There is a strange point in wedding planning when the question stops being, “What else should we add?” and becomes, “Can we please just finish what we already started?”

Apparently, that point is about two-and-a-half weeks before the wedding.

For most of this process, planning our wedding has been creative. We have spent months imagining moments, designing details, choosing music, building our ceremony and asking ourselves how to make October 10 feel unmistakably like J Squared.

Now, the creative part is mostly over.

At this point, we’re not adding anymore.

We’re finishing.

And somehow, finishing has become its own adventure.

Finally, Some Wins

Thankfully, this week gave us a few moments where we could actually look at something and say, “Okay. That’s done.”

Our red-carpet backdrop and courtroom banners arrived, and they came out exactly how we hoped. After spending so much time approving designs, waiting on production and wondering how everything would translate from a screen to real life, seeing them in person was a huge relief.

Then came our third ceremony rehearsal.

If you read last week’s update, you know rehearsal number two was… a learning experience.

We had spent months writing and planning this ceremony, so watching people wait until rehearsal to really learn their parts was frustrating. We knew what the ceremony could be, but getting everyone else to see that same vision was another story.

Rehearsal number three was different.

People knew where they were supposed to be. Movements started making sense. The ceremony flowed instead of constantly stopping and restarting.

For the first time, we weren’t just explaining the ceremony.

We could actually see it.

That was a good feeling.

And Then the Tuxedos Arrived

We should probably put “arrived” in quotation marks.

The tuxedos came. The vests did not.

We had to change the fabric for the vests, which pushed them behind the rest of the order. Under normal circumstances, that would probably be a minor inconvenience.

Two-and-a-half weeks before the wedding? It feels much bigger.

Jeff is especially frustrated because our tuxedo vendor was one of the first vendors we booked. We handled this early specifically so we would not be dealing with clothing issues at the last minute.

Yet here we are.

His tuxedo is cream, and he intentionally waited until he had the actual tux in hand before buying shoes because he wanted to make sure the colors worked together. That made perfect sense when we thought everything would arrive with plenty of time.

Now he has roughly two-and-a-half weeks to find the right shoes.

Wedding planning has taught us that doing something early does not necessarily mean you get to stop worrying about it early.

Sometimes you just get a longer period of time to worry.

The Guest List That Refuses to Be Final

Then there is the seating chart.

Our RSVP deadline passed a month ago. In our minds, that meant we finally had our guest list.

Apparently, “final guest list” is more of a suggestion.

People were still asking to be added. Plus-ones were being removed. Plans changed. And every change created another little domino effect because removing one person does not just remove one name—it can change an entire table.

Meanwhile, Jeff spent most of the weekend working on our wedding signage.

Thankfully, we made the decision not to immediately print everything he finished, because the seating changed again.

There is probably a lesson somewhere in there about patience.

We are choosing not to look for it right now.

No More Additions

We also finalized our content creator this week, which officially completes our wedding media team.

We are excited about that decision, but we definitely did not expect to still be interviewing and vetting vendors this close to the wedding.

For months, there was always another idea. Another possibility. Another thing we could add to make the experience bigger, better or more “us.”

That chapter is officially closed.

No more vendors. No more additions. No more “Wouldn’t it be cool if…?”

The wedding we created is the wedding we are having.

And there is something strangely freeing about finally being able to say that.

Because underneath the missing vests, moving names and unfinished signs, something else is happening.

The wedding is becoming real.

Every delivery that arrives is one less thing we are waiting for. Every rehearsal brings the ceremony closer to the version we imagined. Every name placed at a table represents someone who will actually be sitting there when the doors open.

For almost two years, October 10 has been a date in the future.

Now we can practically touch it.

We’re tired. We’re excited. We’re still waiting on a few things.

But we’re finishing.

And with every box we check, J Squared gets one step closer to walking through those doors.

Countdown to J Squared: Apparently, we don’t know how to plan a normal wedding

Countdown to J Squared: Thirty days out, and suddenly everything is real

Photographer: Kivus and Camera