11 Days and Counting

Or, How the Wedding is Like a Kid's Toy

Puzzle that took us months to actually assmble

Does everyone have your rooms booked? Your outfits picked out? Are you ready for this *cue stadium-rock music*

All of a sudden, the wedding is upon us! I have a slightly difficult time realizing that this has been two years in the planning, it seems like we've only just started!

It's not exactly panic that I'm feeling, more like overwhelmed; there are too many pieces that all look the same. The finished product is going to be beautiful, but it's a lot more complicated than I thought it would be, much like the puzzle of Neuschwanstein Castle Ellie got for Christmas a couple years ago. It took forever to put together, much longer than she thought. We had to put it away a few times, but none of those puzzle savers they sell were big enough to contain the behemoth. Anyone who has been to the apartment in the last year knows that we have stacks of boxes, and mounds of crafting supplies all over the house. It's a wonder our roommate hasn't bailed or set everything on fire. As we've been digging out the boxes that have been stored in the back entryway, things have gotten worse; you'd think we were moving!

Lesbian cake topper form Etsy

I'm not even (really) worried about the stuff we still have to do. Now I'm more concerned about stupid things like

• "Why do Ellie and I BOTH have a room for two nights listed at the hotel?"
• "Did we give out all the comp rooms yet, or did I do the math wrong and we still have one?"
• "Why did the new coordinator mention an ice sculpture when we met her since we neither ordered it nor have enough room bookings to 'earn' it (and can we turn that into cost & reduce the total owed)?"

I'm also concerned about the things out of our control, like whether the cake will arrive as discussed and on time; if the DJ will actually be any good; whether guest will be springing any last-minute +1's, travel/rooming difficulties, etc on us; just general things that don't actually happen and I have no control over if they do.

That puzzle is now hanging in our living room, right when you get to the top of the stairs, huge and gorgeous, much like the wedding will be.

1.5 Months

That actually sounds better than 43 days (as of this post) for some reason.
I'm a little stressed, but Ellie is keeping me relatively sane. We are slowly getting our DIY projects done (I'm going to say we are about 80% done with all of them), the honeymoon is paid off, and I had my next-to-last dress fitting yesterday.

I was nervous, because I had gained a little weight and she hadn't yet clipped out the seams, so the dress was snug last month. I haven't worked incredibly hard at losing weight, but have been paying more attention to what I'm eating (remember, she said I can't lose a lot of weight because she can't take the dress in too much), and it looked like she clipped at least most of the seams, while leaving just enough to let it out a bit if need be.

I haven't been this happy with my dress since the day I tried it on! There's still a little to finish, like removing the last of the train and the seams and some light finish work, and I need to work on reducing my back just a tad since it's tight in the armholes (she thinks removing the seams will make it perfect). But it looked so good, and I'm so happy with it, I couldn't get over the way it looked. I get to pick it up in about 2-ish weeks, so need to get in touch with Man of Honor Jere about storing it in his place to keep it away from the cats and because I'm afraid to have it in my apartment--not because of Ellie, but because of me looking and playing with it.

Food, Glorious Food!

Considering it's been almost a month since the dinner tasting, and we are going for the cake tasting tonight, it's probably about time I made the FOOD post. Warning, this post is photo-heavy (remember to click the pics to see them full-size) and extremely delicious!

Joined by the lovely Karina, Ellie's lady of Honor extraordinaire, and Danielle, who graciously accepted our offer to join us as an honorary Person of Honor (wow, that's awkward to say!). What we saw upon our arrival in the tasting room was pretty impressive:

Okay, this was actually the "sample table" where we go to see and choose the napkin fold and table number. I didn't get a shot of the "eating table" before we dug in, but it was very similar , only with more place settings, no plates, and an extra wine glass (we each got a glass of the house white, the house red and champagne!). Jocelyn, the event coordinator, sat with the four of us to go over details like those on the "sample table," centerpieces, timing, etc, and generally make sure we were all on the same page.

As the food began to arrive, she continued to sit with us to note our selections and answer questions. It was weird to be eating in front of her, and we all kept asking if she was okay--I know she does this all the time, but it was still slightly uncomfortable. Now, so you're up to speed, when we scheduled the tasting, we were asked to select 2 appetizers, 2 salads and 4 entrees (from 7, 6 & 12 options respectively!); we narrowed the field by half during the tasting and our menu (minus the cocktail hour hour d'ourves) was complete. We should have known just from making the initial selection that this would be a lot tougher than we hoped!

