The Final Countdown

Well, here we are!  Since our engagement in November, I’ve waited about six months to be married.  Well, 36 years and about 6 months.

The other night, John and I had my parents on speakerphone in their home in New York.  We were talking about numbers.  How much did this cost? How much did that cost? How much is still owed to the photographer?  Blah, blah, blah…

But then I realized something:  wedding planning is all about numbers.  Not just budget and money, mind you.  Much of wedding planning revolves around the math that affects all aspects of wedding planning.

Here’s how ours broke down:

Guests invited: 138 (or more…I actually stopped keeping track after a while

Guests attending: about half of the guest list.  Sadly, Memorial Day weekend is not ideal for everyone’s travel plans.  Some people who mean a lot to me will not be there.  That makes me sad.  Fortunately, people who mean a lot to me will be there.  That makes me happy

Attendants: 4.  We’re keeping it real, people

Make up trials: 2

Lipstick choices tried on at said trials: 22

Hair Trials: 3.  No, I still don’t know exactly how I am planning on wearing my hair on the big day.  Moving on…

Manicures I snuck in on my parent’s dime at said hair trials: 3

Dresses tried on: 5.  When I saw myself in my dress for the first time, I cried.  I just knew

Bridal shoes tried on: 4,376.  Ok, not really, but it sure felt that way.  That process was a huge pain in the ass

People sleeping in our house the days leading up to the wedding: 8.  Two of those people are my adorable nephews who I hope are equally adorable when they wake me up on my wedding day at 6 AM.  Seriously, there’s no better alarm clock!  (Love you, A & J!)

Grandparents attending our wedding: one.  I’m damn lucky my 91 year-old Grandmother will see me get married.  She told John to make sure he married me so she could be there.  He made good on his promise

Garters I’ll be wearing: 4.  Yep, I have the honor of wearing my brand new one courtesy of my mother, my Grandmother’s, my Great Aunt’s and my Mom’s

Tears cried by the bride to be:  This outranks the numbers of shoes I tried on.  I have cried happy tears, frustrated tears, sad tears, angry tears and every kind of tear in between for a variety of reasons.  PMS does not help the situation, either.  Thank goodness John knows where the extra Kleenex supply in the house is

Days left until the R.S.V.P. date: 3

Number of reply cards still missing: 13

I repeat…days left until the R.S.V.P date: 3

Phone calls, texts and e-mails to my mom and sister about the wedding:  Well, let me put it to you this way: John and I share a phone plan.  I had about triple the texts and phone minutes he had...in one month

Number of weddings I've been in: 7.  20 short of 27 Dresses, yes, but still a lot.  I'd be lying if I didn't tell you I thought to myself  "Always a bridesmaid..."

Number of online guestbook entries: 19.  LB...get to it and make it an even 20  :-)

Lastly, number of days until I marry John: 25

I can't wait

Need I say more?

Faux Pas

Being in the home stretch of our engagement makes me look back and reflect on what an exciting, wonderful, stressful, fun-paved road we’ve been on since November. 

The good:  people congratulate you all the time.  People you know, people you don’t.  I’m a bit of an attention um, lover, so that has been awesome!  Oh, and I think I'm supposed to include that I'm marrying a wonderful man with "the good" as well. 

The bad: decisions, decisions, decisions…and then more, you guessed it…decisions.  Sometimes John and I would agree, sometimes we wouldn’t.  But in the end, I think we are going to have a rockin’ wedding.  All together now, people: COMPROMISE.

The ugly:  the faux pas portion of the program.  All of the mistakes we’ve made (ok, that is 2% him, 98% me) along the way in decision making and the things others have said and done to make me stop in my tracks and think, “did they just say that!?”

