I buy most of my clothes twice a year at the Barney's Warehouse Sale. I shop sales and consignment shops. I'm all about Century 21 and Loehmann's. I love a good deal.
This is all to say that while I may love my Louboutins, my awesome new Manolos or any number of designer things in my closet, ain't no way I'm paying full price for anything. Ever. Not even in the same universe as full-price.
Except, well. I really need a bag to carry over my wedding weekend. And I've looked at sales, and Off-5th, and at my favorite rich lady consignment shops on the upper east side. But I haven't found one that works. So I'm thinking, for the first time in my life, of buying something that I find to be insanely priced. But look at it, it's glorious (not sure yet what color I prefer so I'll show you both that I'm considering):
And...it's like $1200. I get sick thinking of blowing that kind of money on a bag. It's so not me! But Balenciaga has had a hold on me for awhile. It's the only bag I ever notice anyone carrying and the only bag I've coveted. So do I just bite the bullet and get it? In the grand vision of the wedding, $1200 seems but a blip. But in real life, $1200 is a weekend getaway to Vegas or the Caribbean, something I appreciate much more than objects.
Urg! Do I give in to wedding insanity and just do it?
I've noticed I write about problems I'm having and then never mention if they've gotten resolved. Here's a synopsis:
We got a rabbi! He's more of less the official rabbi of the Bahamas, he's based in Miami and willing to come to Turks&Caicos to marry us. It's a done deal, ticket booked and everything.
My brother found a suit. We did a trip to Woodbury Commons outlets and he got an Armani linen suit. It's off-white and kind of gangsta. Now he's blowing up my phone about what kind of shoes and shirt he needs. Not on my to-do list, dude.
Weight. I did 5 hours with a personal trainer over the last few weeks and have lost about 5 pounds. I haven't hit my goal of 10 but it's more than the 3 I needed to lose.
I had questions, you had answers. Our moms will have corsages, I still have no idea how many centerpieces we'll need (but it's ok, my wedding planner is on it and they are being ordered today/tomorrow), I'm acknowledging gifts if I see the person, not calling or emailing otherwise, I'm not using a runner (unless I change my mind by tomorrow and rush out to get one somewhere in NYC) and my heel in boardwalk problem is being solved by the amazing Solemates product.
We still don't have a first dance song! On our way back from Turks&Caicos a few weeks ago, my ipod froze for the first time in its existence. It froze on the song "First Day of My Life" by Bright Eyes. When it unfroze and I listened to the song, I was sure it was a sign. The song is PERFECT. And IC actually approved, which is crazy because "Bright Eyes" is the band name he uses to laugh at mopey British singers on my ipod (yes, I know Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes isn't British, IC does not), like "who is this, Bright Eyes?". Anyway, we both agreed, this song is perfect. And then we tried dancing to it. Seriously, the word disaster doesn't really begin to cover it. People will be looking away in horror. You can't even sway to this song really, the beat is just impossible. My friend's sister is still working on covering that reggae song for us and what we've heard so far is beautiful, but we don't have the completed version yet and so are still looking for another song. I may have to give in to IC's Leonard Cohen song. Maybe.
I chose the diamond, shared prong wedding band. It's gorgeous. I keep taking it out of the box and trying it on and just loving it. I can't wait till it's on my finger permanently. And the veil, as mentioned two posts ago, is being made for me by my new seamstress.
The cake was ordered during our trip to Provo a few weeks ago. The cake-maker assures me she won't need 6 months to bake it.
On music, we're still following my philosophy of choosing all the songs. We put together playlists of every single song we want played at every wedding related event. For the actual reception, we will have a dj but he will be instructed to play only the songs on the list. Still no Madonna but I let in one Britney song for my cutie future sister-in-law.
The Lay It On Thick moisturizer does such a good job with my super-dry skin, the Heel of Approval foot treatment leaves my feet super soft and the Watch Your Mouth lip balm has spf in it and is so unsticky IC will actually kiss me when I'm wearing it (not so for nearly every other lip product, it's no coincidence I don't wear lipstick, or even my beloved lip gloss, anymore).
