AH!  How insane is that?!  Exactly sixth months from today we will be married and in two weeks it will be our engagiversary.  It is ridiculous how quickly time passes.

But this 6-month-mark weekend has been pretty productive in the wedding planning world:

• Save the Dates went out.
• Started adding the travel info to the website (disclaimer, not all of it is up yet...)
• Tuxes were chosen, Eric was measured and the deposit has been put down.
• My aunt started work on the mock up dress.
• We emailed a musical group about getting ceremony music.  Either guitar, cello/ guitar combo or flute/ guitar combo.

While those seem like just a few things, they are all pretty big things.  And even though I won't see it until April, I think I am most excited about the dress.  And even in April it will still only be the mock up dress.  I won't get to see the real one until July. I say it again, SUSPENSE!

And.... I think that is really all I had to say.  Just wanted to make a note of the 6 month mark.

I've been slacking off on blogging because I figured for New Years I should have written some clever, reflective post.  But I can't think of anything particularly clever or reflective to talk about.  As always, I have no resolutions - like being clever and reflective, or finding reasons to be thankful at Thanksgiving, I have a hard time coming up with something on the spot. Although two weeks after the fact is hardly "on the spot," but anyway....

So, let's move on to something silly and superficial, shall we?

One of the worst, most annoying things about moving so often in the last few years is the inability to find anyone to cut my hair.  Amend that: the inability to find anyone who will cut my hair correctly and in a style I like.  Now, I am not one of those people that is so attached to their hair they have it cut the same way every time.  I've had my hair all kinds of different ways.  Short, long, bangs, no bangs, blue...

I am rethinking my little send-of waving flags idea a bit.  After describing the idea to my mom (I could have sworn I told her before, but I tell so many of these wedding details to different people over and over), she made a passing comment that had me changing my mind a little bit.  She didn't mean it in a bad way, but the phrase "They'll probably just get trashed" entered the conversation.

Oh. This is true.  They probably won't last long in the hands of children, and adults will find no reason to keep them after the ceremony.  Right.  Why, then, would I use my stash of meticulously purchased, nice, quilt-making quality, and (vaguely) spendy fabric? I wouldn't! 

So, maybe tomorrow I will have to make a trip to Wal-Mart ::tries to control violent shudders of revulsion::  While collecting my dowels I can surely find either some cheap-o fabric or felt to use.  They must have something like that in the crafty section there, right?  I tried to look it up on their website, but didn't find anything except felt Christmas tree skirts and pool tables.

I still have no idea where the nearest Wal-Mart is, and whether or not it's a "Super" one, but they must have something.

Well, I got a little lazy with the blogging over Christmas, and then spent my last few days at work consuming a book.  But I'm back!  And, well, don't really know what to blog about.  Hooray!  The catering is done, the photographer is done, the block of hotels is booked, the dress is in the works but I have no photos to show you....

So!  Music!  What to say about it....

I love music of almost any sort, but have very definite opinions about what I think is good and bad.  Even with strong opinions, I have no idea what kind of music I/ we want to have at the wedding (aside from my horrible admission that I might want The Black Eyed Peas to be involved).  My normal listening tastes are not necessarily wedding appropriate, not necessarily friendly to a variety of ages and most certainly not music to which people can easily dance. 

So then what?  I love (LOVE) classical guitar and generally anything with pianos.  Inspired by this post, we're even considering some of the songs from Amelie for the ceremony (because Amelie is awesome).  Which means we need to find someone who can play it on piano for us.  I delegated this task to Eric in the hopes that he would find one of his musically talented friends who would be willing and able to play these songs, but as far as I know he hasn't tackled this task yet.... If we never find anyone, I did hear a pretty variation on Pachelbel's Canon in D on Pandora that I could dig up and stick on an iPod.

We do know that the reception will be all iPod, because we simply do not want to pay for a band or a DJ.  Who will eventually be running said iPod, I do not know.  So, attempting to do something about music, I spent some of my time during my unemployment making a tentative play list.  Which... I don't have right now... but I can tell you a few things:

-CAKE!  There is nothing better to play than "Love You Madly" by Cake during, of course, the cake cutting bit.

-"Marry Song" by Band of Horses is on there somewhere, and I am considering it as a first dance song if we toss the crazy dance routine idea and stick with a traditional slow dance.

-There will be NO country music.  Yes, I grew up with it.  Yes, everyone in college listened to it.  Yes, many of our guests still like it.  But I HATE it.  There will be none, do you hear me?!?!?!?! There is also, somewhere, a really terrible photo of me from Jamie's wedding where I am saying this exact thing to Eric, with great emphasis, while we are dancing and it looks like I am about to bite off his face.... I tried to find said embarrassing photo, but couldn't find the photographer's website any more. *phew*

-There will also be NO bad 80's music.  I think part of the reason the dancing failed at my cousin's wedding was because they played nothing but the most TERRIBLE music from the 80's.  Like, not even worthy of Steve Buscemi in The Wedding Singer kind of terrible.

