And then 12 months turned into 9 months, and 9 months dwindled down to 2 and we woke up one day thinking, “How IS this all going to fall into place?”

My ambition and enthusiasm never ceases to amaze me. Somehow it made sense to me back in August of 2007 that I could plan this wedding while embarking on senior year chemical engineering courses. I also convinced myself that since my fiance was starting a new job by then, he would have loads saved up in time for the new year. And lastly, something persuaded me into thinking that his family would be able to help us financially. That alone may have been one of the biggest mistakes in this.

So without further explanation, the date has been moved back to May-ish 2009. We still dream of getting married at the location we found in Homestead, Florida and hopefully it will be when the gardens are blooming. (We were told that was during the summer.) Hopefully, this extra year of planning will allow us to really get past the debt from recent graduation and relocation. I’ll start my job in August, my fiance will continue his throughout this whole time and we’ll just have to be patient.

As for the trip to France, it’s still on. Tickets have been paid for and it’s too late to turn around now. It’s become more of a graduation last hoorah and less of a bachelorette trip. (Fine by me.) But expect a few changes here and there around this blog. With a new perspective on this major event in my life should come a new look to the overall feel and functionality of this site. Thanks for sticking around for the ride this past year. Here’s to the upcoming (better) 12 months.

The original destination for this trip was Los Angeles, California. That was mostly due to how I was celebrity-crazy after meeting BJ Novak from The Office. What can I say? I was happy he won the Dundee Award for sexiest employee. Two of my bridesmaids and I concocted this plan to hit up Hollywood and take pictures with as many celebs as we could. If celebrity gossip blogs are any indication, we could get pictures with just about anyone and everyone so long as we hang around. That plan fizzled out after we thoroughly thought it out and noticed that it’s pretty expensive to spend a few days in LA. We may as well spend the money on a trip to Europe. Great idea!

So we opened up Google maps, closed our eyes and pointed to a random destination. The rest is history. (Or at least that’s the more dramatic, adventurous, if-money-was-no-object-I-would-do-it way.)

Actually, what we really did involve Google maps, but then we also opened up about 25 browser windows connected to numerous travel sites that offered deals and discounts. We compared costs of spending a few days in Spain versus those same days in Italy versus those same days in France. If there’s anything that our senior design course has taught it’s that you can just b.s. your way through anything cost comparison is key. After hours of weighing pros and cons of each destination, we went with Paris, France. Maybe it’s because none of us have been there before or because we really like French wines, but this does seem to be the perfect place to visit before we graduate. And that’s the other part to this trip.

Turns out one of my bridesmaids will not be attending my wedding since her family has travel plans during the month of July. Normally, it could be worked out, but they plan to travel through North Korea and those kinds of visits are really difficult to plan out. Add to that the cost of a round-trip plane ticket from Seoul, South Korea to Miami, Florida and it’s looking like we better do something together now before we part ways. So this trip is more than a bachelorette  party. It’s also our celebration that, despite all odds, we made it to graduation. We kicked some butt and took some names. We rolled with the punches and made it out alive from the underbelly of Olin Hall.

If anyone has any advice as to where to go in Paris, stuff we shouldn’t leave without checking out, food we should try (or avoid), or anything else, please let me know. Like I said above, none of us have been to Paris. It’s going to be quite the experience and we’re up for doing as much as we can in the span of 3 days.

I had forgotten there was such a thing until a classmate asked me about it. She finds weddings very important and the song that you dance to as a married couple carries significant weight with her. I guess I can see that. Nearly all the romantic comedies dealing with weddings make a big deal about this song. In “The Wedding Planner” J.Lo pointed out how Fran’s wedding was doomed from the moment she chose teal as the color for the bridesmaid dresses and Olivia Newton John’s “I Honestly Love You.” Ok, so maybe this is the only movie I can remember so clearly, but I’m sure other rom-coms have married couples who fight about the wedding song and oh-my-gosh how could you not remember what our wedding song was? It’s similar to the usual fight seen in movies of the couples who make a big fuss about “their song”, you know, that day they met and sparks flew and they kissed and fell in love. Bad example coming up, but it’s the only one I can think of: Adam Sandler and Kate Beckinsale in the movie “Click” showed how important that song was. He practically saved his marriage by recalling it!

Not to get all sappy, or show the full extent of my useless pop culture knowledge, but I think I should devote time to choosing this song before we end up dancing to the Macarena as newlyweds in front of nearly 100 guests. I know I don’t want something too slow or cryptic either. I want something that says, “we’re married and this song speaks our joy.” Even though it hasn’t been approved by the groom, I like Jack Johnson’s music. In particular, I like “We’re Better Together.” Does it sound wedding appropriate? Maybe not, but it does have the message I would like to convey and it sounds kinda summery, which guess what season contains July?

Anyway, my choice in a song is limited by my musical taste and lack of time to listen through entire rows of artists at the music store. Have you any suggestions on a romantic song that’s danceable? I’m not looking to waltz or do the foxtrot, just the typical high school slow dance. That is, unless we can cram in a full week’s worth of swing dance lessons before the big day. But then it would look like we’re performing in a dance competition being judged for our style, rhythm and on-stage chemistry. Scratch that. I’m keeping it simple.

