Let them eat cake

D and I went back to the bakery today for a second cake tasting, and have finalized our selection. We'll be getting a henna-inspired cake with off-white buttercream base and chocolate fudge design in approximately this pattern:

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They actually have a similar cake as part of their regular portfolio which is decorated with gum paste tiger lilies. When we asked about Green Tea roses, though, they offered to use fresh, organic Jade roses... for less than the artificial ones cost. Score! The color is close enough, the price is right, and we are *set*—and $200 under budget!

Outfitting the Mister

For the longest time (okay, for the last few months, and only since deciding I wanted to be a hennaed bride, really), I've had a fascination with all things paisley:

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Since paisley on my dress is obviously not an option (obviously), I got the bright idea that we should incorporate it into the men's attire. (And maybe the cake, but I digress.) I mentioned it to Mr. Spaniel, who seemed receptive, but "couldn't imagine what it would look like."

I had in mind an ivory tie with a gold and silver paisley pattern. I actually had a very clear visualization of it; so clear that I absolutely knew that I would be able to find it, and, if not, find someone to make it: this tie, which may or may not already exist, was exactly the tie that Mr. Spaniel needed to be wearing. A quick search on Google ("ivory+gold+paisley+tie") yielded this:

Paul Malone Silk Tie Set: Golden Paisleys, $29.90 at Tie Drake

It couldn't have been more perfect if a tie designer extracted my thoughts and wove a tie based on them. Especially because that would have been very creepy.

Mr. Spaniel is on-board, so we'll be ordering the set (tie, handkerchief and cufflinks) shortly (and hoping it goes with the black tie/ivory shirt combo I also have in mind). I wish I could find a perfectly matching vest, but maybe it's not necessary. The groomsmen will probably be in ivory-on-ivory paisley accessories, but there is plenty of time for that decision to be made.

One groomsmen-related that is certain: the men will be in awesome socks.

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I'm excited to try to keep the men's attire as interesting as the ladies'. Have you seen anything unusual that has caught your eye for the guys? Other than just the hotness of men in tuxes? ;)

DIY plans go awry, but so does everything else

When Mr. Spaniel and I first got engaged, we intended to make a lot of the wedding components ourselves. I was most looking forward to making our wedding invitations, but my love affair with letterpress, combined with a good deal on invitations, dashed that hope. Dashed, I tell you!

Well, it looks like I may have my chance to make the invitations, after all. Guess who didn't order enough invitations? That's right, me! I didn't! I'm not sure I can totally be blamed, though. Papa Spaniel told me that he would need twenty invitations: ten for people at work that he wanted to invite, and ten for family members spread across the globe. But his list of invites has grown pretty significantly. We had 86 of 100 invitations accounted for, and now we're at 98. It's simply too close for comfort.

I am getting in touch with my printer to see what they can do about printing 10 or 25 more invites (either letterpress or digital), but the automatically generated price from the website is not promising (in fact, it's nearly what we paid for 100 invites in the first place to order another 25, and it's only digital printing!). But if nothing can be done, I have choices.

1. I could simply print the PDF proofs onto cardstock, and buy extra envelopes. I would probably give these "extra" invites to people who are least likely to notice the difference (which, I hate to say it, are primarily Mr. Spaniel's friends!).

2. I could go nuts, and hand-make the invitations that I would made had I not ordered the letterpress ones: pocket folds!

3. BOTH!

Basically, I'm thinking this:

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(invitation proof)		(source)

I would either print my proof on cardstock or, if that doesn't look nice because the resolution is too low, I'd go to an older, simpler design of my own. Then, because I like fancy invitations and wouldn't have letterpress anymore, I'd affix the cardstock to a citron-colored mat, and put that inside a black tie-colored pocket fold, and throw the whole thing into a cream-colored envelope (to match the cardstock!). So the invitations wouldn't be letterpressed. So not every invite I send out will completely match each other. My question to you is: who is going to ever know?

Back on the hunt

During all the dress and cake excitement, I didn't get a chance to tell you about what happened with our officiant. Well, my dears, I am learning the fine art of compromise.

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See, my post on the rabbi "acquisition," shall we say, was so short because even though we both agreed that we really liked the guy, D could not get past the idea that it was a rabbi doing our wedding and not some non-denominational minister of some sort. It was a tense negotiation between us (and apparently not a final one!).

Major life cycle events—weddings, births, deaths—are funny in a way: they trick you into believing that you are a religious person, even when you've been anything but for nearly fifteen years. I wouldn't call myself an athiest anymore (and a lot of people never would have called me one; I was more indifferent than actively non-believing), but to start to call myself Jewish again would be somewhat misleading. Am I culturally Jewish? Absolutely; it is how I define myself. Am I a practicing Jew, or will I ever be again? Not anymore, and almost definitely not ever again. So why was it, exactly, that I wanted a rabbi to perform a Jewish wedding...?

