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Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Reminder


It may seem to get lost in all of the planning portions, but I want it to be known:

I am so incredibly in love with Christopher.
He is such a wonderfully good man.
I cannot wait for every day of the life we will build and have together.

He loves who I am and he nurtures me towards growing into a better and better woman.

I am thankful every day for what we have.


Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Judgy McJudgerson

Recently, I realized something very disheartening and shameful about myself.

Looking through Facebook over these past weeks and even months, I notice how many of my friends have become engaged, married, or parents. When people have these things happen, I am happy for them and excited for whatever new beginning they embark upon. I do, also, as a person who plans to make a living based on what people do and how they operate, find myself eminently curious about these things that are happening to my friends and acquaintances.

This is not the disheartening thing I learned. Maybe it can be a little voyeuristic at times, but it is positive and natural, to my way of thinking.

This realization came when someone posted photos of her recent wedding. I found myself judging, much to my dismay.
I looked at some photos and questioned to myself why the flowers, dress, venue, and etc were chosen. And not in a way that I would call inherently kind. To be clear, nothing about this wedding was outrageous; it did not veer widely off the beaten path. Most of what was photographed seemed traditional and reasonable.
And still, somewhere in me, I decided to judge.
Even if the dress had been categorically ugly (which I am not saying it was), why in the world should I care?
Once i noticed myself judging, I continued on looking through the photos (damn, that curiosity!), all the while purposefully and intentionally forcing myself out of judging.
Even this made me feel so tiny.
There is no reasonable purpose to judging someone else's joyous day - particularly when all those photographed seemed happy.

I wanted to share this revelation because I know I am not the first and only person to judge. That doesn't excuse me, by any means; rather, it makes me fallible. Something which I am all to aware of.

I also realize that this means that it is likely that, when Chris and I post photos of our wedding, there will be some people I know who will look at the photos and judge something about us and our day.
My job is to, now realizing that, accept it and let it go. Not an easy feat for me, by any means.

My job is also to acknowledge my own flaw in being so quick to judge and - even though it is sad that I must do so - remind myself when I look at someone else's choice: "[Person] seems happy. And that is enough reason to be happy for [Person]."

Hopefully I can grow from this.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Stick it to Me!

Apparently, I enjoy a good word-play in my blog post titles. It seems to be my attempt at wit or cleverness. Is it working?

First, I want to say that I am feeling better about the whole date-setting debacle. Some things have settled down and, at this moment, I really just want to ignore it and move on to other things.

I was watching "Say Yes to the Dress" earlier today and it made me tear up. It was a nice reminder of how important and joyous this event is to me...to us. I love Chris so much and I want our day to be lovely and completely about us, our love, and the life we are building together.

Anyways, as you will know if you've read all my previous posts I had Chris create a logo for our wedding. Being in a moment of pure excitement about our wedding several days ago, I placed an order for 1.5" diameter stickers with our logo on it. I figure we can use them to seal the envelopes when we send out our save-the-dates and maybe on other things. I ordered them early because I wanted to make sure that I liked them before committing to a large order. Well, they came in!!


I think they are so cute and I can't wait to use them for something. (Look how smart I am! I added the quarter in there so you all can get a sense their size!)

This kind of thing definitely helps me get back to the joy and excitement.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

*headdesk*

For those who may not know "*headdesk*" is meant to indicate to the reader that the writer is at such a point of frustration/upset/exhaustion/etc that he or she drops or bangs his or her head on his or her desk.

This is how I feel.

I am at a point with the wedding planning at this moment where it seems that some things are going just the perfect amount of wrong that I can neither: (1) get exactly what I want, nor (2) throw my hands up in the air and say "EFF IT ALL!"
In particular, I am talking, ONCE AGAIN, about setting the effing wedding date.
Yeah.
Again.
Because, apparently, this is how it's going to be.

