I Hate Planning My Wedding

Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone

2009-05-29T20:01:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm a terrible person. I dropped off the face of the Earth leaving what appears to be throngs, indeed hordes, well, at least 27, brides-to-be in agony by failing to recount how my wedding actually turned out. After a year of complaining about every single moment leading up to the wedding, I never told you how the wedding went.

I am a horrible person.

But I have a great excuse!

No, I really don't. My excuse is that I have been doing nothing but eating and watching TV lately. And not thinking about weddings. Most especially, my weddings.

But here I am! Five pounds heavier and with a mind full of useless plot twists on Grey's Anatomy.

And I am ready to go back to part II of my wedding day....

Where did I leave off? Oh yes, dancing with Mr F, my husband-to-be, during the time we should have been taking family photos.

(By the way, while attempting to take you back in time, in my head I keep hearing the "da da da" noise with the wavy motion of hands, a la "Wayne's World" which I can only assume most of you are too young to have actually seen. But it's a great movie. Watch it.)

We were dancing.

And then, moments later, Mr F realized we were awesome at dancing and we were totally going to rock the first dance. I was given permission abandon dance practice and move on to the family photos.

Which I have to admit, didn't go as planned.

Because we were a half an hour behind and were on a seriously tight schedule to begin with.

Weeks earlier, at our final meeting, Big Hugs recommended we take the pictures in The Library, a lovely room which was, in fact, a library. Or might have been at one time since there weren't books in sight. But there were old pieces of distinguished furniture, and a fireplace, and richly colored walls. So I can believe it may have housed books at one point and can justly be called said library.

I told the photographer the plan the week before the wedding and so that afternoon we herded everyone into the room. As the photographer began frantically snapping photos, taking pictures of me and my mom, my dad, me and my brother, Mr F and my parents, and every iteration in between, I could feel myself tensing up. This was taking forever.

And then the next group moved toward me and Mr F - my father's family. And within moments, it became readily apparent that the Library was not nearly big enough for all of the people.

Oh Big Hugs, I knew you would fail me miserably. And before we even said "I do."

It was E&E in the Library with the candlestick.

At which point the photographer proposed we move elsewhere, to a bigger room, but a quick glance at the clock made us realize that this was not an option. So we pressed on, taking pictures of grown men and women squeezed together like they were high school cheerleaders about to throw their teammate up into a double cupie.

And while I was happy and excited, honestly, this part kind of sucked. I couldn't let go of the knowledge that we needed to take all of these photos but that we only had a certain amount of time. The only thing that made me feel better was the knowledge that this seems to happen at most weddings. (Or at least at my family's - since I distinctly recalled having little to no time to take the pictures at my brother's wedding the year before).

We took photos of about 40 people in about half as many minutes.

And having now seen those photos, I can assure you - no miracle happened. Those photos kinda suck. At least someone has their eyes closed in every one. But you get what you allot time for, and at least we have pictures, right? Even if they will probably only be used as expensive kindling on a very cold, very drafty night.

So as the pictures were winding up, I was thinking about the next step, which was in fact, the final step before the really final step. Confused yet? The signing of the ketubah was next, which I was (if I can admit) a little apprehensive about. Although I very much liked our officiant, she mentioned during our meetings that we should "leave the ceremony during the ketubah signing up to her." Hmmm. I don't leave much "up" to anyone. And certainly when there is not the possibility that lots of Jewishy religious things that I don't believe in could occur.

But I pushed that out of my mind as I asked one of my bridesmaids to check that the hall was clear so we could make our way over to the Boardroom, the room that we set aside for the ketubah signing.

I chose that room because there was an amazing Rembrandt (yeah, like the toothpaste, only older and more like a REAL FRICKIN Rembrandt) hanging over the board table and there was a gorgeous ceiling with beautifully intricate detail.

My bridesmaid came back looking a little confused. "Uhm, the Boardroom is locked. Big Hugs has your ketubah and stuff in another room...." her voice trailed off, clearly scared of what was in store for Big Hugs.

This was the Hug that broke the camel's back. "Well tell her to open the goddamn door on the double, because that's where we are supposed to have the signing!" And with that, badly beaten down bridesmaid disappeared back across the hall.

I don't know what transpired, but what I do know is that five minutes later we made our way over to the board room like nothing had happened. I have great friends.

Until someone stepped on the train of my dress and my body yanked backwards. I spun around ready to yell at whoever the perpetrator was.

It was Mr F.

Lord, it was going to be a long life.

I shot him a look from hell.

We started walking again at which moment I once again felt a yank from behind and almost tumbled backwards.

Once again I spun around and was face to face with my soon to be husband.

"MIIIIISSSSTTTEEERRRR FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF! GET OFF MY DRESS!"

A silence fell over the crowd as Mr F meekly stepped off of my dress and moved next to me (instead of behind me which seemed to be what was tripping him up, literally).

I smiled sheepishly, realizing I was acting like a crazy person and turned to my husband-to-be. "I know you didn't mean to do it. Sorry....we're just a little behind and I want this all to go so perfect." I took a deep breath and smiled at him.

Mr F came over to me and took my hand and we walked to the Boardroom together. And I have to tell you (because I'm sure you're wondering if I managed to sabotage my WHOLE wedding, or just the parts leading up to it), I didn't lose my temper, yell at anyone, act crazy or freak out another single moment after that. Really.

And as we walked into the Boardroom, I suddenly felt the most calm I had all weekend.

There were no more items to check off the "to do" list. (Which is what getting the family portraits felt like.)

Our Cantor brought us over to the ketubah (the Jewish marriage contract, traditionally promises to each other for the couples' life together; signed at the same time as the marriage certificate, prior to the ceremony). And she gathered our parents near us as well and began to discuss our future together and said a Hebrew blessing.

She smiled as she praised Mr F's ability to give the best hugs ever (take THAT, Big Hugs) and explained that the fact that I asked so many questions was actually a good thing and not a bad one in Jewish tradition (I knew I liked this chick). We were surrounded by just our parents and the wedding party as we signed the contract and promised to honor and love each other for life. It was a great moment.

And then it was time to walk down the aisle.

We were ushered into a holding area where the wedding party lined up in couples.

Big Hugs asked if we were ready. I was ready. I heard the notes of the pianist playing the recessional music. Let's get this thing going.

Mr F's father was not ready.

He needed to use the bathroom.

Really? Now?

He returned to his place in line and Big Hugs asked if we were ready.

We weren't.

Mr F had to use the bathroom. Like Father, Like Son.

I was thinking we should have changed the vows to include loving your significant other through bladder issues. (Although in reality, I'm pretty sure Mr F gets the short end of the stick on this one since I get up every night at about 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom. But I suppose we can discuss bladder issues another day.)

Finally, we were all ready. Properly lined up, our wedding party began to walk two-by-two down the aisle. Like burgundy-colored species boarding a gardenia covered ark.

I was so happy. Honestly, I felt like I was experiencing an out-of-body experience. As if I could float up above my body and look down at the luckiest girl in the world. I had both of my parents there to walk me down the aisle. Both of whom loved me, each other and wanted only the best for me. (Even if sometimes the way they expressed that wasn't what I had hoped).

And I told them that.

At which point my Dad started to cry.

OH NO.

And then my Mom started to cry. OH NO OH NO.

We were just moments before stepping down the aisle. And I was at a loss. There was a giant lump in my throat and butterflies in my stomach.

Luckily, Mom put the kibosh on any more displays of emotion and we all snuffled our tears back and somehow became clear-eyed in a matter of moments. (OK, well I didn't actually cry, because I never cry at happy events. Even my own wedding. But I felt like I could cry, if I was that kind of person. Sorry, but I feel like I need to explain the lack of tears since just about anyone else would have been bawling at that moment.)

I heard the first few notes of "In My Life" play on the piano and I felt like I could barely breathe around the lump that was in my throat. But I had to smile as my father managed to swap tears for his OCD and began to count "1-2-3..." to ensure we all started on the same foot and walked in unison.

As we proceeded down the aisle I grinned. And looked straight at Mr F. (who I always envisioned locking eyes with as I made my way down the aisle, he being unable to take his eyes off his beautiful bride as his eyes brimmed with tears at my loveliness).

But Mr F was scanning the crowd.

Uhm, I'm right HERE! I used Jedi mind tricks to make him look at me. And then I remembered. Months earlier, he had told me one of his "friends" gave him the great advice to make sure you "take it all in" and see all the people in the crowd who were there for you.

Typical Mr F.

I'm pretty sure the "friend" did not mean when YOUR BRIDE WAS WALKING DOWN THE AISLE.

And finally he looked at me and grinned. And I grinned. I was grinning so wide my teeth felt dry and I had to keep swallowing. I was just so...HAPPY.

Stay tuned. I promised to finish this up in the next few days. (No, really.)

I Bought A Toothbrush, Some Toothpaste, A Flannel For My Face

2009-03-13T09:06:00.000-07:00

ACT II. The Wedding Day. (To clarify, that would be the first Wedding Day.)

Act II, Scene I. The Morning.

INT. A swanky hotel room. E&E awakens to a ringing telephone, an early wake up call. Despite her exhaustion, she pops out of bed.

Actually.

Let's back up.

Before we explore the morning of The Wedding Day, can I take a moment and gloat about two decisions I made the night before my wedding? Decisions I actually made without the advice of Martha Stewart and/or that editor chick from the Knot with the sassy blond haircut, my bridesmaids, my Mom, and/or the consultation of any blogs? (Ultimately shocking me with the conclusion that perhaps people were once able say their vows and get married without media assistance.)

Hearing no objection, I shall proceed.

Awesome Decision Number #1 - The night before The Wedding, I took a high-powered blissfully sleep-inducing Ambien pill. That white little pill (and the four glasses of wine I had before it) put me to sleep quicker than C-Span's Book Notes (sorry, I love to read, but dammit if that show isn't boring as hell).

Drugs are awesome, kids. Little miracles ground up into potent powder and molded into gifts from God, bestowed solely upon those who can afford them. Or are smart enough to live in upstate New York and travel to Canada for their purchase.

Awesome Decision Number #2 - I spit on tradition and forced my fiance to sleep over in my hotel the night before. We snuggled in our sin (and 400 thread count sheets). It was warm and cozy; and for me, it made me calmer and saner.

Granted, Mr F actually wanted (and intended) to bow to tradition and stay separately (he in our apartment and I in the giant hotel suite).

So I got him drunk so that he was unable drive home and had to stay with me. Less romantic, but same outcome.

Anyway, back to the Wedding Morning.

For some reason, when I pictured my Wedding Morning I thought I would be transformed into Juliet (with a sprinkle of Cinderella). I don't know where I conjured this image from. (Well, actually I guess I sort of do....I mean, come on, it's a day where I am flanked by ladies in waiting and corseted into a large ballgown - my only experience with these events hereto are Disney movies and William Shakespeare.) But I envisioned myself awaking in a lovely silk chiffon full length nightgown and the birds and mice (cute speaking germ-free mice, not dirty city mice) would bring me over the clothes I would be wearing for the day. I would sweep down the stairs (or uhm, hotel elevator) and be a princess.

Much to my surprise, when I looked down I was still wearing my pink Hello Kitty fleece pajama pants. When I looked in the mirror I also saw I had a pimple. And Mr F was groaning that it was too early as I tried to roll him out of the bed before my Mom arrived.

I don't recall Cinderella wearing Japanese anime. And there were no mentions of blemishes in Juliet's soliloquies. Death, yes; skin irritation, no.

So maybe I wasn't an actual heroine per se.

But whatever. I was too tired to really belabor the fantasy.

Luckily my mom and my darling bridesmaids knew that I may not be a character from the page of literature, but I am indeed a woman of chemical substance, and so no less than three people brought me coffee.

Now, that's what I call Princess for a Day.

And a good thing too. Because as my harem of bridesmaids accompanied me down to the bridal dressing room, we realized that we were locked out.

At 8 a.m.

And we couldn't find anyone to let us in.

So I did what any rational Bride would do. I called my wedding coordinator, Big Hugs.

Who answered the phone and promptly yawned.

"Oh, did I wake you? I'm sooooo sorry!" (I was in no way sorry.)

In her sleepiest voice: "That's okayyyyy." (Clearly, she was not okay with my wake up call.)

"We are locked out of the Bridal Room." (And if you don't solve this soon, I'm going to freak the frack out.)

"I'll take care of it." (Spoiled princess.)

"Thanks! I'll see you later!" (You better not mess up my wedding, dum dum.)

"Can't wait!" (I don't get paid enough for this crap.)

Within five minutes someone appeared and let us in. (Well, not before accidentally bumping into me and the wedding dress and having it crash to the floor and get smooshed by a door. Well, it was ruched. No one would notice, right?)

And then, the next 3 hours were generally a blur. I made myself relax and sat around and chatted with my bridesmaids until they got their hair done. I had a great time.

We had sandwiches, we read trashy magazines (do you think Tony Romo really cheated on Jessica Simpson...in her own bed?), and I started to get my hair done. Fun all around.

Until.

I looked at the clock and realized Mr F was supposed to be at the hotel in the "Groom's Dressing Room." So I decided to just "check up on him."

I got on the cellphone while the makeup artist began to work on my makeup.

And asked Mr F if he was downstairs.

He was not.

He was at home.

But according to him, he was "leaving momentarily."

Mr F's leaving momentarily is about as likely as a lunar eclipse, peace on the Gaza Strip, JLo having a lasting marriage.

So I hung up while my makeup was being done. I remained calm. Ok, calm-ish.

And then called him back twenty minutes later.

He had not left.

We were supposed to start pictures in 20 minutes.

I had a mini freakout.

Everyone thought I was worried that he wouldn't show.

That was not my fear at all. I knew he would show. I was worried about the timeline.

To which everyone said (in very calming tones) that "I was the bride!" and "The day can't start without me!" But if I can be quite frank, I knew both of those things.

The issue was really this: I knew Mr F was going to marry me. Not concerned at all. But if we started pictures late, then we would have less family portraits (which did end up happening by the way) and we couldn't really be too late making up time taking pictures because I hated the idea of our friends and family waiting for the ceremony to start for more than a half an hour and dammit, I wasn't cutting down that cocktail hour by a single minute. When you're paying like a zillion dollars for that crap, you want people to enjoy every minute you've paid for.

I know, I'm a little crazy, but that's where my neurosis came from. Not that he wouldn't show.

Oh, I knew he would show. That crazy guy loves me.

So what did I do? I delegated.

I got my Mom to call Mr F and tell him to get there pronto, my sister in law to call my brother (a groomsman) to then call Mr F to tell him to ease on down the roo-oad, and Mr F's sister (my bridesmaid) to leave him a stern message telling him to get his ass to the hotel on the double.

And so, only an hour after he was supposed to be there, I learned that Mr F (at that point Mr F-U), had indeed entered the building.

With that burden off my shoulders, I looked in the mirror at my hair and makeup and couldn't believe that they had actually come out so perfect. Un-frackin-believable.

At which point I was told that Mr F asked that I call him immediately.

Stop the presses.

If there is one thing I learned from "Sex and the City: The Movie", it's that if the groom calls you on your cellphone on your wedding day, you'd best be answering that call.

Which is exactly what I said. And so everyone looked at me with inquiring eyes as I called Mr F back.

I listened for his voice, curious to hear the emergency.

Mr F paused for a moment and then said, "Do we have time to practice our first dance?"

Sweet matrimonial dowry, of course we had no time! We were already running late and there was a Schedule to adhere to, for goodness sake.

So what did I say to my husband-to-be?

"Of course, sweetheart. I want you to be happy and comfortable when we do the dance."

And so I stepped into my totally gorgeous silk satin mermaid-bodice gown (which I loved!!! loved! loved! - I was a movie star!) and then got back out of it as I realized I needed to pee.

I ran to use the ladies room. I returned breathless and bladder-empty, and stepped back into my gorgeous silk satin gown and my Mom and bridesmaids buttoned and zipped me up.

I looked in the mirror and loved my whole look. I wouldn't have changed a thing.

And then I said screw it to the Schedule, and went and practiced my first dance with Mr F while the hotel staff set the tables in the reception room around us, so that he too would be happy on our wedding day.

As Mr F twirled me to the clang of charger plates, and dipped me to the clink of wine glasses, I had no doubt it was going to be a wonderful day.

Stay tuned. Act II, Scene II awaits.

I Don't Know Why You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

2009-03-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

I know, I know.

I disappeared.

I fell off the face of the Earth.

And here's the worst part: I haven't even gone on my honeymoon yet.

Clearly I could not anticipate the amount of exhaustion I would feel after attending two weddings.

That were both my own.

But now I'm back and ready to give you the play-by-play on all of my many weddings.

Well, I'm not so much "back" as about to depart for my honeymoon in two days. And I'm not so much "ready to give you the play-by-play," as I have mentally checked out from my job and am sitting at my computer with nothing to do because I need to stay here until 5 p.m.

And by nothing to do I mean that I don't want to write my thank you notes. Because man, those suck.

So, without further adieu....

The Wedding.

A Play in Three Parts. (Or possibly four, depending on how I decide to write this up.)

Act I. "The Rehearsal Dinner"

I've been trying to think of a way to not start this post with the rehearsal dinner, because it was not my proudest moment. But all of the things that happened before that - namely, Mr F not packing up to leave for the hotel until 3:00 because he was watching Sports Center and the hotel only having one person at the check-in desk for a line of 20 people - don't really merit much discussion. They were really just speedbumps along the proverbial wedding road.

Although I suppose that they may have provided a backdrop for what happened next. For it was because Mr F made us an hour late to get to the hotel, and because the check in took another half an hour (since I learned one cannot "cut" in line at a hotel even if one is single-handedly providing them with massive amounts of revenue by filling up 25 guest rooms and also happens to be holding a 10 lb wedding dress), that I only had 20 minutes to get ready for my own rehearsal dinner.

There are entire magazine articles on how to dress for your rehearsal dinner. Some people have their makeup and hair done; others have official photographers.

I was forced to get ready in less time than I do for my job every morning.

This put me on edge.

And so, when at 4:30, the time when I asked my bridesmaids to come over so I could give them their bridesmaid gifts and the time which I rushed my guts out to be ready by, no one showed up at my hotel room, I started to freak out.

And I called one of my bridesmaids.

"Aren't you coming over? Didn't you see The Schedule said to come to my hotel room at 4:30?"

"Uhm...oh. I didn't know we were supposed to. The revised schedule you sent us took that off the schedule. So I didn't know we were supposed to."

And then I could feel the tears pricking at my eyes.

I had stayed up late writing all the thank you notes to each girl and packing their gifts just perfectly and now no one was coming and I didn't know when I would give them their gifts because if it wasn't now, when would it be and how did I take this off The Schedule since I only revised The Schedule to give them more details and I went through all the trouble to get them champagne so we could have a toast and I even got cranberry seltzer for the pregnant girls so who is going to drink the seltzer now?????? My mind was racing, I was sweating and I wanted to cry but I knew that I didn't have time to re-do my makeup. And I hated seltzer.

I was just overwhelmed. Truth be told (and Monday Morning Quarterbacking Be Used), I didn't give a crap about people showing up at 4:30. But this was all too surreal and too much to handle, so my Type A personality focused on The Schedule.

So I sniffled and whined: "That was a mistake! You were all still supposed to come here." And then my voice cracked as I was about to say something else, so I hung up.

Meanwhile, my front door rang and I opened it up to see my Co-Matron of Honor. I practically cross examined her: "You knew you were supposed to be here at 4:30, right?"

She looked confused. "Uhhhh, I thought you changed the schedule. I was just stopping by to say hi."

And then.

I lost it.

I went off on a diatribe, spewing all the words that had been in my head out onto my poor hapless CMOH. Who had come up to my room just to be nice and check on me.

"Well I guess no one really cares then. Since everyone else has already been married it doesn't matter to them about my wedding. They had their day. Who cares if E&E is doing everything herself with no help. And maybe if any of you responded to my emails then someone would have asked if we were still on for 4:30...."

And that was only the half of it.

Somehow during this meltdown there must have been a red wedding bell silhouette beamed onto the TV screens of each of my bridesmaid's hotel rooms alerting Bridal Danger because in the next 5 minutes all of the bridesmaids showed up.

At which point I realized what an idiot I was being and started saying "I'm sorry."

For I realized I had done exactly what I resolved NOT to do.

I let a little bump in the road (well, a few bumps and a few potholes) completely waylay everything.

God damn it.

So I apologized AGAIN. To EVERYONE. Even the girls who were blissfully unaware of my craziness.

I noted to my CMOH that this was my first freakout in 13 months of wedding planning. And didn't I deserve just one? I was no Bridezilla, but couldn't I be a little tiny Tricera-bride? Or a Bride-a-saurus Rex?

I gave them their gifts (which I thought were awesome by the way - in addition to the pashminas, each person got a sterling silver necklace hand crafted by a local Baltimore artisan who made each one unique but generally related to the "branches" motif that we were using).

And then we went downstairs for the rehearsal. As I walked over to the rehearsal space, I cursed myself for my derailment and promised myself I would not let it happen again.

The rehearsal went perfectly.

Sigh of relief.

So I put on my fabulous fancy coat, and we all went on over to the rehearsal dinner. And in the cab I closed my eyes and repeated the words "do not get off course" over and over in my head. (I think saying them aloud might have confused the cab driver, not to mention alarmed Mr F's grandma, who was sitting next to me.)

I resolved that no matter what unexpected surprises came my way the rest of the weekend, I would have FUN.

So when we arrived at the rehearsal dinner restaurant, and I realized they were not serving any of the wines that we discussed at length and ultimately agreed on, I just ignored it and ordered a Chardonnay.

And when the steamed parchment-wrapped fish that we agreed on was not on the menu, I said screw it and ordered the pan-seared bass they substituted without my permission.

Similarly, when I realized that the food was less-than-delicious and barely more than lukewarm (according to Mr F and the untouched portions on everyone else plates), I simply encouraged more booze to our guests.

Moreover, when Baskin Robbins' son ran around the restaurant non-stop for three hours and cried because he could not sit where he wanted to, I simply ran away from him. (OK, and I talked some serious smack to my bridesmaids about the fact that she needs to learn to control her child. But I still consider that a zen moment.)

And finally, at the end of the meal, when the waiter brought us the check and I realized that the restaurant charged us the wrong price per person, we simply paid the bill and decided to call the restaurant and let them know the day after the wedding that they were schmucks and overcharged us.

And so, as we left the restaurant to go meet the rest of our friends at the bar across from the hotel, I didn't have to say my mantra anymore because I was already having a ton of fun and had somehow succeeded in seeing the bumps in the path as unique characteristics making my trip down the aisle special.

Well, at least for that night.

Act II was another story.

But It Ain't No Lie, Baby Bye Bye Bye

2009-02-13T05:37:00.000-08:00

It's 8:30 in the morning on Friday and I have been up an hour already. Luckily, this dovetails nicely with my inability to fall asleep before 2 a.m. last night.

Thoughout this past week everyone asked me: "Are you nervous?" And well, no, I wasn't.

But now I am.

I can't pinpoint what it is. I'm not nervous about marrying Mr F (thank God, one less thing to worry about). And I'm really pretty much done with most (though definitely not all) of the planning required. So I'm not nervous about getting things done. And thankfully, Big Hugs has been in line this week and seemed to be mostly on the ball at our final meeting. So I'm (shockingly) not nervous about her toppling my wedding plans like dominos.

So what is it?

I don't know.

Maybe it's because I haven't had a drink in about two weeks. (No, I don't have "other" news to announce, I just decided that mixing antibiotics, bronchitis, and Chardonnay was likely not doing anyone any favors).

Could the butterflies in my stomach be the flapping of withdrawal?

Doubtful.

No matter the reason, I can't sleep and I just feel nervous and apprehensive.

Maybe it's the general symptom of a Type A personality's awareness that she is placing massive amounts of small tasks in the hands of other people for a very important day and will likely have little to no control over how the events of that day run?

Whatever the cause, I will take slight comfort in the fact that I think Mr F might feel the same way (though he would never admit it) even though he's not the one single-handedly planning a large scale event for 130 people (make that four events, if you count the rehearsal dinner, the gathering after the rehearsal dinner, the wedding itself and the brunch).

My evidence? The other night I got into bed at about midnight and I heard him mumble to me from his slumber, "We gotta practice our dance. We gotta dance."

Nice. I wish I taped that.

But apparently the wedding has invaded his subconsciousness as well.

Anyway, all this leads to the fact that the wedding is on Sunday and it's Friday, so I'm self-suspending myself from blogging until post-wedding. (Holy crap - that means that the wedding is close enough that I can talk about LAW - Life After Wedding). I think I want to focus on my friends, family, and monitoring my tan, instead of blogging.

That being said, I have complete and total faith that I will have a plethora, indeed a boatload, of stories that will spin off from the next 72 hours.

But worry not, I will try my very best to heed all of the advice I have gotten thus far, which for the most part really just echoes good common sense: I plan to simply enjoy everything - come what may - because hell, after the year of craziness that I have experienced, I sure deserve to actually have fun over the next two days.

See you on the other side, kids.

Oompa Loompa Doopity Doo, I've Got Another Puzzle For You

2009-02-11T05:17:00.000-08:00

This may be an anonymous blog (well, anonymous from my family at least), but I will disclose one identifying detail so you can understand my latest plight.

I am pale.

Not pale like the olive-skinned girls who look in the mirror during the winter months and lament in a high pitched voice, "I'm soooo pale!" because their skin has not retained the same bronzy sheen as during the summer. No, I am pale like the gauzy hue of a piece of thin wax paper. Or the almost glowing iridescence of a full moon.

In fact, during the winter, much like a piece of wax paper, I am practically translucent.

I am a natural redhead (or at least, I once was, now it's more auburn) - but my skin has retained its natural paleness. I make Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore look like the Coppertone Girls.

So when I tried on my wedding dress (in ivory) and stood in the dressing room against the white walls, my parents, the seamstress, and I all simultaneously realized that my skin was lighter than both the dress and the walls. I was like a floating head of hair. I was the gecko bride.

Which resulted in a conundrum that I have faced before. But never on such an important day.

How do I get a tan without subjecting myself to cancerous rays of light and/or potentially orange, hand-staining artificial methods?

Now normally, I would just pop on a little Clarins self-tanning lotion (the stuff is the BEST) and end up a nice hue of bronze and accept the corresponding streaks on my hands and deliciously orange color deposits on my knees and elbows. (I chose this path last year for my brother's wedding.)

But on this day, I don't really want to risk orange streaks (or even brown ones, for that matter). I want to avoid the telltale sign of fake tanner which is pools of brown tanner next to pearly white skin. Not to mention, I'm acutely aware that there will be a ton of "hand photos" (that whole wedding ring thing and all) and I don't want to focus on my striped hands when perusing through my wedding album over the next 50 years.

So what to do?

Operation Anti-Loompa. A quest to seek color, but without streaks or orangeness.

Sort of like the "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" of the tanning world. All of the taste, but none of the bad side effects. And no Fabio.

I have been in a spray tan booth before, so I knew that while the color could be good, the streaks could be bad. This is why I thought that having someone hand spray me with the stuff (using a machine that is frighteningly like a spray paint gun) would be my best bet.

However, after standing stark naked in front of a bored spa employee who, after spraying my body with a misty substance, left me to stand in all my glory in front of three giant industrial-strength fans (in a room that was about 50 degrees to begin with), I began to doubt my decision. (Or perhaps hypothermia was setting in and my faculties were not functioning properly.)

And right I was. Though the color wasn't bad, my feet looked like I had stepped in cheez whiz and my hands looked like I had dipped them half in orange paint.

It was back to the drawing board.

So I continued to look on the Internet for alternate tan options and found a spa which did a "body bronze." In essence, a woman will actually put the tanning lotion on you (and by having someone else out it on you, it hopefully avoids those pesky spots and stripes).

If nothing else, the application process certainly beats the ice-cold-spray-and-stand I was forced to endure last time. This time I got to lie on a heated spa bed and have some chick rub the lotion onto me. It was basically like a poor man's massage (if a poor man was forced to pay a ridiculous amount of money to turn himself brown). Not bad.

And the results?

Also not bad. I got home and looked at my hands. Nary a stripe. And the color? A nice light brown. Hopefully not overwhelming (since the goal was not so much to have people say "When did you get back Jamaica?" as to comment "Oh, you don't look as sickly as you did last week.").

So I was ready to call this a success.

Until.

I undressed for bed. And I looked down at my stomach, my legs, my arms and my back.

And they were covered with spots. Hundreds, thousands, of SPOTS. Red spots.

I ran into Mr F. "Look at me!! Look at me!!"

"What? I see. You're brown. It's nice."

"No! I'm allergic to the dye! I'm not brown, I'm red. And bumpy!"

He motioned me over to his side of the bed and turned on the light. "Hmmm. Yeah, you're definitely having an allergic reaction."

(OK, I'm not going to say it yet again, but I think I definitely have an Edding-Way Llergy-A.)

I stared at myself in the mirror and counted the days until my wedding. On one hand. Because that's all there was.

Then I popped three Benadryls and slept like a baby.

The next day the red dots had mostly cleared up.

Now I just have to figure out how to avoid turning my ivory wedding dress orange via contact with my artificially-colored skin. But that's another conundrum for another day.

Too bad there are only two more days to figure it out.

Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right, Here I Am, Stuck in the Middle with You

2009-02-07T20:26:00.000-08:00

Table assignments. Saving the best for last, I suppose? Just when you think you've got this whole "wedding thing" all wrapped up, you're left with this doozy.

I led myself to believe I was going to get a free pass on this one. After all the responses were in, I did some quick math, took out a piece of paper and jotted some names down, and WHALA! (Wala?), I was done! I decided tables of twelve were the way to go (why have two extra tables, when that means spending extra cash on two extra centerpieces and table cloths and everything else?). And besides, I like the idea of people sitting at large tables and getting to mingle with more people.

So the math led me to the conclusion that each branch of the wedding pyramid would get 4 tables to seat (that would be me and Mr F together, my parents and Mr F's parents) with likely a little bit of sharing between the three to fill in tables.

As I said, I jotted our tables down in about 15 minutes. I then dashed off an email to the Mothers asking that they pass along their seating arrangements in tables of 12.

Two days later I got my Mom's list.

5 tables. 8 people at a table.

Needless to say, Mom does not follow directions well.

When I casually mentioned to Mom (ok, so maybe it wasn't so casually) that she exceeded her table allotment, she pulled the Ace card.

She cried.

Time out here. Not to be melodramatic, but shouldn't I be the one crying big elephant tears? Shouldn't the bride be having meltdowns and temper tantrums to get my way? Is this like that book "The Wedding" by Nicholas Sparks (don't judge me for having read it, that's neither here nor there right now) where the Mother is actually the one getting married and not the daughter and it's a giant surprise to the reader and when you finally realize it you're like "Oh my God! It's the MOM!"?

"It's the MOM!"

I'm taking a moment. Hold on.

.........

........

.......

OK. So anyway, Mom is crying and telling me that she can't combine her tables with other random people because she doesn't want her guests to feel like she doesn't care about them. I'm trying to figure out how seating someone with another person translates into anything other than the statement "Math dictates that only 12 people fit at a table so I am seating you with eleven other people to add up to 12."

More importantly, I'm trying to figure out if the antibiotics I'm on will be rendered impotent if I drink a giant goblet of white wine while on this phone call. The orange bottle doesn't have a little sticker that says "don't drink while on this medicine" but I remember hearing that you should never mix antibiotics with alcohol because they won't work (not the alcohol, the antibiotics...I'm pretty sure the alcohol will work even better).

Oh, did I not mention that I have bronchitis and the wedding is a week away? Yeah, well if you didn't think I was allergic to my wedding before, I think we have indisputable proof now.

Since I can't keep my mouth shut, I ask Mom to explain why I should spend hundreds of extra dollars so that her friends and family don't have to break bread with others' friends and family (mind you, the "other" people we are talking about are Mr F's family and my friends - not exactly strangers off the street. Funny how Mom was all "into" the engagement and melding of families, until of course, her niece has to sit with Future Mother in Law's great aunt.)

