14 Days: Consumed Bride

Wow, today went by so fast! I hardly slept a wink last night, so I was really dragging today. Still, I managed to get a ton of stuff done, including:

Picking up raffia fans (thanks, Reynalin!)
My second dress fitting
Picking up reception flip flops (thanks, Sher!)
Buying the rest of the presents for the bridal party
Finishing my present for my soon-to-be husband

I am consumed with things to do. Everything else waits to be done: dishes, laundry, grocery shopping. Roy has agreed to pick up the slack on those things since I'm the one primarily dealing with the wedding.

And now for pictures from my work shower on June 28th!


I'm getting gas just looking at the food.



My standard pose.



Boring and predictable me.



Me and the other queen of random.



The guests of honor.



Myra and I at DSW.

15 Days: Busy Bride

I missed blogging yesterday because I decided to be Drunk Bride after work. I definitely don't regret it - I had a great time with some friends of mine. Well worth the small headache I had this morning. It was nice checking out of Wedding Land for awhile and just being a regular person again.

This upcoming weekend promises to be very busy. I only have two weekends left to get this thing done before the big day. Two weeks from now, it will be the eve of my wedding. I have no idea how I will be feeling. Hopefully calm and relaxed.

I am getting new glasses for the wedding. I want some non-obstrusive frames as well as glare-resistant lenses. I picked out my new frames today:



It's not the greatest or most flattering picture of me, but I took it myself with my cell phone camera. I was hoping that this would be the time that I would graduate to women's frames, but no such luck. I had to buy kid's frames yet again. Oh well, at least they're Garfield frames. :)

So much to say! I had my hair trial, which turned out well. She tried my hair both up and then half up/half down. I'm going to go for a half up/half down style but not necessarily the same way she styled it. Here are some highlights:







You'll have to excuse my friend Barnaby (the pimple); he decided to come visit for a few days at just the right time. I told him he has to stay away until after the wedding.

Good night!

17 Days: Bipolar Bride

I still need some good mood stabilizers! It's been quite a few years since I've been this emotional. I go from feeling happy to hopeless within a few minutes sometimes. I feel very alienated and estranged from the old me. I wish that I could just relax and enjoy what I know is this very special time. Unfortunately, there is too much to do and not enough hours in the day. I'm still not sleeping well and am still feeling like a zombie for much of the day. I guess I'm getting tired of making all the decisions. It's funny how everyone looks to the bride for the decision-making, and I am tired of having that responsibility.

I know, I know. Cry me a river, right? I think I would be much more positive if I were sleeping better. It's amazing what a good night's sleep will do for one's attitude. Tomorrow I fully intend on at least acting happier and looking fresh. It's my work shower, and we're having a taco bar, along with ice cream, cookies, etc. Roy is even coming to meet the whole department. I'm excited. The pre-wedding parties make it all worthwhile. I mean, they make me remember what this is all about. It's so easy to get bogged down in the details. I do think that details are important, especially with an event like a wedding. A wedding should reflect the couple and their values, not be some cookie-cutter mold. I have obsessively tried to make this wedding reflect us, and I get frustrated when others don't cooperate. I shouldn't stress out over things I can't control, but right now, I still do have a measure of control. Once the wedding day gets here, it's out of my hands.

Speaking of that, I feel both extremely ready for the day to be here and at the same time I feel like I need more time. It is a strange, ambivalent road I'm on.

18 Days: Nazi Bride

Forgive me, but like any good bride to be, I'm gonna rant a bit. I've always been a person who's prompt with responses, so it's hard for me to grasp how people can just blatantly ignore an RSVP due date. Our due date was almost two weeks ago, and we still have people who have not RSVPed. I know that people have lives, but I have a final headcount due date as well!

Here's another thing that annoys me: people who say "Yeah, I'm gonna come to your wedding" and then once it's time for a confirmed answer, they say they can't come. I understand people not being able to make it, but why'd they say they were going to be there? Why so casual about it? Why not just be honest and say, "I'll try to make it"?

