Ooooouuuuuchhh.

ET can relate....

I am a glutton for punishment. My thighs are screaming at me every time I sit, stand and walk right now. All in the name of friendship....and procrastination too. You remember all that talk of motivation back in January? Well, it didn't really sink in. I put on the bridesmaid dress I'm wearing on May 15th this past Saturday and there was absolutely no zipping. It fit better in January. (In my defense, in January I hadn't eaten anything that day and I had on my sleekest panties, when I put it on Saturday, it was about 9pm and I don't even remember what undies I was wearing...so there's that.)

Now I have begun intense workout/lock down on my eating habits because the eye of my mother-in-law (who has made her own clothes for years) says the dress can't be let out. I'm probably going to take it someplace where they do professional wedding attire alterations just to be sure, but I'm not holding my breath (or I should say, I will be, if it can't be let out. Hah!) or to see if there is anything else to be done to fit my larger-than-they-were-in-September hips, thighs and badonk-a-donk. (I like to make jokes...it makes it less depressing!)

Not talking to my bff who is the bride for said wedding about this predicament has been very hard, but I haven't. She is usually my go-to for anxiety comfort, since I've known her so long and she wouldn't lie to me and tell me "everything will be fine" unless it would be but I don't want her to worry about the size of my behind when I am worrying about it enough for both of us (and then some) plus she is the one getting married, and she has a zillion other things to worry about.

I'm really, ridiculously sore right now through the thighs because that's how intense the lower body workout part of this video is (a la Tabulous, thanks again chica, and if you want it back ever, lemme know!) but the husband keeps telling me its a good thing, because that means its working. I am trying to remember that I hobble around like a 75 year old woman with the arthritis, eat nothing but leafy greens, whole wheat everything and drink 5 gallons of water a day. Oh and almost falling down the back stairs of our apartment (that would have been the 3rd time in 2 years) due to a combo of stiff legs and wearing new shoes. Luckily I caught myself.

I have no one to blame but myself....but I'm not blaming, just finally being hardcore about things. Since my bod loves those endorphins, I'm in a better mood and pretty optimistic I'll be able to get into it again in time. I may not get smaller than when I had the dress on in January, but at least then I can stand there in it...and then not sit down all night...sitting is overrated anyways.

Dress at last.

I just remembered I promised photos of my bought-ten-days-before-the-wedding-off-the-rack wedding dress. So here we go:

Trying to not drag my train all over the place....and I just realized I didn't get one good picture of it. Oh well.

My new lil family.

Old-school hometown girls.

Happy Friday everyone.

Success with 9 days to go

I. Have. A. Dress. (!)

Its gorgeous and a bit too much (and definitely not the Drama Dress, but c'est la vie) but at this point, I wanted a bit too much ;)

I'm holding off on posting it here until after the wedding, so you'll just have to check back!

Now I can fully focus on other wedding related nonsense for the next 9 days.

22 Days and Still No Dress

This week brought a new development in my dress drama. The owner of the shop who had been arranged by the designer to recieve my dress (Athena Bridal) called me Monday afternoon. I was busily running errands at work to get ready for an event we had yesterday and I missed the call and had a voicemail from her. It is probably a good thing she left me the news on the message, because I got really upset. Like, almost-threw-my-phone-into-a-brick-wall-while-crying upset.

House of Wu (the designer) "lost" my dress. It was made and ready to go, pending payment from Sharnett Bridal back in July. When Sharnett said they wouldn't be paying for it, Wu sent them to collections and my dress went MIA at this point. I'm guessing they sold it to a warehouse bridal place or something to get their money.

The Owner of Athena's told me they placed a rush order for them to make me another dress and the estimated date of arrival is August 20. That's nine days before the wedding. And that's the best case scenario.

I spent the rest of Monday and most of Tuesday pretty pissed off and sulking. I've come to terms with it now....there isn't anything I can do but wait so I've been distracting myself with getting other things done.

If I don't have this dress the Monday before the wedding....I'll be calling off work the entire week (instead of just the 3 days before the wedding) and finding one then.

