Well, I've been wondering and wondering when the last-minute stress is going to hit. I've got my answer. Holy crap, I woke up this morning and it has hit me big time, in all its jaw-clenching, heartburn-inducing glory. I'm not having panic attacks or anything, but there are just so many little things still to work out and Bo is freaking out a bit so I'm trying to be the non-anxious one for once. Hah! Anyone that knows me knows how ridiculous that is.

The To Do list is getting remarkably small, yet I keep forgetting what is on it. I'm writing them down here in the hopes that it will instill them in my brain a bit better.

1. FLOWERS. I keep forgetting about flowers. I'm planning to just do grocery store flowers for the bouquet and corsages/boutonnieres, but I still should get on that. Yeah.

2. Hair/makeup. I'm doing my own, but I need to do some trial runs for the hair and go to Sephora and buy some makeup and get some application how-tos.

3. Write vows. Gah. Hard! Scary!

4. Music playlist. Also hard and scary.

Keep your eyes on your mailbox! We have the invites and will be addressing them and sending them out very soon. They are an eco-friendly "seal and send" design, eliminating the need for envelopes. The RSVP card is a tear-off postcard.

In other news, I'm trying to figure out what the heck I'm going to wear! Obviously, I have the dress. But I have no idea what I'm going to wear on my head (veil? flowers?), neck (necklace or none?), and feet. Last night I had a stress dream that involved trying to find clothing in all these malls and stores.

Things completed today from the comfort of the couch:

1. photographer contract signed.
2. invitations ordered.
3. favorite readings/poems/ceremony inspiration selected from deadly long thread on indiebride. not sure if we're doing readings or not but damn if i wasn't near tears the whole time reading them all.

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone that sent us contact info or other ideas for finding a photographer. We have found several that are still available for this date and are waiting to hear from a few more. In fact, now our problem is narrowing down our list of choices, finding time to meet with them, and making our choice!

Our cheap yet awesome photographer fell through, and now we are stuck, 4 months away, with no photographer. I might cry.

I'm not going to post a picture of my dress here, because I'm keeping it a secret from Bo. But rest assured, I have one and it's pretty.

Now for the SHOES. I love shoes. I've been looking forward to buying some really awesome shoes for this wedding for a long time. Rather than get things done at work today, I did a little digging around on endless.com and zappos.com.

So, this girl at work and her husband do wedding photography and they finally sent us a link to their website with the portfolio. The pictures are fine, but don't wow us. But the price is really good. We're kind of stuck right now, trying to decide just how much we're willing to spend on photography. I really want awesome photos. I also really don't want to spend $2000-$5000, which appears to be the going rate. Gah, I'm totally stressed about it and I just know I'm going to have a stress dream about it tonight.

Well, we just spent the day completely overhauling www.boandkaren.com. I think it looks great, if I do say so myself. We changed to a new (modified) Drupal template, created and added our own header image, and added a bunch of new content. Highlights include: "About us" pages for me, Bo, Kitty, and Alina; travel info; and suggestions for things to do in Chicago.

This was actually really fun to work on, although it took all day and that means that the Save the Dates aren't going out this weekend.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are on the Berghoff's calendar for September 13! I am thrilled and also very very relieved to have a venue and a date. We haven't signed on the dotted line or handed over any cash yet, but that should be happening soon. The important part is we're on their calendar so no one can steal our date.