First Course: Appetizer



We chose clam chowdah :) and tortellini for the appetizers. Clam chowder is so quintessentially New England, and Ellie's family has a long history of tortellini soup for special occasions, this was the next best thing. Although we each got our own cup of chowder, we split 2 plates of tortellini--we all filled up on the chowder so didn't have room for the tortellini, that's why not much had been eaten in the pic.

Second Course: Salad

Again, we shared two of each salad: caprese & wedge. Honestly, these were the only two that really sounded like something we wanted to eat. I love that the caprese salad wasn't just red tomatoes--that slice of yellow really made the dish pop. Wedge salads are just awesome. You really should try a wedge salad, just saying.

LOL, you can see my wedding notebook in this picture!!




Third Course: Dinner

 Can you tell from this picture that we like red meat? of the four dinners we chose, 3 had some type of steak on them. This decision was actually really grueling because we are both such people pleasers, but also wanted to be happy with our choice. Clockwise from top left:

• Mixed Grille of Petite Filet Mignon and Jonah Crab Stuffed Jumbo Shrimp
• Filet of Beef Tenderloin with Scampi Prawns
• Duet of Sirloin with a Green Peppercorn Demi Glaze and Coriander Crusted Marinated Chicken
• Herb and Panko Crusted Breast of Chicken

They all came with some type of mashed potatoes and a veggie. I mean, seriously, holy crap these all look amazing, don't they? They tasted just as amazing, trust me. The four of us each took a plate and passed them around. I'm pretty sure we passed some of them more than once. :D We definitely hemmed and hawed about the merits of each, and what we did & didn't like. As she listened, Jocelyn shot out some options that allowed Ellie and I to make the most of the menu and hopefully please almost everyone. I know some people will bitch, but really? they would probably bitch no matter what we served.

Final Course: Dessert

Yes, the dessert will actually be our cake, but Doubletree adds a chocolate covered strawberry or an ice cream bonbon with it. How awesome, right?

The near plates in this picture are how the plate will look with either a bonbon or strawberry (imagine a delicious piece of cake between the whipped cream swirls). The far plate is just a dish of strawberries, the plate of bonbons was already being passed around.

Both were absolutely amazing, but it was really a no-brainer to be honest.

This was the aftermath (we totally housed the desserts). I almost wish we hadn't had breakfast, no matter how light, beforehand because that was a LOT of food! It's so wonderful to know that we and our guests are going to be treated so well. All the food is made in-house by the same chef who runs Bistro 44, which is in the hotel, who prides himself on only serving food that is sourced from within 44 miles of the hotel. That's harder to do when cooking for a wedding, but knowing there is an effort is nice.

I'm not going to reveal our choices until after the invites go out (about 2-3 weeks, I promise!!) to not ruin the surprise, but I plan to post a full description of each meal so guests have a better idea of what they are selecting for dinner. Everything else remains a surprise (I think...we'll see if I can hold back!).

The Hair Issue

Anyone out there who knows me in person knows that I rarely wear my hair down. Unless it's short. I've been growing my hair out for the wedding and I think it's the longest that Ellie has ever seen it. When we met, I had just gotten the perfect haircut, something I haven't been able to replicate because I couldn't afford the cost of a good haircut while in grad school, and have yet been able to find someone who can do it right.

What awesome hair! Please ignore
the blemishes on my face

Then I began growing my hair out for the wedding.Why don't I ever wear my hair down when it's long? Because it's unruly, semi-frizzy and looks really unhealthy when it's this long.

I needed a picture for demonstration--this is a GOOD hair day!

And this isn't even the longest it's ever been! My hair used to be to my waist--just ask Man of Honor Jeremy about it!! I never wore my hair down then either. But I'm trying to because I have this lovely halo of tiny, broken hairs about 1-2 inches long all over the top of my head that are far more noticeable when my hair is up; I've convinced myself that elastics are the culprit. I've never been one for taking good care of my hair...the only thing that really mattered for shampoo & conditioner was the smell right? I can get that for $1/bottle from Walmart! Supposedly this is not the case and I have been trying to find something to tame this mess, to no avail.

I'm want to try to find a way of getting my hair cut off before we leave for Turks & Caicos. I'm fairly convinced that it won't happen, but I still want it; guaranteed to be off my neck, higher likelihood that it'll look good, short hair is a lot more fun!

Oops!!!

