Honeymooners

Among the many questions that people ask when we talk about the wedding is about the honeymoon that Christopher and I will take.

Unfortunately, I have rarely had a satisfactory answer.
That is because the plans, by necessity, have been flexible.

Because of his job, Chris is not able to take off much time in a reliable fashion.  That is, his schedule for the month of May has his working Wednesday-Sunday with his days off Monday and Tuesday.  He requested to use vacation days (the whole two that he gets to last him until October) for the day of the wedding and the day after (Saturday and Sunday).  He only got Saturday off via this request.  He also got an unpaid day off on the Wednesday after the wedding.

Thus, as of right now, Christopher is working the day before the wedding, the day after, has the day off for the wedding itself and has Mon-Tues-Weds off after the wedding.

He has requested that his coworkers agree to work his shifts for the 20th and 22nd (Friday and Sunday), and also for the full week+ following his days off.
He will be doing everything that he can to get all the time off that he can, but depending on the factor of time our honeymoon will be one of three options:

1. A week or more using his uncle's vacation home in the Florida Keys
2. A few days in San Diego
3. A few days in Carmel-by-the-Sea/Monterey

Right now, though, I am less concerned about whether or not we're able to take the week+ in Florida, but more so that Chris not be scheduled to work at 5am the day after we get married....or be scheduled to work until 12pm on the day of our rehearsal.

Wish him luck!

Someone Must Be To Blame

Someone must be to blame for hitting my PANIC! button.

Because, remember when I was talking all about how I am totally calm?  Yeah.
Gone.
Like, poof, into thin air.

This blog post will probably be listed as "published" at something like 2:00 am PST.  I started writing just before 1:30 am PST.

Now, not to say that I am freaking out about details that need to get done or something tragical happening....mostly, I have sneaking feelings of impending doom and my thoughts are racing like they're in the final stretch going for Olympic Gold.

I jump topics like....well, all analogies coming to mind at this moment are a bit inappropriate...suffice to say it is a lot!  I am thinking about: the classwork that is due on Friday (four separate projects, each of which involve writing at minimum 5 double-spaced pages of pure text), what we are going to do for our honeymoon, how the apartment is a mess, the outstanding RSVP's, where we are going to find the apartment for LA, that maybe I should be working out more since the wedding is so close, how long am I going to have to stay at La Familia on Thursday to finish paperwork, when I am going to fit anything else in, how I have a party on Saturday, about coordinating flights for my officiant, my guilt over not having worked on my vows hardly at all, the upcoming move and the required organization, Chris' health, how little food we have in the apartment right now, how good Taco Bell sounds right now, that I should maybe lay off the salt until the wedding to avoid bloat, and how it would be nice to finish the dishes but that would probably be too loud and wake Chris...........
The list goes on.
And on.
And on.

You get the idea.
It's tremendous.

All with this sinking, nagging feeling that, even with every pot I have my finger in at the moment (because everything listed above will be done in time and at least adequately), I am missing something vital.

This rigamarole, this tirade in my mind is what has me up at 2:00am on a Monday night/Tuesday morning when I have scheduled myself for a 9:00am yoga class.

Now, before I click off here and hit the publish button, it would be unfair of me not to acknowledge that this is not the only time in my life where anxiety has taken sleep from my grasp.

Even as I prepare to finish this post, I took a look around the view of the apartment from my perch at my desk to see what other task I can tackle before attempting to sleep.

Sidebar: Idealized

I have stumbled across yet another article that I find interesting which relates to the fact that I am getting married shortly: Want a Happier Marriage? Unrealistically Idealize Your Partner

This article reports on a recent study which drew the conclusion that unrealistically idealization of one's partner is correlated to higher marital satisfaction over the first three years of a first marriage.

They suggested that people may either distort their actual perception of their partner to more closely fit the concept of their ideal partner or they have adjust their concept of an ideal partner to match the qualities of their current partner.

Either of these possibilities are interesting.

But what is important here, as it always is, is that these data are correlations....so there is no determining the causation.  The authors state that one alternate possibility is that people who are simply in more stable and satisfying relationships tend to have an idealized perception of their partner; thus, the causation flips from the headline which suggest that, as long as you force yourself to idealize your partner you'll have a happier marriage.

As always, my critical thinking and curious mind asks: how does this differ, if at all, when taking into account length of courtship and/or whether or not the couple was living together prior to marriage.  I expect that the trajectory of Chris' and my was different when we first started living together versus what it will be following the wedding.

Very interesting.

The Bridezilla Conundrum

So it seems now that the time has arrived wherein people are expecting that the Bride (that is, me) is going Crazy preparing for the wedding.  Which is understandable given that: (1) popular culture tells us that the Crazy of the Bride ramps up and up and up as the wedding gets closer and closer and closer, (2) the wedding is now 16 days away, (3) I am typically deal with stress by dipping into my deep well of anxiety, and (4) there have been a lot of stresses with the wedding previously.

I am, however, shockingly cool, calm, and collected.
Yes, there are a few is a lot is is still tons left to do before the big day, but I am feeling that all of this is well in-hand.  Partly, this may be because while, previously, there had been some...shall we say challenges?....with personalities involved in the wedding, those seem to have been sufficiently resolved.  Well, at least they have been resolved enough that I don't have to deal with them.

