Dress Obsessed?

Once thing that I am most frustrated about at this point is that I left my dress in Houston at my parent's house. I really want to try it on to make sure it fits, but I can't, so now I occasionally have freak-out moments where I think the dress won't fit. This is compunded by the fact that this week a friend of ours is staying in our apartment, we're packing, and I had an upset stomach this weekend so I won't be able to get to the gym at all this week (Wine Wednesday at Spec's clearly trumps going to the gym). In reality, this stressful week of packing will probably "allow" me to lose weight, so I should be fine. I guess I'll find out Saturday when I get to my parent's house exactly how many cheeseburgers I'll be allowed to eat. :)

Hey Mr. DJ

Whoops! I tried to log into the DJ's website to put in some songs that I had wanted on the playlist, but our login has expired! Luckily, I can still submit things to the DJ by email, and they're supposed to call us at some point to discuss everything. Honestly, I'm not that worried. Months ago, I was thinking that I would have a massively organized list like skywalker's, and despite my not wanting to dance to the Cupid Shuffle, I just didn't put the time or effort into it. I've come to terms with it though. I just want people to dance and have fun, and if that means the Cupid Shuffle gets played, I probably won't even remember it twenty years from now. I just have to email to say no to rap and no to country (apologies to my future brother-in-law, but I am the only woman in Texas who doesn't know how to two-step, so we're just not playing it).

Registry Stalker

I'll admit it, my fiance and I stalk the registry almost religiously, and I am not ashamed about it. It's fun to see what people are getting you. I really don't see the problem with it, for many reasons:

1) if someone gets you something from the registry, the gift is not going to be a surprise anyway
2) none of the guests will watch you open your presents after the wedding, so you don't even have to act surprised
3) if you know someone purchased something, you can watch for it in the mail so your completely unhelpful leasing office doesn't leave it in their mailroom for it to rot
4) if you are moving right after the wedding, it is helpful to know what of your old stuff you can give to Goodwill (maybe this is just specific to us)
5) again if you are moving right after the wedding, you'll be able to tell just how many things have been shipped to your mother's house (after the "cutoff date") that are going to have to get shipped to your new apartment (when you finally figure out where that will be)
6) one morning you will wake up and check the registry and there will be a whole bunch of things "fulfilled" and it will feel like Christmas twice (once when you see that they've been purchased and once when you actually open them)

Am I Still Excited?

Several people have asked me if I am still excited about the wedding. I think there are really two answers.

Yes, I am excited to be marrying the man I love, and I can't wait to be Mrs. D. On the other hand, I am completely exhausted with planning and moving. I have a feeling that once everything is packed (by t-minus 7 days until wedding) and we're in Houston, the excitement will start to build, but until then, I just really don't want to think about the wedding.

I take that back, because I remembered that several times this week I found out that my mother and sister have changed a few things with the layout of the reception hall. They decided not to tell me because it would stress me out. Right, like showing up at the reception hall thinking it was going to be setup a completely different way wouldn't stress me out either. Whatever.

I do think that I am going to be calmer than I anticipated. Before I found a temporary job for the summer, I remember watching "Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?" and getting all teary-eyed and weepy and thinking how I would bawl my eyes out on my way to the altar. I'm not so sure that will happen now. Not that I won't be ecstatic, I think Ill just be less likely to out-and-out cry (because I am NOT a pretty crier - runny nose, red face, the works).

Catering Fiasco

I am ready to cry. There is too much going on, so on top of selling my car, packing the apartment, and having lengthy conversations with my mother about how many and which M&M's to order (despite my thinking that we had already discussed this), my caterer emails me to see how things are going. Even though she told me I don't need to have final numbers to her until next week, I told her the new numbers and some of the general layout then said I would get back to her next week.

She emails back that she will have to adjust the per person pricing, because those numbers are based on the higher number. Isn't that what per person pricing means? The amount that is charged per person? Much less, at what point can you change the terms of an agreement? I told her to send the forms and I'll send them to my parents. She upped the rate by 30%, and somehow the total was exactly the same, despite the food price being different. I called and asked, and she explained that food costs more when you order less (should this be my problem?) and that he calculations must have been wrong on the tax and gratuity (should I have to pay for her math class?).

Yargh and double yargh.

Missed Payment

I knew it would happen. I just knew that something would fall through the cracks. I was on the phone with my mom last night (in response to one of the many text messages that I had been sent), when she decided to go through the list of upcoming payments that would be due. I told her that the only ones left were the caterer, reception site, and the cake baker, unless we wanted to increase the time we had set aside for the DJ, in which case we would need to add an hour of fees to his time.

"What about the church people? When do I have to pay S for the cantors and musicians."

"That was due July 12th. We needed to pay them $400."

"I don't have any record of that, but I'll check the internet to see if I made a payment. . . No, I paid the church $400 in March, but that was it."

