Once the ring was firmly placed on my finger and I had called everyone with the news, I went looking for a planner. You know, one of those three ring binder affairs full of timelines and checklists? For me, an organizer of some kind was the ultimate badge of being a bride-to-be. It wasn’t the ring, oh no. The ring merely pegged me as a taken woman, the kind of woman who could no longer flirt with strange men in bars, the kind of woman who didn’t refer to her boyfriend ‘as that man I live with’. But a three ring binder tucked under my arm (in combination with the ring) would mark me as a girl with plans to make, important people to call. I would be an official bride-to-be.

Before I get further into this, let me give you all a little back story. I am obsessed with paper, organizers and office supplies in general. One of the best Christmas presents I have received in recent years was an old school Franklin Covey planner. I didn’t write a damn thing in it. I merely liked the idea of it—that I could be the type of person that is so important and organized that I have my life planned down to the minute. In reality, I am a mess of hastily scribbled scraps of paper. Receipts come skittering out of my purse uninvited, I can never find a pen, and I am frequently late for, well, everything. But oh! Those crisp sheets of lined paper all neatly bound, each clearly marked off for a day full of phone calls, meetings, and appointments. I didn’t end up using it much since the events in my day-to-day life go something like this:

9am-12pm: Sleep late, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, surf the internet

12-1pm: Get ready for soul sucking job

1pm-10pm: Attend soul sucking job

10pm-12am: Drink vodka tonics at local bar. Smoke more cigarettes. Flirt with bar manager

12am-2am: Play Rock Band. Impress all of my friends with my mad drumming skills.

See? It would be very depressing to schedule time to play Rock Band. So the planner merely sits on my desk gathering dust looking very, very important.

But with the ring on I finally had a purpose, a goal, something to plan. I was going to be a very organized bride.

And then I went shopping.

I couldn’t find one wedding organizer I liked.

Have you seen these things? They are a mess of pink, with hokey looking fonts spelling out “your special day”. There are flowers, bows, and sappy looking couples staring deep into each other’s eyes. They are sentimental, precious, and overwhelmingly tacky.  These were wedding organizers for women obsessed with unity candles, matching sea-foam dresses, scrapbooking, and tote bags with the word ‘bride’ bedazzled on them. Not for me.

Where oh where was the planner for the bride who wanted something fresh, something modern, something she wasn’t going to be embarrassed toting around for the next year?

Finally, I have found it.

russel+hazel  make an amazing looking wedding planner. They even have downloadable templates to put in it. Yes, it is stupid expensive ($75). But just look at it. No bows! No swirly fonts! No pink!

I can actually start planning my wedding now.