nightmares

so, when the wedding thing started, i had a few 'nightmares'...  you know the kind - the one where its time for your first dance and the groom is drunk on bourbon on the front steps with his best man declaring that even though you are married, he doesnt have to listen to you (what, you didnt have this dream?  lets just say that the groom has been told that he will NOT be drinking bourbon at the wedding just to avoid this scene...)  or that the passed food is all set up buffet style.  stuff like that.  but the dreams - they stopped.  i got sane.  and i stopped stressing about it...

but oh how they've started again!  the other night it was that we'd forgotten to get a lighting person and that the cake had fallen through and was ice cream cake which was cut by a waiter instead of us and melted which caused that waiter to have a fight with my mom.  it included my realizing that the whole wedding was almost over and we'd never done toasts or dances or any of it.  it included me thinking 'how did we mess this up?  we only get one shot and we made this much of a disaster out of it???'

last night's dream was the best though.  truly.  see, when i was younger i used to have LOTS and LOTS of nightmares.  and in order to cope, i taught myself to 'look around' the scene to see what wasnt 'right' - for example, one time i had a dream that someone was hiding in my shower and jumped and covered me with the shower curtain.  and in my dream i was able to say 'wait, this isnt real - my shower curtain is navy blue (true statement) but this one thats over me is white...  so its a dream!' and i immediately woke up.

so anyway, last night my dream included me forgetting to hire a hair person.  and getting to the venue to find out that they had a basketball game going on inside of it and that we couldnt get in.  and not having the right makeup with me.  and during the dream, while everything under the sun was going wrong, i thought to myself, 'look around - what isnt right?' but despite the fact that it was (in awake lucid hindsite) all wrong, i couldnt find anything to grab on to.  still convinced that this was a dream, i tried to squint my eyes really tight and open them up, also to no avail.

finally, i figured out that it wasnt real by declaring that thanksgiving hadnt happened yet so this couldnt be real cause thanksgiving comes before the wedding.  (which is NOT true!  ha!)  i spent the rest of my dream skipping around telling everyone that this wasnt real and that everything was actually fine, but for some strange reason, couldnt actually wake up...  so i just had to skip through the dream la-laing while everyone else stressed out around me, just waiting until i woke up.

i have 10 more months of this.

can it be saturday already?

i dont know what happened but all of a sudden, i'm wedding dress CRAZY.  like, its all i think about. 

All along i thought i knew exactly what i wanted and all of a sudden, its like a whole new world of possibilities...  i want so much MORE than i thought i did (i think.  i'm clearly indecisive...) and while friday will be spent exploring the safe, less-fuss options, saturday is all about the Bridal Gowns.  (capital letters necessary to describe these dresses...)

and i CANNOT WAIT!  seriously going to burst with anticipation.

where in the world this came from, i have NO idea.  but OH MY GOD, get here already!!!

submitted!

oh so much has happened in the past month...  ok, not really, but kinda???

• we've picked our photographer and finally sent the deposit in.
• I think i've settled on colors.
• I just submitted the application to central park for the ceremony.

that last one?  thats the big one.  thats the thing that makes this a go or breaks my heart...  because the ceremony is the one part of this wedding that i'm holding on to - for me.  getting married outside, near water?  thats for me. 

Central Park, please come through.

ostridge syndrome

i love putting my head in a hole and ignoring the world...  pretending that it doesnt exist.  that the stressful situations dont exist.

i fear that this method and wedding planning are NOT friends...

oh, kill me now.

this was not on purpose.

why does pop culture have to be SO DAMN ANNOYING?*

i'd already declared myself as missing the bride gene - even before i was engaged.

i had NO IDEA that i'd gotten that phrase from SATC.  wow.  i'm so not that girl..  i mean, come on, i think magnolia bakery is OVERRATED - why would i use a line from SATC as my blog title?

i wouldnt.  not on purpose, at least.


*lets not even talk about the everlong issue, ok?

dont talk to me when there is a full moon

all day today i've been back in the 'why in the hell are we doing this stupid thing' mode...  since yesterday, really...

it had been a while since i was on the city hall bandwagon but something about picking photographers made it all oh-so-real.  (no we havent picked one.  and i just added another one into the mix.  argh)

and i hate it.  hate the idea of the attention.  hate the idea of the expectations.  hate the idea that it may not turn out as planned.  hate that there is a plan.  hate the diet i'll be on for at least the next 6 months due to this stupid 5 hour party. 

hate the idea that being married is supposed to change me.  what if i dont want it to change me?  what if i dont want to have kids and a house and all of that?  is it this or is it that i'm scared to grow up?  or scared that this means that all those things i've said i'll do one day, down the road, are suddenly here?