I tried calling Guy over the phone to see if he was being serious or joking because, over the time I knew him and saw him, he was more of the joking type even with serious subjects. This is the person who wanted to name his research paper in English class, “Ebola: Friend or Foe?” the same person who made me laugh after saying the most ridiculous things that came to his mind. In truth, there was even a time when I thought we could go out because, as I later found out, he had a small crush on me and I felt similarly towards him. I share all this because I saw it as reason enough to want to continue a friendship over the years regardless of where life took each of us and where we were geographically. I was wrong. Although I should have taken the unreturned phone calls as a sign, I just saw it as, “He’s being his usual lazy self, not keeping in touch.” What I had to find out from a third party is that Guy really doesn’t want me in his life in any way, shape or form anymore. I don’t “add value.” Furthermore, my religious views are so contrary to what he believes that he sees no way that we could discuss anything else worth discussing.

I would like to know what he thinks my beliefs are. I really would because I’ve never shared with him what I believe in for him to make such a judgement.

So why write about this on my wedding blog? What does this have to do with my planning? Well, aside from finding all this out right as I was trying to invite him to my wedding, I write about it here in order to lay out how my (apparently) irrational beliefs will not be the focus on the wedding. If I was as close-minded as he claims I am, I would not have 90% of the guest list I have now. This isn’t to get defensive about my faith and be all, “Hey hey, I don’t really take that stuff so seriously anyway,” because the truth is I take it very seriously. My stance is that I will not apologize for what I believe in, likewise I don’t expect anyone to apologize for what they believe in. That Guy is a hardcore atheist is his choice and I at no point expected an apology. At the same time, I didn’t heckle or bash him for his faith or lack thereof. I didn’t tell him that he is going to hell or pester him with why he should believe what I believe.

This is the attitude my fiance and I have taken with our ceremony: Yes, it is a Christian ceremony with pastor or priest, but that is the only religious part of the whole event. Most people seem fine with that. To think that neither of us wanted to get married in a church or place of worship says enough. I’ve gone further and explained to my parents why I won’t do anything with rosaries or churches or long drawn out religious acts. In essence, we are planning a wedding that will not have many people who agree with our views on the world, but can be happy for us as our lives are united in a ceremony that means a lot to us.

There is so much more that I would like to say about this mess, but that I feel wouldn’t add value to the discussion regarding my wedding. The end of the story with Guy is I see now how very serious he is with his opinion regarding me and my “religious BS,” and, still, I let him know that if he ever wants to contact me again, I’ll be available. Unlike him, I don’t measure people’s worth with how much value they add to my life based on how much we agree on certain topics.

As much as I would like to post up a picture, I’m afraid that my fiance would have a fit. We keep having this debate that goes along the lines of:

Me: Let me show you the dress and how beautiful it is!

Him: No! Don’t you know it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride’s dress?

Me: That only applies when she’s got it on the day of the wedding.

Him: NoOooOoo. That applies always. I shouldn’t even see what OPTIONS for dresses you were considering.

This may all be a ploy to get him out of helping with wedding-related decisions, but he’s been pretty serious about it all. He didn’t want to see how the dresses compared or how much they cost. He was ok with me getting the one that would tally up to $800 after accessories like the veil and underskirt, which doesn’t help because I know he’s not being rational. Spend $800 on my gown alone? I’d rather go lower and spend the difference on the honeymoon trip.

But that’s the other part of this gown hunt. It is incredible how much stores will charge you for things like a bra or a shoulder-length veil which isn’t much more than mosquito netting. I was offered the “special price” of $50 for the bra with 10% discount and $75 for the veil also with a 10% discount. Oh and as it turns out, you know how in movies you see the bride with the veil on her face before she meets the groom and then the groom (or her dad, I don’t really know) lifts the veil off her face? That isn’t the veil I’m talking about. THAT is a separate piece. So the “back” veil that was most reasonable to me cost $70 and the “blusher” as they call it, was $20. A longer veil with fake crystals on the edges was only $180… or more. (No thanks). I skipped on their particular bra because it offered nothing special as far as my silhouette under the dress and I made sure to listen to my conscience. Like I said, I would have loved loved LOVED a big dress with the bustles and a corset and a full length veil with fancy details on the edges, but that bundle would have been too much to pay off AFTER it was all said and done. I need to remember that I’m just a recent college grad without my first career paycheck.

So yes, I have a dress. Now it is even more official. Only a few more steps to wrap this up, like bridesmaid dresses and accessories, flowers, caterer, cake, tent, favors, registry, etc.

All that aside, I have a simplified outlook on this mess and, sadly, it revolves around one key factor: Money. The green, the cash, el dinero, der… geez, I forgot all the German I learned in two semesters-worth. Das Geld. There we go. In the melodious words of Wyclef: I’ma tell you, like Wu told me, cash rules everything around me. (Dollah dollah bill, y’all.)

