I'm in love!

So we're back from the shower, we survived (let me tell ya driving a total of 16 hours for a 4 hour shower seems a bit lopsided in the end), and our apartment looks like a packing store exploded right now.

I'll get to the pictures and the shower stories as the pictures trickle in and I get over the post traumatic stress. Instead I want to talk about my new love.
For our decorations we'd decided that what we'll do for the most part is try to use various family and friends halloween decorations. It adds a nice little touch to have decorations we used to see and maybe play with when we were little for our reception as well as it's the best price ever and something we can give back when done (no more donating the centerpieces to very fancy soup kitchens).

While looking through his mothers decorations she brought out this pumpkin light. It's brass and looks a lot like an antique lamp from the back, then when you turn it around it's got the super cool pumpkin grin. I love it so much I kinda wish I could find a few more and scatter them around the place, but the sticker underneath says it's from Turkey so I fear it would be a wild goose chase.

Instead we're thinking we'll pair it up with that spider lamp and maybe put it on the bar or the cake table.

Has anyone else made some just really cool finds that they love? For that rare one item piece what are you going to do with it?

Beep!

This is blabs answering machine. She is currently out of the area but to entertain you here are some fun images.

Think of it as a game. Using keywords from our planning I take the first google image picture and display it for all to see.

1. Wedding date2. Halloween Wedding

3. Type of wedding dress4. bouquet color4. Color of bridesmaid dress5. Colors6. Centerpieces7. Invitations
8. Favors
9. Hair style10. Jewelry11. Grooms attire12. Ceremony location13. Reception locale14. Get away car

It's scrubberin' time

Tomorrow we're heading due east to attend his sides shower. I've been a bit nervous about this one ever since his mom decided she was gonna do it. His family is the type where etiquette and "what was done before" is vital (some may also be really pissed that I'm not catholic so this could get really interesting). I'm more the type of person where even if it was done before, if it makes no sense to me I'm not gonna do it. But we've been making some consolations (I've even included the tissue paper in the invites).

Is it bad too when the shower is gonna be fancier than the wedding? Even the invitations have one of those ribbons and overlays while ours are just laser printed. And it's in one of those really fancy restaurants I just don't fit into (I'm more a throwing peanut shells on the floor kinda girl, they don't seem to really like that at Panera), so I also got to get into a dress and get all glammed up.

So in honor of my "slight" fears of this whole thing I present the worst of bridal showers.

• First off are the worst bridal shower gifts. I doubt I have to worry about anything like this, I'm more concerned about how my friends will try to embarrass me. They're pros at it
• Games, I have never seen a good shower game. They all seem either pointless (who cares what I have in a purse I don't carry?) painful (clothespins, really?) or confusing (celeb couples should be left far far away from a real wedding). For the really dull here's a drinking game turned tame.
• Favors, I can't really think of much to say but some in this list just horrify me.
• The etiquette, all these stupid things you are expected to know to do just because someone somewhere decided it was so.
  
• We'll just try to ignore the T word. I don't think that anything shower related is tacky (except for that new body lotion/glue hybrid) it's just not all for me.

The first shower I ever attended I actually planned for my Matron of Honor. I had no idea what I was doing, no idea what was required of me, but I like to think it was a success as no old ladies beat me over the head with their giant purses (I have a fear of old ladies, I can't help it).

Hopefully I'll be back Monday with lots to share, and maybe some advice on how to survive a shower attended mostly by people you don't know all staring at you just to make sure you don't suddenly bolt or something.

A million monkeys at a million typewriters

We've begun searching for some readings for our ceremony. We don't really have any poems or essays that are us or that we love (but if anyone knows any good quotes from Discworld I'd love to hear those, we really bonded over Reaper Man in our early days). For me I lean less towards the poetry from the romantic period (I hate those damn daffodils) and more towards Swift and Pope. I don't think that Heloise to Abelard or Rape of the Lock would go over very well at a wedding (never mind Gulliver's Travels).

So in trying to keep it more traditional and to not freak out the catholic side anymore we've been looking for some bible readings. I don't want to do 1 Corinthians, everyone does it and it really is too sappy for us.

A lot of people use various passages from Song of Solomon, but I remember my first introduction to that book was from watching a program called "The History of Sex" and I do agree with them. It sounds a bit racy to me.

Instead I found a simple prayer from a book I don't know (it's only in the Catholic bible as it is all about an angel and a guy, not sure if they fight crime or not). It's Tobit 9:5-7.

"She got up, and they started to pray and beg that deliverance might be theirs. He began with these words:
'Blessed are you, O God of our fathers; praised be your name forever and ever.
Let the heavens and all your creation praise you forever.
You made Adam and you gave him his wife Eve
to be his help and support; and from these two the human race descended.
You said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone;
let us make him a partner like himself.'
Now, Lord, you know that I take this wife of mine not because of lust,
but for a noble purpose.
Call down your mercy on me and on her,
and all us to live together to a happy old age."