My friends, I can't answer that one for you. I can only tell you that, in response, D suddenly wanted a Catholic wedding. D, who has never been a practicing Catholic in his whole life, who has been to mass maybe two or three times ever, wanted a priest to co-officiate, and to incorporate as much Catholicism into our wedding as he could outside of a church.

Um. Problematic.

I could go into the differences between Judaism as an orthopraxic religion and Catholicism as orthodoxic, but really the major, MAJOR problem is that you can have a wedding with a lot of Jewish signifiers—drinking wine, breaking glasses—that are not actually religiously meaningful. Non-Jews are not excluded. But a Catholic wedding? Is a Catholic wedding. And everything that is uniquely Catholic pretty much excludes the Jewish and Muslim portions of our guest list (and the BRIDE. HELLO, I am kind of important here!). It just wasn't going to work.

We had quite the row over it, let me tell you. Well, let me not tell you, because we were both really angry and hurt and said some mean things. But when we cooled down, we were able to agree on one thing: let's skip the rabbi and go back to the secular ceremony we'd originally wanted. I could keep my (secular) ketubah and my broken glass, and he could have his hippie-nature lover readings (which suit him better than religious ones, anyway). We'd have a wedding that reflects us not only now and on our wedding day, but two months after our wedding and for the majority of our lives.

Now if only we could find the officiant who could do that for us...

How I found my wedding dress: The finale

Previously:
Part I: Having my doubts
Part II: Breaking the rules!
Part III: A swing and a miss
Part IV: Do we have a winner?
Part V: Size me up

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After leaving the shop, $250 lighter and one contract for a wedding dress(!!!!!) heavier, my mom wanted to go to the mall on some errand. I was shockingly tired after the relief of buying my dress, though—it's funny how we sometimes don't recognize a stressful situation when we're in it, when it's a happy kind of stress!

At some point in the car, she asked me if I was excited that I got my dress. Kind of? "I just wanted you to be more into it. I didn't feel like you were that excited about it, and that's what I really wanted from you today."

Her response surprised me. "Of course I was excited. Did you want me to cry? I'll do plenty of that at your wedding. I just wanted to help you and I could do that if I didn't get too emotional. [SS1] wouldn't even let me give an opinion...!"

I don't remember the rest of what she said—it wasn't really important because I finally began to understand what she actually meant. I'd been unfair in my assumptions: I thought her aloofness was from not caring. But she didn't want to be the mom who gets emotional and tears up; she wanted to be the mom who is involved and who helps make decisions. She might not give me what I want sometimes, but she is doing her best to give me what she thinks I want. And I have to start giving her credit for that.

We were on our way back to my apartment when it finally hit me, and I felt this huge rush of excitement. Sure I wasn't standing in front of a mirror in the dress, but we bought it. It's ordered and on its way. I'm getting married in less than seven months! I just got my wedding dress! I blurted it out in the car, and do you know what my mom did?

She told me I was beautiful, and she cried.

How I found my wedding dress: Size me up

Previously:
Part I: Having my doubts
Part II: Breaking the rules!
Part III: A swing and a miss
Part IV: Do we have a winner?

Over lunch, we decided that we probably didn't need to keep our second appointment, since I found the dress at the first shop (and the sample was in SO MUCH BETTER SHAPE) and they seemed to offer a price match. We did some calculations, knowing that the $987 House of Brides price was inclusive of sales tax and shipping costs (as in, there were none of either!) whereas California sales tax would add nearly 10% to the cost of the dress here. We set our limit, out the door, of $1,050 and decided to head back as soon as we finished lunch: if they met it, I'd have a dress. And if they didn't, we'd go to the other shop.

Well. The shop did more than meet the price; they lowered it. We got my dress for $950! I started wedding planning with an eye to spend $1,200 or less on my wedding dress, and knocked $250 off of that through minimal negotiations. Hooray!

Lest you think it ended so easily, the drama began again when we tried to determine what size dress to order. Given that I had a size chart and the manager, who was a seamstress for twenty years, to measure me, this really should have been pretty straightforward. My measurements put me between two sizes. Common wisdom says order the larger size, and alter it down to fit me. But that's not the advice I got.

In the last few months, I'd lost quite a bit of weight, and probably have a pound or two left in me before March. That said, the smaller size fit the bust exactly, and the waist and hips were only half an inch too tight (easily lost, and barring that, easily contained with some Spanx!). The manager told me that it would be much easier to let the sides out half an inch than to take in the bust, which was covered in lace and beads. There was up to an inch and a half of material to be let out in case I gained weight (not happening!) and the alterations estimate was about $100 cheaper, assuming I even need any.

But then there was the matter of the length. I was measured wearing 4-inch heels, which left the larger size half an inch too short. No problem; 3½-inch heels were totally doable (in fact, I already own them!). But in the smaller size, we'd lose an inch of length, limiting me to 2½-inch heels. Ich, blech! Too limiting!