So, even though I had called her after the Google Calendar (that she has access to) sent both of us an email reminder the week before the payment was due. She claimed she had "no record" of me telling her about this - which makes sense, since she deletes all of her emails as they come in.

Luckily, she emailed the music lady, who was very nice about the whole thing, and is taking the check over today.

Guest Count

This post is for all of you who are where I was a year ago. I thought I desperately wanted a smaller wedding, with maybe a hundred people in attendance. Ha ha. Such a wedding was not in the cards, and my fiance and I watched as our guest list went from 200 to 250 to 300 to 370 guests (picture me with eyes popping out of my head). My parents and I guessed that we might have to accommodate 250 - 275 people at the most, which narrowed down the venues quite a bit (while my fiance protested that not even 200 people would come). Another factor is that the church is Prince of Peace, which is located out in the suburbs of northwest Houston.

When we went looking at reception sites, There were three in the original group that would have held everyone without breaking fire codes, but one would involve a large tent and portable air conditioners (bye-bye budget) being erected. The other we shied away from because we didn't want my fiance's relatives to think we were complete Texas fanatics and there happens to be lots of Texas "paraphernalia" on the walls. The third was the Chateau Polonez, which not only fit size of the wedding we might have, but is also gorgeous.

Months went by and we sent the save-the-date cards to everyone, and then months went by again, as we sent invitations out to all 370 guests (which was really 350 guests, then 20 more as the "declines" came in. And here we are, with 19 days to go, and a guest count that is currently going to be around 150, as many of our friends and family apparently have better things to do with their lives than witness our nuptials (I know it sounds bitter - shocking - but it's not, they really do, like go on mission trips to Africa and move to Madrid - and yes, they're not bad excuses, they're real, I checked).

The moral of the story is that my fiance is right. No, no, that can't be it. The moral of the story is that everything works out for the best. Even though I considered eloping, the guest count is actually close to what I had envisioned, and if we hadn't thought that we were going to have 275 guests, we probably wouldn't have even thought about the Chateau Polonez as a venue, and it really is fantastic.

Various and Sundry Items

This week I thought I would enjoy it if I logged onto the knot and looked at everything I've already done for the wedding. Hmm, it is not fun knowing that with only three weeks to go everything on the list is now supposed to be done within the month. And there are 40 some-odd things left on the list. To be done in twenty days.

Some of the items on the list are "done," but I will not check them off because 1) I am a habitual procrastinator and 2) I keep thinking that I might tweak something. Example: the guest book, which is a photo book, has been ordered and received, but I might try to make it look more "our weddingish" before the big day.

Other items on the list are just silly and I should just check all of them off now. One of the ones in that category is "write you thank-you notes," because after the wedding there is little to no chance that I will ever log onto the knot again, unless I become a wedding planner in my next life (but then I would have to work weekends, and we all know how much fun that is). Another one that I need to just check off now is the "relax and enjoy the day," because in my current state of stressedness, I don' t need the website telling me to relax.

RSVP

Seriously. Does anyone RSVP anymore? Over one half of our guests did not RSVP to the wedding. Even though I allowed two weeks between when the RSVP's were due and the date that we had to give the final number to the reception hall, my mom is freaking out. I am just aggravated. I must admit that I have been bad about RSVPing in the past, but in my defense those were the wedding invitations that I got from distant relatives when I was 18. I think at that point, they should have included me on my parents' invitation.

The people that I am particularly peeved at are (with the corresponding reasons):

1) my fiance's entire family - the only people that RSVP'ed were his grandparents. There are 15-20 some-odd invitations with his family's name on it that we did not get RSVP's for. My fiance is unconcerned, saying that none of them are coming anyway, but it would still be nice if we knew for sure.

2) good friends from business school - who I think are coming, assured me they were coming, but I have emailed a few of them, and one of them has said she now cannot come and the other I haven't heard from at all. Very odd.

3) a friend that recently got married - this is irking me because she bugged me about getting my RSVP before they were due, when I was in the wedding party. Yes, I should have been more on top of it, but she knew I was going to be there.

Bachelorette Party

This weekend I think I had the best bachelorette party a girl could ask for. My lovely bridesmaid sister offered to plan the whole thing and just wanted to know what I wanted to do. Since I live in Austin, I thought it might be fun to either head to one of the lakes or go down to the river in New Braunfels. After a little hunting, we found a really great set of vacation condos right on the Guadalupe river. The condos (Waterwheel Condos) were pretty inexpensive and were pretty new, so not completely trashed. There were two pools and three hot tubs to accommodate everyone.

I had the most fun. There were cakes and jello shots in the shape of naughty bits and very lovely gifts of lingerie. My favorite part of the whole weekend may have been the hat that I wore on the river, which my sister and cousins made. They took a yellow straw hat and added a pair of panties with a veil on the back, then attached condoms all over the brim. A very cute and useful accessory on the river (especially when our own beer supplies ran out on the river and we used my bachelorette status to obtain pity beers). A great time was had by all.

