Photos from the invitation assembly line

Cutting the gold-foil paper wrappers was really the midway point in the whole invitation odyssey. It all started with getting them designed. That was a breeze. I went to Wayne's house for lunch and we talked about colors and images. He found out callas are my favorite flower and that green was likely to be employed in our color scheme and came up with a beautiful design. Once we had the design finalized, I started inquiring with printers. I love the look of letterpress, but it turns out that method isn't great if you have a lot of reversed-out areas to be printed. And we do. Offset was the next line of inquiry, but offset printers hate brides to be, particularly the wenches who aren't footing the bill for a huge wedding. Small print runs give printers fits. I got a print quote of nearly $800 to do a total 100 invitations. Um, no. Finally I turned to the idea of a digital printer and away we went. I got 100 each of 5 elements for $150 plus tax. Actually they gave me 200 invitations and 200 at-home cards, so that meant an even lower cost per piece. Woo! Here's the complete set:



Then I printed and cut the invitation name cards, mounted them onto moss-green card stock, cut 80 strips of brown ribbon and 80 business-card holders from brown card stock. These would hold the at-home cards, which I was afraid would get lost in the envelope. They're my second favorite part of the whole suite, so I didn't want them to not be seen. At-home cards are very old-fashioned. I'm using them so people will know I won't be changing my last name after we're married. But their original purpose was to alert the populace as to the newlyweds' new home address. Here's the template I made for cutting the card slits.



We also had to return-address all the external and RSVP envelopes using our handy new embosser. My dear one volunteered for that job. Here's a photo of him leaning into the project. No face. Yet. He's shy.



Here is a finished, wrapped invitation, ready to go into its envelope:



Bubbly in the flutes and Frank Sinatra on our speaker-connected iPod helped the time go by:

Signed up for the marriage license

I went online to find out about marriage licenses, and found out that San Francisco charges $86 but San Mateo asks for $76. The cost difference and the fact that Redwood City downtown is now a really nice place to go meant that San Mateo county gets our money. Bonus: I completed the application online. We'll go down on Jan. 7, two days after my birthday, pick up the hard copy, and add it to the stack of Things That Must Be Taken To The Church On The Big Day (that means it'll also go into the stack of things that after our wedding I'm going to have dreams about having forgotten. "You're not really married" dreams, kind of like after I graduated college and dreamt that I'd never completed stats nor my senior project). I'm starting to get phone calls from folks who've received their wedding invitations already. Yay for speedy postal folks! If you're reading this and you are reasonably certain you'll be invited (meaning you're family or a close friend--sorry but we have really limited space) and you haven't gotten an invitation yet, it means your postal carrier will be along with it presently, or that it'll come in the second round. Which I'm now assembling on our dining room table.

Invitations, Round I

I spent all day working on wedding invitations. First thing this morning I was off to the post office with a mocked-up invite to see what total postage would be. "Fifty-eight cents" was the answer. So I purchased 80 of the 58-cent heart stamps and 80 of the standard 41-cent heart stamps. I think it'd be dandy if the post office had heart stamps with an anatomical drawing of a heart. I'd use that for wedding invitations in a hot second. But alas, they had only frilly heart stamps, so those are the ones I bought. Then it was home to start in Round 1, the 30+ invitations we'll send to those we are pretty sure won't be able to make it, but whom we couldn't imagine not inviting, plus some folks we're sure will say yes. Their RSVP date is Jan. 10. Round 2 will go out on Jan. 11 or 12 after some follow-up phone calls to the inevitable non-responders. The invitation line work started with self-addressing and stamping the RSVP envelopes, and addressing the exterior envelopes. Return addresses were handled last night, when Bob used our embosser on all envelope back flaps. He has better handwriting, so he got to wield the gold pen for today's effort. While he did that, I assembled the invitations, reception cards, at-home cards in their holders, RSVP cards and RSVP envelopes into neat little stacks, wrapped them with 4" widths of gold-foil tissue and secured that with double-stick tape, wrapped brown satin ribbon around the tissue and secured that with more sturdy double-stick tape, then attached the name tags that coordinated with those on the external envelopes. I'm too tired to upload the photos we took of the big operation. I'll upload them tomorrow when I finish this roundup of wedding-invite production notes. Tomorrow morning I'll take this first batch to the post office and have them hand-cancelled, or swipe their stamp and cancel them myself. Then they will swim free in the postal stream. I pray that the Jan. 1 postal shutdown won't delay them too much. Once I'd finished today's work and cleaned up the dining room table, I calculated my per-invitation cost. Less than $3 per completed envelope, including postage, or less than $250 for 80 total invitations. Not shabby.