This is the only time we actually argued all day, my mom and I. Despite the fact that the manager was standing in front of me with a measuring tape and a sizing chart, my mom insisted that I wasn't 5'11" with shoes on (I was actually 6'0" in those shoes that day) and that I didn't need extra length. Or if I did, it would be fine to wear shorter heels. But that wouldn't happen, because I wasn't taller than her (???!!!).

Whatever. The manager told us that for three extra inches of length, the additional cost would be $75, putting the dress at $1,025, which was still totally reasonable, and we just accepted the fact that some alterations would be necessary no matter what: a hem costs less than taking in the whole dress, so there we go. Done. We put a $250 deposit on the dress, with the balance due in 90 days. The dress will be in the store in December.

But it all felt very anti-climatic, really. I had already known I wanted this dress, and nothing I tried on changed my mind. Wearing it again confirmed it for me. What I really, really wanted was an excited mother telling me how beautiful I looked and acting excited that she was shopping with her only daughter for her only wedding dress. But I didn't get that in the store...

How I found my wedding dress: Do we have a winner?

Previously:
Part I: Having my doubts
Part II: Breaking the rules!
Part III: A swing and a miss

I didn't come out of the fitting room right away in my third dress, my long-time favorite. I really looked at it first.

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I hadn't been sure the first time, but I was sure now. Yes, the dress was many sizes too big, but the giant clamps were used appropriately, and she explained to me how the fit would be different in the appropriate size. Amazingly, in a less beat up sample and with more skillful handling, the dress looked beautiful on. It looked perfect.

And I loved the dress. It's kind of hard to get away from that fact, sometimes.

I stepped out of the dressing room, decided and determined, no matter how my mom reacted. And it was a good thing I'd braced myself, too, because I got more of the same: cool calculation and unwelcome criticism.

I tried on two more dresses while I was there—Maggie Sottero's Dierdre and WToo's Eva (what happened to the other five I'd marked? I don't know, but it didn't really matter). I liked Dierdre quite a bit, but that's a useless feeling when you've already found the perfect dress (and it isn't Dierdre!).

We talked price a little bit and asked the manager to match the House of Brides price of $987 before we left for lunch, and she said she would just call to confirm the price while we ate. So off we went to California Pizza Kitchen to share a Moroccan chicken salad and discuss our plan for the rest of the day...

How I found my wedding dress: A swing and a miss

Previously:
Part I: Having my doubts
Part II: Breaking the rules!

I was disappointed by my mom's detached reaction to the dress that I had just tried and liked, but when I tried on the next, I realized the sweat I'd broken out in was actually a result of the heavy satin and not my nerves! So Fanal was out. The next dress was another La Sposa gown, Ferida.

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I dutifully exited the fitting room to show my mom, but I should have taken more note of how unhappy even the model looks in this dress: it was excruciatingly ugly on me. In fact, I was noticing a pattern: this lace and tulle La Sposa gown looked an awful lot like the last lace and tulle La Sposa gown I'd tried when I'd gone dress shopping with BM5. Since I can't show you Ferida on me, I am going to swallow my pride and show you the other monstrosity now, strictly for your entertainment, because I love you all so:

(personal image, taken by BM5)

Let's just say, I hated the dress. My mom, on the other hand, seemed to really like it: she liked the sweetheart neckline, she fussed about the embellishments, and she didn't seem to want to take "NO WAY" as an answer while she took notes. But I couldn't even stand to be in the dress, and I ran away to the fitting room as soon as I could to try on number three: Allure Bridals 8601, my long-running top contender (despite how y'all voted!).

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It was the dress to which I compared all others, even when I wasn't sure how much I loved it on me when I first tried it. (Did I tell you guys about that part? I put the dress on, looked in the mirror, and thought, "Oh, that's too bad" before the saleslady and BM5 both said "Wow"!) But was it really The One™, this time?

How I found my wedding dress: Breaking the rules!

Previously:
Part I: Having my doubts

When we left off, my mom and I had just arrived at the little bridal shop in my neighborhood, only to find one woman, clearly not an employee (and also, it turns out, not an English speaker), knitting in the corner... and no one else. Anywhere. In the whole store. For at least five minutes. My fears! Confirmed!

But my mom and I took advantage of the opportunity to pointedly ignore the signs, posted all over the samples, that read "PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH DRESSES. ASK FOR ASSISTANCE"—after all, there was no one to assist us, five minutes after our appointment was scheduled. The selection was small, but it was good, and my first choice dress at the time was one of three in the window, which I took to be a serendipitous sign.

Eventually, the manager came out and, to her credit, didn't yell at us for getting our grubby hands all over the sample dresses. :) She directed me to a seat, pulled out a binder full of pictures, and told me to mark the ones I liked, because they were all of the dresses that she had in the store.

I must have marked at least ten dresses: one I'd tried before, the remainder were a mix of my choices and my mom's choices.