At which point, Mom changes tactics and goes back to what a Jewish Mom knows best.

She sighs. And pauses. And then says "You do what you want, E&E." Her barely dried tears are still glimmering on her cheeks (and she declines to wipe them away). I recognize this ploy I know so well and greet it accordingly. Hello, Jewish Guilt! How are you today? I, for one, am doing shitty.

So what do I do? I choose the path of least resistance. Which is, believe it or not, just giving in to Mom. I tell FMIL that she must seat all of her guests at three tables and Mr F and I squeeze all of our guests (and some of FMIL's) at ours.

Done.

Or so I thought.

Until Mom gives me a diagram of where she wants her tables to be placed in the reception room.

All by her. At the front of the room. So that all of my friends will be wayyyyy across the room from me.

Keep following the path of least resistance and apparently you end up at the bottom of a lake of quicksand.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Fire Away

2009-02-05T16:59:00.001-08:00

No more Mr. Nice Bride.

I'm too tired and we're getting too close to this silly wedding for me to beg the people I'm paying to...well, to do the frickin jobs that I paid them for.

And that's why Big Hugs, bane of my existence, free wedding coordinator extraordinaire, and likely she who will cause more stress than assistance, received the Wrath of Bride.

I placed calls. I emailed. I simultaneously emailed and placed calls.

And I got no response.

My wedding is just around the corner and the woman who is allegedly supposed to coordinate said event will not give me answers about my menu, the room set up, the number of bars available, what time I will have access to the bridal suite, and other annoying details that I would like to ignore, but unfortunately not only have to deal with but now have to persistently stalk the woman I am paying, to disclose.

Oodles of fun for the whole family.

So finally, I got sick of this shit.

And I called Big Hugs' boss.

And left a message like this:

"Hi, this is E&E - my wedding is on February 15th at your venue. I am working with Big Hugs, the wedding coordinator. I emailed her a few times over the past month and never got a response to my questions. I also called her about 3 times during this period and haven't heard back. This has been going on for about a month now and I haven't been able to get in touch with her. I'm just wondering if this is typical and what I should expect on the wedding day?"

OK, it wasn't the harshest call I've ever made, but I acutely aware that no matter what happens, given the late date, this woman still does hold the timeline of my wedding in the palm of her (very inefficient) hand.

My phone rang back five minutes later.

It was Big Hugs.

Her voice was sweet as pie, telling me she has been "sooo" busy lately and it's been "just so hard!" to return all her emails. And she went on to ask me how she could help me.

I have some ideas.

She could best help me by returning my calls the same day.

It would be helpful if she could remember what food we are planning to have at the wedding instead of asking me "are your guests having the chicken?". (That would be NO.)

And it would be great if she could send me paperwork that was supposed to get to me a month before the wedding, without requiring that I ask two weeks before: "Shouldn't there be some paperwork I should get explaining all this?"

And hells, while we're at it, it would be nice it she took her hug and shove it up her kisser.

(S)he drinks a Whiskey drink, (s)he drinks a Vodka drink

2009-02-03T20:36:00.001-08:00

My bachelorette party was the weekend before last (before last...which is three weeks...crap, time flies. I have like ten posts that I've started and none are finished because I've been so busy *doing* the wedding that I haven't had time for *writing* about said doing).

Anyway, I had a blast. I have ridiculously creative friends. They gave me clues which led to different bars in the city and each bartender had the next clue. Too cute, right?

You know what's not cute?

Hangovers.

I'm never drinking again. OK, that has a slightly false ring to it.

Thus, I must clarify: I am never having another shot again.

Who thought of this thing - shots? And shouldn't an intelligent person be wary of a drink consumed in a form bearing the same name as the artillery fired from a weapon of death?

Needless to say, I haven't had a hangover of this proportion since college. Actually, I take that back. I didn't get hangovers like this when I was in college.

This is actually a new phenomenon and clearly a predominant reason for a severely decreased consumption of multiple glasses of alcohol in one sitting.

Even of my faithful companion, White Wine. Even White Wine has become the friendly neighbor who makes you temporarily happy by plying you with food, until you realize that you are gnawing on a poisonous apple.

OK, that's a stretch and I think mixing some fairy tales with apartment dwelling, but right now my neighbors are having a massive argument and it's giving me a headache so I'm having a hard time separating fact from fiction.

But alcohol now affects me in a way it never did before. It hurts.

A Haiku On Hangovers
O, my dear White Wine,
why do you betray?
Were you not my friend?

Getting old sucks.

Hangovers suck.

Eggs benedict with a side of homefries when you think you're gonna boot in a Murray Hill restaurant with 10 of your closest friends looking at you with concern tinged with pity while in NYC sucks.

But friends who travel from around the country just to go to your bachelorette and watch you make a fool of yourself until you can't remember anything (and then watch you try not to toss your cookies the next morning) are the best.

That sounds an awful lot like a Mastercard commercial, doesn't it? I didn't mean for it to.

Priceless.

I Get A Kick Out Of You

2009-01-23T11:35:00.000-08:00

I have a new best friend: his name is Michael.

I go to his place at least once a week. While I'm at Michael's, I wander around aimlessly. The air is soft and peaceful, thick with the artificial, yet oddly calming, smell of silk flowers and scented candles. I can drift up and down the aisles, gazing at the endless possibilities. I know there are others who love him too; sometimes I catch their eye as we both spy the last silver ink pad at the exact same moment. But we're not competitive. I'm content with buying gold leaf paint and she is just as happy to buy multi-color yarn. We exist together peacefully. Michael has enough room for all of us.

I love the way he cares about me. I know it from the way he offers me deals for just one dollar as soon as I walk in the door. And he reminds me about every upcoming holiday - just in case I was going to forget. Just yesterday he reminded me that Valentine's Day is near and St. Patty's is mere moments later by providing a shelf of pink and red ribbon, with heart wooden boxes and cupid-imprinted stamps. Shamrocks galore wink playfully, begging to be affixed to a decorative bag, should I feel so inclined.

Unfortunately, for all that he does for me, Michael can be hurtful at times. Michael is gifted with the ability to be crafty, whereas I am not. So when I am at Michael's I sometimes find myself moved by the siren song of scrapbooking. Or knitting. Or necklace making. Or perfuming. There are so many appliques you can buy! But I know (from experience) that I will glue my fingers to the cotton with the hot glue gun or drop the fragile glass jar and Michael will be ashamed of me. So I scuttle away, empty-handed and embarrassed.

The other problem with Michael of course is that I suspect Mr F is a little concerned about our relationship. And perhaps he should be. Because I spend a lot of money on my new friend (more than he even knows). But I don't have much to show for it. I have ribbon, and a calligraphy pen, and some cardstock. And moss and flower foam. And a hot glue gun. And 32 glue gun inserts. Which are sitting in my closet. And will make a cameo appearance at my wedding. If I can figure out what to do with them.

But Michael made me bring them home! He knew I would take good care of them. Like he has taken care of me.

I can't wait to visit Michael's again next week. If only his handmaidens of checkout weren't so slow. (Really? Ten minutes to try to wrap a mason jar? Come on, people.)

Papa's Got A Brand New Bag

2009-01-15T10:25:00.001-08:00

A few months ago my Future Mother in Law asked how she could help with the wedding. As I've mentioned previously, to say that my FMIL and I have different tastes would be an understatment. To me, simple is better. To her, simple is just...simple.

So upon the suggestion of my MOH, I decided that a good way for her to "help" would be to lift the mammoth burden of filling the out of town bags from my shoulders (which were carrying so much mental weight these days they made Atlas look like a lightweight). I told her I would create a label that she could just peel and place on the bag. A perfect situation - she would just have to buy the bags and fill them up.

Except that FMIL is rabid. Like a wedding dog. She emailed me asking what exactly it was I wanted to put in the bags. But between holding down a full-time job and rushing back and forth meeting with vendors and mailing out invitations, I didn't have time to focus on the out of town bag contents.

Then she called.

And emailed.

Again.

Asking what I want in the bags.

Mind you, this was months ago, before Mr F and I even bought a wedding band. Or had written vows. Or created programs. In the hierarchy of wedding planning, I firmly believe that out of town bags are somewhere between the color purse I will be holding at the rehearsal dinner (don't know) and the name of the signature cocktail (no idea). Important, but not to be focused on prior to, say, determining what song we will use as a processional.

Nonetheless, I had a general inkling of what I wanted in the bags, so I sat down and spoke with her about precisely what I wanted (which was her request - an exact list).

I wanted to fill our bags with healthier options than the typical "out of town bag" fare. While I love a chocolate molten flourless cake, I loathe vending machine snacks (Twinkies make me ill). So I gave FMIL a list of healthy-ish snacks. I also told her a few items that I would love to include to celebrate the fact that we were getting married in Baltimore; it was a nice way to introduce people to the flavors of the city.

I explained to her that I just wanted to put the stickers I created on a very simple bag - brown, preferably recycled, paper bag. Simple. Low key. Put the stickers on the bag and presto - done.

FMIL visited a couple of weeks ago and excitedly told me that she had gotten "options" for the bags.

My mind tried to comprehend the statement. "Options?" I was pretty sure that there weren't a lot of variations on the brown bag theme. It's brown. It's a bag. The end.

As we are sitting at my kitchen table, she pulls six gift bags out of her bigger plastic bag.

Whoa.

Each bag is more fanciful than its predecessor. One has pearls, another has lace. One is white with some sort of hologram on it (I swear). And the grand finale was a giant shiny white bag with wedding bells on the front in glitter. FMIL's eyes sparked and she grinned. "Aren't they great?"

I looked inside the bag to see if perhaps there was a mini bottle of Stoli. Because that was the only way these bags were going to achieve greatness.

"Uhm. Well, they're very fancy."

I racked my brain for a way to say, "These bags are fugtastic, but you are truly such a sweet and loving mother that I don't want to hurt your feelings or strain our future relationship. But these bags make me want to retch."

I realized there was no way to politely convey this message, so I kept my mouth shut.

She looked at me. I think she looked into my soul. And saw a deep hatred of the wedding aisle at Michael's. Or she wasn't looking at my soul and just saw that I was frowning and giving the glittery wedding bells the evil eye. Which is generally also considered a "give."

"You don't like them?"

"Well...they're just not my 'style'... I prefer a simpler look."

She looked confused. "Less lace?"

"No lace."

A light went on in the attic. "Ohhhhh. Simple. Ok."

So to ensure that she understood what I meant, I went out and bought a bag and put on the sticker and sent it to her back in New Jersey. My aching back was not feeling un-burdened.

A few days ago I got an email that told me the following:

"Honey - the bags are done!! I used the brown bags. I couldn't find all the things you asked for so instead I just bought other things!! I included the following: oreo's, M&M's, potato chips, and peanut butter and cheese crackers."

My cholesterol doubled just reading the email. Hey, what's a little trans-fat between friends?

But the email went on: "I didn't know where to get that Baltimore stuff - so I guess that's out or you can just get it on your own."

Yup. This was helpful. I took out my "to do" list and erased the line I had drawn though "out of town bags" so it could reclaim its rightful spot on the list. Still, I'm awarding FMIL an "A" for effort. Just cause I'm feeling benevolent today.

Time Keeps on Tickin Tickin Tickin....Into the Future

2009-01-15T06:50:00.000-08:00

One month from today.

One month from today at this time I will be sitting in a hotel room chair, having my hair and makeup done by dueling professionals, just hours away from walking down the aisle.

One month from today I will be chugging Red Bull and coffee (though hopefully not together) since I will likely have accumulated only 8 hours of sleep over the previous 7 days (if past insomnia is any indication of the future).

One month and one day from today I can throw out all of the wedding magazines.

One month and one day from today I will have my own Bonfire of the Vanities. I will dispose of the ribbon, the ink pads, and the cardstock. I suspect they will be deliciously flammable.

One month and two days from today I will sleep.

One month and fourteen days from today I will wear my wedding dress for the second time and have a sequel to my wedding.

One month and fifteen days from today I will sit on the couch and eat the top layer of the wedding cake that is supposed to be eaten exactly 13 months from today.

One month and sixteen days from today I will sit on the couch and watch "Say Yes to the Dress" and "Whose Wedding is it Anyway" without anxiety. I will sip Chardonnay as neither a shield nor a sword.

One month and seventeen days from today I will balance my computer on my lap while trying to think of a new name for this Blog.

I can't wait.

My Words, Like Silent Raindrops Fell

2009-01-13T08:14:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about how to write this post for a couple of days now, and I'm still not sure I'm going to do it right. But like everything else in life, you just need to jump in, so I will.

Over the past year, I have heard the same refrain over and over again: "Just relax and enjoy this time", "It will go by so quickly," and most frequently, "In the scheme of things, all the little details aren't important."

I hate when people say that to me.

I would love nothing more than to relax. I would relish the opportunity to not stress. I wish I could heed that advice, but my brain truly won't comprehend it. I just can't, no matter how hard I try, let all the little things go. I try to tell myself that I don't need to create menus (and, intellectually I really know that I don't) but I can't just not do them. I don't know why; it must be the way I'm hardwired (which is apparently with the red and blue wires crossed so that I could blow up at any second).

But this past weekend I actually experienced something that put things more into perspective than all of the advice in the world. It's one thing for someone to tell you that "it's not a big deal in the scheme of things" and it's a whole other to see why it isn't.

On Saturday, my Mom and I were well into Wedding Trial Weekend when we went to the salon where I was to have my makeup trial. I was clutching my file of "wedding makeup looks" which the Makeup Artist suggesting I bring along with me. I was also psyched because the Makeup Artist had told me that she would do my trial for free. (For FREE? This is unheard of in the wedding industry! Even the bridal shows charge a price for tickets. Cake tastings come with the burden of a commitment to order a full cake for $600 and the trial for my hair cost the same amount that my hair will cost the day of my wedding.)

We walked into the salon and I breathed in the wonderfully relaxing smell of eucalyptus (the salon also happens to be a great spa). We sauntered up to the check in desk and mentioned that we were there to see Makeup Artist and we had a 1:30 appointment.

Her eyes widened in surprise and she became silent.

My Mom and I looked at each other.

The receptionist began to speak slowly. "You didn't hear? ... Makeup Artist passed away two weeks ago."

My mouth dropped open and my stomach dipped. I conjured up Makeup Artist's face in my mind - she was a young woman - I was sure of it. Perhaps there was some mistake?

"What...what happened? Are we talking about Makeup Artist? I thought she was young...." I trailed off.

The receptionist's eyes filled with tears. "She was. She was only thirty-two. She died suddenly of an aneurysm the day after Christmas. She left an eleven year old son."

Thirty two. Exactly my age.

My heart started beating more quickly and I started to sweat. I had a lump in my throat that was making it hard to breathe, but I had no right for such sadness - I barely spoke with the woman for more than ten minutes.

I suddenly thought of the phone message I had left last week on her cellphone, reminding her of our appointment. It occurred to me that when I left the message, she was no longer even living. Did her husband watch the cellphone ring and ring, but couldn't bring himself to answer it? It was too horrible to imagine.

We excused ourselves from the salon and sat in the car in silence. I'm not a religious person at all, but I counted my blessings.

Do my parents drive me up a wall? Yes. Am I lucky to have two loving parents? Yes.

Do I think about hitting Mr F over the head with a frying pan at times? Yes. But I'm lucky I will have the chance to walk down that aisle and see him waiting for me at the end of it.

Will I continue to obsess over the little details of this wedding in light of what happened? To be honest with myself, probably yes.

But will I keep the image of this young woman, snatched away from life at the same age I am today, tucked into the corner of my consciousness, ready for recall when I start to dwell on the superficial? Yes. Truly, I will.

When I got home that night, I opened my wallet and pulled out the business card that Erin had given me when we met in mid-December. After a fun conversation about how much we both loved makeup, she scribbled her name and cellphone on the reverse side and the words "free makeup consult" on the front.

As the tragedy of it all bounced around my head, I walked over to the garbage, ready to toss it in. But I decided to keep it.

I placed the card back in my wallet.

http://www.legacy.com/baltimoresun/DeathNotices.asp?Page=Notice&PersonID=121908326

----

I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

2009-01-11T16:12:00.001-08:00

My parents came to visit this weekend for the Law & Order of bridal weekends - full of trials. (Yes, I'm fully aware that was a terrible joke. But I just spent 48 hours with my parents and their Catskills-inspired sense of humor is contagious. Like the black plague.)

To clarify, my parents were in town for my floral trial, makeup trial, hair trial and dress fitting (i.e., dress trial). I was definitely nervous about all of the aforementioned trials, especially the hair and makeup since I selected my beauty professionals by closing my eyes and pointing at a listing in the phonebook. (OK, it was more like pointing at the Google results on the computer screen - but you get the gist.) Baltimore is an interesting mix of cultures: while it has a bunch of chic new boutiques, restaurants and bars, there is also a strong blue collar contingent that (let's face it - is less superficial than I am and) prefers spam to spumoni and smokes a pack-a-day instead of working on their six pack each day. I tossed and turned each night as I dreamt of a hair trial that resulted in a John Waters-inspired bee hive hairdo and eye makeup that looked like Cher's Vegas Show team had gone on a rampage.

Thus, I was actually very happy to have my parents coming along on these meetings, if for no other reason than they are certainly not known for keeping their opinions to themselves. (Not so helpful when selecting a wedding venue, very helpful when they need to tell a makeup artist that powder blue is NOT my best color.)

So no sooner had our Marathon Wedding Trial day began, then I found myself sitting in my parents' Volvo on my way to the mall. My mom started asking about her favorite topic - whether Israel is justified in continuing violence against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. No, not really. She started talking about the wedding. Which I must grudgingly admit was justified being that it was Marathon Wedding Trial Day. So we begin to chat about wedding details when she starts asking about my bachelorette party, which is next weekend.

"When are you going into the city? Do you want us to give you a ride?" [Incidentally, The City = New York City. If you grow up in NJ, there is only one City. And it's not Philadelphia or Baltimore.]

I was flabbergasted. It was so nice and so unlike my parents to drive me all the way into the city, only to turn around and immediately drive the hour back to central New Jersey. (They were the parents who used to always say to me when I was younger: "Can't you get someone else's parents to give you a ride to soccer / dance class / drama practice? We always have to drive."). And so, delighted that two old dogs had apparently learned some new tricks, I exclaimed "Yeah! That's so nice of you - to drive me there and then to turn around and go right back! That would be great."

To which my Mother replied breezily, "Oh, we're not going back. We're going to spend the night in the city to belatedly celebrate my birthday."

Oh.

My mother (rightly) took my silence as annoyance so she continued defensively, "There are eight million people in the city."

Indeed, there are. Which I was aware of. But still, when I lived in Manhattan, I always managed to run into ex-boyfriends while I was picking up a whole pizza to eat by myself, obnoxious girls from high school when I was wearing no makeup, and random cousins who I cared little for and wanted to have to pretend to make plans to see even less - all on a regular basis. Eight million is actually kind of small.

But I was determined to remain level-headed. She was right really. It was a big city and somehow I doubted that we would go to the same restaurants (or bars or lounges for that matter). My parents would stick to midtown and the Upper East Side and we would likely be in the Meatpacking district or downtown. I took deep cleansing breaths and began my wedding mantra. It will be ok. It will be ok. It will be ok.

And suddenly I realized...it would be. It's fine.

So I continued to chat with my Mom and realized of course I actually couldn't get a ride into the city because I was going to go early Saturday morning and they were going later in the afternoon. Foiled again. I was immersed in thought, trying to figure out whether I could stomach taking the super cheap and moderately dangerous Chinatown Bus to NYC or if I should just suck it up and pay an obscene amount of money for Amtrak, which was sure to be less dramatic and offered bathrooms and snacks onboard, when suddenly my Mom asked "Whose apartment are you girls staying at?"

I replied, "Oh, well we actually got a hotel because there are so many of us coming in from out of town that we decided it would just be easier and more fun. And besides, we'll all meet there before we go out."

"That's a good idea. Where are you staying?"

"The Murray Hill Shelbourne - I got a great deal on a suite so it worked out really well!"

This is the point where my Mom made what can only be described as a sort of "tsk-ing" sound.

My stomach sank. Was the place a total fleabag motel? I was picturing all of us huddled on a small shabby sofa looking around the room at rodent infestations. Gross.

But she followed up the tsk-ing with the following, "Isn't that funny? That's the hotel that Dad and I are staying at!!"

Eight million people, huh?

I lost it. I would love to say I acted maturely, like a 32-year woman about to get married. But instead I threw a tempertantrum. I'll admit it.

"WHAT?!? Come ON! I TOLD you I would be in the city that weekend! God, I can't get AWAY from you people!! I want to GET AWAY! I don't want to SEE YOU AT MY BACHELORETTE PARTY. Sweet Jesus."

I told you. I lost it.

I knew I was acting like an ungrateful brat and that my parents had just as much right to stay at the hotel as I did, but that didn't diminish the fact that I really didn't want my parents to see me stumble out of the hotel for dinner at 9 p.m. as they were coming home after their 6:30 dinner plans.

But I knew I was acting like a baby, so I shut up and stewed in silence. I had clearly conveyed my displeasure and there was nothing else to say. Well, on my part at least. I was definitely hoping my parents would realize that it was their responsibility to say that they would find another hotel.

Instead, my mother said "We booked this hotel 6 weeks ago."

I put on my Parental Translator Hat and pressed "Start." Just as I had suspected. According to my calculations, that sentence in parent-speak actually meant: "I know you're our daughter, but screw you - we want to stay at this hotel. Go find another one if you're not happy."

So I quietly sulked.

When we arrived at our destination (the mall to look for tuxes for my Dad), I continued to sulk. I placed a quick call to Mr F and told him to look for alternate hotels for me. And then I tried to move on with the day.

My Mother and I were looking at patterns when my Father excused himself (presumably because he cared about tuxes just about as much as Mr F did). About a half an hour later he reappeared and walked over to me.

"Mom and I discussed it and we decided to switch our hotel. So we won't stay at the one you're staying at."

[Pigs flying; Devil wearing snowboots; Cats and dogs living together; LC and Heidi hugging.]

YES!

He continued: "I made a few calls and we got another hotel to stay at..."

Wait for it.

Wait for it....

"... Instead, we're going to stay at the Marriott."

Yup. In an incredible turn of events, I have been saved by my nemesis, mon frere, Le Marriott. I never thought I'd utter such words, but I want to take this opportunity to shout from the cyber-hilltops: "Marriott, I love you!"

Signed Sealed Delivered, I'm Yours

2009-01-07T10:42:00.000-08:00

On Saturday night I once again found myself in New Jersey. Whoever said that "All roads lead to Rome" never had two Jewish mothers and an impending wedding.

As I sat eating pasta, meatballs, chicken, mini hamburgers, and meatloaf and potatoes (a typical Jewish mother's meal for her prodigal children) and drank a large goblet of Cabernet (a typical Jewish daughter's antidote to Jewish mothers) with my Future Mother and Father in Law, and Future Sister and Brother in Law, the conversation meandered on over to the wedding guest list. And by "meandered to the guest list" I mean that from the moment we walked in the door I was pelted by searing nuptially-focused questions and thus, the topic of the group's discussion transitioned only from the food at the wedding to the cocktails for the wedding and from the clothes to be worn at the wedding to the clothes to be worn the night before the wedding. I was an innocent fawn, slowly waking from deep slumber; its tender eyes open to a sunny and quiet meadow, until it's suddenly face-to-face with the first day of hunting season and the double barrel of a shotgun.

I looked down at the bulls eye on my chest as my Future Mother in Law said to me: "How many of our friends have not responded yet?"

I considered my after-life as finely prepared venison at a top restaurant. "Well..."

"Well what?"

"Well actually, almost none of your guests have responded." Anticipating her next question, I said "The responses are due in a week."

She became indignant. "Well if they don't respond, then I'm assuming they're not coming and well, we're not going to be friends with them anymore!"

Now I was the hunter. "What do you mean, you're assuming? Aren't you going to call them to ask if they're coming? You're just going to not talk to them? But we need a definite answer!" I was a hunter whose voice rose a variety of octaves to achieve a piercing decibel during the hunt.

At this moment, FMIL looked at me as though she were indeed welcoming a wild boar into her family. Her look said, now why in the world would I possibly call the people who are my so-called closest friends and those who I insisted we must invite?

OK, maybe her look didn't say that. But that's what I thought. Why in the world would she not call the people who she insisted we must invite because they would be so hurt if we didn't, because they are Such Good Friends? Doesn't she talk to these people anyway (if they are, indeed, such good friends) and is it really a big deal to call them?

Invocations of Verizon and T-Mobile aside, this is really just a symptom of the bigger issue at hand: why oh why, can these people not RSVP to begin with? Dear Lord, my Sauveur, what more can a person do to garner a response then send someone a self addressed and stamped envelope? Is it really such a burden to take a pen to the paper and check off "yes" or "no" and to take the envelope to the mailbox? This seems only moderately more rigorous than other taxing tasks such as breathing, walking, and sleeping. (I do feel compelled here to disclose that apparently there is an in-between option of just sending in the response card with no indication of whether you will, or will not, be attending and/or any corresponding indication of a food choice should you be coming. This possibility was presented to me in the form of a response from one of FMIL's friends who dumped the completely blank response card back in the mail to us. Not a speck of ink on that sucker to be found. I'd give you my two cents on that one, but since I already spent 47 cents on a stamp that served no purpose, I'll keep it to myself.)

Indeed, there is a part of me that is tempted to send over a courier to the homes of those who have yet to respond to solicit a yay or nay from those delinquent invitees - mostly because I am curious if they will respond, or just deem it too difficult to stand up and answer the door for the courier.

I'm aware how obnoxious and impatient this sounds. I assure you that it will sound even more judgmental in light of the following: I've been that person. I am the person who gets the envelope with the stamp on it and puts it aside thinking "I should really decide if I'm going to this wedding." And then I lose the envelope. Or I forget about the reply date. Or I go on a three-week bender and groggily wake up in Tijuana in the bed of a Mexican stripper named Carmen.

Man, I am so craving enchiladas and a margarita (on the rocks, with salt).

Anyway, needless to say, I won't be doing that again any time soon (turning in replies late; you can never be sure you won't find yourself in Tijuana). Go on, invite me to your wedding. Try me.

All that being said, that doesn't solve the problem at hand: my future In Laws apparently feel comfortable just assuming that lack of reply equals non-attendance. I, on the other hand, happen to know that many people believe that it is so obvious that they will be attending that they don't need to turn in an RSVP. Or if they're anything like my parents (which, being my parents' friends, presumably they are), they tend to firmly believe that they have said and done things that they have not, in fact, actually done (i.e., Mom assuring me that she sent me an email telling me the status of said RSVP list, when indeed no such email was ever sent. By the way, here's a hint - thinking about doing something does not actually make it happen. Or, as previously discussed in this blog, were that the case I would have a fridge full of ice cream, a house that sparkled like the Chrysler building and a closet that that boasted more Louboutin shoes than Saks Fifth Avenue.)

So where does this leave me? You guessed it. Eight days away from calling up 30 people I've never met and asking them point-blank if they are high-tailing it down to Baltimore in 40 days to attend my frickin' wedding. Somehow I suspect that this will not lead to much endearment by my In-Laws' friends; similarly, I suspect it will fail to lead to wedding gifts from said friends. Whatever. I didn't need a complete set of martini glasses anyway.

Sweet Dreams Are Made of These

2008-12-25T10:15:00.000-08:00

I'd heard stories. I'd read the other blogs. But I was hoping it wouldn't start for a few more weeks.

The Nightmares.

I haven't had a good night's sleep in about three nights now. Every night starts the same: I toss and turn a bit until finally I nod off. And then I sleep for a couple hours until I wake up, cranky and out of breath, realizing I've been dreaming of the wedding. I try to return to my slumber-y cocoon only to realize that I can't sleep for more than an hour at a time because like the White Rabbit, the narrative of my dream is on a strict timeline and I'm Late, I'm Late, I'm Late. And dammit, waking up is apparently the surest way to get where I need to go.

Last night it was the DJ. In my dream I was at my wedding dressed in an 80's era prom dress (interestingly, this was not a fact I was upset about). Despite the crinoline and poofy hot pink skirt, it was most definitely my wedding. All of a sudden my heart started to thump (and by thump, I mean I thought that an alien might burst through my sternum at any moment, it was beating so hard); I realized I never had my "final" meeting with my DJ.

And no sooner than this realization came to pass, I heard it - the sounds of "Celebration" by Kool and the Gang. And that's when I ran up to the DJ to tell him he had to stop - he had to play all the carefully-selected songs that I had been collecting for months. But he looked at me as if he had never met me and instead said that he didn't have any of my songs. I felt so betrayed. I thought we had an understanding about my musical tastes. How had I misunderstood?

The Gang wailed on assuring me that indeed a party was going on right here, while I hightailed it to the ladies room and cried my eyes out. In my head (in the dream), I tried to calm myself down telling myself that this was exactly the type of thing that people said would happen - "unexpected problems" that you "just can't plan for" and that you should just "go with the flow" on the day of the wedding and that this would make a GREAT wedding story one day. But my dream self told me dream self's inner voice to shut up and continued to sob in the bathroom stall.

And then I woke up.

It was 3:42 a.m.

The night before the DJ snuck into my bedtime thoughts, the photographer made a cameo appearance. I showed up at the wedding and the photographer didn't pay any attention to me. She didn't seem to know who I even was (admittedly, this is not much of a leap since in fact, she doesn't know who I am - since she's in North Carolina and we've never met).

To make matters worse, it seemed she never got a list of the "must take" pictures, so she just took whatever pictures she wanted. No family portraits. No shots of me and Mr F.

Half way through the wedding I summoned up the courage to go up to her and politely asked her to take some pictures of me and Mr F. Perhaps we might go outside and take a few shots? She declined to do so.

And then the dream somehow magically put the developed photos in my hand (yes, even though the wedding was somehow still going on. (Hey, it's a dream - my subconscious apparently lacks a time/space continuum.)) The pictures were awful - each was blurry and the guests were red-eyed. And as I'd feared, not a single one was of me and Mr F.

I woke up. It was a little after one in the morning.

So today, I'm exhausted. Mentally and physically. I would like to have a sit-down talk with my subconscious and let it know that everything will be alright. No need to worry. Just let the fears settle deep within, sitting numbly next to thoughts about terrorism, the economy, and whether "Heroes" will be renewed for a third season. I wish I could assure my subconscious that I will talk to the DJ and the photographer. And the dress will fit fine. The guests will show up. The officiant will remember our names. There will be no nuts in the food and Mr F will not be rushed to the hospital. There won't be a snow storm. Unfortunately, the list goes on and on and somehow I suspect there's enough fodder here for a nightmare for each of the 47 nights remaining until the wedding.

So if you will excuse me, I think I need to call my primary care physician for a prescription for Ambien. 25 pills. 2 refills.

I Say A Little Prayer For You

2008-12-23T20:28:00.000-08:00

Every day I wish it was already the next day. Because that day would be one day closer to my wedding and the planning would stop. I would have already done what I needed to do or I wouldn't have done what I needed to do, but it would be too late to do it.

Instead, I am just slogging through Operation T-H (Tortoise-Hare, in case you couldn't be bothered to read the post just a mere 5 inches below) in the freezing cold of Baltimore. The wind is so bitter that it cuts through my sneakers and my feet get numb just walking over to the gym. That's just ridiculous. It's no way to live. I am thinking seriously about dumping Mr F and starting Operation C-A, which involves me getting my ass on the first plane back to California and finding some hot surfer who has a lovely beach shack I can live in and eat fish tacos all day with. (Admittedly, I totally should not have watched "Flirting with Forty" during this time off work. Twice. But if you haven't seen it yet - pure Lifetime gold. Heather Locklear gets dumped by husband and meets surfer in Hawaii. Think "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" but with less groove and more white people. And no Taye Diggs. *sigh*)

What I mean to say is, "I love you Mr F." Can't wait to see you at the altar.

