Shoes, shopping and showers

Well my master bridal ninja [thanks IB] has told me the date of the shower in August. She has reserved a tea shop so that there will be no decorating, or cooking, or cleaning up at least not by us. It sounds like heaven. I am really looking forward to it. My dear one and I decided against having a couple shower, we figured it would make the guest list way too large and we both prefer smaller, more intimate showers. I think my sweetie may be miniaturing golfing at hers. It should be a blast for both of us. A completely unexpected bonus is my mom, 2 sisters and niece are invited but I wasn't really counting on any of them being able to make it. Right now it looks like 3 out of the 4 will be attending. I am so touched and so anxious to get this house cleaned up, and it's in less than 2 months. gulp. I know I speak for at least myself and my honey when I say being engaged can be a total trip. I mean it wouldn't be a real rite of passage if it was all smooth sailing. Right? It's excellent that I have vacation and party fun to look forward to because tomorrow will be grim. [see below]

Following true internet blogging tradition I am about to share a truly horrifying fact about myself. I don't like to shop much at all and I really dislike shopping for shoes. Ok, i really hate shopping for shoes. HATE it. I'd rather go to the dentist.

There now the world can despise me or at least shake it's head in wonder. I am not much of a shoe person in general, don't get me wrong I wear them but I only have 6 or so pairs...which means they do get a lot of wear and get worn out and then need to be replaced. Which means I have to go shoe shopping. And I am totally blocked. Not only do I need to look for comfortable shoes to get married in, but I need new sandals and tennies. That is at least 3 pairs I need to look for...my head might explode. Or more likely I'll come home with some sort of shoes in desperation and they'll end up not fitting right or something. le sigh. I'm off to DSW tomorrow, wish me luck.

wedding planning weariness

my tiredness with thinking about this wedding has reached new sleepy heights. To be fair, it's not so much the wedding planning but the planning along with everything else in 'life'. I realized a few weeks ago that if I just didn't have that pesky 'working for a living' thing to do I could handle the stress and lists quite well :)

our reception combo cancelled last week. 'something more important came up' and they were gone with nary an apology. this lack of apology sucked but I think we'll be able to find another jazz combo and if not that's why the goddess invented mp3 players.

it's given me a bit of paranoia though..."the caterer hasn't answered my last email in a week, oh no maybe something more important came up for her..." so not rational of me but oh so human.

I am so looking forward to our vacation later this summer. I realize how lucky I am to get a paid vacation and to be able to enjoy it with my sweetie. Even better we'll be camping far from civilization, my to do list will shrink to 'eat breakfast, attend workshop, nap, walk labyrinth, and save seat for concert. Sounds lovely.

my mother has stopped asking me when my shower will be, thank goodness, because I have no idea what date in August or July will be picked. [are they planning on surprising me?] I have a list of tasks to do and none are too overwhelming, it's more the number of them. things are just swirling around. shoes that are comfortable to wear for hours [not found yet], our private ceremony in canada, our honeymoon, unpacking stuff, trying to make deadlines at work, mulch the new flower beds, considering whether to invite born again relatives...

I am finding my engagement requires a lot of energy for processing. even if I don't share it with those around me. now that I think on it that's probably why I am so sleepy. that may also be why there is not much point to this post. my dad would probably ask me if I am getting enough iron. Here I am in my second engagement trimester, and it's like being pregnant in some ways. For sure you need extra sleep!

invitations and less than 4

Less than 4 months to go until the wedding. Why does that seem like such a short, short time? I guess it is different for everyone but apparently 4 is a cut off time thingy for me. All of a sudden it seems like an amazingly scary short amount of time. Really 'less than 4 months' seems like hardly any time at all. Especially when I think of the things that I need to do, make, decide, finalize and buy. Oh and address. The invitations and announcements are here.

After much soul searching and some looking I actually went with printed invitations in a much less formal style than I was originally thinking. I couldn't really find paper I loved [that I could afford] for 70 hand written ones and then at a friends print shop I saw these:

http://www.byrequestinvitations.com/invitations2.cfm?ItemID=1223&Category=33&SR=1&CR=6

I loved these when I saw them. These look way better in person than these pictures. I was shocked how much. I could get them in copper ink! I went home and thought deep thoughts like "how much time do you really have to hand write all those invitations no matter how much you 'want' to?" and "really what are you trying to prove and to whom?" and "it's all going to end up [hopefully] recycled anyways" and "how much is sanity worth to you". When I also remembered there are tons of hand written potential fun in my future like rehearsal dinner invites, and table cards and menus and thank you notes [more than likely] I took DF with me, she liked them so we ordered the invites from a local business. We now have invites and announcements and informal cards with our monograms for thank yous. I still love them. I don't think I'll regret it.

But wow, nothing says 'less than 4 months' than looking at those boxes of invites...with our names and the date and the time and...it's surreal. We're getting married in less than 4 months. It is going to be fun!

dress move on & what do you do

Well I did it a few weeks ago, sent my original dress choice to the consignment shop where it may or may not sell. Since the money I would make would be fairly pitiful if it did sell I have no problems with donating it to a 'good' cause if it doesn't sell.

I just hope someone will be very happily married in it. *sigh* I do really love the beading on it. Too bad nothing else was quite right.

I am still happy with my back up dress. The dress of my dreams has not yet appeared. But I have shopped for it. Since I like my back up dress so much I am not too interested in getting something custom made. [though who knows what will change in the next couple of months]

It's partially the $ factor. We have wedding bands [and lots of other stuff] to buy. Part of me is more interested on spending money on stuff to treat our loved ones, or on more long term stuff. Because even though I am getting used to me in ivory since I want a long dress I probably won't be wearing it ?ever? again. It's hard to be excited about spending a lot of money on something like that.

I do feel like it's all going to work out great.

I had to smile today, someone at work asked me about my wedding and being gay. 'what will you do since you're gay?' I didn't really know what she was looking for... she asked about the legality of it here and Canada. I appreciated her asking. And then 'what will you wear?' I think she was really concerned about whether there would be two dresses or .... I explained that different couples choose differently and then she happily listened to our dress descriptions. It was fun and odd to have that at work. I am a lucky woman full of gratitude, that's for sure.