The passage comes about because apparently every time this womans parents try to marry their daughter off the guy dies and it's happened 7 times, so that's why they're hoping Tobiah doesn't bite the big one. (Eventually the angel defeats the deamon, I think. At least he makes a quick trip to Egypt, possibly to get some souveniers.)

I like it for the fact that while you do get some mention of Adam and Eve there is no rib stuff, no real "the woman is lower because of such and such" and who doesn't like to hope to live to a happy old age?

For another reading we might have COLOSSIANS 3:12-17, (well unless someone comes up with a good Pratchett quote) or we might keep looking.

Is anyone else circling the drain trying to come up with something to be read at their ceremony? So much emphasis is put on everything else about the wedding it's really hard to google up anything about the actual ceremony part.

We're still looking for a good hymn to sing at the wedding as well (we methodists loves our singing) and if anyone knows anything good for the catholic crowd that would be much appreciated.

But really, anyone got anything from Death on love and marriage?

There may be some jelly beans too

Waay back when Easter stuff was first getting out we poked our noses around and found some really cute baskets; one green, one blue. That in total came to a cost of about $7. Much better deal than the $30- $40 ones that are just white.

And they've been sitting on our "wedding table" (which is actually the empty box that originally held our grill) ever since the crazy early Easter this year. For some reason this weekend I decided that I had to fancy up the baskets.

So we made a trip to Michaels (which has all of its fall stuff out, we had a raven that kept falling of off its shelf so we decided it wanted to come home with us. It's sitting on our bookshelf right now so I feel a lot like poe) and picked up some ribbon and some of those little flowers. I never really was sure what those little flowers were for but they sure are fun, especially the really little clay roses.

This is the final result:Lucky for me I needed very little glue (especially since we don't have a hot glue gun only rubber cement or super glue). I just wrapped the little flowers around the top and then wound the ribbon around it all (though I did at first forget what I wanted to do with the flowers and was over half way done with the blue one before I had to turn around and do it again).

I sealed off the last bit of ribbon with rubber cement (yeah don't do that, he he he) and then super glue, and for the um basket part I formed a bow (which was also a learning experience) and again glued that to the basket (all super glue this time). And since I had some leftover flowers I just sort of jammed them through the slots in the basket and wrapped the wire in and out so they'll stand up.

The end results are very girly and weddingy I think. And I didn't have to spend a bunch of money on something that is essentially a plant refuse holder.

I present our cake

At least a drawn concept of it. (I do keep my promises even if it takes me a long time to get around to it) The inside part is pretty simple, the top and bottom layer are a white cake with a chocolate buttercream frosting (fondant is evil!) and the middle layer is yellow cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. All of it has a raspberry filling (and even though my birthday is coming up I hope I don't have to eat anymore cake til the wedding, that cake tasting was a lot and then some).

It was actually designed all by my guy. He had the idea to incorporate some hidden halloween ideas into it. So we have the bottom that has those fancy bottom loops thing in white and then if there were some small spiders (drawn much bigger as I can't draw). Then the middle layer would have some leaves blowing in the wind and hidden in there outlined in blue would be some ghosts. Finally the last layer would have stars/moons/clouds to give a spooky fall night feel.

It's nice that my guy got a chance to add his own creative spin to something very weddingish, and we didn't have to spend hours flipping through their cake books and debating which one looked nice (it was long and hard enough doing that for the tuxes). Our baker also threw in some really good ideas (like the ghosts outlined in blue).

In the end, if you want to go outside the white on white box of a wedding cake go for it! Ask your guy (what guy doesn't love food and frosting?) and especially get some input from your baker. It (so far) has worked out great for us.

Nerdy Counseling

In honor of our recent counseling talk with the minister (and the fact I am a huge nerd) I give you MST3K: Are you ready for marriage.

Don't sweat the small stuff

Or I don't give a crap where everyone sits.

There is an assumption that once a person becomes a bride they are instantly immensely concerned with every little detail and making sure everything is perfect, perfect, PERFECT! Even when we met with the minister last night she asked how we pictured a "perfect wedding." My response, "We plan on something going wrong and by the end of the day as long as we're married and no one is in jail it's a success."

Trying to be perfect is just going to cause lots of headaches and ulcers so I've given up control of aspects that really don't matter for us. One of the going against the grain ideas is that I have the full confidence that my guests can in fact find a seat all by themselves and there will be very few fights over it.

We aren't going to have any ushers really. For when we do require one (mothers or someone who has troubles) we have the groomsmen. It'll keep them occupied so they aren't going on a beer run right before. There might even be some encouragement for people to sit on whichever side they want. I fear at this point if we went the traditional bride and groom side the church we'd have a protestant vs. catholic game (no rubber bands).

