***shared with Six Word Fridays (after a self-imposed haitus). The topic? Bare.

My favorite place for finding must-haves? Etsy.

I ordered my bouquets from a wonderful designer named Michele (AmoreBride). I swear, she knows my taste and style so well it’s sick… peacock couture? Perfection. And once we firmed up the colors for my custom bouquet, she offered to tweak my bridal party bouquets so that each will be unique. My boutonierres were custom designed by Kelly of WaterMeNot, who not only offered fabulous suggestions for matching colors, but gave me subtle variations for each member of the groom’s party that are added surprises of personalization.

When it came to jewelry, I again turned to Etsy. I picked out a stunning Victorian-style teardrop pendant in the perfect shade of blue at AzureTreasures. I cannot wait to see it with my dress at the final fitting appointment. Kristen of Guilded Shadows customized my veil and peacock feather fascinator. She helped me decide between two head pieces after looking at my gown styling. And the beauty of the final pieces is breathtaking. Now I just have to figure out my hair.

Groomsmen’s gifts came personalized from LoversJewelry. And bridesmaids’ gifts came from AllforBrides, who also has fabulous accessories in a variety of themes and color palettes.

I made my own centerpieces – with most of the materials coming from yet another online retailer: Save-On-Crafts. Beyond offering reasonable prices on their crafty supplies, there is an idea gallery and how-to section that was pretty helpful. And it didn’t hurt that the customer service team was responsive and extremely accomodating. As a reformed scrapbook supply hoarder, I rarely visit JoAnn or Michael’s anymore. But the wedding gave me an excuse to visit both again. With coupons, I saved a bundle on a stamp, some self-adhering bling, my guestbook, a “kissing stool,” and some foilage for my alter pieces.

My bedroom has become wedding central – and as I scan the various boxes, I’m proud to see it all coming together beautifully. I can’t wait to get it all out on display on I Do Day.

Oh, and my cake? Well, It’s a variation of a cake I found online by The Pastry Studio… except we changed the colors and the number of circles. Oh, and added cupcakes. Yummy.

An aside: Somehow I established early on that I loved the color scheme naturally found on peacocks. Yeah, God; you and Mother Nature rocked that pretty cock. And while I stop short at saying I have “themed” my nuptials around a jumpy, flashy show off, there are nods to his fierce appearance everywhere.

Ever the student, I required research into the symbolism of the peacock. It was, afterall, taking over. Somehow the significance of the bird in worldwide religions and cultures just fits. The abridged version of symbolism is pretty impressive: good luck, wisdom, integrity, beauty, renewal, patience, compassion, royalty, pride, openness and acceptance. I’d say those are pretty good ingredients to a foundation.

I am not a party planner. I don’t like parties. I don’t like crowds. And now, all the attention is on me (and my groom, of course).

At one point, I used to watch that WE TV show “Bridezilla” and wonder how in the world that groom could say “I do” when his woman was so crazy. Ranting and raving about little details. Fussing about what he should (or shouldn’t) do. Whining about every little thing – especially situations which pulled attention off of her.

I get it now. And, my ‘ZILLA tee shirt is on order.

I’m not going to just be bridezilla. I picture myself as all encompassing: momzilla, wifezilla, teacherzilla, womanzilla. Yes, I’m every zilla, it’s all in me. Anything I want done, baby, I expect to be pleased. Whoa, whoa, whoa-oh-oh. Sing it with me!

Ahem. Ok. I’m back.

So planning a wedding *alone* is no easy task. While Rob is certainly there to give the nod of final approval, the details – - every little element combined into the whole – - are mine. I must’ve sketched ideas for centerpieces half a dozen times. And until last week, when I finally got the coveted vases I needed, I was still sketching and tweaking and altering. And the final centerpieces? Nothing like the sketches and yet exactly what I wanted.

But I flipped out in Dollar Tree when the vases I wanted weren’t in stock. Not-a-single-one. I picked a substitution, drove home with the trunk of glass, and then lost it as I looked at the terrible 16 ill-shaped flower holders. Yuck. They weren’t sleek. They weren’t modern. They weren’t making an appearance at my affair. Zilla had spoken.