I know the universe may be trying to tell me something here...but I freaking love my dress, and I won't give up on it until the last possible moment. Plus I'm hoping things will be smooth with everything else because I've paid my dues in the whole "weddings never go as planned" arena right?

Or I just won't care if the day of things go wrong, because nothing can really top all this BS....

Crash and Burn.

Hell hath no fury like an (about to be married) woman's scorn.

Fiancé and I had words last night regarding our guest list issues. They were not pleasant words and there were probably more tears (on my part) than words at one point. I'm not going to give the play by play because it was a very stupid argument and it wasn't really resolved, besides me saying, "well that didn't fix anything so we might as well call a truce" (this was when I reached over and shook his hand as we laid in bed and he laughed at me). I'm trying not to stew about it, but it is very hard since I'm on wedding-mode just about 24/7 at this point. Which is what I blame for the argument. I'm very extreme with my emotions right now...very very happy or very very not.

I have a to-do list with more things that cost money than things that do not, until last night the list was comforting, but today it feels like the bane of my existence. Okay, its not that bad...I just want to get everything taken care of in the next week or two so I can have some major chill out time the two weeks before the wedding.

The Dress Shop still hasn't called. Last week when I talked to them, they said my dress should be in by "early next week". Well its Friday of "next week" and they still haven't called to tell me it is in. They have until 2pm to call, and then I will be calling them to figure out what is going on with things.

Hopefully the next time I blog it will be to announce I have the damn dress in my possession.

32 days...

...til the wedding, and, my dress is being shipped to another store as we speak. It could possibly be there anytime this afternoon and I spoke with the owner who assured me she would call if this is the case.

I contacted the dress designer again last week and they contacted this other shop, whom they do business with in order to have it shipped there. I have to pay what Sharnett Bridal owes the the designer...but that is only about half of what I paid Sharnett in the first place. So yes it sucks, but I would've probably ended up spending that much or more on a new dress and I love my original dress so why get someting different?

We have the bridesmaids squared away as well (since their dresses were also ordered from the store that closed) a la Target online. I love me some Target!!

Somewhat related but pretty random: I came across a forum posting on my bridal networking site where a bride just bought her 4th dress, and its a month from her wedding. It said something like "I'm finally satisfied" or something. I can't imagine putting myself through what I've gone through with my dress in the past month on purpose...but, to each his own, right?

I'm actually getting excited about things...and not just excited for the honeymoon, but excited for the actual wedding day, woo woo!

F*ck it.

As of today, 40 days until our wedding, I have nothing to wear.

Wait! That't not true! I have shoes and my veil.

I returned my replacement dress. It was a very beautiful dress but I felt very fat and not pretty in it, and decided w-day is the one day I should be exempt from feeling those things.

So now I wait. I wait for the call from the store owner, or perhaps a miracle....that a package containing my wedding dress will be on my doorstep one evening. I have a few other options as well...I just really want the dress I paid for and ordered in February. BUT...if I can't have it, I'm still getting married to my lovely fiancé and that is the most important thing and I know it. He has been so great through all of this; completely supportive and somehow conveyed his "it doesn't matter what you wear" man-neutrality on my clothing for our wedding without upsetting me.

So I say fuck it. Fuck this dress bullshit and the sleep I've lost over it.

I'm getting married in 40 days!!!!!! WOO-HOO!!

TAT: Totally Awkward Tuesdays

Hosted by TovaDarling

Awkward is not being obsessed over our wedding but being expected to be by society and even by people who have known me my whole life. People who knew I was firmly in the "I doubt I'll ever get married" club for a very long time and still being asked by them "what are your colors?"

It is drilled into girls so young to be consumed by weddings and colors and the perfect dress and the perfect day and its YOUR DAY (not "their day" because the plural actually includes the love of your life and its not even really about him.....besides that YOU ARE MARRYING HIM) and you're a princess and you're expected to be a complete bitch and make your bridesmaids wear the same dress and shoes and jewelry and hair and to be suddenly concerned with flowers and favors and colors and types of ribbon. So when I ventured out into the wide world of wedding planning, I've been met with a lot of strange looks and behaviors for not being so typical.

