I began writing here 2 (!) years ago when I started planning my wedding. I didn’t have a support group near me and wedding planning was daunting at the best of times. I thought this would be a place to write out my thoughts. I never expected anyone else would read it. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Because of this blog I found a community. I never felt alone even at my most frantic. I made new friends. I was reminded of what a wedding could be without all the noise, and it was freeing.

Because of this blog I’m a contributor in a new kind of wedding book. One that makes my heart happy. One that I wish I had had when I started this journey, 2 years ago.

I haven’t really know what to do with this space since I got married. I’ve been floundering here for the last year and a half. And so. I’ve started a new blog. I’m not really sure what it’s going to be yet, but I would love if you’d come and follow along.

{via One Love Photo}

This photo was taken near the beginning of our ceremony. At this point, I’m pleased with myself for not tripping over my four inch heels and falling into the pool. I told my dad, before we started, that he better hold on to me cause if I was going in, he was going in too. Good thing he listened. I’m pretty sure I haven’t yet made eye contact with anyone except the boy and our officiant. This is good. I haven’t started freaking out yet over all the people staring at me. You can’t really tell, in this photo, but just off to the left is our dog, Bear. He’s not too excited about the short leash he’s on that’s preventing him from running over and jumping all over my dress. We’re over the moon that he’s sitting up there with us. In a few short moments two of our favorite people in the whole world will stand up and say some words for us, and then we’ll say some to each other. Shiny baubles will be exchanged and awkward kiss will be had and that, as they say, will be that.

p.s. For those of you who would like to see more photos where, you know, you can actually see our faces and stuff, head on over to A Practical Wedding where I am today’s Wordless Wedding and to One Love Photo where I’m today’s featured wedding. Thanks to Meg & Heather for helping me celebrate my anniversary!

Tomorrow, the boy and I close on the sale of our first home together. And while I’m grateful that we got such an awesome offer ($10k over asking!!) in such a crappy economy and excited to stick that cash into our pathetic, depleted, savings, I’m sad and feeling a little lost.

I left home when I was 14. For the next 12 years I hopped between more dorm rooms, rentals, and generous friend’s couches than I can count. I never stayed in one place very long. None of them felt like home. When I was 26 I took every last penny to my name and bought a 1 bedroom condo a block from the beach.  I had been living in the neighborhood for a year and loved it.  I was ready for something to feel like home. The very first thing I did, after moving in, was to paint all the walls. Then, I unpacked my books. I loved that little place.

I stayed for 3 years. It was early 2007 and the boy and I had just gotten back from a Christmas holiday in the hills of Georgia. We spent hours wandering through the woods talking and dreaming and scheming. Somewhere along the way we decided we should move in together. I put my little home on the market. A day after listing I was in escrow*. Because of the crazy real estate market, the little condo I had bought for a modest sum had nearly doubled in price. We decided to buy something. Frantically we searched for a place. Houses further out in the suburbs, sad little shacks closer to town.

In the end we fell for with a 2 bedroom condo just a floor above my first one. People laughed when I told them, but I was overjoyed to be staying in my neighborhood where I could walk to the beach on lazy Saturdays, where I felt at home.

From the start we had over-zealous visions of ripping out walls and making the place “our own”. In the almost 4 years that we lived there we tore out the downstairs, rebuilt the kitchen, laid new floors, painted all the walls, built a massive bookshelf, enlarged a bathroom, scraped the ugly popcorn off the ceilings, amassed an impressive array of power tools and made a home. The night the boy proposed we cooked dinner together in our kitchen, sat at our dining room table and drank too much wine, then paced the hall while making calls to our family and friends to share the news. After our wedding we sprawled out on the living room floor opening presents, reading cards, and eating the food we had been too busy to eat earlier. We’ve laughed and fought and watched our lives change there. The boy wasn’t the first boyfriend I lived with, but he is the first person I’ve felt at home living with.

Technically we moved out almost 2 weeks ago. But it still feels like we’re cheating on our home. This afternoon we’ll go by one last time to take pictures of the place, pick up any lingering things** and say goodbye.

*Since this has now been my experience twice, I am convinced my broker (who is also a very good friend) is my lucky charm.
**Probably tools. Or paint.

{via we heart it}

One year ago, today, I started this blog. I had been engaged for 2.5 months and needed a place to gather my ideas, rant, dream, and have a breakdown or two. I never really thought this would be anything more than a little diary to myself: something for me to look back on, one day.

This is where you were. Aren’t you glad you’re not going through that anymore?

It’s been so much more.

Because of you guys.

I didn’t have very high expectations when it came to our wedding flowers. First, I realized that our budget was far lower than any florist was willing to spend on a wedding in July*. Second, we didn’t have colors. This pained the only florist we sat down to chat with. What color will the centerpieces be, she wondered? And the bouquet! What about the bouquet! What if it doesn’t match? Match what I have no idea. The bridesmaid’s wore gray. Our quote came back with a lot of pink flowers.

After that, I figured we’d do our own flowers. On my list of things to worry about, it was way down there on the bottom, hanging out with favors**. Why did I even need a bouquet anyway?

But then, a friend of mine who I had done pro-bono work for over the years offerred to do our arrangements***. For free. all we would have to pay for was the cost of the flowers, which she could get at wholesale prices.

I think she did a lovely job, don’t you?

{all photos by One Love Photo}

*Most places we inquired at had minimums for July
**We didn’t have favors
***And then to top it off she made all my ladies custom earrings. Cause she’s that awesome.

{via}

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had problems sleeping. It’s not so much falling asleep, which still can take me forever, but staying asleep. The softest peep will wake me. Bad dreams will leave me shaking and staring at the ceiling. More often than not though, I just wake up. Sometimes I can fall back asleep, more often I’m left with racing thoughts that leave me wide awake. Just at the moment when I’ve lulled myself back to sleep, my alarm goes off.

I am tired. A lot. My doctor has recommended I quit coffee more than once but I sort of tuned it out. Nevermind that my body is crazy sensitive to caffeine*. I love coffee. My morning cup is a daily ritual that I look forward to. Still. Today I quit. In its place I drank a mixed berry, avocado and Amazing Meal smoothie. It was actually pretty delicious and supposedly good for me too?

And I haven’t stabbed anyone yet. Not even the guy who’s had 3 effing cups of coffee this morning**. I’m kinda proud of myself.

*If I have more than a small cup I get jitters, anxious and slightly faint.
**I sit next to the coffee machine. Boo.

{via we heart it}

Hi there.

Sorry for the radio silence. I didn’t mean to fall off the face of the planet after my wedding but it seems like Life had other plans for me. I miss it here. I miss writing regularly. I miss you guys and reading your smart posts and having time to comment on them.

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about work and life and all the big things that I got a free pass to ignore for the last year because I was planning my wedding.

We’ve also been dealing with some dissapointing news.

In a nutshell, life – it has been happening. But I will try to be around more.

I had had a Bad Day.

The sort that leaves you tired and twitchy and ready to grumble at anything brave enough to get in your way. At least it was a Friday, not that that helped much. I was in A Mood. In the 10 minutes it took me to drive from my office back home I had gone from tired to agitated to seething. One giant roller coaster of emotions, that was me.

When I stepped through the door the boy was there to give me a hug. Not that he had any idea of the snit I was in; he just likes to greet me at the end of the day with a hug. I was having none of it. Didn’t he realize that everything was horribly and completely wrong? How could he be so cheerful?

Realizing I was going to be difficult he pulled me over to the couch and asked me about my day and I proceeded to grumble about the unfairness of the world and my life and everything.  Ever the optimist, he suggested we go for a drive to cheer me up. Did he not catch the part where I said everything sucked? I wondered. What is he smiling so much for? Annoying. But I decided to go. I guessed it wouldn’t hurt.

There is this beach wall near our home that we sometimes go to at the end of the day to watch the boats and the sunset and talk. This is where he took me. I sat on the wall and glowered. It had been a hard few months. The boy’s schedule had been crazier than usual and we had barely seen each other all summer. He had taken a giant leap of faith in June and left a regular paying gig to open a lounge with two of his friends. We weren’t sure when we would see money from it. My company had issued company wide pay cuts earlier that year but was working us all harder than ever. I didn’t have time to run anymore; we didn’t have money for yoga.  All of this was rolling around in my head, but I was too frustrated to put it into words. Instead I grumbled, “I hate all of my clothes”.

His face lit up. He had something new for me to wear, he said. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a ring and asked me to marry him.

Best day of my life.

{via One Love Photo}

I can’t believe it’s been two months already. Looking back our wedding day feels a lot like this picture: gently blurred around the edges; a hazy, ethereal dream. To celebrate the boy and I puttered around the house, went for a swim at the beach, and are hunkering down for a night on the couch with some Mad Men.

Married life is great.

{One Love Photo}

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been a little shy about posting shots of us and our wedding here. If you’d like to see some (and the brilliant work of One Love) Heather posted a few here this morning.

I realize I’ve been slacking off here since the wedding. Which was almost 2 months ago. Can you believe it? When we got engaged last September I thought I would burst from the waiting. July seemed so far away and now it’s this little dot in the distance that we’re speeding away from.

There are times when I wish I could make the world stop, give me a minute to re-orient myself, catch a breath. I suck at change. I’m trying to be better with it, embrace the unknown or some such thing. I’ll tell you how it goes.

This is all to say that there will be some changes going on here. I don’t want to abandon my little blog but I do need to figure out where I’m going with it. I have the wedding to still tell you about, of course, and Australia too, but I’d like to start talking about other things and even maybe just pop in here to say hello without any excessive navel gazing (hard for me, but I’m going to try).

I thought to kick start it all, I’d give this place a little makeover. So if you some funny business here over the weekend, it’s just me tinkering around behind the scenes.

{One Love Photo}

I’ve been at a bit of a loss on what to say about the wedding. In some ways, it’s still too huge for me to wrap words around. In other ways it feels like any other day in a long string of days that the boy and I have been weaving together. Maybe a little brighter than the others but starting to fade around the edges and blend in with all the rest. I’m glad for this. Weddings are very raw things. I’ve never felt more exposed than when I was planning our wedding. I liken it to stripping down bare and asking all your closest friends and family what they think.

Or maybe that was just me?

I’ve especially been grasping for words because some amazing ladies are getting married soon and I want to offer them some nugget of wisdom. But let’s be serious here. I’m far from wise. And anyway, my experience may not be your experience. Your mother, for example, may decide to stay for the reception instead of walking out before dinner. And your pastor may decide not to take a 15 minute tangent in the middle of the ceremony to quote scripture that makes your skin crawl. I hope so. Because though I can sort of laugh at these things now and chalk them up to a good story, distance does that, it was very upsetting when it was happening.

And there. What I want to say. Things will go wrong. Not really news, I know, but hear me out. When people would tell me this, before, I would nod politely and think I am going to be so Zen none of it will matter. And this true, mostly. Like when the friend who was manning our iPod couldn’t find our recessional song and we stood at the alter laughing and shouting out instructions to him. Zen. Or like when we got to our venue and I saw that things hadn’t been setup the way I had planned. Total Zen.

But there might be other things that go wrong. Big things. Things that leave you hiding in a room cuddling your puppy, searching for calm. Things that leave your heart sitting somewhere in the pit of your stomach. Those things. You get through them. You pull your husband into a dark corner to sneak kisses. You goof it up in the photobooth with your mother in law. You give out more hugs than you think is humanly possible, then you give out a few more. At the end of the night you are grateful when your new family insists on taking care of all the break down and clean up so you can go home, sprawl out on the floor and make faces at your new husband.

The amount of love poured out to you will be bigger than the big things and at the end you’re married. And that’s the biggest thing of all.

{via}

The boy turns 31 today. He was 24 when we met. Time is a funny thing. This morning I was watching him sleep, curled up with one arm thrown up to fend off the creeping sunlight, and thought, when did we become 30 somethings? Wasn’t that some TV show about super old people?

EFFFFF….are we old people?

Here’s the thing.

I cry at the drop of a pin. Sappy commericals. Movie previews. Puppies.