-The song "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey will be NOWHERE NEAR MY IPOD on the wedding day. (No, I won't even link to it.  If you've never heard it, you're lucky.)  I see it on wedding blogs and magazines everywhere, and for some reason this song has become like the Macarena; the MUST have wedding song for your guests to dance... er... whatever... to.  People may hate me for saying this, but let me just get it out there now: I HATE, LOATHE and DESPISE that song with the fiery passion of a thousand suns in Hell.  I cannot fathom why people love it so much (or anything by Journey for that matter).  Hearing the first few piano notes of "Don't Stop Believin'" is enough to make me want to stab my temple with a blunt pencil.  Yes, it's graphic, but it's true.  That's just how much that song grates on my nerves.

And that is all I really have to say about the music right now.  Honestly, I made the playlist so long ago I can't remember what is on it beyond those few things. And all my attempts to make Eric listen to it or contribute his opinion ended with a "meh."

Even though I think we want to do a fancy first dance,  we first discussed not even having dancing at all. (Or rather, I brought up the idea and Eric tried to talk me out of it.)  Not just because I am not a dancer myself, but because I am afraid too few people will dance. Let me break down how the dancing went at the five weddings I've been to in the last three years:

1) College roomie's wedding: Dancing went GREAT. But also, the alcohol flowed freeeeeely. I even danced at this one. You do not want to know how much alcohol that took (but hey, I'd just turned 21 the week before).

2) Cousin number 1's wedding: Dance floor was there.  A biiiiiig dance floor.  They had a first dance.  The groom's three daughters danced. Annnnd, that was it. Let's just say, my mom's side of the family is not much for dancing (and this must be where I get it from).

3) Cousin number 2's wedding: No dance floor at all, no music even.  The wedding and reception were held at an inn and the guests were spread out in various adjoining rooms for the meal.  And really, I don't think anyone missed it.  People got to talk and laugh with each other. And the fact that dancing and music was missing didn't seem to affect the mood at all.

4) Another college roomie's wedding: Another with a big dance floor.  First dance.  Mother-son and father-daughter dances.  Three year old girls dancing.  The end.

5) Jamie's wedding:  The dancing seemed to go very well, for other people.  But I did not drink enough at this one to want to participate.  It was a very big wedding, and we all know how I love crowds, so I was much happier staying in my little corner of the room.

So let's see, two weddings the dancing went well, one wedding the dancing was absent but not missed, and two weddings the dancing was a total FAIL.  And that is honestly the reason I wanted to nix dancing in the first place.  At both the weddings where the dance floor was a flop, the whole mood of the reception felt dismal and lacking in joy or excitement. Like the guests were only staying for food, and then staying out of guilt for mooching food.  And I really don't want our wedding to feel like that.

But, as I said, Eric never liked the idea of no dancing and I never wanted to nix music.  And even though my mom's side of the family doesn't really like to dance, she says that my dad would (ouch! embarrassment!)  In the end, we decided to leave a large grassy space open for dancing, but not rent a dance floor.  Which saved us about $500 on rentals. (I didn't know those stupid things were so expensive!)  And for those who don't want to dance (me included), we're going to have fun things like bocce ball, frisbees, and croquet.  Oh, I seriously can't wait to get pictures of everyone in wedding finery playing croquet.... ::sigh::

Ahhhh, dancing.  Just.... no.  I don't do it.  Yes I took ballet from age... hmmm... 4 or 5 to age 7 or 8.  It is one of the many things that just never clicked in my head.  The names of the directions the teacher gave and the posters on the wall with photos of said directions never made a correlation in my brain. I'm sure I looked quite silly (okay, granted so do most little girls who take ballet). And yes, there was also the DDR obsession in high school and college. So, okay, I don't dance unless arrows on the floor correspond to arrows on tv.  But also, can I mention that I also don't dance in front of people? With all of them LOOKING AT ME?!?!?! (Yeah, I know, I know, the whole wedding thing means all kinds of people looking at me all day. I might discuss that anxiety more later.)

And yet, for some reason, I want to do a really cool, potentially complicated first dance/ routine. Wha?!?!

It started when I saw this video, which most people have seen, even if they aren't constantly swimming the ocean of current wedding blogs. (Oooooh, check out that double use of the word 'current.' YES!!)



Something about this video makes me seriously choke up and get teary. Which seems to be happening a lot more as we get closer to wedding time.  And that's another thing I don't do.  I don't cry.  Ever. It takes a tremendous amount of emotional stress to make me cry.  I didn't even cry when we got engaged, the reaction expected by most people when it comes to engagement.  Rather my mouth was stuck on repeat, saying "Holy crap!" a gazillion times. (Classy, I know.)