Selective Amnesia

Last venting post for a while, I promise (and by promise I mean, unless it gets really bad, because venting is fun and the people who read about venting think it's funny or at least get to experience shadenfreude).

My mother has developed selective amnesia when it comes to planning the wedding. Specifically, I have two points that will perfectly illustrate my point.

1) When I was researching to try and find a caterer, my mom put me through the ringer and kept telling me to call her to get references, even though I had heard/seen nothing but good things about her. Like all of the vendors, we also had to run her through the Better Business Bureau website. Despite all of this, when there was confusion as to which menu she signed the contract for, and when she didn't remember, she also said she had not made a copy of the contract. Boo.

2) The reception site sent a form to us a few months before the wedding asking us the basics of how we would like the event set up (linen choice, how the bride and groom would be served, did we want coffee or tea). My mom made a big deal over making sure that she got to keep a copy of the form at the house. I also called her while I was filling it out online. Yesterday, at the on-site meeting, our on-site coordinator went through the list, and my mom thought that it was so great that she just knew all of this information.

Yargh

I win!

The contest that I have won is getting my wedding party gifts before my fiance. To be fair, he has a few more to pick out than I do (4 groomsmen and 3 ushers to my 4 bridesmaids and 1 reader), but he has only purchased two so far. I finished yesterday, if you count finished as having ordered everything.
I cannot take all the credit for myself, though, as I did have help. I wanted to get my bridesmaids some jewelry that they could wear to the wedding. My sister suggested that I get everyone something different, so they didn't look like clones. I wanted to get everyone a pearl-y necklace, since I thought that would look nice and be a little more special.
Right. Pearls are expensive. There are several inexpensive sites that I looked at - the most unique designs are at www.cathaygems.com, and I liked unique, since I thought a plain pearl strand might be too boring. I started looking around on overstock.com, and they had a lot of necklaces that were what I was looking for, as well as earrings to match, that were near my price range. A few were a little more than what we had budgeted, so I was waiting for them to go on deeper discount. Then, magically, I read an article on the New York Times online, and there was a 10% off coupon for your entire order on Overstock - definitely worth it.
The problem with winning this contest is that now my fiance has removed himself from the responsibility of getting gifts for my brother and his brother, so the hunt starts again.

Google Wedding - What About Me?

Alright, so I have hinted at how I may be a little obsessed with Google and how I have been using it to plan the wedding. I thought that I had used every Google feature possible but, that is not the case. Here is a link to a Google blog on a couple that is much more obsessed than I (or maybe just more in the know). Despite losing out to these superstars, I thought I would add some of my own tips on how I used it to plan the wedding.

Google Calendar: Since I am planning the wedding under the ever-watchful eye of my mother, I used Google Calendar to keep track of appointments with vendors, so she could know which ones she wanted to attend. I also used the reminder service to track the dates that the payments were due, sending the reminder a week in advance to both of us gave us plenty of time to send it in.
Google Docs: I also used Google Docs to create the guest list, and it was really easy for my mom to update. When she input the accepts/declines on the list, I could look at it without her having to call me with an update (not that she didn't still call me).
Google Page Creator: I created a wedding page here that gave everyone the hotel reservation info, schedule of events, and other details.
Google Maps: I hadn't realized I could create my own map, like the Boyle's did, so I used a web application called Wedding Mapper.
Google Analytics: This application lets you stalk your guests and see which people from which cities have been looking at your wedding website and which pages they have been viewing.

Bridesmaid Dresses (Really?)

One of the things I love about having a gmail account are the "personalized" ads that run across the top of my screen. Most of the time, the ads can be helpful - if I email my mom about favors, a website that has cheap favor boxes will show up in that bar, and I won't even have to search for it. They can be silly though, as well; one time my mom emailed me my brother's floor plan in college (can we say obsessive :) ), and the ads that came up were for satin sheets, which is slightly creepy, or at least weird.

Recently, as I was emailing my bridesmaids about something, a website popped up that advertised a very common company that is now offering a line of bridesmaid dresses. This was not for Ann Taylor, who had previously bid the most for these ads, but no, the new line of bridesmaid dresses is from Victoria's Secret. Curious, I clicked on the link (Click Here) - what would these dresses look like?

The dresses are nothing new, Victoria's Secret has just grouped all of their same-old, jersey knit, slightly slutty to slutty dresses on one page and called them "Bridesmaid Dresses." I would like to say that I would advise most people against jersey knits for their bridesmaid dresses, unless you are getting married in some tropical locale. I mean, jersey just never looks as flattering in real life as in a magazine, it might show more pantie lines than unlined satin. I really just can't describe how "wrong" I feel about these dresses.