Wedding planning rocks during weeks like this...

Sorry for being so MIA this week. We're getting ready to move to a new apartment next week, so posting will continue to be light until then. But I wanted to tell you about two things I'm super excited about!

The first one is a big one. Back at the beginning of January, I saw a contest listed on Snippet and Ink. (Don't you love her weekly giveaway/contest/discount round-up?) It was for a *free* month-of-coordination package with a New York City based wedding planner. Um, yes please! So I entered by filling out a form with my wedding details and answering two questions: why we chose our venue and why we want a wedding coordinator (each response being less than 250 words). Then I waited, and after a while I sort of forgot about the contest, figuring I hadn't won.

But then at the end of the month (coincidentally on our 7-year anniversary) I got an email from the planner saying I'd won! I was so excited; I squealed in my office, welled up with tears, and when I called Steve to tell him, I had to calm myself down to get the words out! We'd been talking about hiring a day-of-coordinator, but hadn't gotten around to looking many up. It's something we hadn't budgeted for (and our budget is tight) but knew we wanted to have one, especially after I read so many wedding blogs where brides talked about the benefits of having a coordinator. It seemed like if we could save the extra money to hire a coordinator, we wouldn't regret it. But we might regret it if we didn't have one. So winning this giveaway was, obviously, amazing!

Who's our new coordinator? Lisa Green from Anderson Green Events!

We met with Lisa for the first time on Monday and she's really sweet, organized and knowledgeable. She answered all of our questions and gave us some advice. She talked about how she got into wedding planning and we told her our engagement story, and the vision we have for our wedding day. In short, she's awesome and we're just so lucky to have been given this opportunity. :o) She considers herself a month-of-coordinator because she'll be helping us with everything starting a month before wedding day, and in the meantime, we can email her if we have any questions or need help with anything. Plus she has her own blog, which she updates daily with wedding planning advice for brides. Check it out!

This is the third contest that I've won (first: Paloma's Nest bouquet charm and second: Minted save-the-date cards), so all you brides out there: if you see a contest that interests you, go for it! Chances are, you're bound to win at least one!

The other bit of exciting news I received this week is that my dress has arrived! (Read my dress shopping story here.) I have my first fitting scheduled for March 13th. I haven't tried my dress on since I bought it in July, and all I've had were pictures of myself in it (in the wrong shade of white) over the past months. I haven't experienced too much dress-doubt, though I've reassured myself by looked at my pictures of it a million times. I hope I feel just as happy in it this time as when I bought it.

I have to say--when I have weeks like this, it's easy to love planning this wedding!

Do you guys have a coordinator of some kind? Any advice for going to my first fitting? Anyone else having a great wedding-planning week?