Faux Pas # 1:  Registering for the world’s most expensive dishes.  John and I chose a large department store chain as one of our venues in which to register.   We picked out the most beautiful dinnerware set I’ve ever seen and start scanning away.  He loves it, I love it…we’re golden.  I notice, but quickly dismiss the fact that I see no prices listed.  I later find out that John DID notice the prices, assumed I saw them and didn’t say anything.  Um, yeah…service for 10?  $2,000?  Not so much.  Thanks to the wonder of registry management online, I deleted those and promptly registered for the second most beautiful dinnerware set I’ve ever seen.

Faux Pas # 2: Resisting the guest list.  We went from “small and intimate” to “the more, the merrier”.  Now, I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Unfortunately, I think I drove my parents and John bananas reaching that conclusion.  My faux pas...entirely.

Faux Pas # 3: The things people say.  Someone I don’t speak with often asked me how much we were paying per head.  That was worthy of a Facebook status that day for sure.  There are five people who know that answer: our venue contact, my parents, John and myself.  Lady: you’re so not on that list.  Someone else asked me who our band was.  Me: we hired a DJ.  Them: Oh, you went the cheap route.  I'm sorry.  W-w-what?

One of my favorite faux pas was not mine and was not recent, but still worth sharing, I think.  This person had a wedding, sent someone a thank you note for their gift and wrote that they were sorry they couldn’t attend the wedding when they actually did.  I won’t throw that bride under the bus by stating her name here, but she’s reading this and she knows who she is...and she knows I love her!

Faux Pas # 4: Reply cards.  Apparently Mr. and Mrs. John Butt decline with regret.  Um, this person wrote our name instead of theirs.  Moving on…

In the end, there are still 40+ days to go until the big day,  Many more faux pas opportunities ahead, I'm sure.  Lucky me.  Oh, wait...a mere 40+ days until I'm John's wife and he's my husband.  Lucky me indeed.

I'm Already Married

Mom, before you fall over yourself to click on this blog post to read the rest of it, relax.  I am not actually, legally married yet.  You and Dad and what feels like every person we know (note to self: get the paperboy's mailing address) will witness my nuptials to John as planned.  What I mean by "I'm already married" is that I feel as if I'm already married.  Big difference. Probably should have opened with that instead.  Sorry.

Now that my mother's pulse has hopefully returned to its normal rate, let me explain myself.  John and I have been in love pretty much right off the bat and have been living together for some time now.  I am no less committed to John today that I will be on our wedding day.  I consider him in decisions, big and small and his happiness is my happiness too.  You may ask, then, why are you bothering to get married?  I have many answers to that question that are relevant and important to me.  However, some may now ask then why are you having a wedding?  I have answers a-plenty for that one, too.

But, my whole life, I've thought about what my wedding would be like.  Though it wasn't until I met John that I really started to think about what a marriage would be like.  There again...a big difference...and here are but a few.

At our wedding, I will have my hair and makeup professionally done

During our marriage, I will likely have my hair in a ponytail 30% of the time and will keep makeup to a minimum...pretty much mascara and lip gloss (tinted, though)

During our wedding, we will eat freshly prepared foods from a menu that we have been planning out for months

During our marriage, we will be eating quite a few dinners that come out of the microwave or handed over by a guy with a pizza logo on top of his car

During our wedding, we will be surrounded by family and friends who have traveled near and far to be with us

During our marriage, we will play phone tag with said loved ones and struggle to find one Saturday night that works for everyone to go have dinner together

During our wedding, John and I will have hundreds of photographs taken of us

During our marriage, we will hopefully maintain having many photos taken of us, but will include pictures of our children who we hope to welcome one day as well

During our wedding, John and I will realize how lucky we are to have one another and those around us to offer their love and support

During our marriage, well, that one will remain unchanged

So, you ask, what's the difference between a wedding and a marriage?  One will enable us to create memories that will last the rest of our lives.  The other enables us to have the rest of our lives to make memories.  I can't wait.

It's ONLY February. You mean it's ALREADY February.

