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.
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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.