All I have wanted since we got engaged was to NOT be stressed in the planning process and to create a day that reflects us as a couple and that celebrates love. There have been a few small incidents, but nothing compares to my dress shopping experiences.

The first shop I went to was on a Monday evening. My sister was with me and we were not even approached by an employee until my we had pulled a bunch of dresses Then we were sort of yelled at for, because they usually only pull 5 at most at a time. Then we took pictures of me the first dress I put on and were told we weren't allowed to do that either. Great start. I had one I really liked, but I wanted to try more.

I should have done my research, and not gone to the SeventhCircleofHell for dress shopping round two, but I was on a budget, so it was off to D's Bridal for me. There I was tortured by being assigned an associate who was easily 75 years old and had a way less than pleasant disposition. When I arrived for my scheduled appointment, the receptionist at the store told me my associate would be with me soon. I asked if I should start pulling dresses, and was told oh no, they would do it for me. Cool I thought. Well, not really. She made me do that while she went to get me a slip and a bra, and then put my girls to work pulling stuff, which was fine, but then she complained if they brought dresses that were a size too small or a size too big for me to try. She didn't even ask me if I wanted one of them to help me in and out of things, she just did it, and stabbed me with her long red finger nails as she put me in and out of about 15 dresses. She had the worst people skills I had ever experienced. I am a pretty easy person to talk to, but she made me so uncomfortable. It was awful.

I later decided to purchase the favorite dress from the initial store. The day I was measured was another one laden with awkwardness. I was treated like I was an inconvenience and was rushed through the process. I'd never had measurements of any kind taken so I didn't know what to expect and the girl measuring me was a total bitch. When I asked what "private designer" meant (I was told my dress was made by one of the shops private designers) because I had some ethical concerns, the owner matter-of-factly told me, "honey they are all made in sweatshops, so unless you have a dress custom made that's where its coming from, but I've been to them, and they are that bad" and it wasn't so much what she said but how she said it. Then I was scooted out the door as fast as they could take my full payment in cash.

I felt like because I did not purchase an extravagant, princess ball gown I was treated like crap. On a later visit when I mentioned how I was looking for 3 different dresses with brown lace accents the girl helping me that day looked at me like I had lobsters crawling out of my nose.

My original dress....isn't she lovely?

Now, recent events discussed in Adventures in Wedding Planning have forced me to purchase other dress since my original one has gone MIA.

Dress number two...pretty but not perfect.

Lesson Learned: To avoid awkward moments and lots of frustration by not buying into the Wedding Industrial Complex in American Society, Elope and have an informal BBQ reception unless you can afford a full service wedding planner....or if you do buy into the WIC, more power to you...it's just not me.

Because Mondays Suck.

I'm sorry...was that blog title a bit negative? Maybe it's because my original wedding dress is being held hostage and I keep being told "how great I'm dealing w/things" well I'm about to crack, due to lack of sleep, "dealing w/things" and I general distaste for my job today.

My dear friend Tabatha tagged me for one of these, so I thought it would oblige, albeit a bit late.

8 Things I'm Looking Forward To:
1. Florida. In 48 days and counting.
2. The wedding crap to be taken care of.
3. The wedding dress crap to be sorted out.
4. Getting a massage the week before w-day from my massage therapist friend.
5. Going to bed at 9pm tonight.
6. Being married.
7. Going to the gym sometime today.
8. Seeing my brother in August.

8 Things I did Yesterday:
1. Visited with my dad for a bit.
2. Shopped from 11:30 to about 5:30 with my mom and sister for something for my mom to wear to the wedding. Didn't find anything.
3. Called back dress people and left ANOTHER voicemail.
4. Bought Kiddo's Wedding Day gift and had it engraved, its a snowglobe, she collects them.
5. Bought my sister's wedding party gift.
6. Hung out with Fiancé and Kiddo for a bit.
7. Watched the first Season of Sex and the City (I'd never seen it in its entirety)
8. Drove a lot.

8 Things I Wish I Could Do:
1. Sing.
2. Dance.
3. Speak another language fluently.
4. Figure out what the hell I want to do as a career.
5. Finish my Master's...this one will happen, but its not going to be fun getting there at this point.
6. NOT worry incessantly about money.
7. Cook well and enjoy the process of doing so.
8. Write a book. I don't know if I have the patience.