Anyway, dancing.  I am really drawn to this song, which for those of you familiar with my musical tastes, is WAAAAAAAY out in left field for me (and left field is in OUTER SPACE):



Something about the song always makes me think of the wedding and everyone in attendance having a super good time.  It makes me ridiculously excited inside and always puts a smile on my face.  But we would definitely need to take some kind of lesson or get a choreographer. It's very bouncey and in some conversation pogo sticks were even discussed... But I dunno what we will do in the end, or if we will just randomly include the song on our playlist.

So there you have it, three things I normally wouldn't do: dance, cry, and listen to The Black Eyed Peas. I swear, this wedding planning stuff will claim my sanity yet.

Well, I'm still working on the save the dates, but right now I am looking up how to address envelopes, which is a whole other monster in itself. I am referencing guides for addressing wedding invites, which got me worrying ahead of time about those... And every single guide I can find tells you what to put on the outer envelope and inner envelope. Which is fine and dandy, except I don't have inner envelopes..... um..... ::cue explosion sound as thousands of my brain cells die::

So, rather than posting another rant about my confusion and general rage when it comes to etiquette, I decided to post about something FUN and PRETTY. So there. And stuff.

Send offs! What to do about them. I (all in my brain and without really talking anything through with Eric, oops) decided that the best time to do a "send off" type thing would be as we walk out of ceremony, back down the aisle-like thingy that will be created by the guest seating. Okay! So, what to do? I'm not a fan of having things thrown at me, especially because I know certain friends and/ or members of my family can get a little over zealous and mischievous with it. How do I know this? Well, I'm usually one of the ones joining in the evil festivities.... Okay, that rules out bird seed and lavender (oh but how I love lavender... but I digress). I'm also not really a fan of bubbles. And in my general experience, the small bottles made specifically for weddings produce small, disappointing bubbles.

As I perused the blogs, this is the first idea I REALLY fell in love with for a send off:


Sparklers! So pretty, and shiny and... um... sparkly. Also, the wedding is so close to the 4th of July, surely we could find sparklers at an after the 4th clearance! For a long time I really really wanted these as our send off, but I came up with a couple reasons why they won't work:

1) The ceremony is in the afternoon, and if we do the send off routine as we walk down the aisle, it will still be bright and sunny out. Meaning my sparklers would look sad and lackluster.
2) If we did the send off as we left the venue that night, I fear that not enough people will have stuck around to the very end. Only a few sparklers would be just as lackluster as sparklers in the day time.
3) The really big main reason. The venue doesn't allow candles, which is understandable since it's a grove of trees and they don't want it to accidentally burn down. And if candles aren't allowed, I doubt sparkers would be kosher either.

With sparklers nixxed, I added "send off ideas" to the ever growing list of things to browse the blogs for (aka, steal ideas from other people). Then one day, I saw this post by Miss Fro Yo, where she posted this photo from an Etsy seller:

And, of course, I looked at this and thought, "I can make that!" I wouldn't be the only one, Mrs. Star also made ribbony wand goodness:


Except I really would want the wide ribbon like the ones made by Ribbon Wands on Etsy. But those look like they are easily a whole spool or at least half a spool of ribbon. Let's see.... ribbon like that is easily $2 a piece, times 150 to 200 guests... too much money!

I hadn't yet let the ribbon wand idea die, when I had an epiphany. Something that seems to be in vogue on every wedding blog ever is bunting. Bunting EVERYWHERE. And I realized I have yards and yards and yards of fabric I've collected over the years. I would buy fabric just because it was pretty, with absolutely no idea what I would do with it, and no intention of beginning any projects. So......


TA DA!!! Flags to wave at us! But bigger than the ones above.

Not all my fabric is green and orange, but I don't think that it matters if the flags don't match. The eclectic look right? So now all I need to do is buy dowels. I plan on going to Wal-Mart (OH! DOOOOOOM!!!!), because I still have a few gift cards there I got as bonuses at the job I worked a couple years ago. So it'll be like they were free! And we all know I like free.

Now, to sew them, iron them together with fusible webbing, or go the really lazy route, and glue them?

Okay, after all my apprehensions, I cannot sing the praises of VistaPrint enough. I ordered the save the dates last Tuesday. And then they shipped by Thursday! Fed Ex said I would be getting them today! But THEN I just randomly checked the mail Saturday as we headed out to do Christmas shopping, and there they were! Not only that, but my fancy stamp was in there too! It was like getting Christmas early!