Time, Time, Time, See What's Become of Me

2008-12-22T20:44:00.000-08:00

Like a Wedding Superhero, I have been proceeding with OWO at a rapid-fire pace. Wrapped in a DIY Gocco'd cape and armed with a fondant frosting pastry gun, I have been checking tasks off my interminably long "To Do" list more quickly than the dissolution of Kate Walsh's marriage. I selected readings, chose vows, and ordered yarmulkes at lightning speed.

Pleased and proud of my newfound abilities, I christened myself Blasphemous Fiancee, Superhero Extraordinaire.

Until I learned an interesting lesson.

Not only is no man is an island but apparently, no bride can be a solo caped crusader. And when you think about it, even the DC Comics superheroes had to form a Justice League. Because sometimes even Wonder Woman needs to ask the Invisible Man to borrow a stick of butter.

So in hindsight, I wish I had my own League of Women Doters. Because if I did, maybe I wouldn't have sent out Rehearsal Dinner invitations without a date or time.

Oh I'm sorry, do you think I typed that wrong?

No, I didn't. I sent out Rehearsal Dinner invitations without any of the basic information that guests would require, such as a date or a time to attend said event.

How or why did this happen? I don't know. All I know is that superheroes don't have to avenge their evil at midnight or one o' clock in the morning after a full day's work, going to the gym (because you gotta fit into that white superhero satin gown) and making dinner because superheroes do not have to hold down full time jobs. Instead, they're gallivanting around town doing their life-saving between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and getting a nice good night's sleep at the end of it all. (And Bruce Wayne does not count because he has a trust fund and Superman does not count because his job barely had him sitting in the office like EVER.) Therefore, our crusaders do not make large mistakes because they are getting the required 8 hours of sleep. Not four.

So who's to blame? I could definitely blame my Mom since she was the person who insisted that we must send out invitations for the Rehearsal Dinner instead of emails because "not everyone uses email, just because you do." Or I could blame Mr F, for his lack of interest in the entire wedding generally or more specifically because when I asked him how the invite looked, he glanced at the computer screen for 3 seconds before turning back to the Steelers game on TV and muttering "fine."

But instead, I'll just blame myself. Because it's easier and it dovetails nicely with my new and improved superhero persona: Exhaustia, Tired Bride-To-Be.

Exhaustia sits on the couch downloading into her keen mind the subject of infinite sub-par Lifetime movies and dressed head to toe in her superhero armor of fleece. She captures her enemies in a carton of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, where she demolishes them with a golden spoon.

To celebrate the valor and bravery of Exhaustia, we hereby abort Operation Wedding Overdrive and commence Operation Tortoise-Hare, a mission focused on both quickly and steadily finishing nuptial details but not at the mercy of large and messy jackrabbit mistakes which may or may not leave guests unsure as to what date and time one's rehearsal dinner is to be held. However, for Exhaustia's dedication to OWO, we pin to her the purple heart, a concoction of one part Chambord and three parts champagne. I'm all for tying that on.

It's Raining (Wo)Men, Hallelujah!

2008-12-16T09:10:00.001-08:00

I bet you are expecting me to tell you that the heinous red rash making its domino effect-like march across my face cleared up in time for my Bridal Shower and that I looked gorgeous and smooth-skinned for my day of raining presents. I'm sorry to inform you (and more sorry to actually be me) that this was not the case. Instead, I pretended I was starring on an eighties nighttime soap and slapped enough beige mortar-like liquid makeup on my face to resurrect the Berlin Wall. (And I finally got to the dermatologist this morning who was oh-so-helpful in her analysis: "It looks like you had an allergic reaction. I'm prescribing you some creme. It should go away in two weeks." Thanks, Doc.)

But back to The Shower.

I have attended many a wedding shower as a guest, but I have to tell you I had no idea what to expect as the guest of honor. And to tell you the truth, I would love to be snarky and tell you it was terrible, but it wasn't. It was lovely (now that I'm a bride I use words like lovely. And darling. My vocabulary is becoming more genteel by the moment. Hold on, I have to go get my crumpets. Whoopsie daisy, I just tripped over the Victorian Era.)

Really though - I was so touched by all of the people who traveled so far to come to my shower. And my bridesmaids really put a lot of thought into details of the shower, making sure that everything matched my wedding colors and picking things that I loved. (Black & white cookies - check! One special salad made just for E&E without strange smelly cheeses (I hate the trifecta of crumbly cheeses, i.e., feta, blue, and goat) - check! Bellinis - check (and praise Jesus!)).

It was a really nice time.

And I think I've adequately conveyed that I'm appreciative and it was a good day, yes? So I'm moving on here.

Because despite the loveliness of the Shower, I have to confess that I still find the tradition of the bridal shower really wacky. I understand that the idea is the bride is "showered" with gifts. But why must she open all of them? As a guest, I always found this weird. Aren't there other nuptial things the group could be doing with the time? Or other non-nuptial things? Or anything? If the whole point of the event is to give gifts and therefore we must acknowledge the presents, er presence, then couldn't we do something more fun with them? Like play gift Jenga and see how tall we can stack them? Or build a present fort covered with 500 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets?

And now that I have been the Gift Opener, I stand by my feelings. Dude, it's weird. My hands were literally shaking as thirty-five women watched me open the presents they brought. And read cards. No one gave me a primer on the appropriate card-reading-time to gift-opening ratio and within minutes, I felt 70 eyeballs focusing on me and my inability to quickly and masterfully open gifts. (You have to remember that as a Jew, I don't have years of practice ripping open gifts under a Christmas tree. Chanukah was an orderly Type A affair in my house. One night of Chanukah equals one carefully-selected and slowly-opened gift. I've never opened up more than four or five gifts in a row in my life.)

Gauging the crowd's increasing restlessness and my own rapidly overheating forehead (which I hypothetically attributed to the rash, but without a mirror handy, could only assume had taken on scarlet letter-type proportions and had formed a sprawling "B" on my forehead.) Given the heat and the itchiness, I made the executive decision to skip all of the cards (although I did look at the pictures - because in my book, if someone spent $5.95 on an applique card with satin ribbons stuck on the front in the shape of a wedding dress, I assume it's pretty much considered part of the gift).

And so instead of promoting literacy, I just unwrapped the gift and held up the coffee maker / steamer / juicer like it was the Lion King / Holy Grail / a fully formed T-Rex skeleton and announced for each gift that it was "perfect" because "I love coffee" / "Wrinkle-free clothes make me happier than a junkie on a 2-week bender" / "Juice rocks."

Now don't get me wrong. I actually love coffee makers, steamers, and juicers. That's why I registered for these exact items. Myself. Months ago.

Therefore, I found it hard to muster up unique and authentic sounding exclamations for a series of gifts that likely meant I will be doing more cooking and/or cleaning than I ever hoped for and were less of a surprise than the Britney Spears/Kevin Federline divorce news.

Indeed, as a general matter, while I am pleased with the convenience that today's modern day appliances provide a family of two, they don't exactly inspire...well, teary-eyed enthusiasm and jumping up and down along the lines of an episode of Oprah's Big Give. Thus it should be no surprise that two months ago, Mr F and I walked down the aisles of Bed, Bath and Beyond, and our conversation sounded like this:

"Look. It's a clothing steamer."

"Yeah. That's cool."

"I think we should get it."

"OK."

"OK."

Sorry, that's all I've got for you. If you're looking for a longer trip down memory lane, I'm pretty sure "It's A Wonderful Life" is playing on a loop for the next 5 days on TCM.

Does it matter who said what in this little snippet? No. Because it's a steamer. Will it make my life easier? Absolutely. Does it make me writhe in ecstasy? No.

To summarize: I like gifts. I like getting gifts I have picked out. I do not like pretending to be surprised about said gifts. I also do not like opening said gifts in front of scores of onlookers who expect me to make comments about said unsurprising gifts.

Isn't there a better way? Maybe people should just forgo the paper wrapping. Hasn't anyone noticed that it's crap for the environment? Just bring an unwrapped gift to the party and place it around the perimeter of the room. Then everyone can see all the fabulous gifts and instead of watching someone open presents for an hour, you can put on some Gwen Stefani, break out the lemon drop shots, and dance around the room. Or, if it was like my party and 75% of your guests are post-menopausal, then throw on some Carole King, open up the family photo albums and throw eclairs in your mouth two at a time.

SOS, Please, Someone Help Me, It's Not Healthy

2008-12-12T17:15:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. I've been MIA. Although it's not because I'm sitting at home, twiddling my thumbs (though does anyone actually "twiddle" their thumbs? Don't people just sit on the couch and watch bad reality TV or maybe consume too many hot buttered rums while lazily paging through year-old wedding magazines?). Anyway, I have been doing no such things. In fact, it has been quite the opposite.

I have been so busy, I haven't had a moment to complain. Well, on my blog, anyway. I had my first dress fitting (and yes, got a proper bra, complete with groping - but that's another story for another day), created my wedding program, sent out my invites, worked on the out-of-town bags, designed and purchased my rehearsal dinner invites, and no joke, that's not the half of it (and no the other half doesn't include holding down a full time job, because really, my office serves solely as a vestibule to hold all of my wedding projects at this point).

Anyway, this all began because I woke up one morning and I decided that I am done with planning this wedding and that all must be finished so I can go about living my life like a layperson (i.e., one who is not shrouded in alleged pre-nuptial bliss). Thus, I have now commenced Operation Wedding Overdrive (OWO - not to be confused with EVOO, as touted by her perkiness herself, Ms. Rachel Ray, a.k.a. my nemesis (and no, she doesn't technically know she's my arch enemy, but that's because she is so busy being so...smiley. I think my perfect day might start with a Bloody Mary and end with watching Rachel Ray cry hot sad tears because her magazine has folded.).)

But what finally drew me back to the blogosphere amidst the madness of OWO, you might ask?

Well, my wedding shower is in two days.

And of course, there's more.

I have a massive flesh-eating rash pioneering across my forehead.

I kid you not. Ok, it's not flesh-eating (thankfully), but it is a contact dermatitis. If that sounds medical-ish and scary, I assure you it is. My forehead is a DANGER zone. Give me some Cortisone or lose me forever.

Like the first snow of winter, the rash arrived out of nowhere last night. I spent a typical evening on the couch doing wedding-y things with my computer on my lap, Grey's Anatomy on the TV, and a glass of wine balanced precariously on the couch (a bad idea I know, but the couch is brown leather and wipes off easily). After I stayed up far too late I went to wash my face. Before leaning over the sink I glanced at my reflection and EEEGADS!, there was a giant array of red bumps across my forehead.

I immediately run over to Mr F, who is already lying in bed, and show him the rash. He is staring straight at the TV when he goes "don't worry, it's nothing." I turn off the TV and make him stare at my forehead. This time he says "Oh" and raises an eyebrow. And then he's silent. Well, that's not good.

"Can I do anything about it?"

"I think you should just sleep on it and we'll see what it looks like tomorrow."

So I woke up this morning and bounded over the mirror, hoping that like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, that seven moderately restful hours would provide me with a creamy clear complexion (and perhaps even a line-free face and a coach made out of a pumpkin, or better yet, a Coach bag in a deep pumpkin color).

DOUBLE egads! Someone must have made the rash ANGRY because it had become enlarged and redder and well, bumpier. And it was picking up real estate on my forehead quicker than Donald Trump was buying up the Upper West Side. So I slathered my forehead in Cortisone cream and dammed myself for growing out my bangs for the stupid wedding.

And I closed my office door the whole day so I didn't have to expose my forehead to my co-workers' prying eyes. Which worked very successfully.

Except now I have my shower in two days. In the scheme of things, sure, I understand that a prickly red rash that's slowly making its way around my face isn't the end of the world. People will still be happy to see me (if not eager to hug me). And sure, it would be way worse if I got it for the wedding (assuming it will be gone by then, which at this point, sure as heck ain't a given), but you know, wouldn't it be nice if something were just easy? You know, if Cinderella didn't have to have the coach disappear and the glass slipper fall off and Sleeping Beauty declined luscious fruit offerings from strange elderly women?

But I suppose it's all part of the story that is supposed to lead to Happily Ever After.

Except that I think my Happily Ever After is about to come in ten minutes since I've just taken a Benadryl to stop the itching on my forehead and I already feel some major drowsy kicking in.

The End.

Of This Post.

And You May Ask Yourself, Well How Did I Get Here? (Probably By Using GPS)

2008-11-29T15:40:00.000-08:00

Apologies for my lack of posting. However. I am now less than 4 days away from my first dress fitting. I have eaten barely anything that qualifies as healthy in the last 7 days (unless perhaps pureed carrots with a stick of butter might be healthy? No? Stuffing? No? Pumpkin cheesecake? *sigh*) and I am sipping a glass of two-day old Zinfandel that Mr F actually stuck in the fridge last night and which now tastes like well, refrigerated red wine (which is crap). But that's not even the tip of the iceberg. That would be because I'm sitting at the kitchen table with four boxes of invitations which I am numbering, stuffing and stamping. Alone. (Not to mention that my wine glass isn't even within reach because I'm too nervous that I'll tip it over on the stupid invites, so I've placed it on on the counter - which is a good four feet from the kitchen table - and thus requires that I get up each time I want to take a sip).

Why so surly about sitting home stuffing envelopes (for the third night in a row) and drinking cold red wine? Well, besides the obvious, if you recall (which you probably don't, because this isn't the saga of your life, it's the saga of mine), I was not supposed to be the one to deal with the invites. That was supposed to be My Mother.

And so how did I end up with these little paper cut-inducing bastards sitting on my kitchen table and keeping me apart from my dear (cold) red wine?

Well, it all started with the hotel direction card inserts that I needed to put into the invitations (according to Mom obviously). I couldn't care less about direction card inserts. Honestly, everyone Google Maps everything or more likely, has GPS. So who cares? Well, apparently my Mom does. So I called the venue where I'm having the reception and they told me that they have direction cards already made up that I can use. So before heading on the road to go home for Thanksgiving (chock full of traffic), we swing by the venue and pick up the cards.

Once I get home to my parents' place in NJ, I take a peek at the invitations (which I love by the way) and my Dad turns to me and says: "Mom says you want to make sure that you number the back of the response cards."

Uhm, what?

"Dad, I think you must have heard wrong. Mom said that you guys will actually be taking care of the invitations. Which is why YOUR address is on the back of the cards. Right?"

My Dad looks confused (and scared - possibly because he could see the Devil in my eyes - which must be scary for a parent). "I don't know. You should talk to your Mother about this."

When my Mom came home later, I pounced. "I thought YOU GUYS were doing the invitations! Dad said I'm doing them! And that you said that I need to put numbers on the back. I can't! I have too much to do!"

Mom looked at me like I was someone she did not recognize (though more likely she was thinking about whether she could trade me in for a better, nicer version of a daughter), before responding: "What I meant was that we would do them together this weekend. And that 'we' needed to put numbers on the back."

Hmmm. I didn't know if I could trust this strained explanation. But like a hostage who can only get by on the hope that they will someday be free, I believed her.

The weekend passed. We ate turkey. Drank tequila. (No really - it was quite a Thanksgiving.)And I ate everything put in front of me and well as the contents of the fridge, the pantry, and the local pizza parlor.

Well times flies when you're sleeping in a twin bed and chugging the contents of your parents' liquor stash (it's not really a cabinet, more a grouping of bottles on the floor of the coat closet), and next thing we know, it's time for Mr F and I to go home. In an hour. Of course, the invitations never got done.

So I go downstairs to mention this to my Mom and we pull out the box with the invites. (Which look AWESOME by the way. Did I mention that? Yes, I did. But I love them! Sorry, but I need to dwell on the positive instead of what's coming next, which is....)

I pull out the direction cards that I picked up before we came home and look at them for the first time. Hmmm. Well this is....interesting. Apparently the "direction cards" don't. Actually. Provide. Directions. They just have a little map of the building with the name of the two streets adjacent to it. Perhaps helpful for someone intimately familiar with Baltimore, but not so much for pretty much anyone else. And since 90% of our guests are coming from places that are not Baltimore, this is not helpful. How can anyone in good conscience call this a "direction card?"

I turn to my Mom and show it to her, suggesting that we just forgo the direction card since everyone will figure it out by Googling the address (or they could call me, or my Mom, or Mr F, or they could call the hotel, which is where they are likely staying; or they could look at the Save the Date, which also had the info; or our website, which also...you guessed it...has the information!). So I feel good about skipping the directions.

Apparently, my Mom does not. She is aghast. "You must include directions."

Well, ok then. It's apparently been decided.

"Sooooo....." I began, "how do you want to deal with this? Do you want to just add on the website with a label to the bottom of this card? Or I guess we could just make an all-new card?"

My Mom is silent. (For once.)

More silence.

"Mom?"

"Honey, I'm not good with labels and stuff like that."

This is the point where I realized we could back and forth. I could ask her why she can't just do this herself and go to Kinko's to get printed directions on a new card; I could make the astute observation that it's ridiculous that her name is on the back as the "return address" (i.e., the address it originally came from) if she's not the one sending it out. I could snarkily comment that I secretly suspected she would never take care of this herself no matter what the direction cards looked like. I could remind her how I don't care about the direction cards, but she does, so really it's silly that I'm going to lug them across four states to do them myself when I'm also taking care of every other single thing to do with this wedding. I could say all of these things and indeed, I could say many more. But I can't fight anymore. Perhaps it was the post-Thanksgiving tryptophan kicking in, but I'm just tired. And I know that in the end I'm going to end up stuffing the damn invitations on my own anyway.

So instead I just sighed. And said, "Fine. I'll just do it."

She handed me over the giant cardboard box. I pretended my Mom was handing me a box full of chocolate cake, a bottle of 20-year tawny port, and the first three seasons of "Sex & The City" on DVD. I skip to the car. Until I remember my cardboard box is not filled with these gluttonous goodies. It's filled with heavy, expensive paper. That is not edible. I shove the box in the backseat.

And now I'm sitting at my kitchen table. On phase three of a multi-phase stuffing system. And very far away from finishing. And sadder yet, even further away from my very cold, very sub-par wine.

To The Beanpole Dames In The Magazines, You Ain't It, Miss Thang.

2008-11-25T08:55:00.000-08:00

I got a surprising call while I was at work the other day. Although, as a general matter, I try to avoid answering my cell during work hours since odds are great that it's my Mother or Future-Mother-in-Law and thus, sure only to upset me, I had a moment of temporary insanity and just picked up the phone without thinking.

Much to my delight it was neither of My Two Moms, but my bridal shop, calling to inform me that my Dress (yes, with a Capital "D," entitled thereto for the extra Dollars it costs) had arrived. This was indeed a surprise because they had previously informed me not to expect the Dress until January because I ordered it so late. (Don't judge - some people just don't get "The Feeling That It's The Dress" and instead these people just try on dress after dress (after dress) because everyone keeps telling them they'll "just know" when it's the "right one" (until finally said people realize that they're going to be 32 by the time they get married and perhaps they just aren't the kind of people who ever "just know" when anything is just the "right" one).

Anyway.

I definitely suspected part of that timeline was faux in an effort (that I respect and applaud) to avoid brides calling up every day to ask if their Dress has arrived. However, despite these suspicions, I was pleasantly surprised to get the call. I quickly selected dates for the first two dress fittings and duly jotted down the instructions: each fitting would be about an hour and I needed to bring my shoes and the undergarments I would be wearing the day of the wedding.

One hour time allotted on my calendar = check!

Shoes = check!

Proper undergarments = ch...not so much.

I took a quick look at the calendar and realized I had about two weekends to find the proper "foundations" for my gown. I don't want to reveal too much about the gown's design itself (because Mr F tends to read this Blog), but I can safely say that I felt smug that this would be sufficient time to find some sort of bustier with sufficient underwire to keep the ladies up and adequately unsmooshed (to avoid my tectonic plates creating cleavage longer (and more treacherous) than the San Adreas fault line).

And while there was a small part of me that was starting to stress about whether the Dress would actually fit me, I pushed those nagging feelings deep down to my inner psyche, much like the disaster preparedness kit hidden in the depths of my broom closet.

Instead, I set off on my maiden voyage to the Mall to find a low-backed strapless bra that would hold my mountains in their individual geographic territories and separate time zones.

Unfortunately, after wading through the lingerie departments of three separate stores, I determined that I must be the only large-chested bride in the world, because every strapless bra I tried on seemed to have the sole goal of pushing my lovely lady lumps first together and then up, so as to give them a lovely "orbs floating on water" effect (and a shimmy measure of 9.2 on the Richter Scale). Nice for a Naughty Nurse Halloween costume. Less nice if I want my groom to look at my er, eyes.

So I continued to search for a bra, which somehow seemed to also involve a barrage of insulting insinuations by sales clerks regarding the size of my love handles. Last I checked, if someone asks for a bra, that doesn't directly translate to a request for body armor and unsolicited commentary about the ability of a garment to get rid of my back fat. I understand the holiday bonuses will be slim this year, but is it really necessary to tell me that I'm not...all in the name of a little extra commission cash in the pocket?

The closest I ultimately got to an appropriate undergarment is a $90 sausage casing with underwire. Now I know I should be happy about the full body armor that will "smooth" me (as every single sales clerk touted), but honestly, I think it's going to be difficult enough to go to the bathroom in the wedding dress, I really don't want the extra complication of having to pee through the hole in the bottom of my bodysuit. (Yes, really - Spanx has a goddamn HOLE in the bottom. It doesn't even snap. It's just material you are supposed to move to the side, like the cheap fabric curtain in the hospital, separating the beds.)

So at the end of the day, I drove home armed only with a second spandex skin and a negative body image.

What's funny is that thus far I have been somewhat successful at not being diet-obsessed. For the past ten months, I just focused on being consistent about going to the gym and eating healthy most of the time (dinners of Triscuits and brie aside, and with the caveat that wine is obviously a health food - I swear I read it in Shape Magazine - look it up!). But the point is, I've been mostly healthy and definitely not focused and/or stressed about my waistline.

Until now.

All of a sudden, the message that my dress had arrived seemed to be a wake up call of another kind. It was as if I had received a telegraph that said: YOU CANNOT GAIN ANY WEIGHT. (A cruel telegram indeed.)

Full translation: you are about to be measured for a dress that must fit you the most perfect of any garment you have ever owned because this is the high point of your attractiveness in every one's mind and it's really all downhill from here. If you can't manage to look good on This One Day, then gosh, you're a mess.

Well of course from the moment I realized that I need to actually fit into a garment that now exists in this world (rather than being a hypothetical garment that could be changed in size should need be), I cannot stop thinking about the fact that I should not be EATING EXTRA FOOD. And since I know I should NOT eat extra food, my stomach has grumbled incessantly for the past ninety-six hours. (So yes, perhaps I was an eensy bit sensitive to the sales ladies bringing me in boatloads of completely unsolicited Spanx).

And in fact, after four days of deep thought, I have now come to firmly believe that this is in fact some sort of conspiracy by the dress shop. Full well knowing that Thanksgiving is just around the corner, they are performing some sort of social experiment on me and my stomach (yes, we are two separate entities) to see just how much weight a bride can gain in the weeks between Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years (because let's not forget that the joyous holiday trifecta of Egg Nog, Hot Buttered Rum, and Champagne all have calories too).

Sweet Plymouth Rock, people. I'm in for some serious trouble. Maybe I should buy a back-up wedding dress. I've seen Project Runway. They can do amazing things with potato sacks these days.

Talk To Me, Like (Mothers) Do

2008-11-17T20:00:00.000-08:00

Conversation With My Mom. A Play in One Act.

*Ring* *Ring* (Ok, that's not necessarily accurate, since I actually have a ringtone on my cellphone, but I'm not going to write down the lyrics to "Sunshine of My Love" (which makes a GREAT ringtone by the way), so let's all just agree to suspend disbelief and agree to this: someone is calling me. And if you read the sentence above, I have a sneaking suspicion you might know who it is.).

Looking down at the phone, I see it's my Mom (yup, you guessed it). I'm on Amtrak, taking the train home to Baltimore from DC after having a couple of drinks after work. I try to weigh if the combination of two glasses of Chardonnay and being in a public place where screaming hysterically on the phone is woefully inappropriate provide sufficient insulation to deal with whatever my Mom has to say. The loving embrace of the wine makes the scales tipsy, and as I press the green button on my phone, I find myself feeling especially benevolent and patient.

"Hi Mom. How are you? How was France?"

"Hi Honey, I'm good. France was wonderful. [Blah blah blah...France...blah blah]. By the way, I called your Cousin in the Virgin Islands - did you hear they were hit by a hurricane?"

"No, I didn't see it on the news here."

"Yes, they're all right, thankfully. We found out about it the day after we got back from France."

"OK, good - I'm glad they're ok."

"Oh, by the way, I know you don't talk to Cousin that much, but just don't mention that we were in France."

"Uhm, ok, but why??"

"Oh, I don't know. I just don't think they need to know."

"But Mom, that is so random. I don't understand. Why?"

"Not everyone needs to know everything, E&E." I feel like I'm in a science fiction movie and I need to solve the riddle my Mother is saying to exit the rabbit hole. While I'm scratching my head in total bewilderment and wondering if The Matrix might hold a key to this puzzle, she goes on to say, "I got the invitation to your Wedding Shower."

Relieved I can stop thinking about Neo and Alice in Wonderland and how terrible I am at problem solving in general, I responding with an exuberant, "Me too! I think they're really pretty!"

"They're very cute. [She pauses.] By the way you should call Auntie Hostess [i.e., the Aunt hosting my shower. Although upon reflection that makes her sound like an Aunt who has a penchant for Ho-Ho's and Twinkies. Now that would be a Shower I could buy in to.]."

"Uhm...why should I call her?"

"Well, it appears that whichever of your friends sent out the invitation didn't have the right address for her and then didn't ask the right address and didn't send her one. I mean I guess they could have asked for the right address and sent one...but well, they just didn't."

[Incredulous. And back in the rabbit hole.] "Wait, I'm confused - how did that happen? I don't understand."

"Well, I don't know dear. But...[SIGH]...I told her that I would bring along my invitation to the Shower in Long Island and just show it to her so she could take a look at it, but then of course she couldn't keep it since I want to keep my invitation so I would have to bring it back to New Jersey."

[Looking around rabbit hole for mint julep to keep me company while I wander through labyrinth.] "So what are you trying to say?"

"Nothing, dear. You asked me why you should call your Aunt and I was just giving you all of the information."

"So are you trying to say you want her to get an invitation sent? - because you could have just asked me to ask my friends to send her an invitation."

[Mother apparently getting frustrated as well.] "I don't know why everything has to be so difficult. I'm just trying to help: you asked me how things were, so I was just telling you the story of what was going on."

"Yes, except that you really just wanted to tell me that my friends did the wrong thing. You could have just said - 'Auntie didn't get an invite. Send her one.' But instead you had to tell me that everything wasn't perfect. Why do you have to give me all of the unnecessary details which are sure to make me feel guilty? [Pausing] So is her address right or wrong on all of the shower invites?"

"I don't know."

"Well, the address she gave is on the invites to the Shower, the directions to the Shower and her wedding invitation - so if you want her to get a wedding invitation, then maybe you should call her and check all this."

"Well I think you should call her."

"She's your friend." [Auntie Hostess is actually a "fake" Aunt who is Mom's friend from college.]

"Well you need to call her and check that the address is right - it's your Shower."

"I don't understand! How did she tell you that she didn't get an invite because her address is wrong, but then she didn't give you her correct address or confirm that the address on the shower invitation is correct? I don't even know what I'm asking her!"

"I don't know, dear."

"I gotta run Mom. I'll talk to Auntie Hostess and get her an invite. We're coming into my station and I need to grab a cab...I'll be in touch tomorrow."

I shut the phone and stare at it, confused as to what happened and with a hankering for a mint-based cocktail. And then I feel guilty for essentially hanging up on my Mom. This is the essence of every conversation we have had for the last nine months. Is this just generational? To me, the point of the conversation was that Auntie didn't get an invite and I should make sure she gets one. But that was tucked away deep within the enigma that is my Mother's double talk. *Sigh* I'm pretty sure if you print out this conversation and hold it up to a mirror it will show you where the holy grail is buried.

It's A Beautiful Day, Don't Let It Fade Away

2008-11-14T19:24:00.000-08:00

You know what I really dislike? I really despise when people refer to my wedding as "Your Special Day." I have been trying to put my finger on what it is about that phrase that irks me so completely and totally and after I great deal of self-reflection...I don't really know.

I think it's somehow related to my distaste for euphemisms, especially for euphemisms that smack of a good case of the know-it-alls, mixed with just a dash of overly inflated importance.

For some reason, every time I hear the phrase "Your Special Day," I'm somewhat reminded of...and I'm really not sure how to put this delicately, so I guess I just won't...I'm reminded of the day we needed signed permission slips to attend 5th Grade Health Class so we could learn about reproductive systems, puberty, and menstruation. Each time one of those words was mentioned, it was flanked with the words "Your" and "Special." Special, indeed.

And "Your Special Day" also conjures up the very first time I went to the bra store with my Mother and the salesclerk who said "awwww, are you here for your first bra!?! That's so sweet! It's a Special Day!"

I guess perhaps, it's the idea that someone who is somehow older and wiser has the right to label your most personal experiences of maturation as "special" or "important" because they have already been there.

Because if you notice, no bride goes around calling it My Special Day. ("Gosh, I can't believe I only have three months until My Special Day!" or "Hi, I'm calling to make a hair appointment for My Special Day!") Only other people deem it "Your Special Day."

I guess I find something sort of condescending about it. Do I think people are intentionally condescending? No. But that's just how I feel. Go ahead. Disagree. I'm sure many of you do. That's fine.

And heck, while I'm at it, I have to confess that I find something silly about it.

I'm actually not anti-wedding, or anti-wedding-industry or any of those things. Sure, I guess I wish for a simpler day where weddings weren't such a commodity and brides didn't feel compelled to put on a show of their everlasting love or make people feel like flying across the country had to be "worth it" ("worth it" can be defined as offering an open bar or a plated meal or at least 3 passed appetizers). But in the olden days, before weddings were circuses even for the most common of folk (I'm pretty sure the Rockefellers have been whooping it up at weddings for quite some time now), they also didn't have iPods or Spin class or DVR (which ok, I don't have either, but one day I hope I will), so I just consider it part of what the world is now, and something I can choose to accept or reject (or resist or be too wimpy too resist), like so many other things that exist today, created by enterprising individuals who when push comes to shove, I actually admire for their ingenuity and fiscal acumen. (OK, perhaps not their acumen, but I love that word - it conjures up some sort of wise superhero for me - AcuMan! - can solve problems in a single bound!)

Ahem. To regroup - while I don't hate the wedding industry - I feel compelled to note that every single vendor that I have dealt with thus far cannot seem to say the words "Your wedding day" or "the 15th of February" or even "the day you're getting married."

Which is why I also hate the phrase "The Big Day."

For some reason, each vendor must substitute those words: "The Big Day" or "Your Special Day" as if to incessantly remind me why I'm spending obscene amounts of money.

"Hmmm...why am I paying craploads of money for flowers which will likely die in a couple of days...? Oh WAIT! It's because it's a SPECIAL DAY...and in fact, not just ANY special day...but THE Big Day." Whew! The cost is definitely justified now! Glad we've got that settled.

I am actually working with one vendor who puts "Your Special Day" as the actual subject heading in every email she sends me. She's a really nice woman, but I'm about 5 minutes from telling her that I hate her just a little more every time she sends me an email.

I don't know. I think I'm just hungry. I shouldn't blog when I'm hungry. I think I just get extra cranky and I don't censor myself as much as I probably should.

Unfortunately, I am simultaneously mentally reviewing what's sitting in my fridge, and I'm now even crankier because I just concluded there's a whole lot of nothing. I am instead reverting to my favorite daydream, where I walk over to my barren fridge and open it up, but much to my surprise, somehow it has magically been replenished, complete with all of my most favorite items (strawberries, ice cream, and guacamole, oh my!...ok, and a nice sparkling wine from California...with a straw). Yum-tastic. Now that would be A Special Day.