One of these products will be included in each gift bag for our guests. They are all perfect for people spending a few days at the beach.
Right away I knew things were bad. It was a small tell, really. I looked in my mom's car window and could see my dress. "Uhhhhhhh, why the hell is my dress visible through the bag? What happened to the opaque bag I gave you?"
"I guess the seamstress switched bags. What's the big deal?" asked my, bless her, totally immigrant mother who knows zero about wedding traditions.
"The big deal is that IC is not supposed to see my dress and as we live together and are traveling to Turks together on Thursday, that's going to be a problem with a see-through bag." I'd like to say I didn't use the "f" word somewhere in there. I really, really would.
What's funny is that I was already pissed off. And nothing all that bad had happened yet. It was like my body was preparing me for what was to come. Like, what kind of professional wedding dress seamstress doesn't know the whole "don't return my dress to me in a clear bag" rule? I knew, without really knowing.
We got upstairs and took the dress out of the bag.
I had asked that the shrug attached to the dress be made detachable so I could wear it under the chuppah but remove it for the reception.
It wasn't.
I had asked for cups to be sewn into the dress.
There were no cups.
I had asked for a bustle.
There was some random, ugly hook attached to my otherwise beautiful row of buttons on the back of my dress.
In short, if I had altered my own dress, having never sewn, knitted or otherwise constructed or altered a piece of clothing in my life, I might have come up with this type of bustle.
The lining had a very visible tear in it.
And there were FUCKING SAFETY PINS holding my dress onto the hanger.
That's about when I lost it. I don't feel like I had ever *burst* into tears before but seeing the total disaster of a dress that had been returned to me after alterations, I was left with no other choice. So burst I did.
At that point, IC rang the doorbell. I tried to wipe my tears because yo, I'm not crying over a dress but as soon as I saw him I just started crying harder. "The dress...is all fucked up."
"Hey. Heyyyyy. Baby. Baaaaaaby. It's ok, tell me what's wrong."
"The shrug, still attached, the lining is ripped, there are saaaaaaafetyyyyyyy piiiiiiiiiins in my dress."
"Baby, it's ok, it's ok. We're still getting married, right?"
And then I burst into a smile. I was bursting a lot.
Then IC took control of the situation. We found the list Kleinfeld's had given me when I bought the dress, of people they recommend to do alterations. Why didn't I use the list in the first place? Well, because my otherwise awesome mom had assured me that she had a lady in Brooklyn who was the most amazing seamstress of all time and she did wedding dresses all the time and I should totally take my dress to her. So I did. And if the woman has ever handled a wedding dress before in her life then I feel bad for all those brides. Because she sucks. Not just sucks a little. I could forgive fucking up the bustle, despite the fact that the horrendous fashion in which she fucked it up is unforgivable. But she clearly cared not at all about any of my other requests and I consider it a small miracle that she got the length right at all.
I was going to call her and bitch her out but honestly, I wouldn't want to be the seamstress when my mom goes to see her tomorrow. My mom may be small and cute and sweet but MAN, stay out of her way when she's been wronged.
IC called a seamstress on the list and made an appointment for me for two hours later.
In the car with my mom on the way to the Seamstress Savior, she could not stop raving about IC. "What a man! The way he takes care of you, looks at you, talks to you. It's just amazing. I've never seen such love." And while she was saying that IC texted me something absurdly sweet and I almost started crying again.
The new seamstress seemed entirely capable, showed me a few different types of bustles and recommended one (as opposed to the other seamstress who just assured me she would make one which was fine with me as I assumed that meant she knew what she was doing. Not so much.) and assured me she'd have the dress back to me by Tuesday, maybe even Monday. It's cutting it close but as the alternative is the dress as it currently is, I'll take it. Oh, and bonus, she makes veils, so I'm not going to have to mad scramble to find one this weekend.
