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Wedding Planning Exhaustion

I used to be the girl who would scowl secretly when I’d see a bridezilla planning out every single detail down to the napkin color.   “Really,” I thought, “does it matter?”  Little did I’d know that I would be on the verge of becoming one myself.

Within the last two months since I’ve gotten engaged, I’ve booked the venue, set the date, chosen the church, and am almost there on picking the dress.  Immediately my next instinct is to book the photographer and band/D.J. next, followed by choosing the bridal party and color scheme, all within the next month?   Did I mention I still have more than a year until I get married (June 12, 2010)?

Truthfully, I was one of the girls that always dreamt of my wedding day, but in hindsight most of those visions were just of me in an indescript white dress with a gorgeous mystery man at the alter smiling at me.  I actually was surprised at myself when I realized days after the proposal that I had little to no idea of what I wanted for the wedding.  And so it began, the RESEARCH.

I dove into wedding planning with such intensity that it would put Edward and Bella’s Twilight love to shame.  Within weeks I had formulated complicated spreadsheets each wedding category and had a binder the size of a cooler at my side at all times.  With a vengeance, I put a thousand miles on my odometer scouring the city for venues, then churches and driving to small bridal boutiques on the perimeter of farmland searching for The Dress.

I flew to NYC from Chicago last week to spend a week with my fiancé, since we are currently dating long distance, ready to try on a gazillion more gowns at all the hot designers.  However,I had so much fun doing normal things that I forgot I was planning a wedding until today.  Our days were consumed with strolling the parks, brunching with friends, dancing in clubs…in other words, I kind of got a life.  And now that I am back to the daily grind, the last thing I want to do is more wedding research.  I feel burnt out.  Don’t get me wrong, I love every single part of my engagement and planning out each detail of the wedding, but I realized I overdosed on wedding planning when I bought an Economist instead of a bridal magazine at the airport gift store.  I need to space out my planning a little better and given I have more than a year until we get hitched, I’d say I have time.

So I made a vow to prolong my wedding research break until after Easter, kind of a late Lental sacrifice.  This is not to say I’m not thinking about it, contrary, I have a million ideas I can’t wait to follow through on, but I realized this week that I better space it out a little better, one thing at a time.

Anyone out there similarly exhausted?  What are your methods for better planning?