That's a billionaires dream and we're not billionaires...

The past few weeks I've been going slowly more crazy with the workloads of uni life piling up and just feeling overwhelmed by literally everything going on.

On top of two English papers, which have many hours of reading novels, plays and poetry between them, as well as worksheets for the tutorials (both classes), and studying towards assignments (both classes seem to have essays due at the same times), ... Life is just a bit hectic.

One paper (201) has a large novel (600 pages),
three small novels,
a huge number of poems
and a Shakespeare play.

The other paper (312) has a larger novel (860 pages),
two smaller novels,
and a large number of poems.

My desk right now is covered in piles of books...

Along side all of the university study and work I've been doing this year - I am also trying hard to keep my sanity and find information about, research and plan out things for our engagement party, and future planning researching for our wedding.

So far I know the wedding will be in New Plymouth, sometime in 2018.

No - I don't know who is on the guest list.
No -  I don't know if you can bring a plus one.
No - I don't even know if you're invited yet!
Yes - there are limits in place, and yes some friends and family??? may simply not be invited.

I am not saying these things to be bitchy, I'm trying to be honest.

Wedding planning is not easy.
I'm finding it hard to do this from afar. We currently live 4-5 hours away and thinking about all the details does my head in at times. Both of our families are based in New Plymouth which is why we are going to have it there. While I have had a few years of pinterest and learning about etiquette and things, Daniel is totally new to all of this. So we are learning together.

If budget allowed we would bring them all to Wellington, or to another destination; but that's a billionaires dream and we're not billionaires.

Marriage, engagement life so far is about doing things as a team. We're not doing this all alone. It's a team effort. It's not up to one of us to make all the choices, even though it has kind of been like that so far. I've done a lot of legwork to get things sorted (like the invites for the engagement)... But then some is also legwork for Dan to do (like organising the photographer for our photo-shoot before our engagement party).

I'm also having to learn lessons about wedding/marriage/engagement etiquette and how to deal with the people who think they can invite themselves, or change things, or add things, or do things when it isn't their place to do so. Unless the couple actually asks you to do something, please don't just assume you can go ahead and do that thing. We are not about to start paying for things we didn't ask for!

Also if you don't get an invite don't be put off, it may be for a number of reasons that simply you don't know about. We have limits on our budget, our venue has maximum attendee limits due to health and safety, fire safety etcetera etcetera, plus we are choosing carefully who we are inviting (or not inviting) and have our own reasons to do so. Life is complicated. It's not a simple act of making a list and inviting every single person we know. We have many limits.

To put it simply - we cannot afford to have a huge lavish affair with every single person we know (or coupled up person we know for that matter!)

If you're asked not to do something by someone - please just don't do it!

It's all simple common sense, which doesn't seem to be common now.

Next week it's volunteers week and I'm thinking about all the volunteering I do and I am going to do a post about what gets me excited about volunteering...

Until next week,
xo, Lisa.