MOH to the rescue: she remembered my internet search in preceding weeks. “Why not order the ones you wanted?” She was nice enough not to say “Duh,” but I heard it anyway. And once online, the vase catastrophe was solved and a dozen centerpieces were set to arrive in my name to the store with no extra shipping or handling fee. (And when I picked up my box, the shelves were full of them! Ugggh.)

There was a little debacle in the wedding gown store too… but I held my tongue. I seethed in a corner. I stared down the manager and sent subliminal hate messages in her direction. That episode is worthy of an entire post all its own.

There might have been a few terse words thrown at the customer service agent of the photography company. Maybe an e-mail of pure distain. I think it was warranted. I reread the contract. They were behind schedule and totally owed me some actual service. But the poor young woman who answered the phone? Yeah, she probably had no idea that call was coming. And I think she might have made a note in my client “file”… it might say “she’s nuts, coddle her,” because the next representative was so appeasing it was almost annoying. Except I got exactly what I wanted immediately.

And I might have tossed aside one, maybe two vendors who just didn’t react quickly enough to inquiries about the status of my requests. Um, my though here is a business ought to at least provide a time frame of productivity so I’m not stressing about whether I’ll be without on “I do” day.

I’m told I’ve been short with the family. Projecting my frustrations at random targets. But wait… he was late for our engagement photos. We were also late for our taste testing of the reception food. He did forget to take out the trash and only offered to help when I was already lugging bags to the curb. She didn’t wash the dishes right – - there was food stuck to plates and silverware. He didn’t clean his room again, the stuff’s just on the side you can’t see from a doorway scan. And they didn’t go to bed when they were told to. I did do the laundry – all five loads – myself (but thank you for helping fold one of them). Ok. Perhaps my bickering was a little harsh?

Where the hell is that tee shirt? I feel like I need to wear it now.

Just a few more weeks of this hoopla and I might find my calm center again. Which means, in true leo fashion, I’ll be the overzealous control freak over some new project meant to propel me into the spotlight for a few seconds of applause.

My cousin was married when my daughter was five and I was expecting my second child. She, too, held a “no kids allowed” reception. When I first held the beautiful black and silver invite, I read that tiny clause and fummed. Where would I send my child off to if everyone who had ever watched her was expected at the event? I was saved by a second invitation to have her serve as flower girl. As part of the wedding party, she was welcomed into the adult-only festivities and she had a blast – - until bedtime. Then, the stress of the day’s activities caused a meltdown and it put a damper on my enjoyment of the evening.

There’ve been many weddings in between (and after) these two, and most that I’ve elected to attend welcomed children. Some even catered to their enjoyment with blow up toys, bubbles, and specially selected kiddie tunes. I admit these were wonderful, family-oriented parties that made for oh-so-precious photographs. I resolved that I’d want to be all-inclusive with my own wedding.

Now, finally, it is my turn. And when I become Mrs., there will be four children officially under my safe keeping. That’s right, four, ages from 3-12.

But we, too, elected to eliminate other people’s teeny boppers from our reception. Hypocritical?

Well… I feel a little like “Father of the Bride” on this one.

Our reception space holds 75 for a sit down meal, and with that maximum capacity reached, it’s a tight fit.

I’m already told I’ll have to sacrifice my round tables for rectangles to make room for a dance floor.

If children come (and my family and friends average three per household), then the number of adult guests will dwindle to nothing. We’d already trimmed our guest lists to those we could not bear to have missing and those we absolutely knew would be crushed were they not invited. We eliminated many wonderfully faithful friends who’ve made us the people we are today. It felt horrible.

When Rob mentioned that his eldest sister recommended a “child-free” soiree (who, herself has three), I reluctantly agreed. In my head I tallied the number of effected parties – my closest friends have six among them, my few invited cousins have at least three in their party, and only a few uncles and aunts with young charges. Ok. Perhaps it was not so bad.

We sent out the invitations.

And then I got a phone call. How could I leave out kids? Who would watch the babies? Why can’t they come? Can’t you make an exception?

It wasn’t a callous decision. It wasn’t about economics. It wasn’t meant to create the next family controversy that divides us into separate sides of the boxing ring. If I chose the chapel I fell in love with and its associated reception venue, this exclusion was the only one that maximized my beloved guests – - those I’d grown up with, loved forever, confided in, and cherished long before children were even born.