It's My Party And I'll Cry (or Hopefully, Decline to Cry) If I Want To

2008-11-10T20:04:00.000-08:00

I have a sneaking suspicion that this might be A Positive Post! The kind of post that normal carefree radiant brides post all the time on their normal happy blogs. About their dress! Their shoes! Their venue!

I, purveyor of so much wedding rage, will hereby attempt to be like A Normal Bride. Yes, I've tried this before, but I am feeling particularly confident that this time, I can do this!

Let's begin, shall we?

I got home from work today and checked the mail (secretly wishing that a new "Self" magazine might be inside, in the related hope that if it arrived, it would inspire me to get my (Lazy) Self to the gym). As I pulled the mail out of the box, something in the stack caught my eye. What was peeking out at me? No, not "Self" (damn you, Conde Nast!), but a lovely deep purple-colored envelope, addressed to yours truly.

I LOVE getting mail. I especially love getting mail in colored envelopes. Because bills do not come in colored envelopes. And requests from my alma mater boldly soliciting donations (from someone who simultaneously is continuing to pay for said education each month) do not come in pretty purple envelopes. Only invitations, cards, and thank you notes come in colored envelopes.

I ripped open the poor defenseless little envelope quicker than its whiter, more financially fulfilling sister which contained my stimulus check just days earlier.

Ta-da!

It was my Shower Invitation! And honestly, I love it! It's very cute and modern - exactly like something I would have picked out myself. And it even carries through my tree branch theme. (Which, if we get down to it, is not actually a "theme", but more a "symbol" of the fact that I am getting married in the dead of winter and well, nothing is flowering, so all we have left are sad naked branches. But I prefer to think of it more as the simple and organic elegance of the constant change of life and what will soon flourish, rather than...well, a dead tree.)

Anyway, dead tree as a symbol of my impending nuptials aside, I was very excited about the Wedding Shower Invites!

I immediately called my Sister-In-Law (that would be my Brother's Wife), who I knew was responsible for picking out the invites, to thank her profusely for not picking something with wedding bells, wedding dress and/or a house of worship paired with rhyming of any sort. And then I sat down at my computer to type this post. Which is POSITIVE. And NORMAL. And focusing on HOW MUCH I LIKE THE INVITES.

This post is not, I repeat, NOT going to be about the fact that I am a little STRESSED ABOUT MY SHOWER. BECAUSE I AM CLEARLY NOT STRESSED ABOUT MY SHOWER.

This post will NOT quickly degrade into a laundry list of the reasons that I'm extremely apprehensive about the shower and/or why it has been a lightning rod for controversy over the past few months in my household (and by household, I mean two bedroom apartment in Baltimore shared with Mr F).

Indeed looking at my lovely invitation certainly did NOT remind me that the shower itself is likely going to be me, my fabulous matrons of honor, one or two friends who live nearby in New York and its immediately surrounding areas and FIFTEEN of my Mother's friends and TWENTY-FIVE of my future-mother-in-law's friends (not a single one of whom I've met). THIS POST WILL NOT FOCUS ON THAT.

[Awkward silence.]

Or maybe the post won't "focus" on the apprehension "per se," but perhaps it might just dabble in it. Just an itty bitty mention of some less-than-positive feelings, in addition and certainly secondary to, the excitement of the invitation. Just a toe in the shower water, really.

[More silence.]

I think the cat is out of the bag.

I AM STRESSED ABOUT THE GODDAMN WEDDING SHOWER.

There, I said it.

First of all, I feel badly that the burden is on my bridesmaids to plan (and pay for!) this party which is really just an opportunity for my Mom and FMIL to show me off like some sort of show pony and to hang out with their friends.

To be clear, it's not that I don't like show ponies, or non-show ponies for that matter, but the idea of making small talk with hordes (throngs, really) of women who are tennis partners and co-workers of The Moms makes me feel somewhat queasy even in theory (so I have strong concerns about the reality of this event). Three hours of being asked how the wedding planning is going, when are we going to start "trying", and asking me to explain just once more why I'm a lawyer who doesn't practice law, is enough to make me scope out a vineyard, crawl inside a barrel of fermenting Cabernet, and come out, pink and puckered, three months later. (If you think this sounds suspiciously like my hibernation plan, then you would be right.)

Moreover, I'm somewhat embarrassed by the fact that I will have few to no friends at my shower. Although I know in theory I shouldn't be embarassed because my friends live literally across the country (and the shower is a good four hours away from where I even live) and as a result, not everyone can make the trip for both the Shower and then the Bachelorette a month later (and I very clearly conveyed that my preference was attendance at the Bachelorette), none of those very logical reasons comfort me. Instead I am practicing responses to the following questions "are any of your friends coming?" and "Was it just too far for your friends to come to your shower?". As such, I am less-than-giddy about the Shower.

But I suppose that only makes sense, right? This isn't supposed to be fun. Or if it was, why wouldn't they call it the Wedding Shower Party so as to indicate that this is indeed, a party, and thus, by its very definition, intended to be fun? There is the Bachelorette Party (intended to be fun), the Engagement Party (intended to be fun) and hell, even the Wedding Party (damn well better be fun or I'm finding new friends).

Wedding Shower is just so...sterile. Rather than frivolous enjoyment, it seems to be more of a hygiene-focused event. I mean come on, couldn't it least be Wedding Bath? (Conjuring up images of relaxing scented candles, whirlpool jets, soothing music and a good book.)

But no, it's just the Wedding Shower.

Which is why, when asked by my bridesmaids what I "wanted" at my shower, the only thing I requested (and I swear on all that is holy that this is true), was to be "showered" with cocktails. Because I can't deal with fifty menopausal women without a libation.

Umbrella optional.

Today Is The Greatest Day That I Have Ever Known...(Or At Least A Nice Day)

2008-11-07T08:25:00.000-08:00

What is so fantastical about this day?? Well first...I've been "Tagged" by Kelley at My Island Wedding. And then...I got nominated for an "Uber Amazing Blog Award" by Jenny at And She's Just Rambling Again!!

Well first things first. Being tagged apparently means I need to share 7 random facts about me and explain "the rules" of being tagged (mercifully, not to be confused with other rules requiring that you stay aloof and not kiss on the first date).

The rules:

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by including links to their blog.

4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog!

5. Eat at least one slice of pizza every day for the next week. (Ok, sorry, that's not in the rules, but shouldn't it be?)

Facts about me (that would be Engaged & Enraged @ I Hate Planning My Wedding):

1. I had to give away my cat because Mr F is allergic and I miss him (the cat, not Mr F) very much.

2. While standing on line at Grand Central Station for the LIRR (that is Long Island Railroad, for those of you not in the know), I once asked Mike Wallace (from "60 Minutes") and his wife to watch my luggage for me so I could go get a coffee and a muffin to nurse my massive hangover. (Hey, they were very nice and standing in front of me - wouldn't you have done the same?)

3. One of my biggest regrets is not studying or living abroad at some point in my life.

4. That being said, I still think on a regular basis about how cool it would have been to have had an EZ Bake Oven as a kid.

5. I secretly think I could compete in a competitive eating contest. Like, really.

6. One day I hope to have a college scholarship named for me.

7. I really like my name. Unfortunately, as this Blog is anonymous, you likely don't know that name. But take it on faith - I like it. First name, nickname derivation, and last name. Good job, Mom and Dad.

Now, I tag (and I apologize in advance if you've already been tagged - I tried to search your blogs to make sure you haven't been yet):

1. Maners, at http://idoyoudowedo.com/

2. Sezzy at http://sufferinglove.blogspot.com/

3. Monkeygirl at http://monkeywed.blogspot.com/

4. Friday at http://fridaysthoughts.blogspot.com/

5. Bailee at http://baileesbride.blogspot.com/

6. http://aweddingonthenines.blogspot.com/

7. Jessica at http://thesensiblebride.blogspot.com/

And to make all of your days - I am also nominating all of you for an "Uber Amazing Blog Award" too! Here is the information for that one:

The Uber (AKA Super) Amazing Blog Award is a blog award given to sites who:

Inspire you...
Make you smile and laugh...
Or maybe gives amazing information...
A great read...
Has an amazing design...

And any other reason you can think of that makes them uber amazing!

The rules of the award are:

Put the logo on your blog or post
Nominate a minimum of 5 blogs
Let them know they received this award by commenting on their blog

Share the love and link to this post and the person you received your award from.

Not a bad day!

You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile

2008-11-06T05:25:00.000-08:00

Mr F is not going to like this post. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that Mr F's apology just a couple of hours ago was based on the fact that he knew that I would take this day to the blog. Oh you are a wise one, Mr F. But you're down for the count, baby.

Sunday was to be the day that Mr F and I completed one of the two tasks I asked him to help with for the entirety of our wedding. Those two things are: (1) purchase wedding rings and (2) rent a tux.

There used to be a third thing, i.e., pick out a honeymoon location, but Mr F has fallen woefully short on that task and I don't want to pay hundreds of extra dollars for a last minute decision on that one, so I removed it from the list, leaving just the two teensy tiny microscopically small things I physically need him to be there for. And truth be told, at this point, if it were a viable option, I would be happy to trade him in for a giant inflatable doll with his measurements that I could lug around town to get these tasks done.

However, the giant inflatable doll is not an option, so I have been talking about getting a tuxedo for a month now, mentally and physically preparing Mr F for this event.

Mr F hates going shopping. I think this only makes him like 98% of the rest of the male population. That being said, we are talking about one hour of one day for one time in his life. Thus far, I have never forced him to do any fashion-related outings on my behalf, which quite frankly puts ME ahead of 98% of women who I know for a fact, DRAG their significant others to dress them up in clothes they like. I do not do this. Mr F does not believe that I am a good or special person for this. But he should.

So we go to the most evil place on Earth. The Mall. And immediately, Mr F looks like a kid about to get a haircut. In fact, there was a little boy aged four actually being pulled toward Supercuts with the same look on his face. Pure horror.

As I stride toward Men's Warehouse, Mr F has strayed out of sight somehow. He is nowhere to be found. I peer into the stores nearby and see a flash of his red flannel shirt. Apparently, Mr F has gone into Brookstone. This is also not surprising. Mr F laments that we will spend $150 on a tuxedo for his wedding day, but thinks that it is understandable to spend $200 on an alarm clock that slowly gets louder to combat Seasonal Affective Disorder. (It's called turning up the volume dial and drinking a cup of coffee. It costs pennies a day. Look into it.)

So I drag Mr F into Men's Warehouse (I tell him - "You're Gonna Like The Way You Look - I Guarantee It!" - he does not find this compelling). Once we are in the store, I ask the clerk where the tuxedos are that you try on to order for a wedding or special event. The very nice gentleman politely informs me that we can't try anything on because they don't keep these items in stock. We just need to order based on swatches. Hmm. Well that is not what I expected. I want Mr F to look the best he's ever looked and somehow I don't think a frickin swatch is really gonna help at all.

Mr F is ecstatic. Now he doesn't have to try anything on.

He looks at the book, holds a swatch up next to his face and says "I like this one. Let's go home."

Well isn't that just hunky dorey. This is not going according to plan at all.

Swatch next to the face is not giving me the visual image I need. I want to see him in a tux. I have been researching peak lapels versus notch lapels, two button versus three button, and bow-tie versus long tie for months. Am I now supposed to just close my eyes and point to the book without seeing him try anything on?

Mr F says yes, that is what I'm supposed to do.

I think not.

I want to make sure Mr F looks good and I want to make sure he doesn't look...well, gaudy or worse yet, cheesy. I have a secret fear that Mr F will look like A Guy Wearing A Rented Tuxedo for his prom. I want James Bond, not James Spader (a la "Steff" in "Pretty in Pink"). There is a fine line between "good formalwear" and "bad formalwear." And I suspect I cannot make a decision on where that line sits from a swatch.

So we get some brochures which we are supposed to select tuxedos from. I am not comfortable with this. Mr F assures me it is because I am a control freak and I need to see everything and have my hands on every detail before it happens.

He is correct.

He also notes that he is not allowed to see what I am wearing to the wedding, so isn't it only fair that the converse be true? While in fact both a fair and astute point, Mr F is overlooking the important point that unlike him, I do not consider wearing olive green Puma workout pants that snap up the side with a red flannel shirt dating back from college (and probably pilfered from a lumberjack's closet) an outfit appropriate for dinner at a nice restaurant. Or even dinner at home. In the dark. Or for anything else other than kindling for a fireplace.

All that aside, yes I am a control freak, but wouldn't you be if you knew you could find yourself promising to love and cherish a solid gold dancer until you die? (My fear with having him wear a champagne colored tie and vest.)

All of which explains why I would like to see Mr F actually put on a gosh darn tux.

So we exit the store and see that there is another formalwear store around the corner. At which point Mr F pouts. And stamps his feet. And crosses his arms. And lies down on the floor and pounds his fists and legs on the ground while hot tears escape from his eyes. OK, that was the three year old boy who was tired of shopping with mommy, but I swear, they looked just about the same to me.

So I drag Mr F into the second store and he frowns at me. He puts a tux on and looks like a high school senior who was stood up by his prom date (fortunately, this is not because of the champagne vest). He's miserable. And making me miserable. I wonder if the pockets of any of these coats contain a flask like the one that my date brought to our prom. I can hear the AC/DC now.

The sales clerk also looks miserable. She looks sympathetically at me and says, "You know, the guys really hate this. They just don't like trying on clothes."

Oh boo hoo. Must be hard to really really hate doing something and to have to suck it up and do it anyway. Imagine hating it and having enough stupid details that you could fill every weekend for a year completing that crap. Sounds like fodder for a blog.

But I know when I'm defeated. So we leave. Mr F thinks I'm crazy and detail obsessed. I think Mr F is annoying and selfish.

We're both right and we're both wrong (and we know this but both prefer sulking to talking, for now anyway), but the truth of the matter is, I still need to see Mr F try on a tux, so he better start mentally preparing himself to go back to the mall.

Until then, I will spend my days creatively trying to figure out how to make tux shopping FUN! So far my list looks like this:

1 - Get Mr F drunk. Blindfold him and tell him we are going to Las Vegas to elope but he needs proper formalwear. Bring him to store with tuxedo options and put them on. Run very fast before Mr F can realize we are not going to Vegas.

I guess I'll keep thinking.

Say My Name, Say My Name

2008-10-30T18:38:00.000-07:00

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh. (And no, that is not some sort of pirate greeting. It's the sound of all the energy leaving my body...it's Charlie Brown when he tries to kick the football and Lucy pulls it away...it's Homer Simpson when he thinks he sees a giant donut in the car, but realizes (likely after taking a bite) that it's actually just a spare tire (i.e., D'oh).

I just want to jump into bed, pull my giant down comforter over my head and hibernate for four months, emerging two days before my wedding, refreshed and awake (if slightly plumper and even more sun-deprived than usual). I strongly believe that if I could hook up my coffee maker, have a phone to dial-out for sushi, a small fridge for splits of (twist off cap) wine, and a TV (with DVR), I could truly survive like this. And if truth be told, I think it sounds heavenly.

The cause of this delusional fantasy? Mom.

Two weeks ago, Mom finally offered to assist with something wedding-related. Halellujah. (Angels two-stepping, clouds a-swaying, rays of light fluttering!)

After we ordered the wedding invitations, Mom promised that she would take care of getting the them addressed and sent out.

(Now I don't want to seem jaded and bratty, but there is this little angry green child-bride-monster inside me somewhere that heard this and immediately wondered if this was really a selfless act or was this because my parents really wanted to make sure their name was on the back of the envelope just to make sure to remind everyone that they are paying for the wedding. I am a bad person. This cannot be true. Thus, in an effort not to go to hell, I am hereby choosing to believe Mom made said offer only to help her deranged bride daughter.)

So Mom offered to take care of getting the guests' names and addresses to the printer and to then stuff and send out the invites (we are doing "printed calligraphy" since it's easier and quicker, but it means that we need to get all of the addresses to the company sooner than usual and in a certain type of spreadsheet). My job was to get her the addresses, which I did, with the exception of two (Mr F's friends, of course. Sorry, Mr F, but you suck at this whole wedding thing.).

The addresses needed to be turned in by the time we got the proof for the invite. We were told we would get the proof in a day or at most, two.

Mom and I arranged to speak last night so I could give her the last two addresses and then she could send off the email with the last two addresses prior to getting the proof. Perfecto.

However, as soon as I answer the phone and ask how she's doing, I get the following response:

[LARGE SIGH] "Oh, I'm fine...I guess. It's just craziness here; it's going to be a very late night because I couldn't do any of the spreadsheet since you didn't have the addresses. And you know, we need to pack for France tonight."

Uhm what? Counting to ten. Crap, still pissed off. Counting to twenty. Thirty?

Speaking very slowly so as to avoid raising of voice: "Mom. You know that you could have done everything beforehand and then just put in the two addresses tonight and hit 'send', right? You did not need to leave everything until TONIGHT."

Last I checked, doing someone a favor or giving assistance is sort of undermined by reminding that person that you now have more work because of them or that they should feel especially thankful for said assistance. (Next time I volunteer at a food bank I will remind myself to say to the hungry people "Enjoy your meal. Because my feet hurt really bad standing here and I've got to do like three loads of laundry that are just sitting because I'm here feeding you food." And yes, I realize I am a lucky person who has food and I'm selfish for being pissed at Mom for this when I could be a homeless person, but it's my life and if you're judging me then you should definitely be reading another fucking blog.)

And and yeah, did I mention that they're going to France? So everything has to be done tonight because obviously when the proof comes tomorrow, and we need to hand the names and addresses over to the printer, they will be otherwise occupied munching on baguettes and fromage while sipping a local Bordeux at a street cafe. D'accord.

(OK, I also feel like I need to disclose that they're going to France....on Marriott points. I don't even know how to convey this with a sense of veracity, because I know it sounds like I'm spinning a tall tale. Clearly, I must be lying. But I'm not. My parents are staying in a hotel in Paris for eight nights using Marriott points. Points that they accumulated from having the brunch for my brother's wedding at a Marriott. And countless other events. I'm fairly confident a year from now they'll be preparing to board a plane to Tahiti to stay in a luxury Marriott hut on the water using the points gathered from the brunch and hotel reservations for my wedding.)

So it's close to midnight, Mom is telling me how exhausted she is and said she'll send me a draft of the list in a few hours so I can proofread it for her. I stay up waiting until she sends me it as my eyes are tearing up with exhaustion. I finally get the darned thing and open it up on my computer.

It's a bigger mess than the federal election system.

This document cannot be submitted as-is.

So much for getting "help." I need to re-do the whole thing in the next twenty-four hours. While she jets off to France. And stays at the Marriott. Tres croissant.

Arggggggggggghhhhh.

I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing...

2008-10-22T05:16:00.000-07:00

The search for our ceremony officiant continued last weekend. After the Cantor Debacle, I immediately scoured the Internet to see if I could find the name of someone who might work for us (i.e., not sing sporadically throughout our conversation and/or take the time to learn how we met, our profession, and other things one might presume the person marrying you would be interested in).

One name popped up a few times, which seemed to me to be a good sign. I mentally filed it away in the cerebral wedding Filofax and began asking around for a couple names at work (the upside to working at a law firm, no shortage of Jews to be found). Lo and behold - the same name comes up again. Well obviously this is a sign from God. Sending me an officiant through the Internet. How tech-savvy of the savior.

So I took the plunge and sent an email out to this stranger requesting that she participate in The Big Show. Which is exactly what it feels like when I take a step back (or 10,000 steps back). I have realized that planning a wedding is a bit like casting a high school production of "A Chorus Line." (Perhaps more like "Fiddler on the Roof" in my case, but you get the gist.)

I audition tons of hopefuls for my ensemble, with of course a few starring roles (The Florist! The DJ! And in the lead...The Catering Hall!!) and then the equally important, supporting actors - Calligrapher, Linen Company, and Many More!

And like a high school theater production, at first you try to make every last detail perfect - from the complexity of a practiced dance routine to the addition of perfect lighting for each scene - until finally it occurs to you that you are a complete and total amateur and that all of the parents sitting and beaming in the audience will give you a standing ovation no matter how the damn production goes off, and you just rush to get the whole thing done (except for the costuming because that is always hands-down the best part and it is always fun to dress up even when the sets are falling down around you). And then presumably, the curtain comes down, you take your final bow, and you're married. And wearing tons of pancake makeup so you look a little like a TV star and/or drag queen.

Gosh I miss high school theater. (And no, I have NOT seen "High School Musical." Though yes, I guess I am morbidly curious.)

Anyway, I dashed off the email to Cantor Version 2.0. Incidentally, I have become increasingly adept at emailing complete strangers over the past eight months. (In fact, I actually have a form letter that I cut and paste at this point.)

She responded to me that she would be happy to meet with us and see if we were a good "fit." But there was a zinger: she wouldn't be able to meet with us for a month, i.e., until the "High Holidays" were over. (For the non-Jews among you, the High Holidays are not multiple days spent under the influence of pot (though I know a few people who go with that interpretation). They are the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement - the latter is actually not an Ian McEwan novel and/or movie starring Kiera Knightly and the former does not involve champagne and all-night partying, but instead a large meal featuring apples and honey. I guess you can see why some people prefer the bongier version (though I suspect the large meal and apples and honey has a place there too).)

Technically, I could wait the month to meet with her, so I agreed to do so.

That being said, I spent the last month mentally fast forwarding to the moment when the holidays would be over. But unfortunately, the more I attempt to not think about something, the more I think about it. So I found myself thinking about it every day (wash hair, think about whether Cantor will be evil, cook dinner, ponder whether officiant will make me cry, pour glass of wine, think about how much I love wine, wonder if Cantor loves wine too).

Finally, the holidays were over, and she agreed to meet with us. As we drove through the suburbs I began to have flashbacks of the previous meeting.

We pulled up in front of a quaint townhouse and I knocked on the door. The door opened and the Cantor ushered us inside, gesturing for us to take a seat on the sofa in the next room. And as I looked around, I knew at least one of us was immediately sold on the Cantor. She had set up an enormous tray of mandelbrot (basically homemade Jewish biscotti) and had set up tea, coffee, and Snapple.

Mr F had eaten three cookies before we even started talking. He was sold.

The Cantor gave us a big smile and began by giving us an overview of what she generally does for couples she marries. And then she said "Now why don't you tell me a little bit about how you two met?"

YES! This is what I was looking for.

And then she asked about our second date, and third date. And about what we thought about children, and finances, our occupations, and about our respective childhoods. She wanted to know us. And I was happy as a clam.

Although I had to interrupt before this got too far to ask one thing.

"Cantor, I think you're just wonderful and this is exactly what Mr F and I want - someone who is getting to know us, but I just have to ask - what do you think we must have in our ceremony to have it be a Jewish ceremony? Do I have to say things that Mr F doesn't and do we have to mention Abraham, Moses, and/or Issac? And do we have to have Hebrew...or, uh, chanting?"

And she smiled, and said, "You can have anything you want in your ceremony."

Sweet. I dug in to the mandelbrot with the relish of a rescued castaway.

With that squared away, I began to relax and as I nibbled on a second piece, she went on to talk about not "judging anyone's path" and believing God is in everyone and isn't necessarily a "he" or "she."

OK, so it's a little hippy dippy, and there's definitely a part of me that believes she may secretly be pulling for our recessional to be to "Uncle John's Band" and I am absolutely placing a $50 bet here and now that she shows up in a tie-dyed tallis (the big shawl that Jews wear to temple), but who frickin cares? She could do a reading by Joan Baez if it means that we don't have Hebrew or chanting. I like classic rock and I'm all for peace, love, and a cute pair of fringed boots, so I'm all for her.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have found ourselves an officiant. And she serves cookies.

The role of plucky and open-minded officiant will be played by Cantor Freebird. And thankfully, the only thing singing that day was my heart.

As a postscript, a few days after our meeting Mr F was tasked with calling Family Friend Cantor (Cantor 1.0) to tell him that we would not be having him marry us. I felt terribly for him since this was not an enviable job. Afterwards, Mr F told me that the conversation went very smoothly which I thought was fabulous and unexpected. Then I thought about it for a moment and asked what it was that he said to make the conversation go so well. His response:

"I told him that you were crazy, that you insisted on having a female officiant, and that no one can argue with what a woman wants for her wedding."

Fair point.

At Last...

2008-10-20T18:44:00.000-07:00

I finally figured out how to upload a picture of the ring. For those who were asking, I posted it back with the original post about the ring so it makes sense (for future readers? I don't know). And yes, the picture is somewhat blurry; I lost the instruction booklet for my camera and can't for the life of me figure out how to take a close-up picture. But I did figure out how to make a movie of the ring. And how to take a picture of the ring in black and white. And without a flash. And with no red eye. *sigh*

And while we're discussing my issues, I would like to cordially request that you refrain from mocking my giant man hands. Truth be told, although I hate my hands I had learned to live with the injustice of not being born with beautiful long slender fingers by reasoning that my hands were more result-driven (i.e., I am pretty darn strong and I've always been a good painter...so that's nice and all). Or I thought I had accepted my chunky hoofs - until I realized I would have to post a picture of my giant lobster claws on the Internet. Enjoy!

When The Moon Hits Your Eye Like A Big Pizza Pie, That's Amore

2008-10-16T16:56:00.000-07:00

During the great Parental Migration of 2008, I suddenly realized I had to make what could best be termed A Migration Evaluation: I was face-to-face with a bona fide Dilemma.

To clarify, over the course of the weekend while my Future-in-Laws stayed with us I was actually faced with many dilemmas, including, but not limited to - will they realize the impetus behind my overly- casual suggestion to have Mimosas with breakfast (or Bloody Mary's...or Bellini's...or a giant glass of future-in-law erasing vodka)?, is it rude to tell them to stop using my laptop computer so I can take five minutes to erase the unsavory sites I have bookmarked?, and do I pretend I didn't just see my Future-Father-in-Law in his underwear or instead do I acknowledge I saw him, but act as though it's no big deal since we will soon be family?

However, this Dilemma was by far the most egregious: I had a wedding-related meeting scheduled for Saturday morning; should I invite my Future-Mother-in-Law? In the underbrush of tulle, manzanita branches, and splayed rose petals that is the jungle of wedding planning, involving my FMIL in the process was by far the most treacherous of decisions. Under each Out of Town Welcome Bag lay an undetonated mine. Involve her too much and my Mother was insulted, involve her too little and I was leaving her out. And one more teensy weensy pitfall: her taste in just about everything is vastly different than mine. (And by "vastly different" I mean to say that she has already offered to create for me a wedding cake made of towels ("you can keep it forever!") and a lockbox of Al Gore-like proportions to put on the sweetheart table for presents (cause nothing says "gifts are not necessary" like a giant slotted mailbox with a padlock on the bride and groom's table).)

All these things aside, I knew that FMIL was dying to be involved. And despite my acute awareness that I was six words away from a speedy zipline to a nuptial swamp of toothy alligators, I found myself saying to her on Friday night (moments after chugging a glass of Chardonnay), "Sure, why don't you join me?" (Count em, there's six.)

And so the next day I found myself sitting at an Italian restaurant in Little Italy to hammer out the final details of the contract for our rehearsal dinner. To a layperson (not versed in my wedding ridiculousness) this might seem like an ordinary meeting. However, this meeting was actually the most extraordinary of meetings. This was the Sylvia Weinstock of meetings, the Mindy Weiss of discussions, the Carolina Herrera of sit-downs. Why was this meeting so special? Because I spent the last four months begging restaurants to host my rehearsal dinner. Since my wedding was on Sunday, the rehearsal fell on a Saturday night. A busy night for restaurants indeed. But this was a special Saturday night. A Saturday night more special than a "7th Heaven" episode.

A Saturday night. In February. Called Valentine's Day.

Thus, I was in a precarious place indeed.

Therefore, this meeting was solely intended to get the restaurant to give us a contract to assure that we would finally have a rehearsal dinner venue. In all honesty I was also personally hopeful that an ancillary result might be my return to a two-Tums-a-day habit (down from the current four to five a day habit - providing me with oodles of calcium, but also a pervasive chalky mouth and a striking resemblance to Marcel Marseau). In essence, we just needed to get the frickin contract.

As we're waiting for the Owner to come to our table to figure out the details, Future Mother in Law starts asking questions. "What will everyone eat?"

"That's what we're here to figure out. I'm sure it will be great." (Simultaneously I found myself thinking that it could be ground pony on Wonder Bread and I still would book this place.)

"What's the owner's name?"

"Uhhh...Joey I think. Joey Goldenberg."

"Joey GOLDENBERG? What kind of name is that? He must be Jewish."

"I don't know if he's Jewish. I think he's Italian. He owns an Italian restaurant. Don't ask him."

"Where's he from? Maybe we know him."

"Don't ask him."

"But maybe we...."

I cut her off in my most patient-Mother-Teresa-slash-axe-murderer-voice: "Honestly, as I told you earlier, we are really lucky that they agreed to let us have the dinner here. I don't want to ask him about his name or anything else. I think our best course of action is to just talk about the food and sign the contract and have this done."

"Okay darling, whatever you want." (If you think Future-Mother-in-Law sounds suspiciously like Mom, that would be because they are cut from the same Jewish mother mold (you can get one yourself if you like - they are available on Avenue J in Brooklyn). And yes, if you are a math wizard, you have just discovered that I will now have not one, but two Jewish moms. Double the tsuris, double the fun.)

So we sit in silence and I think that FMIL has understood the mission. Get the contract.

Joey "I own an Italian restaurant but my last name is" Goldenberg comes over finally and we talk about the details. I don't even care. I just want the contract.

Finally, he pulls out an example of a contract. I give it a cursory glance (caring little whether it asks for payment in Faberge Eggs or gold bullion). He tells us he will go and print out one with our names on it when we're done chatting. Future Mother in Law is trying to peer across the table at it. "Can I see it?"

"NO, NO, NO, NOOOO!" Unfortunately, saying NO in my head did not have the intended effect of stopping her. I slid the paper across the table, giving it good bye kisses with my eyes.

I continued the conversation in my head. "Please do not say anything about the contract. Please." I was sure she could see the words kicking their way through my temples.

The air was heavy with overpriced cappuccino. It was silent. I took deep potentially-caffeinating breaths. Perhaps we would be ok after all. As I opened my mouth to tell Joey that he should go print out our version of the contract, FMIL opened hers first:

"Do we have some wiggle room here? Can you work with us on the price?"

Oy vey. I look wistfully at the bottle of Grappa sitting on the bar.

Joey looked at FMIL like she was crazy. "Nah, we can't do that. You know, it's Valentine's Day. In fact, we really weren't sure we could host this at all cause we're gonna lose so much money..."

As I listened to our rehearsal plans fall apart more quickly than a beginner's hand-rolled tortellini, I jumped in: "Joey, don't worry, about it. We're fine as is. Can we get that contract?"

He looked at me for a second. "How about I send it to you next week, ok? I gotta run now - we have a private event tonight I need to set up for. I'll email it to you - I have your address."

We walked out of the restaurant into the Indian summer sunlight which felt wonderful. Except that we were empty-handed. Which felt less-than-wonderful. Apparently FMIL did not understand the mission after all. I should have explained that when you're in the wedding foxhole, one should not stand up, shout and wave their hands vigorously or one is likely to lose their rehearsal dinner restaurant. Or get shot.

He Just Smiled And Gave Me A Vegemite Sandwich

2008-10-13T17:47:00.000-07:00

By way of review, my parents and Mr F's parents were both, together, simultaneously (meaning, at the Same Time) in town this weekend. It was Parent-Palooza. Parent-Gate. Moms-and-Dads-a-Ding-Dong. The Parent Trap. Parents Galore. Dueling Parents. You couldn't walk across my apartment without tripping over a parent. I actually opened up my wallet to pay for a bottle of water and pulled out a parent.

The reason for the great New Jersey to Baltimore pilgrimage: the wedding tasting, the Mecca of wedding planning. It only takes the promise of a bite per person of six types of hors d'oeuvres, three salads, eight entrees and a plentitude of crispy crunchy sweet and munchy desserts to drive four Jews from central NJ to the greatness of B'more.