And then when it comes time to the reception I haven't thought long and hard about how to make some adorable place card, a fancy table number thing, and then make a fancy list by the door so everyone knows where they sit. Which also means I don't have to look forward to hours spent scrutinizing over the seating chart and deciding if Aunt Bertha can be trusted next to his Uncle Herman.

To me, they can make conversation with the people they sit next to or not. They can sit in the back or up by the front depending on their preference. And that way we're less likely to snub someone by putting such and such closer to the couple than others (I've seen that happen a few times in my family).

Plus now we have the freedom to on the day of decide if we want a table here or there, it doesn't have to follow any set map or plan, we can just wing it (And at this point we've got more of a horseshoe/last supper table look going on so there are no bad seats). Even though it may wind up giving all those etiquette bees a heart attack this is just one less thing we're going to work and sweat over.

I only painted my fingers a bit

When we first got engaged my Mother was chomping at the bit to get something done, so I thought it'd be really cool if she could design a cake topper that looked a bit like us. When I was younger she'd always take greenware, shape it, then gloss it and have it fired. I thought that would look really cool, and wouldn't be something we'd have to worry about for months.

So imagine my surprise when she shows up in January toting a gigantic and over the top cake thing complete with tulle and white beads (we have the same issue right now with our unity candle that is probably gonna get re-tooled). At first I figured we could work with it, but then after meeting with our baker to design our cake (more on that later after I make some fun photoshop stuff) and realizing that our cake is going to be more simple and also have some halloween touches there was no way this thing would work.

Instead I went out and got myself a more simple but not too bad topper (Call me old school or tacky but I always kinda liked the bride and groom ones. We don't have any flowers planned at the reception so that wasn't an option and I have a deep hatred of song birds).
But it doesn't really look like us. So I took out my paintbrush, some toothpicks and got to work. The first thing I did was change the pink flowers to blue (pink and I do not get along well), I also changed the color of the brides hair to match mine a bit more and then added glasses to both of them.
Then, after giving the tux a green vest, I got down to the fun stuff. I took some cardstock and rolled it into a cone and glued a bit of the fabric from my tail to it and attached that to the bride. For the groom, using a steady hand, I painted on some Groucho eyebrows and a mustache (no idea how to add a cigar).
I think it turned out really cool. They still don't quite look like us but it sure is a lot closer (and the glasses were insanely hard to do). My friends already think I'm crazy so this should just be another nail in the coffin.

How about the rest of you? You guys doing anything different for a cake topper?

Don't do as I do

This weekend I got it in my head that I should start to put the invitations together. We're not ready to address them but I thought, hey it'd be easier if we already have everything in that first envelope (maybe that's why they encourage two).

As I was on about my third stuffing I realized that we had completely forgotten something, stamps for the RSVP's! And this was late on a saturday when all post offices would be closed. So my guy and I formulated a plan to get $20 from a bank and then go to a local retail store to buy postcard stamps.

We knew it was gonna be a bad day when the sky was pitch black at 8 AM and raining pumas and wolves. But still we left earlier than usual and I taught my guy how to use a drive up ATM (don't ask) and we discovered that it was all out of money or something. There was a major error that may have had something to do with all the rain and hair that got into it a few hours earlier.

After church (which we did make on time, I fear what they'd do to you if you're late to mass but I imagine it involves holding dictionaries for some reason) we headed to the local mall to pick up a groomsman gift that we'd had personalized the day before (and also stopped at a hobby store to get Star Munchkin) and stopped in the middle of the food court to try to get that ATM to work. (Though we could have used that money we just got to ride the carousel in the middle of the mall there was too long of a line)

Then after a few wrong turns (I hate those stupid islands) we eventually got to Shopko where we found a huge pallet with some deck chairs on it in the the way. We moved the thing out of the way and found the only option for postcards is a set of 10 and we needed 80 total stamps. So began a long trial and error of putting in B2, having the machine make its whirring noise, spit out a set as well as a horde of dollar coins, putting those back in, and starting all over again.

I'm pretty sure when it comes time to get ourselves the invitation stamps we'll definetly go to the post office, even if I suddenly decide we need them at midnight on the fourth of July.

I'm not as think as you drunk I am

This weekend we finalized the menu at our reception locale. Not a big deal, we were strong armed into having prime rib (apparently wedding guests get to demand what free food they get) and who doesn't like a baked potato and corn? After that came a question that had been major discussion for us and every bride and groom for many a year, the booze.

I come from a non drinking family. Some of it might be because I am Methodist (long live the grape juice!) but I think a lot of it is just my grandfather doesn't really drink so my dad doesn't and therefor I don't. My fiance on the other hand is catholic and I've been just floored by how often they will have booze and mixed drinks or even beer for every day get togethers (to be fair we only had wine for Thanksgiving and Christmas).

