Bridesmaids (344 Days to Go)

So I'm currently attempting to try and gather a majority of my bridesmaids together for a bridesmaid luncheon and to go shopping for dresses.  Yes, it's early.  But some of them are students, currently unemployed, etc. etc. such that I figure if we go now, then there's time to sit back, stash up the cash, wait for a sale, and all of that good stuff.  But by going and picking a dress now, I can end a few more annoying conversations and scratch one more thing off my list as far as stress inducers.

Sometimes I feel as much as I try to be cooperative and easy going on the girls, the harder things become on me because Jeff and I's mothers are old-fashioned about how the bridesmaids should be dressed.  Back in the 80s when they were getting wed, bridesmaids wore heinous, matchy-matchy dresses.  Now, today the trend is leaning much more towards the bridesmaids wearing whatever style best suits them in a general colorway.  But because we have a rainbow bridal party, I have more pressure being put on me to force them all into the same style dress.  Essentially, if I don't, I can look forward to a minimum of five years of complaining everytime the wedding pictures are looked at.  

Compound into that, both of our mothers feel that the Mothers' dresses are just too "matronly" and "old" for them.  Certainly at fifty they aren't so old that they can't wear something from the bridesmaid dress rack, right?  I guess they're trying to cope with the fact that they're old enough to have children getting married in their own way.  So, if I let the bridesmaids pick what they want, and being all different colors, I'm going to end up with the mothers and maids blending together with nothing but a few wrinkles to tell the difference.  And why yes, I've made a relatively obvious suggestion that the mothers wear a patterned dress and the maids were solids.  Nada in the cooperation department.  This is when I start wanting to bang my head on my desk, which is metal by the way.  And yes, they're insisting on wearing the same material too.  These are stubborn women, I tell you.  Nothing can ever persuade them to get off a subject until it's too late to have much more effect, but then you can still look forward to some disheartened griping that they were ignored in the decision making process.  Toss into the mix, the junior bridesmaid (aka mini bridezilla, aka MBZ) who wants to wear my wedding gown and have a date to walk her down the aisle and I've got one heck of a pot boiling over.  And seriously, it's all over what people are going to wear?  I suddenly understand the appeal of the nudist wedding.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to dictate the fashion choices of my mom and FMIL, however, I don't appreciate that they're dictating the fashion of my bridesmaids.  I mean seriously, when does that ever go well?  Because all it does is then complicate the issue of making them happy all the more.  And boy, do I get tired of hearing and phrase that starts with the word "Just".  "Just" is someone's way of making things sound easy.  As in "Just do it", "Just say no", etc., etc.  Or my personal favorite: "That just doesn't make sense."  Please, if the word "just" ever comes out of my mouth, slap me silly.  I deserve it.



Henkaa
Convertible Dresses



But I did come up with a third option that will set my girls apart, let them be individuals, make them identical for the ceremony and pictures and silence the mothers.  Now, if I can only get the girls to go along with it.  It's convertible dresses.  I figure, they agree on one of fifty some styles for the ceremony and pictures, and when we duck away somewhere to bustle my train before entering the reception, they can reconfigure their dress into any style they want.  That way they get to feel like they got to completely change dresses between ceremony and reception.  It's a win-win...at least for me.  I just hope the girls will see it that way too.

I ordered one of the dresses for myself to wear as a bridesmaid in Becca's wedding.  They're supposed to be one size fits most, so I figure the girls can play with mine and see if they like it when we get together later this month.  I'm crossing my fingers.  I really need to start nailing down details and therefore nailing problems to the wall.

Engagement Photos Today--Eep! (348 Days to Go)

The day of the engagement photos has arrived.  I even somehow managed to miraculously convince Jeff to pull together his clothes, hats, and shoes to wear for our pictures.  Well, I'm close on the shoes, at least.  He's told me he's wearing his Berks and red Chucks.  Will the miracles never cease?

So why do I feel like I'm about to toss my single cookie that I called breakfast this morning?

Could it be that I have three and a half hours from the time I get off work to get hair and make up done, pick up dinner, eat with my fiance, drag him out of his workplace an hour before the shop closes without having to commit patricide in the midst?  Oh, and the manicure I gave myself last night: well, I apparently managed to rub the french tips off in my sleep.  Go me.  So I think I'm now going to also try to squeeze a mani into the picture somehow too.