I would love to say I thoroughly enjoyed the tasting. Mr F did. But he can relax and enjoy life. I cannot. All I can say is that this experience certainly reinforced the notion that I am simultaneously exactly like, and also thoroughly appalled by, my parents. Le sigh. How can one escape such a chicken-egg conundrum? (Not to mention avoid the ancillary craving for a chicken salad or cheese omlette?)

We arrived at the venue with Mr F's Parents (who were staying with us) and met Big Hugs the wedding coordinator (who hugged each of us by way of hello) and sat waiting for my parents. Tick tick tick tick. It's funny how even though I know we're slapping down more than twenty grand on just catering alone, I still feel beholden to the chef, the coordinator and every one else who is there. Tick tick tick.

Finally, my Parents show and we proceed to the tasting room, which was really lovely. I had no expectations as to what the "tasting" would be like, since I've never thrown a party for 150 people before. Actually, I take that back. I've never thrown a party for 150 people before that did not involve kegstands. In the private room, they had set a single table just for the seven of us. I was feeling very fabulous.

We discuss napkin choices (who knew I had a choice?) and then the first course comes out. We taste lots of little bite size yum yums. I look over at my father who looks unhappy. This isn't unusual, but I was hoping for best behavior.

His brow wrinkles and he looks around the room, apparently perplexed.

After a few more moments (during which I don't taste anything but instead focus my laser-sharp peripheral vision on my father's knit brow), he turns to Big Hugs, who is sitting to his right.

He asks her, "Aren't we going to taste the wines?"

I'm mortified.

And yet, happy to have wine.

But also so nervous about getting drunk and looking like a lush in front of Big Hugs and the Chef that I barely drink. (Why do I care about this? I don't know.)

This is not so for Mr F. He drinks all 6 glasses of wine that were poured as "tasting" glasses. Mr F is three sheets to the wind.

Similarly, Future-Mother-in-Law is giggling across the table. She too, does not appear to be concerned that her pallet remain sober and cleansed to try and select the right foods. She is drunk.

Future Father-in-Law has turned the wine glass on its side like a rolling pin and is pushing it back and forth on the table. Although silent (as always), he too is pretty certainly drunk (or possibly baking an imaginary cake).

Me, my Mom and my Dad each have almost our entire glasses of wine full in front of us. For we only "tasted." (My Parents have done so because they are wine connoisseurs and don't drink the whole glass of wine; me, because I have a tendency to think all food tastes equally yummy after two glasses of wine, hence the ability to clean out my fridge in a single bound after a happy hour.)

Each progressive course comes and we taste, discuss and select. And then the desserts arrive and a discussion of wedding cake ensues (to have or not to have is apparently the question).

And then finally, we're done. And I pick up the buttery Chardonnay (which apparently we will be serving at the wedding) and chug the whole thing like Gatorade. Touchdown.

Yes, there is more (come on, a weekend with both my Parents and Mr F's Parents? - of course there's more) but no, I will not write about it now. I'm spent and dwelling on the fact that I left 5 perfectly good glasses of Merlot, Cabernet, and Pinot Grigio to be poured down the drain. Or more likely, consumed by the kitchen staff. Good for them.

Put On Your Red Shoes And Dance The Blues

2008-10-07T18:05:00.000-07:00

Who'd have thunk it? For once, I am being decisive and Mr F is not.

My decision: a few weeks ago I decided I want to cross "choose first dance song" off my "To Do" list. After all, it's just blandly sitting there, taking up excess space between the jaunty "create table numbers" and demanding "select rehearsal dinner location." (Clearly, my list is not in any particular order, just massive amounts of things that need to be completed at some point prior to February 15th and/or before I lose my mind.) And given the fact that The List is more than one page long, I resolved to cross something else off. Come hell or high water. And that something to be crossed off is our first dance song. Because after a thorough review of said list, I decided that it required the least amount of leg work.

I can't help but think of the "First Dance" song as sort of like the "Prom Song." It seems to hold the same sort of overly-inflated importance prior to the event, making you believe that it must characterize your entire relationship (or all four years of high school). There's hemming and hawing (and in my high school - voting!) about the lyrics and about the mood and tons of other idiosyncratic details about the song. However, in reality, when the event itself arrives and the song begins to play, it's just not that big of a deal - the song could be just about anything slow and sweet and it would all be fine (which I'm slowly starting to feel might hold true for the whole damn wedding, but if I allow myself to continue to think that way, this whole house of cards will crumble and I'm pretty sure people will find themselves eating leftover tuna casserole and PB&J sandwiches for the rehearsal dinner and getting a mass email wedding invite).

Not to mention that I don't even remember my Prom Song and in fact, only remember that I voted for Madonna's "Crazy for You" which did not win.

Where was I?

Yes. Crossing off the first dance. I will remove it from my list - oh yes, I shall remove it.

So I did my research one night (said "research" involved reviewing my CD's, iTunes list, two glasses of white wine mixed with a dash of melancholy, and a whole lot of searches on You Tube (a great resource to hear just about any song by the way)) and found a couple of songs that I thought would work just fine. They were not songs I had heard at any other wedding, and they all seemed mildly reflective of our relationship (I say mildly, because there were some tenuous connections there, i.e., a song played in the first movie we saw together), but heck, I figured I would play the songs for Mr F and hear his typical wedding refrain of "whatever you like is fine," and we would be done.

So I put on the computer and played one of the songs for him. I yelled at him: "Listen to this! This is our wedding song!" And I tried to grab him and dance around the room with him.

He grumbled. "No, I don't like it. It's fast. First dance songs aren't fast."

Hmmm. Well that seems...judgmental.

"OK, that's fine. How about this one?! This one is slower!" And I played the second song.

"I don't like that one either. It's mushy. And weird."

Well, now - no need to be mean to the songs. And so it seemed that the guy who said he wanted a 3-minute telecast of NPR to be our first song suddenly had as many opinions about music production value as David Geffen.

It seemed that "choose first dance song" was clinging onto its place on the "To Do" list for dear life.

So for the next few weeks I would sit at my laptop in the kitchen and when Mr F would come into the room, I would launch a full-scale musical attack on his senses. I would jump out of my chair and try to waltz around the room with him, which generally led to his dismissing me by grumbling that he was tired and wanted to go to bed.

This was not going at all as I had planned. Here's the thing: like many other grooms before him, Mr F is not looking forward to the first dance. He does not enjoy dancing, let alone dancing in front of approximately 150 people (a number clearly growing by the minute) for approximately three to four minutes. And while we have already agreed that we will take dance lessons to alleviate some of his stress (although he is actually a great dancer and doesn't need lessons), he seems to be filibustering my mission to remove "choose first dance song" from The List (either consciously, or giving him the benefit of the doubt - unconsciously). Will the genteel Groom from the great State of Maryland please yield the dance floor to his Bride-to-Be?

Unfortunately, despite my decisiveness, this issue continues to be unresolved. Which is annoying me. I don't want to unilaterally select a song, so I was forced (yes, forced!) to do what every woman finds herself doing at some point: giving an ultimatum. I composed a list of ten songs and told Mr F he must pick by the end of this weekend. And if he doesn't? Well, nothing. There's nothing I can do. This is a hollow threat. Except that I will be a big pain in the ass to him and bug him incessantly about it, which as it turns out, usually ends up being enough.

You Say, You Want, Diamonds on a Ring of Gold (or Possibly Platinum)

2008-10-04T04:54:00.000-07:00

I have boldly gone where few women have gone before. I conquered a new frontier: I modified my engagement ring.

The ring that Mr F proposed to me with was absolutely gorgeous - I loved it the moment I saw it. Well, ok, actually I loved that I was finally getting a proposal (after three years and a move across the country...woo hoo!). But once I took at look at the super sparkly ring before me (and it was realllllly sparkly - Mr F apparently got a little OCD prior to the proposal and had it professionally cleaned no less than three times before handing it over) - I loved it. The center diamond was pear-shaped, which I adored because it's so unique. And when I found out that it was his grandmother's ring I was head over heels. I loved that I was being entrusted with a (gorgeous) family heirloom. (And if my sweetheart didn't have to shuck out two-, three-, five-month's salary - or whatever DeBeers dictates one should spend on a ring nowadays - even better!)

However.

There was one thing I did not love. The color of the setting (which, by the way, is not an heirloom - just the diamond is). And thus, I'm sorry, but in this instance, I cannot be color blind. I have a dream and it does not involve yellow gold - the color of the setting of my brand new engagement ring. Now while I own a good deal of yellow gold and like it a lot, most of my jewelry is white gold or silver. More importantly, just looking at the ring I knew that it would look so much prettier if it were set in white gold or platinum. I found the yellow gold color distracting from the beauty of the stones. So this was not good.

Understandably, I was a little apprehensive about bringing this up to Mr F since I didn't want him to think I was anything less than thrilled about being engaged and about the ring. So I waited.

For a whole day.

Before I decided I had to tell him.

It's very interesting, the whole engagement ring phenomenon. Although the ring - this very expensive investment which is intended to be worn [calculating...sum reached] = until you die, it is something that the proposee (often) has no say in. Moreover, it is also something that becomes a reflection of you (the proposee and wearer of said ring), rather than a reflection of your fiance (proposer and later (hopefully) husband). No one sees a woman wearing an ugly ring and thinks "oh, her fiance has terrible taste." They think "That woman does not have good taste." Which is why I needed to tell him.

(Note: without this change, my ring was not ugly - it was still fabulous; I just obsess because I wanted this to be PERFECT if I was going to wear it consistently for 50 years, give or take.)

And so I casually (and by casually, I mean I planned what I was going to say for hours) mentioned this to him when we were out having celebratory drinks the next day. (On a totally unrelated note I have to admit that day was so much fun and something I had not anticipated about getting engaged...the 24-hour long celebration following the proposal, when it seemed overwhelmingly appropriate to scream at everyone we passed on the street - "we just got engaged!" and a champagne toast seemed to be the just the right complement to our shared glee for breakfast, lunch and dinner). Anyway, during that celebration, I casually mentioned to him 'how much I LOVED the ring, but I was slightly concerned that it was yellow gold since I didn't wear a lot of yellow gold...soooooooo, would it be a problem to change it...?'

dum dum dum dum dum dumdumdudududududud...[sound of my heart beating faster as I waited for Mr F to get mad or upset about the fact that the woman that he was marrying was so...well, superficial.]

"Of course - change it. I just want you to love it since you will be wearing it every day for the rest of our lives."

YES! He actually understood! The man who thought it was a-ok to sport jeans with holes in inappropriate places and who continued to wear, with disturbing regularity, a J Crew rollneck sweater dating back to 1993, actually understood why I wanted the ring to be perfect. Honestly, forget the grilled cheese with the face of Jesus, this was a goddamn miracle. [Dancing the happy dance around the streets of Del Ray beach, much to Mr F's amusement.] Mr F was two-for-two on our Florida trip. (Lest we forget, number one being that he proposed.)

Fast forward six months. Er, actually eight months. I know that the following makes me sound like I'm about 68 years old...but holy metamucil, where does the time go?

I still haven't changed the ring.

Why, pray tell? Because I am petrified that I will drop the ring off at some jewelry store to get it switched to white gold and they will lose it, misplace it, maim it, the store will burn down, giant flying monkeys will swoop in and eat it...you get the picture. And while these scenarios may seem a little, let's face it - excessive - because the ring is insured, that does not allay my fears. Because my favorite part of the ring is now also my biggest burden: I have been entrusted with Mr F's family heirloom and I am completely freaked out that I will be the one to lose it.

But it's only been passed down through like three generations, so it's no biggie, right? If it's just lost, we can always buy another one, right? Or not.

So I began a multi-state hunt for a place that would change the ring on the day that I dropped it off (so no ring sleepovers at the jewelry store) and, just as importantly, allow me to watch the jeweler do the work. You can imagine that this perhaps might not be the easiest task? It involved a lot of calls that went like this:

"Hi, I would like to have my ring changed from yellow gold to white gold."

"OK, we can do that."

"Great! I was wondering if you could get that done the same day that I drop it off."

"Uhm...well that would be very hard."

"AND...I would like to make sure the ring NEVER LEAVES MY SIGHT. Ever."

"Yeah, we're not going to be able to do that. Toodles, crazy pants."

I had that conversation, oh about, twenty times. OK, except for the last sentence. But you get the gist.

Until finally, my moment of great glory: like Galileo, Christopher Columbus, Neil Armstrong and so many others before me, I made a great discovery. I found...The Best Jewelry Store Ever. Even if it was an hour ride away. But lo and behold, they were good for their word (even if I had to sit and wait for a few hours until they got to my piece of jewelry). When it was my turn, I sat and watched through a glass wall (much like the "observing room" for doctors during surgery (or what I assume it would be like, since I've only seen it on "Grey's Anatomy") or the "one-sided glass" in police stations - ditto with respect to "Law & Order"), as they performed a minor operation on my ring.

And then they came around from behind the glass and handed it over to me.

It is the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. Perfect. And in fact, it's like getting engaged all over again, because as I walked to my car that day I stared at my hand (much like I first did eight months ago). And then as I drove the car, I looked down far too frequently (mercifully avoiding any traffic accidents) to see how my ring looked while driving. It looked perfect! And then I looked in the mirror at my reflection to see how the ring looked as I was washing up for bed.

And it looked perfect.

Doctor Doctor, Can't You See I'm Burning, Burning?

2008-10-01T13:38:00.000-07:00

I saw a therapist for the first time on Monday.

Now I won't say that there is a direct correlation between planning my wedding and the decision to see a therapist. It's more like the veil that broke the camel's back.

Mr F has been encouraging me to see a therapist for some time now given my proclivity to being overly stressed and anxious about just about everything. I have resisted mostly because while I think therapy is a wonderful thing, I tend to feel that it is something that makes much more sense for people who are dealing with "real" issues - like addiction, grief, or depression. Not so much for anxiety. It just seems so self-indulgent to see a therapist to deal with "stress" when people all over the world are sick, starving, and victims of violence and abuse.

That being said, the fear of blossoming into a fully formed version of my parents (who, the learned doctor informed me, are probably both dealing with severe forms of generalized anxiety disorder themselves) combined with quickly worsening and painful TMJ (from grinding my teeth at night from stress) finally was enough for me to agree that if speaking with a professional about my "issues" could ultimately make me a better person (better person = person not as crazy as my parents and with less physical symptoms of stress), then it was worth a try.

What is most fascinating is that I can write five pages on picking out china, but I don't have a lot to say on this. Mostly I'm writing in the interest of full disclosure and because I'm a little giddy at the recollection of our first conversation.

The Doctor begins by asking: "So, why are you here?"

"I knew you were going to ask me that! And I've been thinking about what I was going to say for the past few days. I think this has been a long time in coming. But the truth is that I've been really stressed lately and I have a lot of anxiety...about...uhm...hmm."

"About what?"

"I know this is going to sound funny, and I think it's really just a catalyst to get me here - and not the cause of my anxiety per se...but...I decided to come here because I'm really stressed about...Planning My Wedding."

"Hmmmmmmm." The Doctor looks down writes something (presumably "patient is crazy" or a picture of a bird going "cuckoo! cuckoo!") and leans back in her chair.

And then she said "OK, so tell me if you have any phobias."

"Wha???" Phobias? Did I hear right? Perhaps she said "tell me if you've picked out your phlowers?" No, no I think she did not.

Apparently what she did do was change the subject. Flat out just moved on. It was like I'd suggested we order a pizza and she responded with "Do you like my new sweater?" Not even a tacit acknowledgment of my statement.

I started to do my nervous giggle thing (which probably freaked her out more since I'm sure she suspected there were voices in my head telling me jokes) because at that moment I realized that even my PhD-holding-mental-health-professional couldn't provide any answers about the massive stress caused by wedding planning. Either that or I have a therapist with a severe hearing deficiency.

Well that's just about it. Except that it cost me $140 to learn that my therapist can't plan my wedding for me (and/or needs the Miracle Ear) and I got suckered into going back again in two weeks. I'm not really sure where this whole thing will get me (except for some potentially funny but unnecessarily expensive blog posts), but for those of you who are also stressed (but don't want to drop a Benjamin and a half on a shrink of your own), I'm happy to pass along her advice.

Unfortunately, most of this session focused on my crazy parents and my non-wedding-related issues so I have no advice to share, but I firmly believe that you should all stay tuned as I am certain that within $420 (also known in layman's terms as "three more sessions") we shall once again straddle the issue of the White Horse of the Apocalypse, the impending nuptials trotting toward me with advancing speed. Giddyup!

I Want The World, I Want The Whole World

2008-09-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

I have always had a hard time with gifts. I love to receive an unsolicited gift, but I hate when someone asks me "What do you want for your...[fill in the blank] ___________ - Birthday? Chanukah? Anniversary? Valentines Day?" I end up distraught; the idea that someone is spending their hard-earned money on my whims causes me more stress than joy.

Now don't get me wrong - my position on this issue is a nuanced one. I'm all for a little consumerism and I love the idea that I might get surprised with a Birthday / Anniversary / Holiday present that is, say, a lovely new sparkly pink unsolicited iPod, but I have a terrible time demanding that such iPod be purchased.

Of course, the irony is that both my family and Mr F work on this premise (i.e., "It's your Birthday. What do you want?"). Needless to say, I end up not getting presents for many events because I cannot - without oodles of guilt - make such demands.

I'm pretty sure this guilt comes from a variety of sources - (1) my parents not having a ton of extra money when we were growing up, (2) their stress about said lack of money (and as a corollary, their kind reminders that that we didn't have spare money and thus I should appreciate every cent spent on my dolls (first), clothes (later), and college (ultimately)) and (3) finally, the oy vey on the crown of the Chosen people - Jewish guilt. The latter of which can account for pretty much every neuroses I have - from fear of airplanes to malnourishment. That being said, I'm absolutely sure it has a place here as well.

And while we're playing psychologist, if I had to venture a guess, I think that never writing a "list" to Santa (flat out telling the big guy what I want) has clearly had some far-reaching ramifications. I knew I was totally getting screwed with Chanukah, no matter what my parents claimed! Eight days, schmeight days.

Given my giant black sack of gift issues (gissues?), you might be able to imagine what a frickin conundrum "registering" has been.

At first, I thought "Well, put a ring on my finger and call me a wizard! If this isn't the best and most exciting thing in the WORLD! I can go around and pick things I like and they will just 'poof'...appear!"

Even before I got engaged this seemed like a pretty good gig. I actually remember watching the movie "Sleepless in Seattle" (like 900 times) and thinking how fab-u-loso it must be to walk into Tiffany's and just PICK THINGS.

My goodness, my Guinness, I have wanted to walk into Tiffany's and pick out things my whole life. Now I can! The magical ring gives me a power I have never had before. Precious, indeed.

But then, as I started to browse online and ponder what we "needed," I had an enlightenment.

I began to suspect that the items are not magically delivered to my doorstep and it seemed highly plausible that little wedding fairies are not the ones who place them on my kitchen counter while I am asleep. Perhaps...real live people buy these for me. People who work. A lot. They spend their hard earned money on the silver-plated soft boiled egg holder or the trio of pewter hand crafted bowls. It dawned on me that registering was doing exactly what I hated. I was asking people to buy me things.

Silly things.

And expensive things. That I don't normally buy. Ever. As I've mentioned numerous times, I try to buy things at discount stores. So going into Bloomingdales and registering for a $50 towel, when I know that I can buy that same towel at TJ Maxx for $10 is painful. It's like throwing away forty dollars. But it got worse than that. Because of China.

Sorry, I don't mean Beijing, or the home of the 2008 Olympics. (Although I'm still reeling over the fact that they wouldn't let the girl sing who was deemed "not pretty enough" to be the face of the Opening Ceremony.) Anyway, I meant "little c": china.

My family doesn't have heirloom china. And I love to cook. So it only makes sense that I would register for china, right?

Flash forward to Bed, Bath and Beyond (where I agreed to register since everyone can use the plethora of coupons they provide and everything will be 20% less). I am standing with my Mom in front of the china. Crying. I cannot believe that it costs $160 per place setting. Per place setting! And a place setting doesn't even include a SOUP BOWL. The point at which a place setting stopped including a soup bowl is clearly beside the point - but holy soup du jour - that is $220 for 5 pieces of china. Multiplied by 12. And my fiance is a total klutz. That adds up to well, approximately a few thousand dollars worth of heartbreak and broken china.

My mom is speaking to me in calming tones about passing down these bowls to the next generation. But it's just so much money. I can't get over it. (Note that the salesgirl is looking at me as if I am insane. I'm sure many people come in and pick the $300/per place setting without a second thought. I am clearly not that person.)

Despite my inability to pull the trigger (literally, I can't figure out how to work the stupid "scanner gun"), I do have to register for things. People will want to buy gifts for my shower and I don't want to end up with 10 coffee makers. (Or do I? Yum, I love coffee.) To avoid spending all of my days on the return line at Macy's, I need to register for things and so, it might as well be china. Because if I don't choose china, then I will just end up selecting...well, crap. And at full price. A spatula at $19.95? I mean, come on! It's a spatula. It's plastic. It should be no more than $5.

And to top it all off, the silliest part is that registering doesn't even get you what you want (or at least what I want) because you can't register at 20 stores for one thing each. If I push out of the way the troubling feeling in my stomach caused by demanding my friends spend tons of money on me and think about what it is that I really want, I realize that it's unique and beautiful heirloom items that I can't "register" for. I would love a piece of framed art or photography (bought online or from an artist's gallery) that we would have forever hanging on our wall that I would always remember was a wedding gift. Or I would like a menorah (not the ugly ones at Bloomingdale's or Bed Bath and Beyond but something beautiful and handmade) that I will imagine my kids will remember as the one they used for lighting the Chanukah candles each year. Or a totally unique hand crafted platter to serve food on at holidays - not the same one that a million people have in their homes because we all registered at the same place.

My head is spinning. And it's lunchtime. So I will make one demand that I feel wholly comfortable making. I'm going to let Mr. Chiu know that I would very much like him to deliver me some sushi.

I, Hate The Rain And Sunny Weather And I, Hate Beach And Mountains Too

2008-09-25T11:19:00.000-07:00

Every time I try to start this post, a million different ideas float through my head. So I've erased my first sentence five times so far. In fact, although I haven't erased the previous two sentences (yet), I have no idea where this post is going. The problem right now is that there are SO many wedding-related balls in the air right now that I'm really not sure what to write because I can't focus on a single one.

Instead, all of them have taken up residence in my head swirling around on a constant loop. As I'm walking to work thoughts just sort of dart through my mind - I have to find another Cantor! Should I delegate the gift bags to my mom like my maid of honor suggested? I have to email her back to thank her for that suggestion. I have to call the event coordinator to ask about changing the tasting time! And that's just the ride downstairs in the elevator.

I'm exhausted by the time I arrive at my office.

The thoughts whiz through my head like airplanes on the beach during a three-day weekend advertising dollar drafts at the local dive bar. Flying fast and furious, back and forth. Before I can finish reading one, the next is already encroaching. And as a result, I squeeze my eyes shut and try to fall asleep. Or bury a hole in the sand and crawl inside.

The only thing worse than thinking of all the things that I have to do, is thinking about all the things that I'm waiting on other people for. Sweet malibu rum, I hate waiting on other people to get back to me.

Hate it.

Right now I'm doing a lot of waiting. Which is worse than a bikini bottom full of sand and no shower to be found anywhere. (Clearly, as fall approaches, I'm already missing the lazy days of summer. Granted, I haven't had lazy days on the beach for at least a year, since I moved from San Diego, but that's another story for another day...or a mental breakdown waiting to happen). Where was I?

Oh yes. Waiting.

Waiting.

[Yawn.]

Still waiting.

For what, you might be asking? (A good question.)

I'm waiting for my "day of" event coordinator to call me back. I'm waiting for my parents to confirm that they can attend the tasting if we change the date. I'm waiting for Mr F to get me the addresses of his friends.

I HATE WAITING.

I also despise waiting until after the Jewish holidays to meet with the new Cantor we found. I abhor waiting to hear back from restaurants I contacted about hosting our rehearsal dinner. I loathe waiting to get responses from international resorts I contacted about honeymoon resorts.

How can I get anything done if I'm constantly waiting for other people to complete their tasks? Planning a wedding is like a giant group project for Sophomore year English class. I hate group projects. I hate delegating. Because everyone lets me down and I end up doing twice as much work. (You can imagine that I am the paradigm of efficiency in the workplace.)

And did I mention that I hate waiting to hear back from my event coordinator? (You might know her best as Big Hugs.) And by "did I mention," I mean "I know I mentioned," but I don't think I really got into the meaty goodness of this topic and instead of nibbling on the bun of my boardwalk burger, I'd like to dive right in to the juicy center.

Lunch aside, the larger issue is this: I'm starting to hate my wedding coordinator. Yes, we definitely started off the wrong foot when she sent me an email addressing me by the wrong name. But I vowed not to let that affect me. And thus, it is the fact that she consistently does not return my phone calls or emails or morse code or pony express telegrams that annoys me and has not engendered a great deal of faith in her abilities.

While I understand that my wedding is still five months away and that she must have a boatload of brides to deal with, I hate the radio silence treatment.

This is all I would like when I contact her; a return email as follows:

"E&E,

I got your email. Thanks for contacting me! I am looking into your requests and will be in touch as soon as I can with answer.

BIG HUGS!!!!!!"

I would then like a substantive answer a few days later. Does that seem unreasonable? (No really, does it?)

But instead I get nothing. I have about a million questions to ask her and she won't call me back. And while I'm on the topic of Things I Do Not Like (also known as "Hate"), I also hate that I feel like everything I ask her is a "favor" somehow. And that I need to somehow pick and choose what I ask her to help me with.

Why do I feel this way? Because everytime I ask if the venue can do something for us, it's met with Big Sighs and then my favorite response: "I'll have to check and get back to you." Translation: "I will probably forget about this until you call and email me four more times, adding a ton of stress on to your shoulders and adding, but not subtracting, a single thing from your mile long list."

I HATE WHEN PEOPLE SAY THAT THEY WILL GET BACK TO ME.

With respect to my most recent questions, I finally did hear back from her. And what did I hear exactly? - That she never got my email. Yes, you read that correctly. I think my coordinator just pulled the "dog ate my homework" excuse of wedding coordination. (Despite the fact that I got an "out of office" auto reply from her after I sent the email, which demonstrates that she did indeed get the email; perhaps I should have explained that not "getting" the email and not "reading" or "responding" to the email are two entirely different things.) Not to mention that I left two voicemail messages.

Now I have to go order the pin I want to wear in my hair for the wedding since I can't do my hair trial until I have it. Which means I can't book someone to do my hair. And until I do my hair I can't schedule a make-up trial. Which is all very frustrating, because the hair pin is backordered so I need to wait a month for it to arrive.

I Write the Songs of Love and Special Things...or Part II of The Weekend

2008-09-23T05:57:00.000-07:00

I woke up last night at 3 o'clock in the morning, feeling confused as I groggily recalled a fragment of my dream. I was sitting in front of a piano and an older man kept chanting the same song over and over and over again in Hebrew. And I kept telling him to stop, but every time I said stop, he would start all over again. It was my own version of Groundhog's Day.

Except that I wasn't actually dreaming. I was recalling the events of Sunday. Traumatic, no?

On Sunday, we were set to meet with Mr F's Cantor. This gentleman is a friend of Mr F's parents and also was there for the Bar Mitzahs of both Mr F and his younger brother. As my family doesn't go to temple and has no relationship with any Jewish officiant, this seemed like a no-brainer. (Note that not belonging to a temple does not apparently preclude my mother from going into hysterics at the mere mention of having a wedding that is not Jewish and/or is not conducted by a Jewish officiant and/or is during the Sabbath - a weekly event that I have never seen anyone in my family observe. Interesting phenomenon.)

As we pulled up to the Cantor's house I began to get inexplicably nervous. Butterflies were kicking around in my stomach and keeping the rhythm as we knocked on the door. The Cantor peered out at us. He was an older gentleman, and looked to be in his sixties, with the thick bifocaled eyeglasses that I associated with, well, Rabbis and other older Jewish people. "Mista EFFFFF. Soooo good ta see yooouuuuu." He spoke with the Yiddish/Hebrew accent that marked a New York Jew more plainly that holding a bagel with lox in the left hand and a Coney Island hot dog in the right one. (If you are having trouble picturing how you should be reading all of this dialogue, might I draw you by way of example to Mel Brook's character Yogurt in "Spaceballs".)

He shook Mr F's hand as we continued to stand out on his porch. Mr F said "This is E&E, my fiance." He shook my hand as well. We all stood on the porch awkwardly for another thirty seconds before it occurred to the Cantor to say "Come in, come in. Take a seat," as he indicated to a few couches in the corner.

We sat down on the couches and the Cantor started to make small talk with Mr F about his parents. And then he moved on to speaking about his own children. "My son, my son - he is a big time lawyer. He graduated from HARVARD. He works for a big firm now. Because he went to HARVARD. He was always such a good student. HARVARD!"

I found myself tuning out and looking around the room. I was used to the "kvelling" of Jewish parents. It was their icebreaker. Instead of "how are you" they say "my kids, they are amazing!" Although this was going on for longer than usual.

I tuned back in. He was now telling a story about how the judge that his son worked for bought him a Chanukah present of two rare Jewish texts - and the judge wasn't even Jewish! "What a mensch! Who can believe it? Me, for one, I could not believe my son to be so lucky."

This was getting a little ridiculous.

Mr F gallantly steps in to say "E&E is a lawyer."

The Cantor looks at me, nods, and goes back to speaking about his son. Two minutes later, he pauses and I think we're going to get down to chatting about me and Mr F, perhaps discuss how we met and what we were looking for in our ceremony. But instead, the Cantor starts speaking about his daughter. She's a doctor. They are so blessed, to have both a doctor and a lawyer. (I swear, you can't make this stuff up.)

And he goes on to talk about how she lives on the Upper East Side of New York, about her apartment - it's a co-op!, her job at the hospital (she had two offers at hospitals in NY - how to choose?) and how beautiful she is. Mr F is waved over the the refrigerator where her pictures are hanging up and duly acknowledges her beauty. And then, just when I think that discussion of the daughter has dried up - he goes on to discuss her son - his grandson ("the light of his life"). And how he loves bunnies and has tons of toys. Fascinating.

At which point, he says "Well, we should get down to it, no?" and I breathe a sigh of relief. I was thinking we would never talk about our ceremony - last I could recall, the actual reason we were here. And before I can open my mouth to ask a question, he says "so, first you come in and I chant the two blessings of betrothal. They are quite melodic and lovely. You will like them. Then I will chant the seven blessings. And I will need a piano. You have a keyboard right? They are wonderful. I say the prayer and then 'la la' the piano goes and it's wonderful." I'm looking around like a mouse caught in a trap (but I definitely got screwed on this one because I never saw even a damned square of swiss cheese). What in Moses' name was going on here? I thought that he knew from my Future Mother in Law that we didn't want any Hebrew in the ceremony? (Or at least "limited" Hebrew.) This sounded like our wedding was a brief visit to the Whaling Wall.

I knit my eyebrows together; I'm trying to use my ESP to get Mr F to look at me. He won't. Because he can feel the hate radiating across the couch over to him.

So I break into the Cantor's diatribe. "Uhm, Cantor - I think we need to take a step back. Perhaps FMIL didn't mention this to you, but we were under the impression that you knew that we didn't want a religious ceremony. We're not religious. So we don't really think that all these blessings are appropriate for us."

Mr F chimes in "Yeah, I don't believe in anything. I'm like the anti-Jew." A little much, but he's trying to help.

But I was proud. Now it was out there. He knew how we felt. We could move on and discuss some alternate English readings or other ways to incorporate the Jewish culture in to the ceremony without the stuffy verse.

"You will love the melodies. We will do the blessings. I will play them for you now. Listen."

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, he pulls out a tiny Walkman tape recorder, circa 1988, and instead of playing Prince's "Kiss", he presses play and we start hearing chanting. And more chanting. I look over at the Cantor and he's closing his eyes and lip syncing the words (actually much like I did when I was 12 and dancing around the house to a Prince song). I turn to look at Mr F who's sitting to my left and he is laughing so hard that his face is turning red.