Everyone loves to tell you how tacky it is to have a cash bar, you would never have guests pay for a party you throw at your house blah blah blah, but a lot of parties I've been to the pop has been free (which we get unlimited fountain drinks) and they'll have beer (we got a keg) and that's it. Maybe I don't run in the right (rich) circles but I've never been somewhere where a guest can get a $4 mixed drink that they'll just take a sip of and then leave sitting out because they didn't like it and go and get a $5 one. (No wonder open bars are so damn expensive)

Cost isn't the only issue with having an open bar, there's also the joys of a totally smashed guest. They could do anything from flashing the mother of the groom to brawling with the officiant to vomiting on the wedding cake. As if that isn't bad enough, there is also the issue of drunk drivers and the possibilty they could come back and sue you for damages.

Luckily there are millions of options for those that want to get their guests liquored up but don't want to encourage or pay for binge drinking. The first is to have as limited bar. Get a keg or two, offer up some bottles of wine for each table and then maybe make a signature cocktail. It's apparently become so popular there have been horror stories of the cocktail turning guests lips blue.

For those who don't want to come up with a signature cocktail you can also limit how many mixed drinks the guests get free by giving each guest a drink ticket (or 2 or 3) and they can get whatever they want but won't waste their drinks either (we went the drink ticket route though for a few special people we're gonna get some fancy fake booze). In the end it's also for the best to cut everyone off a good hour or two before the end so no one wraps their limo around a tree.

This huge fight about how this and that is tacky is really a pain in the ass. It does seem like anymore a lot of people view weddings as an excuse to just get really drunk on someone elses dime, and if they throw a fit because we'll only let them have a few drinks and then all the beer and pop they want well I don't think we'd really want them at our super cool reception anyway.

Rebranding Weddings

Um, hello. This entry today is actually authored by the groom. Traditionally, the guy is barely aware of any of the wedding details after proposing, renting a tuxedo, asking various guys to help, and possibly setting up some rental arrangements. I can't say I have done that much more, but I have been able to at least observe some of what goes into a wedding.

I've found something in my observations. Weddings are a huge industry, but not really like the major holidays are. I think weddings can be made better, or at least more uniform by stealing from holidays to form their own new image.

New Years Eve/Day: Well, this is easy enough. For New Years you stay up late, get really trashed, and kiss anything in sight. If that doesn't scream wedding then what does?

Valentine's Day: Hmm, well this holiday has those little candy hearts with messages. However, they have the taste of a chalkboard with a light granite after note and are better suited as a door decoration (really, ask my fiancée or her friend who managed to tape two boxes worth to my door piece-by-candy-piece). There is also cupid, but being one of the two prime targets in an up-coming wedding, pelting the bride and groom with fake arrows is not that appealing. Sorry folks, looks like this holiday is a wash. Can't win 'em all.

St. Patrick's Day: Ah, this is much better. Since this holiday has become, at least in part, about enjoying spirited beverages, why not consider coloring the beer or white wines in your wedding colors? Sure, some guests may think it is weird, but after the first few who is really going to care? Though a thought occurs to me not everyone drinks and should not be encouraged or pressured to. Alright, colored beer for some, gold foil wrapped chocolate coins for others.

Easter: If we learn anything from the commercial celebration of Easter it is that a successful holiday needs a mascot. Just think of all the random bunny stuff you can find for Easter. Therefore, I propose Garry the Wedding Weasel and his bride Betty. See, it will be a cute Garry the Groom and Betty the Bride who are Wedding Weasels. Your guests will love the opportunity to have an autographed picture of them with the Weasel family. Part of the fun of this holiday was searching for Easter eggs. Using eggs again would probably seem lazy. Therefore, hide the guest's favors around the reception site. I'm sure there are dozens of places you can hide a small tulle bag.

Fourth of July: While it would be easy to say start using fireworks for weddings that seems a bit too over the top. Instead, I am thinking this can be more of a new tradition. For those getting married the first time, you are potentially declaring your independence from your parents. Why not do it right and draft a document to prove it? Heck, declare your independence from being single. This may prove more lasting, or at least legally binding, than personalized vows.

Halloween: Everyone is already dressed up in an over-the-top sort of way that they think is really cool (or sexy, classy, sophisticated, what have you). The difference is that you are not supposed to be having fun, at least not in an “acting goofy” sort of way. Perhaps people should just work to relax and dress up in a more outlandish way for the reception. And in addition to hiding the gift bags or favors, you can have big baskets of “fun size” candy that people can go around and collect in a Trick or Treat kind of way. This way you can be sure to get the kind of candy you really like, or trade with people so you can. Wait, we're already going to be doing that.

