have i...

mentioned that I wanted to be Al Roker when I was growing up? yeah....



I hope this justifies my obsession.

Farmer's Almanac = Bride's Best Friend?

I consulted the Farmer's Almanac early in the wedding process. Not that I totally believed in it, but I thought it might have some merit. I believe the entry for our week (because it doesn't hone in on specific days) was periods of showers.*

Wouldn't you know that 5 out of the next 10 days are forecasted to shower? coincidence? I think not.

Brides, get thee to the bookstore and consult that farmer's almanac before you pick your date.

*Not that I care about rain, cloud cover makes for good photos, I just don't want a torrential downpour.

me being lazy

you know you are lazy when your FH creates, prints, cuts and folds all of your placecards. lazy...and smart.

he did a great job.

you know you are entering dangerous wedding territory when your most recent web browsing includes www.catholicweddinghelp.com. no joke. it exists. also, when you ask your mother to steal/borrow a hymnal from the church. and when you ask a nun to send you a copy of the most recent prayers of the faithful. cuz you are just too lazy to come up with your own.

we're one day away from the 10 day outlook on weather.com. gotta be honest, i'm excited that it is supposed to rain this weekend because I feel like that improves the chances for next weekend.

my relationship with the dark side

Let’s define the dark side first. The dark side is a place where one reads wedding blogs, beautiful, gorgeous wedding blogs (hello snippet and ink and Elizabeth Anne Designs) and wedding websites like Martha Stewart weddings, and photography websites (I’m looking at you punam bean), for at least 2 hours a day. (these are just the websites that pull me in, there is nothing wrong with these sites, besides what you do with them, ala judge yourself).

It is a place where one yearns for that perfect letterpress, to match every single piece of paper used at their wedding, but already has perfectly unique invites (which were sent out months ago). The dark side is a place where you check your own wedding registry daily. You find yourself searching endlessly for that perfect dress for your niece, who won’t even remember being there.

It is a place that makes you think your wedding isn’t special enough because it doesn’t, in your mind, measure up to all the other things/images out there, including wedding industrial complex weddings, super budget weddings AND super indie unique weddings.

Your wedding becomes defined by what it will look like, not what it will feel like and not what it is actually about: You and yours.

It isn’t a place you want to be. But only you put yourself there.

It may be a place where one looks for the *perfect* font for their wedding programs. It may be a place where I have been and thanks to the comment slaps from friends, I’m vowing not to return.

Thanks friends!

font love

Just wasted most of my morning on www.dafont.com/ for the wedding programs.

Loving these fonts:

Tagettes

Mutlu

and

Landsdowne

they're all free. and fun...

The Importance of Delegating

Delegating tasks is the biggest favor a bride can do for herself. I cannot imagine doing everything that I have asked other people to do.

At first, friends would offer to do things and I would shoo them away…'no, of course not, don’t be silly'

Now I don’t even ask, I just mention something that needs to be done, someone offers to help and away we go.

However, the flip side to delegating is when you see a finished product and it isn’t what you thought it would be, you need to just LET THE F GO. You gave it up to someone else and they did with it what they thought was best.

For example, the fact that the welcome bags will have paper weights in them. Not something that I would pick for welcome bags, but then again, I don’t have to put together welcome bags. Now the tricky part…controlling my snide comments, “who the f is going to want to carry a paperweight in their luggage when they go home?”

And our seating charts are DONE. I danced, high fived, screamed and celebrated with some two-buck chuck. That’s definitely one of the things that people told me would be hard and was hard. No wedding myth there.

when in doubt

In etiquette, I usually refer to my handy copy of Emily Post, given to me on my first day working at a high end boutique.

However, in a bind, one might find help from...

wait for it...

http://www.etiquettehell.com/smf/index.php?topic=62756.0

i loves me some internet...

pre-emptive thanks

I am so thankful for the detail oriented people in my life right now, including but not limited to my future husband, a key bridesmaid, the restaurant manager and my florist.