i also hate the idea of regret.  hate the idea of wishing i'd done it differently.  hate how fear paralyzes me.

thankfully the one thing i dont hate right now is the fiance.

but i do hate the strain it puts on our relationship.  the new level of adding 'for the rest of my life' to every nit and pick.

thats a lot of hate for one person, right? 

dont worry - it should all be gone tomorrow.  full moons make me a crazy person.  and lo-and-behold, there's a full moon up in that there sky.
and its not self-fufilling prophecy - i didnt think there was a full moon until later on this week until earlier today i saw that full moon staring at me on my little google homepage moon tracker...

please god, do not let the week of my wedding feature a full moon.  I may not survive it.

things i should understand but dont

i never really thought as myself as an unconventional girl. a bit off-beat sometimes, sure, but hardly a rebel...

i never understood people who said that they never wanted to get married. at the same time, i never understood people who were dying to do so. to me, getting married is one possible path. i dont think it defines a person the way other people do. but frankly, these days, i dont totally understand why its something that we do.

is it security? i dont know that i need the security - i feel pretty freaking confident that J has no intention of going anywhere, ever. he makes that clear to me on a very regular basis. i know that he loves and adores the hell out of me and out of our life (as troubled as parts of it are right now) and he's just part of who i am... its like being worried that my right arm was going to get bored of me and hop off of my body... who would worry about that? no one. and thats my point.
i've got to assume that he feels the same way about me. i'm not going anywhere. again, i have no intention of getting bored of that right arm and chopping it off - its just part of who i am... doesnt even really occur to me to chop it off and leave it behind.

so why get married? honestly, i dont have a good reason other than i guess its to give OTHER people security. people who arent in our relationship and dont know that its just a foregone conclusion that we'll both stick around... i guess we need to make sure that our parents and our friends know that the other one intends to stick it out? so that we can make life changes for and with eachother? but even that - what does it all really mean? i mean, a couple close to my family - married for 45 years, are apparently getting divorced... so, what, does that mean that the life changes they made for and with eachother shouldnt have happened because they eventually are breaking up? hardly. however, when a marriage goes south, people dont judge those life changes nearly as harshly because 'you were married! who would have thought this would happen???'

i dont believe that getting married is any extra guarantee that you'll stay together. in fact, sometimes i fear its the thing that drives people apart... sometimes when you no longer have a choice, you really wish you did. and that leads to bad things, my friends... however, 2 people who never get married? it means that every day they wake up and decide that they still want to be together. not out of obligation, but out of what they want.

marriage is just one path. and while i'm thrilled that J will be around forever, i fully believe that i do not need a ring or a big party or any rituals to make me feel more sure of it... to me, all of that? its for other people...

the dress, the dress...

yesterday was day 1 of dress shopping... i'd been dreading dress shopping like i cant even explain... but in the end, 90% of it was kinda awesome...

and while i cant give too much away because J knows about this blog, i'll just say this... i certainly have different taste than 97% of the brides out there... which is good and bad. bad because there is a limited number of things that i like. good because there is a limited number of things that i like... its like being a vegetarian - sometimes you want more options, but other times, you just want one or two, because it makes decision-making that much easier...

the funny part was that the girl in the dressing room (1st store - david's) next to mine had pretty much the exact same taste as i did... we tried on at least 2 if not more, of the same dresses... it was nice to not be the only one who didnt want strapless, beaded and poufy! and i loved her when someone mentioned wearing spanx and she was like, 'no, i'm NOT wearing spanx. i want to eat, dance and have fun - i look fine!' i wanted to kiss her for that!!! (she doesnt need them anyway!)

store commentary -
i know david's is like, the place you are supposed to NOT want to go. i know it has a reputation and all of that. but you know, i went there and i went to one other shop and i HATED the other place. HATED! had it been the one we'd gone to first, i never would have put another wedding dress on ever again. it was the awful experience i'd been expecting - thank god we'd been to david's first - where i'd found 4 dresses that i liked and had the opposite of an awful experience!

turn off the internet...

i'll fully admit - i'm a hypocrite... but the fact is, i've become one of those girls... you know, the wedding-obsessed ones.

(though i still dont want a dress...)

however, i think i may have just been cured... with Indiebride being down (this happens - A LOT) and me needing my wedding messageboard fix, i hopped on over to weddingbee... where i read the following statement:

we are 'lovey dovey cuddle bunnies'

i'm fairly sure that i just threw up a little bit in my mouth.

its not a slam

so like, theoretically, every wedding is different. at least everyone HOPES that their wedding is different...

so why is it that people seem to take my desire to have a less-traditional wedding as a personal slam on their more traditional weddings? i have nothing against formal weddings. i have nothing against backyard weddings. i have nothing against vegas weddings. i have nothing against beach weddings. i dont care if you are getting married in a church, synogogue or out on a pier. i dont care if you want to spend all of your $ on flowers or half of your budget on your dress. (i do find total excess & showy-ness a bit off-putting, but aside from that, try very hard to not criticize other's priorities) if you want fashion pictures, go for it. if you want friends to take the pictures, well, do that too. i dont care.

i just choose to do something different.

why is that so horrible?

appropriate or not?