First up was a La Sposa satin gown, Fana.

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I still don't know why I marked this dress. Was it everything I ever hoped and dreamed? Hell no. It was practically nothing that I wanted in a dress: it was shiny, it was drape-y, it was kind of boring. But when I tried it on, it looked fabulous in oyster, a sort of dark champagne color. The draping made me look like a six foot-tall supermodel. I don't think I'd ever seen myself in anything so slimming and flattering before.

I came out of the dressing room feeling like a million bucks, while my mom sat in a big cushy chair on the complete other side of the shop. "What do you think?" I asked, all smiles and enthusiasm. "I don't know," she said as she fidgeted with her cell phone and calendar. "Come closer; let me look at it."

Hm. This wasn't the response I expected, or the scene as I'd envisioned it.

"Um, it's pretty long and kind of hard to walk; why don't you get up and come here?"

After some huffing and puffing, my mom put her stuff back in her purse and walked over, putting on her glasses to give me her most critical eye. In a little notebook, she wrote down the name of the dress ("La Sposa, not Lasso," "O-Y-S-T-E-R, not ouster"), and her response ("Maybe"). She criticized the fit ("Mom, it's a size 10; it's not supposed to fit"). She sat back down.

Unnerved and in a nervous sweat (sorry, whoever tries that dress on next!), I went back for the second dress...

Fitness triumph

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Yesterday, I broke a barrier: I actually weigh what my driver's license says I weigh! Now I wasn't lying when I wrote my weight down last time at the DMV—I just happened to be sixteen-years-old and two inches shorter. In other words, it's been a long time since that weight was true.

In fact, I finally looked at the weight tracking chart I made in Excel when I finished my free Weight Watchers trial: since April, I've lost 8.5 pounds and 5.5 inches all around (mostly in the wrong places, since my waist is only one inch smaller, but shh!). I did it by reducing my portion sizes, controlling the urge to snack out of boredom, and, oh yeah, exercising my ass off. I'm feeling really good about this right about now! Good enough, in fact, that I am about to go for another three mile run with D, even though I really, really don't want to do it!

How I found my wedding dress: Having my doubts

I made appointments to visit two bridal shops with my mom this weekend. You may recall that dress shopping with my mom was not the greatest of successes last time, and so I made sure that I was very clear on my options before I took her back.

Earlier in the week, I'd scheduled an appointment with the same shop that I'd had such success in, because (1) I'd had some success, and (2) they price match. But my mom really wanted to make a day of it, and so I made a second, earlier appointment at a shop just a few short blocks from my apartment.

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I admit, I was nervous. The online reviews of the shop were lackluster (as they seem to be for most shops carrying inventory primarily the $2,000 mark), and the manager who took my appointment by phone seemed less than thrilled to be speaking to an excited, enthusiastic bride like myself (I thought she might fall asleep on the phone with me. Maybe it's just me, but I just do a lot better with higher energy people!). But the shop had a few things going for it. First, it was walking distance from my apartment—fittings couldn't possibly be any easier! And second, they carried Allure Bridals and Maggie Sottero gowns, and Dessy bridesmaid dresses, which is pretty much my holy trinity: my two top dress contenders are Allure, I was intrigued by at least one Maggie dress, and my bridesmaids are going to be wearing Dessy for sure. (They also carried La Sposa, an early favorite of mine!)

So it was with low expectations but high hopes that, a few minutes late (as always; this is my mother!) we arrived at the tiny shop down the street...

How awesome is this?

D and I went cake tasting for a second time today. This time, we went to a bakery that we know we love—we buy chocolate chip muffins from them on a far too-regular basis, and get their brandy syrup-soaked yellow cake for every special occasion we can think of already. I was leery, though, because they don't work with fondant much and a lot of their wedding cakes that I've seen on display were straight out of 1982.

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The good news is that, despite the buttercream frosting-only style of the bakery (which tastes better anyway, right?), they did have one cake which was about as close to what we were looking for as we could possibly have hoped to find without asking for a custom design... it looked almost exactly like this, but without the dots:

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And it was made out of buttercream and chocolate frosting! No bleh-tasting fondant!

I'm going to meet with the baker again a week from Sunday, armed with a few pictures of henna/mendhi cakes and of hennaed hands, and just let her go nuts. We're getting two tiers of brandy-soaked yellow cake with pineapple custard (way better than it sounds) and a tier of white cake with vanilla custard and strawberry preserves, and we're getting it for under budget. Yeah, so I don't get my marble cake with fudge and bavarian cream... but whatever. At least I know this cake will taste amazing. ;)

Who needs a florist, anyway?

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Green Tea Rose (source)		Sahara Rose (source)		Green Carnation (source)

= saving myself over $300 when purchased in bulk, wholesale, online.

Yes, I will be making my own (and my bridesmaids') bouquet, I think. And all the boutonnieres, and mothers' corsages... I'll still be hiring the florist for ceremony decorations, though. I'm not getting anyone I know on a ladder to decorate the monstrosity at the end of the aisle on my wedding day.

