Sun Moon Stars Girl )-(

Welcome to my little place to vent…

While my poor fellow brides-to-be are having less success with their alterations, mine are completely done! (I’m so sorry girls!) As I’ve said before, with the corset back, barely anything needed to be re-fitted from gain/loss of weight, so all I really needed was to take the hem up from 6′ girl to 5.5′ girl. (And that’s my tangent suggestion for anyone still looking for their dress - go for the corset back!)

The seamstress was super-nice, great to work with, and relatively inexpensive. Mostly she just had to hem my dress, and work on the “getting the train off the floor” problem. She’s made a lovely hand/wrist hold that doesn’t seem too heavy. In addition to that, she put a french bustle on the back, which is a bit difficult to figure out. However, she showed me where the hooks and loops are - so I’ll have to show all my girls before August how everything fits together. Since it’s a bit complicated I joked that if I get sick of holding the back of my dress up, I just have to make sure to find one of them before they’re too drunk to help me! So to summarize - I’ve got my dress which is ready to go, and I still have money in my wallet. And now I’m golden for the big day!

Ok, so this picture is definately quite a bit of an exaggeration of size: the earrings are actually very small at 2mm. But I’m so excited - my new earrings have arrived!

I already have a very nice set of earrings that my mom bought me for my birthday to match the necklace my parents gave me for Christmas. However, I wanted another set for my second piercing, because I thought it would look weird in pictures if I didn’t have anything there. What I wanted was a very small pair of stud earrings in a color close to periwinkle. I searched around for a long time online trying to find something suitable. I came across this stone called Tanzanite which ranges from deep purple to periwinkle, but when I went to look specifically for any jewelry made with it, the pieces were more expensive (around $500 to $3000 for a set of earrings!!!) than those made with diamonds of the same quality! However, most of the earrings had multiple large stones, and gold, both things I didn’t need. I was more than a little surprised, so I searched ebay in hopes that I could find something smaller, and also less expensive. I came across this pair and for just about $13 I have something that’s the perfect periwinkle color and size to wear in my second piercing, which won’t overwhelm or be overwhelmed by the other earrings I have.

Ok, people, so I thought I headed off the “silly questions everyone is going to ask” by setting a date early on. Now the question EVERYONE is asking is whether or not Kris and I will be staying in CA or moving back to NJ after we get married.

Perhaps everyone has forgotten the reason we came out here in the first place - I am in graduate school! And right now, I am in the MIDDLE of graduate school - I will not be graduating until 2009 at the VERY EARLIEST, probably not until 2010, and very possibly, later. So, of course we will be staying in California after we get married - because I still won’t be done with school!

Are we going to be staying out here after that? I have no idea. We’ll go wherever we can get jobs - which MAY mean moving back east, but it may also mean staying out here in SoCal. Of course I would love to stay out here - the weather is fantastic (in the 70’s now in February when everyone back east is covered by the Nor’Easter Blizzard of 2007), but the cost of living is very high - something NJ seems to be catching up with, especially now with the 7% sales tax. But, I really wouldn’t mind going back there either, depsite the frosty weather, since our family is all back there. But it’s not something we’ve made any actual decision on - because we don’t have to! Ask me again when I’m getting ready to graduate….

I wish everyone didn’t assume that your life was going to change SO radically after you got married. So many of my friends are already living together before even getting engaged, which means they probably will just stay living in the same exact place after they get married. Only a few of them can actually afford to BUY a place together, and that’s usually not until a few years after being married. And even if they do move from renting to owning, they usually stay in relatively the same place. And also - why do I keep getting asked if I’m moving back? Seems kinda strange - getting married and starting a life with a new “provider” only to move back closer to Mommy and Daddy? No, clearly that is not the point.

Yay!!!! My last bridesmaid called today with her dress selection and measurements. Now it’s all on me to order and confirm the dresses. I will let my bridal party know ASAP about pricing, shipment due date, etc, but I am really excited. I’ll be going tomorrow to actually place the order with my bridal shop owner, Judy, who has been great!

I also called to check on how the alterations are coming on MY dress - and I’m going next Monday for my second, and possibly final, fitting. I’m going to bring all my accessories, so hopefully I can get some “pre-wedding” pictures to determine what I want to do with my hair.

Anyway, below from left to right are the girls’ dress styles and the color they will come in. My maid of honor, Laura, my sister, will be wearing the dress on the left. Jerilyn, my cousin, will be wearing the middle dress. And Valerie, my friend, will be wearing the dress on the right.

This blog started out as “my little place to vent” - which is what you see at the top of the page every time you visit. Up until now there hasn’t been much to complain about except an early lack of enthusiasm from my sister, which has been since rectified. As a bit of a tangent, she’s bummed to be so busy with her last semester of college, but plans to give input to upcoming parties, and plans on putting her all into a great east-coast bachelorette party the week before our wedding in NJ.

There is now however, something that are put quite a damper on my day.

I just realized the videographer I selected is no longer listed on my online contract, despite him being in the email contracts I received, as well as both hard copies that were sent to me. It’s a good thing I went online to start filling out the paperwork for the DJ, videographer, and photographer, or I wouldn’t have noticed until I did that his name was missing. I immediately emailed our rep, wondering what the deal was, and I finally heard back from her this morning. Apparently he was double-booked, and the other client got their deposit in before me. I was also assured that another, more experienced, videographer would be taking his place. So I wrote back, hopefully understandably irritated. I mean, it’s been a good 2-3 months since my parents sent the check in - way back in November. I can understand that another client may easily have gotten their deposit in before us, but why the heck wasn’t I informed that this was the case??? I’m sure the new videographer will do a wonderful job, but I’m worried that my DJ and photographer may be usurped as well. And I went through a lot of trouble to confirm that this photographer was the best one - something Kris was very involved with also. All I really wanted was for them to claim responsibility for everything.