I'd like to use this as part of our wedding - i suggested the cover of our programs, J says not appropriate.

so where? because i know it may seem almost a bit cynical and jaded, but i think it so perfectly describes relationships and is something i've said, not in so many words, many times over...

its officially a party

When we set out to do this thing, i decided that there were exactly 3 things that were 100% more necessary to having this party. and those were the 3 things i was going to spend the most time (not to mention $) on, and we were going to move early, because we didnt want to miss out on our first choices...

we now officially have a date - 10.16.10 with all of the necessary ingredients... a venue - landmark on the park, a caterer - real food catering and a dj - dj Gaza...

Given that there is a liquor store around the corner from the venue and anyone can get ordaned over the internet these days, i believe this means that we have all of the necessary ingredients for our wedding.

and now, finally, i can sit back and relax a little...

except i wont - now i'll obsess over details. like the dessert table. i want that dessert table to be here NOW. and the cheese spread - i want to pick the paired wine NOW. and the specialty cocktails - wait, that one is good. we actually HAVE TO DRINK COPIUS AMOUNTS of fall cocktails because the only time you can make that decision is during the fall, right???

1 down, a million to go.

Its official - we have a DJ... he's already received our signed contract and check (gotta love NYC mail)

Have the venue contract in hand... that's going to be a tiny bit scarier to sign only because this venue really does dictate the vibe of the wedding... there's going to be no chance of casualing it down at this location (- an idea that passes through my mind on a semi-regular basis)... and with a few thousand non-refundable $s down, its pretty much a lock...

so i guess this is really happening, huh?

signed, sealed but not yet delivered...

DJ... CHECK!

Venue... CHECK!

the DJ contract & deposit are in the envelope, ready to be dropped off at lunchtime. we have an appointment to sign the venue contract next Tuesday. WOO!

still have to decide on those caterers... sigh. i'm really going to hate the part where we have to 'turn people down'. I've told J that he has to handle that - we'll see if he remembers ;)

10.16.10

we FINALLY have enough information to lock in the date :)

We'll sign the venue either later this week or early next week and we'll be booking the DJ this weekend :)

YAY!

then we just have the task of choosing between the 5 caterers... oops.

frustration pt 2

dear NYC... why do you have to be so expensive???

We spent a lot of time today responding to caterers regarding their proposals and trying to set up a couple more meetings... Looks like in the end, we'll have 5 proposals... Originally I was going for 3 but then read a suggestion of 5 and honestly, am glad that i did as 2 of the first 3 didnt really amount to anything that we could/would want to work with...

but its frustrating... even the 'best' proposal is exceeding our budget, which is already inflated by a few thousand dollars for the sake of being as realistic as possible... which puts us 5k over budget before we've done anything aside from booking the venue & caterer...

thats not really a good start, is it?

frustration

J and i have a VERY cohesive idea of the party we'd like to have. and to us, it seems pretty straight-forward... one big-ass cocktail party. mingling, chatting, sitting, lounging, dancing, whatever. passed champagne. a kick-ass cheese display (we are nothing if not cheese people). signature cocktails. so many passed bite-sized pieces that you want to burst at the end (and did i mention foodies?). a fully stocked bar (and oh yeah, drinkers). we want to end it with some lovely wedding cake plus some meaningful desserts - we want to make some, we want some from my childhood & some from J's childhood. plus, maybe a kick-ass candy display to rival the cheese display that began the night. (and this might even double as favors. 2 for 1 bonus!)

this is my kind of party... which leaves me wondering why the hell none of the caterers we talk to seem to 'get it'... no one has come back to us and said that it wont work because of X, so we assume it would but what they've all done is just give us something that isnt what we've asked for...

is this actually hard? or difficult to comprehend? forget your ideas of what a wedding is supposed to look like and just look at the list - isnt this the kind of party that you'd like to attend? nothing stiff or formal - just one big laid-back party thrown in a beautiful location with fancy clothes and fantastic food.

is it not new york enough for them? is it not wedding enough for them? well forget all that and lets have a freaking party already...

ahhh.....