Christmas: I must admit, when I started on this voyage to be married, I did not believe there would be a similarity to Christmas. I was wrong. It turns out that Weddings are prime gift giving occasions. Sure, I knew you are expected to get gifts for the young couple who are about to start a life together, but then I realized the couple is expected to get a gift for each person who is involved in any capacity beyond just showing up.

Now, don't get me wrong many of the people you get gifts for will deserve it. The problem is remembering just how hard it is to find “the perfect gift” for these people. What we need now is a range of gifts from the cheap and generic, to the more personal. The more personal has already been thoroughly covered, but can't we get “Wedding Cheese Boxes”? Also, we need to have more fun with this. Make the bridal party hang socks up in a common place for the couple to dispense gifts through. Maybe some plant we can gather the other gifts under. I suggest a palm tree.

Miscellaneous:

Birthdays: Aside from the gifts you may end up getting, Weddings and Birthdays have another thing in common. Cake. Classic wedding cakes of the last hundred or so years have been white on white with white detail. Why not add some color? Primary color balloons, sprinkle confetti, or even Spider-Man. Why have a bride and groom cake topper when you can have Spider-Man scaling the side? Now THAT would be a memorable cake.

I do, now what?

Let's fast forward to the future and pretend that the wedding is all over. You've already finished packing away the cake server and knife (for a day it rains cakes), changed your name to Oscar the Grouch (don't drink and fill out paperwork) and shared your wedding pics with every bus driver in your town.

So, now what?

Some people seem worried about what they'll do after all the planning is done, after all the hours spent putting together the pop out invitations and crafting intricate centerpieces what can they devote all this time to now?

The short answer is, anything you want (though I wouldn't recommend being on a reality show). We haven't yet fallen into the time sucking daemon that is wedding planning so we'll take time to play video games or watch old movies during the week. So maybe we won't be the bride and groom who after the wedding is all done stand in the middle of the room and have no idea what to do.

But for those who need some new projects here are a few different ideas. First off, everyone loves food (well unless you're big into the food pills from the future) and some people like to sample different and exotic food stuffs so why not take a fancy cooking class at a local community college. We're pretty big into Indian food, he's all over the curry (thank god we're not in England, all he'd eat was curry) and I love tandoori (I wish I had a clay oven) so we may take an Indian cooking class if we run out of things to do.

For those who fear the kitchen and have nightmares of that stove from Beauty and the Beast, you could always adopt yourself a pet and then work on training it to be the "Best Dog/Cat/Bird/Lizard/Chicken Ever!" My Dad trains labs for hunt tests and field trials so I know all too well how training a dog can just suck up the hours. It'll also drive you nuts when the dog starts running the show and gets to say when he goes to train, but it's all worth it to have them really good at picking up things and bringing them back.

Another option for the allergic to fur and feathers variety, you could rearrange all the furniture in your place once a month. Do it in the middle of the night or during lunch to freak your new spouse out. If you're still eating a lot of pizza you could even make a maze and challenge him to try and find the remote at the end of it. Just make sure to have some load bearing boxes, no one wants to have to explain a pizza box cave in to a firefighter.

If pets just didn't seem like enough of a life altering change you could always get started on having kids. I an hoping everyone getting married doesn't need instructions on that, so moving on . . .

There are always those extreme hobbies you just never got around to, but now you have hours to devote to bungee jumping, sky diving, shark snorkeling, bull running, or goat feeding (goats can be mean). Think of how many eXtremes you can add to your resume.

Or if none of these appeal to you at all, you could just focus on starting a life with your guy moving forward with all those goals you talked about before the wedding and hopefully loving most of the minutes you're with him. You can always take up elephant polo after you've been married a few years.

Gimme, gimme, gimme

So after picking up our usual groceries (got to remember to get some mustard this week) we saw a sale on the most important part of our favors: Toostie roll pops. With a kleenex, a marker, and some really cheap pieces of ribbon I picked up a while ago we're gonna make a little ghost for each of our guests.

There's also going to be our version of a candy bar aka we put candy in the middle in a basket and let everyone go from table to table with their little baskets and pick some up. Everyone likes candy, right?

I never really got the point of favors. You've already bought all of your guests a nice dinner, some dessert, possibly some booze (we're still debating that one), and the joyful chicken dance why do you need to give them some little token that cost you at the most $3 that they will promptly toss?

The only favor I can ever remember getting in my "adult" wedding years was a bookmark. It was a cute idea and all, but I am one of those people that uses the receipt from buying the book as a bookmark. From my younger years when I went to more weddings than I can remember (my dad had a video camera in the late 80's so he videotaped tons of weddings for friends and we had to tag along) there were tons of those jordan almonds in tulle. I never understood those, the almonds tasted horrible.

