Well, we’re entering the home stretch — the wedding is one month from today! And, unsurprisingly, we have officially entered the everything-is-going-awry phase.

Catering is over budget. The restaurant where I made our rehearsal dinner reservation months ago has no idea what I’m talking about. We’re barely past 50% RSVPed. My wedding band and engagement ring (that were purchased as a set) were a quarter size different and didn’t fit together properly. (Fortunately, this was fixed on Monday… Phew.) The cake stand I’m renting for the cutting cake is, oh, only about twice the size we need. We have to purchase extra hours at our venue because, somehow, nine hours just doesn’t cut it. I had to move the welcome bags up to Mr. R’s in Portland just to schlep them all back to Salem in less than a month.

And… it looks like no peonies in April this year. Snow has definitely lost its magic for me, people.

But on the bright side, I am looking forward to being married more every day. Mr. R has been especially kind and giving and thoughtful and sensitive lately. We had two amazing showers over the weekend… Seriously, I am so totally overwhelmed by the generosity of others and how they continually bless my life. My maid of honor and my mom came down for the occasion, and I get to see my MOH again for her birthday in less than two weeks. My matron of honor is coming to see me this weekend (!). The dresses — mine and my maids’ — are so gorgeous it’s ridiculous. Mr. R has started spraypainting the easel for me. And I’m giving myself permission to drop not one but two! of my DIY projects. (For me, that’s huge.)

Let the final countdown begin!

Let’s get one thing straight: I did not enjoy my wedding dress fitting process. I was not at all prepared for that to be the case. My wedding dress selection process was so lovely and pleasant that I think I expected the same to hold true for the fittings. And I haven’t heard much from other brides about their fittings, so I figured that it must be at worst uneventful and at best enjoyable.

Now, I fully expected the first fitting to be less than wonderful. My dress was ordered to my largest measurement, so it was a little more than three sizes too large in the waist, and I knew I wanted to remove the straps and belt/sash from the get-go. I walked out of the first fitting feeling like I still didn’t have a good sense of what my dress would actually look like on me when it fit but I was 100% confident that it would be fabulous.

Well, someone should warn you about second fittings. You’ve waited months for your dress, and now the seams are open and exposed and it still doesn’t fit and all of a sudden your brain kicks into overdrive. I always made fun of the girls on Say Yes to the Dress when they came in for their fittings and went on and on and on about how that wasn’t their dress and it wasn’t the same as the sample and the color/detailing/proportions/etc. were completely wrong. “They must’ve gotten my dress mixed up with someone else’s,” they would say. I now know that all those girls must just be there for their second fitting, because I was so there. I was so freaked out that I actually tried to go to Gabrielle’s and look at the sample the next day to see if it was different from my dress. And when I got there and they were closed, I called my seamstress and asked her to compare my dress to the sample the next time she was in the shop because I swore that the pleating was different. Seriously.

I ordered my dress when I was living in the San Francisco area last year, so I was hoping to have my dress altered and shipped to me in Portland after the second fitting. But I was way too traumatized after the second fitting to trust that everything would be right, so I decided to fly back down to the Bay for my third fitting. And let me just say that it was worth every penny — ultimately, it only cost me $50 more to fly down and back than to just have my dress shipped. I didn’t have to worry about my dress being rained on, tossed around, and stacked under hundreds of other boxes in shipment. My flight home was nearly empty, so my dress had its very own overhead bin. (Southwest will let you take your dress on board as a carry-on. They don’t have flight attendant closets like some larger airlines do, but if you carefully fold your dress in half, it fits nicely in an overhead.) And the dress had to be taken in again after my third fitting, so being there enabled me to have a fourth fitting to ensure that everything was as it should be.

Eight months, four fittings and two airports later, my dress is home and somehow looks even lovelier in my little pink bedroom than it did at the bridal shop. Not sure how that’s possible but it’s true.

Since I originally wrote about music in October, I’ve been adding songs to an iTunes playlist as they come to mind or as I play them. Last weekend, Josh and I drove to my parents’ and back, and on our way home, we went through his (extensive) music collection and picked even more songs for the reception.