Seven months to go!

Houston, we have a rabbi

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D and I met with the rabbi today. It was a long meeting—over an hour—but we managed to agree on the following: that a rabbi would perform our ceremony, that we would incorporate aspects of other, non-Jewish traditions so that D would feel like it's his wedding also, and that there was no way in hell I was circling D seven times at the beginning of the ceremony. Done, done, and done. I'm making this short because it's occupied my brain for the last six hours (and it wasn't an easy conclusion to come to) and I am ready to move on now.

No vision = no confidence?

There are two aspects of my wedding "vision" that I am really undecided about: flowers, and hair. Perhaps flexibility is a good thing, because I am not tied to anything in particular and so deviation is okay; I won't be let down if it doesn't look a certain way because there is no certain way. But right now, it feels like a BAD thing! It's less anything goes, and more like nothing goes!

When it comes to flowers, I get torn between images like these:

	and
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But neither one is really it. I'm wondering if it's because I haven't really found what I'm looking for yet, or if it's just because flowers and I just don't really understand each other, ya know?

One way or another, though, flowers are pretty and whatever I get will be fine, I guess. The true angst I suffer is with my hair. I have a stylist already, but I'm not sure I'm too thrilled about that. Recent creations of hers have included these:

	and
(photograph by Artistic Images, bizarre processing by me)		(personal image)

Quite frankly, neither of these are my style. But I really don't know what is my style, at least not in a way that I can commit to thoroughly for what is, if not the most important day of my life, at least the day of my life that will be documented with the most expensive pictures of my life.

But perhaps there is hope. Today at Weddingbee, Miss Beagle posted, among others, this image:

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It's not exact—my hair isn't long enough, despite months (nay, years!) of attempting to grow it out. But maybe something like it will work...? I still can't commit to up or down (up looks so bridal, but my head is so small I'm afraid I'll look like a pinhead!), though. We can't make this too easy, now can we?

Keeping busy

Tomorrow: florist. Wednesday: rabbi. Friday: cake. Saturday: dress.

At least I have Thursday off! :)

Robbins Bros. comes through

Wow. After the sizing debacle, Robbins Bros. came through. Our sales person called me earlier today to let me know that she heard back from the manufacturer, and they are willing to resize or replace the ring at no extra charge (no special order add-ons! Hooray!).

I'm pretty impressed.

A few more dresses to try (Wedding look 11)

I never thought I liked corset backs much, but when I went dress shopping with BM5 in June I realized that they can sometimes make for the most attractive fits. So I've decided to add a few more dresses into the mix when I go in for what I hope is the last time before the fittings this Saturday. Here is one of them.

Dress: Maggie Sottero Kameryn, $1,000. Veil: Fingertip Length Veil, 1 Tier, Plain with Pencil Edge, $49 from David's Bridal (or something borrowed from my mom!). Jewelry: Ben-Amun Gold Filigree Drop Chandelier Earrings, $63 at BlueFly; Amrita Singh India Bangle Set (of 36), silver and gold, $38 each at Gilt Groupe. Bridesmaid Dresses: Dessy Bridesmaid styles 2509 and 2053 in ivory satin and black lace. Shoes: Express yellow leather evening shoes, $39.99 from Nine West.

If I got this dress, I'd be getting the champagne and ivory over light gold color, even though D has repeatedly requested white. Oops! I just like a little more color saturation, and I'm sure he'll think I'm beautiful anyway. :) The bridesmaid dresses are definites, because I just sent all of the information to my bridesmaids last night(!) and they'll be ordered early next month. And the shoes and the jewelry? Well, I already have all three pieces, and I ordered them all specifically for the wedding (and specifically for this dress), but I think they would work with this dress, too (although not as well... but they are all perfect with the henna I'd like to do so maybe that will tie it all together). Really, I like the Allure Bridals dress better... but this one might look nicer on. We'll see!

Wedding overload

D and I just got back from a wedding in San Diego and I am officially in wedding overload. The ceremony we went to was sweet, sentimental, heartfelt, and totally goofy (intentionally? not sure). I can't say I got any real ideas from it (it was so perfectly representative of this couple, but would not work in any way, shape or form for me and D), except that the bride, who has always been pretty cute anyway, looked amazingly gorgeous and I feel re-motivated to stay on the fitness horse.

Before we left, I put up an ad requesting a budget DOC, and I got more responses than I can sift through. I know we're a little early in the process to find a day-of, but I know that I need one and I don't see the harm in getting this squared away early. Except that now that I'm back in town, I've lost some steam and I haven't managed to get back to anyone!

Next up: shopping, hopefully for the last time, for my wedding dress next Saturday, and then getting the bridesmaids to order their dresses (which I have finally decided for sure).

