Grandma

Isn't she gorge? I wonder if it's possible to get a tiny bit of that veil made into a banging birdcage?

Lovely Things

Or maybe for the rehearsal any of these luminous things.

A) Traversing Dress, $148.00

B) Beda Dress, $118.00

C) New York New York Dress, $168.00

Rehearsal, Green

Trashy Diva is this fantastic New Orleans clothing line and whenever I'm visiting my parents in Mississippi I go and try on lovely lovely things. This lovely green shenanigan might be the nicest thing for a rehearsal and dinner.

Dress Solved

The first dress I tried on was luminous. I had to think about it and adjust my expectations (I thought I was going to wear something simple, and boring, and not particularly fun. Ultimately I'm not that fun) but I love it. And my mummie and daddy are getting it for me. Which sounds annoying and awful. But it is a super duper great and kind thing of them to do, because it looks stellar, and it feels stellar and I probably won't even have to wear spanx in it. So clearly perfect dress. If I wasn't pretty much madly in love with MY DRESS I would go back to Georgetown to try on this lovely J Crew shenanigan, which is also sweet and summery and light but ultimately not as fun or cool as MINE.

“beautifying the commandment”

"There is actually an ethical value in making rituals, such as the wedding ceremony, pleasing to the eye and other senses. " - Sarah's feminism and wedding post on APW

Chalkboard: I Like

Gorgeous.

Program

What did you put/what are you putting in your programs? I don't want them to be stupid. I am concerned about stupid. It's a problem. K. Thanks.

Prenup of a different colour

Today is our prenuptial investigation by our parish priest. He's basically going to ask David if he's being forced and ask me if we intend to have children and make sure we both know what we're getting in for. It's kind of exciting and lovely and final. Calling it a 'prenuptial investigation' makes it a little scary but I'm looking forward.

In prettier news: I kind of want to have a Quaker Wedding Certificate. I think it's lovely to have everyone who's there sign our 'wedding certificate' rather than a book which will probably never get seen. But we are having a Catholic wedding. And people might think it's silly and contrived. And even though I read APW a lot I am still worried about people thinking I'm silly and contrived. So maybe we'll leave that out. It is lovely though. If I were to have one, this might be the one I want.

Sisters, Biddies

Bridesmaids are my favourite things. My roommate from college and Head Biddy in Charge is doing calligraphy for me. Lots of calligraphy. And she is putting up with my when I change my mind and she is going to get a huge stack of envelopes at some point in mid-March and a list of addresses. Fun for her. My littlest bridesmaid (who is 13 and sister number four in our family of four sisters and a brother) is getting all the addresses that cannot be googled and that need to be picked out from the rather chaotic rolodex my mother keeps. She is also scanning in all the pictures of our mother and grandmothers for my guestbook shenanigan and keeping watch over all the jars, making sure none get thrown out so they can all live the dream as candles. It is good to have an accomplice in Mississippi while I am here in Pennsylvania. And sister number 3, also known as the seventh bridesmaid (apparently being seventh and not third or first or second is important to her, I think it has something to do with this) is drawing me a map. For my save the dates. She's very clever and excellent at drawing and these save the dates are going to be the. best. ever. Because my sister drew them. It's nice to have girls. Meg called her vendors Wedding Elves and maybe I will too but I'm also calling my sisters and biddies elves. Cause they're kinda magic.

And on the non-elf-but-awesome-awesome-friend front, my best friend from high school keeps trying to get together to see hot man movies and listens to me WHINE a lot. And sister number dos also gets a lot of calls of whining and they have both made me feel like they are super duper available to me for whining and also for stuffing envelopes or getting drinks or anything. So they too are MAGIC.

The seventh bridesmaid as drawn by the seventh bridesmaid.

When you get married

You have to have a lot of major life conversations. Like 'where are we going to live' not as in 'where are we going to live next year or two years from now' but like 'where do we want out children to grow up' and 'how important is it for you to live close to your parents' and 'when my siblings all live all across the country I want to see them, how do we make that happen?' Sometimes it becomes a lot. Sometimes we do not want to do the same things.

