answer: engagement.

 back with a few more answers to your wonderful questions!

i always love hearing about marriage and any advice you have for us brides-to-be (especially if you have advice about being engaged... i have five months left!).

i tried a bunch of times to write something new, but i kept going back to what i wrote in my final wedded bliss post -- i also think it says a lot that i still feel the same way i did right after we got married. with no further adieu:

there is so much i could say about planning our wedding, and even more importantly our marriage, but in short, it was such a bonding experience for us. we kept it small in terms of numbers. ryan's family is wonderfully big, so truly this wedding was our family and dearest friends (all 124 of them!)

we didn't have a wedding planner, didn't have a big budget, & were paying for some of it ourselves. we weren't living in the same place or where the wedding was, and we did it all in six months. ryan was in naval flight training (one of the hardest parts for that matter), i had a more than full time job and all this to say, we made planning this wedding a shared experience and something that brought us joy.

i'm a tad bit type a :) and a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to arts and crafts -- and i have a wonderfully patient husband. we did the programs while watching episodes of entourage or west wing and talking about our days. we held each other accountable for not spending our time or money on things we didn't think needed to be a part of our big day. we kept our focus on our marriage and making our guests feel really loved. 

we made plenty of mistakes: i had a dress crisis 65 days before the wedding and had to find a new dress, the sandwiches were delivered three hours early- while the art center was still open, we couldn't find a clear rubber band for my hair even though we had 10 girls in the house, but at the end of the day, we were married and oh, so, happy.

so, my best advice, is to take a deep breath, constantly ask yourself if this is bringing you joy and best you can, soak up being engaged. the best news is, being newlyweds is way better.

(i tried to pick two photos that showed we kept our attention on one another, i think that made all the difference.)