So here are today's wedding related accomplishments so far:

Ordered the rest of the fans for the ceremony.
Made a list of duties for each member of the bridal party (I know that makes me sound like a Nazi - see today's blog title).
Wrote a huge chunk of my vendor review of my florists - so much has been going on with them that I decided to start it before the wedding in order to keep track of all the details (again, see today's blog title).
Worked on Roy's wedding present (a project in the making for quite a long while).
Went to second hair trial (will post pics once I get them).

Oh, I also washed most of the dishes that had been collecting in the sink for about a week. I so used to be cleaner until I got bride brain. This morning I managed to leave the house without either my veil or my camera.

Anyway, today's post - yep, it's rather boring. Oh well. I think I might become more of an interesting person once I'm done planning this wedding.

19 Days: Tired Bride

Wow, what a day. I basically went to work, did a little shopping, and came home, but all that took so much energy. I feel completely drained. It's not even 9 PM yet, and I'm completely ready for bed. I think I'm going to head off soon, because the earlier I get to work tomorrow, the better. Tomorrow I'm going to have my second hair trial since the first one fell, and I have to leave work early to do it. Here are some pics from my first trial (I had my makeup done too):







I look like a bride, yes? After all these months, I finally felt like a bride when I had my hair and makeup done. It's unfortunate that we associate being a bride with being a vision of beauty. I mean, brides are so much more than objects of beauty. They are amazing women going through an amazing transformation. They are mythical creatures walking the path of the archetypal maiden. They are strong women in the midst of creating a union that will last them for the rest of their lives.

That's just my theory anyway. I'm too tired to back it up with any hard evidence though, so take it or leave it.

20 Days: Insomniac Bride

So my plan is to blog every day from now until the wedding. I'd like to blog on the morning of the wedding too, but I won't really have access to a computer, I don't think.

This morning I woke up extremely early thinking about flowers. I'm one of those people whose stress shows up in the form of insomnia. I think it's been about a month now that I've been worried and concerned about flowers - actually, I've been worried about my florists' ability to produce what I want. Take, for instance, the bouquet that is the inspiration for mine:



Basically I just want the wildflower look, so we changed around some of the flowers in the above bouquet in favor of flowers in our color scheme or flowers that will last longer. The florists made me a sample bouquet. They did tell me that it wouldn't be exactly like I wanted, but still I wasn't prepared for what I did receive, which I almost immediately dubbed "the offending bouquet":





If I wasn't already stressed out enough due to our communication issues, the offending bouquet made me close to being frantic. So I told my coordinator about it, and she said she would handle it. Almost immediately, the whole issue left my mind.

Until yesterday. Roy and I, our coordinator, and the florists all met at our venue to talk decorations. We got it all figured out, and when we were leaving, we mentioned our plans (made ahead of time, mind you) to go to a flower wholesaler so we could all get a visual of what I want and expect. One of the florists had no clue about the trip to the wholesaler. I had no idea why she didn't know because my coordinator is the one who set the whole thing up. I spoke with my coordinator, and we figured out that she had told one of them about the trip, but that the information was not passed on to the other one. Talk about communication issues!

Once we reached the flower wholesaler, I told my florists that I needed another sample bouquet, and they were visibly annoyed with me. I thought telling them this had been handled already, thereby saving me from confrontation, which I hate with a passion even though I know it's necessary sometimes. I actually felt bad for being "high maintenance," but the fact of the matter is, the offending bouquet is called that for a reason. In situations like these, my stupid Catholic guilt and doormat tendencies set in, and I often feel bad or guilty for asking for something that I rightfully deserve. It's definitely a handicap.

So this is where my insomnia came from, this little instance of confrontation with my florists, who were annoyed with me for asking them to do their job, and my feeling bad for it because of my stupid guilt complex. I was able to get back to bed after awhile though. And once again, when I woke up, I had another shock come to me from the world of flowers: an invoice for $710.00 through email from the offending florists, who didn't bother to tell me that the place they buy organza from charges $8.00/yard. They had estimated that I would need 75 yards for the decorations we had decided. That adds up to $606.00 just for fabric. I was shocked at the thought of adding that huge amount to our already huge amount owed to other various vendors, not to mention appalled (but certainly not surprised) at their decision to not communicate the high price of organza to me.