Chalkboard

So if our place cards are getting attached to lovely wee bottles with lovely wee flowers how are people going to know which table to look at for their luminous wee bottle? This is the question. My thought is a chalkboard. But where to put it is an issue. The barn doors open into one big section of the barn with two half walls deviding sections off on each side. The tables are going to go in the center (yes Dad, thanks. I will go out and measure the barn and draw up a real schematic) and so where could I stick the seating chart? Maybe immediately outside on the grassy lead up to the barn on an easel? Is that possible? What do we think? SHARE little bunnies! SHARE YOUR FEELINGS WITH ME! (Remember that bagel? I never got it.) If I did a chalkboard I would want one of those Bonney shenanigans. They are possibly the most lovely things on earth. And with chalk pens.....

Place Cards

So my Biddy of Honour/Alpha Maid/Head Biddy in Charge is a genius. You probably want to pay her a lot of money to plan your wedding. Barn wedding means no simple cards set on tables for place cards. Which had kind of been my thought. Something has to weight them down. So Mary thought of using tiny little bottles with a few tiny little flowers (very in keeping with my tons-of-flowers down the middle of the table thought) and manilla tags with people's names on them at each place. This is genius. Because, as I've said, Mary-Berry is a genius (I wanted to write Mary-Barry so she could be Mary-BarryWhite). It's going to be stellar I tell you. STELLAR.

bottles, tags and the flowers are rockroses, which are lovely and grow like crazy in southern PA in the summer

Paper-effing-work

So I am Catholic. We have sacrements. Each one has paperwork. Baptism earns you a really shiny seal on your certificate, ditto first communion and confirmation. When you get married you need to hand all three over (our priest says I don't NEED communion but he'd like it) to prove that you are a member in good standing of the Holy Roman Shenanigan. I recieved all four sacrements thus far in different churches but no worries, they keep their certificates on file. I called Holy Cross in Dewitt NY and they told me that I recieved my first communion on 5.1.1994 and got my address to send it out pronto. I called St. Mark's in Greencastle PA and they sorted my confirmation paperwork pronto. When I was baptised my dad was still in law school and I was dipped by a chaplain. The University of Chicago had a Catholic Chaplaincy in 1986. Apparently they don't anymore. My baptismal certificate may be lost in Chicagoland. Do we think Fr. Collin will mind? Also, do we think he'll mind if I spell it with one L? I like it better that way.

image of U of C via U of C website. No link. Google it.

Edit: They still have Calvert House. God help you if you google "catholic chaplain, university of chicago". Google will fail you.

Bad Bad Bride

Getting married makes you feel like a crazy person. Sometimes you know just what kind of calligraphy you like and want and then you see something else and you WANT THAT. But it's too late and you decided you liked the other one and your best friend has been practicing for like weeks and you need to chill the eff out and eat a bagel. Except there is no bagels in the house. PLEASE SOMEONE GO BUY ME A BAGEL!!! (someone means David who is at work, GAH) So anyway I still like my other calligraphy and so whatever. But this is pretty too. Just in case you were looking for pretty calligraphy. I am going to go pick out wedding vows from the nice book the priest gave me. Whine.

Lovely writing by Genius Patricia Mumau

Table

image by Lisa Lefkowitz

So lovely. Lovely lovely lovely.

Bottles

Weddings in a barn allow you to do different things than weddings in a posh restaurant. One of these things is long tables in rows and bottles down the middle of different sizes and styles filled with wild flowers and flowers bought from the wholesale flower people that look like they might be wild. And candles that I pour myself (with the help from a sister-in-law or two) in funky jars. So now I am collecting bottles and funky jars (Bonne Maman jars are awesome, leave me alone) and trying to think of different kinds of lovely lovely flowers to put in them.