Other people’s weddings.

But not my own.

Not a tear.

Not even when I saw how proud and nervous my Dad was.

Not even with all our guests beaming back at me.

Not even when the boy teared up saying his vows.

Not a drop.

But.

I haven’t been able to listen to our processional music all the way through since the wedding. 3 seconds in and I’m a watery puddle of snot blowing mush.

Go figure.

Life is returning to normal. The boy has been working long hours the last two weeks leaving me to putter around our home, slowly (very slowly) putting the wedding stuff away.

I kind of miss it.

Not the stuff (I hate clutter), but the wedding. The planning of it all. The big, consuming thing that would wake me, shaky and sweaty, in the middle of the night because I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I hear this is common?

I know this about myself, of course. That my heart lives largely in the future, in possibilities and maybes and plans (lots of plans) and now, there is this blind spot in my future. A panic inducing blind spot.

Still. I am resisting the pull to put something there, hold on to the present for a change and appreciate what it means to be married these first 31 days.

It’s kind of great.

Um, you guys, where did July go? It seems like yesterday I was wringing my hands worrying over chairs and pleading with the Universe to make sure I didn’t trip on my way down the aisle and fall in the pool. And now, it’s August*.

I’m still trying to get back into the swing of things, unpack from our 2.5 week honeymoon wandering around Australia, and resist emailing One Love Photo every 2 seconds to see if our photos are ready yet.

So the thing is,  I’m not sure what to write about the wedding, or even where to start. It’s leaving me feeling, I don’t know, self conscious?  I got married. It’s all so big still. I’m processing. The other day I wrote out my new name** and stared at it for a good full minute wondering, who is that person. Is that me? That’s me!

Big, you guys.

I promise stories are coming soon. I’m not just being a big procrastinator.

Ok, ok, maybe a wee bit is procrastination. I got married but I’m still ME. Even if I do have a new last name now.
—-
*Well, ok ALMOST August. You know what I mean.
**Yes, I changed my name.

This is for those brides to be who are spending their wedding night at home.

I struggled a lot with this one. I mean, really agonized over it. Would it feel less special if we didn’t spend our wedding night some place fancy? Would I be let down coming home to the pre-wedding debris, half packed suitcases, dirty dishes and piles of laundry?

In a word, no.

One of my favorite memories from our wedding day is of the two of us sitting in the middle of our living room in our PJs, eating the food someone lovingly packed up for us (because no, we did not eat at the wedding), giggling over the notes people left for us and staring at each other in amazement over it all.

I’m glad those first memories of the two of us as a married couple are right here, in our home.

After work yesterday, having my daily 5pm freakout

Me: “What are we going to do about rentals? Why has no one gotten back to us? WE ONLY HAVE 6 DAYS LEFT! WHAT IF WE DON’T HAVE CHAIRS?!”

Him [trying to distract me]: “I picked up the alcohol today! Look!” [Gestures over to the dining room table] “We got: 7 bottles of vodka, 7 bottles of rum, 1 bottle of whiskey, 1 bottle of vermouth, 2 bottles of tequila, 5 bottles of gin, and 36 bottles of red and white wine!”

Me [mentally counting boxes]: So our tactic is to get our guests drunk enough that they don’t realize there aren’t any seats?”

Him: Exactly!

{via}

Stuck in my head for days now.
1 WEEK TO GO!!

A few of you expressed a tinge of envy in this post. And I get it, I’ve been down the envy road so many times I’ve worn a path in the grass. Heck, there IS no grass.

So I thought I would put this out there. When I ran our wedding budget and living budget and honeymoon budget* and factored in the extra cost for photography, there was a gap of a few chickens, not an insurmountable gap, but a gap. I have a complex relationship with money. Leaving home at an early age and having to fend for oneself does that. Debt ties my stomach into knots and leaves me waking up in the middle of night in cold sweats. But when I was faced with the gap of a few chickens vs the possibility of not having pictures I loved of our wedding day, I had a choice to make.

Maybe it’s true that you only need one good photo. But I’m greedy. So we will probably have to pay interest for a month or two, and this will leave me waking up in the middle of the night to hunch over my spreadsheets crunching numbers.

But it’s going to be so worth it.

———
*I am the budget keeper in our household. I try to plan our lives a few months in advance since the boy’s income is variable. Also, I hate surprises of the, oh sh*t how are we going to 1)pay our mortgage 2)eat sort.

• I’m incredibly proud of all the things we’re doing ourselves to make our day affordable, but I also get angry when I think about all the things we have to do to make this affordable.
• The cynic in me scoffs at the wedding pretty and the pointless details, but deep down I’m afraid our wedding will be ugly and look badly homemade (not to be confused with warm/fuzzy/master-crafter homemade – which is awesome).
• Practical me wanted to re-use shoes I already owned for the wedding, impractical me caved and bought new ones.
• In an effort to reduce our carbon footprint, our food will be locally sourced, yet there will be peonies in my bouquet.
• Though I didn’t ask for it and feel guilty over it, I have a big, sparkly diamond from who knows where on my finger, and I love it.
• I gave the boy a hard time about wanting to invite people he wasn’t necessarily close with but worked with to the wedding because I didn’t want our day to feel impersonal, yet when those people declined our invitation I felt sad and rejected.
• I mocked bridal showers as frivolous gift grabs, then thoroughly enjoyed the surprise one that was thrown for me.
• I was sad when my mother said she wouldn’t be coming to the wedding, then got upset when she changed her mind.
• I am absolutely, over the moon happy to be marrying the boy in 12 days.

At least there’s one thing I’m not dived on right? So how about you? What are your contradictions?

Must do things left:

1. Finalize and place rental order.  This one is making me the crazy. I have been waiting on items to rent from the caterer for 2 weeks now. The boy was supposed to call and clarify things with him last week and got nowhere because he didn’t know what to ask.
2. Order flowers. We are semi-DIYing our flowers (more on that later) and still need to order them all and figure out which arrangements are going where.
3. Hunt down the RSVP stragglers. We have 12 outstanding RSVPs (out of 80). Right now our list stands at 76 with potentially 11 extras for the folks who didn’t read the RSVP correctly. All in all, not bad. Looks like we will make it in under 100 after all.
4. Buy our food. We are semi-DIYing our food also. Our caterer has promised to have our shopping list ready this week.
5. Order wine.
6. Order cupcakes. Yes cupcakes. I don’t care if they’re so two years ago. Mini cakes in yummy tropical flavors (coconut, lilikoi, pineapple, and strawberry guava). Nuff said.
7. Hair trial/makeup trial. Doing this on Saturday with my friendors. Yay.
8. Figure out setup/breakdown. Since we’re doing so much ourselves, we are probably going in 2 days early to setup and are still trying to figure out who will stay after to break down. Probably going to throw money at that one.
9. Buy non-alcoholic drinks.
10. Finish writing our ceremony. Our officiant is out of the country till late next week and has been a bit too secretive about our ceremony. Not excited about confronting this one.
11. Buy all miscellaneous decor that I thought I was going to DIY until I realized I only had 2 weeks left. Seriously. So much ambition, so little time.

“I’ve been having doubts about our photography,” I start, eying the boy out of the corner of my eye.

He sighs.

I am prone towards second guessing. We had settled on a practical photography solution months ago, but my heart was never fully in it. I can see him mentally gathering up his arguments.

“I’ve been having nightmares.” I hedge, my voice rising. “that we get them back and they look like WEDDING PHOTOS and everything is in the right place but it feels wrong. It’s just, I’m not sure if I can get what I really want, you know?”

He doesn’t.

I’ve been trying to put it into words for him for weeks. But how to explain that what you’re looking for are photos that make your heart ache?

The look on his mother’s face when he starts saying his vows.

Your best friend cracking up when you try to give her a sweaty hug.

The thing he does with his eyebrows when he’s trying to be stoic. The awkward way I laugh when I’m nervous.

Posed photos are great, I want some* even, but the ones that get me are the ones that say: I was here. It was real, and raw and imperfect and beautiful.

We’ve gone over it all before. We can’t afford what I really want. We’ve chosen options that fit into our budget: a couple hours with a professional to take the must-have shots** with the rest coming from our (fledging) photographer friends and cameras being passed around.

“It will work out,” he says, trying to soothe me.

I’m doubtful.

So. The other week I took a shot in the dark and emailed my dream photographers. The ones whom I’ve been privately stalking for months now. My gut had been telling me that if I didn’t try to reach for what I really wanted, I would regret it. We only get married once. I reasoned that with such short notice, they were probably booked anyway or so prohibitively expensive that I would feel better about the choices we had made. At least I would have tried.

But. Not only was our date free, they were headed my way for a wedding that same week.

In a word, fate.

Maybe one day I will learn to listen to my gut. A goal for 33 perhaps? Surely it would spare me unnecessary angst and guilt.

All photos (I can now giddily, excitedly shout from the rooftops) from our photographers, One Love Photo.

————
*NOT the token Prom posed photo of HIM holding ME just so. Vom.***
**People have strong opinions on which photos MUST be taken. I just want them to look natural. And I hope I look passably hot in them. Not going to lie. Here is what I don’t want: The awkward photo of me with my (divorced) parents who don’t always like each other with the SM shooting daggers at us.
***If you love this, I apologize. What do I know anyway. Friends still?

The dreaded RSVP card. You ponder this for months.

You decide to give +1s to anyone who:

1. Is dating someone*
2. Will not know many people there

And that is all. The guest list is already 50 people over limit and counting. Hands have been wrung. Brows have furrowed. You simply cannot give more.

But how to word it? Just a name line? A name line and a guest count line? A name line and a filled in** guest count line?

You decide on the latter. You must keep a handle on the guest list. Like a rebellious teenager, it has a mind of it’s own.

So it is worded:

M_______________________
____Accepts ______Declines
Number of Guests_________

All seems well. Guests are sending them back in a somewhat timely fashion. Everyone seems happy.

And then word trickles back that a good third of the guests are under the assumption that Number of Guests means Number of Guests they can bring.

They have procured dates! They are excited!

You bang your head against a wall.

———
*More than they are dating other ones. It is difficult figuring out terminology these days folks. Tricky.
**How gauche!***
***But whatevs

1. Finalize menu details
2. Order food
3. Hire servers
4. Order cupcakes
5. Determine ceremony and reception layout
6. Finalize rental details
7. Figure out what drinks we’re serving
8. Order wine
9. Buy LED candles
10. Finish collecting candle holders/vases/jars/etc
11. Thrift pie plates for cupcakes
12. Buy Bear’s outfit
13. Figure out how we are getting to/from the venue
14. Finalize ceremony details
15. Choose ceremony music
16. Have a hair trial
17. Order flowers
18. Find shoes for the boy
19. Figure out how to keep my mother from knifing my step-mother
20. Try not to faint from anxiety every 3 minutes
21. Get married

21 more days to go!

I’m pretty sure we’ve settled on our ceremony readings but this one was definitely a contender. I might still find a way to work it in.

A Marriage
by Michael Blumenthal

You are holding up a ceiling
with both arms. It is very heavy,
but you must hold it up, or else
it will fall down on you. Your arms
are tired, terribly tired,
and, as the day goes on, it feels
as if either your arms or the ceiling
will soon collapse.

But then,
unexpectedly,
something wonderful happens:
Someone,
a man or a woman,
walks into the room
and holds their arms up
to the ceiling beside you.

So you finally get
to take down your arms.
You feel the relief of respite,
the blood flowing back
to your fingers and arms.
And when your partner’s arms tire,
you hold up your own
to relieve him again.

And it can go on like this
for many years
without the house falling.

We really wanted to get married on April 17 but that didn’t work out. We couldn’t get married sooner because my maid of honor was pregnant and due in March. That left us summer*. We have friends getting in married June, August and September**.

Which pretty much left us July.

People ask me why we didn’t postpone the wedding further so as not to be squeezed into the Marathon Summer of Weddings to which I answer, you don’t ask a 30-something woman who is contemplating starting a family and who may or may not be hearing the over-loud ticking of her imaginary biological clock to Push Back Her Wedding.