FH is doing a ton of work right now for the wedding, not least of which is making sure we pay everyone and that we have enough money to pay for everyone, also, dealing with his mother. Came home the other day to him on the phone with her, "but mom, I'm not going to know the difference between fuschia and marroon tissue paper" re: the welcome bags, ie, not my job.

For someone like me who just wants to zone out to How I Met Your Mother, details are the bane of my existence. Second only to....

Table assignments. Doing this sucks. My issues right now include

• The old people table, they're all old, invalid and may get lost on the way to the bathroom...seat them all together or assign them to their children?
• Parent's random friends..sitting with them would be like sitting at a table with Eeyore.
  
• Who to put upstairs? I don't want to insult anyone, but people are going to be sitting upstairs. I'm going to try to make it a party up there.
• Where do we sit? This is an issue
• How to pad the in-laws tables...because non of FH's extended family is coming...

Knowing that none of this is going to matter in 3 weeks is so comforting...

30 Percent Rule Holds!

They (who's they? I don't know, people who have been married or the WIC, take your pick) say that 30% of your guest list will say no. Well guess what, for our almost 300 person guest list, this is entirely true.

It gives me such a sense of relief that our restaurant/reception venue won't be overrun with too many people.

Now about that rumor that 5 percent of the people who said yes won't actually show. Do people do this? How can this be true? We're not taking any chances and just giving the number we have. If we have to eat 10 placesettings (an entire TABLE?!?!), I'll be pissed, but not until after I get back from my honeymoon.

bmaid gifts

Picked them up from Amy at birdhouse jewelry at the brooklyn flea, she also has an etsy store...

blip

my future mother in law made rehearsal dinner invites.

I see no point in rehearsal dinner invites. and said so.

they look like an invite to a met's game.

blip.

that's me not caring and letting go. (visual includes downing glass of wine)

new thought

dear weather.com,

please look into 30 day outlooks. i'd like to stress over that which i have no control.

yours,
lb

1. month. to. go.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

EEEEEEEEEEEEEE

i'm nervous, excited and stressed about little details.

and therefore eating mint choc chip breyer's ice cream for dinner with red wine.

and f-ing with my birth control so i don't have my period on my honeymoon, which may be making me crazy.

dress fitting tonight.

You Say Yes, I Say No

To the THIRTY PERCENT of my guest list (80 people) that has not responded....WHY DO YOU TORTURE ME SO???

Just in case anyone is curious, the bulk of those who have not responded are RELATIVES. My relatives to be exact. You have some random friends, but mostly, it's the relatives. This is surprising, I would have thought that my parents' friends would be the slow ones. Nope. They responded promptly.

And so let the hunting for answers begin. I will email them at work, I will tell on my cousin's elderly parents and I will get cousins to harangue their elderly parents. It's just a yes or no, people.

bridal showers are not the enemy

Even though it rains
Even though you weren't surprised, necessarily
Even though your crazy aunt forgot her teeth
Especially because your five year old nephew runs you over in front of everyone
Especially because your six month old niece is cute as a button and makes everyone "awwww"
Even though you never think you'll get through all those presents in under 6 hours
Especially because your college next door neighbor who you met by chance, puts together the most god awful ribbon hat that makes you smile radiantly and sashay...
Even though three of your bridesmaids don't make it for perfectly good reasons
Especially because they were there in spirit
Even though you don't understand your future mother in law
Especially because your favorite aunt and cousins were there
Even though your sister doesn't understand why you would get three different colors of Fiesta plates
Even though you didn't actually get to eat dessert, or coffee, or taste anything because your adrenaline was running on super high and
Especially because you weren't as mortified as you thought you would be opening a nightie from your mom...

You love your bridal shower. You feel loved and honored. and amazed that it went by so quickly.

early 90s fun

It's important to laugh during these hectic times. Does anyone else remember this episode?

I'm

getting married NEXT MONTH. yikes.

tylenol pm, you and I will be v. good friends...