Rehearsal Dinner Hijinks

I'm still going back to the list of things that I thought about at the airport after the wedding was over. One of the things that I still want to blog about, but haven't done yet is the rehearsal dinner. Let this post serve as a warning to all brides that have a ham for a husband, talk about how you will present gifts before the rehearsal dinner (if that's when you are doing it). [Quick background on the hubby - he's going to be a lawyer, was in the Future Business Leaders of American (ha ha) in high school, and when he gave his valedictorian speech, he sang it** - I should have known what would have happened]

I envisioned the two of us giving a somewhat general thank you speech to everyone and then handing out all of the presents at the same time. My husband started out with the general speech, and as I thought he had finished, I started handing out the bridesmaids' gifts. I was shut down - "Aren't we handing these out one by one?" he asked. And, master of extemporaneous speech that he is (at least he better not have written these beforehand without telling me), he proceeded to give a short, witty speech before handing out gifts to each of the groomsmen. Everyone was laughing and just loved what he said to each of his friends.

I, on the other hand, only attempted short, witty speeches (I am notorious for putting my foot in my mouth in these sorts of situations). Each one flopped, although one I don't think is my fault. I really only remember two, but I vaguely remember saying something nice to my brother-in-law that everyone liked. For one of my bridesmaids, I said, "This is for K, who actually met M before I did, but luckily, he still picked me." I meant that in a nice way, not sarcastically, but present company (my family) decided that I must have meant to roast poor K. K understood that I was trying to compliment her, but maybe that's just because we lived together for 6 years.

The other slip-up was completely my fault. One of our readers is one of my good friends (who is actually also moving to NYC) who is in a relationship with one of my husband's best friends. When it came time to say a little about her, instead of saying, "J, who happens to be R's girlfriend," I said, "J, who happens to live with R." Whoops. I think I should have been cut off sooner. Or maybe just have known to prepare something! Thank goodness J had a good sense of humor about things, and it was only the 30 people at the rehearsal dinner and not at the wedding reception or anything.

Bottom line: Don't assume that you and your husband(to-be) are planning the same sort of gift presentation (because honestly, you wouldn't want him stuck not knowing that he should say something).

**his parents gave us a DVD copy of his speech, so I do have proof

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.

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.

Bridal Shower Fears

My two sisters, one the MOH and one a BM, have been lovely enough to plan a bridal shower for me next weekend. Many of the guests are family or friends of my mom's, but the few people still left in Houston are invited as well (although I must say that none of them have RSVP'ed to sissy - harumph).
One of my other bridesmaids "K" recently reminded me that one my greatest fears will soon come to fruition. Since we were sophomores in college, K has had a plot to embarrass me at my bridal shower, which really goes back to the first time we watched Pulp Fiction. For whatever reason, K thinks it would be hilarious to have me open her gift at the bridal shower, in front of my grandma (which is an integral part of her comedy scenario). Inside the pretty white paper and ribbons would be a ball gag.
"She can't really want to do that," is what you're thinking. No, she can, and I am now terrified that she will. Although she is in California and can't come to the shower, my sister has received a package in the mail for the shower. She thinks I am being difficult because I have refused to open it. I just can't.
Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.

Wedding Party Crap, I Mean Gifts

I was perusing one of the many (and we all know that I mean MANY) internet stores that offer wedding day "essentials." By wedding day essentials, they include the ring bearer pillow, flower petal baskets, guest books, favors, attendant gifts, and parent gifts. I was looking around the site to see what kind of attendant gifts the site had.

A few of the gifts were quite good: for example, a travel cosmetic bag. A travel cosmetic bag is quite practical and there is the opportunity to use the bag again. Flasks and "beverage" (read beer can" holders are also practical, but a little overdone. In terms of flasks, the leather just makes them bulkier, aside from the fact that people might be offended that you are promoting the practice of secret drinking.

The site also lists some awful gifts, of which most are photo gifts. As a bridesmaid myself, I can honestly say that I might hate some of these gifts. Not that I don't love the couple whose wedding party I'm in, but I just don't think I would ever use the photo gifts in public. For example, a messenger bag with a photo of the happy couple on the entire side of the bag is listed as an attendant bag, along with a jigsaw puzzle of a photo of the happy couple. Of the two, clearly the jigsaw puzzle is the least ego-driven gift; people can use that in the privacy of their own homes. The messenger bag employs a totally different psychology.