It also helps that we have a better head-count for the wedding (only 32 people have not yet RSVP'd - and yes that is only since two days ago that number was more like 50), and that I had my third and final dress fitting on Tuesday.

Another factor is that I am approaching my final days working at my practicum placement; I am going in later this morning and after that I have two days of practicum left, which will consist of training meetings and paperwork - no more client meetings.  That leaves me with the remainder of my time to work and to work on the wedding.  That's a full week with the wedding as my primary task.

I think also that because I did begin grappling with a lot of the emotions about the wedding well ahead of time, I am able to focus on the excitement.  I have butterflies of excitement, not of impending disaster.  I am feeling free and clear of so much of the nasty, heavy anxiety that generally plagues my world.

I am completely ready to be present and conscious for my wedding day, so that I can experience all the wonders and joys of the entire day.

Shoe Clips: They're In

Coming on the heels of the Royal Wedding, I have extreeeeeeeeeeeeeemely important and exciting news:

I ordered shoe clips, they have arrived, and I am very pleased.

I know.

Revolutionary.

Whatevs. 

Here are my non-princess shoes with the shoes with the shoe clips attached:

Yes, I went with the turquoise flowers, despite concerns that the colors wouldn't match - a concern shared by all many some three two people.  I was a hair apprehensive, but I decided ultimately that I was more concerned about how the others might look a little over-bridal and result in the dreaded not-ever-going-to-wear-it-again disease that plagues weddings the world over.


And I have my results.
And I am happy.

Bottles of Bubbly

I have to say that this was one of my favorite wedding tasks to date: champagne tasting!

My wedding wine provider/selector, who also happens to be my step-uncle, chose a selection of three champagnes for us to try at Easter dinner so that we could select one for the wedding. (Chris did not participate since, as many of you know, he does not drink at all.)

First, up an Asti: the flavor was sweet and bright, and my personal favorite - hello! sweet tooth!! - but ultimately we decided that it was too much to serve to the wedding attendees since many are not likely to share my preference for sweet.

Second, Prosecco: very dry.  Some of the family preferred this one and, while I liked it, it wasn't a stand-out for me.

Third: Louise d'Estree: balanced, and spicy.  The ultimate winner with a good amount of flavor variety.

Who knew I was such a connoisseur of champagnes and that I would have such strong opinions on it?

It was certainly quite fun trying the different bottles and discussing it like a fancy-pants grown-up with my family members.  I'd never had that much of an opinion about these things, and I'm used to the real grown-ups making decisions about wine and things since I'm generally pretty easy to please.

It is definitely nice to know, though, that I got to pick this one....plus the bottle is waaaaaaay pretty, right?

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

What cures all ailments regarding DIY projects?

Ordering 80 pounds of candy!!

Last night, I ordered all the candy for the candy buffet (or at least I think I did) from Amazon.  I was planning to order from an online candy wholesaler, but it turns out that the shipping for that wholesaler would increase the overall price by 40%.  So, a $200 order would cost $280 to get to me.  Well, turns out that Amazon has some great candy deals that fall under the Free SuperSaver Shipping deal that they have (or are Amazon Prime eligible, if you have that- I have the one-year student trial :) ).

I got all the below for well under budget:

Albanese Beary Blue Raspberry Gummi Bears

Chocolate Toffee Almonds

Airheads White Mystery

Grapefruit Gummi Candy

(my 100% favorite that I fell in love with when working at the Sweet Factory)

Swedish Fish

Sour Patch Watermelon Slices

Peanut Butter Pretzel Poppers

Yogurt Pretzels

Tootsie Rolls

Candy Coated Malted Milk Balls

Cherry Sour Balls

Watermelon Jolly Ranchers

Albanese Lemon Gummi Bears

I think I ended up with a good grouping of chocolate, gummi, nut, sour, and flavors.  I also needed to consider the color situation since I want the candy, when all set up, to look good and cohesive and in line with my overall color scheme.

It was more difficult to determine the line-up than I thought it would be; all the considerations (color, flavor, price) made things somewhat challenging to balance well.

You know what, though?

I'm definitely excited to eat all the candy....you know, to taste test it...in case it's....poisoned.

Hair Trial

I met with our neighbor slash my sister's best friend slash my regular hair stylist for my wedding hair trial.

Just like I mentioned regarding my accessories, I'm was having difficulty deciding on a style that I want and one that goes with the rest of the style.

First, though:

[[Christopher, this is where you should - once again - stop reading!  Thanks and I love you!!!......now go away ;) ]]





There we go.
Sometimes these spoiler warnings seem silly, but I definitely don't want him to know and I also definitely want to post.

So there we go.




Anyways, when I met up with her, I brought along a handful of "inspiration" photos:

Yeah.
I know.
It's a lot of pictures.
And there are some themes, and some things I was pretty sure of when I walked in:
(1) mostly an up-do (rather than long and down)
(2) volume!
(3) natural-ish curl
(4) big-ass flower(s)
(5) go with the 1940's/pin-up aesthetic

After  a rough draft and consultation, this is what my girl ended up with:

I think the photos still don't do the whole thing justice, but I really loved my trial. She did a great job listening to my adjustments along the way and we tried a few things before we ended on this.

I love the volume, the curl, and the overall effect.

Well, done friend!!!