Presents Please

I was thinking about our wedding schedule for the summer and our new house timeline and got a little worried. Our house is going to be a little behind schedule. The City of Seattle is over 3 weeks behind on approving building permits. They laid-off part of their work force late last year and are now short handed. Apparently we aren't the only people trying to take advantage of lower building costs.

My worry isn't about our living situation. We haven't given our landlord notice, so we still have a place to live in the event the house isn't done by mid-August. I'm not worried about the money. I think we have that part sorted out. What I'm worried about are our wedding presents and the thank you notes.

About 80% of our guests live in Seattle. It's very likely that the Seattle dwellers will be bringing their wedding gifts to the wedding. This isn't a problem except for the fact that I'm worried we won't get around to opening gifts and sending out thank yous until after we get back from the Honeymoon. No, that's not a problem either until I realized we'd be living in boxes, literally. Either we'll be in our new house living in boxes or in our current apartment living in boxes. Either way, sorting through gifts and writing Thank Yous isn't going to be on the top of our To Do list. It should, I know, but cleaning the apartment and packing up breakables or unpacking clothes and calling utility companies will take precedence.

I'd like to say we'll be incredibly organized and be unpacked in a few days but I know that's not realistic. Mr. Joey goes back to teaching a few days after we get back and I've never been away from work for 3 weeks before. I have been out of the office for work trips and even though I keep up with email, it still takes between 2 or 3 weeks to catch up. In this case, I'll guess at least a month. I also know it took us 2 months to really get moved in to our current place.

I can see the whole thing now. We don't get unpacked completely until mid-October/early November. Then Thanksgiving comes around and takes up time and before we know it, we're sending Thank You/Christmas/New Year cards.

This sounds greedy but what I'm hoping for are presents now. We won't use them (at least I'll try not to). I just want to get them, make note of who gave what and spend our 18+ hours (one-way) to and from Australia writing Thank Yous. This way, we can just drop them into the mailbox when we get home and not feel the pressure to open presents, look for presents (they are bound to get lost in the boxes) and get our Thank Yous out.

What do you think? Am I being crazy or realistic? If you think realistic, how would you hint to people you'd like presents before the wedding? Keep in mind we don't have a wedding website.