I think I just got a disturbing glimpse into the boy that Mr F was at age 12. I felt like it was B'nai Mitzvah prep class all over again.

And since we were all reverting to age 12, I leaned into the couch and looked out the window and let my mind go blank as it used to when I was stuck in temple or doing anything religious (which is why I don't want to have that very same music at my wedding), concentrating on the fact that it really is quite amazing that the New Kids on the Block are getting back together and remembering that I (ironically) won a giant NKOTB poster at our former temple's annual Purim Fair (and wondering where in the world that darn thing is now...my parents' basement?). A few minutes later it was quiet. Mr F was trying to discreetly wipe away the tears of laughter from the corner of his eye and control his giggles.

"Well?" The Cantor was looking at Mr F. In fact, it seemed that unless I was speaking, the Cantor always looked at Mr F. I brushed the back of my hand across my cheeks. Perhaps I had a stowaway crumb and the Cantor couldn't bear to look at it any longer?

"Well, Cantor, it's a beautiful melody. But it's not really us. As E&E just mentioned, we're really not religious and we had hoped to skip all of the blessings in Hebrew and --"

"You can't hear on the tape properly. I will play for you. Come to the piano."

And like pigs, er - cows to the slaughter, we dragged ourselves over to the piano. My stomach grumbled. It was already seven o clock and I hadn't eaten lunch. I wanted a cheeseburger. Or lobster. Or a bacon cheeseburger lobster sandwich. I really was reverting to a passive aggressive twelve-year old.

"Let me get some hot tea. I need to prepare my throat." And so we waited while the Cantor sipped some tea to prepare his throat. We just stood by. Helpless. Prisoners of the seven blessings. My cheeseburger lobster sandwich would also have mayo on it.

And then he sat down at the piano and began to sing. A whole bunch of Hebrew stuff that I didn't know. And he kept going. And going. I looked around his house. He continued to sing. I began to meditate (if meditating involves violence and hatred). I imagined myself taking a mallet and smashing the piano. And then yelling at the Cantor that he needed to SHUT UP and listen to what we had to say. He continued to sing.

And when he was done, once again he looked at Mr F and he said "See! I told you that you would like it - it is a festive melody! When there is a festive occasion, you play a festive melody!" Finally he turned to me and said, "Right? Isn't this what you would play for a happy occasion?" To which I responded:

"NO."

Mr F looked at me with concern - his crazy Hebrew music-hating bride. And I looked back at him - squinting my eyes as if to say "I thought we were on the same page - I thought neither of us wanted chanting!!"

To which he responding - without saying a word - "I don't want chanting - but this is my parents' friend. SO BE NICE."

At the same time Mr F's eyes were warning me, the Cantor said, "I don't know what you mean."

I thought for a moment and then said: "Well, I would play something that I actually understand. I don't understand a word you just said. I would play the Beatles, or Jack Johnson, or something that means something to me. This is precisely the reason that we don't want Hebrew in our ceremony. We don't know what you're saying."

"Would you like me to sing it again?"

Mr F and I were a team again; we exchanged bewildered glances and a silent "NO!" but before we have even finished the conversation with our eyes, the Cantor has broken into song. Again.

Do you understand?? HE IS SINGING AGAIN. It's like we're in a Bob Fosse musical. I can feel that we're just two minutes away from jazz hands and excessive wearing of black tights.

I can't believe it, but I am the father in "Footloose." I hate music. It is evil. It kills young girls driving in cars at high speeds.

"Cantor, Cantor - it's beautiful, but I just don't think it's 'us'," Mr F finally interrupts him.

The Cantor pauses for a moment and looks pensive; then he exclaims in glee, "OK, I will read it to you in English! Then we can use that...although of course I have to read the last verse in Hebrew or you're not married."

And before we can say "no thank you", he is off to the races. And this is what he read:

Blessed are You, our God, King of the universe, Who has created everything for His glory.

Blessed are You, our God, King of the universe, Who fashioned the Man.

Blessed are You, our God, King of the universe, Who fashioned the Man in His image, in the image of his likeness and prepared for him from himself a building for eternity. Blessed are You, Who fashioned the Man.

OK, so those are only the first three blessings. But really, we can stop there since we've already reached what I find fundamentally wrong with Judaism. I'm sorry, but I'm just not on board with half the blessings at my wedding focusing on how frickin great man is and how I'm so psyched that God allegedly created him first. And yes, I understand that I'm saying words that others before me have said and "keeping tradition alive", but screw it - it just doesn't sit right with me and I don't want to say it. And all that aside, honestly, all of those words - even in English - mean absolutely nothing to me. It's like reading the instructions for building an IKEA bookshelf aloud at my wedding. Which might actually be better because then I could have a valid excuse to serve Swedish meatballs.

So I decide to lay down the law and tell the Cantor my feelings on Judaism and what we really want and that if he can't provide it, that we fully respect that, but perhaps this isn't the best match. But instead, I start to cry.

Holy burning bush, Batman. I jump up and run out the door.

I walk around our car and take deep breaths before returning back inside. I apologize, having decided that I'll make it through this meeting if it's the last thing I do.

Luckily, a little tears seemed to moisten the gears of the Chosen People's negotiation as the Cantor pronounced: "OK. I think...we do not need to do the Seven Blessings."

Hallelujah.

"Cantor," Mr F says, "How about we run through the entire ceremony so that E&E and I get a sense of the whole thing?"

"OK. Well, first, before the ceremony you will sign the ketubah. Do you have a ketubah?"

"No."

"You must get a ketubah. You can get it in a Jewish bookstore."

"OK, thank you."

"And then, after we sign the ketubah - do you have a ketubah yet?"

"Uhm...no?"

"You can get one anywhere - in a Jewish bookstore, online, whatever. But you must get one."

"OK."

"And you need an easel. To display it during the ceremony."

"OK."

"Are you going to display your ketubah in the home?"

"We don't know. We don't have one yet."

The Cantor goes on to explain that during the signing of the ketubah portion prior to the ceremony, he will ask Mr F if he agrees to take on the very important responsibility of caring for his new bride. And he starts to move on to the next portion of the ceremony.

"Excuse me - but Cantor - what do I say?"

He looks at me. "You do not say anything. I am asking Mr F if he is ready to take on his responsibility."

"But I think we should share the responsibility."

He looks at me as if I am a slow child. A very slow child. "Well you know E&E, should things not work out - things aren't really equal. You know that he would have more responsibility. So he must agree to this."

"No, I'm sorry, Cantor. But I disagree. I think we both should have the responsibility."

He looks at me kindly, as one might look at an injured mare before shooting it in the head to put it out of its sad misery. "But that's not how it really is, E&E."

"Actually Cantor...I'm a lawyer. And that is how it really is. There is this thing they have now - it's called 'No Fault Divorce.' So that's how it is."

Let's just say that this continued on. And on. And on. The Cantor broke into song no less than two or three more times. He pressed us to include other blessings. And all of it was fine for I had already resolved that we were not using him. That being said, the moment we left I burst into tears again in the car.

I just thought it would be so different.

I thought he would ask us about ourselves and want to know us and hear about the hilarious story about how we met in California (even thought we were both from NJ!) and hear about our first and perhaps our second dates (the second date being the day after the first, and yes, the third being the day after the second). I imagined that after knowing us, we would transition into explaining how we envisioned our ceremony and the Cantor would work with us to reach that goal.

Mr F and I drove in silence for a few moments (except for my sniffling) before he asked if I wanted to talk about it. I tried to explain but wasn't doing a very good job. At which point Mr F said to me, "How about some pizza?"

He looked at me as I dried the tears from my cheeks and under my eyes. I held up two fingers: "I want TWO slices."

We made a quick jughandle and popped into Scotty's pizza on Route 33 in New Jersey. Sweet ten commandments, was it a crappy day - but boy, this was the best frickin pizza ever.

I Write The Songs That Make the Whole World Sing...or Part I of The Weekend

2008-09-22T10:51:00.000-07:00

Mr F and I spent the weekend in New Jersey. Yes, again.

The reason for our trip was two-fold. However, I will discuss only one of those folds here. The other fold turned out to be of origami-like proportions and was so truly disastrous and so nuanced in said disaster, that I need to - in the words of Mr F - "take some time before blogging about it, both so I calm down, and second, to make sure I don't post it so rashly that I forget to write about the full extent of the craziness." Amen.

The first reason we went home was because my Mom specifically asked me if she could help me pick out my invitations. Now here's the thing: I've actually been looking at invites online for months now and had found a bunch of great options and thought I would order them that way.

But, clearly this was something my Mom wanted to do together and so I agreed to take a 200 mile trip home to satisfy my mom's desire to, well, "play mom."

This part of the weekend (Saturday) was not crazy. Not a disaster. Just a par for the course New Jersey visit.

We woke up early that morning and drove to a wedding store to go look at some books of invitations.

Our drive to the store was typical for our relationship.

"Have you figured out what type of cards you are going to place on the tables with the numbers? My friend Jen said you could buy individual picture frames to hold the table numbers."

"No, Mom. I'm too busy trying to plan a rehearsal dinner, a honeymoon and meet with our musicians, florist and other vendors to take care of the big picture items. I can't do that other stuff yet since this part is so time consuming for just one person."

"Have you figured out what you're going to put in the out-of-towners' wedding welcome bags yet?"

"No, Mom. You might recall, as I mentioned about ten seconds ago, I have all these big picture things to take care of. [Pause.] Would you like to help me plan the rehearsal dinner? That would actually be really helpful to me."

"Oh honey, you know that I don't know Baltimore! I wouldn't even know where to begin!"

"Actually Mom, I've only lived here like 5 months and I don't really know it well either. But you can do some research on the Internet for me - that would be helpful."

"Sweetie, you know that I don't know how to do research on the Internet. I just wouldn't know what to do!!"

"Well, you could call places I've found and get information for me. That would be great."

"Well, I'm just so busy these days with school and all! The school year just started and I'm working till 4:00 every day! It's just so busy."

"Uhm, ok."

"So honey, have you thought about how where you will put the place cards out for everyone?"

"No, Mom."

I have to say, once we arrived at the shop, it was pretty easy. Given all my previous research, I had a very specific idea of what I wanted. Unlike a dress, where you do tons of research and get there only to realize that everything you like looks terrible on you and you have nothing to tell the saleswoman that can possibly be helpful, with invitations, the Internet research really helped me out since I could give a brief description of what I was looking for and quickly browse through to see if I liked or didn't like something.

It also helped (I guess) that I was exhausted by obsessing over every decision and had mentally decided to just pick something and go with it. So I picked out three invitations that seemed do-able, called Mr F, had him come meet me (and Mom) at the store and asked for his ok on one of the three.

With the swiftness that only a disinterested and apathetic groom can muster up, he immediately picked the horizontal rectangular style invitation and gave a succinct and compelling reason for his decision: "I like this one, it's horizontal which is different from all the other ones. Just like us - we're different." And bam, we were done. I just had to pick out the fonts and and come back the next day with the wording.

And so we went home, I had a glass of wine with my parents (the cork doesn't fall far from the tree), and sat down at the kitchen table looking at the book of invites I brought home with me so I could choose the lettering before I went back tomorrow. And suddenly, I HATED the horizontal style. It didn't look right. And I felt like it looked like a ticket. An entrance ticket to the wedding. People might start handing the valet their wedding ticket. Or tearing off the end to keep the stub. And it was also very formal. Which I liked that morning. But now I HATED. I'm not formal! Mr F isn't formal! We're not stuffy people! This invitation would be a mockery of our personalities. That was when my mom called down to me to say it was time for us to leave for our dinner reservation.

I returned 2 hours later, still thinking continuously about horizontal invites, but filled with more red wine and a double-sized portion of zuppa de pesce. I sat back in front of the invites. Like the clams and scallops I had just consumed, they were swimming in front of my eyes. And all I could think was that Mr F hasn't made one decision about the whole wedding and now that he finally has, I wanted to undermine his invitation selection.

The next morning I resumed my post at the table watching the invites (as if they might suddenly jump off the page and scream "pick me! I am the Right Invitation For You!") five minutes before I needed to leave the house. I still had not committed to which invite I was going to order because I couldn't decide if Mr F would be annoyed if I switched to the one he didn't pick.

But (being the overwhelmingly obsessive person that I am) I decided that I couldn't let sleeping invitations lie, and I approached him in our computer room.

"Honey?"

"Hmm?" [Mr F doesn't even look away from the computer. He's helping my Dad set up the new iPod we got him for his birthday.]

"I know that you picked out the rectangular invitation as the one you want to use, but do you like the others? I mean, would it bother you if we used the others?? Because if it bothers you, then that's ok and I won't do anything. But if you don't really care one way or the other, I think I like the other one better. But if you really like the one you picked and don't like the other one, then that's fine and we can stick with that."

Mr F glances up at me and looks at me with a face that simultaneously recognizes that he always knew I was crazy but also seems confused at the new level of obsession and lunacy that I might have reached. "Honestly, they're all fine. I really don't care. You just made me pick one. So I did."

Well that's that, I suppose.

I went and ordered the one I wanted. Order was restored in my wacked-up mind. For now.

And no I did not forget that there's a second half to this story. The second reason for going to NJ over the weekend was to meet with Mr F's childhood cantor (and my in-laws close family friend). All I can say is that I should have seen this one coming, but I didn't. Unlucky for me, but likely funny for you, the experience brought us to new depths of wedding planning hideousness. And so, it shall be a post all unto itself. L'Chaim!

Shot Through the Heart and You're To Blame, You Give Love a Bad Name

2008-09-15T19:28:00.001-07:00

Has anyone out there ever had heart palpitations? If so, you can attest to how freaky they are. Talk about making a young and seemingly-invincible person feel the weight of each of their thirty-one years weigh upon their chest. Literally. (And if you think I might have had three glasses of Chardonnay before typing this post, then yes, you would be right.)

Speaking of numbers, I've got one for ya. (You didn't think the heart palpitations were coming from nowhere, did you?)

One hundred and seventy three.

ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY THREE.

ONNNNNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEE HUNDREEEED AND SEVEENNNNNTY THRRRRRREEE! (That last "stheventy three" by the way, I sort of envision being spit out by Daffy Duck with his trademark lisp. I guess that's not PC, but I'm not the one who created him; I'm just the gal who watched too many cartoons as a kid.)

Do you know what that is? Do you? Oh, I think you DO.

Last night, I was sealing the last of our Save The Dates. And as I did so, I thought to myself, "Well, isn't that an awful lot of Save The Dates!" (I've been watching a lot of "Mad Men" and now my inner monologue sounds disturbingly similar to a 1959 housewife.) I looked at the pile of those that had not been sent and realized it was only about ten. And then I realized....WAIT. If we ordered 100 invitations, and only ten were left...and most of our friends were couples...then...oh sweet jebus. I pulled up our wedding spreadsheet (a term that should used loosely, lest anyone think I might actually be organized) and started counting (or trying my best to piece together a final number).

And then I realized.

Our current invite list is 173 people.

It's good that I'm swaddled in the warm golden blanket of Chardonnay, because when I wake up tomorrow I suspect that this post will be edited heartily to reflect the fact that I am freaking out. FREAKING OUT. Where did my small wedding go? I could have sworn I saw it here just moments ago. After all, so many other things had come and gone, but Relatively Small Wedding, YOU were here to stay!!

Something else that is no longer in my life: my nest egg. Because the amount of money I budgeted for our wedding has been far exceeded and we are now dipping into the yolk of my savings. Which seriously pains me. So much so that I have more heart palpitations. That pitter patter is the sound of money oozing out of my soft-boiled bank account.

I understand that this might not sound exactly like a crisis to most people, but the thing is that I'm a Saver. Not a Spender. Now the detectives among you might have picked up on this from the fact that I had an entire post about discount shopping. And while I think a wedding is nice and all, it's not what I would spend my hard-earned savings on. I understand those who do, but it's just not me. I prefer more tangible things. What I want is a house. With a yard. And an open kitchen. And a pony. (OK, not a pony.) But what I don't want to spend my hard-saved money (which is a whole other story) on is the all-too-intangible wedding event where for the small price of $45k, I get to feel like a princess for a grand total of eight hours, until of course the moment the clock strikes midnight, the DJ packs up and leaves, I remove my fabulous satin slippers (only to find terrible blisters), and while still standing in my ludicrously expensive wedding gown, my tiara is traded in for a big fat bill. (And no, holding a bill for said event does not make the event itself "tangible.")

Palpitations.

(As a postscript, I feel in the interest of truth I should disclose that I'm sitting in front of the television watching a PBS special on Billy Joel and as I write I hear the ballads that were the soundtrack of my youth, such as "Just The Way You Are" and "She's Always A Woman". This is not only making me feel melancholy and causing me to write unnecessarily depressed and manic postings but I'm also feeling oddly compelled to drink more, get a public nasty divorce and to marry a woman who is a third my age and looks disturbingly similar to my daughter.)

Good morning! Good morning!

2008-09-13T06:39:00.000-07:00

I just woke up about a half an hour ago and I need to leave in exactly 5 minutes to go to my "Group Power" exercise class with Gwen, which I love, but I need to vent before dashing out the door. So why not do it carelessly in under five minutes (and without editing) on a public webpage for all to see and judge?

I began my morning as I begin all mornings, by brewing my coffee (on one of our fave engagement gifts - the Cuisinart Grind-n-Brew - sheer genius! - well, except when Mr F sets it to grind coffee at 5 am before he goes to work and I shoot out of bed thinking it's Armageddon). After that, I sat down at my computer, just to quickly check if I got any emails I deemed fun and worth opening (essentially anything from friends, and not one of the stress-inducing emails from theknot.com which tells me I have 93 overdue items and 40 more coming up in the next month).

That's when I see that Future Mother in Law (FMIL) has emailed me. This is not extraordinary. FMIL emails me probably four times a week. In all honesty, I really don't mind, except for the fact that Mr F needs to realize how angelic and saintly I am for patiently responding to each of said emails (while my own mother's emails, also on the four-a-week rotation, languish away in my inbox, their winking smiley faces just waiting for a smile back, without even a red flag reminder to provide at least a glimmer of hope that they will receive a response).

I open the email to see these simple words: "Please add on Mr. X and Guest to the wedding list and also Mrs. Y and Guest. Thanks."

This is problematic for two reasons. Number #1, I don't want to add anyone else onto the guest list and definitely not in such a willy-nilly fashion; this should not be as if you're picking out a box of cereal at the grocery store, see a "buy two get two free" sign, and decide "aw heck, I'll get four boxes of cereal!". If four people are added on to the wedding that is not supposed to exceed 125 (acknowledged that I'm delusional on this point), then it should be a request and a carefully considered one at that.

Reason #2, is...sweet folger's house, what on earth is this "And Guest?" AND GUEST? I'm having heart palpitations. This is not the best part of waking up. This is like opening up Pandora's Swarovski-crystal bejeweled wedding box, and letting Decorum, Budget, and Sanity escape with a bottle of Grey Goose to run off to Ibiza to cause all kinds of chaos, never to return to my wedding experience.

Now I'm not an anti-guest person. Here is my stance. I believe if you are in a serious relationship (as defined by you) that you get to bring a date. I also think that if you're part of a group of people and you are the only one without a significant other there, then I might tell you that you should feel free to bring a guest (because I don't want anyone feeling badly). I know those rules involve a lot of gray area, but screw it - it's my party and I can make barely comprehensible rules if I want to. And in all reality, the reason behind my (sketchy) rules is that we are on a very tight budget and very much want to try to keep our guest list to a minimum to keep it an intimate affair (see reference to delusions above).

By inviting everyone with a guest (or anyone with a "guest" as opposed to "significant other," which means everyone has to be invited with a guest), we could take an invite list from 130 to 150 easy (all of which are presumably people I will never have met in my life...and in case you don't remember my ramblings from about a month ago, I'm not particularly keen on strangers seeing me profess my love and appear my most vulnerable on my wedding day). And ok, to tell you the truth, for the most part, the people who would be coming alone are people I don't give a crap about coming (i.e., second cousins and/or children of friends of In-Laws). So if being invited without a guest means that they won't come - so be it. (See, I can be selfish. I just hate to admit it.)

So I dashed off an email to Mr F, telling him he had to lay down the law with his mom about our "No Guests" policy and while I was at it, I told him to tell her that no kids (excepting our nephew) were invited either. Might as well throw in the kitchen sink.

Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut, Sometimes You Don't

2008-09-11T20:22:00.000-07:00

OK, I know that's not really a song, but I consider any jingle that continues to bounce around my head ten years after they stopped consistently playing it on television to fall in the category of "song."

Anyway, this is only a brief post (I know, famous last words), to mention a story that I had completely forgotten to post until I was talking to a friend and listing reasons my parents are driving me crazy. And then I remembered this story.

First, you need to know that Mr F has some seriously wackadoodle allergies. He is allergic to fish, but not to shellfish and he is allergic to nuts and seeds, but not to peanuts. I know, it's the opposite of your typical allergies. Which I like since (a) I prefer lobster to halibut and (b) Mr F is pretty much opposite of a typical person. But Mr F hates when I blog about him, so I'll stop. Well, actually this whole story is pretty much peripherally about him, but I'll stop discussing his allergies. Not that they're not fun to talk about.

(But I do have one last thing to say while I'm on the topic. I have to admit that I almost thought our relationship wouldn't work when I learned about the allergies because of one word: sushi. Sushi is by far the most magical food in the world. In fact, if fish didn't have gills, I think they would have wings. Little flying angels that hop into my mouth in a savory disembodied way. (Note that nothing about my vision involves actually fish parts or eyes or anything icky like that.) By the way, I have thought about this long and hard and I have come to the following conclusion: the fish used in sushi is treated with some sort of addictive crack dust that is not visible to the naked eye. This is not a hypothetical. It must be true.

Anyway, what happens when a sushi lover meets a boy who is allergic to sushi? Well, she immediately plans to dump him. For those of you who judge me, a stomach flu on your house! You don't know what it's like to truly love...food. Luckily, Mr F first suggested that we go out for sushi, at which point I realized that Mr F was perfectly willing to eat the lamest kind of sushi - cooked seafood. Mr F basically likes the Ryan Seacrest of sushi - bland and adored by the masses - shrimp tempura rolls. (And uh, free of fish.) But while I hate American Idol, a little pre-Golden Globes red carpet never hurt no one, and Mr F and I found a beautiful happy medium for his allergies and my true love of sushi.) <---Note that is not a wayward parentheses, I just decided that my parenthetical was long, so I broke it up nicely in to paragraphs. You're welcome.

That being said, Mr F has allergies.

So about a month ago, I told my mom that we scheduled the tasting for the wedding food. If I can be honest (and I can, because my mom hasn't gotten this blog's link yet), I didn't really want my parents to go. My dad causes me a lot of anxiety in restaurants because nothing seems to meet his expectations (which is essentially getting a fillet mignon off the Wendy's dollar menu). In addition, I really think that the food should be our (Mr F and my) decision. I know we're not paying for it, but this is our gig. Let us choose the food. After all, do we not all agree that I pretty much obsess about food 24-7? But the parents are coming to the food tasting and I didn't fight it because I saw this fight happen when my brother got married and I don't have the energy to fight it.

So my parents asked to get a copy of the menu options, which I provided them, and after reviewing it thoroughly (dutifully expressing dissatisfaction at how few options there were) they started telling me what they liked. (Mr F is going to lay an egg when he reads this by the way - luckily, Mr F is not allergic to eggs. Unless they're fish eggs.)

And so my mom tells me that they are interested in the following appetizers to be passed during the cocktail hour: pesto chicken and the sesame skewers, among a few other things.

Let's break this down, shall we? Pesto is made with...you got it - pine nuts - to which Mr F is allergic. And sesame skewers - even less of a mystery - sesame seeds! Pure allergy joy.

So I suggested to my mom that perhaps we choose other, less nutful options to be served at the cocktail hour. To which my mom (who is fully aware of the allergen situation), says:

"Why on earth would you want to do that? Mr F doesn't need to eat every single hors d'oeuvres!"

Uhm...really? He doesn't? Don't you think, as someone who suffers from allergies and spends their whole life asking waitresses "what's in that?", there should be one day in your life that you can just pick up hors d'oeuvres off a platter with reckless abandon? And by gosh, shouldn't that day be your frickin wedding day?

Not to mention the fact that having my new husband go into anaphylaxis before we have even entered our reception might be a teensy bit inconvenient. (OK, he actually doesn't have a full anaphylactic response, but his throat does swell up and medical attention might be warranted.) Either way - not exactly how I envisioned my wedding day. But now that I think about it, I might want to get a medical kit wrapped in a ribbon with our wedding colors - the pictures will be adorable!

As my face turned redder with anger than a fresh piece of ahi tuna sushi, I tried to contain myself. But screw it, this one wasn't negotiable. I wish the following was said in the calm and authoritative tone that I imagined in my head before I said it, but instead I screamed at my mother like I did when I thirteen: "We are NOT having a single food with nuts or fish during the cocktail hour. That's it. I'm not going to worry about my husband having an allergic reaction at our wedding and I really don't care what you think." All that was missing was ending my tirade with "I HATE YOU" and running up to my room and slamming my door. (I would have slammed down the phone, but cellphones just don't give you the same satisfaction.)

In hindsight, I wish Mr F's allergies came up sooner and more often in this wedding, since I seem to have no problem standing up to my parents on this point to defend his honor. Perhaps the allergies could have been a catalyst to keeping the wedding on the water in May. Or having an intimate rehearsal dinner. Or having brunch in the hotel where the wedding is.

Or not.

You've Got a Friend (Who's Worse Off Than You Are)

2008-09-09T05:45:00.000-07:00

Apologies for my lack of posting. Believe it or not, I've actually got a friend in town! She is one of my close friends from my previous home of the city of San Diego and thus, flexing my creative muscle, we shall call her "Miss San Diego." (This conjures a variety of mental pictures for me, not least of which is a beauty queen with a serious Mystic Tan problem and a Coors Light permanently adhered to her right hand, which isn't necessarily accurate, but I think we all know that life isn't especially fair. And it could be worse - she could be holding a Miller Light.)

Anyway, having a friend in town may not sound like a particularly interesting or significant feat to most of you, but having a friend visit is a wonderful thing for someone who moved across the country for their significant other and has spent their days toiling away planning a wedding instead of making friends. (Because despite my insistence, Mr. F assures me that the girls on "The Hills" are not actually my friends. I'm not sure if this is because they're idiots or because they don't know me - but either way - not my friends.) Anyway, having Miss SD in town has led me to some nuptial conclusions.

Conclusion #1: Planning a wedding is not as shiteous if you have friends in the same zip code.

I just realized that planning my wedding would probably be a whole heck of a lot better if I had a good friend who lived nearby. Certainly, it wouldn't stop my parents from being driver and navigator on the crazy train, but I think that it would nicely balance out the highs and lows of wedding planning (to clarify, this would mean actually creating "highs" and not just experiencing "lows") so that looking for invitations or auditioning DJ's would be fun (or at least fun(ny)), even if in the interim I had to argue with my parents about the guest list or my in-laws about whether I should wear my wedding dress to both of my wedding receptions (more on that later).

How did I come to this conclusion?

Saturday morning there is a torrential downpour (we shall call her "Hanna") and Miss San Diego and I decide to go try on my wedding dress for her. The bridal salon is also where I'm ordering the bridesmaid dresses from, so Miss SD decides we will also try on a bunch of dresses to try to figure out which she likes best (I gave my girls a bunch of styles and they get to pick whatever they like best to wear).

And then Miss SD says to the sales assistant "Do you have any dresses in the color that we're ordering them in so we can see what it looks like next to the wedding dress?" Great idea, Miss SD!! To this the sales assistant looks distraught. "Mmmm, I can look through the racks, but I don't think so." While Miss SD is modeling her dresses for me and we analyze the pros and cons of the top two, the salesgirl returns and says that we're out of luck. No burgundy color dresses to be found. She comes back with a swatch of color the size of a postage stamp and offers up the chance for me to hold it up to my wedding dress. A nice effort, but not what we had in mind. At which point she says slowly, "You know, I might have a dress in with some of the stock in the basement. Let me check."

She returns ten minutes later - victorious! She is holding a lovely satin burgundy dress. Although as I look closer at the dress, I realize it looks...small. Miss SD and I decide we love the color (which is good since I've already told everyone to order in this color), and Miss SD, ever game, takes the dress into the dressing room. She emerges a few minutes later wearing a dress that is clearly not intended for anyone with boobs. Or hips. Or a butt. Or a high school diploma.

A group of salesgirls and the salon's owner are all peering around the corner at her and seem to be having a discussion amongst themselves as Miss SD stands in the middle of the salon, open to all types of public humiliation. At which point, the owner of the salon says quite carefully, "Uhmm, I think that dress may actually be a junior bridesmaids dress." As in, a dress intended for a girl aged 8 to 9 years old. Excellent.

But what does Miss SD do? Does she flee to the relative safety of the dressing room to take the frock off upon realizing (actually, confirming) that the dress is something that has no place on the body of a 30-something year old?

No. She marches through the center of the salon and looks back at me, slightly lagging behind, mouth agape, while she shimmys through one of the top bridal salons in Maryland in a junior bridesmaid dress meant for an adolescent. "Well, what are you waiting for? Are you going to put on your wedding dress so we can see how this color looks next to it or what?"

Junior bridesmaid dress on a (sassy) thirty-something-year-old woman. All that's missing is a basket full of rose petals and a garland. I could not even contain my giddiness at the sight before me. A level of hilarity clearly not achieved when one shops alone.

Conclusion #2: No matter how bad your wedding drama is (for example, if you think it's so bad that you have to say....start your own blog about it), someone (*cough* Miss SD *cough*) likely is dealing with worse crapulosity.

It just so happens that Miss SD is getting married as well. Yay! But Miss SD's drama faaaaaaaar out-weighs mine. Boo!

This is not my story to tell, but what I will divulge is that Mr. SD's father seems not to approve of his son getting married at this juncture. (I know! Do people even do that anymore? It's so 19th century Jane Eyre! - Which ok, I didn't read, but strikes me as involving a lot of paternal "I disapprove of your romantic choices as we have a reputation to uphold in the community." And to clarify, Miss SD is not any of the following, which might elicit such disapproval: (1) crack smoker, (2) baby seal poacher, (3) unemployed gold digger or (4) circus clown. (Apologies to any crack smoking circus clowns who I have offended. xoxox.)

But this isn't just a fatherly "I need attention and I'm making a point" type of a situation (see, e.g., pretty much all of my blog posts about my parents). To the contrary, this was full-on borne-out just a week ago when Mr. SD's dad (or Captain Angry, as I will call him) was a no-show at the engagement party and made it abundantly clear that there is a strong possibility that he won't come to the wedding either. Over and out.

You want perspective - there it is. Which brings me to my third point.

Conclusion #3: You are more than likely not the only person keeping Beringer stock way up, because there are many many other women out there who are pushed to the brink by the wedding planning process (and by "brink" I mean "liquor store", where they buy a nice bottle of Prosecco because it's tasty and dry but cheaper than champagne). Translation: like Michael Jackson would say - You Are Not Alone. (Or at least as he would have said it before he stopped really singing and just playing with llamas and whatnot.)

(The earlier point of which by the way, brings me to something I've been thinking for a long time. Do you remember like 4 seasons ago on "The Bachelor" they had Andrew Firestone, who helped run the family vineyard? Do you think the major deciding factor in the selection process involved the fact that many women's modern day Prince Charming is not simply smart and/or rich - but rather, comes with a lifetime supply of free wine as well? Because that's my dream. It truly is.)

Ahem.

Having just spent three days with Miss SD and having waded our way through an unconscionable amout of Nobilo Sauvingon Blanc and evenings before (Jesus help us), vodka tonics (and damn it, their ugly stepsisters - chicken wings and pizza), I realized that I wasn't the only one finding that wedding planning was less utopian fantasy land and more giant black hole, slowly sucking the life (and romance) out of me. Every sentence started with a sip of wine and ended with something like this: "ME TOO!!!"

I hate the fact that what was supposed to be a happy event has caused me so much stress!