I'm SO walking down the aisle to everlong...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000S3ADU6/ref=dm_mu_dp_trk11

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOW.

this past saturday, J and i were driving back into the city after a long and tiresome day on LI... and i decided to take a 2 block detour and drive past landmark on our way home... we're sort of worried/obsessed with how 'church-y' it looks and wondering about stained glass and all of that stuff so any time i can get a night view, i like to do it...

never occured to me that we'd get to see a wedding in progress...

landmark is unique in that you can see inside from the street... meaning everyone on CPW can see inside and watch your wedding if they want... which meant that WE could quickly park the car and watch the wedding reception in progress...

and it looked AWESOME.

i'm 100% sold. done. dont need to think about anything else. sign me up, hand over the cash and lets get this thing locked down.

up, down, back, forth, push, pull, good, bad

wedding planning is kinda like that...

one day i'm all about it, the next i want no part of it.

last night we went to this fairly useless wedding thing held at/during the museum of the city of new york 'speakeasy' night... (STRONG drinks - i had one and was drunk!)
MCNY is a beautiful place for a wedding. generally more than i would have wanted to spend on the site, but currently that fee is 50% off due to recession.

oh, and probably due to the fact that after May 2010, they are going into construction...
would have been nice to have been told that BEFORE we stood there and waited for our tour...

ok, but there were other vendors there too... and i found one hit and one big fat miss...

the caterer for the event was one that i wanted to speak to... until i tasted their phyllo-wrapped asparagus and surmised that the asparagus was from a CAN. seriously, its august. fairway is stocking some gorgeous asparagus. and this caterer is using the canned stuff??? (it is possible that it was fresh and so badly prepared that it tasted canned, but i dont know that that would be any better...) so scratch them off of the list.

on the flip side, we were flipping through a HIDEOUS wedding album when another photog came over to chat with us - mentioned that the album we were viewing wasnt really her style (thank god hideous wasnt her style!) and gave us a card... jaydgardinaphotography.com... love her pictures and it appears that she's reasonably priced. WOO! i think we'll definitely talk to her when the time comes...

anyway, you'd think that i woke up this morning disgusted by the process, but totally the opposite. the more i see that i hate/wont work, the more confident i feel in our current 'front runners'...

hell, if it wasnt for waiting for that pesky nascar schedule, i'd be ready to call landmark and book it RIGHT NOW.

cant wait for our catering meetings this weekend - real foods and world wide events... should be fun!

back to square zero

the other night i almost gave j the ring back - not cause i was breaking up with him, but because i was breaking up with the wedding...

thankfully, NYC has a lovely city hall

it occured to me this weekend - weddings just arent me.

i dont like being dressed up in uncomfortable clothes. I dont like uncomfortable shoes. i dont like my hair to have hairspray or any accessories other than bobby pins & pony tail holders. I dont like getting ready hours early. or being out and about and sociable for that many hours.

my favorite events are one of two kinds... 1 - laid back with my friends. in a backyard, a big table at a bar or somewhere else that i dont feel like people are watching me to see how i behave. heck, at company parties i like to fade into a corner with my group and not come out. no small talk, no chitchat. just leave me alone to talk to my 5 friends and i'm happy.
or 2 - the kind where i have a JOB. where socializing isnt part of my agenda, its just something that i fit in between the moments of doing my JOB. being a MOH for my sister mostly fit that bill - if i was feeling awkard or unhappy, well, i had to go check on the bride... or another guest. or anyting that didnt leave me standing in one spot, feeling awkward...

weddings are neither of these... weddings are all about the chitchat. and the socalizing. and the being watched. things to attend to? oh no, you are the bride! 'let the DOC or the best man or your dad take care of that... its your special day!' (vomit)... all of this - these are the things that make me awkward and unhappy and uncomfortable and generally speaking, lead me to become best friends with the bottom of a glass...

the idea of being married to J - i like the idea that he's going to be around forever... its all those other people being around - even for 6 hours - that i dont like...

and oh, sure... its my wedding day - if i want to go to city hall i can, right? yeah right. on top of it all i'm a people pleaser. which means breaking the hearts of moms, dads, grandmas and fiances is not something i do well. and is something that will ruin my fun...

rockhardplace.

no fairy princesses here...

i never really thought about my wedding. thought maybe i'd never have a wedding. thought maybe i'd do destination. thought maybe i wouldnt get married.

swore that if i got engaged, i CERTAINLY wouldnt start planning my wedding until at least a month had gone by. hang out and have fun being engaged for at least a month. that i'd have the rest of my life to be married, so what would be the rush?

YEAH RIGHT.

3 weeks in and i'm full-speed ahead. on first name, daily email contacts with a caterer. making 2nd appointments to see venues...

god i hope i can stick to the 'no puffy dresses' image i have of myself...