Things were going so well. Colors picked, vendors hired, dress and veil bought.  We were up and running and I was patting myself on the back along the way.  Now this is how to plan a wedding.  Not overdoing, over analyzing, over thinking.  Efficient, certain decisions that would make me look like the queen supreme of brides-to-be.  Planning a wedding is easy.  Um, only if you live in Oppositeville.

I feel as if once our first choice for invitations was discontinued (see previous post, which appropriately had the word "stress" in the title three times), everything else became something I needed to look "further in to." 

Exhibit A:  my hair.  For 36 years, I've pretty much been able to figure out what do do with it.  But, now, all of a sudden, I have NO CLUE what to do with it for the wedding.  Up, down, to the side, curled, straight...after two "trials" at the salon with a very patient hairdresser, I'm still not certain what's right.  Note to self: schedule appointment for trial # 3. (Lisa, if you're reading this..sorry.  I'm gonna toss you a line I heard a lot when dating: "It's not you, it's me.).  But this time it's not a load of crap.

Exhibit B: the cake.  We excitedly skip into our cake tasting appointment today and left unsure and unimpressed.  Well, I was unsure and unimpressed.  John was just happy to have free cake.  Predictions?  Anyone?  Yup, appointment for cake tasting #2 somewhere else is already scheduled.

Exhibit C:  the invitations.  Those damn invitations.  We had it locked it, decision made.  But the invitation Gods laughed.  After more searching, we found invitations we really liked...dare I say even better than the first ones.  All right, things are looking up.  Until on our way to our cake tasting, we spotted invitations we may like even more than options #1 and #2.  Confused?  Lost?  Yeah, me too. 

This evening, I was on the phone with my mom verbally expressing what I'm writing here and she says, (get this):  "You're fine! It's only February.".  Please refer to the title of this blog entry for my reply.

In some ways, she's right.  I don't have to know what my shoes, hair and nails for the big day are going to look like at this point.  But, the flip side of that coin is that there are some decisions (big ones) that need to be made pronto.  And, like every bride-to-be before me, I will figure it out.  And like every bride-to-be after me, I will stress, worry and obsess. 

Don't get me wrong, though.  I'm not trying to rush through or wish away planning our wedding.  Because, I know, deep down, that in 115 days, I'll have the happiest, day of my life that will fly by in a flash.  And in 116 days, I'll say to John, "Wow.  It's ALREADY the day after our wedding."

Stress, Stress and More Stress

I learned something this weekend: planning a wedding is stressful. 

Everyone knew it:  my friends, family and fiance as well.  Everyone but me.

I had this romanticized idea in my mind about what planning a wedding with John would be like. Every step would be blissful and we fall even more in love with each other.  Registering would remind us that we were meant to be together forever...not point out different preferences in dishes and glasses.  Choosing music for our wedding would show us that we were destined to dance every dance together forever, not reveal that one of us hates disco music (who hates disco, people?  I mean, c'mon!). 

Overall, things were going smoothly...yes, sorting out the guest list with my parents had its, um "moments" and it looks as if our first choice for invitations has now been discontinued, but still, I couldn't understand why I was coming across so much more annoying than usual to John.  Why the little things were getting on both of our nerves...

Then it hit me: we were planning a wedding. 

Here I was, completely naive and delusional to the fact that wedding planning stress is, well, stressful.  Not to mention all of the usual things that we deal with and manage in our "normal" daily lives:  money, work, social commitments, maintaining a household...all the things that generally cause enough stress as it is.  Add those things with planning a wedding, and a normally high strung, detail oriented person and: WAPAP!  You have a stressed out bride to be. 

The funny thing is, when I mentioned this to John he was completely surprised that I was surprised.  So, I hit up my trusted pal "Google" and looked some stuff up.  There is was: articles upon articles about how stressful wedding planning can be for couples.  But then I read a line that made my day and made me accept that this process will involve inevitable stress and that we were going through what every other couple under the sun has experienced too:  "Change is stressful-even good change".  There it was.  The words I will repeat to myself for the next four months and six days.  If those words are true, then this is the best stress I could ever hope to have.