Long story short: If we weren't 3 weeks from the wedding, these ladies, sweet as they are, would be so fired. Their inability to communicate well (or at all) might be funny to me if it didn't affect me.

My coordinator assures me that everything will be fine. She's getting me the organza for $2.50/yard, which saves us a ton of money. And I really can't believe that I devoted an entire blog to flowers, because I know the day after the wedding that the flowers will not matter anymore. Unfortunately, they matter now. Hence, the blabbering blog about day 20.

This just makes me happy.

Nothing like a good game of human Tetris to start out the day.

Some Engagement Photos

Our incredibly talented photograher Crissy took these awesome shots of us. These are just a few of the teasers, but there are more to come later.

3 Weeks

It's been quite awhile since I last blogged, but I've been busy. Of course, it's been primarily wedding stuff that has been keeping me busy. I finally finished my last paper of the quarter, which has left me a lot of time to catch up on the wedding.

As usual, I have mixed feelings about this road I'm traveling. Of course I'm happy to be marrying my best friend in 3 short weeks, but with every bit of happiness I feel, it seems like there is a piece of sadness that accompanies it. I've also reached a point of exhaustion where it doesn't feel like my mind is working correctly. And I've stopped having such an opinion about things and answer quite a few questions with the classic "I don't know." That last bit makes me suspect the worst: I'm turning into my future husband! He's definitely not a bad guy, but I definitely don't want to be him. (Mostly because that means I would be marrying myself.)

So, 3 weeks from now our reception will be winding down (according to timeline). We will be married. It sounds so strange to say that even after over a year of preparation. A huge part of me is so ready for this, but there's this small part inside of me that whispers, "What if you fail?" We have often talked about our fears of marriage, and one thing I am scared of is that we will wake up one day 20 years from now and won't even know each other anymore. It is up to both of us to try to be vigilant and try to make sure that doesn't happen.

If only I knew then what I know now. I would've told anyone that all of my oldest friends (all still in Texas) would be at my wedding. Now none of them are coming. I am starting a new chapter in my life without some huge pieces of my own personal history. I don't know how to feel about that, except that I'm trying to accept it. It's no one's fault. But that doesn't mean that I like it.

I have been the queen of mood swings lately. I just want someone to hand me some Prozac so I can feel a little more in control of my emotions. But at the same time I don't want to ever lose this feeling of being completely alive and completely in touch with what I feel. Despite the stressful experiences with vendors, friends, and family, I am so happy to have gone on this journey. It's a journey that so many women go on, and it carries with it all kinds of implications. One of these is that this is the final step into adulthood. There is no turning back now. It's all kids, work, and maintaining a home from here on out. Or that's the myth we buy into, anyway.

Me - I just want to stay young and just stay myself. I've found someone who will let me do that. I've found someone I want to walk the path with. In 3 weeks, I will attest to this in front of our nearest and dearest. All of my preparation will come down to that one statement of "I do."

Baby Landlord

40 Days

I spoke to a particularly enlightening person today about what it means to get married. With 40 days left to go, the wedding is falling into place like I never thought it would. Things that I could never envision before are now clear in my mind and will become a reality on July 14. I have said over and over throughout this process that it's been hard because of the whole "bride" persona. I have been taken over by that persona and sometimes feel I have lost myself in the process. Dishes lay dirty in the sink for days at a time. The laundry piles up. Emails remain unread and unanswered. I am a very anal and obsessive person, and I have had to let all that go and give in to the chaos that is wedding planning. But it's so much more than that: it's MARRIAGE planning. I keep saying that I want my life back, but I keep forgetting that my life probably won't ever be the same again. In 40 days it won't just be my life. It'll be OUR life. Sometimes that scares me. Sometimes I'm elated. But always I am awestruck at the strange way that life can surprise me and how I have changed in ways I never would have foreseen.

This is the first picture Roy and I ever took together, at the end of April 2005. We were at a party, and everything was shiny and new. A little over two years later, the shiny part has mostly worn off and left behind a deep, deep love in its place. I have no idea what I was thinking in this picture, but I look happy. This is something that I want to hold onto forever, for better or for worse.

A good way to start the weekend