The only problem: We now have more than eight hours of music for a four-hour reception. Oops! And we haven’t even tackled our list of “artists we need more tracks by” (ABBA, Janet Jackson and Lenny Kravitz, just to name a few). Here’s our unedited list, by approximate genre. (Mr. R is the genre king and would certainly disapprove of these sweeping categorizations… ;)

Oldies through Early 90s
ABBA, Dancing Queen
Alison Krauss, When You Say Nothing At All
B52s, Love Shack
Bay City Rollers, I Only Want to Be With You
Beach Boys, God Only Knows
Beach Boys, Wouldn’t It Be Nice
Beach Boys, Kokomo
Beatles, Ob-la-di
Beatles, She Loves You
Billy Idol, White Wedding
Cranberries, Dreams
The Cure, Friday I’m in Love
Dead or Alive, You Spin Me ‘Round
Dramarama, Anything, Anything
Edwyn Collins, A Girl Like You
Gloria Estefan, 1-2-3
Hall & Oates, You Make My Dreams Come True
INXS, Need You Tonight
The Mamas & the Papas, California Dreamin’
Mike & the Mechanics, Par Avion
Phil Collins, You Can’t Hurry Love
Phil Collins, Two Hearts
Phil Collins, A Groovy Kind Of Love
Police, Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Sade, Smooth Operator
Sade, No Ordinary Love
Spandau Ballet, True
Thompson Twins, Hold Me Now

Singer-songwriters, Piano Rock, etc.
Air, Cherry Blossom Girl
The Autumn Film, Can This Be
Chairlift, Bruises
Chantal Kreviazuk, Feels Like Home
Duffy, Mercy
Duffy, Oh Boy
Eastmountainsouth, So Are You to Me
Feist, 1234
A Fine Frenzy, You Picked Me
Flunk, On My Balcony
Frou Frou, It’s Good To Be In Love
Goo Goo Dolls, Slide
Goo Goo Dolls, Iris
Greg Laswell, I’d Be Lying
Ingrid Michaelson, Giving Up
Ingrid Michaelson, Way I Am
Jon McLaughlin, So Close
Kent, Quiet Heart
KT Tunstall, Universe & U
Michelle Featherstone, We Are Man and Wife
Missy Higgins, Warm Whispers
Sara Bareilles, One Sweet Love
Sarah McLachlan, Ice Cream
Shivaree, All Because You Told Me So

Jazz
Diana Krall, Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good To You
Diana Krall, I’ve Got You Under My Skin
Duo Mecanico, Love Luxury
Ella Fitzgerald, Ain’t Misbehavin’
Ella Fitzgerald, Isn’t It Romantic
Ella Fitzgerald, Sentimental Reasons
Etta James, At Last
Nat King Cole, When I Fall In Love
Nat King Cole, You’ll Never Know
Norah Jones, Come Away With Me
Norah Jones, The Nearness of You
Renee Olstead, Taking a Chance on Love
Renee Olstead, A Love That Will Last
Renee Olstead, Sunday Kind of Love
Tony Bennett, The Very Thought of You
Tony Bennett, Alright, Okay, You Win

Pop
Barenaked Ladies, Light Up My Room
Britney Spears, (You Drive Me) Crazy
The Cardigans, Been It
Christina Aguilera, Candyman
Colbie Caillat, Magic
The Darkness, I Believe in a Thing Called Love
Edwin McCain, I’ll Be
Gwen Stefani, Wind It Up
Gwen Stefani, The Sweet Escape
Lady Gaga, Just Dance
Letters to Cleo, I Want You To Want Me
Madonna, Cherish
Madonna, Express Yourself
Madonna, Holiday
Natasha Bedingfield, These Words
Pussycat Dolls, Wait a Minute
Ryan Cabrera, True
Shakira, Whenever, Wherever
Smash Mouth, Then the Morning Comes
Sugar Ray, Someday
Tal Bachman, She’s So High
Third Eye Blind, Never Let You Go
Vanessa Williams, Save the Best for Last

Hip-hop & R&B
Alicia Keys, No One
Alicia Keys, If I Ain’t Got You
Aretha Franklin, Natural Woman
Ashanti, Happy
Beyoncé, Crazy in Love
Black Eyed Peas, Don’t Phunk With My Heart
Cassie, Me & U
Ciara, 1, 2 Step
Common, Light
Fergie, Clumsy
Kanye West, Flashing Lights
Rihanna, Pon De Replay
Outkast, Hey Ya!
Timbaland, The Way I Are
TLC, Diggin’ On You