As a bride, I don't think that I would even want my bridesmaids to want to carry a bag with our picture on it. I understand that it shows that the gift is highly personal, but I think it's more meaningful to get a gift for your friends that they will be able to use again, and when they use it, they'll be able to remember the fun that they had at your wedding.

Bridesmaid Talk

So my brilliant plan did not pan out quite as I had planned. We bought the bridesmaid dresses over the weekend, through the Ann Taylor Final Sale, while we were at my parents' house. Unfortunately, one of my bridesmaids emailed me on Monday and told me that she needed a size other than the one she told me. Drat. Luckily, I was able to order the right size, so we only have to figure out how to deal with the remaining dress. Overall, not a huge deal.

In other news, the wedding I am a bridesmaid in is quickly approaching. I got a phone call the other day and the bride called to say that one of the other bridesmaids had asked her about accessories. She was thinking silver or black shoes, but she called to tell me the specific style number of a pair at the department store. I didn't think people did that anymore. I was surprised when one of my bridesmaids sent me styles of shoes, and I told her that I hadn't thought about it yet, but that I would probably pick a color and maybe a style.

Bridesmaids Dress Coup

I win! At least, I won the battle of the bridesmaid dresses, in that I finally found a dress that everyone seemed to like, and at a PRICE that everyone liked. Ann Taylor is in the middle of the "Final Sale" of last season's Celebrations dresses, which happen to be the perfect color for my wedding, and the dresses were on sale for $55, normally $188.

Unfortunately, since they were on sale, I was terrified that they would sell out of the sizes we needed, so I sent out emails to the girls asking for measurements/sizes whatever. They really stepped up and even went to stores to try them on so they would be sure they would fit.

The next day my mom offered to go to the store while one of my sisters tried on the dresses, so they picked up the dresses for most of the bridesmaids, and then I ordered the remaining one online. Yay!

Bridesmaid Dresses. . . Again

Yesterday I woke up with the goal of checking out the color of a particular bridesmaid dress my sisters had found on the holiday vacation - I'm not a complete couch potato, I'm a graduate student and classes haven't started yet.

I popped into Belle Saison, one of my favorite places, since I found my gown there, to see if I could at least see the swatch for the dress. Kim was busy, so while I waited, I looked through the racks to see if I could find the dress. I did. It was one of the dresses we had ruled out at the store because I couldn't tell if the color was right. When Kim was done with her other customer, I asked if I could see the "apple taffeta" swatch. She had it, but since it's the size of two postage stamps, it's hard to tell what it would look like on an entire dress. Luckily Kim said she had another green that was pretty similar. The only name I could give the color would be chartreuse, which is not close to the clover I'd like the girls to wear, it just looked too "neon-ey." We held the swatch up to the dress and the two were a pretty close match. Boo.

My next stop was a women's apparel store, because I had seen that they had a line of bridesmaids dresses from last season on sale. I thought I would stop by to check the green color and also make sure that the satin wasn't too clingy, I know none of the bridesmaids want to wear something that shows every little ripple (even if there's just one). I walked into the store, and no one said a word to me; it was like I wasn't even there. The color of the green would have worked for the wedding, but the store didn't have the style I had seen online. The stores must have already received the new lines, in which the dresses run $188, which isn't too bad, but the other dresses we had seen at Belle Saison cost less. I'm not looking to make the girls pay umpteen billion dollars for a dress they'll only wear once.

The Bridesmaids Strike Again

The day after Christmas, my entire family (and my fiance) jumped on a plane for a 5 day family vacation. As I have mentioned in a couple previous posts, my sisters are two of my bridesmaids. Which means that I am trapped in a house with them. Which means that, even though another bridesmaid flew in to look at bridesmaid dresses last week, these two have been surfing the internet.

They found that that one of the dresses that they liked but didn't even come in green, apparently does come in green. Some sort of green called "Apple," which could either be perfect or completely hideous. So now I'm on a hunt to see if there are any stores at all that have a sample dress in that color. I even checked a couple that are where we are on vacations - no dice.

The Bridesmaids Luncheon

After we finished delaying lunch hour at Belle Saison, we headed to
the Olive Garden for lunch. We did manage to narrow down the number of
finalist bridesmaids dresses from nine to three, which meant that I
could erase a lot of the pictures ok my camera that we had taken
earlier.