Now it seems like people have moved onto infinite options. There are drink mixes, tea lights, wine stoppers, heart measuring spoons, measuring tape, coasters, luggage tags, and hand mirrors all of which you can personalize. I think I'm missing something. Who wants to use a heart shaped measuring spoon? Or I can just imagine the guys getting really excited about the scented bath salts.

Favors just seem like something no one really remembers but a bride must obsess about because they are required, damn it. I have no memories of anyone ever really getting excited about the favor at a wedding (unless it was a drink ticket then they were all over that), so I say save your money. Maybe give people some more sugar if people won't get off your back about it. Who doesn't love sugar, especially all the kids we're gonna give a major sugar rush too?

I wish we could take a page out of birthday parties and have goody bags that have those plastic whistles, a maze with a little ball, maybe some coloring pages and a cookie. That would be the coolest wedding ever!

And now for something completely different

If you haven't been able to discern from my slight hints about the subject, we're having a halloween reception. And aside from all the candy (our favors) what else makes Halloween the best holiday ever? Why dressing up of course.

We spent a while debating who would wear what and after my Matron of Honor asked if she could wear her wedding dress again I had the idea of famous brides. She's going to be the bride of frankenstein (I've made a hobbit costume with her before, this thing will look just like the original movie) while another bridesmaid will be the bride of dracula. I think my tall flower girl wants to come as the bride of chucky, he he he.

As for me, well I called Bridezilla naturally. We figured I could do it with some really green eyeshadow and a nice long tail. So this past weekend was spent amassing fabric, batting, and some embellishments so I could sew up the tail while my guy killed Dracula (or at least all the various mannequins in Castlevania).

He actually helped to sew the end tail bit, but gave up when the thread kept knotting (thread knots should be blamed on an evil gremlin). We ran out of batting about half way through the stuffing so after visiting Wal Mart to get a new tire (we are cursed when it comes to flat tires) I got the rest and sewed this puppy up.

I'm a bit proud of myself for being able to make something that looks kinda cool all on my little own and no one needed to use spray paint or take a trip to the hair salon. Plus it's nice to have my own little piece to show that yes, we are serious about the costume idea. Yes, it's something we're both really excited about. And yes, just keep it to yourself if you think it's tacky. We really don't care.

Is anyone else doing something out of the box that you're really excited about for your wedding? Possibly a bit too excited.

With this ring, I thee put on credit

We have a habit of going about things all backwards, long before we'd found a church or even gone dress shopping we'd already gotten our wedding rings. It started out early as my guy had mentioned how he'd wanted something different from the standard gold band, something with a design, and he wasn't totally thrilled with the stuff we'd found on-line.

So we started looking early and the first stop was to the store where we got the engagement ring from. We had a wonderful experience with them, where within 3 days we'd visited, picked a stone and had the ring put together. It was during the making the engagement ring that our jeweler had suggested we get a jacket as the wedding band to add some diamonds to it. Mine was easy, but imagine our surprise at how his was just sitting there in the case (and we'd never seen anything like it) and that day we'd bought his.It always amazes me how easy some things just come together and others require hours of debate and arguing (we're still trying to decide who's going to watch the plants during the ceremony). Though I realize that not everyone has had such an easy time, so if you're looking for something different from a "simple gold band" here are a few links we looked at

• Different designs based upon the metal
• Some handmade options
• A black titanium ring
• If you think he needs a crib sheet for the vows
• Someone bitched and whined and moaned here so no more SEO for them.
• A wedding band heart mousepad

Now we just have to decide what we'll have engraved inside. We don't have any cutesy wootsey sayings or pet names for each other, so short of mentioning something about tomatoes we're at a bit of a loss. I'm thinking right now I'll just have "Hey You" and then our wedding date.

It's that or "$.05 deposit in IA or MI"

Rain rain, go away

We've been facing a lot of just fun fun weather lately. It's also been raining non stop which while normal for say Washington or London is incredibly weird here (if this keeps up I have a funny feeling meat prices are gonna go higher as no one can hay).

As it is now the traditional wedding month it's gotten me thinking about all those poor brides who had planned for an outdoor wedding only to have to deal with 50 MPH winds and slanted rain. Well lo and behold for those people that need to have something else to obsess over, here's the weather channel's Wedding Planner.

If you enter in your date and location it will calculate the high and low temperatures for the past three years. (We're looking at either a high of 59, 45, or 87. It really narrowed it down, thank God) It'll also provide a list of average cloud coverage, temperature, rain and snow.

I really don't see the point of all this information. Sure average temps. might help if you really want to have a warm wedding in a place you've never been before, but unless you have a better wedding planner than I (ours lives next to the couch) I doubt one can stop it from being windy or cloudy, or even having rains of fish.