ME TOO!

I hate asking my in-laws for money and am thinking about just paying for this myself even though I don't really have the money to do so and much prefer a down payment on a house!

ME TOO!

I hate the pressure of deciding if letter press invitations are actually important or not!

ME TOO!

Thus, realizing that wedding planning is not just the sweet smell of flowers and joyous pre-nuptial perfection for all of us (but rather seems to be brie squares and Bordeaux for a rising number of women), it is my great hope that Miss SD will agree to guest blog about her experience here because I can't do her story justice. (I've asked her numerous times in person, but I'm hoping maybe a more formal invite in writing and with a red carpet and trumpets (it's called imagination, use it) will be more encouraging.)

OH! And I forgot to tell you that Miss SD is a wedding/event planner. So I thought I had anxiety about whether I would be able to live up to expectations? Screw that. Not even close. Try planning a wedding when every person says to you "You're so creative! You always do the greatest events. I can't wait for your wedding - it's going to be soooo amazing."

No pressure there. Unless you count the gravitational pull from the black hole.

You Can Check Out Anytime You Like, But You Can Never Leave

2008-09-03T17:09:00.001-07:00

I've begun to realize that wedding planning is a lot like heartburn (both of which I am experiencing right now, which makes me an expert). When you're in the thick of each, all you can think about is how truly horrible it is. But then, as soon as it has subsided (and you are lazily paging through the new issue of "Modern Bride" while eating some spicy Thai food out of the container), your mind (or your stomach) conveniently forgets just how painful it was and you become convinced that you were overreacting and that everything is juuuuuust fine.

Until, like clockwork, the very same exact thing happens again.

Last thing I remember
I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before...

And so indeed, "hotel issues" have returned, mighty and strong, reminding me that they never truly go away. Welcome to the Hotel Crapifornia, such a lovely place.

My Dad called me last night, which I thought was extremely thoughtful of him since he isn't usually the one to pick up the phone. Unfortunately, the first words out of his mouth were something along the lines of: "I told Mom I would talk with you about something." Words such as these strike fear into even the most hardened of brides.

This could be heaven or this could be hell...

Like a dog hearing the rustle of the travel cage opening, my skin crawled, my ears perked up; I went on high alert. What was coming was not good. Stall him! Create a distraction!

"Soooooo Dad, I've been thinking that we should discuss the song we'll use for our father/daughter dance...have you thought about it at all?" [This won't work...he's too smart for that. I'm done. Shipped off to the kennel.]

"Oh yeah? I'd love to discuss that, hon!"

CRISIS AVERTED!

"Right after I talk to you about what Mom and I wanted to discuss with you."

CRISIS RETURNED. My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim...I had to stop for the night.

So I mumbled back to him, "Uh, yeah, ok."

"Well you know how Mom and I found another hotel that people could stay in, right?" Note to readers: this might be the ultimate example of addressing the obvious. Although I peripherally addressed this before, I didn't discuss this to the extent it was an issue in my family (which I could, but take it on faith - I was annoyed about the fact that my parents wanted to provide a second hotel and told my parents so). So YEAH, I know they found another hotel.

More mumbling. "Yeah."

"Well, because the Marriott is such a nice hotel, of course many of our friends have chosen to stay there instead of the hotel attached to the wedding venue." My parents are truly obsessed with the Marriott. "And since that's the case, what we really wanted to know from you is whether you think you're going to want to hang out with us the night before your wedding...or whether you're ok with mom and I hanging out with all of our friends who have come from all around the country to see us and who will all be at the other hotel."

"Ummm...?"

"I mean, of course, if you want us to stay at your hotel, we can certainly stay there while alllll our friends are at the other hotel. It's what you want of course."

I'm calling "time out" for a moment here. Now while my Dad is giving his soliloquy, there is actually a lot going through my head (and believe it or not, despite what I'm saying, I'm not actually thinking "uhm").

I'm thinking: my parents TOTALLY SUCK.

Yeah yeah, I love them and all, and they're throwing me a wedding - I get it. But really, doesn't it SUCK just a little that they've put me in the position that I need to CHOOSE between saying that I want them to stay at the hotel with me and saying that they can go hang out with their friends at the other hotel a few miles away, when they have made it very evident that they strongly prefer the latter option? So yeah, of course I'm going to say they should go stay with their friends, but it makes me sad, since it seems to me that it shouldn't be much of a discussion. If all of this hullabaloo (a word I have clearly spelled wrong and which is certainly not in the Blogger dictionary) is over their daughter's wedding (which they are allegedly soooo happy about) - wouldn't they (no questions asked) want to stay with their daughter?

We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.

Guess Mom and Dad won't be tucking me into bed the night before my wedding.

And yes, I'm not going to lie to you (because our relationship is based on trust), there's another force at work here. There's definitely a little piece of me that feels something else. Which is why our conversation ended as follows:

"Sure, Dad, do whatever you want. If you and Mom want to stay with your friends, you should. But just so you know - this is exactly why I didn't want to have two hotels where people stayed, especially when the first hotel is lovely and affordable and attached to the venue. Because if everyone stayed in one hotel, decisions like this would not have to be made."

Translation: [Singsong] I was right! I was riiiiiigggghhhht!

Bermuda, Bahama, Come on Pretty Mama

2008-09-01T17:34:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure I just scared off at least half of my readers by quoting from a 1990's Beach Boys song, but damn it, if you're going to write about honeymoons is there any better song to quote? And come on, isn't there something inherently cheesey about the word "honeymoon" anyway? And so, isn't a monterey jack-inspired song like "Kokomo" just about the most appropriate thing to kick off this post? If you disagree, you might want to stop reading because (a) there's just more of the same ahead and (b) I need to take a break because all this talk of songs-con-queso has made me want to go make some macaroni and cheese (powdered, not the mushy cheese in a bag kind which I find just too unnatural...cheese that does not require refrigeration makes me shudder).

[Back on couch with computer...fuller and fatter. Unfortunately we didn't have any mac and cheese in the house so I was forced to just stand by the open refrigerator and mechanically eat plain slices of American cheese...six of them. (And yes, I was forced! - there was no free will about it - I was under some sort of Kraft black, er orange-magic.)]

So back to my first point (which I'm pretty sure is going to be the only point): does anyone else hate the word "honeymoon"? To me, there's just something so skeevy and disco-seventies about it. I sort of put it in the category of the word "lover." Just hearing the word conjures up pictures of heart shaped hot tubs, leopard satin sheets and hotpants.

Given my discomfort with taking a vacation that repeatedly made me think of a place and time associated with Magnum PI's mustache, I actually took it upon myself to look up the history of this term. Lo and behold, I found that the first time the word was used in writing was in the 16th century in Richard Huloet's "Abecedarium Anglico Latinum," which stated as follows (ahem):

"Honeymoon, a term proverbially applied to such as be new married, which will not fall out at the first, but the one loveth the other at the beginning exceedingly, the likelihood of their exceeding love appearing to assuage, the which time the vulgar people call the honey moon."

All I have to say is that I read this passage three times now and all I got was something about love appearing to be a sausage.

This does not seem to be a good reason to cling to this term (not that I'm busting on sausage - which is delicious for many reasons, including that it satisfies both as a breakfast meat and for dinner on a bun). However, what I'm trying to say is that I think that the honeymoon needs a new name (and possibly a PR firm, but I'm just one woman). Moreover, if Richard Whooseywhatsie is saying waaaayyyy back in the 1500's that only crass and vulgar folks call the post-nuptial period the "honeymoon" - then why, on God's green Earth, are we still clinging to this crapola term 500 years later?

Thus I would like to propose a new, super modern, and badass name for the post-marriage-trip. The only problem is that I haven't thought of what this uber-fabuloso term will be.

"The Getaway"? I like it; it seems very slick - like a superhero's departure. To me it conjures up Superman and Lois Lane getting hitched and then ducking away from The Bad Guys to go to Fiji. Or better yet, Bonnie & Clyde hopping off to a Sandals resort. On the downside, I can foresee a wary travel agent calling the FBI to report the couple who wanted help with the "getaway."

What about "Respite"? I know it sounds a little, well, mature - like a vacation in an old folks home (Jell-O a deux!), but I'm pretty sure I'm just moments from a convalescence anyway so it could serve double duty. Or it could take a totally different direction - like "Sugarsun"! (Though I think it sounds like the name of a chewing gum.) Or "Molassesvenus"? (Which definitely sounds generally dirty and I don't have any particular explanation as to why). Or "Splendastar"? (Sounds like a fighter ship in the Star Wars galaxy.)

By way of explanation (since I suppose one is needed), all of these musings stem from the fact that Mr. F and I seem to be unable to make any decision whatsoever on the topic of our Post-Nuptial-Vacation. When we get annoyed with wedding planning itself, we just generally bandy around places located all over the entire world and then do nothing about them.

"What about Venezuela?" "Cool."

"What about Nepal?" "Yeah."

"Maybe we should go to Alaska!?" "Definitely."

And with that decided, I just sit and think about how the word honeymoon repulses me.

Every Silver Lining's Got A Touch Of Chardonnay

2008-08-29T10:46:00.000-07:00

I had a mega-conversation with my mom yesterday. As a teacher, she has her summers off (or as I like to call it "the period of three months when my mom forgets other people have jobs") and just spent the last couple of weeks with my cousin in the British Virgin Islands. (If you've been reading this blog for a while you would put two and two together and realize this is the one and same place that I originally wanted to get married...if you haven't been reading this blog very long, then - Welcome! And may I introduce you to a month of blog postings called June...take a stroll through any time you like and learn about where this wedding began...on a small island two hours south of Florida...and you will better understand where we are now - two hours north of a place I call Nuptial Hell).

Anyway, I haven't spoken to my mom in a couple of weeks so I had to catch her up on all the wedding-related details that have transpired. Here's the great thing about moms (or at least my mom) - she can sit and listen to all the wedding details and lap them up like it was a white chocolate double whip latte. It's nice to actually speak with someone (outside of the blogosphere) who actually cares about the color sash I selected for the bridesmaids to wear with their dresses or who thinks it's very important to talk about each of the songs I will be using for the processional and recessional. Talking about this with just about anyone else results in a look more glazed than a dunkin donut. Even my oh-so-patient bridesmaids have their limit (as they should). So yes, moms can be wonderful.

And yet...moms can also be such a DOWNER.

I began telling my mom about the photographer I booked and how EXCITED I was (which I haven't actually gone into here - but I will say I am very excited - evidenced by the use of ALL CAPS (!) but will blog about it later, assuming it all doesn't go to crap). And she sat on the other end of the line listening to me go on and on and on breathlessly discussing the angles she caught on a groom's socks while sending her the link to her webpage and explaining how she agreed to drive in from 300 miles away for our wedding at a great price and just about everything else anyone could want (or not want) to know about a photographer. After I finished, the words just popped out - the ones I know I should say, but the eager child in me secretly seeking my mother's approval just can't help it: "So, what do you think?"

[Long pause. Sound of dreams shattering.]

"Wellllll honey, I'm really happy you're happy. And I don't mean to rain on your parade BUT you know, she is going to be coming in from out of town and and it will be February...so you're going to have a very big problem if it snows. I think you really need to think about this."

"Um yeah...right, thanks for bringing that to my attention Mom."

And so I quickly changed topics to the music for the ceremony. I began to tell her about the great deal I negotiated for our music for the ceremony and cocktail hour and how one of the four musicians would play for the ceremony and then go down and join the jazz trio once everyone left the ceremony. To which she responded "welllllllll, I don't mean to point this out, but it's definitely unfortunate that the quartet won't have its fourth member for a good 15 minutes during the cocktail hour...and since it is only an hour...that's something you should really think about."

"Um yeah mom, thanks for pointing that out."

I closed my eyes as I sat on the couch listening to my mom give me other "pointers" and "helpful hints." I needed to take control of this situation.

Squeek. Squeek. Squeek. Pop!

"Honey, what in the world are you doing? Are you...that sounded like...are you opening up a bottle of wine to drink by yourself?"

"Um, yeah...thanks for bringing that to my attention, Mom."

Glub.

The Long and Winding Road.

2008-08-27T19:53:00.000-07:00

This will be a short post. I just thought I would provide the following fun anecdote. And by anecdote, I mean The Story of My Life.

On Sunday night, Mr F said to me, "You know, it's really calmed down on the wedding front, huh? It was really crazy for a while, but now it seems like everything's worked out."

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Hasn't Mr F ever seen "Forget Paris"? Mr F's statement was equivalent to the old "piece of cake" line. "'Piece of cake! Piece of cake.' You never say 'Piece of cake'!" Argghhhh.

And so, like clockwork, when I checked my email this morning, I saw that I had received a four paragraph email from FMIL that raised issues about a variety of wedding-related topics, yet none of those four paragraphs contained their guest list, which I have still not received (and yes, our wedding is in five months). And then tonight, Mr F told me his father was not happy about issues that previously arose with said guest list. And oh, by the way, I sent a follow up email today (that hasn't gotten a response) because a week has gone by and I have yet to get a contract (or quite frankly even heard a peep) from the musicians who were to play for our ceremony. And I have really bad heartburn.

Pass the tums, please. And some milk, since apparently I'm surrounded by pieces of cake. *sigh*

These Boots Are Made For Walking (If Not Actually For Wearing For Extended Periods of Time, Let Alone During a 6-Hour Wedding)

2008-08-23T20:38:00.000-07:00

I'm in love. Birds are singing, sunshine is everywhere. The world is a beautiful place. I am absolutely enamored.

With Neiman Marcus Last Call.

(Sorry, Mr. F, you're nice and all, but you don't provide me the opportunity to get Prada shoes at an astounding 75% off retail.) How did I not know about this place before? How is this possible? I am quite familiar with the following fabulous department discount stores: Saks Off 5th, Barney's outlet, and Nordstrom Rack. This is of course in addition to these wondrous stores: TJ Maxx, Loehman's (which as a kid was the most dreaded destination that ever existed because of the communal dressing room - now, I'll strip down to my underpants quicker than you can say "wrap dress" if I know there's the promise of a hefty discount off Diane Von Furstenberg), Marshalls, and Filene's Basement. (I also know about Ross, but I hate it. Yuck.) Not to mention any and all outlet stores. Yes, all of them. (Except GAP Outlet, which I also hate. I could explain, but it would take too long.)

So anyway, I am shocked that I have never been to Neiman Marcus Last Call before. Let me tell you - it is a magical place indeed. Picture Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. But instead of a chocolate river, there are chocolate colored leather handbags galore and rather than gummy bears on trees, there is every color and style of designer jeans, and rather than Oompa Loompas, there's...well there's nothing, because everyone knows there's no such thing as an Oompa Loompa. But of course, all of these items are only by the best designers and offered up at a huge discount! Now it is certainly possible that I just lucked out since we are at the end of the summer season (or at least department store-wise, if not actually weather-wise), but I was like a kid in a candy store. I picked up every brightly colored jellybean and gumdrop and tried those beautiful and tasty little babies on my feet. All of my favorite designers and all on SALE! I mean massive sale. I can now say that while landing on the moon, a baby's laugh and the blooming of a flower are some beautiful things, nothing - I mean nothing - is more beautiful than a yellow tag on a pair of Michael Kors high heeled black patent leather stiletto pumps. Gather near my friends and I shall tell you why - because the yellow sticker means those pieces of black licorice are 60% percent off. Which is just insane. inSANE!

I truly was in sugar shock. I couldn't stop myself - and by God - I didn't want to! Oh, the shoes! All told, when I left I had purchased two (yes TWO) pairs of snozzberry-colored shoes to wear to my wedding (both with incredibly high heels which will have the dual pronged effect of making me taller than the groom and possibly keel over from pain half way through the wedding ceremony), the black leather Michael Kors shoes (which yes, do actually exist and feel fabulous and are NOT part of his crappy lower end line which every time I watch Project Runway and they ask a text voting question (like "Who would you rather see in drag? (A) Tim Gunn or (B) Michael Kors?), I almost text in "C" and give a "write-in" answer of "C as in 'Couldn't you make the clothes a little less heinous for that lower market line of yours'?"), and a melange (indeed, a cornucopia) of dresses that I firmly believe I will wear for wedding-related events in the next 6 months. (Including by the way, one very fancy coat. Now I don't know where I will wear this fancy coat - and indeed it is fancy (pronounced like fawncy - as Madonna would say it with her fake British accent - because otherwise, well it's not nearly as fawncy) - but I had to buy it. It has a jeweled collar; I will leave you with that tidbit to ponder.

Oh, and I'm leaving out one tiny detail. (Hoping again Mr F is not reading this.) Uhm, I got one other thing at Neiman Marcus Last Call.

A Neiman Marcus credit card.

Music Makes the People Come Together

2008-08-22T07:31:00.000-07:00

I'm two for two. Two for two, people! I had another pleasant wedding experience. (Note to reader, although I am using the word pleasant, what I really picture when writing that is a war-torn raggedy individual holding a chicken, which is uhm, a peasant holding pheasant.) Anyway, back to being "smug planner". My latest experience was not that interesting or funny or really even worth writing about, except for the fact that I got positive feedback on my last uplifting and non-negative post and I like the idea that I am perceived as a happy and positive bride instead of a snarling angry bride.

The catalyst for this post: I decided on the musicians who I will book to play my ceremony and cocktail hour. And it was an enjoyable and seamless process. Well maybe not seamless. Maybe a little more Abbott and Costello than I had hoped, but on the whole it involved a drama level of about 1, which is a nice place to be. To wit:

Wedding Drama Level Scale:

5 = Abort! Abort! Parental and Future In-Law Interference Occurring. Decisions are made by parents. Money is held hostage. Wedding is unrecognizable as that of bride and groom's own. This step is easily identified by the fact that E&E is huddled in a corner rocking back and forth addled with CTSD (current traumatic stress disorder) and humming "Here Comes The Bride" softly and slowly.

4 = Interference via Bride's Extended Family (see, e.g., Aunts, Uncles, and spawn of same). E&E's parents take thoughts and feelings of their siblings to heart and pay the crap forward to E&E. You know you have arrived at this step when you see E&E curled up in fetal position in bed, with a mostly empty pint of Ben & Jerry's likely found in left hand.

3 = Interference via Groom's Extended Family (i.e., Sister in Law of Mr. F.). Through Mr F's family grapevine (which is so flourishing that it should yield buckets of wine, but instead only results in stomach cramps), E&E gets message that people "aren't happy." And neither is E&E. Recognizable by the massive amount of wine E&E has consumed (and obviously deserves given lack of grapevine production of same) and through sloppily written blog posts completed therewith.

2 = Factors Outside the Control of Bride Conspire Against Her. Changes to wedding venue, being married on the most popular weekend of the year for couples, and having a wedding coordinator who will not respond to any of her emails are all fodder for angst of E&E. You can diagnose this stage by tracking long periods of couch-related immobility; television programming will include marathons of "America's Best Crew" and "America's Next Top Model." Slices of cheddar cheese on Triscuits are also involved. It is not recommended that you try to communicate with E&E during this period since the only response is likely to be: "Things are fine. (sigh)".

1 = Wacky Hijinks, Crazy Vendors, Misunderstandings Galore. Pretty much nuttin compared to levels 2 through 5 above. E&E is a phoenix, rising up from the ashes to form a beautiful and strong bride who plans for her impending wedding with a smile on her face and warmth in her heart (a little of the warmth is from the Jack Daniels Lynchberg Lemonade she is sipping, but this is a relaxation-induced drink, not an anger-induced libation, see "Level 3" above). This phase is identified by failure to find E&E. She is off happily shopping at department stores, visiting friends and being healthful, including trips to the gym and/or farmer's markets, in an effort to focus on...can it be? Yes indeed. HERSELF!

We are all on the same page now, oui? Back to the musicians. I had a lovely conversation with Mr. Bandleader during which we discussed what type of music I would like played for our wedding on February 15th. We spoke for about a half an hour and he was friendly and accommodating, even giving us a bit of a discount for our "off season wedding." (Which I highly recommend to those on a budget since every single vendor has deducted money when I asked based on our winter date.) And then, the conversation ended like this:

"Well great, thank you so much for speaking to me! So, you'll draw up a contract for our date of February 15th of next year and I'll sign it and send you a check. As you suggested, when we get off the phone, I will call the pianist and chat with her about song selections to see if she has the sheet music."

"Absolutely. February 16th, I've got it down."

"No, it's February 15th."

"Right, February 16th."

"No, SUNDAY, February FIFTEEENTHHHH. Uhm, the day after Saturday, February 14th and the day before Monday, February 16th."

"Whoops! Apologies - I got it now, February 15th at 3:00. Perfect."

"Perfect! Thanks!"

I then look down at the name and number that the bandleader gave me and I decide to call up the pianist to see if she has the music we wanted her to play for the ceremony. I dial her phone number and she picks up right away.

"Hi, my name is E&E, and I spoke with your bandleader earlier today. He mentioned that you would be available to play at my wedding ceremony on Sunday, February 15th, 2009 and he suggested I reach out to you about some of the music I would like played."

"Thanks so much for calling us! It would be my pleasure to talk to you. We can certainly chat about music and you can even come over my house and we can try out some stuff on the piano so you can approve the sound."

"Wow, that sounds fantastic! Thanks so much - that would be great."

"Hmmm, hold on a sec. [Pause] I just looked at my calendar and I don't think that's going to work. I have an event on the 16th of February."

"Uhm, I said the 15th though. So is that ok?"

"Oh! The fifteenth. Well, that should be fine."

In sum, I will be having a few of the nicest vendors I have met thus far playing the music for the ceremony and the cocktail hour of my wedding. That being said, there is a part of me that has some reservations about two musicians playing for the biggest day of my life who clearly have severely weak listening skills. But really, since when is a good ear important to play a little music? [Blissfully cruising along at Level 1 of wedding drama, E&E skips off into the sunset, ignoring the moderately problematic issues sure to balloon into possible full-fledged wedding day drama on her day of. But that's neither here nor there. Or it is. But who cares?]

I Wear My Sunglasses (And A Satin Tea-length Dress) At Night

2008-08-19T05:40:00.000-07:00

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I'm pretty sure that this is about to be a normal post. A post like all the other wedding blogs, free of sarcasm, drama, and uninvited parental intervention. I am so curious to see how this goes. Let's take the journey together, shall we?

Anyway, lest you think that my life only involves trips to New Jersey and visits to photographers (yeah, still haven't booked that one - I'm having trouble pulling the trigger which leads me to believe I'm not in touch with my subconscious feelings regarding the Kodak moments of my Big Day), this post is intended to disprove that belief. I went to Chicago this weekend. First of all, my first visit ever to Chicago was in January. So pretty much every visit after that is guaranteed to be much better. In fact, every time I get off the plane and it isn't snowing / sleeting / flurrying / icing (yum, icing), I feel pretty confident that things will be good.

I decided to bring Mohammad to the mountain, i.e., one of my co-maids of honor lives there, and I thought it would be fun to do wedding-y stuff together. (This is what happens when not a single bridesmaid lives in the same state as you; planes are involved.) So for the first half of the weekend the poor girl filled in as groom and was forced to look at website after website of photographers' wedding photos while I cooed at every picture of the couple kissing, of their parents kissing, of their parents crying and/or any picture of a baby dancing or eating cake (and no I'm not a hypocrite for thinking these babies are cute; they are at someone else's wedding - not mine).

After the photographer-stravaganza, we decided to spend the day looking for a bridesmaid dress. The day being Sunday. Have I mentioned that my foresight is somewhat lacking? I had been smart enough to look up all the bridal boutiques in Chicago in advance of my trip. I was not smart enough to look at the days that they were open. As we sat having coffee on Sunday morning, we decided to choose which store we would go to. Except that our choices were limited as we soon learned that all the "cute boutiques" in the hip parts of Chicago were closed. And closed and closed. I know, I know, if one of the reasons you're going to visit someone is to look for a bridesmaid dress, doesn't it make sense to check that the store is open on the day you'll be there? Yes, it makes perfect sense. Doesn't mean that's what I did. (And yes, we could have gone on Saturday, but a hangover from Friday night and the proximity of Anthropologie to my friend's house meant that we never strayed more than 10 blocks from home. Well, until dinner and more drinks. [Dialing AA.])

We did find one, yes ONE, store that was open. As we made our way through areas of the city that scared me, I peered out the window at more hot dog restaurants than I had ever seen before in my life. Not just stands - whole restaurants, or at least booths (i.e., stores not on wheels). These people are serious about hot dogs. We pulled up to a run-down storefront that promised oodles of dresses inside. As we stepped inside the stillness of the store was a little disconcerting and I pictured murdered brides (along with her supportive bridesmaids) stacked up in the dressing rooms. A woman looked at us from behind the counter, "Can I help you?"

"Yes, we're here to look at bridesmaids dresses." Not a crinoline rustled, not a satin swished. The store was as empty as could be. She looked down at her scheduling book. "Hmmm. Do you have an appointment?"

We looked around for other patrons. We looked at each other for clues. "No?"

Looking at us with her judging eyes, she let out a sigh and said: "Well ok then, why don't you take a look at some dresses." Had we just passed some sort of potential bride test? Do a lot of people come in off the street to try on brightly colored dual-satin frocks in size 14? We started to browse through some of the most disturbing concoctions of dress I had ever seen; there were more sequins in this room than at a 1950's burlesque show, or at the 2007 Ms. Universe pageant for that matter. Lost in a daydream about putting my bridesmaids in all sequin applique, I jump when I hear a piercing voice behind me. "Do you have anything I can put in a room for you? Do you want help? Do you have something in mind?" I turn around and sweet holy Jesus, it's Magda from "There's Something About Mary." The smallest, tannest, most wrinkled woman wearing the most lipstick I have ever seen on one mouth is descending on us. (Luckily, the woman, not the mouth per se, is descending upon us.)

By this time we had gathered a few dresses by national designers which I could order from my local dress shop in Baltimore. Magda continues to hover over us talking about dresses and weddings and wedding dresses and Cameron Diaz. Ok, she doesn't talk about Cameron Diaz. But she should have. Because I am SURE she was in this movie.

We begin to try on the dresses and are hopping around the dressing room in our skivvies trying to squeeze our size 6 bodies into size 12 dresses (yes, I wrote that correctly) when all of a sudden Magda decides to just pop right in. Now while I'm not shy, I prefer that I get a little bit of notice before I show all my lady parts to someone. I felt like a teenager caught reading magazines instead of doing my homework, scurrying to cover up the evidence with whatever is nearby (in this case, a large purple taffeta evening gown). She wants to know if we're ok. Yes, undressed and embarrassed, but doing ok. (And doing even better once she skedaddles out of our dressing room.) Really, couldn't this information have been obtained without opening the door? I have never had a sales clerk at Bloomingdales or Saks just burst in through the door. Why is this permissible when we are in a bridesmaid gown situation? (And by the way, this also happened to me when trying on wedding dresses...it seems anyone who works in the store has an open invitation to just walk into the dressing room when I am putting dresses on.)

All that being said, I did find what I wanted (which was a certain dress in a certain color) and we knew our mission was accomplished. Only problem - how to leave without filling out a card with the dress information and being contacted and harassed about buying a dress from this store. Co-Maid of Honor and I get dressed and make a beeline from the dressing room to the door, only slowing briefly for MOH to say a meek "thanks" (her upbringing not allowing anything less) before we run to the car and get the hell of of dodge.

As we drive to the airport, I sit idly in the passenger seat looking at more hotdog stands along the road, thinking about Magda and the bridesmaid dresses and muttering to myself "franks and beans, franks and beans." I'm pretty certain that this is a jinx (a la 7th grade), but I'm feeling like this wedding planning thing may be turning around.

Is http://www.imoderatelylikeplanningmywedding.blogspot.com/ still available?

Tradition!

2008-08-14T19:10:00.001-07:00

Warning: A series of post titles and subjects will likely follow over the next few days which may or may not include multiple quotes and/or references to "Fiddler on the Roof", "The Chosen" and/or "Yentel" (the latter of which I haven't seen but apparently is very jewishy so I thought I'd throw it in there just to be safe) and may include, but is not limited to, such Hebraic references as chuppahs, yamulkes, ketubahs, horas, and latkes. (OK, not latkes, but of all the things I listed, that one actually got me excited about posting.) For those of you who did not grow up in New Jersey, NYC, Long Island, LA and/or Boca Raton, might I suggest the following: http://www.amazon.com/Judaism-Dummies-Ted-Falcon/dp/0764552996 or http://www.yiddishdictionaryonline.com/

To catch you up, I just finished booking the Big Three of wedding vendors (DJ, florist, photographer, the powerful trifecta that is the foundation of any good wedding). [Patting myself on the back. Even though I shouldn't. I'm lying a bit...the photographer is not actually booked per se...but I do have a contract that I'm procrastinating on and swear I WILL put in the mail tomorrow.] Anyway, I decided that I deserved a wedding breather. Not total wedding lockdown, but more of a zen-like state intended to take me away from all that is wedding, so when I was forced to return to planning in earnest, I would be like a fresh lotus blossom, poised to calmly make nuptial decisions with ease. Needless to say, when my phone rang this morning while at work and I heard FMIL (Future Mother in Law) on the line telling me she was with our Cantor (the officiant who will marry us; for the non-jews out there: he's a guy who works in the temple but is not a Rabbi. And if you don't know who the Rabbi is, I just can't help you here. Email me and we'll have a talk. I'll cook you some matzoh ball soup and we'll talk about Madonna and Kabbalah and dance to "Like A Prayer").

So it's 8:30 in the morning and the first thing she says is "You have to talk to the Cantor. You need to talk to him now. He's right here in the office and you have to talk to him. Oh wait...what? Oh ok. Ok, forget it, he'll just talk to me and I'll talk to you."

Hmmm. That seems efficient. "Ok, so first, he says he needs a piano. Or a synthesizer, like a keyboard."

To which I dumbly respond, "Why, does he play the keyboard?" And FMIL says, "NO! It's for the chanting!!"

THE CHANTING? "Uhm, but I'm not really sure we're having...chanting. You know that we're not really, like uhm, religious?" To which FMIL replied breezily, "Well that's fine, but you know that it will be lovely with the accompaniment of the keyboard so for the singing he does, it will be lovely." (Translation: I'm ignoring you and your decision to decline synthesized music and Hebraic chants.)

And then I hear this elderly voice in the background yelling "Tell her she needs two male witnesses who can write their Hebrew names on the ketubah. They can't be blood relatives! TWO MALE WITNESSES!!"

I am now a wilting lotus blossom having heart palpitations. You see, I don't believe that witnesses should only be male. The idea that it should be male offends me; in the days of yore, or old, or BCE or whatever, a woman couldn't be deemed to be a witness since she didn't have the same standing as a man. Sorry, but that doesn't fly with me. And I'm certainly not going to perpetuate the idea of a woman's diminished status by permitting it to happen with my marriage. F*** that. I'm not into the glass ceiling, so I'm not about to bow down to a parchment ceiling either. But how I am supposed to have a dialogue on the new Jewish feminism while on the phone with my future mother in law who is sitting in a dentist's office and yelling my comments to the Cantor who is supposed to marry us, but who I have never met and who may very well feel that a marriage is only valid if two male non-blood witnesses are there to watch? So instead I say "I can't hear you, we have a bad connection. Let's talk later" and immediately hang up.

I call up Mr. F to tell him what transpired, feeling a little apprehensive about what he'll say when pitted against his mother's religious wishes. I tell him about the Cantor and the chanting and then the male witnesses required for the ketubah. And he's silent for a moment and says "F*** that. They'll be no chanting. And we'll have female witnesses. I'll take care of it."

For today, I love Mr. F.

You're Never There

2008-08-11T19:58:00.001-07:00

One quick thing - why is it that whenever I go to add things on my registry at Bloomingdales that I can get right on the website - 1, 2, 3 - done! But whenever I determine (as happens really often) that there is no way I can justify paying (even if I'm not the one actually doing the paying) $200 for a crystal cake stand, and that I have made a terrible mistake by registering for this item and that I must remove said crystal cake stand off the registry immediately before someone buys it - at 11:00 pm on a random evening in August not remotely close in proximity to my wedding or shower - and I try to hop back on the website to delete, that I can never get on the damn thing. For a store that charges so much for a cakestand they have some SERIOUS webserver issues. Or do they? [Musical sounds of an evil plot unfolding here.]