They both turned out really pretty:


Excuse the crappy photo (actually, all of the photos in this post), I took it with my iPhone since I don't have my good camera with me at work. I also covered up the address line above our names because, well, the internet is full of crazies and they don't need to know where I live. But the stamp has a really nice symmetry with the two address lines surrounding the names in calligraphy.

Anyway, these next couple of weeks at work are going to be pretty dead because most of the staff in the building are on vacation, so I brought them with me to work so I could stamp and stuff all my envelopes. When I opened the envelopes, I was a little disappointed at first that they had the triangle shaped flap versus a straight/ rectangular flap. But the triangular flap really helped out with lining up my stamp; all I had to do was situate the corners of the stamp on the angles of the flap:



I also put a piece of scrap paper underneath the flap just in case the ink bled through. Then I stamped about 30 at a time, letting all the envelopes dry before I tried to stuff them. No smeary ink or fingerprints! I don't have any spare envelopes!


Rows and rows of drying envelopes....

Of course, I did screw up ONE envelope. After opening all my "presents" on Saturday, I was counting the save the dates and envelopes to make sure they were all there (100 postcards make a surprisingly small stack), and Eric tested out the stamp and made the label to go in the top. Wellllll, he put the label in upside down. So, when I did the first envelope, I lined up the stamp with the label pointed the right direction, but this is what I got:



But, whatever. One hundred save the dates and envelopes should actually be more than enough because, although our guest list seemed to magically balloon to 150 and then 200, there are so many couples and families with children, that the actual count of invites I need comes in right under 100. So, let's hope I don't screw up any addresses on the envelopes.

What's that you say? After all that ranting is this crazy girl actually contemplating hand-addressing her envelopes? Well, yeah. I still think making it a rule and/ or requirement is a ridiculous expectation of old-fashioned etiquette. But, honestly, work really is that boring and I really do have the time to make the effort. The thing is, I don't think I will still be working here when it comes time to send out invites, and if I'm working somewhere that isn't so lax/ boring I don't know if I'll have time to hand address those. I figure if I hand address one, I should hand address the other, just for consistency. So, I haven't really decided yet. But that's okay because we're still gathering addresses.

Well, it's a good thing I was on a roll with the blog posts last Monday and Tuesday because on Wednesday Eric got a kidney stone and we had some AWESOME adventures testing out the hospital for the first time since moving. Really, it was truly amazing. Really. And the rest of last week was spent making him soup and forcing water down his gullet and both of us sleeping a heck of a lot. Pretty much just sat here in a coma at work when I was bored.

So, I still have a plethora of wedding topics to go on and on about, but yet again Martha's etiquette expert has written a post that confounds me. According to the post, never ever ever under any circumstances under the sun EVER let your shower hostess have your guests address their own envelopes to your thank you notes!! If you do this your guests will be "FURIOUS!" Seriously!!! Your guests will hate your forever and ever and ever! No matter if they are your closest friends and relatives, they will hold a burning grudge against you for the rest of your life for MAKING THEM ADDRESS ENVELOPES. Heck, some of them might even be so angry you'll have she-Hulks bursting out of their nice pink cardigans and RAMPAGING through the shower, stomping on anyone that gets in their way!

THE HORROR!!!

Seriously, what is so bad about this? This is right up the same alley as hand addressing invites. Only in this article, Talley Sue doesn't give you any reasoning. Why is this such a faux pas, what sensibility does it violate? What about it will make people feel insulted? I can't think of a single person I know who would be furious if my shower hostess made them fill out envelopes for me. The hostess of Eric's sister's baby shower did that and I found nothing wrong with it (and I seriously doubt anyone else did). How can your guests, who I assume are close friends and family, really be opposed to helping you out?

I have wracked my brain to think of people who would actually care and have decided it can only be people from the Martha's upper-class world. The world she (and presumably her writers) live in. They only market themselves to the people of the middle and lower classes as something they should be striving for, but without changing their upper class expectations of the world. This is also evidenced in the cost of supplies for Martha's craft projects (see my post on table numbers). Martha and her writers (and the wedding industry in general I suppose) expect brides to spend what they themselves consider to be "inexpensive," which is not necessarily practical for most people. In this same way, they expect brides to live up to antiquated high-society etiquette rules, even when those ideals are silly, irrelevant and totally forgotten about by most people these days.

Anyway, I'll stop on that ranting tangent. Point is, if a bridal shower hostess ever asked my guests to fill out envelopes, I don't expect anyone to be angry and certainly will NOT throw the envelopes away. Everyone I know is way too down-to-earth to be upset by something so little and meaningless. Heck, Jamie had a shower for me when I was home in November and I still haven't gotten thank you notes out at all (though she did not commit the egregious offense of having them fill out envelopes). And granted that the guest list was small and mostly comprised of my own family, I don't think they're really going to be that offended if they are a little late.