And in four months, six days and about an hour, there I'll be: walking  down the aisle, both parents beside me, towards the man I love.  And that's all that will matter.  Not the font we chose for the invitations, not the salad bowl we registered for, not the music played at our wedding.  I know that at that moment, everything will fall into place and all of the so called "stress" will be worth it.  Even if there is no disco music played at our wedding...but I'm still working on that one.

"To Do" before "I Do"

I am a person who does not like having things hanging over my head.  Someone who thrives on crossing out things that are on my to do list.  Generally speaking, my normal to-do list looks something like this:

Pick up cat food
Grocery shop
Buy birthday gift for Saturday's party
Get oil changed in car

Not bad, right?  Totally manageable.

However, once I got engaged, my to-do list went from manageable to manic.  The sheer volume of things to address, big and small when planning a wedding is staggering.  However, because of how much I love to cross things off my list (I'm not kidding...I really do experience joy and a sense of accomplishment from drawing lines through words on paper), our wedding is pretty much planned inside of 10 weeks...kinda.

This time, though, every time I cross one thing out, two more appear.  Hire florist...check.  Schedule tastings...check.  Figure out hotel arrangements for out-of-towners, find shoes, schedule hair and makeup trial runs, order invitations, plan this, buy that, call her, e-mail him.  The list goes on and on.  And when will it stop?  Once I say "I do", I suppose.  So, I have another 130+ days ( I don't literally count the days, but the big countdown is listed on our registries) to obsess, worry, enjoy, plan, obsess some more and get it all done. 

Fortunately, my fiance has been a steady ship, cruising right along next to me.  He looks at wedding invitation samples with me.  He listened to me ramble on and on about whether or not the glasses we registered for "go well enough" with what will be our new dishes.  He listens to me when I tell him that I found the cutest spatula to add to our registry.  I mean, really, who cares about a spatula?   However, he manages to stay on course, not wavering or over thinking any part of this process, while I feel as if I am an erratic worrier every step of the way.  I guess that Venus and Mars theory really does hold water.  Fortunately, the yin and yang thing holds water as well.  He is definitely calm and I'm well...not.

But, as we make our way to our big day, I know it will all get done.  The to-do list will slowly shrink, the pressing decisions will dissipate and the plans will come to fruition.  And in the end, we will have one thing left on our collective to do list: live happily ever after.

Click

Ok, so we had the big thing out of the way:  venue and a wedding date.  But, our next priority was the photographer.  John is a hobby photographer and considers photography to be one of his passions...below XBOX , but above coal-fired pizza.  That's big.  John loves coal-fired pizza.

I foolishly thought that it would be as easy as snapping my fingers...poof!  We would find the perfect photographer that we could afford in no time.  Wrong.  Granted, we have only been engaged for about six weeks and that's not too long of a time to look for a photographer.  Logically, that's true.  In my world, it's something else to cross of the To-Do list.  Pronto.

48 hours ago, we had met with 4 photographers and were, well, disappointed.  One of those four had two packages to offer:  "The Main Event" and "Bride on a Budget."  I was somewhere in between, but more toward the latter than the former.  If I WAS a bride on a budget, did that mean our wedding wasn't the main event to us?  To boot, I complimented him on the fact that a photo he took was on the very first page of our venue's brochure.  He commented that although he loves our venue, he's thinking of pulling out of there because he is "looking to work with a higher end clientele."  Say what?  Next.

John and I talked about how great it would be if our biggest problem was that we had two photographers who were reasonably priced and who we "clicked" with.  Pun very much intended.  But, now, you see, we did have a problem.  The problem we thought would be so great to have. Two photographers and zero idea who to hire. 

After careful consideration, I am pleased (and relieved) to be able to say that we hired one.  And we love him.  His work is great and his personality is even better.  One major decision off the list...and we think we made a good one.