Achtung Baby

2008-08-11T18:33:00.000-07:00

I should have known. I was feeling smug. And sure, I have posts and posts and posts...and posts about ridiculous wedding debacles, but I had escaped one quagmire which I knew plenty of my friends and fellow brides were forced to grapple with. Wee lil invitees. (Also known as children.)

Now there's a good chance Mr. F is going to read this post. And there's also a good chance he's going to get pissed off. But shit, since I can't please anyone anymore, might as well please no one. I'll try to do a bunch of rapid fire posts after this one and maybe it will get pushed down to the bottom and he won't see it. But I need to vent (er, I mean share important insights), and I'll be damned if a silly thing like the sanctity of my relationship will get in the way.

I have no younger generation in my family yet. None of my cousins have offspring (which does double duty in that it also holds off questions such as "Did you see how cute Amy's baby is? Don't you want kids of your own? Are you going to start 'trying' right away?"...and note to self: do whole post later on that last statement, which in itself is enough to make the too-big dinner I ate shift uncomfortably in my stomach...just the word "trying"...ew). While a few of my friends do have children, I don't really feel obligated to invite them. Not sure why, maybe because there are only a few, but I don't.

Mr. F's side of the family is for the most part the same. "For the most part" being the important part of that sentence. In fact, Mr F's brother has a kid. Who is two. And the CUTEST FRICKIN KID EVER. Adorable. I love him. And there's a little of me that wonders if I would have said "yes" to Mr. F's proposal if maybe just maybe cutiepie wasn't his nephew. This kid is cute. So here are my thoughts on cutiepie nephew being at the wedding.

I want him to be at the ceremony. The ceremony itself is the important part of this event - it is the marriage of his Uncle and his Aunt and I hope, just maybe he might remember that one day. However, I don't think he needs to be at the reception. I just don't. Sue me. (But first, hear me out.) The reception is not the "wedding." The "wedding" (a verb, the actual act of entering into wedlock), occurs at the ceremony. The "reception" that follows is entirely an adult affair which includes a section called the "cocktail hour". My thinking: if you are at the point in your life where going to the bathroom involves never even having to go anywhere near a toilet, you probably should not be attending an event that has the word "cocktail" in the title. Moreover, this is an event that will be in the evening. If you are two, and Dr. Spock (or whoever is doling out baby advice these days) suggests that you be in jammies and all tucked in by 7:00 pm, you probably shouldn't be dancing the night away. You should be asleep. Not running around tugging on the skirts of adults and spilling cheerios on the specially-ordered linens. It just changes the feel of the event. Which blows. Because I wanted an adult party. Not fucking Sesame Street. At this point, why don't I just trade in the white gown for some yellow feathers and a beak and call it a day? (Can you see where I lose it there? Making good points, following up my statements with supporting facts, and then just - bam - all downhill making obnoxious remarks and being mean about Big Bird. Who I love. And by the way, who I just discovered like a year ago - actually fabricated Snuffulupagus - did you know that? I didn't. I had no idea - I didn't know he was an imaginary friend! I thought he was just another character. I wasn't the brightest kid. Or adolescent. Or...adult.)

Meh.

And it sounds like I'm taking this out on cutiepie, but I"m not. I think there might be something else behind my frustration, but it goes back to Baskin-Robbins and I've bashed her so much already that I can't decide if I should tell-all on this one. So I'm going to sleep on it. Which is a bit of a risk because it means that Mr. F. might read this and get mad before I get a chance to post more and hide this post. (As you might guess, Mr. F strongly disagrees about whether cutiepie nephew should be invited. I think he's just thinking how much he loves cutiepie and not about the realities of the actual event. And I can't even say this without Mr. F thinking I'm blaspheming his little guy. *sigh*)

Mysterious Ways

2008-08-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

I'm such a blogosphere dork. A cyber-loser. I have no idea what I'm doing and I can't figure out how to work my blog. I just want to put that out there to explain why my blog is so visually, well, LAME. There are weird spacing issues that I can't control. I also can't find a template that really suits the blog. I know I write ridiculously long posts and so I want something wider than what I have. And finally, I really want a cool name design like all the other blogs I like, but despite my ability to put pen (and brush) to paper (or canvas), I don't have the foggiest idea how to do anything on a computer. Just wanted you all to know. I'm not happy with the status quo, but that's what it is. M'kay?

On another note, unrelated to weddings or blogs or anything really, I got my house cleaned today (yes, I plunked down $80 and paid someone else to clean the grout in the tiles of my tub, and I work hard during the week, so don't judge me!) and I have to admit, my whole life just seems better now. Having a tidy, clean house just makes me feel like I can do anything! I am the model of efficiency right now. Making lists, paying bills, not crying because things seem overwhelming - my my, this might just be a whole new chapter in my life!

You're The Real Thing, Even Better Than The Real Thing

2008-08-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

The Rehearsal Dinner. [Nervous rustling of papers. Twisting of hair. Large sigh.] It's been "challenging." It's "special." It has a "good personality." I think you see what I'm saying here, si?

Despite the craptabulousnes of the RedEye (that would be Re(hearsal)Di(nner), named such because this event has been more painful that a trans-continental flight with 5 hours of sleep in an upright chair disguised as a full 8 hours), I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that this one I saw coming. Well, a little bit. As I've mentioned before, my brother got married last October and his rehearsal dinner invite list almost caused a wedding riot by my dad's side of the family. I won't go in to details on his RedEye flight, er, plight, but I can assure you it was miserable, despite ultimately working itself out.

But before I proceed with my own tale, I would, as usual, like to take a moment to digress. It's actually not really a digression since it's on the topic of rehearsal dinners, but it's also not directly related to my current story. So if you don't feel like reading, just skip down two paragraphs and read the direct progression of my narration. Otherwise, hear me out.

Am I missing something? Other than keeping in with the theme that weddings are not about the bride and groom, but about everyone else, can someone explain to me why people seem to get so offended if they are not invited to this event? Actually, I get it; I understand wanting to spend more time with the people you flew in from out of town to be with if you love and care about them and are excited for them. (And were it not for cost limitations, I would love to have all of our truly nearest and dearest spend more time with us.) So instead of talking in vague generalities, I'm going to lift the veil and be more direct: why is it that we need to tiptoe around the feelings of a bunch of people who neither I nor my groom are close with, are friends with, or quite frankly really even like? Why do they expect to be invited to an event simply because they have the same last name as one of us does? Shouldn't the event be about who you want to have there? Instead of creating a lovely memorable dinner for a couple on the eve of their wedding, it's about protecting the feelings of family members who you barely know, who don't call you on your birthday and who can't even be bothered to make small talk with you on Thanksgiving.

Curtain falls. Digression complete. Applause.

So in addition to my brother's experience, I knew that there would be another issue with the RedEye. First up, the date. I am getting married on Sunday, February 15th. That would make my rehearsal dinner on: YOU GOT IT. Zing. Valentine's Day. And not just any Valentine's Day - a Saturday night. You can imagine how eager a restaurant might be to give away a whole area of their restaurant to a group that will sit there for 5 hours instead of giving deuce tables to couples looking to spend massive amounts of money on bottles of wine and who will turn over a table in two hours. So I ignored Martha Stewart's suggestion that the rehearsal venue can wait for a while, and started calling restaurants the moment we booked that date. NO ONE WANTS TO HAVE US. No one. Actually, I take that back. One restaurant told us if we guaranteed $10,000 on food and beverage that they would let us use a private space. Thanks, asshat. (I know that the owner wasn't really being an asshat, but that's one of those words I love so much that I use it excessively and improperly.)

So instead of calling around I decided to walk from restaurant to restaurant basically begging (it's my experience that it's harder to turn down someone in person). I finally found a place that was willing to close part of their restaurant for us [hear that? angels singing!] in Little Italy. Perfect! What's cozier than a big Italian meal with some good red wine and a nice long table and your closest friends on a cold night in February? Nothing!

At which point I wanted to run everything by Mr. F. before signing a contract. We had previously decided that given financial constraints, our RedEye would be a small intimate affair for just the wedding party, our parents and our siblings. Total count: 30. Thus, my Italian Savior was a restaurant which had a small room that seated 28 comfortably, but could just squeeze in 30. So I ran all of this by Mr. F. while dancing around the room like a lunatic. "I've found a place! I found a place!!!" [Dance of joy.] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfPg5LjGYz8

My excitement was not met with the response I anticipated. I looked at Mr. F's face and actually saw his lips moving and then watched his forehead crease and his eyes widen and then look sad.

He turned to me and said, "So you said only wedding party and parents and siblings, right?"

"Right."

"So you know that two of my groomsman are my first cousins, right?"

"Right."

"So you're saying we aren't going to invite their mom - my aunt - my mom's sister to the dinner?"

[Crap.]

And then I started thinking. And my forehead creased, my shoulders drooped, and the corners of my mouth turned down as it all came together. Obviously we have to invite the first cousin's groomsmen's mom (Mr. F's aunt/FMIL's sister). And ob-vi-ous-ly if we invite her, then we have to invite Mr F's other aunt...and uncles...and grandma...and other first cousins.

And if we invite all of Mr. F's aunts, uncles and cousins, then...yes, we have to invite all of mine. Dinner for 30 is now dinner for...sixty. Not to mention the fact that...[thinking how I can say the following thing nicely...realizing that is not possible]...I don't like my first cousins and don't want them at my rehearsal dinner. And "not like" is a euphemism for "think they're spoiled brats who both judge and are overtly snide to all those who they deem 'conformist'; this being done of course from the comfort of a NYC downtown apartment paid for by their parents, who not only cover the bottom line, but managed to get them accepted into the colleges that they dropped out of to join a band. Cause having mommy and daddy support your like totally alternative lifestyle is like sooo non-conformist." Yeah, that wasn't nice. But it's true. Now you see why this Blog is anonymous, yes?

Goodbye! Arrivederci! Did you see it? My sweet little Italian family-style dinner just flew off...into thin air...like the wafting aroma of homemade lasagna out through the window of a brownstone and down the street...goodbye.

These People Round Here Wear Beaten Down Eyes

2008-08-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

First off, who knew that the lyrics to "Come On Ilene" were so...dark? If I recall correctly, weren't these the same people who were wearing overalls and dancing through the streets in their 80's video for the same song? They didn't strike me as quite so melancholy. But my track record for 80's song lyrics and/or their meaning is not good (think "She Bop" and later, "Pour Some Sugar on Me"), so I'll let this sleeping dog lie.

And while I'm digressing (or procrastinating) from the Rehearsal Dinner, I'd like to go off on a music-related tangent (which doesn't related to the Blog Title like the Rehearsal Dinner does, but life's short and this blog is not, so deal).

I am experience quite the conundrum on the wedding music processional. The one piece of music I always envisioned walking into at my wedding was "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwoole (by the way, if you haven't heard it already, go on and take a listen - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4XhMANcCbM - it's just beautiful). I heard it probably ten years ago for the first time and loved it ever since then. (And there are not a lot of things I love for ten years in a row. *Mr. F., don't worry, I'm SURE you'll be the exception to the rule. Ahem.)

The problem is that when I pictured myself walking down the aisle to this music, it was on a beach somewhere (and if you listened, you would understand why). Now clearly, that is not happening (feel free to read, oh, the first 10 posts on this blog to understand why that dream has died). Instead, I'm getting married in a historical venue with Corinthian columns and marble floors in the middle of the winter. Not quite your Hawaiian ukulele-strumming love song.

So since then I have been searching for a different song. And I know the song I want. But I'm conflicted by (get this, we're coming very full circle here again) its music video. And this is worse than being led astray by men dancing in overalls.

The song I love: November Rain. The video: Total wedding hotness. Stephanie Seymour marries badass Axl in a wedding for the ages; she struts down the aisle in a mini leg-baring wedding dress and then Slash plays a solo in front of a church somewhere in Kansas (presumably). And then it rains. And she dies.

Now when I mentioned the problem with this song (which both Mr. F and I love), Mr. F. looked at me as if I were crazy. "What are you talking about? She doesn't die in the video! Right? She was wearing that super hot mini-dress. By the way, are you going to wear a dress like that?" No and...no. That's not right. But that is just about what most hot-bloodied-Gen X males remember about the video.

So to prove my point, Mr. F and I pulled up November Rain on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siBoLc9vxac - and watched it together. You got it. She dies. (But you should have seen how attentive Mr. F was to that video - I truly hope I get as much attention on our wedding day as Ms. Seymour did when we watched that video. A tsunami would not have moved his eyes away from that screen.)

So really, there's nothing to say except I need to decide whether coming down the aisle to a video about a woman who gets married and dies is too macabre for an extremely superstitious (and slightly fragile by this point, let's not kid ourselves) bride-to-be. I'll throw it out to the crowd. Thoughts?

You Know What I Mean

2008-08-04T19:04:00.000-07:00

One quick story:

Today I decided I would send out my STD's ("Save the Dates" for the amateurs among you). I also resolved to call them STD's [giggle] as much as possible because I think it's funny. And no one else in the wedding blogosphere acknowledges this as frequently as they should. So I brought my STD's to work. [BROUGHT MY STD's TO WORK! HILARIOUS]

I decided that I would make myself mail at least half of the STD's today since they have been sitting on my kitchen counter for at least two weeks now and were (a) starting to smell like burnt food (long story) and (b) becoming a symbol of my non-starter wedding.

So I labored over the computer and figured out how to import addresses from Excel to print clear labels (and NO, I would never ever steal Avery clear labels 5660 from my office supply room for my own STD's [hee hee], how dare you even think so!) and bought a boatload of stamps and licked all of the envelopes which tasted like crap (and got me thinking about the "Seinfeld" episode where George's fiance, Susan, dies from licking all the envelopes and thinking how it seemed a lot funnier now than it did then) and sealed them. Nice and tight.

And then I realized I was an idiot. A big ole dumb idiot. I forgot to include the hotel information (which I printed out on separate pieces of paper) in the envelopes. Goddamn STD's. Pure frickin agony. So I ripped them all open and used the remainder of my envelopes, which YES, means I now have to order more envelopes and wait for them to arrive (because no I did not take the option where I could order extras from the outset in case something like this happened), which will surely ruin any sort of wedding momentum that I may (or may not) have created. And as I pulled out the STD from each envelope and restuffed them into the newly-labeled second set of envelopes, I chanted silently to myself: "idiot" "idiot" "idiot", in time, with each STD I stuffed. (Note: generally recommended to close door to office during mantra chanting.)

My suggestion when it comes to STD's: protect yourself by abstaining. (I think we all saw that coming, didn't we?)

I need to retire for the evening now since tomorrow I have to regain my energy to fight The Rehearsal Dinner Battle which began yesterday and rages on across the east coast, from north (NJ) to south (FL), even whilst I sleep. [Peels a grape, looks back at Tara, consumed by angry flames and grimaces as she marches on away from the plantation...sits down briefly and has a mint julep...falls asleep and decides to fight the fight later...tomorrow is another day.]

Come On, Filene

2008-08-04T18:18:00.000-07:00

After hearing about this miraculous event called "The Filene's Basement Sale" (and more popularly and disturbingly known as "The Running of the Brides"), I resolved to participate. So yes, my mother and I found ourselves at 5 a.m. in Towson, Maryland sitting on a line with at least 300 women seated in front of us. As we walked to the back of the line, I looked at the women who had been waiting for hours, sitting in camping chairs, holding mugs of coffee, and huddling together in gaggles of seven and eight, each member of the group wearing fuschia-colored or lime-green T-shirts that said things like "The Bride" or "Tara's Bridesmaid!!". I realized that I was far out of my league. As my mom and I did the Filene's Basement walk of shame past the women who had been sitting there all night, we got the evil eye: I could feel them judging whether we would be faster at grabbing a dress and stronger at holding on to it than their group. It reminded me a lot of the prison walk when the new inmates are brought into a penitentary and the current prisoners judge whether they will be a threat to their current fiefdom within the prison walls. (Hey, I have been unduly influenced by the "Shawshank Redemption", so cut me some slack on my analogies.) A meager group of two we were: me at 31 years old along with my 55 year old mom. I can safely say we were judged no match. Good call by the 250 lovely ladies sitting in front of us.

So we sat on line and actually chatted with a very sweet girl behind us who brought along 2 other women and we decided to join forces to form our own coalition (neon-colored t-shirts bearing too much information aside). Rumors floated up and down the line of women like high school. "They're not letting people in at 8 am because the dresses aren't here yet." "If you bring a little kid, they'll let you in early." "They won't allow you to bring your camping chair folded up because they're afraid you'll hit someone with it." This last one actually turned out to be true. And soon enough security guards were coming through and collecting chairs from ladies sitting on them.

Then we get an informational sheet. It included little nuggets of information on how to navigate the sale. Savvy suggestions like "don't be alarmed if there are no dresses when you arrive; we recommend you leave, go have a cup of coffee, and return a few hours later, when dresses people don't want are returned to the racks." Riiiight. So I got up at 4 a.m. to sit on line for 3 hours in an effort to leave the store, spend $4 on some crappy ass coffee and return to contemplate purchasing for my wedding all of the dresses discarded by women who thought they were ugly. Thanks, Filene. You are very wise.

At ten minutes to eight there began some movement among the women. People began to pack up their belongings. There was a palpable electricity in the air. Engagement ring prongs were sharpened and veils knotted in noose formation, readying for the war. Like some sort of estrogen-fueled wave at a stadium, we began to stand up one after another. After another few minutes we began to move. At first we began to shuffle forward, talking with each other about our strategy and how crazy this was. But then we noticed that women were infringing on our space, pushing around the corners and coming from behind to try to cut in front of us! (Yes, I know how juvenile that sounds - but that is exactly what it was. I was cut in line.) My mother and the 3-strong-girl-squad we previously merged with locked arms to form a wall to keep out line cutting intruders. Then we stopped. What was going on? Why the hold up? Then we realized. No one had been allowed in the store yet at all. The initial movement was just to close the gaps and push everyone as far forward as possible so the true running could be like shoulder-to-shoulder connubial cattle. And then it began. We started to shuffle and then jog. And then women were everywhere, cutting in line, pushing and shoving, and most of all - trying to push into the doors of a bargain basement discount store. I broke away from my group and ran into the store. And I couldn't believe my fucking eyes: there wasn't a damn dress left on the racks. The doors had opened approximately two minutes ago.

I spied a dress laying on the floor and sprinted over to pick it up. As soon as I had a hand on, so did two other women who started pulling at it. So I did what I had to do.

I dropped the damn thing and walked away. No dress, wedding day or otherwise, is worth a girlfight and my dignity (which already had a lot of recovery to do from my dash into the store).

Ultimately, our coalition was able to get a bunch of dresses to try on. And you know what? They were fug-tastic. You got it: U-G-L-Y. $249 dollars of hideousness. All the talk of designer dresses? If they were there (which I'm sure they were, I don't doubt you, Filene), I didn't see 'em. And so for two hours I stripped down to my skivvies in the middle of a major department store to try on dresses. (Did I not mention this part? - when you have 250 people vying for four dressing rooms, the recommended course of action is to drop trou in another department (preferably by a mirror) so you can try on dresses more quickly and discard or barter for other dresses as needed. Let me tell you how shocked the man who was there to buy a pair of sweat socks for his company baseball game was.)

After two hours elapsed I simply called it a day. Dunzo. Filene's Basement and the hordes of angry (and more dedicated) brides had beat E&E and Mom to a pulp. Mmmm. All this bridal brawling made me want a mimosa.

My My, How Can I Resist You

2008-07-27T19:32:00.000-07:00

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.]

Mama Mia, Here I Go Again

2008-07-25T08:11:00.001-07:00

Things have been mercifully quiet the last 24 hours. That doesn't sound like it should be a big deal, but sweet Jesus, it is.

I forgot to mention how two days ago in the middle of coming to terms with my second reception, contemplating how to break this news to my mother, and pondering the particulars of making my fiance's brother's wife a bridesmaid, that I got a call from my mother-in-law to be.

Flashback to 6 months ago. From the get-go, Future-Mother-in-Law (FMIL) made me PROMISE that I would tell her what color to wear and go shopping with her for her dress as soon as my mother bought hers. I agreed. No problemo in my book. Sure, it was another trip to New Jersey (Mr. F's parents live there also) but this was a relatively easy thing to do to make FMIL happy and I am all about getting the relationship off on the right foot. So as soon as my mother purchased her dress, Future-Mother-In-Law wanted all the details of what my mom bought: color, style, where she bought the dress, etc. I assured her I would get her the details, a picture, and I would come back home for us to go shopping together very soon.

However, she was very persistent on the point of what color she was going to wear. I had concerns about committing to something without showing her a swatch or seeing her try on anything, but she really wanted to know. So I relented and told her I thought a champagne color would look lovely with her dark coloring. I was comforted by the fact that I knew that I would be able to show her the exact shade I was looking for when we went shopping together in a couple weeks since she MADE ME PROMISE I WOULD COME SHOPPING WITH HER. (See the ALL CAPS? That's the lazy writer's modern day literary device to make the reader pay attention to information that will become very important very soon.)

While I was at work two days ago, I got a call from FMIL (because who doesn't want a call from their mother-in-law-to-be while running around the office on a Wednesday preparing for an important meeting happening in two hours? [note: you can substitute mother or pretty much anyone else without a summer job for mother-in-law and I would be equally annoyed because really, there is nothing I hate more than answering my cellphone during the work-day to find the person on the other end is calling you at 10:30 in the morning to talk about insipid crap because they "forgot" you had to work today]). I pick up the phone (because I'm at the point where I'm still trying to be the best little future daughter in law I can be and I believe that includes dutifully answering phone calls) and FMIL says to me: "E&E, I know we said we would go dress shopping together, but I decided to go on my own, and there is a sale at the store next to my hair salon - isn't that great! - and a $3000 dress is on FINAL SALE for $500 and I want to buy it. I'm going to send you a picture of me wearing the dress on your phone and you can tell me what you think. And they won't hold the dress for me so I need to buy it today."

My phone starts buzzing and I flip it open to see the dress. I squint my eyes because I must be seeing wrong. The dress is IVORY. It is a big ballgown floor-length dress that is IVORY. It looks like my mother-in-law is getting married.

My work phone is ringing off the hook with requests for the meeting, people are walking in and out of my office, and I'm trying to send out emails to the clients, all while simultaneously calling Mr. F because I'll be damned if I have to call his mom and tell her that she can't buy the dress because it's white.

So I'm internally conflicted - yes, I realize it sounds terrible to say you can't buy a dress because it's white. It sounds immature and self-absorbed. But can I get a bridal barometer here? - Isn't this the ONE TIME IN MY LIFE (and really, I have never told anyone ever that they shouldn't wear something because it's similar to what I'm wearing. OK, maybe once in like third grade I told my friend she was "copying" when she wore a pink neon Esprit shirt - but SHE WAS and I was 7 and she would have been better off if she wouldn't have worn the shirt because now both she and I have to deal with the shame for all the neon worn so prominently for an entire decade) that I can do that without judgment (if the offending garment is a white dress and to be worn by my mother-in-law)???? Am I really a bad person for not wanting my mother in law to wear a bridal gown?

Truth be told, I can guess what happened. FMIL is a really really nice woman (truly). So I'm guessing that she thought that when I said champagne, I was talking about an ivory color. I was not (I was talking about champagne, a soft gold color with a yellow undertone). I figured I had plenty of time to show her the exact color I was talking about since I was going with her to look. Apparently I didn't. (See? This is where the whole paying attention to the CAPS about 5 paragraphs above comes in handy.) The issue is that she really should have waited for me if she said all along she wanted to wait for me.

What a clusterfuck. (I actually despise that word, but I can't think of a single word that more appropriately describes the situation. And besides, it's almost noon and I picture a clusterfuck as some sort of caramel-ly, nougat-y, irregularly-shaped chocolate ball, found in the Whitman's Sampler with lots of almonds, so that makes me pretty happy). Yum. I'm going to grab lunch.

Up Where the Air is Clear

2008-07-23T18:50:00.000-07:00

OK, I have dilly dallied long enough. It's time for everyone to learn the truth: I'm having TWO receptions.

You did not read wrong. Indeed, I said I AM HAVING TWO WEDDING RECEPTIONS.

A little confession - as I write that - I get a little psychotically giddy - sort of maniacally laughing and simultaneously feeling like I might cry. But overall, the complete and utter ridiculousness of the situation has overtaken me and I think it's more funny than anything. This whole situation is so completely and totally outside of the realm of anything I ever imagined for my wedding, my life or anything outside of a Drew Barrymore movie, that I can't help but giggle. (And the phrase "wacky hijinks" keeps coming to mind.)

I'm sure you might be wondering how this came to be (after all, I still sort of find myself wondering how this came to be). I'm also assuming that you're questioning exactly what I mean by two receptions. (You are probably thinking something like: "Oh, I guess she means that they're having a little party at someone's house for people who can't make it or something, right?") Wrong. [The hysterical giggle is caught in my stomach again by the way. And yes, it must be my stomach because it's gurgling and I don't want to even think of what else it could possibly be.]

To explain further: Reception #1 will be in Baltimore with 125-135 people in attendance, catered and complete with photographer (if I ever book one), florist (ditto), DJ (ditterino), and white dress (ditty ditty bang bang).

Reception #2 will be in New Jersey (Sprung From Cages on Hwy 9) with 100-125 people in attendance, complete with catering, DJ, and such nuptially fabulous effects as projected images of me and Mr. F as children flickering on the wall (yes, this is a very specific detail but it's a long story and I can't even begin to explain it here).

I'm tired just thinking about explaining how this all happened. And I wasn't kidding; I'm really not quite sure how this came about. Essentially, Mr. F and I decided that we wanted to keep our wedding relatively small. This meant that both my parents and Mr. F's parents would not have the opportunity to invite every single person that they would like to have at the wedding. And I knew that Mr. F's parents might be the most social people over age 55 I've ever seen (he's a dentist, they play tennis, and do ballroom dancing in their spare time - they're very popular). And I got a little flack from my parents and his parents about this (i.e., neither was able to invite friend's children), but to me, this wasn't really major. In the scheme of other wedding issues, it seemed as though no one was feeling that they were dealing with large-scale friends and/or family omissions. Until the other night. (Which was reviewed in great detail in my post from a few days ago.)

During which discussion it became overwhelmingly apparent that Future-Mother-in-Law and Future-Father-in-Law felt strongly that they had...[calculating on abacus]...about A HUNDRED people that they really HAD TO INVITE and who they were seriously offending by failing to invite them to the wedding. (As an aside, one of the groups of people that they had to invite is now generally referred to in shorthand between me, Mr. F and his parents as "The Romanians" - which is seriously hilarious to me (Mr F's dad is Romanian and apparently every Romanian in the NY/NJ area has a strong friendship that cannot be crossed or else you are "out" of the Romanian circle. It all seems very "Godfather-esque" which is super cool to me and I'm envisioning requests for periodontristry procedures to be made during the wedding reception and my God-Father-in-Law saying to a cowering Romanian acquaintance: "But you don't ask with respect. You don't offer friendship. You don't even think to call me Godfather. Instead, you come into my home on the day my daughter-in-law's to be married and you ask me to do dentistry for dollars." Oh god, that's so terrible, I'm groaning. But still - I love the whole Romanian thing. I'm also hoping they drink lots of vodka like the Russians and/or like blintzes. Although Mr F and I have been dating more than three years and the closest I've seen him come to that is tequila and crepes.)).

After the discussion, as you may recall, the issue was tabled. I reiterated that we'd been hoping to keep the wedding small but we would talk about it later. Two nights later, with the issue still on my mind, I turned to Mr F while in bed and said "Screw it - let's just see how many people your parents are thinking they need to invite and we'll do that. Forget a small wedding - what's the point anyway?" We agreed Mr. F would talk to his parents the following day.

The next night Mr F and I opened a bottle of wine, poured it into two giant blue plastic cups and went for a walk. (Don't judge us. Pre-marital planning of this level would push anyone to dump half a bottle of Trader Joe's white wine into a Dixie Cup. I'm just proud of myself that I'm not carrying a flask in my pocketbook engraved with the words "The wedding is off.") We (as might be expected) returned an hour later, having purchased a bunch of nonsensical organic-y items from Whole Foods (a bad place to go when under the influence) and more than a little tipsy. At which point Mr. F decides he should address the guest list issue with his parents. (Note: "More than a little tipsy" = drunk as a skunk). Twenty minutes later, he comes in from the other room looked slightly bewildered (but let's face it - still pretty happy - that white wine is MAGIC) and says: "My parents are throwing us a second reception at a wedding hall. I think this might be a good solution. [E&E: to what? I don't know] My mom wants to talk to you." He thrusts the phone in my face.

My mind was trying to work a hundred miles an hour to figure out if this was good news or bad news and to calculate a response. But addled with cheap white wine and sheer exhaustion, it simply failed on me. Blank. Next thing I know, I've agreed to a second reception. Honestly I really don't know why or how. I think somehow I was convinced that it would be more convenient and make everyone happy and some other stuff. I'm still a little fuzzy on the details. One detail I'm not fuzzy on - I now need to call my Mom and tell her that the wedding she and Dad are throwing isn't sufficient for Future-Parents-in-Law and that they are throwing a second party of all their friends only and my Parents are requested to attend. Mom should love this one.

[Note: my head is beating over my left eye like a metronome...actually for some reason I keep thinking of the Little Drummer Boy - it's very "rum tum tum tum." Except it's not Christmas. No presents to be had, no eggnog to sip, no tree to decorate. Just the minefields of wedding planning; something ready to detonate around every corner. Merry Frickin Christmas.]

(Craziness Skyrocketing) Up Through The Atmopshere

2008-07-23T07:51:00.000-07:00

So now we all agree - this has been pretty crazy, right? The sister-in-law, the colors, the brunch, the changing of the ceremony venue. Crap, I forgot to include that. Darn. Ok, I'll give you the quicky quick on that one. Because while in other Bride's stories of wedding planning drama this would probably play a starring role (see, e.g., any episode of "Whose Wedding is it Anyway"), in mine, this is but a bump down the aisle of matrimony.

I met with the wedding coordinator that the venue offers as part of their package. Essentially a very nice woman who I am fairly sure will be a giant mess on the day of my wedding (our relationship started off with an email introducing herself to me. It began: "Dear Phil and Katie, Congrats on selecting ____ as your wedding venue! I am so excited to work with you!" My name is not Katie. Mr F's is not Phil. But that's a whole other issue that I won't get in to here (somehow I suspect I will have much time to dissect and discuss the trials and tribulations of Big Hugs the wedding coordinator. Real name - not Hugs - but after pointing out that my name wasn't Katie, I got a response email saying "I'm sooooooooo sorry - I sent the wrong names! Big HUGS!" (Big hugs? You don't even know my name!)) So anyway, we'll leave Big Hugs for later.

I met with Big Hugs and we took a walk back around the venue as I told her my vision (which I don't really have, but all brides apparently have a "vision", so I made one up as I went along). And then she said to me: "Oh! I should totally take you to see the renovations of the ceremony room - they're almost done!!"

WHAT RENOVATIONS??????????

"Ohhhh...no one told you when you signed the contract?? They're changing around the ceremony room. Why don't we take a look?"

And we did. That's when I saw that the lovely green walls which were cool and classy had been replaced with a red and gold fabric and then marble floor had been covered with Oriental rugs and the altar was now covered in red carpeting. The serene and classy ceremony room I had agreed to walk down now looked like the World Market outlet. (OK, I know this sounds really silly, but I happen to hate the color red; it makes me inexplicably anxious. So the replacement of the green with the red was not good.)

Big Hugs leaned over and gave me an awkward hug. A big hug, in fact. And she told me that "It will be ok." Oh Big Hugs, how little you know.

And I know that this was supposed to be just an introduction to the big drama that is currently going on, but I'm spent; so, like everything in my life these days, I'll just postpone the update a little bit longer.