My dear future husband and I did manage to swing by the gym today for another aerobic workout. I did not feel up to it, being as I had a simmering headache and whomping cramps. But 45 minutes and 300 expended calories later, I felt a bit better. Bob whipped up a big pot of soup when we got back, and that helped even more. Now I'm mightily fatigued. Time for sleep.

Eeek! Two months to go!

There are only two full months left before (dun-DUN-dun-dun...) wedding day. This boggles me for several reasons, a few of which I'll list:
A) Two. Months. That's, like, a minute in wedding-prep time.
B) We have to have wedding invitations into the mail in 3 day's time. Make that two days' time, since I'm posting in the wee hours of Dec. 26. And while the invitations have been printed, they have not yet been assembled. This will happen in the next two days. Full assembly rundown, plus photos, coming forthwith.
C) There's still a lot I feel like I haven't figured out. We're having to DIY a lot, since we're paying for this whole shindig ourselves and we're trying not to go into crippling debt doing it. The budget is tight. This means no hiring of day-of wedding coordinators; no hiring of limos/vans/drivers; no any of the things that make day-of logistics a lot easier to figure out. So I need to just sit down and diagram out everything and then attach a timeline. This will make me a lot less nervous about if or how things will run smoothly on Feb. 24.
D) My nails keep ripping and my cuticles snagging. This makes me feel very tomboyish and un-bride-like. Please, fingernails and cuticles, can you please become ladylike and perfect by wedding day? You can resume being tomboyish on Feb. 25.
E) I can't think of a "E" item right now, because I am tired. See time of post.

I did pick up my dress last week, plus the shawl and the beads I want to sparkle one or the both of them up with. I haven't decided if I'm going to tart my dress up a little, or just leave it plain. I'd better decide very soon. See first sentence of post. Also I must make my headpiece or veil or whatever I'll be wearing over my hair. And I have to schedule a hair trial, so I won't have either limp locks or the rat's nest that my own styling attempts nearly always result in. Doing my own makeup is about as adventurous as I want to get with the wedding-day beauty thing. For hair, I'll need to bring in a professional. This is possible because we decided to use iTunes for our music instead of hiring a band. I am so sorry, all you live musicians out there. We just can't afford you for this event. While I realize this does not help put mac-n-cheese on your tables now, we promise to hire some of you for an anniversary sometime.

I had a dream the other morning that I was taking four weeks' vacation, to sleep. All I'd be doing on this vacation was napping, then snacking, then napping some more. Napping in various locations, outdoors and indoors, reading a little, then more napping. In my dream, after four weeks of napping life was great again, and I was raring to go for the wedding, for my career, for the rest of my life, for everything. Then I woke up and thought about the dream for a moment, and remembered I was taking all three weeks of my allotted vacation time for our wedding. One week before, and two weeks after. So I redoubled my determination to have all my planning and prep done by the week before our wedding day (Lord, help me) and made myself a promise that our honeymoon, in addition to being fun, adventuresome, loving and full, will also feature plenty of time for catnapping and regeneration.

It's a wedding, not a circus

During the odyssey that has been planning my wedding, I have noticed a similarity among most weddings I've heard or read about others planning: They're all about entertaining the guests. Now don't get me wrong; I'd hardly want guests at our wedding to be bored. It's just that it never occurred to me to organize a pre-wedding scavenger hunt, rent a photo booth for the reception, put together a self-serve bar of cookies or candies or whatever, and have games at each table. Heck, we're not even having dancing at our reception. We just want to sit down with our guests to a really nice dinner, to mark the occasion of our joining our lives. Call me cranky. Just don't call me a circus producer.