The good news is that she wrote back and offered us a bonus to our photographer package - 100 thank you prints and cards. It’s not something I was counting on, but now I don’t even have to think about it! Thank you’s for free!

Kris and I had been annoying each other - asking “When can we work on this?” answered “When I have some free time.” Not one particular thing, not even all concerning the wedding. It has been causing a lot of stress between us, and I realized there had to be a better way of dealing with it. So we made an appointment. With each other. This way, we don’t have to ask each other, or bug each other, and then not have the so-called “free time” to work on anything together. And rather than getting mad the other person has no “free time,” you can just be upset if the meeting is delayed or needs to be rescheduled. I recommend this method for all couples planning their big day. It’s made things way less stressful, and way more fun for both of us!

We had our first appointment this week, on Tuesday. We worked on a lot of things, piecemeal. The first thing we started with was our invitations: the invitation card itself, the announcement card, the reception card, the RSVP card, and even the ceremony program. I had already put together a basic “bare bones” version of all of these things, and wanted to get Kris’s input. Unfortunately we got a little too involved, caught up in the particular fonts, and other small details. We did get a lot accomplished with them though, and since we have the wording somewhat finalized, we can send everything for the invitations (maybe not the program yet!) to Kris’s parents, who can then work on the fonts and artwork.

We also worked on the ceremony - choosing readings and vows from the booklet Father Paladino gave us. We pretty much finished that, since it was pretty much “choose option a through f” for most of the things we had to make choices for. I’ll wait until we complete Pre-Cana to finalize those choices on the option sheet that came with the booklet, and then when we meet with Fr. Paladino again in May we can go over everything.

The last thing we started to discuss on Tuesday was our menu options. We have to narrow down a list to choose hor d’ourves, hot stations, and serving dish items - just for the cocktail hour! Then we have to pick, for the dinner, an appetizer and salad that everyone will get - and we have to narrow down the entrees. Finally, we need to pick which “flaming dessert” to have! By this time Kris was falling asleep, so we decided to continue with it another day.

We went out to dinner on Wednesday, and worked on the food a bit more. We discussed the entrees, which my parents and I have already tasted similar versions of. We narrowed down the other choices a bit more - but the flaming dessert is the only thing finalized because there are only two options. I also realized that we still have our tasting, which will also be in May, to narrow down our choices a bit more.

We also went through a list of suggested photo opprotunties - that we have to give to our photographer. A lot of them were already on our list, but some of them we considered too cheesy to consider. We’ve also decided against a few traditions, namely the bouquet toss (we’re going to have a “bouquet dance” instead, as well as a “shoe signing” - we’ll explain more closer to the wedding), and the garter toss. We have relatively few single friends, and personally I would be embarred having only two girls lunging for the bouquet (Sorry Laura and Jerilyn!). Hopefully we narrowed down that list enough that the photographer will be able to accomplish it all before the reception!

That’s all for now, but I am happy about how much we accomplished this week!

On Saturday, Kris and I attending the wedding of my friend and co-worker, Mary Lynden, and her now-husband, Frank. It was because of Mary last April that I started thinking about and trying on wedding gowns, and how I found my “it dress” - thanks to our our friend and co-worker Gwynn. In addition, I feel largely responsible for helping Mary pick and “set the date,” because when I asked what day she was thinking, I checked my planner to let her know that “February 3rd is a Saturday next year!” It has been an exciting and rewarding past few months, helping her plan, predicting my engagement, and finally comparing notes these last few months. I’m honored to have been a part of the process from almost the very beginning, and have been able to enjoy it with her through her wonderful ceremony and reception this past weekend.
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Yet another thing we did while on the east coast was start our registries. We were out Christmas shopping for everyone else, so we decided what the heck, why not. We tried first to register at Target, because I mistakenly thought they had Tupperware(tm). I had even called to ask. The Kleenex/Band-Aid curse strikes again - even when we were in the store they assured me that they carried Tupperware. I had to ask, “Tupperware tupperware? Or just rubbermaid and gladware stuff???” Yeah, they had no idea. It wasn’t until after Kris and I got home later that night (after leaving Target upset and instead registering at Bed, Bath, and Beyond) that we found out the truth - yes, once upon a time Target HAD carried Tupperware (so I wasn’t losing my mind after all), but had stopped doing so back in 2003.

Anyway, running about BB&B with the scanner thing was awesome. I’m encouraging everyone to at least register in-store ONE time, because it was just so much fun! We registered in Macy’s while Christmas shopping another day, then went to Sears. We decided to register ONLINE for Sears because no one seemed to know what the heck was going on when we went into the store. We’ve been able to add and delete items from the registries online, which is great because we don’t want to have to keep going to the stores to register for stuff. And every place has some great offers (like at Macy’s we got a really nice travel bag just for registering at the store) that should be taken advantage of. So anyway, for those of you looking, below are the links to our registries. Please take advantage of all those coupons you get for BB&B and L&T in the mail, as well as the complimentary gift wrapping BB&B and (I think) Macy’s offer.

I must also say that we decided against HoneyLuna only because they build in a 9% service charge, which I thought was awfully high. I mean, yes, we would love money to go towards the honeymoon, buying a house, or maybe buying a new car, but why lose almost 10% of what everyone’s willing to give to us to a travel agent?

Bed, Bath, and Beyond
Macy’s
Sears

And just to repeat - we really would love to also be able to buy a house!