Easy breezy?

We're a little bit less than ten months away from our wedding, and people have started asking the Big Question: "Are you totally stressed out yet?"

Until this week, my honest answer has been, not even a little bit! I've been really lucky so far - our venue was available on the date I wanted, the vendors I've booked have been incredibly lovely to work with, our financiers (read: Mumsy and Daddy) have been astonishingly generous and hands-off, our families have been entirely drama-free and my groom has answered all of my wedding related inquiries with "whatever you want is fine with me, babe." Until this week, I was all, so what is this wedding stress that people speak of? Man, I've even drawn up a schedule of errands, projects and dress fittings for the next ten months just to avoid the possibility of finding myself knee-deep in DIY and losing my mind the week of the wedding! I've got this thing down!

Until this week, that is. I had two things to take care of this week: hotel room blocks and a makeup artist. Pssh, simple! Monday morning, I contacted the three local hotels we'd selected to set up room blocks, figuring the whole thing would be done by the end of the day. Uh, not so much. The first hotel - our fancy-pants, high-end hotel where I was planning on spending the night before the wedding with my bridesmaids, then my wedding night with Mr. M - was BOOKED. Fully booked! Ten months in advance! No room at the inn! There would be no sneaking out with the girls for French pastries at the great little bakery nearby on my wedding morning, no last-minute-jitters-calming cocktails at my favorite bar in the neighborhood... what a bummer! Well, at least the other two hotels would come through.... right?

No dice. I can't get an answer from the second hotel for love or money, and the third hotel apparently doesn't do room blocks. Oy. Time for Plans B, C and D.

My search for a makeup artist didn't fare much better - did you guys know that most makeup artists have minimums for Saturday bookings? And extra fees for turning up at the butt-crack of dawn in my hotel in God-knows-which-borough-at-this-point? Yikes. I must have sent thirty inquiries this week, only to get the Dikembe Mutombo finger wag from most of them.

 

Only the bride needs makeup? I don't think so!

                 (.gif from wakejake on gifsoup.com)

But finally I found someone who has a beautiful portfolio, great reviews and was willing to work with just me... yay! So I immediately and eagerly booked a trial with her for next month, and unless it's really truly atrocious (and from what I've seen of her work, there's no way it will be) I am totally booking her on the spot. And then giving her a hug and a really big tip.

So while this is definitely nothing like the kind of OMG-level wedding stress that everyone talks about... this week was my first little taste of it. And if this is as bad as it gets... well, then I'm pretty lucky. (Fingers crossed!)