Dessy 2509	Dessy 2053
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The hard part is figuring out how to go about getting the dresses, given that I've got one Ventura County bridesmaid, one in Orange County, and the other three literally as far apart from one another as you can be and still be in Los Angeles County. So I'd like them to get their dresses online, but then it makes most sense (save on shipping costs!) for me to order all of them. But seeing as how I don't have $1,000 to lay out, I need to get them to pay for the dresses first. And to find their own tailors. And to get their measurements so we know what sizes to order. ACK!

Adventures in ring shopping

The other day, D and I decided to walk into our local Robbins Bros to take a look at some manly wedding bands for him. (Mine is probably coming from the mom-and-pop shop where we bought my e-ring way back in September of '08!) I wanted to start the search early, because browsing online had left D seeming very confused about what he might want, and I suspected he'd need to try on about a thousand rings before he found one that he thought was comfortable enough to live with—seriously, the boy would just tie a piece of twine around his finger if he could. Well, that, and I just thought it would be fun.

At first, D was not really enjoying the process. He had in his head that he must get a brushed white gold or platinum plain band, because that's what men are supposed to wear. But once he relaxed a little and allowed his tastes to guide him, it got a little less painful... and then he found The One™ and finally chilled out.

But of course, it wasn't that simple (is it ever?), because D fell in love with a discontinued design by Samuel Jewels:
It's yellow gold on the outside, the dots are white gold, and the center is braided yellow, white, and rose gold with a matte finish (I so knew he was going to go multi-colored!).

But, wonder of wonders, the last ring in the stock of this style was his size! Surely it was meant to be! Especially since this style is nearly impossible to resize!

I wasn't planning on dropping a G that day, but we didn't see the point in holding off and potentially having to special order the ring later (at extra cost) if it sold while we were thinking about it (already knowing what our decision would be). I thought the ring looked big on him, but the sales lady insisted it was the right size and he said it was comfortable, so we went ahead and bought it.

I should have known better. When we bought my e-ring, the sales person kept trying to insist that I was a size 5 (I'm 4¾). They wouldn't size it correctly for me, telling me to just try on the 5 and "see." Well, it was too big, but it's too hard to size something down a quarter-size or something and they gave me a bridge. It all works, but I was annoyed that they kept trying to get me into a ring that was too big. And D had the same experience, apparently—the salesperson kept taking the ring off of him, so he never saw how easily it was going to slip off his finger. He put it on when he got it home (just to make sure), and it almost came right off his hand when he got it a little soapy. No good!

We're currently awaiting a quote for the special order in the correct size—a full size smaller than what we actually bought. We're also considering sizing beads in the ring we already have if that will help adjust the ring a full size. But bleh! What an annoyance! If we'd have known we were going to need to make changes or special order a new one, we probably would have thought about it for a couple of days and not bought right then and there! And I can be a bit inflexible when my plans are challenged. ;)

Accessories abound

I haven't actually bought my dress yet (GAR! but soon!), but that hasn't stopped me from buying my accessories!

You already know I bought my bangles.

Amrita Singh India Bangle Set (of 36), $38 each at Gilt Groupe ($90 retail)

They fit (not always a given with bangles because of my mini-wrists and normal-sized hands), and I like them, so they're a go.

Well, magic of all magical things, when Weddingbee did a $200 giftcard giveaway to BlueFly back in June, I won! There was some small drama getting my card thanks to USPS, and LOTS of drama redeeming it, but I finally had the credit applied in my account this morning and immediately purchased the items that had been sitting in my cart/periodically replaced into my cart because my cart gets emptied every now and then for weeks. And you know they were wedding related!

Unfortunately, $200 to offset the cost wasn't enough to get me a hot pair of Louboutins to wear on wedding day, not to mention there weren't any available in my size that I would have liked to wear. But after suffering through a couple of weddings in 4" heels, I've decided that it isn't all about the hotness all the time (and the shoe-lover in me can't believe I'm writing this). At my own wedding, I don't want my time on the dance floor cut short by achy feet. So, while I will either wear my green/gold strappy heels for the ceremony or some other gold pair that I haven't found yet, for the reception, I'm rocking the flats. But not just any flats: these flats.

Jeffrey Campbell Gold Embellished Sateen 'Indian' Flats, $80 at BlueFly

Love! Thank goodness for the 60-day return policy, in case they don't fit (like my Cole Haans didn't fit... y'all are lucky I never got around to documenting the horror that was my feet after the last time I wore those suckers!). Hopefully if they don't fit, I can exchange them for the right size this time. ;)

I also picked up these earrings, which will hopefully not turn out to be too long or heavy once my piercings heal.

Ben-Amun Gold Filigree Drop Chandelier Earrings, $63 at BlueFly

And since I won't be wearing a necklace most likely, that pretty much does it for the accessories!

Who needs the Electric Slide?

Not when you've got bhangra!

(Think we can talk our bridal party into this one?)