Or is it merely a delayed reaction to the realization that I'm going to have to hire a private detective to find my father and get him to my wedding next year?

I'd like to think that I'm not really nervous about getting pictures taken of myself.  I mean, I thought I was excited about it because I'm so often the one stuck behind the camera that there are so very few pictures of me, let alone of both Jeff and I together.  Actually, pictures of me are such a rarity, that baby picture are even hard to come by.  Childhood are actually near impossible.  Apparently photographic documentation was not my family's strong suit. 

Perhaps it's just an absurdly strong urge to make sure they're perfect.  I will admit I've been a mite OCD on that.  But his family's huge, and I haven't met even the smallest fraction that his parents insist on inviting.  Therefore, these pictures will quite literally be my first and only impression on these people before and if they come to the wedding.  As I told Jeff, I'd prefer that his family be under the impression that he scored a hot, city girl rather than a frumpy, country girl.  Why let it ever enter their minds that he might be settling (as opposed to settling down), right? 

And the same goes for my family.  The opportunities for Jeff to meet anyone on my side of the family has been few and far between.  I want him to look good too.  Growing up, I was the girl who never dated, so I'd hate for my family to think that I settled for the first guy that gave me a second look.  My family's bizarre and there's already been muffled discussion that I must have gotten knocked up or something.  I feel this might stem from the fact that I came from a small town with too little to talk about and that there was a mistaken rumor before I'd even met Jeff that I was having twins.  Long story, but the short version is, a friend of my mom's was knitting baby sweaters for twins.  I want them to be able to see him the way that I do--as the fun, incredible, handsome, funny guy that he is.  I want them to see how incredibly lucky I am to have found Mr. Right and My Best Friend after having gone through only one Mr. Oh-So-Very-Wrong.

But then I'm back to the whole missing father incident too.   My father is a nervous fella.  Probably why he ended up becoming an alcoholic.  He's always had problems with his parents and hasn't had very much luck with marriage either.  But, he has a bad habit of when he feels pressured of managing a disappearing act that would make the CIA jealous.  Now, for the past two or so years, he's been dry.  I've been proud.  Everyone else has been harassing him for money (ex-wife #1: my mom), to move his vehicles off their property (ex-wife #2), and to go to rehab (his parents).  The last time he disappeared, he turned up in California with my eldest ex-stepbrother.  Impressive considering he was under probation in the state of Maryland for DUI.  This time, nobody knows where he's gone to. 

You might think that I'm making excuses for him.  I'm not really.  I'm peeved that he's pulled this disappearing act again.  All I wanted was to let him know when and where to be for our father-daughter dance.  But I also feel bad for him too.  I feel sorry that his instinct is to shut himself away from everyone instead of reaching out instead.  I guess he just doesn't know how or doesn't realize that anyone's willing to listen without asking for anything in return.  And I guess I have just enough daddy issues that I'm willing to be that one person.  But I really for sorry if I'm the only person who is willing.  For a bunch of people who consider themselves good Christians, it's a shame none of them know how to listen.

Ending the Reprieve (368 Days to Go)

It feels like it's been forever since I've blogged.  Oh, wait, it kind of has been.

Essentially I more or less had to completely remove myself from anything and everything wedding related for a little while or else I was going to turn Bride-zilla and never come back from the edge.

We finally found our venue, so I'm pretty ecstatic about that.  We're going to be having an outdoor ceremony lakeside at Penn Scenic View and then moving the reception indoors.  It even has a large balcony area overlooking the lake for cocktail hour.  Going to see the venue had been an experience all on it's own.  But that's what happens when you have three additional opinions and inane questions being asked.  Add to that major sleep deprivation and you have a cocktail so sour no one wants to take a sip.

To add to the hectic vibe of the day, I got a phone call two days earlier that my wedding dress had arrived more than four months earlier than expected.  I made arrangements to get to the shop just before closing the same day that we were looking at our wedding venue in order to try and save on gas.  Remember, three weeks ago, gas was at it's highest price ever.