The theme of a lot of my posts have been "a lot has gone wrong but it looks like things are going to be alright." My friend Dawn refers to this as "everything always works out for Karol." The fact is, it's not that things magically work out, just that I choose to focus on the positive and disregard the negative. The positive is that the love of my life, the guy with whom I laugh my head off and share food and argue about gun control and drink wine and read the same books and play one-on-one poker, who is sleeping next to me on our couch as I type this and looks so cute I want to leave bite marks in his cheek, is also the guy who takes care of me and has the right words when I'm upset and can make me feel good with just a look. If I get all that at the end of the day, how much can I really care about pin marks in my dress? So yeah, things may well work out if we're on a plane to Turks&Caicos on Thursday and then we're married on Monday. Things just might be ok.
I posted some questions a few posts below and got some excellent, thoughtful answers from my amazing commenters. One question regarded my fear of getting a heel stuck in the boardwalk which is serving as my "aisle." An anonymous commenter suggested I look into SoleMates, a little plastic piece you put over your heel so it doesn't sink into grass or, in my case, cracks in a boardwalk. GENIUS.
My mom, IC's mom and IC's sister will each be attaching one to their heels to insure they don't stumble on the boardwalk either.
I'm so excited that a product like this exists. I had a total "America! What a country!" moment when I saw that comment.
Solemates has a really useful website which tells you all the places you can buy their incredible invention, or order online. $11.95 to avoid falling down in your wedding dress, or sinking your Louboutins into wet grass? PRICELESS.
Two months ago: Me: You need to get a light colored suit. My brother (picture a thick Brooklyn accent): Don't worry 'bout it.
One month ago: Me: What's up with the suit? Him: Why you worrying? Stop worrrrrrying. I said I'm on it. You can take it off your list of things to think about.
Two weeks ago: Me: DUDE. GET. A. SUIT. Him: Ok, ok, ok, I'm going to spend a whole day looking this weekend.
A week ago: Me: I'm going to kill you. Him: It's not my fault! I got sick and I couldn't look and I really need you to help me, waaaaaaaaah. Me: I took it off my list of things to think about!!!
This is another product that I'm including it in the gift bags for our guests because I love it so much. It's Priori's Daily Defense spf 30.
As it's a beach wedding, I really wanted to include a sunblock in the bags and this one is just perfect.I have super sensitive skin but I love to be out in the sun. Priori's Daily Defense 30 is a really terrific face sunscreen. It goes on super light, has a really nice consistency, and it provides sun protection with no pore clogging. It's apparently good for all skin types which made it a great product to include in our bags.
1. In the Jewish tradition, IC will be walked down the aisle by both of his parents and then I'll be walked down by both of mine. In that case, do our moms hold a bouquet?
2. How many centerpieces do I need for about 66 people? I asked two flower shops and the answers ranged wildly.
3. We've started receiving gifts. We'll be sending thank you cards after the wedding but do I acknowledge the gifts with a call or email now?
The next couple of questions require visual aids:
This is the path I'll be walking down to get married:
At the end of the path is this boardwalk:
4. Should I get a runner? I'm worried about the bottom of my dress getting destroyed as the path is right by the beach and has no choice but to get dirty. Does it take away from the setting to have a runner?
5. Will my heels get stuck in the boardwalk? Should I not be wearing heels?
Like many women, I've used wedding planning as an excuse to get the cutest clothes, the hottest shoes and the best beauty products around. What? It's myyyyyyyyyyy dayyyyyyyyyyyy. (I don't really say that, in fact it would just be too much pressure to have it be my day. I like to share the responsibility, worry, concern, expectation, and happiness with my man). I'm going to be doing a Product of the Day feature to note all the awesome creams, sprays, serums and gels that I have loved during this time.
The first item that I have to recommend is actually something I'll be using during our wedding weekend, as opposed to before. It's Ocean Potion's Color Safe UV Hair Mist. I was at the beach with a friend a few years ago and she sprayed this in her hair. After the beach, we went to eat. My hair looked fried and my scalp was red. Hers? PERFECT. I love this product so much we're including it in the gift bags for all of our guests.
It's really inexpensive for what it is. You can buy it here.
Hey, remember when we had a rabbi ready and willing to fly down to Turks&Caicos and marry us? Now, not so much with the having.
