedding and she shouldn't panic. This is when the dream turned into a nightmare. My mom gave me the craziest look before walking over to the calendar and pointing out that the date was May 3rd. It was the day before our wedding!

Needless to say, my dream persona began to freak out but surprisingly only a little bit. For some reason dream me thought that I could fix it all and get it all together by the next morning. (I kind of appreciate this about my dream self.) My mom left my house yelling about how she needed to get this all fixed because I wasn't taking it seriously.

The dream then jumped to the next day and we got to the venue....which of course since it was a dream was not our actual venue, Wolf Lakes. Instead it looked like the inside of a warehouse. Of course it was a big, mostly empty warehouse, but it was a warehouse nonetheless. In the dream I wasn't surprised by the venue, only surprised that the decorations weren't up yet. My mom was there with a few other ladies asking me where to set up the games for the reception cocktail hour. Of course, dream me hadn't figured it out yet and I told them that I hadn't picked out the games yet and I certainly hadn't gone shopping for the materials for the games. My mom was speechless and walked away.

I headed to the bridal room to get ready. To my surprise I still didn't have anyone to do my hair, so I started to do it on my own. I was sure that I could figure out something nice to do with it even though I hadn't practiced. I put my hair up in curls and within seconds it had fallen down and the curls wouldn't stay. The frustration mounted and after a while I could feel myself getting really panicky and upset.

A few minutes later my mom and the ladies were back saying that the venue wanted to know when the cake would arrive so that they could get the table ready for it. Dream me made a face to my mom instead of saying anything. I hadn't ordered a cake. Before my mom could freak out on me I assured her that we could just whip up some cupcakes before the reception started and everything would be fine. My mom lost it! She demanded to know what I was doing the whole engagement and why I didn't seem to have anything done when I had a whole year to get everything ready. My only explanation was that I thought that I had more time. Without saying a word, my mom left in a huff and that was the last time she appeared in my dream.

I guess what I got out of the dream (aside from waking up freaked out) was that I need to start putting some things together for the wedding. Over the last few weeks (since school has ended) I have been asked from a bunch of different people how the wedding planning has been going. I told myself that as soon as graduation was over I would have time to go full force with the planning. The reality of the matter is that I have taken a much slower start getting prepared than I anticipated. My main thought is 'we have time'. So I think that my subconscious was reminding me that time goes by quickly (a point that my mom has been driving home since the day Zac and I started planning back in January). Thinking about it, Zac and I have already been engaged for 5 months. (Zac actually proposed 5 months ago today. Check out the details here.) It doesn't seem like it's been that long already but it has.

So I think that it's time to get a few more of the major items and a few of the smaller details marked off of my list. Before the summer is over these are the things that I would like to get accomplished:

- hire a dj

- take care of the cake order

- plan out and purchase items for least two of the games

- finalize the guest list

- design and create the invitations

- begin purchasing coffee mugs, plates, bowls, and jars for the dessert and candy tables

- purchase supplies for and begin putting together the guestbook

- choose our top three photos from our engagement photoshoot to use for the save the dates

- begin purchasing flip flops in a variety of sizes for the reception

- look at JoAnn's Fabrics for different fabrics for a variety of wedding related projects

If I can get these items taken care of before September I think that I will feel a lot better about all of the smaller details.

Hopefully I won't have to deal with wedding nightmares anymore. I'm sure as the day gets closer and more details are added to my list, my stress level will increase, but for now I'm feeling okay about everything. This one nightmare was enough to force me to narrow down the details and determine what things I really need to work on.

I can't wait to get started.