To make matters worse you can even add the weather application to your desktop so you can obsess about what the weather will be on "Your Day." Considering all the applications that will countdown, checklist, or just ad you to death about weddings they should just sell a wedding computer. It can come in either white or ivory.

Personally, I just hope it doesn't snow (which has happened before here in October). It would be nice if it rained the day before so we can get into the reception site and set up (it's in a golf course club house). As for the day of, luckily we can deal with just about anything. I know where we can get our hands on a lot of sandbags.

And until we can find ourselves a rain god and pay him to go away it's probably best to just plan with some rain contingencies than rely on the weather channels meteorologists. We all know how often they get the weather right anyway.

We

"Putting the We in Weddings and taking the end out of feminism."



Found this great video from Feministing.

To preserve, or not to preserve

So you've already spent hours and tons of money in getting your dream dress. Then once it comes in you have to spend another couple hundred on getting it altered to fit you perfect. This leaves the wedding industry scratching its head, once you are done with all that and are ready to wear the dress how can they get more money from you?

Oh, wait. I know, gown preservation!

So, let me get this straight. They take your dress that you just peeled out of, clean it, add in some paper and then stick it in a box so you can shove it under your bed and pull it out whenever you want to wave at the little man in the box.

I think I'm still missing something here. It's a dress you'll never wear again, and due to ever changing fashions, I kinda doubt anyone else will ever wear again. My mother's dress was the perfect early 80's dress and that one wasn't gonna happen. I'm sure by the time I have kids there'll be some weird fashion trend so my boring ol V neck dress will just seem weird.

So I was quite excited to see that there is a place you can donate your old wedding gown to. It's called Brides against Breast Cancer. And they will take your dress, clean it themselves, and then put it in a trunk show for other brides to buy and donate the money to breast cancer research. As my grandmother died from breast cancer, this was a very easy decision to make.

You can also donate your dress or a prom dress to a company that will make burial clothes for babies that have passed on. Or if you have some old bridesmaid and prom dresses just taking up space you can also donate them to various companies that will get the dress to people who couldn't afford one.

If it bothers anyone else in your family that you won't have your wedding gown hiding under your bed for the rest of your life, you can just tell them that you're recycling or it's a good tax ride off. For me it was an easy decision, and for those of you who are hesitant to spend $200 to have your gown preserved maybe you can look into sharing it to make someone elses day.

Boring wedding stuff

It's been a very weddingy past 12 hours for us. Last night we met with our wedding coordinator who is a good friend and also recently got engaged. I ordered in some pizza and we spent most of the night talking about different things we've found for our weddings and how our various plans are going. It is an interesting experience as I'm planning for mid October and have about a year, she's planning for early November and has 6 months.

We did eventually get down to business and decided who was sitting where and walking and what not. (I have managed to get out of the grand entrance by not having any ushers, hooray!) I'm guessing most people when they meet with their church "telling you where to go" people they don't have some pizza and chat about wedding and other things, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I just view this whole thing as a sort of laid back get together and not a "Once in a lifetime, call now or you'll miss it" event.

Then this morning we went and picked up some cake samples to try at home. We had three different fillings in the red category (raspberry, cherry, and strawberry) and two different frosting options (with boring white cake, we want chocolate buttercream so white goes well with black I think). Well the frosting tasted the exact same and the cherry was a dud. So it came down to rasp vs straw in a battle royale. In the end rasp pulled it out and KOed straw in the 9th round. I've also learned from all that tasting that I am not really a cake person, it was a lot of cake, and am glad we don't have to do that again. (I thought that was supposed to be the best part of the whole planning experience *shrug*)

I suspect there will be a major sugar rush in about three minutes. . .

Otherwise the rest of the fun filled past 12 hours (where we weren't sleeping) was spent enjoying each others company playing Lego Indiana Jones. That game rules!



If you've played the Lego Star Wars before this has so much more to it. Every character has its own special skills and you can pick up things like shovels/wrenchs/bazookas. Though 9 times out of 10 we just wound up blowing each other up.

I'd say that if you have to get a game to play together then get one of the Lego ones (Batman is gonna hit in October, I know my guy is more excited about that one, but I've always loved Raiders). There are a lot of puzzles to figure out, death really isn't that big of a deal, and block young Harrison Ford is still sexy. It's gotta be a lot more fun than Wii fit.

Oh a sad note, I am not cool enough for weddingbee, but then again I'm not really cool enough for the arctic. And now it's time for that sugar rush, WHEEEEE!

You only get one chance

I really had figured that after my mother had made all the flowers and we'd found all the dresses, we wouldn't have to worry about anyone else throwing in their input on things. Well in comes his side of the family.