8 Shows I Enjoy:
1. Friends
2. LOST
3. Grey's Anatomy
4. Three Sheets
5. Ghost Hunters (not International though)
6. Jon and Kate Plus Eight, its been my guilty pleasure since BEFORE it was cool to be a guilty pleasure.
7. Myth Busters
8. This is where I remind you I don't have cable.

8 Friends I'm Tagging
This doesn't work for me, but I am tagging my three readers who aren't the one who tagged me for this:
1. ali
2. mylittlebecky
3. Ashley

Adventures in Wedding Planning.

On Wednesday morning, after I called the store my wedding dress had been ordered from, Sharnett Bridal and Prom, getting a busy signal on numerous attempts, I found this article telling me the store had closed/gone out of business.

The "ship date" for my dress given to me by Sharnett (on February 14 when I paid in cash, in full) was today, July 10, 2009. After leaving a voicemail on the shop owner's cell phone and sending an email with more than enough information and not getting a response to either, I contacted the designer of my dress directly. They told me my dress was ordered, made and ready to go, but never paid for. I had already given Sharnett my money, and now I was going to have to pay AGAIN to have them ship it to me.

There is an internet bridal gown business based out of a nearby town who is offering any bride who paid in full at Sharnett half off any dress they have in stock and their prices are already way lower because they cut out the middle part of buying the dress. They were absolutely wonderful people. They were my best dress buying experience that I wasn't even supposed to have.

So here is my new and improved wedding dress.....

please excuse my face in this picture...I was very tired of standing at this point

And if by some chance stroke of luck my original dress appears on my doorstep (which I'm not holding my breath, I was made to pay in cash, so all I have is my receipt for a paper trail and this woman has done this before) the place this dress is from will let me return it for a full refund. Oh and those little straps will most likely not be there...we were just trying them out but I don't think I like them at all.

Really?

Random wedding nonsense: If you are getting married in 4.5 months, why on Earth would you send a "Save the Date" card?! You are going to send the invites out two months later!
What a waste!

Disclaimer: Planning our wedding has given me opinions on things I usually wouldn't care about. If I would have known all the bullshit that goes along with a wedding, we would have went to the court house, had an informal reception and gone on a really nice honeymoon to someplace tropical (we're going to Florida, so its beachy and budget friendly, but its no Hawaii or Bahamas).

Recently, one of my bridesmaids has begun looking for shoes to go with her dress. I never thought I would give two shits what she puts on her feet for the day, but then she sent me a picture of what she was thinking about and asked if they were okay and I had to say no. The shoe was all wrong for the style of the dress. All of the sudden, I feel like a control freak or even worse, dare I say, bridezilla. Now I'm telling them what to put on their feet?
I love this girl but she just doesn't get it. The dress is a tea length, slightly longer in the back than in the front strapless Chiffon dress and she sent me a photo of these multi colored brown heels with a closed, rounded toe. The wedding is in August and the ceremony will most likely take place outside. They weren't totally ugly, just totally wrong for the dress. They looked like shoes I would wear with a brown pantsuit in the dead of winter. This is quite frustrating because this same bridesmaid who couldn't pick a simple brown dress to compliment mine which is the reason I chose one dress for all of them (which I REALLY didn't want to) and then had to help her pay for it as well. Now I'll probably end up buying her shoes too.

Of course I'm horribly worried she's mad at me about this...she is a good friend and has helped quite a bit so far with wedding planning, but when I said you can pick your shoes, I imagined she could pick something that goes with the dress, not just any brown shoe...

All I can think is, "why did I do this to myself? Why didn't I just put my foot down and tell Fiancé let's just do a Best Man and Maid of Honor and no one else" but it is much too late for that. I have to deal with the repercussions...plus all the other bullshit that goes along with this fiasco.