My relationship with Weeder's Digest has become straight up uncomfortable. I just love those tousely wildy flowers so very very very much. I want heaps of them around all the time. Especially in the wedding universe.

This wedding planning shenanigan is stressful. Like really stressful. I know some people find the experience blissful and fun and I know some people would tell me that it is stressful because I am planning on pouring a bazillion candles a la Peonies or because my little sister (the fantastic artiste) is drawing our save the dates. It's stressful for a lot more real reasons than this. Right now David and I are living in his parents basement which (even with the best in-laws) is stressful; we came upstairs yesterday to find David's mother bleaching my teapot and throwing the tea-cosy in the washer. Even negotiating going from the basement to the shower is stressful. I am also unemployed and have been since June. That's a very very very long time to not have a job/money. We are trying to plan a wedding in some intense unemployed money-less shenanigans. In January my dad lost his job, both our cars broke down and my car now needs a timing belt. Trying to sort out a rehearsal dinner is becoming a major source of stress, as is catering. So whine. This is stressful. And scary.

Honey Moon, Swim, LOVE

So for our honeymoon we are contemplating a state park. It's going to be July. We both will have spent a huge amount of time with our families in the days and weeks leading up to la wedding. The whole thing is going to be a lot of work and quite honestly, we just want to lie in and chill out and eat and sleep and mess around on the beach and go on hikes. We're going to North Africa in the summer of '11 so mellow trip sounds good. I think this swimsuit from J. Crewsles would be just the thinger for a silly state-park 1952 honeymoon.

J. Crew swimmy happiness

Pretty Dress

You know what looks really really pretty on Hannah? This does. Because I very strictly adhere to the idea that this isn't Hannah's princess day and Hannah does not get to be an ass about the wedding I kind of feel like $900 is about $500 too much to spend on any one item of clothing. But it's so so so so so pretty. WIC is praying on my soul and making me into one of their automatons. I still kind of want the dress. Maybe with the student discount....

Rehearsal, Yellow

I want a yellow dress for the rehearsal dinner. David is wearing seersucker blazer (this is very very important to him) and so I would like to wear yellow. Maybe navy. Yellow is better. I do not look good in anthro dresses. Usually they are too small and I have boobs which never works with the dresses and they are made for shorter women than I. This is a fact. But this yellow dress makes me think maybe I ought to reconsider. Because it's smashing.

Shiny, Flowery Things

Jennifer Behr needs to make me a pretty thing for my head for my wedding. Or maybe just for any given Wednesday. One that doesn't cost hundreds of dollars. Okay. Thanks.

Wedding Website, Part Doux (get it?)

I have a cousin who is getting married too. He is a second cousin really. He is also getting married this year. In a city about an hour and a half from my little country wedding. He and I have never met (I am working from the assumption that facebook friend-age doesn't count) so he is not coming to my wedding and I am not going to his. His parent is coming to mine and my parents are going to his. I just saw his wedding website. He is registered at four different places. Is that okay? Should I put this information on my wedding website? Should I put bridesmaid dress information on my wedding website? I am inclined to think not. I don't know. I think I really need a job. Like really really really need a job.

Swoonington Steele

Tara Jones is rocking my world in a major way right now. I wish I could write pretty.

Bridesmaids, Decision MADE

I got fabric samples from J. Crew, did you know that's an option? It is. Stellar. I decided not to be oppressed by bridesmaid options any longer and to live the dream. As long as I don't end up with seven girls in the same dress in the same colour all will be well. They can pick any of the above colours and any of the below dresses, with metallic shoes, of any height etc (as long as they wear them to the effing rehearsal so I can be completely anal retentive and organize them by height, and colour. Holler.

Silk Chiffon Taryn Dress

Silk Chiffon Sophia Dress

Silk Chiffon Juliette Dress

Silk Chiffon Twist-Tank Dress (no one wants to wear this one, because they are crazy)

Silk chiffon beaujolais dress

Now, to get things ordered and sorted and sussed. Yesh.