Achem.

People like to get married in Hawaii in July. A lot. We thought we had it in the bag since we 1)were looking 10 months in advance and 2)were set on a getting married on a Sunday. Except every Sunday In July at our venue*** was booked.

Fridays and Saturdays were out for us (not that they were available anyway) because many of our local friends work in the food/bar industry and wouldn’t be able to make it. We also wanted to use the boy’s bar’s kitchen (and staff and bartenders) if at all possible to save us some chickens.

So. We choose Monday July 5. For our friends in regular 9-5ish jobs, it’s a holiday. For our other friends, it’s their weekend. For our families, all of whom will be travelling, it didn’t make much difference****. The bonus? Getting weekday rates for a lot of things.

That’s not to say folks haven’t complained, but I’m beginning to realize that people just like to complain about weddings. Luckily I’ve started ignoring them.

————–
*The boy wanted as short of an engagement as possible.
**This is what happens after you turn 30. We basically have a wedding a month till December.
***The venue we eventually backed out of, at which point we were attached to our wonky date.
****Except the cost of tickets, to be sure, but it did give them the option to fly on the 4th, which is usually cheaper than the surrounding days.

So. You know how I said I wanted to wear a big, gorgeous flower in my hair on our wedding day? And showed you all a bunch of pretty options to coo over? Like more than a month ago? Yeah. I couldn’t bring myself to buy any of them. First, because, chickens! And second because I’m a horrible, horrible procrastinator.

But! It was meant to be, you see. My laziness. My indecision. My inability to part with my chickens. I had almost forgotten I was supposed to be looking for a hair flower when Louise of The Thirty-Something Bride posted she was opening her own Etsy store filled with delicious, pretty things, including, the perfect flower.

So! I bought my hair piece, for about 1/3 of what I was expecting to pay, and I got to support a fellow blogger in the process. Wins all around.

There is so much I want to share with you, from this weekend. Like how, while zipping the bride into her dress, the clasp broke making it impossible for the dress to stay up. Up we’d zip. Down it’d come. We were 15 minutes late, our car was waiting, so we did the only thing we could do. We sewed her into her dress.

Or how the DOC lost the programs, found them, and passed them out during the ceremony. When someone finally worked up the courage to tell the bride, she laughed and crowed: “I’m married!”

But honestly all I can think about is seeing the boy beaming at me through the pews and mouthing, “We’re next.”

Four weeks to go.

Tomorrow, one of my dearest friends is getting married. We had their rehearsal today, and yesterday was spent getting our nails done and drinking too many cocktails.

On Sunday I turn 33.

See you all on Monday!

So the good news is, my seamstress was able to let out a bit from the top of the dress and my boobs no longer feel like their being squeezed to within an inch of their lives. Also, I can now do silly things like SIT and WALK.

Spanx is awesome. Everything was smoothed and squeezed into it’s proper place. But. How do people breathe in it? Seriously?

The dress is still more snug then I would have preferred, but I’m going to roll with it. It zips. I can move. I don’t have the money to buy a new one.

Oh, and, I love it. I really, really love it.

Excerpt From The Velveteen Rabbit*
by Margery Williams

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but Really loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get all loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

—————-
*Found via Grey Likes Weddings. Go read their story.

You ladies are amazing you know? Thank you for the advice in this post.

So tomorrow is my third dress fitting.

And, against the advice of my lovely seamstress, I haven’t gone on a crash diet, nor have I sworn off ice cream*. I know. I’m such a rebel.

Which means that, unless my last fitting was fluke** or my dress can be let out, I may be in need a new dress.

Because.

There are many reasons to diet make healthful changes in one’s life: to have more energy, to feel better about one’s self, to be kinder to the planet.

You know what’s not a reason?

Because your dress, that was originally too large***, was cut too small.

Tomorrow I’m going to throw on some Spanx, cross my fingers, and hope my dress fits comfortably****. And if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

Wish me luck.

———-
*as if
**due to the -achem- time of the month, totally possible. I retain fluids. My TMI for the day.
***yes, I’m bitter about this. I bought a dress that I could fit into because I didn’t want to have to lose weight.
****as in, able to eat and drink and SIT in.

Rue La La is featuring bridal boutiques today. One each for her, him and guests. For those who haven’t found a dress yet, there are some deals to be had:

{Nicole Miller Originally:$2,090 Now:$499}

{Nicole Miller Originally: $395 Now:$199}

Have I told you about my wedding shoes? I have been oh so excited about finding my shoes. Shoes with a purpose! Shoes I actually have an excuse to buy! I may have been more excited about finding my shoes than finding the dress.

I wanted them to be purple. Or maybe silver? And satiny. Or sparkly? Definitely tall. I am a mere 5′4″ people. I need a serious heel.

I will embarrass myself by admitting that I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching shoes. Flirted with the idea of wildly expensive, more than a car payment, these cost how the eff much shoes.

And then my first dress fitting rolled around and I hadn’t found anything. What to do? I pulled a pair of gently worn Betsey Johnson platforms out of my closet. They are purple and silver. Satiny and sparkly. They boast an awesome 5″ heel and are embellished with a vintage broach on each of it’s peep toes. Most importantly, they are comfortable and broken in.

In other words, they are perfect. Bonus: they are already mine.

Where did I get it in my head that just because I was getting married I needed to drop a load on new shoes? Oh, WIC, you make me crazy.

The Art Of A Good Marriage
by Wilferd Arlan Peterson

Happiness in marriage is not something that just happens.
A good marriage must be created.
In marriage the little things are the big things.
It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say “I love you” at least once a day.
It is never going to sleep angry.
It is at no time taking the other for granted; the courtship should not end with the honeymoon, it should continue through all the years.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is standing together facing the world.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.
It is doing things for each other, not in the attitude of duty or sacrifice, but in the spirit of joy.
It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is not looking for perfection in each other.
It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humour.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.
It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal, dependence is mutual and the obligation is reciprocal.
It is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner.

I knew there was a problem when the seamstress suggested I suck in so she could zip me up. Did I just eat, she asked? Could I maybe suck in more? MORE! Suck in more! Squeeze here. Are you sucking in? Maybe if you lose the bra* and suck in more?

Once I was zipped in, she seemed pretty pleased with herself. Though I can’t be sure since I was worried about more trivial things like: breathing, walking, oh God how am I going to breathe and walk in this dress, and what if I can’t eat or drink?!?

Seriously, WHAT IF I CAN’T EAT OR DRINK?!

You better not gain any weight, she scolded me.

Maybe lose some, she added.

———
*This did actually help some.

I thought, laziness and procrastination permitting, I’d try to use Saturdays to share some wedding readings we’re considering using. The boy is still not sold on the whole “wedding readings” idea, but I am working on it.

Habitation
by Margaret Atwood

Marriage is not
a house or even a tent

it is before that, and colder:

the edge of the forest, the edge
of the desert
the unpainted stairs
at the back where we squat
outside, eating popcorn

the edge of the receding glacier

where painfully and with wonder
at having survived even
this far

we are learning to make fire

First, thank you all for chiming in on my last post. I feel so lucky to be surrounded by so many smart ladies.

Yesterday I fretted and worried until the boy got home so we could talk. He works evenings during the week right now, so that was a lot of fretting and a lot of worrying and to be completely honest, a lot of dark chocolate eating. With cherries.

And, don’t you know, he completely understood where I was coming from and agreed that if we are both not comfortable recognizing our parents/family in the ceremony, we shouldn’t. We may do a spin on Mouse’s suggestion and give a more general blanket honoring our community type statement or we may do nothing, we’re not completely decided yet.

The thing we are decided on? We’re a team; we’re in this together. Good feeling, that.

I am having a difficult time with our ceremony. On the one hand, I have about an hours worth of readings earmarked and underlined for it. On the other, we are still working out the particulars of writing a ceremony that is comfortable for the both of us. Heavy stuff. Loaded with minefields.

Like today when our officiant innocently asked if we were doing anything in our ceremony to honor our parents and families.

For the boy, this is a no-brainer. He has two lovely sets of parents who supported and cared for him while he was growing up. I left home at 14. And though my relationship with my parents is better now, I’m not about to stand up in front of our community and thank them for the love and support they offered me in my formative years.

Of course we could just honor his family and ignore mine, but oh, the drama.

Help?

—-
*As borrowed from Mouse.

Some of you asked in the comments of the last post for me to share some of the !!! and *$&# moments of the last few weeks. This is for you.

The boy is self-employed and in the midst of building two fledgling businesses. In this economy, that roughly translates to: he works twice as many hours, sleeps half as much and is rewarded* with something that looks a lot like a punch in the balls.

It is hard. Throw in planning a wedding and it is often really hard.

Because of this, I’ve taken on much of the planning, organizing and wedding stress carrying. I would like to think I am handling it relatively well, but the truth is there are days when I want to shake him till his teeth rattle and there are days, my lowest days, when I feel like I’m the only one that really cares, and if that’s the case, what does that mean for us? ARE WE DOOMED?

I’m also a wee bit melodramatic.

Last week we had some drama over our invitations and oh, the fact that the boy has yet to collect addresses so we can mail them out. Next week. If it were for anything other than our wedding, it would probably just be mildly exasperating. The boy is the most forgetful person I know and right now he is juggling something like a million balls at once, but because it is for our wedding, it feels big. Everything feels big. Lately, when I’m happy I’m (!!!) happy and when I’m not, boy am I not.

I am beginning to think that these blips of angst and frustration are just part of the process of forming a baby family. The rollercoaster called engagement.

Hopefully the ride finishes without me throwing up on someone.

–
*I realize the real reward is working for oneself (if that is what one really wants) doing what one loves but that is a light at the end of a tunnel we are still very much in the middle of.

Hi there.

There is so much that I want to tell you all, but most of it ends up sounding a whole lot like *$&# or !!!. Stuff like how, the other week, we had our first pre-marital counseling session (!!!) and ate lots and lots of cake (!!!). Or like how we still haven’t finalized our guest list (*$&#) even though we should be* mailing our invites out this week. There was our first foray into wedding band shopping (!!!) and pricing (*$&#) and a first dress fitting (!!!) that will cost 2x the amount of chickens I had budgeted to alter (*$&#).

And, of course, since my life isn’t all about the wedding (thank the goodness), there has been lots and lots of work, a new side project, reading, walking around the park with my puppy, and dreaming about what life is going to be like 57 days from today.

I’m betting, it’s going to be pretty damn good.

Taking a break from wedding planning today to daydream* about buying a piece of land and building a LVL by Rocio Romero.

What are you daydreaming about today?

–
*Buying a piece of land to build on in Hawaii is probably more of a pipe dream than a daydream, but I’m trying to think positively today. Hmm, k?

I’m going to tell you something that you already know, deep down, but that can be easy to forget when you’re in the midst of planning a wedding and figuring out what it means to build a life together with a whole other person and chasing after wayward chickens: Your wedding is going to be beautiful. It’s going to be meaningful. It will be life altering. But it will not be perfect.

You know this right?

And yet I see evidence, everywhere, of intelligent women beating themselves up over weddings they see in magazines, on TV, and on the Internet. There is an irresistible lure to measure one’s own choices against the images that inundate us, even when those images have no relativity to our own lives, and even when those same images leave out the real story.

The real story being, none of our lives are perfect, so then, how can our weddings be?

This wedding, recently on A Practical Wedding, perfectly sums this up for me. On the surface, it is a beautifully photographed wedding filled with blog worthy touches. Chic mismatched bridesmaid dresses? Check. Tall, slender, lovely bride? Check. Swoon worthy photographs? Check.

And yet, it is so much more*.

I think there is a danger in forgetting that beneath the beautiful images there is a real story and real people. Dangerous because in forgetting, we are prone to devalue whatever their real experiences may be, but also because in doing so we devalue ourselves.

This article that Lyn recently linked to hit it home for me.  For every beautifully framed photograph, there is a messy, cluttered desk sitting 2 feet away.

Likewise, for every picture perfect wedding filled with lust inducing details, there is grief, joy, stress, anger, regret and conflict. Let’s not forget that ok?

