Those of you who live in Montgomery County, PA and are getting married in the next couple of months: When you apply for your marriage license you do not go to the Montgomery County Courthouse.

We barely dodged a strip search before realizing the Register of Wills/Clerk of Orphans' Court is actually across the street, located within One Montgomery Plaza, Swede and Airy streets, Norristown. Apparently this wasn't always the case, so we didn't feel too silly as BK put his keys back in his pocket and I took back my leftover club sandwich from the Courthouse Diner that had just missed getting a radiation boost while traveling down the security conveyor belt.

Take the elevator to the fourth floor and go left. The Marriage License Bureau is toward the back left of the room. Luckily there were no other couples waiting, so we were taken almost immediately. Be ready to place your right hand on a Bible next to your fiance's and swear that you are not related. It's oh so romantic!

Hurricane Irene meant that this would be one Sunday we would not hop from store-to-store running errands -- some wedding-related, some to feed our mutual hunger for a new item here and there.

So we spent the day indoors, and I decided to start making tags for the guest favors. It became quite monotonous, cutting card stock into squares, pressing a "K" sticker to the center of each square, punching a hole into each tag. Bentley seemed to think I was doing something really interesting. After a while he got over it and started digging in his toy chest instead. I only got halfway through, so another afternoon of this lies ahead.

What's planned for today is much more interesting -- at least to me. I've taken the afternoon off so that BK and I can head to the courthouse and apply for our marriage license. Apparently all you need is a photo ID (PA driver's license preferred), Social Security number (just knowledge of it, not even the actual SS card) and $45 cash. For something so official and legally binding, it seems so simple. I'll let you know after we go through it if it actually is as easy as it sounds.

Then we're heading to the Perfect Pooch in King of Prussia. We toured the facility a couple of weekends ago and we both like their style. During playtime, which is t he majority of the day, they keep well-adjusted, non-aggressive dogs together and let them socialize in packs (small and large). Bentley has to be evaluated before he can be accepted there, which is what we're going to check off of the list today. Then we have the option to board him there for our wedding. The best part is that PP does transports, so we're in talks to have someone drive him to us on the  big day. That would solve my dilemma of how to get my baby in our wedding album! The idea of boarding him has made me uneasy for a while now, but this place seems so right for him. He's the most social dog I know, and I'm sure he'll have an absolute ball hanging out with the pack.

The week gets even more exciting for me, as my little sister and brother-in-law are set to return home from Guam on Thursday afternoon. This is so overdue I can hardly contain myself. More on that later.

I'm a worrier.

I worry I won't get the house cleaned before guests arrive. I worry I won't get the interview I need to complete a story by deadline. I worry I won't find the right box for guests to slip their envelopes in at the reception. I worry I'll never find time to update my blog. I worry Bentley will get hurt again.

And so I worried again last night, when I saw my handsome Cavalier peering at me through the spokes of our staircase, with a mischievious look in his eyes. And then I worried some more when I heard him chewing. And when I ran up the stairs to see he had my underwear between his two front paws. And when I held them up, realizing he'd eaten about six inches of the nylon/spandex blend -- basically everything but the waist band.

I remember my childhood dog, Taco, eating my grandmom's nylon knee high and passing it within a couple of days. My parents dodged the bullet of an expensive surgery that would have fixed whatever damange the stocking might have done to his tiny insides.

At first I thought, Bentley has a strong stomach. He's sustained a lot. He's eaten mounds of grass and leaves, pieces of wood, lightening bugs, strands of carpet, half of a blue Wubba, and it's all come out the other end, sometimes in full.

But I also thought how I've heard horror stories about dogs and underwear, or dogs and socks. So when the 24-7 emergency vet hospital recommended that we bring him in so they could get him to throw it all up, I stopped worrying and just did.

The waiting was the worst of it. Sure, I worried how he felt about being forced to throw up (I learned later that he actually wagged his tail through the whole thing) or that he wouldn't throw it up and then we'd have to discuss "other options," as the surgeon had said. But waiting meant I had to sit there and remember the last time I'd been in that waiting room late at night into early morning -- when Bentley was attacked.

As BK and I sat there after midnight, half asleep and half laughing at our silly dog's underwear fetish, I kept staring at the spot I was sitting in this past December, when I had a really good reason to worry. I could see myself sitting there, in that terrible situation, and I had to choke back tears. I hated that feeling.

Then my puppy came running toward us, his left eye bloodshot from the apomorphine used to induce vomiting and his head soaked from the water they then used to flush it out, and I thought to myself, 'You worry, and then things are fine. It's always OK.'

Lately I've been "on edge," as my mom put it, about wedding plans. I worry things will get done. I do one thing and give myself half a second to just barely breathe a sigh of relief before I worry about the next few things we need to tackle.

At times it seems neverending, and I know I'm not alone, because three of us stood in the hallway at work the other day and commiserated over what it's like for the bride in the months leading up to the wedding.

But when you think about the big things, the stuff that warrants a bit of worrying, it seems silly to worry about things like how the favors will go over with guests.

And to think, I needed my dog to eat my underwear in order to bring me back to my least favorite place in the world so I could recognize that.