bride-foo

Just about done

In the past two weeks, we've met with the caterer in person for the first (and last) time and finalized the menu, made various payments, received/prepared/sent invitations, and I had a wonderful low-key shower last weekend. Mom finally got back home and is starting on my dress, I'm nailing down our honeymoon arrangements (Puerto Vallarta), and aside from some last vendor arrangements (hair, photos) and grabbing a few last things for the wedding, we're about done with everything that can be done in advance.

Bryan doesn't have a valid passport, so we're going to have to do the expedited blitz for that, and the jeweler has had my wedding band for two weeks, which ought to be plenty of time to resize it, even for my gigantor manhands. I still don't have a wedding band for him, but if I use the place I got his engagement ring from (and I think I will, as they're doing tungsten rings now) their turnaround is about 3 days. I need to actually email the guy, but I found a Justice of the Peace who will do whatever the hell you want (ie short, short, short) for a price I can stomach for just enough involvement to make it legal.

For us, Wedding Season starts early - either last weekend or tomorrow, depending on whether you count my coworker's Happy Shower Hour last Friday or his wedding tomorrow night as the kickoff. Next Tuesday is one month left for us.

I didn't really start getting excited until the shower. I no longer feel as pissy as I did before that. It was the invitations, I think, and the fear that the caterer was going to pull a bunch of shit on us. The invitation process was not so bad, in retrospect, and the caterer/venue was amazingly cooperative - the whole meeting took 20 minutes and she was all "sure, whatever" to everything my mother wants to do and we ended up not getting as gouged as I feared on a couple of points. Our only major compromise, in the end, was the bar. We had to go "hosted cash bar", meaning we pay the setup and bartender and champagne toast, and then bar drinks are cheap but not free. It was the only way we could get out alive.

My finalized contract did have one nasty surprise, though it's really my fault for reading it wrong. They need final headcount 14 working days before the event, not 14 calendar days. So, yeah, they need headcount 3/26 - my RSVPs say respond by 4/1. Bryan has said he will make phone calls if he has to, bless him.

If I had to leave words of wisdom for future brides right now, before it's all even happened yet, is to budget for everything, really sit down and work it all out. I didn't account in advance for things like shoes (mine and his - see our revamped blog for details on his), bridal underwear, stamps, non-invitation stationery (thank you notes), passports expedited or otherwise, or a week's worth of animal care (and my damn Littermaid broke this morning and I either have to replace it or pay for someone to come in and scoop every day). I still have a minor nervous breakdown when I think of all the other wedding weekend activities we have yet to arrange (getting married on a Friday has its disadvantages, though at least this way we will get to spend some time with our guests).

But we got our first 4 RSVPs back today (thank you, Karen, for returning the karma), so someone is coming for sure and maybe I can stop having those nightmares. I haven't slept in three days, and if it goes on much longer, this time I really will go beg some Ambien just so I'm not a total wreck by mid-April.

Quick update.

Monday I met with Leslie Hall at the church to go over the decor for the wedding. She's a doll. We walked through where we would arrange things, how the center aisle would look, pew bows/flower arrangements, etc. Anyhow, I feel very confident she will do a wonderful job making our rather blah church look lovely. Best of all? She does all the set up and tear down! Her final payment went out in the mail today, in case she's checking. ;)

Yesterday I met with our florist, Kelly Norvell, to finalize details for our flowers. She is another vendor I am very happy with so far. The original contract spelled everything out, but she let us change the number of corsages and bouts needed and is just being altogether fabulous. She's a real delight to work with, very professional and very talented.

I think that's all the wedding things to do this week...next week gets busy again...my dress will be ready next Wednesday and my bridal portraits will be on Friday, March 19.

Crisis Averted

People are beginning to RSVP online, which means invitations are arriving. As Leia said -- we have a real-time guest list!

So, the lesson we've learned? Trust your postage scale.

Catching up

Karen reminded me to update ages ago and I never found the time - and I'm the one with the least amount of other stuff going on right now!

We ended up booking a generic but relatively attractive reception hall in Fort Worth for the whole ordeal; they've got standard decorations, they do the catering, my mother is handling auxillary decorations, and some of my friends are doing the cakes. The ceremony will be on site.

My mother is also making my dress. I could go on for several pages about wedding dresses and sleeves and how ne'er the twain shall meet, but it's all been said before. I wanted sleeves, and this appeared to be the only way to get them without 80sesque shoulder poofs or doubling the wedding budget.

Invitations are here, addressing is about 1/2 done and should be finished by the end of the week. I forgot to have maps made, and really can't wait any longer or make a major investment in a custom map, so it'll just have to be forged by my amateur hand. We have a meeting with the hall/caterer tonight. We don't have an officiant yet, but aside from that I think all major arrangements are settled.