So we've booked our DJ, officially, with deposits and all. AH! I am so relieved, and so afraid. ;) She says she specializes in bhangra and "ethnic" music, and, well, that's what we're giving her: a classical/pop music as performed by a string quartet for the ceremony; jazzy, easy-listening tunes for the cocktail hour and most of dinner; and some crazy bhangra-salsa-flamenco-hip hop-80s pop-rock n' roll mix for the rest of the evening. (Hey, we never promised any particular ethnicity.) I hope she's good. :)

I also met with a florist today. I'm pretty comfortable using them, although I haven't booked them yet: a $500 retainer fee stands between us! Maybe in a few weeks.

I carry your heart with me

(source)

D and I are still undecided on exactly what we want our ceremony to look like, so we haven't decided yet if we are going to be having any of our friends or family members do any readings for us. There really aren't many people we have left to honor, anyway—just about all of our good friends and close family are members of our wedding party already! But if we do decide that we want just a little more heft in the ceremony itself, we will definitely be including this piece from my favorite poet.

I carry your heart with me, by E. E. Cummings
I carry your heart with me(I carry it in
my heart)I am never without it(anywhere
I go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
I fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)I want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart(I carry it in my heart)

Ruth 1:16-17

(source)

Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

Pierced!

I got my ears pierced today! I took a picture a little later to share with you all (I am that dedicated: I got home and made D take a picture with my cell phone solely to post to the blog), and I've learned two things from the experience.

(personal image)

One, I have a freckle on my ear. I did not know that. And two, professional piercers are the only people you should ever allow to stick a metal rod into your body (unless it's, like, a surgeon for actual medical purposes). It's kind of intimidating to go into a piercing shop when you don't look like you have an alternative bone in your body—it's in my heart, man—but if you go to people who really know what they are doing they will educate you and treat you well, no matter what you look like. And I feel like I got better post-care advice than I did even from my doctor the last time I had my ears pierced, so there's even a chance that this piercing will stick!

Ah! I'm so excited. They don't even hurt! And the holes are large enough that I might even be able to wear the earrings my aunts are sending from Pakistan (they usually have huge posts compared to what you buy here in the States). Yay!

My turn

We're not done with attending our summer weddings (the next one is next Saturday! Oy!), but SS1's wedding was tonight and we're back and now the family weddings are finally done. Now it's my turn! Things should start picking up here very, very soon!

An appointment

(source)

I finally made an appointment with the rabbi to meet and figure out what our ceremony would look like if we went with him. I'm suddenly not feeling so confident about this, though... see, I don't really want a Jewish wedding. I want a wedding that pays homage to my Jewish background, without the religiousity (and, let's face it, without the sexism) of an actual Jewish wedding. I'd been floating along with the idea that, since the rabbi belongs to a Reform synagogue, that we'd avoid some of the aspects of the rituals that I find so objectionable. I grew up in a Conservative congregation (one step down from Orthodox, although mine was more progressive than some Conservative congregations), and I don't think I was quite clear in my head that "Reform" is still Jewish. Not secular. Just modern.

I'm hoping he'll be open to customizing our ceremony a lot. There are some customs we would love to include, but D would not be willing to have me "consecrated" to him "according to the Law of Moses and Israel." (I don't think I would want that, either!) And if not—if he requires us to promise to raise our children Jewish (I can't make that promise before they are even conceived... I feel differently everyday), or if he insists that D make the ritual declarations—we'll have to find someone else to do the ceremony. That's all.

Could you do a surprise wedding?

I love when I see weddings that are really different, like this surprise wedding by Studio Z.

But videos like this, while I envy other people's creativity, make me feel more secure in all of my traditional wedding decisions... because I could never pull off something so zany, or keep my wedding a secret. Are you kidding? It's the only thing I talk about anymore!!!

Shot through the heart... or pierced, really. And it's through the earlobes, not the heart, if we're being honest here

(source, via)

My ears were first pierced when I was seven-years-old at a hair salon, and it didn't go very well: the piercings were immediately infected, and my mom didn't want to do all the necessary cleaning to get them to heal and so we let them close. My ears were pierced again when I was sixteen, this time at a dermatologist's office. I can't remember if she used a gun, but I think so. It hurt, it got infected, but I was old enough to care for it myself and after several weeks, they healed and I was able to wear and change earrings for a few years without too much trouble. But I apparently got carried away by this ear piercing success and my ability to wear normal jewelry, got a second lobe piercing in each ear three years later, and had to start the whole healing process all over again. But wouldn't you know, two holes in your body in such close proximity tend to want to spread infections back and forth?

I decided to take out the second set of earrings, and to put in a pair of hoops into the first hole that I knew were really easy to keep clean... but once I took out the pair that were already in the first hole, I couldn't put another pair in: my lobe was too swollen. By the time the swelling went down, the hole had closed.