Pictures can be perfect. Real life never is.

–

*If you haven’t go and read their story here.

{via Style Me Pretty}

You come up with A Plan.

{via Style Me Pretty}

You will tell your ladies to choose whatever knee-length dress they want to wear in a gray. You don’t want your girls to match.

But then one comments that it is so difficult to find a Gray Dress.

And another wonders if maybe it will look Very Bad if they don’t wear the same dress.

Yet another thinks gray is So Depressing.

Most don’t seem excited at all to look for their own dress.

You go back to the drawing board. You change the color to purple. You still really want them to wear mismatched dresses, yet you quickly realize that it’s nearly impossible to find mismatched options outside of bridal lines. And bridal lines are expensive. You consider changing the color, yet again, to blue. Blue is easier to find, but you don’t love blue.

You continue to search for purple dresses. For 3 months.

You toy with the idea of pink dresses but they’re too expensive.

So you continue to search. For 2 more months. This was supposed to be simple, you grumble to anyone who will listen.

In the meanwhile, everyone wants to know What Your Colors Are. And when you tell them, you don’t have colors, they ask What Color Are Your Bridesmaid Dresses? And when you tell them, you haven’t chosen them yet, they blink at you really fast. And then their heads explode.

When they’ve collected themselves, they insist you MUST have colors. At which point you wonder if sticking your fingers in your ears and going pbblttt might not be a more effective way to communicate with people?

One day you get an email about a sale at JCrew. 20% off all dresses. The boy is not crazy about their purple options.

But they have gray.

You email all your ladies that they can choose any of four dresses. By the end of the day, all dresses have been purchased. With 5 ladies, there is bound to be variety, no?

They all choose the same dress.

My front runner (and yours too it seems from the comments), #1, is now being shown as Sold Out. Boo.

These 3 have made my new short list. In fact, I am leaning heavily towards #2, except I fear it is Too Large. But seeing as it’s a custom piece, maybe it can be made smaller? I do have a lot of hair and a fairly Big Head (seriously, Large) so maybe a big flower will not be a bad thing? I will give it a trial run next weekend and let you know.

{source}

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Though I am prone towards second guessing, deliberating, hemming, hawing, one thing I am certain of is: on our wedding day, I want a big, gorgeous flower in my hair.

Still, even when I am certain, I cannot choose. There are too many that I want, and too few chickens. Here then, are the contenders:

{source}

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Which to choose?

That, up there, is the lawn of our venue. We will be saying our vows on a platform (which will cover the jacuzzi*) on the other side of the yellow flowers and are thinking of having the guests mull about on the lawn.

Our bar is being set up along the far left.

There is probably enough seating throughout the house for about 50% of our guests. So the question is, what to do on the lawn? Our original plan was to have a few rows of benches with a handful of high-top cocktail tables scattered across the back. But benches have been impossible to find for anything less than 3,403,324 chickens. And all the benches I’ve found are FUG.LY.

Another option would be to setup two lounge areas and scatter a few high or regular height cocktail tables.

Yet another option (and the cheapest) would be to just scatter cocktail tables, maybe 6 or so and call it a day. My only reservation is that by doing so we clutter up the pretty lawn and leave less “mingling” space.

Thoughts?

Tomorrow was supposed to be our wedding day.

Long before we got engaged (but soon enough to be contemplating!), I knew we would be married in 2010. On April 17.

It’s our anniversary. It’s on a Saturday. So, kind of perfect.

Except life (and wedding planning!) is rarely perfect.

When we got engaged in September I knew my best friend was pregnant and due in March. I couldn’t ask her to travel thousands of miles for my wedding a month later. So we’re not getting married tomorrow. Instead we’re going out for a nice dinner tonight* and then taking the rest of the evening to do some homework.

Have a great weekend everyone!

—

*The boy has to work tomorrow. Boo.

The progression of states are:

1. Euphoria – “Squeee”

Usually marked by extreme moments of giddiness and joy. People may remark that you spend inordinate amounts of time staring off into space, smiling like an idiot. Some may feel the need to run around in circles and shout things like WOOOO! at the top of their lungs. Minor annoyances like, dirty socks on the counter or leaving of the toilet seat up, fade under the overwhelming rosy glow of rightness. You may believe you can fly.

2. Discovery – “Ooooh, PRETTY”

Usually coincides with the purchase of wedding magazines or finding of Style Me Pretty. Marked by an obsessive attention to details. Feelings of grandeaur may cause the individual to believe themselves capable of feats they otherwise would never attempt, such as: crafting, cooking a meal to feed 100+ people, making bouquets. You can usually determine if a person is in this stage by their use of language, particularly words like: chiavari, bunting flags, letterpress, and STD.

It is not uncommon for this stage to precede the first.

3. Panic - “How the h*ll”

Left with the reality of putting plans into action, the individual may be overwhelmed with the amount of things to do. Cycles of hyperactive crafting/list making followed by sleeplessness is not uncommon. Individuals may be tempted to run off and elope. Persons may find themselves short tempered with their partners. This stage often coincides with the first talk of budgets.

4. Outrage/Depression – “What the EFF”, “EFF me”

Marked by feelings of bitterness and frustration. It is not uncommon for people in this stage to feel as though they are failing in some way. This causes the individual to swing between feeling angry over all the expectations being placed on them and despondent over their inability to live up. Persons may find themselves resenting others with friends and family who: own a barn, DJ, have the enviable ability to craft masterpieces out of bits of random fabric and paper.

5. Rebellion – “EFF it”

Faced with the need to simplify and regain a sense of control, the individual may find themselves ruthlessly slashing things from the wedding. Marked by feelings of apathy and exhaustion. Persons may find themselves telling over zealous friends and family where to stick their “helpful suggetions”. Rebellion can give the individual a false sense of Zen, resulting in a regression to stage 4. It is not uncommon to mock The Knot during this phase.

6. Zen - “It is what it is”

Having progressed through the other 5 stages, the individual is left with a feeling of having done all they could. Calmness sets in. The individual accepts that things will go wrong, but understands that it won’t take away from the beauty of the day.

This stage is often followed by the drinking of copious amounts of alcohol and the shaking of one’s bottom.

There is great, insightful commentary going around the blogsphere today people. And though I would love to add to it, with my own witty and piercing observations, my mind is on vacation.

So, go and read. Then come back and talk honeymoons with me!

The boy and I leave Hawaii the day after our wedding. We really wanted to postpone things for a day or two to spend time with his family, but Hawaiian Air only operates a handful of flights to Sydney a week and this was the only available date that worked for us.

10.5 hours and one international date line later, we arrive in Sydney. Thanks to the generosity of a friend, who is extending a special friends and family Starwood rate to us, we are staying at the Westin Sydney.

We tentatively have 4 nights and 3.5 days here (we land in the evening). Any thoughts on what we should do? See? Eat?

November 2009
Me: We  should ask X* to do our catering.
Boy: Mmm Blerg Grunt Hrm Pfft

January 2010
Me: So how about asking X* to do our catering?
Boy: Mmm Blerg Grunt Hrm Pfft
Me: Starts searching for caterers.

February 2010
Me: Hey, this sh*t is really expensive. Maybe we should consider having X* do our catering?
Boy: Mmm Blerg Grunt Hrm Pfft

March 2010
Me: Maybe we just won’t feed our guests!
Boy: Mmm Blerg Grunt Hrm Pfft Pizza?

April 2010
Boy: We should ask X to do our catering!
Me: Bangs head on desk

*A friend of the Boy’s.

I’m a wanderer. My heart yearns for travel. When you live on an island, the lure of a long and winding road is enchanting; being able to drive for hours on end and not end up back where you started? Miraculous.

For someone living in the middle of nowhere, I’ve been pretty lucky. I’ve stood on Charles Bridge, gazed at the flying buttresses of Notre Dame, and marveled at my first glimpse of snow on the Matterhorn. I’ve been serenaded in a gondola, lazed in pools in Cabo and Szechenyi, and meandered down Portobello Road. I’m not sure what it is that compels me to seek the furthest reaches from home, only that I am.

When I graduated from college I promised myself I’d take a few months off to travel, but when I was offered an awesome job, one that started right away, I put it off. Next year, I told myself. But the next year I was at a new and better job, so I waited. A year later, I let my then boyfriend guilt me out of a summer long tour of Europe with my best friend. By the following year, I had broken up with him but was too broke to even think about going anywhere. The year after that my best friend got married.

Life is what happens when you’re making other plans, right?

The truth is, I traveled more in the 4 years I was in college, than in the almost 11 years I’ve been out. It’s been 4 years since my last big trip. Even before we got engaged, I knew that this summer the boy and I would go toAmalfi and the Greek Islands. I’ve been aching to go for what seems like ever. When Joanna posted her photos of her honeymoon, I was green.

So when I realized we weren’t going to be able to take the trip, maybe no trip at all, I was crushed. I’m not going to lie, I was pretty woeful for awhile. When people suggested we take a mini-moon to another island I got enraged. Not flattering, I know. Over the last few days I really thought about why I was reacting this way, and here’s what I think.

I’ll be 33 when we get married. The boy and I are probably going to start a family in the next year or so and I’m no longer at an age where I can shrug things off for a theoretical tomorrow. This could very well be the last trip we take together as a childless couple. The boy thinks that’s melodramatic, but consider: since leaving college, the longest vacation I’ve taken was 10 days and I’ve only done it once.

So I’ve been upset about not going to Greece and Italy, but even more than that, I think I’ve been upset about all the other places I haven’t gone to because I was too busy or too scared or too broke. I am beginning to feel like there isn’t enough time to see all the things I want to see. So.

Yesterday, I bought our plane tickets for our honeymoon. Completely with miles, I might add. We are, after all, going somewhere. It wasn’t my first choice, but who am I to turn down free? We are taking 17 lovely days to wander through the land down under. Yes, we’re going to Australia! I couldn’t be more excited. So now, the question is, what should we do when we get there? Any and all advice is welcome.

I realized I haven’t posted any photos of our new venue! So here you go. We’re very happy with our decision to change things at the last moment. Our contract gives us free run of the entire downstairs of the house including three large living spaces not shown in the photos. We also have our own private strip of beach!

Hi there.

I know I’ve been neglecting the blog. I needed a break from wedding planning. I’m beginning to think that just happens. You burn out, take a break, pick up steam again and on you go. Anyway.  Over the course of the last two weeks lots have been accomplished! Almost none of it by me. Which means the boy has finally jumped into the ring with both hands swinging.  Perfect timing, if you ask me.

He has:

1. Found us a friend who will do our catering at food cost plus a nominal fee.
2. Found us cheap staffing.
3. Got us free lighting.
4. Found potential groomsmen outfits.
5. Found  a flower supplier*.
6. Locked in live entertainment for mere chicken feed**.
7. Got us free sound.

He has not:

1. Figured out his half (more like 3/4) of the guest list.

*Still not sold on the need for a bouquet, but they’ve convinced me we will need SOME flowers (or plants).

**So cheap, it’s not even a chicken.

I wanted a destination wedding. We’re getting married near our home.

I wanted the wedding to be small, just a few of our closest friends. We’re inviting just over 100 people.

I wanted our ceremony to be secular. It won’t be.

I didn’t want to invite random family members just because “we’re supposed to”. We are.

I didn’t want to deal with my family’s drama. I am.

I wanted to spend less than $15,000. We’re not.

I burnt out on the wedding a few weeks ago. Since then I’ve been trying to recapture the feeling I had that first month, where everything seemed possible and I was so overwhelmed with joy I felt I could fly. I asked the boy if he, too, felt disappointed and frustrated by all the compromises we’ve made and he said, ‘I can be disappointed, or I can love the wedding we’re having. I’m going to to love the wedding we’re having.’

Right. So.

We’re getting married near our home, but that means our puppy gets to be with us.

The guest list is growing, but only because there are people who love us enough to want to give up their holiday and celebrate with us.

Our wedding won’t be secular, but it won’t be overtly religious either and it will be done by someone meaningful to me.