So do it yourself projects are fun and exciting and it makes us feel like we are getting things done for the wedding. Until... we lose something. For our centerpieces there are three unique parts. One piece we ordered and have them set aside. Parts 2 and 3 are the same but we painted half blue and half we painted green. However, when we went to find the last of the green ones we could not locate them. We have torn our apartment apart no less than 7 times... Finally we came to the conclusion that we in fact might have painted 3/4 of the books blue and the reason we can't find the other 1/4 of the green is because they don't exist. So we ordered more and hopefully they are the same or at least really close.

Now the vests are being difficult. We thought this would be the easy part and in fact it is not. The vests we want have the wrong color back side...Sigh and my vest people did not seem to want to sell it to me. So we ordered that and I can't wait for that to come in. But what to do about the rented wrong backs... unless someone rents it differently. We need to set up a time and meet with the place in Braintree and hopefully this will put some of this at ease... Hopefully. These were two of the many little oops we will have. These two hopefully we will get past with out too many grey hairs. If not dying hair will be the next oops. ;-)

Old, New, Borrowed, Blue

I've never been one for the whole "Something Old, Something New...blah,blah,blah." Not for any reason in particular, but it always seemed kind of silly.

Then I got this beautiful sapphire ring and everyone started with, "Oh! You have your 'something blue,' and you'll have lots of 'something new,' what are your 'old and borrowed'?" I typically shrug it off and pretend I'm not sure when I'm among co-workers or people I don't know really well. With friends, I laugh it off as a silly tradition.

But then, as typically gets my mind running, I see blog & forum posts by brides planning out their ONBwBl (I'm tired of typing out the words) and I start wondering if it's something I want to pursue. I think, when you get right down to it, I want to ensure that any traditions that are incorporated into the wedding are ones that really speak to me and/or Ellie. So let's evaluate: I have a Blue, but what about O, N, & Bw?

New is fairly easy...most of what I'll be wearing that day is new: dress, shoes, headband, most of my jewelry, possibly underthings, etc. Most of that feels like a cop-out though since I'll only wear most of them that one day, never to be seen again. The shoes however might be able to count though since I see myself wearing them for work, or to dress up a pair of jeans or something. And 2 of my pairs of earrings will most likely be worn again since they aren't overly fancy or anything. Two down.

Old is really easy. I'm wearing a jade pendant & earrings that belonged to my Great Aunt; my friend Liz at Lush Beads, who is making my headband, is also replacing the yellow gold findings with silver.Three down.

Borrowed is where this all kind of goes to hell. I don't feel like it's borrowing if the person is no longer with us, so that excludes any jewelry from my mom or other female relatives (even if it was stuff I wanted to wear). Any female relatives that are still around are distant at best, but completely unknown for the most part. Regardless, I have more than enough jewelry/accessories: headband, 3 pairs of earrings, necklace, e-ring and my standard right-hand ring; I don't need any more bling! What else is there to borrow from someone? And who would I ask if I figured it out?

Now that it's all been written out (and when you really get down to it, this has probably been kicking around in my head for at least a little while or I wouldn't have actually written this post), it's almost a "Challenge Accepted" situation...I need to borrow something from someone to have with me in some way on my wedding.

ALL. THE. THINGS.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember a post or two discussing the cost of a wedding (and not just for the couple--the female bridal party is expected to spend an arm and a leg too). Having been to a few wedding expos, and reading more than my fair share of wedding blogs/forums/sites, I have been drowning in the "should's" and "trends" that pervade the internet. It's daunting to put it lightly.

Then, I read a post on Weddingbee, (yes, Miss Treasure, I ripped off your title too!) in which the bride-to-bee (pun intended) wrote about her planning experiences and how she is reacting to them,

"My problem with the WIC is that it simultaneously trivializes and exaggerates the act of getting married while barely addressing the subject of marriage at all. [bolding is mine]

The WIC turns the act of getting married into an overblown, theatrical event, minimizing the importance and gravity of the commitment that weddings represent. Have you ever read an article in a bridal magazine about how to maintain a good, loving relationship with your partner for decades to come? Me either. Instead, you get articles like “516 Ways to Wow Your Guests!” and “10 Surprising Beauty Foods: Eat Up Girls!” (These are real headlines from real bridal magazines I have in my apartment right now.) The WIC makes women (and their partners) feel that they have to spend all their money on the perfect dress/ring/shoes/hairstyle, or else they risk offending everyone. The WIC is what makes people look at you a little funny when you say you don’t have wedding colors or you might not do a bouquet/garter toss."