Rock, Alternative, etc.
The Asteroids Galaxy Tour, Around the Bend
Blaqk Audio, Semiotic Love
Blue October, Into the Ocean
Coldplay, The Scientist
Dave Matthews Band, The Space Between
Dave Matthews Band, Angel
Dave Matthews Band, American Baby
Death Cab for Cutie, I Will Follow You Into the Dark
Fall Out Boy, Dance, Dance
The Fray, You Found Me
The Fray, Look After You
Gnarls Barkley, Crazy
Gorillaz, Feel Good Inc.
Hard-Fi, Gotta Reason
Jimmy Eat World, A Praise Chorus
The Killers, Read My Mind
Maroon 5, Sunday Morning
Oasis, Wonderwall
The Postal Service, Such Great Heights
Robin S, Show Me Love
Shiny Toy Guns, I Owe You a Love Song
Smashing Pumpkins, Beautiful
Smashing Pumpkins, Perfect
Smashing Pumpkins, Tonight, Tonight
Smashing Pumpkins, Today
Tegan & Sara, Take Me Anywhere
U2, Sweetest Thing
The White Stripes, Fell in Love With a Girl
Yellowcard, Dear Bobbie

Soundtracks
Grease, The One That I Want
Moulin Rouge, Your Song
Moulin Rouge, Come What May
Once, Falling Slowly

We’re at the airport now, headed to LA for not one but two wedding showers this weekend! Saturday is my bridal shower in Pasadena, and Sunday is a family couples shower in Placentia.

Everyone warned me that the weeks leading up to the wedding would be hectic, and despite my best attempts to allay it, the crazy-busyness has definitely hit. But there’s so much to look forward to in these next few weeks that I really can’t complain.

I love wrapping gifts almost as much as I love giving them, and the shower hostess gifts are no exception… Now I just have to get them to California in one piece.

Green botanical bags and shimmer tissue paper, Target; dupioni and satin ribbon and millenary flowers, Oblation.

Who doesn’t want to be showered with rose petals?

Martha has some directions for making cones, and that was a good place to start. But the cones will be sitting on the chairs along the isle, and I thought that the petals would fall out if the cones were shaped like ice cream cones.

First, I cut some subtly shimmery blue paper down to 8.5″ squares. I skipped rounding the tops and started experimenting with adhesives. Craft glue is way too messy and takes forever to dry, but mono adhesive doesn’t have enough hold. Good ol’ double-stick tape to the rescue:

Then I rolled the non-taped edge inward toward the taped edge, making the cone as wide as possible.

They came out in wildly different sizes, but I’m telling myself that that’s part of the charm.

Of course, what good are petal cones if no one knows what to do with them? I wasn’t convinced that my mention of “petal toss and recessional” in the program would be sufficient, so I made little tags for the cones. “When the newlyweds walk your way, toss the petals and shout hooray!” I wish I could take credit for the wording, but that’s all Laurie (via OnceWed).

I attached them to the cones with one of my very favorite things, Stampin’ Up mini library clips.

Now they’re with the gigantic Rubbermaid of vintage glassware, ready to go to the florist in a few weeks. It’s hard to believe that I have my final meeting with the florist in less than a month. Keep your fingers crossed for peonies and lily of the valley…

They say that if you’re going to do boutonnieres, you ought to do corsages too. And I definitely wanted bouts. They were the only thing I had picked out before I got engaged. I don’t know where the MSW editors found this super-petite lily of the valley, but it’s so beautiful against the lamb’s ear leaf.

Corsages are something you don’t see very often in magazines, on websites, or anywhere else for that matter. For me, corsage was synonymous with prom fixture, and I wasn’t feeling it… fussy, traditional, baby’s breath, miniature roses, and, umm, no. I certainly wouldn’t want to walk around for five hours with one of these on my wrist or pinned to my chest:

Maybe I’m alone, but I wasn’t going to subject anyone else to that. And was anyone else shocked at the cost of corsages? No way I could justify that kind of pricetag for something I wasn’t crazy about in the first place.

So I started thinking of non-traditional ideas, and I settled on silk flower pins. I figured I could pin them to a ribbon (so they could be worn as wristlets during the ceremony), and then people could remove them from the ribbon and attach them to purses or coats in the future. And, lo’ and behold, I walked into the Limited one day and found soft, luxurious satin flower pins for 70% off!

So pretty on my custom-dyed Cam Creations ribbon, but they’re too tall, so the flower flops around. I deconstructed one of them and thought about hot gluing it to the ribbon sans pin, but it would’ve looked sloppy, and the whole idea was to have a removable pin.

I happened to have some pink silk peonies around that I bought on impulse from Etsy awhile back, so I cut the wire stems off of them and hot glued them onto the ribbon instead. The result isn’t as dramatic, but it was definitely more of a success from a wearability point of view.

Now I have these wristlets and the original flower pins, which people could just pin to their dresses. I might let them choose, or maybe I’ll save the pins and use them for something else.