Now since my fiance was going along to see the venue, we had to drive separately so that he could leave at that point of the day to go teach his class that also happened to be nearby.  But that still left me with two mothers and an 11-year-old niece in tow.  The moment we walked in the door, our niece started to whine about wanting to try on her bridesmaid dress.  When I explained that it hadn't been chosen yet, she insisted that she would choose.  I told her no.  Of course the two mothers insisted we might as well check some out.  Insert enormous eye roll here for getting unwanted opinions on something that doesn't directly pertain to these people.

I then listened to both mothers lecture on how bridesmaids have to be matchy-matchy and that it wouldn't be appropriate for half of my bridesmaids to wear their dresses with straps and the rest not to.  It didn't seem to matter to them that the bridesmaids (who like me) can't wear straps because of sloped shoulders would be a distraction every five minutes by adjusting their straps.  Or better yet, the busty ones forced to forego straps would be popping out mid ceremony.  I pretty much lost my cool and told them they both needed to shut up because it wasn't their decision and that bridesmaids dresses had moved on since either of them had last been married.  See the bride-zilla wanting to come out and snap?

Finally, my consultant was free to bring out my dress.  It was a perfect fit.  And I mean perfect.  My grandmother will only have to hem it by one inch and bustle it.  Talk about easy-peasy.  However, by the time I got my dress, my niece had been whining sufficiently long enough to convince my mother to go pick out some dresses for her.  Now keep in mind, she's eleven and just starting to wear juniors clothes and is approximately a size 5.  I am a size 10 and had to order a size 16 which turned out to be a perfect fit.

She tries on one dress and it doesn't quite zip up and she starts bawling about how fat she is.  And I mean bawling.  This kid has officially stolen the title of bride-zilla and she's only the junior bridesmaid.  I am now standing in my wedding dress and fielding glares from every other customer in the store.  And nothing can get her to stop crying!  She literally has a psychological problem in which she's convinced herself that she is so overweight to the point where she works out more than Richard Simmons.

When she finally does stop crying, she has adamantly decided that there is a dress she wants to wear for my wedding because it is literally a hot pink short skirted version of mine.  I glare at my mother for even pulling the dress off the rack and put my foot down.  Absolutely not.  First off because it's nearly three hundred dollars and I will not ask that of my bridesmaids.  Secondly, I am not going to have my bridesmaids look like me on my day.  Call me selfish, but I want to be a little unique aside from the fact that I'm the only one wearing white.  I certainly don't want my dress to be less awe inspiring just because the guests have already seen seven different colored versions of it walk down the aisle before me.  This puts her into another burst of tears.  And for once, I can't wait to get out of my wedding gown and out of the store.  I'm tired of getting glares that accuse me of being an evil wench just because my niece is psychotic and spoiled.

That day, Jeff and I also clarified with our mothers how the guest list would be split.  My mother was perfectly okay with the split.  His parents were very much not okay.  They felt as if we were shorting them.  Que extended pain and suffering due to guest list limitations for quite a while longer.  Eventually I learned that this stemmed from her feeling as though we'd be shorting ourselves on the available guest list for the bridal shower.  Insert large eyeroll here for a bunch of useless kitchen gadgets that would be triplicated with a bridal shower.  Jeff and I already have too many rolling pins and wooden spoons, thank you very much.

I spent the next week on the phone with everyone.  The venue manager (in order to obtain contracts for every cabin/lodge on the property), the caterer to finalize the date and location, the event planner, etc.  I signed away nearly every penny to my name in order to put down deposits and spread the joyful news to my bridesmaids and groomsmen that their lodging for the weekend would be all expenses paid.  I then put away everything wedding related and vowed to not give it a second thought for at least a few weeks.

Memorial Day weekend reopened a few of the wounds however.  Mostly due to the 11-year-old niece who spent a great deal of time again whining about her weight.  Combine that with the fact that she's missed her period for a couple of months and you have me greatly agitated that she won't listen when you tell her that she's working out too much and is now getting to be too thin.  Pretty soon, I'll be kidnapping her to put her in the hospital for eating disorder treatment.  But she was also complaining about how I'm not going to be including her in going to choose the bridesmaids dresses in a few months (in about August probably).  I explained as nicely as I could that I needed the time to be for big girls and that I could not be baby-sitting her.  I needed the freedom to be able to go out for dinner with my girlfriends who would be coming in from out of town and not feel like I have to say no because she can't go barhopping afterwards.  Also, she has too expensive of taste.  Top that off with eventually if she doesn't become anorexic, she'll outgrow her dress whereas the other girls will have their dressing hanging in their closets for a few years to come.  She doesn't seem to quite grasp that dresses cost money that the rest of us work hard for.  She merely sees it as grandma will be paying for it, so who cares about what those little numbers are following that weird "S" shaped symbol.