Of course I want the wedding to be wonderful. And I'm obviously not going against any of my personal aesthetic or beliefs to ensure it's "perfect," but it's hard to not be affected.  A LOT of people question my decision to not use flowers, and I had a mini existential crisis about it--I was on the verge of making/buying fake flowers for a while because of it. At the same time, we decided to not go with the photo booth, despite how POPULAR they are right now (and how much we like them) because we couldn't justify the expense to ourselves. You know my current favorite "must" from the WIC? That your dress must be "timeless and classic" so you're not embarrassed in 10, 15, 20 years when you look at your wedding photos. Now, mine probably meets those criteria, but not on purpose--I chose my dress because it was what I LIKED, it met my expectations and desires, and I looked great in it. When I look at my future sister-in-lawss wedding picture, do I sometimes smile because you can tell she got married 10 years ago? Absolutely (sorry Heidi!), but that doesn't mean she's not beautiful or that she regrets her decision (not that I know...). I simply mean that honestly, "timeless and classic" don't actually exist. It comes down to what the couple wants.

We strongly feel that the wedding needs to reflect US, regardless of what everyone else is or isn't supporting. Sure, compromises have been made, but that's part of the beauty of planning a wedding TOGETHER, with your partner.

Weddings Make You Sneaky

I've already told the story of how Ellie & I were on rocky footing just before she proposed. Now it's time to admit to my own sneaky-ness.

Everyone knows I gave Ellie an exact replica of my ring, with the stones reversed. When I first contacted Sharon, the woman at Jared who specializes in custom work, she asked if I was able to get hold of the schematics the jewelers had created. Her desire for this was two-fold: having the original schematic would almost guarantee there would be no differences between the two rings--if the jewelers had to draw up new ones, there might be differences; and it would mean getting ring a whole heck of a lot faster because we could skip a whole part of the design process, getting right to the wax mold. Having just gone through the process with our wedding bands, the schematics take about 6 weeks, THEN the wax is poured, which is another couple weeks, THEN the rings can be cast, which are another month or so. Well folks, I wanted that ring NOW; it had already been more than a year since Ellie had proposed and I couldn't wait that long--we'd be married by then :P

So I did the sneakiest thing I had ever done--I broke into Ellie's email for the 2nd time (I had done it a few months before to plan her 30th birthday party) and hunted down the schematics. To ensure I wasn't caught, I downloaded the images, signed into my email and sent them to Sharon through there instead of emailing them to myself or Sharon just in case Ellie went to look at them. Yes, I was that paranoid.

Even the day I picked up the ring was sneaky and I was almost caught. I was working in Boston, so totally unable to head to Plymouth after work. Sharon doesn't work on Saturdays, and Ellie is around on most weekends anyway. There was a Girl Scout event in Stoughton one Sunday--not terribly close to Plymouth, but close enough that I had the great idea to "swing" down after the event. And Ellie was working that weekend, which gave me extra time. Alas, the ride took longer than I expected, and the person who helped me (Sharon had just left for the day because she has a rock-star schedule) insisted on cleaning my ring, then taking pictures of the two together, and showing them both off to all the other staff, etc etc. I would up getting home 20 minutes AFTER Ellie, when I was due home before she even left work for the day (she didn't seem to believe my story of chatting with other volunteers after the event).

Not quite as dramatic as when Ellie bought my ring, but still pretty bad; she still gives me shit for hacking her email.

All the Pretty Colors

I have a confession folks. I'm a control-freak. I found my shoes quite a while ago, and I wanted everything in the same color-scheme, so decided that I'd forget all about David's Bridal (which I wasn't crazy about using anyway because EVERYONE goes there) and get all of the dresses and vests and whatnot from Dessy because we'd have the same colors and everything would be wonderfully matchy-matchy. I even put together a styleboard of my favorite dresses with the vests, my shoes and a nice shade of purple to go with my dress:

My Dessy styleboard--Sapphire, Clover & Pansy 

So when we started planning for our trip to NJ for Lady of Honor dresses, I selected stores that carried the Dessy lines and honestly, was all set for the girls to fall in love with an pick one of those three.

It didn't quite work out that way. Are you shocked?

