I Must Freak Out Regularly

Yep that's right. I freaked out... again.

Yesterday was Friday the 13th.

Source.

But that's not important.

Actually, the thing that is important is that yesterday we cruised past the

"6 Months To Go"

marker. Just cruised by (insert whooshing sound), without a care in the world (whee!!!)... except for trying to fulfill the requirements that let me stay in Europe, learning French vite, vite, vite, and trying to avoid being down because I'm away from Mr. Fox (sad face here).

Needless to say, I'm distracted.

So it's not surprising that a little prompt from a buddy-turned-wedding-invitee by email completely turned my world upside down for a moment. Tick, tick, tick. Time is certainly flying by.

Yes, I know hourglasses do not tick. I just like them lots and lots and this one is purty. Source.

Must Have: A Wedding Crush

I am a habitual crusher. I have been my whole life. My high school (and even middle school) days were full of crushes. Those pointless kind where you obsessively like a boy for 3 days just because he said something funny and it was actually TO you (or maybe just in your general direction, but at 14 it's all the same). So it's no surprise that my tendency toward crushiness has continued on to this day. But instead of boys I'm crushing on (Mr. Fox is all the boy man I need), it's weddings. And this is the wedding I've got a crush on:

Of course I was not searching YouTube for wedding videos. I actually found this bride and her wedding through their blog when I was looking for customizable invitation ideas on Wedding Bee. I really liked the invitations she put together with the help of nothing more than a cheap Epson printer, great ideas and love. I loved the way Mrs. Apple Cider described her invitation making process, including her cost breakdown. I loved all the little personal details she put into them. I loved how she really let her personality shine and was able to make the post so warm and friendly. And I voraciously read every single post on her blog. 

And it made me want my wedding to be like hers.

Well, no, not exactly like hers. She had a rustic, outdoor wedding at a vineyard. Mine won't be any of that. She had a custom made dress. I bought mine at the largest bridal retail chain in the US. She DIY'd everything. And that's actually where our two weddings will be similar (I hope… especially since I tend to be optimistic).

Your Memories Must Be Captured... Professionally

Mr. Fox must have been a Japanese tourist in his former life. He has this camera:

Mr. Fox's Memory Box. Source.

...and he takes it everywhere. It doesn't matter if we've been there four times before ...in the same week, he wants to document the experience and keep track of our "memories". But what this really means is that pictures of him, if they exist, look like this:

Mr. Fox: Self Portrait, hard at work.

Fox derrieres in Times Square. Mr. Fox is taking photos, of course.

...and pictures of me, of which there are copious amounts, tend to turn into this:

I wasn't mad, I was simply letting my inner artist free.

Of course I want to look nice in the pictures and smile for the camera, but that really only works the first 8 times or so. After that you tend to get a bit, uh... creative.

But I'm not complaining (Though I suppose I'm ranting just a bit).

Yet in spite of Mr. Fox's obsession (yes, obsession) with capturing "the moment" on film, in actuality, he had to be convinced about hiring a wedding photographer.

You heard me right: Convinced.

And it was a hard sell. A really, really difficult one. (Yet still easier than the whole golf cart thing.) He didn't understand why we needed to pay someone to take photos when we had so many friends with cool cameras. His reasoning was that there would be like 400 shots per minute taken during the event due to the plethora of cameras our guests would have. How could we possibly need anything more? Especially if the service is going to cost more than €700. In his mind €700 was more than enough to pay for a photographer. He didn't get why any of them were priced higher. Honestly, I would have loved it if we could spend this (relatively) small amount of money and get great photos. But it just wasn't going to happen, as our search concluded.

Between the two of us, we received 8 offers from various photographers from the Loiret Region marriage guide and various internet searches. They were all in French. They were all vastly different. We sat down together and attempted to make a comparison. (What this really means is that Mr. Fox sat down to read the offers and I went to the various websites to view their digital goods.) These were our conclusions:

• It was impossible to do an apples-to-apples comparison of these things
• French wedding photographers favor the risque
• French wedding photographers are overwhelmingly male
• Price means absolutely nothing compared to quality

It felt like we were making very little forward progress. What now? Let it marinate and move on to other things.

In the meantime, I grazed wedding blogs, like you tend to do when you're planning a wedding, and I struck gold!!! One of my faves, Parisian Party, put up this little tidbit of lovely: Barbie and Ken's REAL French Wedding. When I saw this I simply fell in love. The quality of the photos was fantastic. The details were just too good. And it was freaking Barbie and Ken. What little girl who played with these dolls didn't try to do the wedding thing?!?!

I immediately hunted down the photographer on the net and combed her website to see if this one photo shoot was too good to be true. But it wasn't. (insert dance of joy)

So I sent a request for an offer and crossed my fingers, toes, eyes, and anything else that I could, waiting for her reply. And guess what?

She's within our budget!!!

Source.

You Must Have A Teaser

Today I am going to bed a very, very pleased bride-to-be. I'll give you a short update since I'm completely bushed.

Mr. Fox and I started our day super early (5am... we're ambitious I told you) so that we could meet with our photographer candidate. We took a 4-hour, morning commuter traffic-filled drive around Paris to meet our PC in Rouen at 11am. Afterwards, we turned around and took an almost equally long drive back to Montargis to pick up Papa and Maman Fox for a trek to the outskirts of Gien to pick up the items for our degustation.

It has been a long day. More updates soon, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with this teaser:

The lovely boxes (and platter) that housed the wonderfulness that is now in my belly and will soon be turned into fat cells that I will have to work off before the wedding.

Bonne nuit!

We've Gotta Pack It All In!

I'm in France, all properly moved in to my new-ish digs with the inlaws. Mr. Fox will be here with me to ease the transition until early next week when I start my French lessons. In the meanwhile, we are going to be super productive for wedding stuff. This week we are going to:

• meet the photographer whose work I'm in love with
• complete a tasting with the caterer who best fits our criteria
• sample wines to complement our menu
• price wedding bands
• contact possible musicians and DJs for the reception
• visit the reception venue again to map out details for decor
• get preliminary pricing for floral arrangements
• arrange and meet with the priest who will officiate the ceremony
• check out the gigantic party store for decoration ideas
• do a wedding hairstyle trial run

Basically, we're going to try to get in a bit of everything since we've been pretty lax with the planning thus far. But mostly we want to get a real handle on the big money items because I need to know how much I can spend on the fun stuff like DIY decorations! Wish us luck. We're ambitious.