Bottom line: I love my Fiancé and I'm so excited to marry him, but I strongly dislike wedding planning. The latest tidbit he has surprised me with: Fiancé insists on writing our own vows and not sharing them with each other before the wedding. I love this. It makes me nervous because he plans on writing his the week before the wedding but we decided I will write mine first, probably a month or a couple weeks before because I'm worried I'll be a big ball of nerves the week before. Both will end with, "I give you this ring as a reminder of these promises" or something like that so we can integrate the rings and the vows into one thingy.

Woo for awesome Fiancé.

Wedding Busy-ness.

I headed to my hometown Friday after work for a planning meeting/dinner about my wedding shower coming up at the end of the month. It was fun and my Maid of Honor/bff, sister and mom along with my sister's awesomely helpful best friend figured out who would bring what food-wise. There will be mimosas involved, I'm uber excited about that tidbit.

We also talked decorations. I suggested two options since I'm not too thrilled with having a shower at all:

1. Balls to the wall-overdone-wedding shower decorations. I wasn't ever the girl who *knew* she would get married someday, so I thought we could really own it and just go all out getting any and every wedding decoration we could find.

OR

2. Make it a literal shower theme. Rubber duckies, soap-on-a-rope, shower caps (?) and things of that nature. This will probably take a bit more creativity.

I think more people will "get" the shower theme, although the guest list is mostly good friends of mine, and the few family members I've invited have a good sense of humor, so I'm really only in danger of confusing/offending the two elderly women who will be there: my grandma and my great aunt. I don't want them to think I don't take marriage seriously, because I do, I just don't buy into all the traditional crap that is expected of me/us since we are planning our wedding.

The overdone wedding decor option would probably be easier and cheaper.

Anyone have any opinions on either?

*EDIT* I just thought of another option:

3. get some candles and three or four bunches of wildflowers they sell at grocery stores and just decorate with those. I don't know if I want any cheesy decorations at all...its just that the place the shower is at is an apartment club house type place, not someone's home, so I felt like it needs something. This option is a bit more classy...plus will end up being more eco-friendly because all those cheap decorations won't be purchased then thrown away. Plus we could gather cloth picnic style tablecloths (think colorful plaids, not gingham) to use...I know my mom and sister have some. I've been asked (nicely) to butt out though...lol. I'm overly involved with the planning of the shower because I feel bad for my best friend/maid of honor. She works 40 hours a week as a paralegal, goes to school full time at night AND is in the beginning stages of planning her own wedding. I trust her, I just don't want her to stress too much.
This option will most likely happen.

I went dress shopping Saturday with her, she's getting married a year from this Saturday and is having a hell of a time finding her dress. She wears the size of most sample dresses, so everything fits and she's 5'9 with curves in all the right places so everything looks fabulous to boot. I told her to not think about it for a day, and then look at the pictures we took and go from there.

It's funny we both ended up engaged and planning weddings at the same time...but we're going for two completely different types of weddings, hers a bit more streamlined and mine a bit more quirky. This pretty much sums us up as people too but that is why we are such good friends...we are different people but love each other for it.

Happiness

I heart this picture:





It is selfish and horrible and conceited, but this picture has reminded me how all this wedding planning bullshit is worth it, because I get to wear that for a whole day and be very pretty and looked at and complimented all day long.
Plus Fiance and I had a great hang-out night last night. I heart him a lot.

Sigh

I'm annoyed by the responsibilities of adulthood today. Need to go get tags for my car...and go to the bank on my lunch break when all I really want to do is go home, read Eclipse (third book in Twilight Saga) and take a nap. Oh well, must press on I suppose.

Here's some better-ish pictures of me in my dress:

It makes me happy to look at even if it is quite snug. I'm thinking if this sickness keeps it up, I may be able to look good in the store sample and get some awesome pictures.

I'm boycotting involved wedding related planning until after I'm well too...it tends to upset me more since I feel like poo.

The end.

Soup but no Spoon.

I have a cold/sinus/allergy thing going on. I have little to no appetite so I brought soup to eat for lunch. I don't have a freaking spoon though. That pretty much sums up my day.

I have been trying to be in a not crap mood, but I don't feel good. Originally, I was going to get license plates for my car and to the bank on my lunch break, then I remembered its Tuesday and that I had to go talk to the florist. It went well, and compared to "the standard" the price isn't horrid, but compared to our budget, it is a lot of money. I thought we may be able to make it work.