I don't think any of those three were in either store--none of them were picked at any rate. In total, between Carrie, Karina and Ellie (you'd think that bridal stores would have samples larger than 10), about 40 dresses were tried on. Unfortunately, I screwed up and deleted some pics in order to "organize" for our thinking lunch--ORGANIZATION CAN BE DETRIMENTAL TO YOUR BLOGGING AND WEDDING PLANNING, keep that in mind. But I do have our top 4 contenders, 2 from each store, and only one being a Dessy (nope, can't say I remember which one)

Contenders 1 & 2

Contenders 3 & 4

Eden Bridal's Royal Blue

The 4 of us spent all of lunch (well, a lot of lunch, most of it was spent stuffing out faces with Thai/Malaysian at Penang, which is my new favorite restaurant!) flipping back & forth between these 2 photos and trying to select one. One of my biggest difficulties came from the fact that only one of them was Dessy, so I wasn't able to picture the color I wanted for the majority of the dresses. I HATE that bridal shops have the tiniest piece of fabric ever, glued onto a card with a billion other tiny pieces of fabric, to provide a bride for selecting a color. As a matter of fact, I think the swatch I was able to see was the size of this image--it was as close to my sapphire as I was able to find in the Eden line. now that I have images next to each other, I'm a little more confident in the match, but I still have to get Ellie her vest, so am hoping we can make it work so she matches the girls. the guys will be easy because we're keeping the Dessy Clover. I'm looking forward to the dresses coming in so I can actually SEE what they look like. Anyone with mad photo-editing skills want to try and create a vision for me? :P

Home, or a UPS Warehouse?

Most of our "wedding supplies"

Go ahead, I dare you to click this image and see it full-size. Those of you who've been to our place know this shot--it's the sideboard in the dining room, which stands at my waist, around 2-1/2 feet high. right there, you can see the following: programs, centerpieces, part of our accessories, the card holder, our toasting glasses, and I'm sure some other odds & ends. And this isn't even everything we've bought! Our cake topper isn't boxed, so that wasn't included, nor did I include the box that's holding some of our supplies--paints, brushes, glues, etc. My dress is also not included because A) it's with the seamstress, & B) Ellie can't see it. OH! I forgot to include a few other details we've already bought, again because they aren't boxed & I don't want to spoil everything.

We have yet to buy favors, escort cards, Best People gifts, gifts for each other (well, I haven't bought Ellie's gift, I don't know if she's bought mine...I doubt it), my jewelry isn't done yet, and I'm sure there are other packages that will be arriving over the next seven months that I haven't even thought of!

When all this started, I don't think I realized just how much STUFF we'd be accumulating. It's not just the money either...it's mostly the stuff, and how it's taking over our home and life. We definitely have to go through it all and pack away what we won't be using until that day, get the DIY's done so we can also pack those away. At the same time though, it's comforting because now, after a year and a half of mostly talking, we're finally DOING something for the wedding. I never saw the point in making a lot of the purchases until we were closer because we have storage space, but not a LOT. I also had a fear of things getting damaged (because obviously we'd have a tornado, or a flood or something simply because the wedding supplies were bought too soon). Yes, my apartment is covered in boxes, which is a huge stress trigger to me. But those boxes represent something very special, something so much bigger than my anxiety and compulsions.

Random odds and ends

Tomorrow will be 7 months until our wedding. This is so exciting and scary at the same time. I am happy to say that in general I have not been procrastinating. We are doing a DIY program which has about 6-8 steps depending how you look at it. I have already started the steps that can be started at this time and we have ordered the remaining materials just yesterday. Tonight I plan to finish with the materials I have so that when the new materials arrive we can continue.

As Jessi mentioned we have ordered the wedding bands this was also completed a few weeks infront of schedule. I am excited about them and I am excited that yet again they are original and very "us" which is what I want from our jewerly.

We have agreed upon our song which I am very excited about now we just need to learn to dance a little bit better to it. ;-) I have decided on my shoes and now I need to go buy them or order them and break them in a little so I don't hate life by the end of the dancing night.

We have looked into an additional site to set up honeymoon activities so people can help us out with that as gifts. It is 3 weeks until we hopefully buy bridesmaids dresses and in early april the boys and I will be getting our little "suits." And then comes cake testing, entree tasting and final touches on our invitations which we have picked out. :-) It's all coming together and I know there is a million things left to do but so many are started and it really feels like it is coming together.

I can't wait until all my friends and family come together to celebrate this beautiful love that Jessi and I have. The wedding might be quirky, cheesy, and everyone might not understand all the little nuances that make it ours but that's okay. I'll know, Jessi will know and people that read this blog will have a little more inside information.

Commence Wedding Nightmares

Okay, nightmare might be a little strong of a word, but I'm a bride, cut me a little slack, mmkay?

I don't dream. When I'm taking anti-depressants, I remember MORE of my dreams, likely because I'm more relaxed & sleep better, but for all intents and purposes, I live under the idea that I have too much anxiety & sleep too poorly to really dream much. My dad doesn't dream either, so it's genetic...yeah, that's it...