We are both inviting family we barely know to make our parents happy. Hopefully, they bring good gifts*.

My family will drive me crazy till the end of time. But dealing with them means my grandparents will be at our wedding.

We are spending more than we planned, but not more than we can.

It’s not what I planned, not what I originally wanted, but it’s the only wedding I’ll have.

You get what you need.

*Joking! Kinda.

Delicious tells me I currently have over 300 bookmarks for invitation inspiration, all created within the last 6 months.

I totally meant to DIY ours. If there was any project I felt qualified to do myself, this was it. But after months of laboring over our Save the Dates*, I was done. Burnt out.

Sometimes, the best choice is to delegate.

{via Ello There}

I came across this on Head vs Heart a couple of weeks ago and quickly forwarded it to the boy, who loved them. It’s everything we would have done ourselves if we weren’t, you know, in the middle of planning everything else for the wedding.

So we have our invitations. Now if only I could get the boy to finish his guest list, we could do this thing!

*Save the Dates that we (thankfully) never printed because the boy couldn’t** get his half of the guest list together in time.
**Still hasn’t.

{photography by Our Labor of Love}

I was going through my wedding bookmarks on Delicious this morning and stumbled upon this: the first wedding I ever fell in love with. Bookmarked just a few short weeks after our engagment I remember flipping through these photos and thinking yes, yes, yes! Though I would later become overwhelmed by the lovely details in weddings like these and others, what really resonanted with me about this, in the begining, was the joy so expertly captured by the talented Our Labor of Love.

Also, it completely validated our insistence on having our dog with us on our day.

When I was younger I liked to pretend I was a different type of girl: one who could drop everything on a moments notice and run off on some grand adventure. I longed to be this carefree, fly by the seat of her pants girl. I suspected she had a lot more fun than me.

Now if you know me, you know how great a stretch of the imagination this is. I am a planner by nature, by which I mean when an idea takes root in my head I am overcome with the obsessive need to research it to within an inch of its life. I surround myself with books and facts and numbers, plotting out the tiniest of minutia. You know the saying take each day as it comes? It makes my stomach hurt.

Which is all good and well when planning a wedding, one would think. Years ago, 3 to be exact, I started setting aside chickens for our possible wedding. The boy and I had just a bought a home together, so it wasn’t too far of a stretch, I reasoned, that we would be getting married in the future. Even in my pre-wedding planning bliss I realized it would cost a good chunk of change. So I saved.

Then the economy took a nose dive.

And, well, you can see where this is going. A couple weeks ago I realized we would have to change our honeymoon plans. With the wedding sneaking off with more and more of our chickens I realized we would either have to change our plans or dip into our savings. Dipping into our savings in this economy really makes my stomach hurt.

So we ditched our plans.

I pouted for about a week. It wasn’t pretty; I’m not going to lie. I do hate ditching my plans. I become rather attached to them as I’m making them.

So. I am in need of a new plan. We are setting our sights closer to home; someplace our shared miles can take us.

Ideas to come.

With the wedding fast approaching (July 5), it’s time to start thinking about dress fittings. My dress is currently about 2 sizes too big and 4 inches too long (with me wearing my tallest shoes). Because I bought my dress out of state and off the rack, I’ll need to search out a seamstress to do the alterations. My questions are, then:

What do I look for in a seamstress?

When should I schedule my first fitting?

I just got this Super Awesome forum link in my email from The Knot about the worst wedding food, like ever. And I know. You are rolling your eyes at me. Why am I still getting mail from The Knot? Because I’m too lazy to unsubscribe that’s why.

Anyway.

This one hit home because we’re currently in the process of selling our yet to be conceived first born to pay for this grub that catty, competive brides are going to bitch about on The Knot. Not that I’m bitter or anything*.

And look. I’ve been that person ok. I’m a total hypocrite. I’ve complained about bad wedding food. I plead ignorance. Who knew this crap costs the equivelent of several months worth of rent? Not me, that’s who.

The ladies on The Knot, now, they know. of course, I’m sure their wedding food is going to be a spectacular gourmet affair that every last one of their guests will gush over for years and years. They’ll bump into a guest 5 years from now who will exclaim that the shrimp was the best. they. ever. had. They’ll accomplish this within budget too. Because they’re extra special that way.

So, yeah. We are still trying to figure out what we’re going to feed our guests. More than one person has expressed concern over us not actually serving dinner. What if people are hungry? They can eat a burger before hand, that’s what. We are serving more than enough food for a person to feel full on, as long as said person hasn’t starved themselves for two days before the wedding.

Our wedding does not entitle anyone to an 8 course gourmet meal.

*Also, it’s almost noon and I have yet to eat anything today because it’s been one of those mornings. Hungry makes me crankpants ok?

So. What I left out in this post, mostly because I’ve been struggling with the decision lately, is we did come to a compromise. One that, at the time, left us all high fives and butt patting but now has me second guessing myself.

When we first started talking about the ceremony, months ago, I suggested we have one of our friend’s marry us. The boy scoffed at the idea. Real Weddings happen before a man of the church. I’m not sure if this is some deep seated belief left over from his upbringing in the South, but I am guessing yes. I insisted that if we had to be married by a religious personage, that it should be someone who is meaningful to at least one of us. My oldest friend’s father is a pastor. Her family was a second family to me growing up. Problem solved.

In a few weeks we’ll start our mandatory counseling sessions  for people getting married by the church. We’ll start the process of writing our vows and our ceremony. And now that it’s upon us, I wonder if we can craft a ceremony that will honestly reflect what we both believe, differences and all.  And I worry that trying to put my often complicated thoughts into words that will be spoken in front of all the people who matter to us will be lot like standing up in front of them all with my dress lifted up and asking them to look at my pretty knickers.

Mostly I’m afraid of being pushed into a ceremony I’m not comfortable with*. The one thing I’ve learned with wedding planning is people, often people you love, think they know best how you should do things. Their intentions are usually swell. The results: largely crappy.

So our compromise is: we are being married by a person of the church, but not a in a church, and we will attempt to have a mostly secular ceremony. Wish us luck.

*I have talked to the boy about this and he doesn’t seem to get what the big deal is. Which leaves me worried. Or pissed. Depends on the day.

I will:

1. wonder how to sneak the big bottle of saline on to the plane because I forgot to buy the travel size.
2. kick myself for not ordering a pair of glasses.
3. search our room frantically for my tatty pair of pink velor pants because it’s my favorite.
4. find them bunched up in the bottom of the dirty laundry hamper because I was too stressed over the last week to wash them.
5. pack them anyway.
6. debate if 3 pair of shoes is really enough for 2 weeks worth of travel?
7. decide it’s not and grab two more.
8. go to pack them and realize there’s no room because the boy’s already packed 6 pairs of shoes.
9. wonder where the second suitcase is?
10. find it half filled with more of the boy’s stuff.
11. grumble that he has too much stuff.
12. listen sheepishly as he points out that I’ve attempted to pack half our bookcase.
13. agree that we should have bought a kindle.
14. realize I have no idea where my passport is.
15. search frantically for it.
16. find it in the filing cabinet in the folder labeled “passports”.
17. kick myself for not packing sooner.
18. have the millionth heart to heart with our puppy about not chewing on his tie.
19. freak out because the car that is picking us up is 15 minutes late.
20. get married.

When people talk about making their weddings uniquely them and then go on to talk about how they chose a Smiths song for their first dance because they bonded over their love of Morrisey or how they crafted their own invitations because he’s an illustrator and she’s a calligrapher, I sometimes want to throw my hands up in exasperation.

Emo-bonding and pretty paper is great and all, but what I really want to know is, what if you insist on the Smiths and he insists on Taylor Swift? Or what if when you were discussing the illustrations for your save the dates you were thinking Alan Moore and he was thinking Terrytoons?

And what I really want to know, what keeps me up at night is, what if you want a non-religious ceremony and he wants God to be a witness?

What if this is deeply personal to both of you? What if you would feel like an imposter saying vows before God and he would feel like an imposter not?

What would you do?

{Waikiki Beach}

The last time I woke up to the Emergency Warning Siren was September 11, 1992. The islands were bracing themselves for Hurricane Iniki. I was in boarding school, and once the novelty of standing on the lawn to see if the wind could knock us down* wore off my dormmates and I curled up in our blankets to watch The Princess Bride and eat pizza pockets.

Oh, 15.

When the alarm sounded this Saturday I knew something was wrong. Still, it was 6 am so I rolled over and went back to sleep.

I rolled out of bed an hour later to the news of an earthquake in Chile and a tsunami headed our way. Now, I grew up seeing the images of Hilo’s 1960 tsunami, you know, with people running for their lives and a 30 foot wave roaring into view behind them. Freaky. I live fairly close to water, which 99% of the time, is great. Saturday fell into the other 1%.

After looking through the evacuation maps and weighing the danger of staying put, I packed a bag, grabbed my dog and headed to higher ground with my neighbor.

The park we chose to wait it out at had at least 80 people there — picnic blankets spread out, radios blaring — which I think goes to show that people in Hawaii will use anything as an excuse to potluck.

The whole thing was a non event, of course. We packed up our things and headed home a short 2 hours after leaving. It was an odd day: frightening, tiring, anticlamatic.

And do you know what the first thought I had was, when I heard the news? Not, I might lose my house or I hope I am safe but what about all the people who were supposed to get married today**???

Yup. Weddings have officially eaten my brain.

*It could.
**Answer: they were sh*t out of luck.

Last night I was catching up on a bazillion hours of Olympic coverage and caught the story of French skier, Ophelie David. For me, the Olympics is largely about the stories. In other words, I cheer for whomever NBC tells me I’m supposed to cheer for, with their Hallmark-esque montages.

Oh, yeah, and the Americans.

Ophelie David is a 6 time world champion in ski cross. She’s been ranked number 1 in the world since 2004 and is 33 years old.

She is also the mother of a 10 year old.

As we get nearer to our wedding, and I look at what it means to be a wife, I’ve also started to think about what it means to be a mother. If the world at large tells us that wives are supposed to be controlling harridans, that husbands are purse carrying victims, what does it say about mothers?

Here are some words often associated with Mother: loving, selfless, caretaker, nurturing.

Here is one that’s not: Olympian*.

I’ve been walking around this idea of being a mother for a while now. I’m 32. Some would say it’s well past time, but when I think of what is expected of me and what I may lose, it’s not an easy answer.

One of my biggest fears, when approaching marriage, was that the world at large would no longer allow me to define myself. Though I wonder, at times, if it ever really had. Let’s be honest. It all comes back to mothers and daugthers. We are someone’s daughter and then someone’s wife. And then, either our husbands are rebellious adolecents and we, their over bearing mothers or they are stoic providers and we, their poor, helpless daugthers.

I bristle under the stereotypes, yet I understand the need to place people in tidy boxes. It is work to get to know someone. To allow them faults. To recognize their individuality.

I am afraid of losing myself.

I know I will lose a part of my old self when I marry the boy. No longer can I pick up at a moments notice and jet off to far flung cities to visit friends. If I blow my paycheck on books or shoes or the Marc Jacobs bag I’ve been lusting over, it will mean putting less money towards our shared goals.

Likewise, I know I will lose a part of my old self when (and if) I become a mother. But what? And how much? Will it limit what I can accomplish? Will it be the sole thing that defines me?

These were the thoughts running through my head while I watched Ophelie David.

A reporter asked her how she balances the two, mother, Olympian and she resonded:

At home, I am a mother. Here, I am a competitor.

Simple as that.

My heart broke a little when she crashed. And then I thought, how badass was that?!! Every little girl should be lucky enough to have a role model that shows you that you can be badass as you want to be.

Eff anyone who tells you differently.

*At least not in the present tense.