Then I made the mistake of calling Fiance and telling him. Lately I've been worried about money a lot, so when I told him how much the flowers would be, he got pissy saying things like you can't worry about money so much and then want to spend that on flowers. He doesn't get how it could still work, or how compared to an "average" wedding, this is nothing all he sees is things with the word "wedding" attached to it makes them ridiculously overpriced and it pisses him off. He sort of yelled at me, which prompted me to say,
"I don't know what I was thinking, I shouldn't have even called you about this, I'll just call my sister..." which in turn made him realize he was being mean.
I wanted to cry, since I feel like crap and now he's yelling at me and telling me "its not that hard, why don't you just buy real flowers and make them the day of" I told him that really isn't an option since I don't want to worry about it the day of the wedding, plus I'm hopelessly un-crafty so unless he wants to do it, I'll just do fake flowers and make them well in advance with the help of my sister, MOH and BM.
Real flowers are dumb anyway, they die and I'm slightly allergic to them. Maybe I'll even do something fun with feathers...who knows.

We registered Saturday night. That was fun. Oh and my dress is ordered and paid for in full. Woo for that...and I paid a large chunk of my ring off yesterday. Sucks because it was using our tax refunds, but whatever.

I hope the rest of today goes quickly. Now I'm going to try and eat my soup with a fork :/

oooOOOOoooo

It's Friday the 13th yo.

Guess who got 3 pretty pink roses from her Fiance?? I did :D I'd never recieved a flower delivery before and it has really made my day awesome. Plus my brother is in town and he is going to come up and ride along with me to Fiance's band's show tonight. It should be some quality family time. What a great day.

Oh plus I made this guy to try and see how the ladies and I will look for the wedding:

MOH in the strapless gold, sister BM in sleeveless tank and friend BM in halter. I think it just may work. We may even try to find matching fabric to tie gold sashes on the brown dresses and brown sashes on the gold dress and on me.

Yay for life on this sunny February day.

Post Snow-Day Blues

Yesterday was a fun day. Fiance was taking a day off anyways (his work ruled that instead of laying someone off, everyone has to take 5 unpaid vacation days in the next three months) so we got to hang out since I got a snow day. Getting up and having to go to work after such a fun day sucks. I'm a little bummed due to this. So, in effort to lift my spirits, I shall post photos of what could very well be my wedding dress:

It is a bit too small in these pictures, so you see things you shouldn't and won't if I decide on it, but everytime I look at the pictures it makes me want it a little bit more :)

I haven't really had the motivation to post anything on here in a bit. Wedding planning is going pretty steady...I even went and tried on dresses last night. The blurry as hell one was my favorite but the dress was a size too small and quite snug since they don't carry every dress in every size; you have to order it. We weren't supposed to take pictures at all, but we found this out after taking the other two of the first one I tried on (and later vetoed because that bitch was heavy and the train was too much) which was also a size too small. It wasn't as fun as I imagined but I really do love my sister for helping me in and out of them...I wasn't up for a total stranger seeing me just about naked. Hopefully the next place we go Saturday will do me the same service by letting someone I know help me. We are thinking they may have more of things that will fit me as well. We'll see.

I'm very unhappy at the moment because I have finally figured out exactly how much money I owe in student loans and it is RIDICULOUS. I'm talking sent me into hysterical crying, I almost threw up and then almost passed out ridiculous. I don't know what to do. I'm afraid even if I can consolidate them, that the monthly payment is going to be so high we won't be able to be comfortable, let alone pay for the wedding. I'm never going to be able to afford a new car and we'll probably never be able to buy a house in the town we want to. Being grown up sucks.

All the craptasticness (there's a gem of a made up word) of my financial woes....today was a very awesome day that I will remember as long as I live. I watched for the first time, an African-American become our 44th president. Not only that, I watched with pride for my country and hope for a better tomorrow, not just in the United States, but for the entire world.

Hopefully tomorrow I can put on my big girl panties and face the massive amount of debt I have, but for now, I'm freaking out.

The end.