Well last night, I had a dream about our wedding bands. Saturday, we spent what seemed like hours, but was probably only one, at Jared's working with the lovely Sharon--the customization specialist who did our engagement rings--to design our bands.

All I can say is that it's contoured, had no gem stones and  has more than 1 color of gold

Source: antiquejewelrymall.com via Jessi on Pinterest

I'm sure you have an idea of what my dream was about right? They came back wrong. Rather significantly wrong at that, and as I think about it, I "notice" even more wrong with what came back than I had in the dream itself!! Now, I trust Sharon completely--I never even looked at the wax when I was ordering Ellie's ring because it was a hassle to get to Plymouth & she had spent so much time working on the original that I felt secure in her judgement. The fact that they needed to take my engagement ring to ensure the proper contour didn't even come up in this dream--apparently I only notice that when awake, and another ring Ellie got me is an okay temporary replacement.

Is this what a wedding does to a girl? Am I going to go more crazy the closer we get? Dear gods I hope not.

How Can You Pick Just ONE Song??

When Ellie proposed, she had a playlist on her iPod all ready to go when we got back into the car. It was chock full of songs that made her think about me, or that she knew made me think of her. Oddly enough, despite her love of music, we don't yet have "our song"  because she can't narrow it down to just one, and the songs I would pick really don't work for her (she doesn't dislike them, I think they just don't 'speak' to her). Yes, the wedding is less than 8 months away, but I knew our 1st dance song would be hard to choose. I was hoping to convince her to do it, but she refused, only going so far as to narrow down the huge playlist from our engagement (not a bad place to start IMHO) to 6 songs. Now it's up to me and she's not giving me any more help!!

So I sat down at work yesterday morning, pulled up all the lyrics and YouTubed each song. Bringing the field down by half was pretty easy actually--those that did't make me cry were eliminated (hey, a girl needs SOME type of measurement!), but I still have three. I honestly didn't think this would be so difficult!! I've been listening to them on almost constant repeat much of the afternoon, with each affecting me to various degrees of crying, happiness and "this is it." Ellie gave me hell last night about which three I chose; and today I thought it wouldn't be harmful to be public about them--you'll have to come to the wedding or read the recaps after September if you want to know which one I chose!

If you care to hear them, click play on the videos below--the artist names link to their websites for credit purposes.


She's More - Andy Griggs


Then - Brad Paisley


Whatever It Is - Zac Brown Band

I'm Not a Player, I Just Crush a Lot

On food that is.

Seriously, food is something of an obsession with me; I should be one of those people you see on the talk shows being taken out of their house with a crane and flatbed. I would be completely unsurprised if my food board on Pinterest has more pins than any of my other boards. Don't get me wrong, I'm not being dysmorphic or anything, but I'm not exactly the thinnest I've ever been. Neither am I the heaviest I've ever been.

Cute bloomer-style underwear

What does this have to do with the wedding? Quite a bit actually. Because of the size of my dress, material and embroidery, I'm not allowed to loose too much weight, which is nice, but it also will not allow me to do much by way of reducing my chub rub (oh yeah, I'm really talking about this! It's serious stuff, I've seen brides super uncomfortable because of their underthings, and refuse to be one of them if I can avoid it). Typically this isn't a issue, as I can count on one hand the number of times I wear a skirt or dress in a year. Typically I can get away with a pair of bike shorts or similar. I have a pair of spanx I wore for graduation and a wedding we attended, but honestly, I'd rather deal with rub than wear them again. Plus, it's my freaking wedding, I should be comfortable, right?

So I'm kind of obsessing about my udergarments. I've thought about something like in the picture above: feminine and satiny with a hint of romance, but then I think about the issue with baggier bottoms--I'll be constantly tugging at the legs to smooth them out. I've seen alternative underwear talked about in various places, but haven't done a lot of research yet. It's too bad you really can't try on underwear because that would make this all so much easier--I'd know how they react to walking around, how much of my leg is covered, just how tight (or not) they are, etc. This isn't just any underwear, this is the underwear I'm freaking getting married in! It has to be comfy, at least a little cute and functional. Damn, am I setting myself up for failure here? Guess I'm going shopping while the laundry's doing it's thing today.

"Good LORD That's a Lot of Money!"

