Trials, Schedules, and Check - Oh My!

*Programming Alert: For the next week, I will be posting exclusively - and hopefully more prolifically - about my mother's upcoming nuptials*

My Mother's Wedding Countdown: EIGHT DAYS!

At the last minute yesterday afternoon, I was invited to join my mother and sister for my mom's trial hair appointment.

For those who do not know, a trial hair appointment is when you meet with the hairstylist you will or may have on your wedding day, and they do your hair just as they plan to for the big day.  This way, you can make any comments or adjustments before a day where you're already overwhelmed and trying not to worry about a hundred (or a million) details.

Anyhow, knowing how my mother sometimes has difficulty making a decision without validation, I agreed to go.  It also doesn't hurt that, since my classes have ended, I have a freer schedule than I am used to.  So I went, leaving my house 15 minutes later than I would have liked to and arriving 10 minutes after the appointment was meant to begin.  I was the first of the three of us to arrive.  Delightful.  Regardless, everyone did arrive, my mother's hair was tried, and it looked beautiful.


During the course of this event, I learned that there were other wedding-planning errands to be run during the rest of the afternoon.  Many items needed to be checked off a list and my mother needed to change her mind and second-guess things a few times.  We booked mom's makeup artist and scheduled her makeup trial, made trips to a bridal salon to look for jewelry (we didn't find what we wanted) and to a party rental place to change about 50% of the order and decide on changing many other things.  Ultimately, my sister and I ended up wrangling my mother's vacillation - much to the relief of her fiance, who was along for all but the hair trial.  We ended up also having many conversations about people who haven't yet RSVP'd, my sister's and my hair, whether or not the men will have boutineers, and about a hundred other small but important details.


This seems to be an infinitesimal taste of what is slated for the next 8 days.  Lots of my mother feeling harried, lots of her fiance being clueless as to what she's talking about (mostly not his fault, either), and me and my sister jumping in to stop her from spinning out of orbit in her hurry to get things done.

At this moment, there are still about three hundred things that need to be settled and decided.  Partly, this was purposeful; being a teacher, my mom finished her school year on Monday and thus has had 100% "free time" since then and all the way until the wedding.  Still, organization has never been her strength (might I have mentioned that before??) and, in my selfish way, I certainly do not want to be drowning in details the day before or day of the wedding.

Right now, my task is to make sure that my mom meets with me and my sister to lay everything out and get all the To-Do's organized.  And that is task enough to contemplate for now.

Bachelorette

My sister, Sarah, and I have been planning our mother's bachelorette party, and the day finally came!

We picked out a "fairy tale" theme that we hoped the guests - most of whom are near our mother's age - will enjoy the whimsy and fun of such a child-like theme. Especially because, to go with the theme of both "fairy tale" and "bachelorette," my sister and I have gotten a very silly amount of decorations that include dragons, swords, lots of pink, tiaras, and about a hundred other items of silliness.

I really enjoy planning parties. Particularly parties in honor of something or someone in particular - other than myself. In this case, it is both. Planning parties provides me with an opportunity to create something that I hope the guest(s) of honor will enjoy and that will relieve them of stress.

There is something that, for me, is soothing and prideful about selecting silly decorations and deciding on what food and drink to serve.

When the day came, however, it was rather miserable to get everything finished. A series of small, but manageable disasters, not the least of which was the weather - nearly 90-degree heat - in a house where we were cooking and which has no air conditioning. During the getting-ready that morning and afternoon (guests were scheduled to arrive at 6pm) we had difficulties with the food prep, with guests' choices, with retrieving needed items, moving furniture, dropping heavy bottles on my toe, among other things. In part, I underestimated how long things would take, and I had let it slide about what needed to get done the night before.

We also had fewer guests attend than who had RSVP'd and some guests who stayed for a shorter amount of time than I had expected. Wanting to have provided my mother with an enjoyable party, I felt responsible for this, somehow (even though some people couldn't make it due to illness and other perfectly acceptable reasons for not coming to a party...some peoples' reasons I didn't quite understand).

At the end of the night, however, everyone had eaten and drank their fill of appetizers, fruit, candy, wine, champagne, and beer. They also seemed to have a blast. We played games, got a little silly and risque, made everyone sing karaoke on my new karaoke machine.

Ultimately, it turned out well, even though it definitely did not turn out like I wanted.