Ya:”Mom, can I pretend I’m a doctor? How do you feel?
Mom: “My tummy hurts.”
Ya:”Just drink medicine. Medicine and water.”

***
Ya: “If I don’t drink no medicine, then I won’t be feeling no better. Mom, please.”

***
Ya: “Can you make me food?”
Me: “The kitchen is closed.”
Ya: “There is no kitchen door.”

***
Ya, while watching my NY GIANTS beat the 49rs in football: “What color is redskins?”
Me:”red and yellow. They’re not playing. That’s Rob’s team, 49rs. We like giants. Say, ‘ go giants.”
Ya:”I like the star. Can I have them?”
Me: “traitor.”

***
During a discussion about why he cannot eat my left over English muffin sandwich:
Me: “You eat breakfast at School.”
Ya: did you see me eat? No. I didn’t eat nothing.”

***
Ya: “Mom are you ever going to get downstairs and get me food.”
||ten seconds later||
“Are you going to get yourself downstairs? Cause I’m hungry. I ate a muffin. I ate fruit. Potatoes. Potatoe salad and…”
Me: “Why are you hungry?”
Ya: “Because I never ate a lot of stuff at my school. I ate a muffin, I ate fruit, I ate corn. And nothing else. Told you that. That’s why I’m still hungry. Are you just going to get yourselves downstairs now?”

I wonder if he’s dreaming about how mommy cannot keep a commitment on one of these projects no matter how cool or “her” it is?

I know that I’m dreaming about a lot of things… especially about the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad things that could happen for my wedding. (Yikes, nightmares.) Like the one about the invitations:

I spend the better part of an evening in front of my computer testing out fonts from “Da Font,” toying with colors, and arranging text on PhotoShop. I’d think it was perfect, save as final, and then find a flaw. And after I’d arranged every detail the way I wanted, analyzed it half a dozen times, and flattened the image, I saved it as a TIFF and sent it to my fiancee for approval. His name was sitting atop a dark portion of the texture I used and wasn’t bright enough. So I went to the PhotoShop file fixed it, flattened the image, and saved it as a new TIFF (“final, final”). By the time I got to “this is really the final,” I’d exhausted my patience with the design. And I still had to design the back!

I sent the file to Moo for printing (their double sided, full color postcard option looked fabulous).

Then I went to sleep for a few rest-little hours.

In my dream, the invites arrived. I went to the stationary store to pick them up, and the associate located a small wallet-size photo box with my name on it. My eyes grew wide as I sized up the too-small box. She happily opened the box and I gasped as I saw my beautiful invitations – sized 5×7 on my computer – micro sized on a 2.5 x 3 business card. The text was so small, it was illegible without aid. As I began to shake my head, the associate said: “Is something wrong? You approved the proof. If they’re not to your liking there is a press reset fee of $2000.”

I woke up in a panic.

The invites have since arrived, and though smaller than my assumed 5×7 size, they are beautiful. Why I figured a post card was so large, I’ll never know. But now my fear is that my nightmares and dreams have a little too much truth in them. So what of the countless other scary musings of my dreaming mind?

* inspired by Melissa Camara Wilkin’s “Six Word Fridays”

BlogHer Book Club presents:

Why Women Need Fat: How “Healthy” Food Makes Us Gain Excess Weight and the Surprising Solution to Losing It Forever
William D. Lassek, M.D. and Steven J.C. Gaulin, PH.D.
Hudson Street Press, 2012

No man? Blame it on the belly fat.
Difficult birth of children? Blame it on the belly fat.
Poor health? Blame it on the belly fat.

At least that’s what a quick read of several of the chapters in Why Women Need Fat would lead me to believe. Looking closer at the well-organized discussion of BMI and women’s shapes, however, leads me away from these quick (and warrying) conclusions.

Like most busy professionals, I didn’t have endless hours to devour every chapter of this book. So I skipped around – drawn to intriguing chapter titles and remaining for a closer read because of the content. I started, then, in Chapter Four: The Mystery of the Tiny Waist. I don’t have – nor have I ever had – a waist that would be called tiny. Brick house? Yeah, unless you’re looking for that 24 in the middle. I’m more like “Sistah Big Bones,” the so-called pudgy gal with the barrel torso. It should come as no surprise as to why I started with a chapter about something I’ve never been blessed with.