Our rabbi has an illness in the family which is making it very hard to get away for two nights. He assures us that if we can't find another rabbi he'll make the trip but that it's very, very difficult for him.
So the search is yet again on for a rabbi. And we're leaving two weeks from today. Awesome, no?
Know of a rabbi in NY (or Miami as there are direct flights from there) willing to fly to Providenciales, Turks&Caicos (PLS) April 5-7? Send me their name, phone or email, and have my eternal gratitude.
IC and I were friends, best friends, for many years before we decided "oh yeah, I love you, let's get married!" Yeah, one of those.
A lot of moments from our platonic past now take on new meaning. Take the first time we met, almost 12 years ago now. Both of us remember it pretty clearly. It was at a bar in the East Village called Opaline. My friend Frank had brought his college friend IC out with our little Brooklyn group. IC was pretty shy but he and I took to each other right away and by the end of the night he had his arm casually draped around me. We both remember one of our first conversations:
Me: So, what kind of music do you listen to? Him (with a look that implied he was unaware there was any other kind of music): Hip-hop.
I hated hip-hop at the time. Not *hated* actually, more like revolted against. I grew up in Brooklyn, hip-hop was everywhere. I didn't listen to hip-hop but still knew more about it than most people who lived outside of Brooklyn and were casual listeners of it. There was no other option. Hot 97 was the only station anyone ever listened to. On long road trips with friends, I'd negotiate for a different station, or for time for my alternative cds. I never won those battles.
I would fall completely in love with hip-hop years later, while everyone around me was listening to indie rock. Maybe I just like to rebel.
Anyway, back to IC and me. We have lots of songs that we associate with our relationship. Some good ("Homecoming" by Kanye, "Lovestoned" by Justin) some embarrassingly bad ("Do you" by Ne-Yo, "Make me better" by Fabolous), none that would work for our first dance.
One morning, early in our relationship, IC texted me "I don't wanna let you go, with you I'm in no hurry", a line from a Buju Banton song and since then we've considered "Love sponge" to be "our" song. Ever seen two white people (Jews, no less!) get down to a reggae song as their first dance? Neither have we, and we don't want to subject our friends and family to us being the first.
But I love the lyrics to the song. "Slow motion is the way for us to enjoy the day...", "never know you woulda really feel so nice" and, of course, the one IC sent me that day. So I did what any crazy person would do, put an ad on Craigslist for someone to rerecord the song for us. I offered $100 because IC refused to budget anything more for this ("we can just pick a different song!"). And I got zero responses. What recession?
I have musician friends but the one I'm closest to, my awesome, creative friend Jessica, is already playing the violin for us as we walk down the aisle and I didn't feel right asking any more musical favors.
I then got some recommendations from a musician friend of mine and it looks like his sister will record the song for us. She's got a great voice and is very talented.
But the song will only be ready about 4 days before we leave for the wedding. IC is the type that needs a back-up song, just in case ours doesn't work out.
If there was one thing I never, ever thought we'd bicker about in terms of the wedding, I was sure it would be the music. The guy who only likes hip-hop and only has about 10 cds surely isn't going to put his foot down in terms of songs, right? WRONG.
It seems I have expanded IC's musical world. He can now identify many non-hip-hop songs and artists, though he still occasionally confuses Nick Cave with Leonard Cohen and can never seem to call Tom Petty despite having randomly attended his concert many years ago ("I went for the tailgating"). A few months ago, I sent him a link to a Leonard Cohen video. I obsessively love Leonard Cohen. I have, more than once in my life, got the comment "enough with the Leonard Cohen already." IC fell passionately in love with the song. I said that I love it too and we put it on the list to be played as our last song.
But now IC wants it as our first song. And I just don't. I love the song, love the man, just envisioned something a little different for our first dance. Something more like this:
"Too edgy," says IC who, strangely, actually likes Magnetic Fields (he has a real appreciation, as I do, for the songs Underwear and Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side). "I don't want our first dance to be edgy." I've taken to singing it around the house "but IIIIIIIIIII, I love it when you read to me and youuuuuuuuuuuu, you can read me anything." It's not working. "Why can't you just let me have this?" says the guy who never pressures me to do anything. "Because I don't want toooooooooooooo" says the girl who could care less about flowers and colors and ribbons on the backs of chairs but has over 1,000 cds and cares deeply, deeply about music. I had other suggestions, "Ship Song" and "Into My Arms" by Nick Cave. "I don't really like those, what about that duet song he does?" IC said. "'Where the wild roses grow' with Kylie Minogue?" "Yeah." "He kills the girl in that song." "Oh."