Invitations are done!

Our friend Wayne designed our wedding invitations, and today I picked them up from the printer. They're gorgeous! Next step: head over to Flax to select envelopes. I'll need three: the outer envelope (size A8 in cream), the inner envelope (size A7 in green), and the RSVP envelope (size A6 in cream). We only need 100 invitations. My initial print quote was $780 and I nearly fell over when I got it. But I regrouped and e-mailed a contact down in Santa Clara, at Cyber Press, and he gave me a fantastic deal. For the inner components (invitation, RSVP cards--we're doing two with separate dates--reception card, and at-home card), the cost was a little over $1 a set. Add perhaps 90 cents for the envelope and that's still less than $2 each for beautiful, custom-made invitations. I'm thrilled.
+++
In other news, my dress is really almost nearly done. The only fitting left is the final one, to see if the hem is the right length. My tailor should also have the bustle in by then, and I'll be able to bring the fluffy snow monster home. I need to embroider the names of my single girlfriends and relatives into the hem. And I think I'll do a bit of beading on it. Having the dress at home will allow me to construct the headpiece and see if it works with the gown's silhouette. There are a ton of little details still to work out. But I'm happy with progress so far. Most days, at least.

Me? Judgmental?? Well...erm...yes.

Despite the fact that I've found my wedding dress (second fitting was today), I still troll Craigslist to see who's selling their used gowns. Some of the same ones have been showing up for months now. There are the $100 or $200 stunners that have been stored in closets since 1978 and are in perfect condition, except for the ghastly mutton-chop sleeves and huge butt bows. Then there are the cheap resales of cheap David's Bridal meringues. Yeesh. And then there are the real doozies: the $4,000 "incredible steals" from women who paid $6,000 for their dresses new and are offering to "throw in" a veil or clutch or ring pillow or newborn cousin if you'll just help them recoup some cash. All I can say is: if you paid $6,000 for a wedding dress, you're a fool. And if you'll pay $4,000 for a used wedding dress and think you've landed a bargain, you're an even bigger fool. I don't care how much money you have; spending thousands of dollars on a dress is obscene. There are families in countries you've never been to who could live for three years or more on the kind of money you're considering throwing away on a garment you're going to wear for maybe six hours. Get a damn grip. End of rant.

Dress news

I went to my first dress fitting on Monday. It's been months since I saw the dress, and as I slipped it on and stood in front of the mirror, I was struck by its utter simplicity. There's not a sequin, bead, pearl or piece of lace on it. The tailor is going to put a corset in to replace the zipper that closes the back. And she'll make me something in organza to cover my shoulders. She needed to take the dress in about four inches, so tomorrow I go for my second fitting. If the fit is right, we'll mark the hem. I should be able to pick it up a week later. Then I'll go to work embellishing my blank slate in whatever way I wish. I haven't figured out what I want to do yet, beyond embroidering the names of my single women friends into the inside hem. In other news, next week I go for a makeup lesson from a pro. I don't want someone coming to fuss over my face the day of the wedding. I know a lot of women go for this, but the idea makes me nervous. I want someone to do my hair (and my sisters'), and I want to do our makeup. Stacey the makeup pro will show me how.

