After our Florida trip, Ofer and I jetted right up to New York. We spent a few days planning the wedding with the Shawn our planner, stylist, human gps, psychologist, etiquette master and all around wedding guru. Shawn told me that me that the more compliments I write about him the prettier he will make our flower arrangements. Wink.

Shawn works with a team of 2 people: Michael and Meagan. We had met them briefly in a not-so-successful Skype call while we were in Israel so we were very eager to finally meet in person. We had planned to take three full days with the team to really get cracking on wedding plans. They of course knew upfront about our travel plans and also knew that there was a good chance they would only see us twice or so before the actual wedding day.

Shawn doesn’t kid around. He had us booked from 9am until between 5 and 8pm. We were scheduled to see photographers/videographers, go cake tasting, see 7 venues, meet with stationary people, find a band or dj, try on dresses (just me, Ofer was bummed he didn’t get to try some), and hair and make up artists. My man Shawn means business. I like his style.

Each day we tackled as much as we could. Faster than I would have expected I went into complete shut-down mode. You know how some lizards have a second translucent eyelid that just kind of glazes over their eyeballs...that’s what happened to me. I felt like I was back in math class again. However, Shawn is trained to see his brides go into different stages of crazy; from no-opinion ‘everything is beautiful’ mode to ‘lizard eye glaze mode’ all the way to ‘you work for me, Bucko, better make this work’ mode. He stayed in control as I tumbled deeper into trying to wrap my head around the difference between a green matte background with white sheened calligraphy and a shimmery grass finish with chocolate lettering. But I suppose that is why I am incredibly, thank my lucky stars happy to have a wedding planner.

Despite almost complete wedding overload we managed to accomplish quite a but. We chose a venue, the caterer, the photographer/videographer, the entertainment, a wonderful rabbi, make up and hair artists and even A DATE! Ofer and I will be tying the knot next year April 15th...tax day baby. As Ofer says...marriage is taxing (he has no idea how much, wink again). We plan to gather together as many as our friends and family as we can to celebrate our donations to our country and state of choice. In fact we may even have drop-boxes for procrastinators at the ceremony. I’m sure we will be coming up with many cheesy, punny one-liners about the date but it really seems like the absolute best time.

Each night after meeting with Shawn, Megan and Michael, Ofer and I would have to take a moment to really drink in the day and choices we were making. There is nothing happier than planning your wedding day with the person you had been hoping to meet your whole life. Especially when you are lucky enough to pass a lot of the responsibility and stress to a willing, professional, experienced team of planners.