We’re not serving dinner at our wedding. A wedding that will last between the hours of 4 and 10. Part of me feels like a stingy miser and fears that our guests will be horribly offended — or worse — feel sorry for us: the poor cheap fools who couldn’t muster up the dollars to pay for a proper dinner. The other part is so, so happy. With dinner out of the equation, so many other things I was worried over have fallen away, including:

1. being stuck at a table and not having time to mingle with all my guests
2. having everyone stare at me while I’m trying to stuff my face
3. where to seat my mother if she deigns to show up
4. weeding through a million centerpiece inspiration photos
5. not having any sort of program to entertain guests with while they eat

And I know some of you will pause at the last one and remind me that my wedding is not a show, and I agree, theoretically. But you see, where I come from, a wedding is most definitely a show, replete with hula dancers, taiko drummers, dragon dancers, fire dancers, live music and slideshows. I’M NOT KIDDING! Most every wedding I’ve been to has been centered around the dinner (and accompanying show), usually a 3 – 4 hour affair, at the end of which there may be dancing, but most likely people just get up and go home. I never wanted that. They boy never wanted that. So we’re not doing dinner. We’re setting up 6 – 8 food stations around the property with small bites and small plates and 2 live action sushi stations*.

Still, I feel bad. I feel like people are going to judge me. I’m afraid there won’t be enough food and people will be hungry. I’m afraid that they’ll get bored and leave. I worry over when to do things like a first dance or a cake cutting if there is no formal program. It is making me anxious! And though I know I am being ridiculous, I can’t seem to stop worrying.

So I’m asking all of you, have you been to a cocktail style reception? How did it work? Was there enough food? Did you want to throw cake at the bride and groom when it was over?

*Fun fact: my grandmother immigrated here from Japan after World War II. Not knowing a lick of English but wanting to work, she started working at a local grocery making sushi. She did this for the next 40 years. So, sushi is my nod to my family. Thankfully, it’s also one of the boy’s favorite foods.

One day. That was how much time I had to find a dress. Because I didn’t have any vacation time to use I was basically flying in late Friday evening and flying back first thing Sunday morning. I thought it would be feasible to try to squeeze 3 shops into the trip, spaced out throughout the day.

The first shop I chose was easy. I had received an email earlier in the week informing me that Calla Bridal was having a Vineyard trunk show the weekend I was going to be there. I had been obessing over Vineyard’s Maeve for a month, so I figured this was the Cosmos’s way of telling me that this may be my dress. They penciled me in at 1.

{Maeve, by Vineyard for Priscilla of Boston}

Yelp found me my second appointment, Belltown Bride. From their website: “.. no where else in Seattle or beyond will you find the most exclusive, authentic New York designer gowns at prices that are less than half of the retail price..” Um, yes please. They had a 3:30 spot available.

The last shop I found through the wonderful interwebs. I remembered reading that Erin of Apartment #34 had found her dress at The Bridal Garden in Kirkland. Her little blog is awash with lovely, lovely style porn. If she found a dress she loved there, surely I could? They could squeeze me at 9:30.

My day was planned. Bright and early Saturday morning, the BF and I set out for coffee and chocolate crossiants and then made our way over the bridge to Kirkland. The Bridal Garden was intimate* and calming. All the pretty dresses were lined up in a neat little row and they let us browse through them and pick out what I wanted to try on. For the life of me, I can’t remember the name of the lady who helped us**, but she was AWESOME. I cannot stress enough how awesome she was. I had two dresses selected when I heard BF say, from the other end of the room, ..“this one might do and it’s on sale and I’m sure you can get rid of the bow..”

She had me at bow.

It was the first dress I tried on. In the first shop of the day. And I knew***. It was the softest, silkiest of satins. It hugged me in the all the right places. And it had a big, delicious bow.

Of course, I tried on the other two dresses. One was a Marisa and the other the ubiquoutus Melissa Sweet Lia. The first made me realize that ruching is all wrong on me. I have a short waist and it emphasizes all the wrong things. The Lia was beautiful, but I was already in love with the other dress.

Still. I had flewn across the ocean to have a shopping day. I couldn’t fall for the first dress? Plus, I had yet to try on the Maeve, which I was pretty sure the Cosmos was telling me was MY dress. The BF and I took a walk around the block to talk it out. The dress was a sample. It was 62% off. Did I want to take my chances that no one else was going to buy it while I looked at other dresses? We made it as far as the car when I realized I didn’t.

So I bought the first dress I tried on in Seattle. Then we went out to lunch.

Because The Bridal Garden doesn’t allow you to take photos of dresses when you are trying them on, I don’t have photos to show you of me in the dresses. And though I do have one of me in MY dress, I don’t want to share it until it actually fits me. It’s currently 2 sizes too large. Here, though, is the dress on the model. It’s Daphne, by Melissa Sweet. I think it looks better on me, if not just because I have a butt and boobs and this dress sort of calls for some of those. And though you can’t see it in the photo, it has the most fantastic bubble hem.

You know, the thing that surprised me the most, in this whole process, was realizing that I did actually want a Wedding Dress. You learn the strangest things about yourself when planning a wedding.

*I’ve since heard they moved to a bigger shop and changed thier name.
**I am terrible with names. Boo.
***I did not cry. I’m not like that.

{by Pnina Tornai}*

I have a confession to make. I love Say Yes to the Dress. I love watching brides coo over skantatic Pnina Tornai dresses and pout over their “small” $5000 budgets. I love the horrid family members who bash the bride to be and the jealous, catty friends. It’s like watching a train wreck. Can’t look! Have to look!

Mostly though, I love the dresses.

I wanted to love dress shopping. I wanted to have my moment. And though my friends tried their hardest on my marathon dress search day, I went home that night feeling pretty down. I cried all weekend. Truth is, I never wanted a day of shopping with a gaggle of friends. I wanted a quiet day with one, very special person — my best friend — but she was in Seattle.

Over the next week, I told myself it was just a dress. I was making a big to do over nothing. A lot of people don’t have that moment. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have the person I most wanted with me to share the experience with. I would just buy one of the dresses I had tried on and be done with it.

I had pretty much made up my mind when the boy told me I should fly to Seattle to find a dress. Could we make afford it? I asked him. He assured me we would. In fact, he insisted (for days I might add) that this was what I should do. Pretty great, right?

Two weeks later I was on a plane heading to Seattle.

*I’m sorry if you think this is lovely and all, but what the eff was she smoking when she designed this?

Cupcake Wedding asks:

Don’t spend that much if you dont want to. I guess I just wonder why you must if you are getting rid of all those things? On the other hand, if you want to spend that much, DO IT. It’s whatever you like.

Can I just say, the last two sentences put a smile on my face. To say I’ve been beating myself up for the last month about all this money stuff is an understament. But ultimately, we want a wedding. It is what we want. We (I) waffled for a bit there, but we’re doing this!

That said, here’s the thing. Getting married in Hawaii is expensive. For some crazy reason, people want to get married here. It’s the stupid weather or something. The average cost of a wedding here is something like $35,000. Which alternately makes me want to wail like a banshee and bash my head against a wall.

The following are just a few common budget breakers I and others I’ve spoken to have run up against. So if you or someone you know is planning a wedding in Hawaii in the near future, take note (all prices for a 100 person event):

Venues: There really aren’t many to choose from for a 100 person event. BEWARE of private estates that are not licensed for weddings. The going rate for a venue on a Saturday night is $4500. There are a few exceptions (especially if you are in the military) but most of the ones we found were either

1. dry
2. affliated with a religous organization
3. affliated with a lu’au

Yeah. NO.  If you don’t mind getting married on an off day, like say, Monday like we are, you may be able to cut that number in half but don’t be too sure. This is destination wedding mecca, so Saturday is not the be all and end all.

Coordinator: Pretty much every place we looked at required the use of a day of coordinator. Average price: $1600.

Alcohol: If booze is important to you, like it is to us, the average quote for bar setup/breakdown/service/mixers is around $1800. That does not include the actual liquor but does include things like water, juice and soda.

Food: Most venues are going to make you work with their vendors cause they get this awesome thing called a kickback for it. Awesome for them. You? Not so much. They’ll usually bend on desserts, so you can save there. I spoke with  5 catering companies on the island and the average quote for a simple buffet dinner, not including dessert, bar, or rentals was $70pp. I’ve gotten one quote back for a cocktail menu at $47pp, but we’re hoping to get this a little bit lower by seeing if we can provide a portion of the food ourselves. Still, most catering companies aren’t thrilled about letting you supplement their food.

Rentals: Not getting married in a ballroom? Be prepared to spend in the ballpark of $2-$5,000+ on rentals (depending on if you need a tent and if you’re required to build out a dancefloor).

It adds up. We are being about as creative as we can be without going crazy. I’m baking a majority of the desserts and a friend is making our cake. We’re haggling with caterers to see if we can supply some of the food. And then there are things we weren’t willing to compromise on, including:

1. A quality photographer
2. An outdoor location
3. Being able to have our dog there (severly limittng our options)
4. Awesome food
5. Open bar
6. My dress / His suit

So $20k is around where we are. Hopefully less, as quotes are still rolling in, and not without a bit of sacrifice. We could save thousands if we cut our guest list in half, but that’s not happening. I’m OK with it. Mostly. I mean, I’m going to kick and grumble, cause it’s expensive and if I can’t complain about here, where can I?

I should also add that if we had stuck with our original plan, that number would have easily creeped past $30k. And that? I was not OK with.

Inspired by this post by A Los Angeles Love, I thought I’d talk budgets with you. Because we all secretly want to know what everyone else is spending right? If not just to NOT feel so alone in this madness? Or is that just me?

Once upon a time, long ago, when we were in the talking about getting married one day phase, I thought $10,000 sounded like a nice round number. Anyone spending more than that obviously was being frivolous*. Obviously.

Except the only obvious thing was I didn’t have a clue. As it stands we’re hanging on to $20,000 for dear life and we’re even a smidge over that. Except by smidge I mean a couple thousand dollars, which alternately makes me want to cry or bang my head against a wall.

And lest you wonder if I am being frivolous, let me tell you what our budget (and wedding) will not include:

1. seated or buffet dinner – this was perhaps the hardest (for me) choice until I realized that any sort of dinner would start at $7k and go up from there. Instead we’re having heavy hors d’oeuvres.
2. centerpieces – heck, we don’t have tables to put them on anyway.
3. chivari chairs
4. bouquets – i think they’re pointless
5. flowergirls/ring bearer (see bouquets)
6. DJ – we are doing a mix of live band for a few hours and iPod
7. Videographer – though people keep telling me I’ll regret this one
8. limo – we’re hopping on the shuttle bus with everyone else at the end of the night
9. favors – I’m sure all my guests will be crushed by the lack of personalized M&Ms but whatever. Also, see bouquets.
10. out of town bags, flip-flops or parasols for guests – *cough* bouquets
11. custom invitations (DIY)
12. slideshow**

Some of these pained me to give up, I’ll admit. I love me a pretty, pretty centerpiece and flowers. I love flowers. But necessary? No. It is important for us to serve local,  sustainable, ethically grown food as much as possible, and that’s damn expensive, yo. So we’re not doing the sit down and eat thing, but instead the mingle and nibble thing. This also happens to be the way we like to eat anyway, so bonus! Also, some things are not on the list because we have wonderful, generous, talented friends including, a hairstylist and a makeup artist.

So those are my budget woes and budget nos. What’s yours?

* You all know I mean this as snark, right? I am not in any way saying that frivolous is bad or (ick) wrong. Just maybe unnecessary for someone like me, with a limited budget.
** pretty much a staple at Hawaii weddings. I am getting so much flack for cutting this one out.

So. We are moving our little shindig to another venue. This was, in fact, the boy’s first choice, way back when, but I got sucked into the wedding vortex of must haves (tent, formal reception, buffet dinner, centerpieces, blah blah blah) and started planning something that now, neither of us want. The past three weeks have been a frightening stream of outrageous vendor quotes*. I have carefully counted our pennies and split tiny hairs and there is very little way I can forsee us paying for the wedding we started out planning without amassing some sort of debt. I simply had no idea what I was getting in to.

This weekend, a friend openend a door for us. The venue in question is his property. It is avaialable. It is in town, ergo, squashing all the transportation squabbles I had been dealing with. And with our** new found love of the cocktail reception, the space issues I originally had*** with the place have fallen away. Do you know what this means?