Seriously though, we know the most important part about getting married is that we have a solid foundation for marriage. Christian and I love each other and we share similar views on faith, career, children and life in general. We’ve had that for years now. What we have yet to get is the means by which we can embark on our life together. Moving in together and leaving the marriage detail for later is not an option.

All we can do is just bide our time and try to plan around the financial aspect. One of the things that has taken shape quickly is the guest list. Our first guestimate was 60 to 70 guests. Then it went up to 80. Currently, it’s pushing 100 and that’s also going to push our budget. The cap has been set at 100 though, for better or for worse.

When we first sat down and just threw out names of who we would like to invite, we wondered, “Can we really think of 60 people who we really want to show up?” The funny thing is that when you start writing the names down and account for their +1’s that also know you, the list gets long in a matter of minutes. Most of the list is made up of friends, so at least in our case there are no worries about imposing mothers who want to invite all the relatives she can think of AND her canasta friends. Luckily our moms don’t play canasta so no worries there. Instead we thought about the people who throughout the past 6 years of our relationship have been more than acquaintances. Then that narrows down to people who we can call friends in the sense that, let’s say we’re stuck in La Guardia airport because of a horrible mid-March snow storm, these people would drive out there from Ithaca, pick us up and take us to a warm house to wait out the storm for a couple of days. (This is just an example, not to be applied to all the people we know.) But yes, the process for the guest list has been given serious thought only because, if we could, we’d invite 90% of the people we’ve met upon entering Cornell. I’d end up with something like 100 guests made up by class of 2008 ChemEs, other Cornellians, interns I met at Kraft and friends from back home. Christian would contribute something like 1,000 guests from all his info sci friends, facebook buddies, coworkers, internship pals and people he met at conferences in between. This isn’t to say that all these people would want to show up, but assuminig that 80% of the guest list actually attends, we’d need to reserve all 38 acres at the Fruit and Spice Garden to comfortable party with these peeps. All I can think of is this man I met at one of my internships who told me about when he got married. He said that back in those days (and where he’s from) you had to practically invite the whole town because your wedding was announced in the paper and that usually meant everyone would find out the when and where and take it as a general invitation. I can’t remember how many people attended his wedding but it was several hundred— the number 750 rings a bell, but I could be making that up. Anyway, he said they went cheap with the reception by doing a pig roast and some other money-saving ideas and the total came out to be less than $10,000. Everyone enjoyed themselves, everyone ate and drank and I was left wondering why the dollar no longer buys as much as back in those good old days.

Anyway, musings aside, the guest list: it’s tough, it’s laborious. It’s almost like America’s Next Top Model or American Idol with so many hopefuls and so few winning spots. And who wouldn’t want to compete for the chance to see Christian and me tie the knot?? Come on.**

*I made up this statistic, but doesn’t it sound so credible? Part of my job as a plant designer in my senior ChemE course.

**Totally kidding. If anything, it would be more like Project Runway or Top Chef because we’d be more interested in inviting people who could make me a wedding dress and/or provide ideas for catering.

I have to tell you, for all my rambling of what am *I* going to do with planning The Wedding, it really has been helpful to get the groom-to-be involved. I have to give credit where it is due. The truth is that once I went off the deep-end during December with trying to reason out our budget with what we want, Christian stepped up and focused his efforts on finding us a venue. He almost found the perfect one with Pinecrest Gardens, but with further research he came across the one I have fallen in love with: The Fruit and Spice Park.

With something like 39 acres these days, it boasts an impressive variety of fruit and spice flora and so much space that I won’t even know what to do with it all. We got a tour of most of the grounds and while some plants were not even near blooming, these were the ones that would be blossoming during the summer — hopefully making the ambience that much more magical.

The herb garden was under a lot of work when we showed up. Mostly greens and browns, but the park manager described what plants were expected to bloom there by the summer. Normally, I would be skeptical about venue managers who try to sell you the place based on what it will look like months later after some work, but with after visiting Cornell’s herb garden during different seasons, I can trust that plants do really work that way. All gorgeous and fragrant during one season and all dead-looking and sad during another. I do believe this will work out once July rolls around.

We also viewed different open spaces that have been used for ceremonies in the past. They have this cute little mound that, hypothetically, could be really romantic as the location for the altar or whatever it’s called where the bride and groom meet. Christian disagrees though, since it would make it strange to have the guests cramped around it. It would likely be more fitting for a DJ or band as it has been used before I think. (more…)

Through the awesome powers of the interweb, Christian found Pincecrest Gardens, a location that brought back childhood memories once I got there because lo and behold, this was where Parrot Jungle and Gardens used to be before they decided to find a larger space to contain the birds and plants and the kids who go crazy for them.

This park offers a few different locations based on how much space is needed and how elaborate you want to make your event, but what I couldn’t understand is why one of the locations, called the lakeview terrace, looks so spacious in photographs and feels so cramped when you stand in it. Is it me? Have I gotten that wide that my perception of space is altered? I didn’t take a picture of said terrace, but it essentially looks just like their hallways: (more…)