So I don't know. Do I just give in to this? Again, I love the song he wants, I do. I just wanted something different. I would give in on almost anything else. Is this compromise in relationships that people keep telling me about?
I'm feeling much, much better and am sleeping like a baby. Spending two nights in phenomenal Provo, at our wedding hotel, on a beautiful, secluded beach, with the love of my life, really did the trick:
Being on the island also helped for our peace of mind. Our hotel is gorgeous and ready for our party, cake has been ordered, flowers are close, dj is in the works. We're probably getting a wedding planner to coordinate day-of-wedding activities. Apparently IC doesn't want me directing vendors in my gown. And because he's been using the term "micro-managing" to describe me which is funny because I've never micro-managed anything in my life. I've macro-managed. At best.
I took this one from the airplane on our way home. I remain mesmerized by the beauty of Turks&Caicos and can't wait to return (in under 3 weeks!):
I'm on to veils and wedding bands, the kind you wear, not the kind that play music.
Both are proving to be somewhat difficult.
I purchased my dress at a Kleinfeld's sample sale and, while they did have veils on sale that day, I was too distracted by my big purchase, and the fact that I had to get back to work pronto, to care. This was a mistake. I should have tried on some veils while I had my dress on. I don't know how long the veil should be, what color, with beading or without. I do know that I need a blusher to wear under the chuppah. And yes, anyone that knows me knows it's amazing that I'm familiar with the word "blusher."
I took a stroll around NY's garment district today and ended up walking to Pronovias, a bridal salon that I love, to look at veils. But it's really not possible to pick a veil when you're wearing jeans and sneakers.
So what do I do? Do I put my gown on and go veil shopping? Or is this just one of those "don't overthink it" kind of things?
The wedding band is much harder because there is no choice but to overthink. This is the ring I'll wear for the rest of my life. Someday I will have to, I'm told, take off my engagement ring and wear this ring alone. It has to both not take away from my engagement ring and be able to be worn on its own.
I love, love, love, ok one more, love, my engagement ring. LOVE. It's a beautiful cushion-cut diamond on a classic 4-prong platinum band. I'd post a picture but IC will yell at me and call me tacky. But c'mon, how are you guys going to help me if I don't post the pic? I have to, right? You'll all back me up on this when he wakes up in 3 hours and reads this, yeah?
The photo does no justice to the shiny beauty I get to wear on my finger every day. So what do I get to complement it?
My options seem to have narrowed to two (but feel free to chime in with other ideas). One, a bar setting ring (imagine the diamonds going all the way around the band, though):
Before you dismiss it out of hand, as I would have done before trying it on, recognize that the diamonds in my eventual ring will be smaller than the ones shown. Much smaller, I say. Not much, says IC. (Sidenote: I can't imagine too many men try to talk their chick into getting the bigger diamonds and have their girl refuse. I can't tell if that means IC is the awesomest or I am. I vote me.) Also, the platinum bars look really good with the platinum in my engagement ring. The problem is, I'm not sure that I love this ring on its own. With my engagement ring, very good. Without, less good.
This is the other option, the shared prong option:
More diamond, less platinum, and seemingly the obvious choice. But it looks a bit much with my engagement ring. It does look better on its own than the bar option, though.
After writing all this I realize that I'd love to have some more options for wedding bands so I welcome your suggestions. Veil suggestions also very appreciated. Come on smart people who read this blog, share what you know in the comment section.
Up late the other night I watched a few episodes of "Bridezilla" on the WE channel (don't judge me). No, I don't feel I have any bridezilla qualities, those girls are nuts. But I noticed that in two different episodes the girls talked about a weight loss product called NV and the camera panned on the bottle while the girl spoke very positively about NV. Is WE doing this kind of product placement? That's kind of uncool if they are, no?