No need for:
- tables (except a few for my Grandma so she’s not eating with a plate on her knees)
- tents (plural, since both food & bar service requires their own tents)
- dance floor
- centerpieces
- linens
- (real) tableware
- lighting (it is not easy lighting a large empty yard)
- generators for said lighting
- sound

Most of the lighting and furniture is included in the space. It has a built in a sound system for a DJ, iPod or band to plug into. There is a kitchen ON SITE, so need for the caterer’s to build a kitchen in the middle of nowhere and charge me $2,000 to do it.

So, we have logistics to figure out, but I am excited! I feel so relieved!

Anyone else chuck all their plans and start over with 4.5 months to go?

*$6800 for food (the lowest I could find) and $2000 for food service rentals
**MY, the boy reminds me this was always what he wanted
***When I first saw pictures of the space, back in Septemer, I told the boy, “where will we fit all our tables?? And the tent?? To which I now roll my eyes.

When I started browsing through magazines for potential dresses, I fell in love with Melissa Sweet. Her dresses are classic, yet fresh, without a lot of frippery. Sadly, all of her dresses – with starting prices in the high$3,000s – were well out of my price range. Added to the fact that no store here actually carries the line and I figured Melissa and I just weren’t meant to be.

Enter Reverie, Melissa Sweet’s “bargain*” line.

Hiding amongst the racks of dresses at The Bridal Boutique was this Reverie dress.

It had a bow! The line was also being dropped from the store, so the sample was for sale. I tried it on.

Can I say, this dress felt amazing. It was unbelievably light and soft. My friends hated it. As one put it, it’s LINEN**. You CANNOT wear LINEN to your wedding. It also sort of made me look like I was hiding a little some’in-some’in, if you know what I mean. Yet, after a day of squeezing into heavy, scratchy wedding dresses, this was a relief. I could twirl in this dress! Who needs a waist when you can twirl?! I took the longest with this one. I was comfortable. It made me happy.

But it wasn’t quite right.

Next week, I find a dress!

*Ha hahahahahaha ha.
**Actually it was NOT linen but silk, though it did look it.

Dear Catering Company,

Thank you for your proposal. I appreciate that it only took you 2 weeks to respond. There’s nothing like a timely response! After going over your bid, I have a few questions that hopefully, you can help me with.

1. I see that you have your servers listed at a rate of $45 per hour. I’m glad you believe in paying service people an honest wage! So do I. Except, in your fine print, I see it says this does not include gratuity. Since I know, from a previous employee of yours that they are really paid $10 per hour, I am wondering, what happened to the other $35?
2. I really appreciate that you don’t charge a travel surcharge for my event. I realize it’s quite far from your kitchen and most places charge at least $150! The nerve! Still, I notice that you increased your minimum per plate charge to $40 from the promised $30. If I do my math correctly, that works out to $1000 more, for the same food. I am curious, how much does a steak increase in price per mile it travels?
3. I am relived that you are a full service operation and are able to service an event regardless of where it is! With  no hidden costs! Still, I notice that you are charging me a total of $600 for service equipment rentals, $100 of which are for a pair of cocktail trays. I’m curious, where does one buy a pair of $100 cocktail trays? I’m pretty sure they are $25 tops at Ikea.

Thanks in advance for answering my questions!

xx

I’ve noticed some talk around the web about house buying in relation to getting married, as in, is it the next step? The boy and I already own a home (condo, to be exact). We do things a bit backwards in these parts. Still. We have been lusting after actual houses. With yards. I cannot begin to express how badly I want a yard to garden in. So even though the market is crap and we would lose a bit of money if we sold, our plan is to move to a house in the next year. We could make it up in the buying right? Logical?

Until you consider that this, at the bargin basement price of $469,000, is one of the lowest priced homes in our area. Go click on it.

Right? So obviously our plan needs a little tweeking. Something involving winning the lottery or writing a best selling novel and having it optioned off into a best selling movie.

I think I’ll get to work on that.

So, like other people, I watched the Super Bowl on Sunday and was annoyed by some of the commercials. But then I told myself that probably the writer(s) had been dumped recently. For a hotter, younger, more talented man. Who is better in bed. And I won’t kid you; I felt better inside.

And then I saw this, and it made me smile. Because unlike the aforementioned lame weenies, they got it right.

For the entire day I kept telling everyone that I wanted a SIMPLE dress. No pouf. No beading. No lace. White. Simple.

No one listened.

And then, miraculously, the sales woman did.

It was too simple.

Pretty much from the beginning, the boy and I have known that we wanted to go to Greece for our Honeymoon.  If we had unlimited funds, we would stay here.

{Mystique Hotel}

Thank you again for all the positive encouragement. The Internet can be great, you know? The boy and I spent the last few days talking and talking and talking and ultimately we decided to stick with our plan.

Ultimately, we want the people we love to be with us on that day, and many of them, whether because of money or health, wouldn’t be able to make the trip.

So we’re doing this! I hope, at the end of the day, we look like this.

{via SiriolG on Flickr}

When I was 14, I left home for boarding school. I took very little with me to remind me of home: a small bag of clothes, 4 or 5 of my favorite books, my cd player. As I grew older, I fell into the habit of carefully selecting only those things that mattered most to me to keep and letting everything else go.

By the time I left college that included 2 bags worth of clothes and shoes, 4-5 boxes of books, and my computer.

When I was 25, I lived in a tiny 500 square foot apartment with my then boyfriend. Our entire spare closet was filled with 8 boxes books. He gave me an ultimatum, get rid of the books, or else.

My books and I found a new apartment (and a new boyfriend).

3 years ago the boy and I bought our first home and I carefully packed up my then 12 boxes of books to move into our our (walk-in) utility closet. Over the next year they would overflow into our spare room, bedroom, and living room.

One day the boy suggested we build a bookcase and actually unpack the books. At which point I knew I would marry him.

I’m one of those people who never really feel at home in a place unless she’s surrounded by her books. At any given time I will have a handful of books on my nightstand, the end table next to the couch, on the kitchen counter and my desk. I am always wondering around the house picking things up to read and setting them down for later.

This weekend I will be taking some old friends down from my bookshelf. Probably like most kids, I found JD Salinger when I was around 13. I was a shy, cynical kid and in Holden, I found a friend. Many words, better words, have been written about Salinger’s passing. Instead, I’ll leave you with his words, which I stumbled upon, here.

“I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.”

Thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts last night. They boy and I are talking things through, trying to figure out what is best for us and our wallets.

Until then, it’s Friday! Let’s look at dresses.

Underwhelmed by the first shop, we headed to our second stop of the day, The Bridal Boutique. Even though I didn’t have an appointment, the ladies there were friendly and accomodating.

The first dress I tried on was Style 1351 by Mikaella and was the hands down favorite of all my friends. The sample I tried on was in the “champagne” color. It came with a removable lace bolero.


I really wanted to love this dress. Everyone was cooing and ahhing over it. The material and cut were fabulous. Still, I wasn’t crazy about the rusching or the lace and beading detail. It was also above my price range at $1800*. I could have bought the sample for less, but I wasn’t crazy about the champagne color.

In the end, though lovely, the dress didn’t feel like me.

*At this point in the game I was starting to realize that Hawaii stores mark up their dresses.

I’ve been holding back with you guys. You see, I’m having second thoughts.

Not about the marriage! But about the wedding. I fear, I don’t love the thought of my wedding. And it’s really my fault. This is what I chose. This is what I thought I wanted, when the word wedding was still fresh on my lips and the thought was but a wisp of possibilities. I’m not sure how I got here. If you would have asked me a year ago what I imagined my wedding to be, I would have said somewhere in Mexico, 30 people tops. We say our vows, we’d go out to dinner and then we’d spend the rest of our time lounging at the swim up bar sipping margaritas.

Emphasis on swim up bar and margaritas.

Instead I’m planning a 100 person event complete with tent, table, chairs, plates, forks, knives, linens and lighting rentals. The two caterers I’ve spoken to are saying there is no way to cater an event of my size and at my location for under $7k. I’m supposed to meet with florists next week and I don’t care. Somehow this wedding thing has become a runaway train and I’m not sure how I got on it, but I think I want off.

So here’s the deal. In all my craziness, I’ve sort of been crafting my dream alternate wedding in my head. It goes something like this. Sometime in July we fly ourselves and our wedding party to Cabo. We use the boy’s business miles to do this. The boy’s family (already planning on flying anyway) meets us there. We stay here and take advantage of one of it’s awesome packages (hello, $100 nightly dining credit!), get hitched in their lovely outdoor chapel, take everyone out to dinner, and drink as many margaritas as my little heart desires. I figure, we can do it all for less than 1/2 of what we’re planning to spend.

Thoughts?

So. I know I’ve professed my love for all things purple more than once here. Spoke of how I had been hunting high and low for purple frocks for my ladies to twirl in. Contemplated, with heavy heart, perhaps navy ones? While in the back of my mind thinking, nothing but lovely purple would do.

And then.

{via Priscilla of Boston}

Of course, these are all wrong in a number of ways. They are:

1. From a bridal store
2. $188
3. Not purple

I think I’m in love.

I have been sick, sick, sick the last two days so this is going to be choppy, at best. Last week we got into the nitty gritty planning of this shindig. Some of the highlights:

1. Catering is something we have put off because the boy is part owner of a newish bar/restaurant* and we had held out hope of using their kitchen. Alas, the infrastructure is not there to cater an event 30 miles away. I put out inquiries at the start of the week with the bright hope that we could get food and staffing for $3k. The first quote to come in politely informed me that STAFFING alone for a 100 person wedding would cost $3k. Here is where I’d like to pause. I am totally for paying an honest wage. But we are talking about a buffet dinner for 100 people. The “staffing” I was asking for would involve 7-8 wait staff to fill water glasses and clear plates for the duration of dinner. Let’s be generous and say for 4 hours. This roughly calculates to $93/hr. Of course the extra cost was because they were figuring in live action cook stations. Which I had not asked for. Moving on. Another company seems down to work with our meager budget (fingers crossed). Two others have yet to respond, one assumes, because they haven’t stopped laughing long enough to do so.
2. We went to a wedding expo this weekend and upon entering I was offered a bright pink sticker that said YES! I’m a BRIDE! No, I don’t think so.
3. Though I’m glad with our decision to not get married in a traditional space (hotel, banquet hall), renting the equipment is pricey. It doesn’t help that we are required to use a specific vendor so are sh*t out of luck when it comes to negotiating. Renting cups, plates, and utensils alone is looking to cost us upward of $400. We are looking to see if we can use our own things but if not are totally down with using disposable. I can’t really see anyone saying, gosh that would have been a nice wedding except for those paper plates.
4. We have a Day of Coordinator! I built them a website a short while ago so it’s basically a trade. Now to eye potential florists for the same deal.
5. There has been progress with the save the dates, which I will dedicate a post to soon.

* A lot more glamorous sounding than it actually is. It does mean, however, that our bar is going to be way cheap. Woot.

At this point I was sure I wasn’t buying anything from this store. First, the saleswoman kept making claims that were obviously untrue. Swarovski? 100% silk? Um, no. I have no problem with the lack of either. I DO have a problem when false claims are used to jack up the price of a dress. I’ve seen far nicer dresses at David’s for half the cost of what I was trying on.

Note to sales people, just because I am bride, does not mean I was born yesterday.

Sensing that she was losing a sale, the sale lady insisted I try on one of her picks. In her words, it was “perfect for me”.

Let’s take a look.

This dress made me feel…old. I also wasn’t loving the satin top/lace bottom combo. The flower sort of scared me. At least it made my butt look good.

I have been sort of in the dumps about this whole wedding thing this last week. I may have even, say this past weekend, researched the costs involved in chucking it all and flying to Mexico with a select group of people to get ‘er done.*

I, for one, am in need of some lightness today. In that vein, I’m asking you, dear readers, what are your favorite wedding  memories?

