With the wedding fast approaching, Andrew and I knew it was time to hit the stores for the planning event we were most looking forward to: creating our registry. The spoiled child inside me was just giddy to walk around a store and point to things we wanted to own, regardless of their practicality or price. I’ve been impatiently waiting to start the registry since the day we got engaged, so Andrew finally conceded as we trekked over to Macy’s on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

As we sat down with our registry consultant, she explained the many incentive programs that are associated with purchases. I retained very little of these explanations because all I was thinking while she spoke was “Give. Me. The. Gun.” My mind was prancing around the store, shooting that little registry gun at all the amazing items. When she went to hand us the gun and Andrew reached out, I quickly snatched it and just looked at him, and he clearly understood from that look that I’d be controlling the handheld machine.

This week has been nothing short of amazing. The stars aligned in my favor: Two wedding issues that have been plaguing me have finally come to resolution!

After months of disappointing samples and dozens of overpriced Web sites, I’ve finally found the perfect invitation. A stranger tipped me off to Invitationpie.com via e-mail, and while I was skeptical at searching yet another Web site, I figured it wouldn’t hurt me to browse. When I saw the photo of the site’s blossom invitation, it just clicked inside me that this was the one for us. Enthusiastic as ever, I e-mailed the designer and asked for a sample. But even from the photo, I was confident that the search for the perfect invitation was finally over.

I can’t explain why, but each February I find myself contemplating and second-guessing every aspect of my life. From my career to my hairstyle, I always become a bit uneasy in February, and this apprehension has brought me to a contemplative state when it comes to the wedding.

Sitting in bed one lazy Sunday morning, I began to think that maybe I didn’t really love my dress. Maybe I forced the inexpensive dress to be the dress I adored, and maybe I’d given up the search too early. What about the bridesmaid dresses? Were they really the right feel for the venue? And the caterer—were we being naïve to think we could actually make her work in our price range? These questions swirled in my mind with the other dozens of questions about the other parts of my life.

Lisa Marie's mock bridal bouquet.

Flowers become one of the most costly elements of a wedding but are surely considered one of the most important elements as well. When Andrew and I were first engaged and choosing between a summer or fall wedding, my insistence on using daisies in my flower scheme was the deciding factor in our July wedding date. I still think it would look rather odd to have daisies in a wedding scheduled for October! Some people mocked me for deciding our wedding date based on a flower, but having daisies in my bouquet was one of the elements I was not going to budge on.

Thankfully, my aunt has a relationship with a local florist, so there wasn’t the process of shopping around as there has been with all of my other vendors. We scheduled an appointment with the Flower Den in Springfield, which started out being a trip down memory lane. Unbeknownst to my aunt, this florist had gone to grade school with my mother and went to high school with my maid of honor’s parents! So after reminiscing and discussing who else had possibly crossed both of our paths, we got down to business.

Just like every other bride-to-be, I am absolutely addicted to the reality wedding shows all over cable television. While watching them over the past few months, there seems to be a common theme running through each show (other than absurd temper tantrums): All the brides have wedding planners. As an event planner by trade, I really felt no need to hire a wedding planner, because there’s no chance I’d ever let her do her job leading up to the big day.

I enjoy doing all the vendor research; it makes finding the right one that much more rewarding! I know how to plan large-scale events and have been relishing in the fact that planning this wedding is like working on a client event, except I’m my own client. So even if the brides on television need to hire someone to help them, I felt confident that I could do all this on my own.

The "Mad Hatter" style cake Lisa Marie had in mind.

As reigning queen of the sweet tooth, I was counting down the days until our first cake-tasting opportunity. What better way to celebrate our wedding planning than eating thousands of calories of delicious cakes? I had a vague idea of what I was looking for in our cake, but I hadn’t nailed down the specifics and hoped to find a baker who could realize my vision.

I’d fallen in love with the “Mad Hatter” style cake, with its quirky angles and childish designs, and hoped I’d find someone who could glam up this crazy technique. So with appointments scheduled with three different bakers, off to the tastings I headed, with my mother, maid of honor, and fiancé in tow.

Our first stop was to an open-house tasting, which essentially was a cattle call for brides interested in this particular baker. I was a little hesitant to attend this type of event, as I didn’t feel that we could get the personal attention and direction we were looking for in our cake maker. But how bad could an afternoon of delicious cakes be, especially with my three favorite people by my side?

Thus far in wedding planning, we’ve been lucky enough to happen upon the vendors or supplies that really felt right. Our venue, our caterer, our photographer. . . all of them felt like the perfect match. However, our luck seems to have run out this week, because the search for the perfect wedding invitation has still resulted in no success.

Invitations fall pretty low on my priority list, both with my budget and with my overall views. The day after I got engaged, I was at Petsmart and started talking to a woman who was getting married in the fall. She told me she was having a small wedding of 25, but then she said that her invitations cost $1,200! That was definitely not my style; I’d rather spend my money on extra appetizers or more goodies for my bridesmaids than drop a ton of cash on pieces of paper that people will throw away in six months.