Monday, October 18, 2010

They added a new door

And now for another episode of "My In-Laws are Totally Broke Until it Comes to Something They Want, it Must Be Magic!"


Monday, October 4, 2010

I'm such a bad bride because...

I called my family in the middle of the night to call off the wedding. I told him the things I promised I'd never tell him, about how I only said "yes" because there was a restaurant of people watching us; I got drunk and spilled wine on my closet floor; and when everyone tried to talk me out of it, I just failed to understand why they couldn't believe that maybe I don't love him.



I am Bride FAIL.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

love like that

Maybe if I were marrying the man of my dreams, I'd spend a couple hundred bucks on a big fuck-off flower for my hair.



Or  maybe I wouldn't care if I were wearing a flower or a scrunchie, because maybe, when you love someone that much, none of the rest of it matters at all.


img: snippet&ink

Monday, September 6, 2010

my nearly-mother-in-law

You have to find something to love about her, my mother said. Even if it's the way she does her hair. Even if it's her perfume.

Because she's his family, and he loves her.



My friend David, whom I don't even know anymore, once told me that he knew how much people cared about him by the way they treated his cat. Because his cat, it was commonly known, was his most loved thing in the world.


img: ffffound

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Tricky

Illegitimate daughters

What do you do about them? Pawn them off as cousins? As friends of the family? I mean, when one's family doesn't know that one's fiance has an illegitimate daughter from a teenage romance--a secret that hasn't been appropriate to share--what does one do when the fiance wants the daughter, now a teenager herself, invited to the wedding? How does she tell her parents without them feeling painfully betrayed? And what about the opinions they'll then have?

And what about the fiance's friends, most of whom don't know about her existence either? Does the happy couple suddenly tell these friends, out of the blue? Or try to bribe the love child and her foster family into acting like distant relatives? Distant relatives who happen to look very related. 

Very tricky

I hate your kilt.

It was ok in Braveheart. It's ok on Axl Rose and punk bands from the UK. I always thought I'd be ok with it on my groom, but I'm not. Maybe if he were Scottish...but the Irish don't actually, technically wear kilts. It's not really their thing. (Sometimes I think, as proud of his Irish heritage as he is, my groom actually wants to be Scottish.) 

I tried to be accommodating. "Ok," I said, "it's your wedding, too. But I don't think people there will understand." It's the Midwest, and the last time anyone wore a kilt in the Midwest was Briar Rentilla in the eleventh grade, and everyone thought it was a skirt. But even then, we had an excuse: it was the '90's.

And then his brother (who is also Irish, yet doesn't seem to "get it") called and excitedly told me how he'd Googled images of kilts, and, well, could he grow a beard for the wedding? Because all the guys in kilts in the Google images had big, bushy beards.

So said I, "You can...as long as you realize this is a wedding, and not a Renaissance Faire." 





I just can't let it go. So, for example, it would be ok to wear a kilt if we were getting married at a manor in the highlands. Or if literally anyone in the wedding party were more Scottish than myself--and I'm only about a third Scottish. Or had an accent. We are what you'd call "Yankees."

Or, the bottom line, if I didn't feel he was doing it to be rebellious and alternative.

So that's my beef. Wear the kilt, if you can wear it authentically.  But not if it's because you like to think you're punk.

With or Without You

One thing everyone asks me is "Well, can you live without him?" And my answer is, "Yes."
I mean, is that the wrong answer?



Maybe I'm just jaded or a cynic, but I've known enough loved ones who have passed, have had enough broken hearts from boys I thought I loved, that I know very well that the heart heals, and you can move on from any disaster. Would I be ok if he died? Yes, of course. Do I want him to die? No, of course not. But are those the facts--yes, they are the facts.
Does this make me a bad bride?
Very possibly.

Because everyone looks at me like I'm nuts. But I think this is very realistic. I think this is truly honest. Show me anyone who may die and ask if I'll survive; I will. Will I be broken? Maybe, for a time. But death, and parting, are part of life. Anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves.
This is not Romeo & Juliet, people. Lookit where it got them.


img: ffffound

Saturday, August 28, 2010

I'm a Bad Bride Because....

Sometimes I find myself in the dog food aisle of Whole Foods, which is the place I have always consistently run into the very tall, very handsome Whole Foods Guy, who has helped me buy dog food in the past.



Friday, August 27, 2010

What If...

So I made a wish on East Side Bride for a wedding time machine, and got some great comments. The below was my fav, and you know, I dunno...I've been secretly plotting out just how to do such a thing. It would involve flowers bought that day from the grocery store, a ride with my beau to a hotel in the mountains, a possible rendezvous with our friend J from Wyoming who's ordained, certainly some sort of new white cocktail dress (from where? from where??), liquid eyeliner, my silver heels, grandma's pearl clutch purse, her Irish hankie tied around the stems of the grocery-store bouquet, the fancy suit my beau proposed to me in, a Mac for our music, and maybe just a little corner in the hotel restaurant to canoodle. 


1950s short wedding dress
img: dolly couture
...................................


I think this is a really great set up for a secret wedding. Go marry your hunny bunny on your own, in your own way and don't tell a damn soul. 

Once the wedding weekend comes along, roll with the punches and smile to yourself knowing that it's NOT your day (it's theirs) and that you're already married, suckers. 

Do it.

MoH FB WTF?

My Matron of Honor, in a move that I did not see coming, posted pictures of me trying on wedding dresses on Facebook. Said one of my friends, "Maybe she needs a book on how to be a Maid of Honor?"

But I can't imagine there's a chapter in such a book dictating that a MoH should not post pictures of the bride, prior to her wedding, trying on wedding gowns, in a public forum.

Thankfully, I found out before my beau did and was able to keep him off Facebook until the pictures could be taken down.

For cryin' out loud.


img: simplyclaire

Wedding Redeux

I wish I could have a wedding re-do. Do any other prospective brides feel this way? Here I am, two-ish months out, and guess what? I've decided I hate it all.

A million beautiful gowns keep popping up. And I realized I want a diff color combination. And flowers. Hell, a whole different time of year. I love the fall, always wanted fall, but F* the fall, I want spring. I want big fluffly peonies and ruffly ranunculus and black centered white anemones. I want spring green bridesmaid dresses, and a wedding gown/party dress of frothy tulle, dammit, because tulle is the bridal fabric. I want a delicate black ribbon around my neck dripping with an heirloom or a black flower in my hair, and green satin shoes.

I want, like I originally wanted, to screen print my invites. If I could've only gotten it together. Little poster art.

DAMN!

It's too late to take it all back!

It's such crap that the only way to figure out what you want is to plan something and realize it's not what you want.

It's my one wedding, my only wedding, how can I be trusted to plan it correctly the first time?

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

In-Law Fail

I suppose I can feel slightly better about my crappy future in-laws, if even Bride of the Year Chelsea Clinton's future father-in-law is an ex-con.

img: ffffound: rosezephyr