I used to be a real night owl. I'd stay up till morning, watch the sun come up. Sometimes I was out, sometimes I was playing poker and sometimes I was just sitting on my couch with my laptop.
But that all changed with IC. He goes to sleep on the early side and I found that I liked going to sleep then too. 12:30 lights out with my man? I'm in.
But now I can't seem to get to sleep. I can't turn off my brain. I'm exhausted yet wide awake. I work out and drink wine with dinner, normally a potent combination which leads immediately to bed, and nothing is helping me sleep.
I refuse to call it stress. Stress is for people with real problems, people living in war-torn countries, people who worry about their next meal, not for people who decide 4 weeks out from their wedding that, actually, maybe choosing a reggae song for our first dance was not our finest idea. And, eh, maybe we should just let the dj wing it after all (no, that won't actually happen, but putting the music list together is hard). And, oh, hey, go spend 30 minutes picking out a ring that you'll wear for the rest of your life. And my trainer is kicking my ass, and our moms haven't chosen their dresses, and my brother still needs a suit, and IC isn't 100% on his suit, and we haven't booked a florist or a cake-maker yet and apparently that's plain crazy, and our venue hotel is only fully opening this weekend, and I haven't gotten my dress altered yet, or figured out our rehearsal dinner, and I don't have a veil. Oh and the rabbi is flaking out. And we still need to order a ketubah. And I hope they spelled our names right on the yarmulkes.
I try to focus. I'm marrying my best friend, in a heartstoppingly (again, I'm an immigrant who makes up words) beautiful setting, surrounded by family and the closest of friends. We want this. The thought of spending our lives together makes us giddy.
The rational side of me is like "go to sleep, crazy, the bakers in Turks&Caicos aren't going to answer your question at 2:56am." I realize I accomplish nothing with these late nights except killing part of my morning tomorrow. But the buzz in my head won't quiet. I guess that's what the honeymoon is for. And if we knew where we were honeymooning, I'm sure I'd find solace in looking forward to it. :-)
When asked, I say I don't know what got into me. But I kind of do know, it was the bridal blogosphere's fault.
What I mean is, when it came time to decide on invitations I came up with a fairly elaborate idea which required many different pieces AND, and here's the big AND, AND I decided to make them myself (mostly. As you'll see, I had a lot of help. But I mean "make them myself", as opposed to paying someone to make them and deliver them ready-made to my home). Which, was completely insane. I'm pretty sure the last thing I made was circa third grade and involved glued macaroni.
And why? Because as I do with each new hobby or interest (so far: poker, cooking, home design, restaurants, and now wedding) I've become completely immersed in it and read all the blogs associated with said hobby/interest. The wedding blogs, well, they're all freaking adorable. Seriously, click through my blogroll, you will find multiple virtual cheeks to pinch. Cute as pie girls with ultra creative ideas on typeface, on paper, on color, on details, put it all out there for the world to see. I loved every second of it. So when the invitation momentum striked (stroke? What? I'm an immigrant.) I went with it. This is what I came up with:
We found this awesome calligrapher named Jane Dukes. I liked her handwriting a lot and she was super flexible as we arranged everything on the fly (we need 50 invites, um, now that we've actually counted, more like 100). I highly recommend Jane. Visit her website. This is the invite with personal details blanked out:
Jane wrote our invites on something like parchment paper, which we purchased at Kate's Paperie in NYC.
We rolled up the invites and tied them with twine. I bought the twine on ebay because I live in NYC and having never ever had a use for twine before had no idea where else to get it. Seriously, twine.
Then, we put the rolled up invitation in a bottle partially filled with sand and shells, all of which we purchased at this website. The prices were good, the delivery was fast and the only problem was that we had also ordered the boxes for the bottles from the site. The boxes were the perfect size, but for the bottles and the bottles only. We realized too late, um, we need a reply card.