Vexing, Perplexing and Sweet

I'm tackling the room-block part of wedding planning. For some reason, I expected this part to be easy. I'd read it was a snap: Call hotels, ask them for a number of rooms to be set aside for the weekend of your wedding, sign the papers they send (for some reason, they all want to send papers), and wah-LAH (like my French?), you'll have rooms at nice (or at least nice-ish) rates for your guests. Turns out I'm having to deal with all sorts of strange bureaucratic weirdness. Nobody seems to want to sent aside time to show me rooms (I'm also looking for a wedding-night suite). They just want me to show up, which makes my antennae quiver mightily as I can see myself hearing the line "That room is booked, so we can't show it to you" repeated endlessly. And one place told me I had to guarantee that half the rooms I asked for would, in fact, be reserved, occupied and paid for by my guests, implying I would be liable if that didn't happen. I sent an email back asking if they would agree to simply release any unreserved rooms back into the general reservation pool 30 days before my weekend, like all the other nice hoteliers do. We'll see what he says.
+++
Before my sweetie and I met, I'd pretty much gotten over the idea that one day I'd be married. I figured I'd be the single, world-traveling auntie who'd never know the inside of a bridal gown. So the idea of having a bridal shower was even more remote a musing for me. I've only attended one bridal shower, and that was when I was 22. I don't even remember what happened. But my dear friend Donna and my godmother Helen are getting together to throw me a shower in mid-January, so party time approaches. At first I was perplexed. Apparently, a theme is called for in these things. A theme like "linens" or "kitchen" or (eep!) "lingerie." (I chose "kitchen.") The reason a theme is needed is that people expect to bring you gifts (why gifts need to follow a theme is another puzzlement that I think is just a woman thing I didn't get training in). The gift thing is weird when you're in your mid-40s and don't need much. I registered, but kept it on the small side, and emphasized with both hostesses that what I'd really love is for people to bring family recipes so I can make a cookbook. I'm hoping that's what people do--and I plan to bring my digital camera so I can get their photo to go with their recipe.

Besides hanging out with my favorite people, it looks like I'm going to get one of my best-loved treats. Donna said cake was called for, and asked for my favorite kind. I said "cream puffs!" And she said "Well, you can't have 'Congratulations April and Bob' written on cream puffs, but if that's what you want, that's what we'll get." So now I'm looking forward to this shower thing like an addict looks forward to a hit. Doesn't matter what else is going to happen, I'm going to get my Beard Papa fix--something that hasn't happened in months. Donna said they'll likely have games, just to get my goat, but that they won't humiliate me too much. I don't care what they do to me; they can make me construct a bridal gown out of damn toilet paper if the want. I'll have choux pastry and vanilla custard waiting for me on a sideboard, and a big smile on my face.

Postbox in the lobby: Full

We addressed our save-the-date cards today, stamped them, and chucked them into the mailbox in the lobby of our building. It's not easy trying to figure out how to skim an invitation list when it's 125 people long and our reception venue holds 80. Guess we'll have to do what so many others do and wait til we get regrets to send other invitations out. Which feels like hell. But I guess if that's our only worry right now, then we're doing pretty good.
+++
I keep getting a head of steam up to do wedding stuff (making various styles of shoulder coverings and headpieces, for instance), and then my motivation just deserts me. Not because I don't want to be married (I'm thrilled to be getting married) but because sometimes I really want to be able to call my mother or father and share everything with them, and there's nobody to call. And that idles my hands. The other morning, just as I was in that zone between sleeping and wakefulness, I dreamt I was on the phone with my mom, and we were having a conversation about all the things that had been going on since she died. I told her about being engaged and how we have plans for a nice but low-key wedding and reception, and we were just chatting away and laughing about how zany it is that I'm actually, finally, getting married. But then I started telling her about what I'm going to be for Hallowe'en, and the line went dead. I remember thinking "I wonder how come she hung up? Guess she's not all that interested in Hallowe'en." And then I woke up.
+++
For Hallowe'en, I'm going to be Cruella De Vil. I'm going to sew a huge white fake-fur coat, and line it with dalmation-print fabric. I'm also going to make an evil little purse out of fake fox tail. I have a white wig I'm going to dye half-black. I have red elbow-length gloves and a cigarette holder and red shoes. Tomorrow I'm going to begin drawing the pattern for the coat, and while I cut it out I'll begin thinking about makeup. On Hallowe'en, whenever anyone asks me how I'm doing, I'm going to say "Miserable, darling, as usual. Perfectly wretched."

Keeping the mailfolk busy

Our save-the-date cards came today in the mail. The hunky scientist brought them home from work, where we have most things delivered (getting packages is a huge pain when you live in a secured building). They look great. And at just a tad more than a dollar apiece including envelopes, they fit the budget nicely. Now all we have to do is sign them, address the envelopes, and get them into the mail.

