11 months and counting -- I will be getting married April 2009 and I am bound and determined not to become one of those horrendous 'bridezilla' types that you see running around on the Oxygen channel. My fiance and I got engaged Summer 2007 and I knew immediately that I was going to need some time for wedding planning. My mother and I always decided that we would plan my wedding. I didn't have much interest in paying someone to tell me which wedding colors I would like -- yes, could it possibly make thing easier for me? Most likely so...but frankly, that money is better spent on the honeymoon!

The entire purpose of having a long engagement was so that I could do everything in steps. This in mind, I'm a planner and an organizer, so I need time to -- yes, plan and organize...

I've never been a huge girly girl. I like feminine things - but I'm not type who screams and cries over the difference between lavender and lilac. I was never the huge Sweet 16 party planner type who threw huge shindigs for every life milestone. So, the fact that this wedding is the first 'huge event' I have ever planned is both exciting and absolutely terrifying.

I will admit it - I don't do well under extreme pressure. Can I get most tasks accomplished on short notice? Yes. Can it have the power to almost break me? Yes. I admit this and have come to terms with it in my twenty six years of life. So, at any and all costs, I will try to do things in a process in which I'm not left on the verge of a nervous breakdown...I am really thinking it must be genetic. My grandmother was like this and my mother is like this as well. Maybe there's a reason our family didn't throw many huge parties....

So, in the spirit of not wanting my fiance to want to retract his proposal and in not having my mother and I turn each other into whirlwind basketcases, I have taken vowed to take everything in stride. Baby steps - I have bought my dress and booked the wedding and reception sites. I try not to obsessively check the little wedding checklists that constantly scream at you about what you're supposed to be doing 243.3 days before your wedding. Yes, I have read in countless magazines and books that there will always be unforeseen circumstances and that things won't always go according to plan...I will try to be flexible as possible on this and just frankly deal with it when I have to...

I'm trying to get back to the heart of what all of it means -- a wedding is meant to be a celebration. Not a major event that makes girls cry because they are wearing ugly bridesmaid dresses and the groomsmen are so bored that they have had to knock back five cocktails too many just to get through it all.

There have been too many women that have told me that they got so stressed, they regretted the planning process and should have eloped. I most definitely do not want this for myself!