"No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals."

And starting over is scarier than anything; probably because one way or another, you paid the price for jumping the gun a bit.

As it stands now S and I are starting over in a lot of ways; we are reaffirming things in our relationship, and working through trials that come with being young and working towards a marriage. Most of all, however, we are facing the biggest challenge yet- starting over our entire wedding planning process.

With that said, its Do Over time, ladies and gents. Lets Recap, shall we?

 These last few months for S and I have ushered in some intense growing pains, and realizations. 

We are stronger than ever, but we are a lot more humbled I think than we started out. 

Mostly because the realization that we don't know jack about shit has pretty much hit us.

When we first started talking about marriage, we always talked about what the wedding would not be, rather than what we wanted it to be; it would not be all about the pomp and the glam, it would not be a three ring circus with family input, and it would not be called by anyone but us. Unfortunately, we thought that would narrow what we did want down a lot...and here we are and I for one want to change every idea I ever had about the wedding.

This is what I originally came up with as an inspiration board (for newcomers, that's a picture collage of the key ideas or feeling or theme behind a wedding).

I called it french empire modern (or something to that effect) ({Personal Pictures- Personal usage only)

Now I want to keep the general feel (clean, modern, but romantic) but somehow along the way this sort of became something that wasn't really us. The frills, the composure (a word I rarely use to describe myself) and just the seriousness of it, took the fun element out of it. It was then that I started questioning why I wanted this particular look- its convention, its somewhat expected, the French have been honored a great deal in wedding themes. I want something that is just more Us somehow. 

Unfortunately we are stuck with purple invites now, which means purple will be making an appearance, but besides that, all bets are off.

I love the idea behind this- but now I want to come to S and talk about something that just feels a lot more intimate- which brings us to our next news- a complete change and search for a new venue.

While our first choice was Heritage Hall in Vancouver BC, but now that our numbers have shrunk (40 people most likely) we have to find a venue that works in space, and in feeling, which we are both happy with.

Its going to be a task starting over, but with everything else that's been revamped in our lives, S and I feel a lot more in sync and up to the challenge. I think most of all, the reason behind this is because I feel like I came too far from where we first started, and didn't talk about what we wanted enough with each other in regards to our wedding. Its amazing the kind of perspective talking with your partner brings to you sometimes. I think I fought against the change that could come from talking with my partner (the idea of "my vision versus his vision").

It made me wonder how many women have that hard time too, just letting go of the control aspect of our weddings. We are the ones who everyone expects to have things in check, to know what the heck we are doing, and I don't think it would be far fetched to say, most times we don't. I grew up never imagining finding anyone who I could marry, let alone planning a wedding. It might shock a lot of you to know that it was me that proposed the idea of a simple courthouse wedding to S, but that S, as sweet as he is, said "We are only going to do this once, lets make it something that we remember most of all."

Milestones have a very funny way of getting to you. Wedding planning has a very funny way of getting to you, and I have to admit, it finally got to me. There wasn't enough listening, and too much planning going on, that in the end I feel like I left S out; that's on me, and like the quote says, it takes the pain of screwing up, either yourself, or by viewing others' mistakes, that pushes you towards success in the end. In a way I'm grateful for the opportunity to start over again- the possibilities are endless! And this time I get to do it completely with the person that I love more than anyone else in the world. Though its going to be tough as nails, I am more than willing to pay the price, if it means I get to do it over with him.