Sunday, July 27, 2008

My My, How Can I Resist You


So far, I've really only put the F-U into the alleged FUN of wedding planning. I acknowledge that. Asked and answered, your honor! (I know that phrase doesn't really work here, but if you spent 5 years as a lawyer and never got to say that phrase, which is like the COOLEST legal phrase EVER, you too would be throwing it around with reckless abandon.) But now that I'm on wedding cooldown - not to be confused with "wedding lockdown" - see previous posts for full description - (status recap: two weddings, two unfinished guest lists, two unpurchased dresses and 18 unbooked vendors), I think this is a good time to share The Quest for The Dress: Chapter I: The Filene's Basement Sale. (OK, fine, this isn't really Chapter I - it's more like Chapter III in the search for the dress, but the other Chapters involve the sort of snafoos that you would expect from me by now and gosh darn it, that's not the point of this post, so just suspend your disbelief people! Ignore the man behind the curtain. CHAPTER I).

Ah ha! Got you, didn't I? I bet you didn't think for a second that Enraged and Engaged would have her mother voluntarily stay over her apartment (but I did), take a day off work (asked and answered), wake up at 4 a.m. (yes, I did), drive to Towson, Maryland (yup) and sit on line for 3 hours to secure a spot on line (indeed). But I did.

Like the peach on my kitchen counter, I believe that the time is ripe for a confession (in case you're not into checking my timestamp, it's just about 10:30 p.m. and we should all expect my food metaphors, like my post-dinner snacking, to come into full swing now). Back to the confession. If you are relatively new to this blog, you have likely not read my first post. (Hell, I'm pretty sure I didn't read my first post. It simply escaped from me like an exorcised spirit.) And if you didn't read my first post, you likely think I hate weddings - each and every horrific tentacle of the beast - from vendors to vows. But I don't. I LOVE WEDDINGS! No really, I do!! (NO REALLY I DO.) Which is why this whole thing has thrown me for such a loop.

I love reading all the wedding blogs and pouring over details like letter-pressed handmade invitations and locally-grown flowers and I especially adore scrolling through photographs showing creative brides-to-be (sarcasm alert: or more likely, their wedding planners') ability to decorate loft spaces and barns and catering halls and manor houses and vineyards. I am mildly obsessed with wedding magazines and at this very moment I own both the Summer and Fall (the latter, only where currently available in stores of course, this being only August and all) of the following magazines: Brides, Modern Bride, Maryland Bride, Elegant Bride, The Knot, In Style Bride and Baltimore Bride. And of course, completing the trifecta of spousal espousal is the wedding television show. I love them all: Say Yes to the Dress (which I could write MUCH about and probably will - but this is neither the time nor the place), Top 50 Most Fabulous Celebrity Weddings (and any variation thereof on Style and/or VH1 and/or E!), Whose Wedding is it Anyway, the new on the scene (and already embraced) Rock the Reception, and A Wedding Story (the original wedding show and let's face it - a clunky dinosaur - but still better than watching ESPN with Mr. F).


So if you, like me, believe that there is nothing better than a Sunday on the couch, with your hand sitting in a box of Triscuits and a tub of the Trader Joe's tsaziki dip perched on the top of your stomach (the secret is being slouched far enough against the back of the couch so that the container lays flat on the stomach and thus, is secure against collapse when dipped into) washed down by my little spicy princess, Ms. Bloody Mary herself, then you have surely seen the special on the Filene's Basement "Running of the Brides" sale. Feel free to substitute Triscuits for Wheat Thins, Pita Chips, Cheetos and/or Cheese Puffs, Pirate's Booty, Ruffles, or Wasabi Peas and the Greek yogurt sauce for hummus, salsa, guacamole, peanut butter, or onion dip and the Bloody Mary, for just about bloody anything that brings you to a Happy Place. Given this bliss-inducing cocktail of eat, drink and merry, I have no recollection of which of the four connubially-centered channels it was run on (though despite the fact that my recollection is pooled at the vodka-y bottom of a tumbler somewhere, I would put my money on TLC), but I definitely remember one thing: thousands of cheap designer gowns. And that was enough to plant a kernel in my mind. This was something I should definitely pursue.


[I'm SO long-winded. I'm a windBAG. (Yes, I am an aging, overweight man, wearing a tie and a comb over and droning on and on and on. And on. On.) I offer up my apologies; I'd really like to finish this post, but I'm tired. In the meantime, I'm going to nod off to sleep while patting myself on the back - because if this isn't the most positive thing I've written in the almost-two-months since I started this blog, well then I don't know what is. No really, I actually don't know what is. So please leave comments and tell me.]

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