Timing is Everything...

...in life, in love and especially in wedding planning! A lot of people have asked me why we sent invitations so early and my response has been timing is everything. I know I've mention it a lot before, but I have been doing a lot of traveling for work over the last 3 years. When I add up all the time I spend away from home last year, it comes to about 4 full months. I don't leave for months at a time, but I do leave for 2-4 weeks several times a year. Besides being gone a lot, I also have to deal with travel notice, or lack thereof. I've gotten less than 10 days notice for every trip I've taken for work. That seems like a reasonable amount of time until you factor in getting your everyday work done ahead of time or covered by someone else, packing, vaccinations, booking flight and rescheduling personal commitments. I'm not complaining (I know, it sounds like I am), I love traveling for work and I love seeing the "real" work get done, but the traveling can disrupt life.

I don't know how many concerts, weekends away, birthday and weddings I've missed because of travel. Last year I missed my own birthday. I hope Mr. Joey didn't have a surprise party planned! I also almost missed our vacation to New Orleans. We had out tickets booked for months and days before we were schedule to take off, I found out I was headed to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia the day after we got back from New Orleans. Fun! We got back to Seattle on a Thursday around lunch and went straight to the travel clinic to get vaccines. The next morning I boarded a plane for Addis via DC and of course got a fever on the plane because of the Yellow Fever vaccine. I told you, I shouldn't travel. :) So this is my life and we deal with it.

When we thought about a wedding, my first reaction was to do it fast because of my work. Not elope, but just get married in 2 or 3 months. That wasn't an option because Mr. Joey is a teacher and once school starts, he has no time off. This basically meant we could get married during mid-winter break (February), Spring Break (April) or Summer Vacation (mid-June through mid-August). Mid-winter break was out. Who wants to be in Seattle in February? Not me. April was out because two friends are getting married that month. That left summer. Mr. Joey was hoping to not have the wedding in June. With school finishing up, grades due and general ware and tear from the school year, he was sure he would be too tired for a wedding. Late August was out because both FFIL and FBIL Joey are professors and they'd be back in school by then. Late July/Early August was the best option.

So we found a date (the only spot) we could get a reception venue and booked it. When this is all said and done, we'll have been wedding planning for 13 months. The Save the Dates went out in October and the invites in late February. It was all done really early but our philosophy about wedding planning is it's better to get it done early than scramble at the end. There are definitely things that will have to wait until the last minute like flowers, but on the whole, come July, I want to be triple checking my list with a Pimms cup in hand. I don't want to be begging my boss to not send me on a trip because I'm not done with wedding stuff. Actually, I'm not sure they'd listen. A co-worker postponed her wedding for work. Yes, you read that right -- postpone her wedding!

Life is full of unexpected turns that can make wedding planning a little bumpy. Sometimes you get sick and sometimes you decide to build a house. Oh yeah, let's not even talk about trying to work around building a house while wedding planning. That has been a big adventure and the real work hasn't even started. But I guess you have to adapt. We're planning this wedding around work schedules and time constraints. It's hard, but it's easier than the alternative.
How did you pick your wedding date? Are you working around work/school schedule?