Moving right along...

Isn't it funny that every time I post on either of my blogger blogs, I get a wave of fresh, new spam in my email in-box? Open Internet, insert spoon! I find it positively *cough* fucked up *cough* hilarious! But I digress; this blog is about my wedding and since I broke the news that we'd moved up our wedding date by three months, yet maintained radio silence since then, I thought I should catch you up. Our wedding date is now Feb. 24. Woo! Again, it's for boring tax-related business reasons, not exciting knocked-up reasons. It means we have to get moving on many details we'd been happy to let lie a while. I've got to phone up a couple of hotels and ask them about reserving some rooms for our East-coast guests to book. I've got to find someone who can do my hair on wedding day, as well as that of my sisters and my aunt. I think I've nailed down a ride for two dear friends who hail from a few hours south. There are a lot of other little things to take care of--things like making sachets for guest gifts, table numbers, centerpieces (already planned; just have to gather a few things), deciding on flowers and where to order them from (likely Costco floral, but we'll see)...things like that. Meanwhile, our engagement photos came on a CD in the mail and I immediately got on iPhoto and made some save-the-date postcards. That photo I included with this post? It's the image I used for the cards.

Speeding things up a bit

For mundane business reasons, we've decided to move our wedding up by (gulp) three months. This means I have to revise the entire Spreadsheet Timeline Of Preparation Goodness, putting many more to-do projects into each week. Joy! Bob has been game. He looked up the addresses of all his invitees tonight. And ordered our wedding bands. I looked up wedding license info and started calculating hotel reservation needs. Our photographer was cheerful about changing dates, as was our church and our reception site. That breeze you feel at the back of your neck is the continuing sigh of relief I've been letting out as each person I've called has said "No problem!" The only person I haven't been able to get ahold of is the tailor who has my wedding dress. Hmmmm.

Attendant's dress? Check.

I went shopping with my younger sister two days ago and we found her dress. Yippee! It looks gorgeous on her, will need no alternation, and gives me a color (dark periwinkle) to work into other wedding items along with the deep green and cream I've been wanting to use. Now I just have to find an outfit for my other sister and we'll be done with the women's clothing. Whew.

Can I just say...

...how much I adore my fiance? I adore him. *gush*.

Makeup for tomboys

I've decided to do the makeup for my wedding. Not just my own, but my sisters' as well. This, from the woman who as a girl stole her mother's eye shadow not to practice standard application, but to make appalling bruises on her arms and legs. My mother had the greatest shades of plums and greens and rusts and olive-y yellow. Perfect. I startled more than one adult with my makeup prowess back then. These days, I do the ol' 10-minute routine every day before work and call it good. But I'm actually very skilled at makeup application, and I've been experimenting with brands and styles. The other day I found a lipstick that stays on for eight hours, won't kiss off, eat off, or otherwise be rubbed off, and does NOT make my lips feel like they're visiting the Sahara. I've also road-tested eyeshadow that not only would be great for making bruises with at Hallowe'en, but that also stays on all day without creasing. This is good. I'll be damned if I'm going to re-apply makeup during our reception, hovering photog or no hovering photog.

Gown Update

I walked uptown today with my pal Andi and took the dress to my tailor. It's kind of fun to say "my tailor." Anyway, this woman named Zuzana does wonderful work for a reasonable rate. She told me the dress would need to be taken in at least four inches, and that it would be no problem to put a lace-up back on it instead of the current zipper closure. She's also going to put some bra cups in so I'll have one less bit of underpinning to worry about, and we'll worry about the hem later, once the major reconstruction is done and the thing actually fits. I'm so happy to have found a nice, elegant gown to wear amid all the big white abominable snow-bunny dresses there are out there. I'm going to bead it a little, but I won't harlot it up too much. I'm going to design a shrug or little jacket to wear over the dress for the church service, and the lines and material for this take up some of my idle-thought time each day. I think my mom would really have loved this gown, and that makes me happy.