Oh, wait, Bryan doesn't have a wedding band yet. Mine should be back from sizing any day now.

Even though we've tried to keep the whole thing very low-key, I'm still stressed and constantly worried over loose ends and the errands, bah! The errands are maddening, as there's only so much of all this crap that can be done online - if there was a way for me to email in my weekend-ly dress fittings, I would.

I'm looking foward to my wedding a great deal, but man will I be glad when it's over.

Cacharel

Met with Cacharel last night. I was all wound up that the reception was going to be terrible. However, after trying all the food we're going to serve, I feel much better.

The menu will now include hors dourves passed while the guests are waiting for J & me to arrive after pictures, caesar salad, a chicken entree with eggplant in a cabernet sauce (absolutely delicious!), green beens with almonds, a pasta station - two kinds of pasta and two sauces as well as the cakes. And, of course, wine and beer.

So, Jean-Claude is forgiven and I am a happy bride again.

The invitations finally went in the mail. Yes, they were horribly late. But when you decide to make them yourselves and then one of you suddenly has surgery, it can delay your already cramped schedule. If you know you're getting one and you don't see it Tuesday or Wednesday, let me know; the postal scale said we only needed 37-cent stamps, but I'm paranoid that they're all going to come back to us.

So, that's one thing off our painfully long list of things to do. We leave for Austin in less than three weeks, and I'm nervous that everything won't get done. We have a conference call with our cake baker this evening to go over the design, and we're slowly but surely finishing the favors and flowers. Every night, my body ends up wound too tight, so around 9:15 I prepare a scalding hot bath to loosen up. So far, it's working.

The Incredible Exploding Boobs

The whole dress-buying experience was hampered for me by one small detail -- at no salon I went to was there a bra in my size. I bought my dress wearing a longline bra with a cup one-third the size of my breast. Same problem at my fitting last week. I scheduled a second fitting for this Thursday to give me time to find The Bra and be fitted again wearing it, just to make sure there really were no adjustments needed to the dress.

So, after seeking advice from the Colorado message board on The Knot, Jason and I headed down to Le Soutien, an upscale lingerie store in Cherry Creek, the chic shopping area in Denver. The boutique was one of those that has the bras and panties pinned to wall-mounted frames that you can flip like the pages of a magazine to browse. The saleswoman took me into a dressing room, made me put on a robe, and started handing me things to try on. She decided I was a 38DDD; I had come in wearing an ill-fitting 40DD. But, as luck would have it, 38DDD seemed to be the only size of bustier that she didn't have in stock. She gave me the name and address of another store in town, Treva's, and told me if they didn't have it, Treva's would.

So, we headed out, got lost a couple times, and eventually found Treva's in a strip mall in a shadier area of town. The saleswoman was very helpful, but pulled no punches. She snapped my bra strap and told me if she was able to do that, the band size was too large. She took some measurements, eyeballed me up and down, and settled on a size -- 36FF. I was in shock, so I let the saleswoman guide me around the store, pulling longline bras off the rack for me to try on. And, just as before, there were no bustiers in the store that fit me. She offered to special order something, but I said I would take care of it. I bought a t-shirt bra, anxious to get out of the store, and I broke down in tears as Jason walked me back to the car.

I've always been self-conscious about my chest, but having someone verbalize the excessively large size to which they've ballooned has only forced me further into my cave. As soon as the size was out of the saleswoman's mouth, I began calculating how long it would take me to save up for a breast reduction. It felt completely humiliating to know that two numbers and two letters would forever prevent me from buying clothes off the rack.

In any event, I ordered a merry widow online, paid $20 extra for 2-day shipping, and should have the bra here tomorrow just in time for my dress fitting.

Favors

I would highly recommend the Pouch Depot if you are looking to purchase any drawstring organza bags for favors. Their prices are great. The customer service was excellent and the product arrived promptly. AND *gush* they are just so darn cute.

Justly Married

A Good Day, in Two Parts

Part One: The fitting took all of 10 minutes. I put the dress on, it fit perfectly down to the hem, and the only thing I need the seamstress to do is put in the single-loop overbustle. At the cost of a whopping $10. Woot!

Part Two: We *finallly* booked the honeymoon. I sat Jason down with the laptop and his credit card and made him look at travel web sites. We decided on Hotwire.com, and we got our airfare (round-trip out of Austin), a rental car for five days, and five nights in the W Hotel New Orleans for a whopping $1100. We made out like bandits. More money to spend on the jazz brunch at Court of Two Sisters and the Creole Queen jazz dinner cruise. Boo-yah!