Then my sister asked me why i was getting so stressed out about "the
planning." I told her how I felt like my mom was undermining me at
every decision.

"Well, you're really being difficult when Mom and Dad talk to you about the wedding. They're concerned that you're not doing the research."

"That's the problem. Mom doesn't think I'm competent enough to research things, narrow down vendors to a list of options and choose one. I'm 26 years old and in business school, I think I'm capable of doing due diligence."

And so it went, back and forth, until I finally said I didn't want to talk about it anymore. And then she did, so round and round it went until my friend stopped us in time for a stonily silent car ride back to the apartment.

More Bridesmaid Extravaganza

One of the reasons that I wanted to look at dresses at the bridal store was purely selfish - I wanted to try on veils and get the girls' opinions. This also meant that I got to put on my dress again! I think this dress thing is becoming an obsession which, if you knew me, you might not expect. I'm going to be the girl who wants to put on her dress and wear it around the house, but I guess that's better than the girl who actually wears the dress around the week before the wedding.

My saleslady helped me put on my dress again, though I fear she was hoping that we would leave so that she could go to lunch. We pulled a few veils, and my sister found the perfect one, which even comes in a color that matches the "cafe" trim on the dress. Finally, we left the store around one, with the "narrowed down" list of nine dresses.

Then we went to lunch. . .

Bridesmaid Dress Extravaganza

Friday my sisters and another of my bridesmaids came into town and we went to look for a suitable bridesmaid dress. I had already determined that the color should be a medium green. Alfred Angelo calls it “clover,” but I’m not that picky, anything reasonably close will work. An hour later than we (I) had planned, we left the apartment. The reasons for the delay were numerous; my sisters woke up a little late, so did my other friend, then there were showers to be had, then my sister had to run to another store to pick up a Christmas gift.

While my sisters ran to the store, I had a talk with my friend. I asked her if she had seen “Meet the Fokkers.” She had, and I asked her to signal me if I said anything mean to my sisters by saying “muskrat.” Hopefully she wouldn’t have to use it, or if she used it, it would keep me from showing any frustration towards my sisters.

Finally, we left and set out for Belle Saison, where I had found my wedding dress. The salesperson that I had worked with was very helpful in finding dresses for me to try on based on what I told her a liked or disliked about other dresses. We walked in, and even though I hadn’t been in a couple months, she remembered me! What a nice feeling.

We went towards the racks and started pulling dresses. Then my sisters headed to the dressing rooms, as one of them would probably fit into the sample sizes, and the other helped her change in and out of them. All in all, I think we made my little sister try on at least 40 dresses over the course of two and half hours. I think at least that many because once we “narrowed them down,” we still had 9 dresses. I felt bad for the saleslady that had been so helpful, because I still wanted to try on veils with my dress, so I asked my sisters to get with my friend to try and cull a few dresses from the bunch while I changed into my dress.

More later…

Sneaky Planning

I must admit that sometimes I feel unnecessarily embarrassed about planning for the wedding. For example, the other night was the final for the class I TA, which meant that I had to proctor the exam. I had just finished my exams that morning, so I had absolutely nothing to do until the next day, when we would have to start grading.

What’s an engaged girl to do with nothing to do, but a laptop on the desk in front of her – look at bridesmaids’ dresses for when most of her girls are in town, of course. The problem is, I think my professor might think less of me for looking at dresses. It doesn’t help that some of the bridesmaid dress websites are ridiculously girly/slutty. Who wants a slutty bridesmaid? I mean, she might want to look slutty, but if you’re having a church wedding, the last thing you’d want is a neckline down to someone’s navel.

I kept the profile pretty low for the first hour or two, looking at dresses, but keeping a gmail window up for when the professor came into the room. After a while I was bored with looking at dresses and I decided that switching to cakes was a fine idea. Men can certainly respect looking at cake. So I spent the rest of the time answering questions and looking at all of the cakes on the Knot website.

My professor came and was watching over my shoulder while I looked at cakes, which was a little weird (I mean, how fast do you click through things when someone else is watching), but he did give me a good piece of advice. He said that when he got married, he and his wife went cake tasting too early in the morning (8:30) and he got sick from too much sugar in the morning.