Captured: 1 bridal gown

I ran my bridal gown to ground last week at a gown outlet near our house. It's a discontinued model (which is why I have no photo to show you), strapless, two sizes too big for me, with absolutely no beading or other embellishment. It's perfect for my nefarious beading plans. I'll take it to the tailor on Wednesday. I plan to ask her to take it in, hem it, and put a corset closure in back rather than the zipper that's there now. That way, if I lose weight or (God forgid) gain, I can just pull the laces tighter or (please, God, no) let them out and the gown will still fit just fine. When she's done I will bring the hapless garment home, get out my beading supplies, swarovski cristals and real pearls and have my way with it. After all that, I wonder if I'll want to donate it to charity as I've planned, heartless tax saver that I am. Maybe a single girlfriend will want it for her own wedding. I'll ask them. If not, I really will need to donate it. We don't have the closet space for a dress I'll never wear again.
+++
In other news, we hired our photographer. I need to fill out the contract and send her a deposit, and then I can check that off the list also.

Who'll Take the Pictures?

Today the Hunky Scientist and I met a photographer over at a coffee shop in the Sunset. Bob's more into evaluating personality and whether or not he's comfortable with the photographers and their methods and philosophies, so that's his area of coverage. I'm more into looking at the way they compose their photos, how they run their business, what their client-service ethic is, and so on. We're both concerned about budget. This photographer has a gorgeous portfolio and she has the background I'm hoping to find in our wedding photographer. She wasn't too thrown off by our unconventional wedding plans (only 1 attendant each, no flower girl, no ring bearer, no dancing at the reception, please no interminable slog of posed photos right after the wedding.) She wasn't overly friendly; she conducted herself as though she were on a job interview, which was appropriate, but she wasn't overly formal or stiff either. And her rates are within our budget. She's the only photog we've interviewed so far, but I like her a lot. Bob is reserving judgment until we meet with the other two we have in mind. We had a nice chat, a nice cup of coffee, and then we came home and I broke out the jump rope, the dumbells, the exercise ball, and the yoga mat and had a medium-hard workout. Which means there was plenty of sweating, but no swearing. Now I'm just finishing a bowl of Bob's potato and kale soup. And I'm about to go scrounge up some dessert to balance out the healthfulness of this meal. So far the working out has trimmed me down a few pounds and some previously too-tight pants are fitting again. I am far from the sleek number I aim to be by February of next year. Mind you, I'm posting this on my wedding site. But I made this fitness goal well before Bob proposed. Quit scoffing. And if you don't stop rolling your eyes, they'll freeze in position back there and when that happens you'd best not come crying to me.

Hot on the trail

On my first try at wedding dress shopping, one of the 15 dresses I tried was this one. Mind you, it's from the 2006 collection of Casablanca, so the dress I tried on had been gotten into by dozens of sweaty women before me. Still, it looked marvelous and was very comfortable. But the price tag said $785. "I love this dress, but there's no way I'm paying $785 for it," I told my girlfriends. "I'll pay half, though." The saleslady said she'd "work with me" if I wanted to buy the dress off the rack or if I found a better deal elsewhere. The off the rack option amounted to a 20 percent discount, which I pretended to consider while inwardly scoffing. Once back home I looked the style number up on the Casablanca web site and noted that the fabric is listed as "silky taffeta." Which means "polyester." Now I don't care about wearing a polyester gown. Manmade fabrics have come a very long way, and we wear high-quality clothing made from them every day. But polyester is much less expensive than silk. This dress probably cost about $40 to make, tops (it's made far overseas and while the beading is sewn in there's very little of it). I've gone to some longstanding and reputable online businesses to see what they could do and so far, I've gathered two quotes, both for around $400. I'm going to see if I can nudge it down closer to $300. Wish me luck!

If I wasn't Orthodox, we'd elope. Seriously.

I've helped so many friends plan their weddings that the planning part is no mystery and holds no anxiety for me. What gets me is the expectations foisted upon me (and the hunky scientist) by the industry and by the women I know who have sipped that particular shade of Kool-Aid. I admit I'm a crankypants when it comes to this kind of thing. The sound of someone swooning over the perfect lace-festooned guest book, or fake-diamond-encrusted "wedding shoes" makes me bolty and the sight of wedding supply catalogs makes me need to chew Tums.

