Planning a wedding in another town, even if that town happens to be the one you grew up in, has posed some challenges. After our early August engagement, I thought we had plenty of time before a fall wedding more than a year away.

And then four months passed. And the amount of actual, concrete wedding things we had accomplished? Zero.

Sure, I’d been reading the interwebs and had plenty of ideas. We’d sat down and planned out our budget… even “finalized” our guest list, which shocked pretty much everyone I know. But we still didn’t have a venue, and didn’t have a date, and didn’t really even have a clue about the major things: the wheres, the whens, the hows.

And while, luckily, we did have the REALLY important things nailed down… like, you know, the what (a marriage!) the who (MBH of course), the why (because we looooove each other), it was slightly worrisome that those were all we had after four months. After all, there were only going to be three more of those 4-month blocks at the most until the big day!

And so, after a few mini-meltdowns (yes, this early on… hope MBH is getting excited!) we finally agreed we might need a little outside help, at least for the day of the actual wedding. Thankfully, my wonderful sister (see inset below) had a friend with a wonderful sister of her own, who happens to run a wedding planning company in Orlando.

Thanks to the fantastically organized Jaclyn Fraser, I know longer feel like my life is totally overwhelming. And maybe now MBH will have a little less Bridezilla, and a little more Bride.