So you'd think, because I've made a complicated invitation I'd keep the reply card simple. Clearly you have not been paying attention when I tell you I lost my damn mind. I found a template for a boarding pass online and my fabulous friend Cora from Cora Designs fixed it up for me.
THEN, I dragged IC to Paper Presentations twice to buy the card stock for the boarding passes, the board pass envelopes, the perforator (spell check still doesn't know but this is something that makes like a dotted line so you can easily rip off part of the paper. I perforated! Me! Actually, I now own not one but two perforators. Don't ask.).
The idea was that people would rip off the right side of the boarding pass and mail it back in a tiny little envelope. Until we found out that the US postal service has rules for how small an envelope can be. We found one that would work and finally, finally we were good to go.
We got the boxes here, like a million percent cheaper than Mailbox Etc. or even the post office. They were lifesavers. I was close to giving up on the whole project when we had such a hard time finding boxes that would work.
We don't have wedding colors, really, but when I have to make a color decision (twine, box filler, yarmulkes, etc.), I've been choosing variations on blue.
My most inspired little detail, and the one I think will probably be mostly overlooked because of all the other cool components of the invite are the Turks&Caicos stamps I bought on ebay and used to decorate the boxes.
Oh, and you can see an address label peeking out in the last pic (I do believe it's Ms.Etypical's, actually). That was another "oh yeah, we need labels for the boxes and oh yeah, we need labels for the return envelopes, they're starting to refer to us by name at the paper store." We used a font that I'm obsessed with called Write Like Jesse which I found on DaFont (a really cool website I discovered by reading the aforementioned adorable bridal blogs). The typewriter font on the boarding passes is also from DaFont, called Rough Typewriter.
Now that it's over I can say it was totally worth it. We got a great reaction from our guests and I loved making our invites unique and different. I don't know how many opportunities I'll get to have such a direct effect on various wedding elements ("So, is it crazy that I'm thinking of buying the flowers and making my own bouquet."-Me "Yes, and let's never speak of this again."-IC) and it was nice to have done this.
Ok, ok, I updated our registry after complaining about the process, mostly because my friend Lisa came over the other night and the sweetest, 7-month pregnant girl in the whole world told me that our registry was WEAK. And that's a quote.
So we really spent some time thinking about it and we've added a bunch of stuff to the Amazon one (I think we've full abandoned the Bloomingdale's one Update, we've streamlined it but left things on it that we like) that we really like and would love to have.
As a total, irrelevant sidenote: I have a thing for pears. I love the word "pear" in Russian: groosha. And here I am eating the world's smallest pear in Vegas (pre-engagement as you can see by my naked finger):
"What should my man wear?" I've gotten this question from many of our invited women guests. Apparently, they've got themselves sorted but the men don't know what to wear. We didn't specify attire on our invitations but when asked we take a cue from our friends BB and Misha and describe the suggested attire as "resort chic" as they did for their own destination wedding.
I'm no fashionista but wedding insanity has made me a pro in online shopping so I can offer some suggestions below.
I think the best look for men for a beach wedding is linen. Actually, my love of the linen-wearing man is welldocumented.
IC will be wearing a linen suit and while we don't suggest the invited guests wear suits, though they obviously can if they wish, linen is something comfortable and good-looking to wear in the heat. I know at least one of my readers/guests, the wonderful Jake, hates linen, so to him, and others like him, I say wear whatever means "resort chic" to you. I know you'll look fabulous. This is a pretty funny anti-linen pictorial. But c'mon, ladies, are you with me here? Does linen not just look very, very sexy on men?
The Knot's Spring/Summer 2009 magazine, which I also got in the gift bag mentioned in the last post, has an editorial note called "Reality Check". In it, the Editor in Chief lists things that are "unreal" such as "Having your wedding on the same day as your best friend" (ala the movie Bride Wars), "Budgets with six zeroes, like those on Platinum Weddings", "Kicking your bridesmaid out of the wedding the day before" and "Ordering the cake a couple of weeks before the wedding."
My best friend isn't engaged, my budget doesn't have six zeroes, I don't have bridesmaids but it's a couple of weeks away from our wedding and no wedding cake has yet been ordered.