I’ll start. One of my favorite wedding memories is from a few years ago. It was later in the evening. The DJ is spinning “You Shook Me All Night Long” and one of our girl friends is getting down with the groom’s Aunt. Who happened to be a Nun. In a full habit, I might add.

I would also like to add that at this wedding there were no:

1. Centerpieces
2. Assigned tables
3. Favors
4. Monogrammed napkins
5. Streamers, pompadours, cafe lights, banners, ribbons, tablecloths

Still one of the best weddings I’ve ever been to.

*Flying to Mexico from Hawaii in the summer is crazy expensive. Like $1k a ticket. Boo.

Though I probably should have spent the past week working on:

1. Finalizing the guest list
2. Save the dates
3. Finding a caterer
4. And a DJ
5. Working

I instead gave my little blog a face lift. Because I’m nothing if not a master procrastinator.

Is it Friday already?!

As if I haven’t been counting down the days till the weekend. On to dresses!

Next up is this lovely number, also by Unknown. The saleslady was kind enought to inform me that the bling on the dress was REAL SWAROVSKI.

Hm.

After marathoning through Say Yes to the Dress, I was pretty positive I wanted an A-line dress. I’m not very tall and figured a mermaid cut would make me look like my legs were wee bitty stumps being attacked by tulle. The saleslady convinced me to try this shape, which she called a ‘fit and flare’. Let’s take a look.

The pros:

• Made me feel tall
• Fit well (helped along by the corset back)
• Gave me a waist!

The cons:

• Shiny
• Bling
• Corset back (I am partial to little buttons)
• Made me itch all over

Have I mentioned I’m extremely tactile? Fabulous fabric was #1 on my must list.

When I walked out in this dress, one of my friends leaned in to touch it and said, “Daaamn! That sh*ts like teflon!”

Exactly.

*This dress was $1k (the last was $800)

It’s been a weighty few days here folks. Let’s lighten the mood and talk about my potential Save the Dates! I have finally settled on a plan for them.

I think.

But first let me tell you how I got here (and thus, the title).

Starting out, I knew two things: 1) paper was going to be important. I LOVE paper and 2) I was going to attempt to do this myself. With that in mind, I scoured every blog imaginable.

My first love, Letterpress.

{by Bella Figura}

I’m a tactile person so I love, love Letterpress. Still, I couldn’t justify spending that much on STDs. Also, I giggled as I typed that. Because I’m 5.

Next, I fell in love with handkerchiefs. I’m sure we’ve all seen this one.

{via Martha Stewart, by Bird & Banner}

Whimsical, vintage, and so, so appropriate for a summer wedding. I would buy a Gocco! I would do it myself. I scoured eBay for days for vintage hankies and schemed. Then I mentioned my (already) elaborate plans to the boy and was shot down. Note to self, check with spouse before going whole hog on an idea he may deem “weird”.

Next up, maps (you see a trend here yes?). I love maps. Like this.

{by Haute Off The Press}

Except we aren’t really having a destination wedding, for which it seemed a better fit. And we really, didn’t want to raise the expectations of our out of town guests that they would be a getting A Hawaiian Wedding (shudder). We could use it for directions except we’re on an island. There is 1 road. People will know to find us by the balloons tied to the mailbox. Seriously.

Then, I was postive we should do something handrawn.

{by Rifle Paper Co.}

The Boy could make the drawings. He does, after all, have a degree in art. How unique*! Even though he hasn’t sketched in years and we have 0 space right now for him to use as a studio and…

At that point I shelved the idea completely and proceeded to ignore it.

Stupid STDs.

Paper shmaper.

Then one day last week, at lunch, I mentioned an idea I had been playing with on and off for months and his face lit up. Can you believe it was really the very first idea I had? Before I discovered letterpress and rode the insanity train around the blogsphere?

I’ll tell you all about it in another post.

*Hearing the word unique when tauted by the WIC always makes me think of this.

Today, Cupcake Wedding wrote this honest post about divorce, and I thought I would put my thoughts down here because this is something that has been on my mind lately.

That isn’t something you can say to people, in real life, without them asking if there is A Problem or if I’m Having Second Thoughts.

The answer is no, to both.

Both the boy and I come from broken homes. Odds are, we are carrying around some of that baggage with us. Like most, deep seated emotional issues, I wonder if it will rear it’s ugly head when I least expect it. I also wonder why some marriages work and some fail. My oldest friend is going through a divorce. 5 years ago I stood up and witnessed their vows. Life is like that sometimes.

Still, I believe we can make this work.

I also believe it takes effort. That means, having the hard conversations but also, listening. I also think it means not losing yourself. I’m going to totally go against what the media sells here, but the whole “you complete me” stuff (while romantic) is nonesense. If you’re looking for another person to complete you, define you, fulfill you, you’re going to fail. That’s crippling responsibility to lay on another person. I hear too many conversations about lost identity and repressing ones own needs for their husband (or kids). I watched my own parents marriage dissolve because of this. Therefore, I am vowing to make myself a priority.

I am also vowing to make my man a priority. Too many couples lose sight of each other because of everyday life (work, kids, etc). We stop courting each other when we’ve been together for too long.

I think the vows we make on our wedding day is only a starting point. We’ll continue to make vows, large and small, for the rest of our lives. We’ll live by some, we’ll break others. We’ll compromise. I guess, at the end of it, the best we can do is try the best we can, and hope for the best.

Weddings are, after all, about Hope, yes?

Your thoughts?

Come wedding day, I’m pretty sure he’s going to steal the show.

I am about to jinx myself people. Today, I took a moment to assess where we are in our wedding planning and how I’m dealing. And I think I’m OK.

Which of course means that the world is going explode in T-minus 30 seconds.

But before it does I thought I would talk about another sort of wedding stress. The sort that nearly had my head exploding, oh, a million times last week. I’m talking about the pressure to have your significant other be an eager, willing, communicative partner in the wedding marriage planning.

I say this not as snark. Some of my favorite blogs are the ones that make me stop and think about what marriage means. Why am I doing this? What do I want out of it? For a girl who could make sitting and pondering a career (life-path?) this is tempting stuff. Crack, even.

The boy is much more of a fly by the seat of his pants, take life as it comes sort of guy. It will all work out, is his motto. The first time I asked what his thoughts were on our marriage, he gave me a blank stare. As far as he is concerned, he thought about whether we should get married; he decided yes, and he’s ready to party. I love him for this. I love that he pulls me out of my head.

Still, sometimes, like say, last week, I can’t help but wish he would talk about this stuff with me. This stuff that has consumed my thoughts for the last three months. To be honest, I could give a rat’s butt about colors or flowers or details. We both have a fairly clear vision of what we want. I do care about what this all means. I want it to work with a fiercness I’ve never felt before. My parents divorced when I was 16 and it was knock down, dragged out, ugly. I damn well don’t want to ever go through that again.

And there I said it. My greatest fear. The word you don’t speak on wedding blogs. So I sort of melted down last week. I did it quietly, sitting alone on the bathroom floor, reassuring myself that the boy and I are not my parents, that we are not doomed if he doesn’t feel the need to discuss the Big Stuff with me*. I reminded myself of the million reasons why we work.

And today I feel refreshed. Undaunted by the mountain of to do’s we have piling up. I feel, dare I say it? Ready to conquer the world even. Which I better get to, before it explodes.

Do you and your partner talk about the Big Marriage stuff?

*Though the boy isn’t a big talker, he is an excellent listener.

I know what you’re thinking. Enough with the rambling already! Where are the pictures?

I thought I would borrow a page from Mouse and draw out the process, because I had so much fun reading through hers. So, I’m going to declare Friday dress day!

First up is this lovely number by Unknown. Unknown because the kind lady who helped me into it wouldn’t tell me who it was by. She did, however, insist it was 100% silk.

It wasn’t.

On, it felt like a small child had flung itself at me and was hanging on for dear life. Also, it was shiny. Not good shiny. And then, of course, it gave me clam boobs. The positives were it gave me a waist, where I don’t really have one.

*It actually photographed better than it looked in person.
**I have on 4 in heels with this and it’s still too long

Missed part 1? Go here.

My first day of dress shopping was a mix of highs and lows. On the positive side, I’m grateful for the experience and for all the ladies who obviously loved me enough to do a wonderful thing for me, even if it totally wasn’t what I would have wanted. It was, if not fun at the time, something I’ve been able to look back on and think of as funny. Which is something right?

On the negative side, a lot of my friends have been hurt by the current economy. It seemed almost crass to go shopping for an insanely overpriced dress when most of the ladies had lost their jobs or were under-employed.* Silly as it is to some, a beautiful dress is extremely important to me. The boy and I had agreed upon a number ** long before hand that we were comfortable with and I wasn’t going to apologize for it. So, most of our day was clouded by the elephant in the room – the budget.

Ultimately, I didn’t buy a dress that day. First, because pretty much every dress was exactly NOT what I was looking for. Hawaii has not gotten the memo that classic, non-princess-pouf dresses are actually chic. Second, because I simply couldn’t deal with the scrutiny and comments over my budget. Some of the best:

• That if I spent less we could invite all the people we were “leaving out”. (The boy and I are inviting exactly all the people we want there)
• That if I spent less we wouldn’t have to “be cheap” and not do favors. (I think favors are stupid)
• That if I spent less we could have real flowers for the bridesmaid bouquets. (I could give a crap about bouquets that will be dropped on a table and forgotten the moment the ceremony ends)

So. No dress. Also, people are crazy opinionated.

*one of the reasons I wanted to go shopping alone, actually
** $1,500

I stumbled upon this interview today, which I found via Recycled Bride, with Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the wildly popular Eat, Pray, Love detailing her new book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage. I should preface this by saying, I loved Eat, Pray, Love; read it three times even. Her new book looks even better (and timely for us brides to be and newly weds).

From the interview:

CNN: After writing this book do you still feel that marriage is “suffocating and old-fashioned and irrelevant”?

Gilbert: It can be. It also doesn’t need to be.
What I did find after all this work was that it’s a far more complicated story than I thought it was.

What I’ve discovered is that it’s not so much a boxy, rigid institution, but a thousands-of-years-old, ever-evolving, liquid, flexible, malleable social science experiment that we are still very much tinkering with and that people will tinker with for as long as there’s such a thing as institutionalized couplehood.
I feel more like I’m part of something that’s very old and interesting rather than having been shoved into a container that doesn’t fit me.

Exactly. Can’t wait to read it.

Growing up, I was what you would call a “tomboy”. I refused to wear dresses. My hair was always an unruly mess. I had eyebrows that would have made George Clooney, pre-fame, pause. My very brief affair with makeup ended in the 9th grade when a boy laughed at my pink lip gloss. If two words could sum up my adolescence it would be Band President.

Though it’s been 14 years since high school, I think there is some truth in the saying that you never truly leave your inner 13 year old behind. I tell you this so you understand where my head was at when approaching dress shopping. On the one hand, dresses (and fashion as a whole) and I have come a long, long way (LOVE pretty dresses). On the other, I’m still most comfortable in jeans, my hair is still (on most days) an unruly mess, and I only wear makeup on special occasions. I am NOT a girly girl.

Imagine my surprise then, when almost every dress I earmarked to try on was covered in bows. Big, honking, obscene bows. After nearly 32 years of being repressed, my inner priss was ready to party.

Let’s look at some examples, yes?

{via Vera Wang}

The purple dress still kills me. Sadly, my budget doesn’t include Vera Wang. But, with evidence in hand, I set the following criteria for my dress hunt:

• Clean lines
• Un-embellished
• Fabulous material
• Felt like “me”

I thoroughly intended to do this shopping on my own, because I hate shopping with people. I do most of my shopping online because I hate shopping with people around even. I hate a big fuss. I also may have been a teeny bit intimidated by all the evilness I saw occurring on Say Yes to the Dress. I didn’t want to defend my obsession with bows, or have to hear yet another person remark that they really couldn’t picture me in a wedding dress.

A few weeks after coming to the above conclusions, one of my bridesmaids hijacked me for a day of boozed up dress shopping with a huge a** entourage of ladies who proceeded to shove me into sparkly, polyester messes.

Best laid plans, right?