Brides are Crazy: Part 1

Brides are some of the craziest people I have ever encountered. I am one of them, I do not deny being crazy. However, I will report the crazy to you for amusement sake.

A few months ago I bought a cake serving set from the Bombay Company. It looks like this:
I got it on sale for 25$. I thought it was perfect for my fall wedding! As it turns out, this is possibly the most coveted item for fall brides. Apparently last year people were buying 10 at a time and selling them on ebay. That's crazy enough... but what about this....

Bombay company is going out of business. This means no more perfect fall wedding cake cutting sets! And so, on theknot.com, people are selling their sets for upwards of 100$. I am not kiding.

I'm tempted to sell them for a stupid profit, but at the same time I love them so much and want to use them. A part of me is hoping to use it next year and sell it a few years later for a ridiculous price to some crazy bride who absolutely must have it.

On another note, I just did the math. I am nearly complete collecting items for my table centerpieces, and I will construct them for less than 5$ per table. Yay bargain shopping! Now I just have to find people to put them together for me on the day of the wedding so I don't have to.

Rejected :(

Yesterday I received a rejection card from one of the ladies I asked to be a bridesmaid. I'm really upset about this. Part of me wants to talk to her about it, to try to convince her otherwise. But another part just wants to forget about it and move on. She listed her reasons why she won't do it, and while I agree with them I don't feel she's being fair or even willing to listen or give me a chance.

This is just another in a series of the downward slope our friendship has taken. She's been dissing me more and more lately, I was chalking it up to her being busy with school and work and what-not, but after these last few rejections I'm ready to just wash my hands of her entirely.

But that doesn't mean I'm not hurt. Oh, I am. I already had a big tear-fest over it.

And now I'm left with the dilemma of what to do with her spot. I don't have many close friends, let alone anyone I feel close enough with that I'd want to ask them to be in the wedding. So do we have asymmetrical attendants? Do I "promote" or "downgrade" someone else? I have no clue. Luckily, I still have a ton of time so I don't have to figure it out any time soon.

I still feel like poop though.



At least our Thanksgiving visit with my parents went well and Mom loves my ideas so far. I'm so glad to have supportive and non-meddling parents.

one thing down

I do have one thing confirmed -- my friend John Scalzi said he would officiate. He has done it for other people, and he's a writer, and he's been a friend of mine for, gosh, like 7 years now, but we aren't terribly close.

So that's nice. It's someone I've known for a long time, who met Romeo last year at a book signing. I'm amused that Romeo told a friend of his who was impressed because he recognized the name as being the author of some books he read. Romeo says: "We aren't going to be married by a priest, or a judge. We're going to be married by a science-fiction author. That's PERFECT!"

We're leaning toward February 7th or February 21st 2009. (Not the 14th because OMG everyone ever is planning a wedding that day.)

So, that's one less thing I have to think about. Whew.

Progress

Sometimes I feel like I'm preparing too early for our wedding. We have basically 2 years and that just seems so far away. I know it'll go fast, and I'm trying to do as much as I can now while I have the time. Hopefully that'll keep things from being quite so crazy as the day approaches.

This weekend my guy (nickname to be decided later) and I visited his parents and had a sit-down chat with the guest list. He & his mom poured over his sister's list and names were added to ours. This went way more smoothly than I could've imagined. We don't care so much about the "well, if you invite this person then you just have to invite these 4 people." But we know that with his family while we don't care his mom will be the one to have to deal with the bitching and moaning. Some people we added now just to keep her happy, but we have no real intentions of inviting. Tentative list size so far, including "B" list and random "dates" for people: 174. This makes me sooo happy. I wanted to keep it under 200, and with the "expect 25-30% not to come" rule that makes it less than 150! woot! To me 150 seems nice--still small and intimate but not exclusive or eliminating anyone.

The talk didn't go without a hitch though. When talking to his mom about who was tentatively in the wedding party she got very upset that we hadn't included his sister in the party. We'd still like her to do something special--haven't decided what yet, but we already knew we wanted her to play some important part. His mom didn't seem to hear this. She seems to be stuck on the old-fashioned mind-set that after the best man/maid of honor that the wedding party is the most important and other people are just meaningless. Our wedding isn't going to be like that at all. We can't have everyone in the wedding party, hell, we're already over the "1 attendant per 50 people" rule that I heard (not sure if that's really a rule or what. but we're hoping to have 6 on each side). We tried explaining all of this to his mom but she just wasn't listening. After leaving there the guy called his sister and talked to her about it. She said she doesn't care, agrees that mom is being old-fashioned and overreacting, and would just be happy to do whatever we'd like for her to do. At least she gets it, and that's what really matters.

So, basic list: Done. Can really focus on venues based on this size estimate.
First "major" hurdle/gripe/unhappiness: jumped and solved.
Ready to move on to whatever else I can do at this crazy early stage.

A story for Wisp

I thought you may appreciate this one, Wisp.

There's a local place we considered for the ceremony. Its a gorgeous church set back in the woods, really very lovely. It was a bit too far away to truly consider, plus it was a bit pricey (almost 1k without any officiant or anything). Its a non-denominational church, and we could have had a totally non religious ceremony in there....

As long as the officiant was not a woman. That might upset the congregation.

We could have a Satan worshiping*, Christ condemning, darned near goat-sacrificing ceremony there.... as long as it was not lead by a woman.

-Aurora

*One of the girls on the local forums actually asked if this was OK. She was told it was.

Photographer: CHECK!

Last night I got in touch with the photographer we met with first. We actually met with him like 2 months ago, and we really liked him and his style. He's really fun, friendly, and does great work. He told us we had to meet with other photographers before we booked him just because he thinks you should truely understand what you want. After meeting with 2 others, we still booked him!

www.bryanmitchell.com

His approach is photojournalistic, which I thnk is really interesting. Plus he discounts his packages in November, so we're getting a really good deal.

-Aurora

Boys! (part 2)

Aurora, that's hilarious.

When we got engaged, about a month and a half ago, we decided that since we knew we weren't getting married until early 2009 to take a month off from dealing with issues about the wedding. We daydreamed out loud to each other, about the music, and the bridal party, and all of that, but we said that as soon as we disagreed about something, or stressed out, we would move on to something else.

So, Romeo didn't make any decisions. And after the month was over, he came to me and said, "Honey, we need to start figuring this out now. We need to make plans." He was already starting to panic.

I laughed. I already have two top choices for my dress, we already know who the bridal party is (and some of them have been notified), we have ideas on colors, and it made me laugh that he thought we hadn't done anything.

I read once that you should have three things that you really care about having a certain way and the rest of it you should just let go. So far I know I care about what the bridal party looks like (in the sense that everyone looks great, not that everyone looks just like I think they ought to) and the music (boy howdy do I have some very specific requirements there). I think I also care about the photographs.

Oh, and I emailed the guy who I want to perform the ceremony. I hope to hear back from him; he's a friend of mine who is a pretty busy author and I hope he doesn't already have conventions or events to go to in early 2009. Fingers crossed!

Boys!

Trying to get men to make decisions can be so impossible! Its been driving me crazy. I guess it keeps me paced so I'm not rushing around, but I also want to desperately get a few more things done before Thanksgiving time. We're almost a year out now, and we have plenty of time. I just need to convince myself of that.

To do before Thanksgiving:

Choose and book photographer
Notify groomsmen (they've FINALLY been chosen)
Make a list of officiants to consider
Make a list of DJ's to meet with
Visit David's Bridal to decide on dresses for bridesmaids

*deep breaths*