Carley, the editor, goes on to say "As if! The truth is you should allow six to nine months."
I'm not gonna front, I love wedding magazines. Seriously, I had no idea how much I didn't know. I learn more each week, usually while getting my toes painted (awesome as the magazines are, I'm an all-internet kind of girl). And it's not all fluff, as everyone who is not getting married assumes it is (ok, ok, as I assumed). There's a ton of useful information about negotiating with vendors, getting a dress on sale, and general tips and tricks about weddings that I would have never came up with on my own. And Theknot.com really has been invaluable.
But stuff like this makes me a little crazy. Six to nine months for a cake?! I've baked, I know how long cakes take. No cake takes a month, much less six. How long should the engagement be if the cake takes six to nine months? Six to nine years?
The idea that all things wedding-related need to be planned so far in advance to be right only adds to the stress of wedding planning. It gives brides too much time to fret over all the meaningless details. There are so many big details to fret over (wait, did our rabbi just suggest we have the ceremony in NY? 'Cause...that's not happening) that the idea that I have to spend nine months wondering if I've made the right cake choice (and, what? Checking in with my baker each month to see that they're still open for business and planning to bake our cake in like half a year?) just doesn't sit right with me.
We're visiting our wedding venue in the next few weeks. At that time, we'll meet with various bakers, florists and djs to decide exactly what we'd like. It will be about 3 weeks before our wedding day. And I trust that on our wedding day we'll have a cake, despite not having picked it out before we even got engaged. If not, maybe I'll owe The Knot an apology.
Today is 5 weeks from our wedding day. Our wedding weekend is even closer than that --4 weeks, 3 days until we arrive in Provo.
So, of course, today begins the cramming to make my body look better before I hit the beach and have to get into a white, poofy dress (just kidding, it's neither white nor poofy).
I need to lose about 3 pounds, from my regular weight, to have my dress hang on me the way that I'd like. In addition to that, I want to lose 7 more pounds for 10 in total because, well, I'm vain.
My weight/body situation is thus: I lose weight rather easily. When I dropped the 40, or so, pounds it was through my patent pending system of only eating when I was hungry. I know, I know, it's revolutionary. I wasn't living the healthiest lifestyle at the time (seriously, ladies, you want to lose weight fast? Take up poker and play it all the time. There's no time to eat when you're at a table 8-10 hours a day) but even when I cleaned up my act I kept losing weight just by only eating when I was hungry (as opposed to eating because you're bored, because your friend is hungry, because you're killing time, because the leftovers are there and will go bad if you don't eat them, etc.) I ate anything I wanted, cheese fries, chocolate, but only when I was actually hungry. After awhile, my body was craving healthier food and I was the happiest with my body that I had ever been.
I also gain weight rather easily. About a week ago, I went back to my only-eating-when-hungry system. At the start of this last weekend, I was at my target weight (the need target, not the want target). I had lost the 3 pounds I needed to lose and was awfully proud of myself. So IC spent the whole weekend feeding me. We went to West Branch on Saturday and Vero on Sunday. We had multiple pasta dishes. I discovered an awesome simple recipe for home fries (I like to fry up some shallots with the potatoes) and we had those both Saturday and Sunday. And we chomped on the chocolate pretzels he brought me from his business trip to Ohio. And now? Now, the three pounds are back.
But that's ok. That's ok. Because the fitness regimen and the diet starts here. On Saturday, IC and I went to the wedding workshop hosted by Lindsay Landman Events that I mention in the post below. And in the awesome goody bag was the one item I totally, really, truly needed (as opposed to the cookies in the bag which I totally, really, truly didn't need)--a month gym pass to Crunch gym! There are 3 Crunch gyms in my general vicinity and I'm planning to make this a 3-4 times a week effort. The general plan is to take a class each day. Nothing crazy, more like yoga, pilates and, my personal favorite, abs classes. Maybe the pole dancing class that everyone raves about. Maybe. The classes will serve to put me on a schedule. I have to be there by noon today, for example. I will also do as much cardio as I can muster and lift some weights, particularly to try and tone my problem areas--my arms and thighs.