After all the hemming, hawing, questioning, checking, patting, worry, and finally deciding Chris and I have once again been thrown a serious curve ball out of left field (now, I am perfectly aware that people do not actually throw curve balls out of left field during either baseball or softball, but that is precisely the point here).
To be fair, this ball was thrown (and hit me square in the forehead) on Sunday morning when Chris received a phone call from an extended family member informing him of a date conflict which impacted the ENTIRETY of that side of his family. He also discovered, after placing several phone calls, that this conflict would guarantee the absence of some of the extended family members to whom he is closest and make many others less likely to attend.

So.
We go back.
And re-check.
And ask again.
And annoy the garbage out of the people who had thought we had decided for sure...especially since we ordered the flaming Save-the-Dates.

To top it off, I have now found out that an immediate family member may be choosing not to come because, although could possibly be there, finds the dates choices too inconveniencing.


So upsetting to me.
I really and truly feel like I've been beating my head against a wall with this one. Chris and I have tried so hard to balance the desires and needs of others with our own. It's our wedding and we have limited choices for dates, but, bless-it-all, we have done our best. We have done a great job, actually, yet somehow, I am getting the feeling from some people that WE are being too demanding or uncooperative.

It just feels like I can't win.

I accept that there is no way everyone can be there, but it seems that our options have thus far resulted in integral person or persons being unable/unwilling to attend.

Thus, after more thought, tears, discussion, frustration, venting, more tears, and general upset Chris and I have decided to change our wedding date
AGAIN.

May 21st, 2011.

Just one week after the previous date.

And I am NOT changing it.
For anything.
I don't care anymore.
I'm so over it.
I'm exhausted.

Overwhelming feeling of unfairness and frustration that this is the situation we are in.
I was so excited about having chosen a date previously and now...now I don't even care.
And that makes me sad.



I really hope there isn't much more of this.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Flowers, Galore!



Yesterday, I met with our good family friend who also happens to be a florist - and thus, our pre-selected wedding florist - to go over the preliminaries of discussing what our flowers will looks like for the wedding.

First, our lovely florist met me at a floral arrangement shop (conveniently near my house) where she has worked for some time. The shop itself is closed on Sundays, so we had the whole place to ourselves which was really lovely. I also want to say how much easier it is to have vendors whose work you know first hand (she did my father's and brother's weddings and is helping my mom with hers now) and who you can trust to be completely honest in every necessary way. I definitely wasn't worried about being talked into something that I wouldn't like or about choosing flowers that are too expensive for whatever reason. I could also trust her to be patient with me as I am not a flower or gardening type of woman. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy flowers, they're pretty, I like floral scents, but....you know, I simply don't know anything about them - especially not at a wedding level.

So we looked through books, she explained what was what, asked questions about the overall style, the bouquets in particular, the venue, and walked me through the whole process.
Another great thing on having someone you already know: I didn't have to tell her my wedding colors - she already knew them.

Ultimately, we came down to that we'll have a robust but not extravagant amount of flowers and the overall tone will be something with good dimensions, texture, interest, and with less structure and formality.

None of this:

More of this:
The latter fit the venue better, but more, they fit me better. I know I'm a control gal and I like things 'just so' often, but I'm also not prim. Nor am I simple. The variation and dimensionality are attractive to me and seem so much more interesting and appropriate for us.

Although we weren't actually doing any trial bouquets/arrangements or anything, our florist did pull out some beautiful flowers and put them into a rough sense of what it likely or possible (the colors aren't perfect, I took the photos with my phone):

It was so pleasant to just talk and look and touch and laugh and enjoy it.
So far, a lot of the planning has been fraught with difficulty for a variety of reasons and it was just wonderful to work with someone in a relaxed environment and just know that I was going to be able to have what I want from it.

We also set up a time to go to Rush Ranch together so that she can get a real sense of what it is that we're working with here and how we can make the most of our floral arrangements and choices.

Our florist also happens to do wedding coordination -- comes in handy, doesn't it?
Thanks, Elise!