My mom tells me that she had a great time and was thankful for what my sister and I had given her (and yes, my sister did help -- I did the preponderance of the planning, but she was great about doing what I asked of her).

Now it's my job to believe my mom and be glad that she is happy...especially about marrying her fiance in less than 10 days. (WOW! 10 days!!).

So Close

This morning, I checked the countdown clock I have running now on my phone and I realized that my mother's wedding is coming up in two and a half weeks. That feels so close, and, the closer we get to it, the more excited I become. (We also have her bachelorette party this weekend -- more about that in another post.)

It has truly been joyful to watch my mother become so excited about her impending nuptials. While planning and organization is not necessarily her strongest skill set, things seem to mostly be coming together and I feel less and less like I need to be guiding her along in getting things accomplished.

I must admit, when the engagement was first announced - a few days after Christmas - I was wary about whether or not this was truly what my mother wanted. In making the announcement, my mother's new fiance was clearly excited and proud about the development, but my mother was subdued and contributed little to the conversation.

Concerned, I asked her about this at a later date and my fears were assuaged; it seems that her reticence was primarily due to nerves at making such a large announcement to her children. Even more, over the past several months, I have been able to see her more relaxed and excited about her relationship with her fiance and any lingering concerns thankfully dissolved.

It is such a blessing to see my mother so happy with her relationship and her life in general. Most people know that my relationship with my mom has not always been sunshine and roses; frankly, things between us have been difficult for a very long time. Over the past few years, however, I have seen a change in her that has led to consistent and steady improvement in our relationship. And now, with helping her plan her wedding and being able to share in her joy, I find it much easier to relate to her and to be genuinely happy for her.

I suppose what I mean to say is that, while I am definitely happy for my mother's happiness for its own sake, I am also very glad that her happiness has acted as a salve to the rifts in our relationship.

All Sized Up

By the way, I know I'm late and this post comes out of order.

When I started shopping for my wedding dress - like, really shopping...in stores and everything! - I read that wedding dress sizes are very different from standard U.S. women's sizes. That is, compared to my 'regular' dress size, my 'bridal' dress size is an additional 2-3 sizes....UP.

Thus, before I went shopping, I did my best to mentally prepare myself for not fitting into the sample sizes. Even so, when I went and tried with vigor to make my body fit into dresses some many inches too small, it was hard not to let it psych me out. Well, to be completely honest, it helped when the attendants cooed over how I looked, even with rolls of fat pouring out the back.

Fortunately, bridal sample dresses are larger than 'fashion' sample sizes (usually 0 or 2), so some of the samples actually fit me. In fact, THE dress, when I tried it on, actually fit very well. (Maybe that's why I picked it!)

Still, the whole ordeal got me thinking about brides and the whole 'bridal fitness' thing. And about body image more generally. See, I have had the good fortune of growing up with a family who regularly told me that they believe I am beautiful. I furthered this good fortune by finding a man who not only loves me, but who tells me I am beautiful at all times of the day, even if I have last night's makeup all over my face and I'm wearing smelly pajamas (that's a pretty mental image, isn't it?).

Even so, that doesn't stop the feeling from snaking up; you know, that feeling that I get every so often, the one I try to push back down and rationalize away...the one that tells me that I'm fat and ugly. This is the message that I have learned after decades of exposure to the general media...the media that fails to make known - at least not to adolescents - that the women on billboards and the covers of magazines not only don't look like that every day, the photo itself is not an accurate representation of the woman in the photo (hence: Photoshopping!). Even as an adult, knowing about how these images are made, I still see the message that NO ONE - not even those held as standards of beauty- is beautiful enough.

I know that this is turning into a bit of a rant, but this issue cannot be separated from the dramas of getting married. Brides are urged to look their best in the dress; that is not something I disagree with. What frustrates me is the perpetuated idea that I, as I am today, am not good enough to marry unless I lose 15 pounds before the big day. I love who I am and I work pretty hard at loving how I look, including how I feel about my body.

Yes, I want to look my best on my wedding day and I do want to feel that I look beautiful in the photos, but I want the reason I that I look beautiful to be centered on how blissfully happy I am that day. I want to look MY best. And I don't want to feel like there is anyone who thinks that MY best isn't enough. I know that Chris won't think so. He always thinks I'm beautiful.

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.

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.

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.