Note to self – be sure to build up sugar immunity before going cake-tasting – that was the moral, right?

Bridesmaids Coming to Town

Yay! Three of my bridesmaids are coming into town to try on dresses.

I can't wait. I'm sure it will be an amazing afternoon filled with hidden disagreement, possible infighting, and unresolved anger! No, I don't think it will, but if I didn't have great bridesmaids, that could be the case. I think we'll have a good time.

I've Done It

I’ve finally done it or, actually, found out that I’ve done it. I was talking to the girl who introduced my fiancé and I the other night, and she let me know that I had officially committed the most common wedding crime of all. I have pissed off one of my friends because she is not one of my bridesmaids.

I understand why she’s upset; I was one of her bridesmaids. To tell the truth, I was actually somewhat shocked when she called me to ask me to be one of her bridesmaids as we hadn’t talked for several months before her engagement. We live less than 200 miles away from each other, but we haven’t really seen each other that often. Don’t get me wrong, I was honored to be in her bridal party, and a fun time was had by all.

For our wedding, I wanted to keep the bridal party on the “normal” side, which to me meant three or four girls. My two sisters were obvious choices, and apparently we made a pact during my sister’s wedding planning, so I didn’t even have to make the awful choice of who would be the maid of honor. This left two spots open. One of those had to be filled by my college roommate who I continued to live with until she left for law school three years later. Which meant that the last spot was left for my one of my best friends that I met on the first day of college, and we’ve been friends and pseudo-roommates ever since.

Obviously (maybe not to everyone), having an angry friend is not the happiest situation to think about, so my plan is to not talk about it. Surely if I ignore the problem it will go away, or at least I will make myself believe so. Maybe my hurt friend will read this blog and know that I mean her and that I did not mean to hurt her. Let’s hope so.

Reception Site Scouting

When we started looking for reception sites, I learned 2 very important lessons.

1) Never underestimate the power of a picture on the web. If the reception site looks like crap on the website, it will not look better in person. Ignore the little voice in your head that says it might look nice if you visit in person. That little voice is an idiot. I listened to that little voice. We went to visit one reception site that looked not good in pictures, but had a very nice price. It also had a very nice woman who offered to meet my group in the morning on a Saturday, since we were coming in from out of town. Nice ladies do not matter, though (I've actually found the opposite - more on that later). Things that do matter:

• outdoor reception sites should not be covered with rental-type tent covers
• those covers should not be moldy or have holes
• the groom should not hit his head on the ceiling in the reception areas
• faux flowers in the outdoor area are a no-no (especially dirty ones)
• plastic tableclothes - the coated kind that your grandma had in her kitchen

I don't want to go on a rant - but, you probably don't want to waste your time going to a place that can't even put up respectable pictures.

2) Do not take cranky bridesmaids with you to look at reception sites. While it might be unreasonable to think that everyone can be in a good mood all of the time, you certainly don't want to take a sourpuss. My particular sour puss was my sister. We went on a whirlwind tour of 4 reception halls in one day - including the one she suggested (which, by the way, she only liked because they had a potato martini bar*). The one she had chose was going to be a tight squeeze with the number of guests we anticipated (and now would be too small with the ridiculous guest list), but would be cool. The second to last site is the one we chose, and it's absolutely gorgeous. One of the things I was really looking for in a site was a place to take outdoor photos - the gardens at the site are gorgeous - and still green in August (quite a feat in H-town). The site is a mansion, specifically built for wedding receptions, so it's quite large enough - room to spare, even.

My sister complained the entire time we were there. As soon as the site representative left to get the information packet - "Ewww, the walls are peach" (not really - they're stucco) - "But the chairs are pink, they won't match" (I love the chairs, they're a lovely rose color with dark wood, and they will too match :) ), and all other sorts of nonsense. Not really what you want to hear when you're picking a site. Actually, maybe it is - you need someone to point out all the flaws that you see. Or, maybe, you just need to take an honest friend - who's not in a bad mood.

*Potato martini bar - The reception hall serves mashed potatoes in a martini glass, at a bar where all the toppings are lined up for you - which strikes me as a little gross and awkward. Why would you want to eat mashed potatoes out of a tall martini glass? It might be cool during a cocktail hour - but then, why would you serve mashed potatoes during the cocktail hour? I don't get it.