Infographic of wedding costs from
Something Borrowed {Portland}

Yeah, that's about right. Oh, and look at that map just below the middle of the graphic--Boston is listed as one of "The Most Expensive Places to Get Hitched" at $35,483 (before the honeymoon). I don't think we'll go that high, but when EVERYTHING is added up: venue/food, gifts, attire, decor, DIY projects, etc, I wouldn't be surprised if it gets damn close. Appalling, isn't it?

I think that's the real reason Ellie and I aren't technically doing a budget. We know how much we're paying for things, and could add it all up if we needed to, but I read over and over again on forums and blogs how couples have to jump through hoops to stay within their budget, or feel crazy guilt about going over. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to set a budget (which honestly, we blew out of the water once we chose a venue), but Ellie was slightly adverse to the idea, preferring to have a general idea of what we could spend, but not setting anything in stone. I'm still very nervous about the cost of things to be honest, but we're cutting back in some places and going all out in the areas it's important (like programs!!).

It's another reason I'm glad we've had so long to do this--we've been able to do research, get the best price, and pay for things over time. We already have some of the supplies we'll need, and have plans to buy things over the next 8 months rather than dropping a ton of money in August.

The Moment My Dress Became THE Dress

Saturday, I had my second dress fitting. Back in November-ish Jere and I brought my dress to a local seamstress I'd read fantastic reviews of. Apparently she's some kind of dress magician :D Although I put the dress on, I didn't consider it a 'real' fitting because we were really just discussing the major alterations rather than the fit. When I went back this weekend however, I realized that it WAS a fitting, and remembered why I bought this dress.

I have to confess that, over the last few months, I was second and third & fourth guessing my decision. See, I made the number one mistake when it comes to buying your wedding dress--I kept looking at dresses. I've read more than a few blog and forum posts from girls that had done this very thing, to varying degrees of stress, from questioning if they'd made the correct decision to actually buying a 2nd dress. I had a vision of my dress, and the one I bought was VERY close, but not exact. Honestly, unless I had it custom-made, probably at great expense, my vision was impossible to achieve. What was my vision you ask? Essentially a combination of these:

from Alfred Angelo. This is the neckline &
embroidery inspiration

from Titanic.This is the shape
inspiration

The dress on the left is the one I found as I stupidly kept looking--it is the closest to my vision as I've ever found anywhere; but I already have a dress, and this one is only available in the UK. Since I bought my dress, my only visual reminders were dark cell phone pics of of it hanging limply and ill-fitting.

Then, on Saturday, I put my dress on again; after the sleeves had been taken off, and some of the hemming was complete, and the bodice had been taken in & up a bit. Is it my vision, suddenly come to life and staring me in the face? No, of course not. But I'm happy with it again. This IS the dress I'll be married in. Chris is totally getting my ideas and is able to predict some of them before I say anything, like opening the armholes and narrowing the skirt. I go back in March for another fitting, and that will hopefully be the last "working fitting" before I try on the finished product and take it home.

Can you tell me how to get... how to get to...

the hotel.

As we have mentioned multiple times we estimate that about half of our guests or more are coming from out of state. And of those half i would guess about half (so a quarter of overall guests) will be flying in. I know through the years I have traveled to a few weddings were I needed to fly into town and then figure out transportation. In fact, there was a wedding I missed because I felt I could afford flying into town but not afford renting the car for 2-3 days, plus the gas, and the hotel etc.

This causes me great anxiety thinking about our guests trying to get to our wedding and possibly not being able to because of the ridiculous prices of transportation. We tried hard to make our wedding location close to Boston for a multitude of reasons. One reason is that Boston has always been a special city for Jessi and I. Two, there are many things to do in Boston if one is going to be in town for more than just our wedding day. Three, being close to Boston allows people to fly in and take some kind of transportation to the hotel. Also all the activities are happening in the same spot to also make it easier so people don't need to figure out how to get from place to place.

I would love for my guests to come together as the day comes closer and talk about any way to help people get from the airport to the hotel. The hotel unfortunately only offers a shuttle for a 5 mile radius and it is possible to take public transit (2 hour commute time) to within .6 miles of the hotel.

It's possible to take Logan express to Woburn (12 dollars per person over 12years old)and then take a Taxi from there which would probably be about an additional $40. Or one could rent a car for about $55 a day.

However, none of this seems like a "cheaper" way to do it. So I hope that some people will fly in on Friday and either me or some of my friends could get you guys to the hotel and the only part one would have to worry about is getting back to the airport. I ask as the time gets closer if one needs help with this 18 mile stretch to contact me. Also if you are particularly bored individual or ever wanted to try out being a Taxi driver let me know and I can help people get in touch with each other to make this less daunting. Needless to say I want you all to find your way to Sesame Street.