I’d always believed that – as it has been said in many a passing conversation – that weight was indicative of wealth. You know thin people don’t eat, right? Well, it has to be because they can’t afford food. Isn’t that what they say is the assumption in many cultures? A woman with some girth is ready to bare your legacy and is a showcase of your ability to provide.

But authors William D. Lassek, M.D. and Steven J.C. Gaulin, PH.D. debunk this myth quickly. They provide conclusions from a study of college men who’ve been asked to rate women’s attractiveness. The women shown are all collegiates and have blurred faces and wear nude bra and panties. The only thing being evaluated is their shapes. The results? Well, after evaluating the tracking pictures of each participating males’ eye movement (which primarily lingered on the waist just before a rating was chosen), it was determined that men are attracted to proportionately smaller waist-to-hip body types. [In a later clarification, the authors note it is "a small waist combined with quite a bit of fat in the hips, buttocks, and thighs" that attracts the visually-selective man.]

The authors add ratings of Playboy Playmates and cartoon women to these research experiments, concluding that though it “made no evolutionary sense,” the smaller the waist appears to be, the more attractive a woman is. And these itty bitty waists typically mean a lower BMI. I found it intriguing that, “Women with BMIs well below 20 – like Playmates, the women men prefer in Tovee’s studies, and the students with the smallest waists – tend to be less healthy, less fertile, and less able to conceive children.” So though humans are supposed to be physiologically wired to be attracted to healthier mates, they’re not?

I read on, hooked. In the next few sub chapters, the authors discuss the health-related cause of bigger waists – less Omega 3 DHA (needed for a baby’s brain development) and more Omega 6. So my bigger-than-it-should-be belly signals I’ll birth a less intelligent baby. It also suggests a riskier birth experience, the possibility that I’ve been pregnant before and have “used up some of [my] brain-building supplies” stock-piled in my pudgy pubescence. Oh, and if I appear as though I’ve had one or more kids before evaluating-man spots me for this analysis, chances are that I’m no youngster. Hold up, ” gaining weight after having [the] first baby is beneficial for any other babies that follow,” right? My expanding girth, then, is protecting the health of his future offspring (that’s my story – I’m sticking to it.)!

Now, obviously I’m skipping a good bit of information that Drs. Lassek and Gaulin have compiled. But if I didn’t, I’d just be rehashing the book, which at this point I’d decided was worthy of a thorough read through.

I’m overweight and diets aren’t working because, in part, the poultry and livestock I consume is stuffed with corn instead of the grains and grasses they’d once been raised on. Corn, the authors report, is replete with Omega 6 (the bad one) and I have to eat more meats to acquire the needed Omega 3 my body craves. So that ‘lean meat’ I thought I was preparing? It’s making me anything but.

Oh, and there’s something about leptin, too. Leptin is part of the “fat gene” discovery. It tells my (confused) body how much fat I’ve got on reserve – and I swear it’s calculations are wrong. Why else would this body of mine be holding onto every fat particle it encounters?

But wait… is it hopeless?

The simple answer is no. Drs. Lassek and Gaulin say I can reduce my Omega 6 abundance by boiling, roasting, steaming, stewing, broiling, or grilling my foods. And when I crave fried? Stir fry or braise (huh?) my food in “canola or olive oil or in butter.” Oh, and fish is good, very good. Too bad I do not “do” seafood and refuse to chug fish oil (which is suggested).

Now, I am also told that my height – four feet and ten inches of pure me – is not a good thing in a small package. (Pout.) Basically, my compact frame didn’t make room for essentials like kidneys, liver, spleen, or intestines like a tall woman’s body does. I was destined, you see, to be a little (bite your tongue!)on the thicker side.

The doctors, of course, counter my conclusions with charts for figuring out my natural (ideal) body weight, my body type and body widths, and my body fat. So, I can figure out my ideals and then try to get there while realizing, as the last chapter title states, “it’s not your fault if you’re heavy, but you don’t have to be this heavy.”

So it would seem that I have a little work to do. With the appendix of food facts and nutrition information, and a meaty chapter on restoring my newly-calculated natural body weight, I just might have the tools to lose the hefty, hefty uncinched sack that should be my waist.

Disclosure:
This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club. As always, the views and opinions expressed herein remain my own. I wouldn’t write it any other way.