Once I finally got the wedding to be off topic for the weekend while we were camping, I still had to deal with her obsessive behavior on her weight.  And the multiple attempts on her 2-year-old sister's life due to stupidity.  And every time that you yell at the older girl to stop doing something, she turns it into, "Why do you hate me?!" and goes running off.  Personally, I don't think it's smart for a girl who can't tread water to be standing on the slick steps to a 30-foot quarry with her baby sister.  To complete that mental image, my fiance who uses those stairs almost as much as he does the ones we have at home, fell on them twice and neither girl had on a life jacket.  I about died when I saw them down there by themselves.  And when she ran off all upset that I hated her, she then tried to lie to her grandfather about why her baby sister was soaked up to her waist.  Adorable 2-year-old of course is telling her pappy all about standing in the water with the fishies.

I officially no longer want children.  For gosh sakes, they don't even wait to be teenagers anymore before they become pathological liars with eating disorders.  What the heck?!

Now you can understand why I haven't been writing for a while.  There's nothing like spending your time ranting on a kid.  I feel bad, but I don't know how to get through to her and it does nothing but stress me out to be around her all the time.  Jeff is actually the one who's dubbed her bride-zilla.  And when I really need some time away to get my head together and collected and calm, it really doesn't help when this girl insists on attaching herself to me all the time.  I appreciate that she wants to spend time with me, but I can't be her mother, especially when her mom wants to be her mom.  And I definitely cannot keep sacrificing time with my fiance in order to play happy family with her, especially if she's going to have more mood swings than I can manage in a month in the course of one evening.

Mother's Day Gifts (403 Days to Go)

So Jeff and I went shopping for a mother's day gift for his mother this weekend.  I had already gotten and given my mother her gift at Easter: a gift card for the Pirates so that she and her boyfriend could go to a game of their choice sometime this month.

Jeff had in his mind a charm bracelet that could have all the birthstones for everyone in the family.  Since the family is grown exponentially fast recently and hardly anyone's birth months overlapped, it seemed excessive to try to buy a ring at this time.  When we got to the jewelry store we found out that there weren't any linked chains that could be used for charm bracelets.  Jeff was a little frustrated that the only options they had in that style cost a couple hundred dollars.  Apparently Pandora has quite literally knocked down the demand of the traditional charm bracelet such that you can't even find them anymore. 

So, there we were look at Pandora bracelets.The first step was picking out chain which Jeff went with a silver lobster claw.  We also decided to get at least one clip in order to make sure that the beads stay in place the way they're supposed to without the risk of them falling off.  We went with this one:

We next checked out the different options for birth stones.  Jeff wanted to start with just his own and his brother's and for the following holidays we would start to fill in the rest.  It sounded like a great idea until we started adding up the cost of the different charms and the add-ons that we hadn't expected, such as the clip.  The birthstone charms that the lady first showed us were definitely a) out of our price range and b) completely inappropriate to represent her two sons.

Our second option was a dangling charm for the birthstones but I told Jeff that on my "knock-off" bracelet that the dangling charms tended to press into my wrist awkwardly or get caught on things.  So we quickly decided against that particular style of charms.  Especially since we were informed that they were discontinued and we'd never have a chance to get a matched set by the time Christmas rolled around.

The third option was a more recent design that wasn't necessarily meant to be birthstones but just came in a wide variety of stone colors.  We liked these, but it was still out of our budget to afford both Jeff and his brother's stones and didn't seem right to buy only one of theirs.

So we started contemplating what single charm we could buy that would be appropriate for Mother's Day.  Of course considering the occasion we looked at the newest "MOM" charm but decided to not go quite that obvious or cheesy. 

We instead got her this:

Can't go wrong with something tropical for this scuba diving family.  So now we've got to make sure she knows that we'll fill it in over time and to not rush out and buy all the charms herself.