Thanks for reading my ramble. :-)

Of Shoes and Ships

Well, okay, just shoes. The shoes I'm wearing for the wedding that is. After getting a scare a few weeks ago that the shoes I wanted no longer came in Clover, I jumped to get them before it was too late.

It seems a little big for being just a pair of shoes...

I waited and waited. I'm not sure why I was so impatient, but I was. I was watching the UPS tracking site like you wouldn't believe. So of course, I tore right in once it arrived.

My poor bent letter opener

Well, hello there shoes! And what is this
below them?

That black & white thing under the shoes? Dessy included a reusable bag! Very nice, but not quite the prize I was looking for. Even in the plastic bag the shoes looked better than I thought. Once out of the bag, they were exactly what I had been looking for--not shiny like depicted on the website, and a darker shade too!

Free from that suffocating plastic, they are
super cute!

YAY shoes!

Almost, But Not Quite, THE Dress

I bought my dress almost a year ago (when you have a super-long engagement, you try to get things out of the way). It wasn't exactly intentional, but my Man of Honor had this fantasy of sipping champagne and playing Barbie with me in NYC. Things didn't go as planned, and we wound up booze-less at R.K. Bridal, which is wonderful--I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a more traditional wedding dress but without a lot of the fluff and bullshit that you get at other bridal salons.

Before we went, I had a vision: cream or ivory floor-length with no train & a lace-up bodice, simple, straps (the width didn't matter, I just needed the reassurance my boobs weren't going to fall out), not poofy at all. With green embroidery all over, not just along the neckline and hem. Unfortunately, this vision didn't seem to exist. Alfred Angelo seemed to come closest to my vision, but they all fell short. Maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist for my own good... Anyway, I tell Gilda (the lovely Jewish Grandmother every girl needs) that I need a dress with color. We pulled about a dozen dresses and I surprisingly loved one enough to buy it (the 70% discount didn't hurt either!) And it was an Alfred Angelo, whom I had grown to love.

 Gilda's holding up the sleeve for demonstration--those babies are coming off!

Close-up detail of the lavender embroidery

The train's coming off too--we're bustling the organza to keep the embroidery

Not exactly how I described Dream Dress, is it? Not too far off though, and most of the issues (like the train) is an easy fix. I can live with the lavender because the flowers are gorgeous and the color works with my color scheme of sapphire and clover. I'll have to look into the poof-factor at my first real fitting. But I couldn't leave well enough alone. I just HAD to keep looking at Alfred's site, that tempting bastard. To the UK section no less. And there it was.

A little poofier than I wanted, and the train would probably be impossible to get rid of, but it has a gather at the waist I had came to love when I was trying on other dresses, and the faux panel is another element I loved while looking at dresses on line (spaghetti straps can be added). And there are 60 color options for the embroidery! There's no way I wouldn't be able to find my shade of green with that many options!!!! Alas though, I have a dress (even if it did cost under $300), and it's already with the seamstress, and if I wanted to try New Dress on, the closest retailer is in London...not a trip I can afford to make even if I didn't already have a dress. I fear I'm being kind of bridezilla-uber-perfectionist here...but am I going to regret this forever, or will my rational brain eventually come to terms with the fact that New Dress, while very close to perfect, is just as "flawed" (for lack of a better term) as Current Dress? Will New Dress eventually fade into the background as I go for real fittings and make Current Dress closer to Dream Dress?

Like Having a Baby

I wrote to Erica and Jocelyn the other night about when we need to meet to start working out details because Ellie and I were putting together a calendar/timeline of each things that needs to be accomplished and trying to pin-point when we need to have them done.

from IconArchive

It's all of a sudden 9 months away and all the prep we've done in the last year doesn't seem like enough even though I know we're way ahead of couples getting married at the same time! That list we put together was more than a page long, and didn't even detail out the specifics of each DIY project we have. Yes, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by the idea that this is really happening. I think MY best course of action is to put the calendar pages from our planning binder into sheet protectors and hang them up somewhere I'll look at them all the time. Some of you may be surprised (Ellie won't be) that I'm not exactly the best at sticking with ToDo lists because I'm a terrible procrastinator. Erica put it pretty well in an email: I'm in the mid-planning lull. and when I'm in a lull, it's really easy to sink into inaction and then have to scramble at the last minute.


I need some accountability; more than just crossing items off a list. any ideas?