These people are party nuts, they will get together and have a party just because it's tuesday. It's quite weird to me where our family would get together maybe once a year and stopped in general after my grandmother died. His aunt loves to plan parties and things. So I really shouldn't have been surprised by all of the ideas of things that I just must simple have because you only get your one chance to have comestibles thrown at you.

First off, aisle runners. I just don't get the point, aside from easy cleanup from all the dirt and stuff the brides shoes leave on the church (I think you should start following her with a vacuum or something it's so bad). You have to pay just to have something plastic rolled over the carpet so, um, you don't touch carpet?

It reminds me of the lava game we played when we were little. Since we don't have that much money as it is to pay for this plastic thing, I guess if we do have to have one we could just cut up a few pieces, lay them down, and then jump from one to the other. Though getting it monogrammed probably wouldn't work out so well then.

Another issue is having rice/confetti/birdseed/soap thrown at us. Sorry, but I don't really see the appeal (and whatever you do, don't give bells to any children). Unless you have a pair of vampires getting married and you have to stall them (though for that you need poppy seeds) who thought that throwing small bits of things at the newlyweds was a good idea? If we really want to appease any grain gods we really should be throwing General Mills cereal or some Cheetos instead.

There have been some other off the wall suggestions (like having a back screen for pictures so we can all pretend we're getting our school pictures again I guess), but so far we're holding our ground and saying no to all the things we just see as throwing our money away.

Hey that's an idea, how about people throw money at us instead. We can even install a stripper pole!

Screw you printer!

My printer and I got into a huge fight over the weekend. I was trying to get it to print off our reception cards that I'd slaved on (well worked kinda hard on) but it refused to line it up right, or feed the paper through, and one time it even threw its ink cartridge at me.

After taking some time apart and doing a bit of soul searching we both made up, went out for ice cream, and I got my damn reception cards printed.
I can see why everyone says "Don't print your invitations unless you are on a good standing with your printer and oh have a PC" (I hate those free templates they give you that are so out of date they'd never work on my Mac). We never had any intentions to print off the real invitation, but I thought, hey a reception card is a simple thing and we wanted to put pictures of us as kids in our halloween costumes on it (If you're wondering, I'm an elf. I have no idea why I am an elf, but I had to be an elf for two years. I suspect there was an elf sale or something).

So I got myself lots of cute pictures of us as kids, scanned them in, put together a passable but simple info card and then got into the long fight of trying to convert something on screen onto a special card with a fancy pants border. I think my fiance feared that I was going to throw the damn thing across the room.

If you are going the DIY route, for sure get lots of extras. I had to go through a good 3 or 4 cards before getting it about right and also realized that thanks to the ever growing guest list we needed more in general. But I came to find out they were all out of our cheaper ones so I had to get the pricier ones with a different border.

*Sigh* And there began another fight with the printer that this time ended in some broken glass, a lot of tears, and me threatening it with a hatchet.

But the good news is we have enough cards leftover for being able to print off maps. The printer and I will just have to have a little talking to.

A number 3, hold the cummerbund

Aside from the whole standing while peeing thing (really, who wouldn't rather sit down?) guys generally have it easier. This is doubly so when it comes to wedding attire.

After some price checking as well as green comparing (how can green be either a lovely color or super ugly?) we finally decided on a store to rent our tuxes from. It seems just about any place will let you send in measurements for guys out of town so that wasn't a big deal. But as we flipped through the big book o' tuxedos we found that there were so many options we may as well go with them. Every place seemed to run about the same (over $100/ with four purchases get the grooms free and an ice cream cone).

So then we started filling out the dreaded sheet. First up the vest options (we never thought cummerbund as no one is in the glee club). There were a good handful of not only colors but different patterns and zig zags. Luckily my guy had already decided he wanted the nice emerald green and the groomsmen were getting clover. To go with the tux you then had to choose either a tie or a bow tie to match. I personally nixed the bow tie cause I say it only works if you have a black or white vest. Any colored bow ties make it look like you work at a casino.

The other big issue that we'd decided was the obvious suit cut thing (I know nada about guys clothes). We'd both decided there was no way we were going white (we're a messy couple), so after that it was up to my guy. He wanted a large lapel so it looked more like a suit coat and just two buttons to show off the sexy vests (basically it's the James Bond Tux).

After that we figured oh that has to be about it, but suddenly she asked about the shirt (color, fabric) as well as the shirt's collar (some weird wing tip thing or it sits down). We were both so blindsided I think he got himself a purple shirt with dinosaurs on it. Then we had to pick out some shoes (which I really don't understand, are we going bowling after the wedding?) as well as cuff links.

Going tux shopping has made me wonder if it'd be possible for us to change women's dresses to have a more check list approach. Let's see I'd like an empire waist, hold the beading, with a V neck and a 2 foot long train. No I wouldn't like shoes or jewelry with that. Yeah, I'll pull through to the next window.