So for nine years, I've had unpierced ears, but a strong and abiding love of earrings. Not only do I love them, but I really, really want to wear a great pair of heavy chandelier earrings for our wedding day, so I really need to do this soon to make sure they are 100% healed before then. So this Sunday—the day after SS's wedding (I would hate to have red, swollen ear lobes in her pictures ;)—I am going into a body piercing studio and getting this done once and for all! ACK! I am totally being a baby about this, but I'm scared. Hold me!

Over budget and under to-do listed

Now that I've spent about $550 on wedding invitations (out of a $750 stationery budget... wait, that can't be right; that leaves much too much room—I must have lowered that portion of the budget to accommodate our photographer or something), I'm trying to think of what else we will need and where else the paper budget is going to come bursting out of the seams and how to reign it in.

The primary additional expense to consider is postage. We have 94 invitations to send (so I might as well budget for a hundred). A small handful of those (probably six or seven) are international, so that will probably come out to between $10 and $15 (we won't stamp their RSVP postcards). But 100 invitations at, what, $0.80 each? maybe? plus 100 RSVP postcards at $0.29 each, I think, adds another $109 to the total... so we're sitting at about $675. That leaves us a whopping $75 to come up with everything else: invitation accessories (the envelope liners and directions inserts), thank you cards, ceremony programs, menus, escort cards and place cards. Yeah, we will not be on budget for this, unfortunately.

The first thing to go is going to be the envelope liners. They are a lot of work, little pay off (will anyone notice them, other than me?), and an unnecessary expense. Good-bye, envelope liners. :( I hardly knew ye.

But we need directions cards. Our venue's mailing address doesn't match their actual location, and there are four parking lots—only one of which our guests should be parking in. I can't leave these out, and they shouldn't cost very much, anyway. If I really need to cut costs, I can do this on white printer paper instead of matching ecru card stock. Although I'm not sure how much money that will save, since I'm going to need that card stock to make our thank you cards... and I guess I need envelopes and postage for those, too! Argh!

There's no way around place cards if we want to tell people where to sit (and with 150 guests, we want to tell people where to sit), but we might do a large printed seating chart if that turns out to be more cost effective than separate escort cards. And while I'm ambivalent about the menus—we are only giving RSVP choices of "beef," "chicken," or "vegetarian" (the website will provide more detail, but who will check the website?), but they are more work, more money, and more dead trees—I think the programs are crucial. The problem I've had is figuring out how to get as much information as we need onto one sheet of paper (or, barring that, attractively binding the pages together). Enter: the layered program.

(source, tutorial and template)

I don't know how much work this will be, or how much paper it will take, but D has promised to help me cut card stock and tie ribbons, which makes me feel a little better about taking on the project.

I expect to go about $100 over budget in this category by the time I'm done. We'll see how it goes! (Anyone have a cheap A1 size invitation source?)

Wedding planning from 250 miles away

Since going on vacation, I've made an appointment with a florist (recommended by MoH—he did her wedding ten years ago!), a rabbi (well, actually I have an appointment to call his assistant/"keeper of the calendar" to make an appointment with him), and booked half of our honeymoon. In the interest of saving money on flights, we'll be doing a road trip up to wine country and down the central coast, which should be really beautiful (and COLD) in March. We've booked the wine country leg, and FMIL has offered to put us up for two nights in beautiful inns where she and FFIL have stayed in the past that she really wanted us to see (but that we couldn't have afforded on our own). Then we have one more place we need to call during business hours to see if we can get a better rate for two mid-week nights (July through December rates are posted at half of 2010's rates, which are over $300 per night). And then all that will be left is the deejay, really. The dang deejay.

One disaster averted

(personal image)

My invitations arrived via UPS yesterday, as promised, so that's one potential disaster averted, right?

I'm really happy. Although receiving them was a tag-team effort, wherein I couldn't do laundry until D got home from work and he couldn't leave until the delivery person arrived, in the end it was worth it: the invitations are beautiful... even D, who doesn't care at all about paper and who was annoyed that we couldn't just send evites to our wedding, was impressed and (almost) excited.

If anyone is interested, I ordered these invitations from Invitations by Ajalon Printing & Design, based in Sonoma County, California, when they were having a special on letterpress invitations—100 invitations, envelopes, and RSVP postcards for $350 (I also paid to have my return address letterpressed into the evelopes for another $135... I absolutely love the way that looks, but I don't think I would do that if I had to redo the invitations because that was a lot of money for a relatively small touch!). Working with them was extremely easy and super-quick: I put the deposit down and signed a contract, and had my invites in my hands exactly three weeks after sending them the finalized wording. They were packaged beautifully; it would have taken some serious mishandling by UPS to damage the invitations at all. In fact, except for that little blip in shipping (which resulted more in personal panic than any actual problems), it was actually a totally perfect online shopping experience. :) And the quality is great! I feel really lucky to have beautiful letterpress invitations that didn't break my budget. (And I'm SUPER excited to start looking for paper to line the envelopes!)