Honeymoon help?

So, have we talked about anything except the wedding recently? No? That's what I thought too. Is that a problem? Well, let's hope not because I'm about to talk about it again. Hooray!

Sorry for the overload, but it feels like a lot of things have been happening all at once recently, and I would be a bad blogger if I didn't keep you all updated, right? Well, that's what I keep telling myself, anyway.

First of all, this weekend Torsten and I met with a potential officiant, and it went much, much better than last time. This guy is a Unitarian Universalist minister, and he does secular weddings too, and actually even though he's a minister and we are totally non-religious, we found that we had very similar views about people and morality and commitment. We talked for an hour and felt very comfortable and relaxed with him. We liked the sample ceremonies he gave us and I think we'll be able to come up with a ceremony that is very personal and intimate and emotional, very us. I mailed him the deposit yesterday, so that is one more thing done.

And also? Remember how the save-the-dates turned out not to meet my standards of purple? And how I was saying that it was a lesson learned because now I knew not to just order the invitations we had planned on without seeing a sample first? Well, it was a good thing that happened because the invitations? Although they were definitely a nice shade of purple? They felt very cheap and flimsy. And they just weren't that interesting.

So, we got back on the hunt and wound up finding what we both think is the absolute perfect invitation. We found it at this really cool website called Baron Cards. They don't have a DC one readily available, but they will customize the skyline for us for a $45 flat fee. So the ones we want will look like the one below, except with a DC skyline and the letters WDC, and also instead of "You're Invited" it will probably say "Jess & Torsten" or something similar.


Now, the last wedding-related thing I want to talk about is the one I actually need your advice on, and that's the honeymoon. As most of you know, we're getting married in November 1, which is three days before the presidential election. So, the first question is, after our wedding, do we leave on our honeymoon right away? Do I try to get an absentee ballot so I can vote in advance? And then would we watch the election returns from wherever we are, assuming that they are broadcast in English? Or, alternatively, do we wait a couple days before we leave? And if so, what do we do? Do we go back to work for those two days? Do we waste vacation days (of which we do not have a lot of extras) lying around at home? I seriously do not know what to do.

So then the other question is, where do we go? And how do we book it? The things we know are that we want to go somewhere warm and beachy, not in the US but also not too far away, and preferably somewhere all-inclusive. We are thinking either Mexico or the Dominican Republic at this point, although Panama and Brazil are also under consideration. But even once we pick a destination, how do we pick the resort? There are so many to choose from and they all sound great to me. And what's the best way to make it affordable? Do we find a travel agent? Can you get honeymoon deals on Orbitz or other travel discount websites?

And also, can you tell from all the questions that we have absolutely no clue what to do? It seems unfair that one is expected to plan the biggest party of their life AND one of the biggest trips of their life AT THE SAME TIME. It's just too much. Luckily, I have you guys to save the day! Right?