The wedding industry tells me I need to spend at least $700 to look halfway decent on the big day, that I need engraved wedding invitations in a hue that matches my bridesmaids' dresses, that I have to order my bridesmaid's dresses with shoes dyed to match, that I have to have more than 1 bridesmaid, that my fiance is a dunderhead who has no taste and who shouldn't be trusted with anything except maybe renting a tux, that I need to worry about white--not wooden--chairs at the reception (not to mention bows for the backs of those chairs), that I need to purchase just the right centerpieces for each table, that I need to tell everyone where to sit, that I should set up interesting candy stations or photo booths or whatever so our guests won't be bored. It's enough to make me want to elope. And we would, if it wouldn't set me at odds with my church.

I know someone who swallowed all that wedding industry folderol whole and flapping. She wasn't a bridezilla, but she was a glass-eyed adherent to the big lie. Her wedding was perfect. But it wasn't because of all the stress and work she put into every last tiny detail. It was because she and her man were married with their family and friends standing 'round them, and then there was a nice shindig. I guess my definition of "perfect" is pretty loose.

The hunky scientist and I are planning our wedding together, every step of the way. We don't want to stage an Event. We just want to get married and have dinner with our friends afterward. I'm thrilled to report that as of last night we have sewn up about 45 percent of the details of our wedding. It's a huge relief.

Dress shopping and other unsavory things

I've always been a tomboy who longs to be more fem. I've always been most comfortable in jeans, next comfortable in skirts, and least comfortable in dresses. Perhaps that's because it's difficult to find dresses that fit me well (I feel sizzly hot in dresses that do fit). At my fittest, I'm a size 10. I'm presently not at my fittest. (Yeah. I'm working on it.) My torso is short in comparison with my legs. This means that dresses in petite sizes fit my body best, but tend to be too short. In regular dress boutiques, the fitting rooms are not my friend. However, in bridal boutiques, I've found the dresses are constructed to hide regrettable features and play up assets. Thus, I've found wedding dress shopping to be fun--at least in part. That is, these dresses make me look stunning. However....most are WAY too foofy to be any fun at all. I'm not looking to be a Barbie. I just want to look like a bride. Whatever that means. I guess what it means to me is something beautiful and formal, but with very little bling. Pearls are OK. Embroidery (with ivory thread) is OK. But no sequins. No shiny beads. Nothing shiny. No poofy anything. And no long-ass train.

Also (brace yourself), I only want to spend $300 on it. Bob and I are paying for every cent of this wedding by ourselves (except for those ceremonial items our koumbara traditionally supplies. I do not intend to flush more than $300 of our budget on a dress I'll wear only once. So, my aim is to get a devastating dress for a song (Bob applauds). Also, I want to be left alone until I have questions or want to negotiate a buy. All these contingencies combined do not make me a well-liked customer at the bridal salon.

Other contingencies make me a puzzling figure to some of my girlfriends from church. I haven't selected my wedding "colors." Bob and I want only a single person to stand up with us. I figure whatever color my matron of honor chooses, that'll be the color I think about incorporating into whatever other decor we arrange for. We don't want tons of flowers everywhere. We don't need limos to take us from church to reception. We don't care about monogrammed napkins, nor favors, nor engraved toasting glasses. I'd be happy going for pizza after the rehearsal rather than having a sit-down dinner. I'm organized, so naturally I gravitated toward the wedding planner section of bookstores. But all the planners I saw were illustrated in pastel shades with flowers and lace--they were clearly meant only for the bride. Well, there are two of us getting married, so two of us have to like the planner. So I made one for us out of a binder and some tabbed divider sheets.

I don't want to have a "perfect, fairy tale" wedding at which I can "look like a princess." I want to share a real, intimate, beautiful, fun wedding with Bob and our family and friends, and a great dinner gathering afterward. Then go somewhere relaxing for a while.