Vanessa’s Blog

This past weekend was a veritible whirlwind of wedding-related activity.

Saturday morning saw Tim and I getting up for too early to go to the church and talk to the priest, Fr. Mark.  We had to fill out some paperwork and swear neither of us is being coerced into marriage.  We aren’t.  I swear.  Then, he asked us how we met and other details about us.  I’m assuming it’ll all be included in the sermon he gives at the ceremony.

Then, at noon, we went back to the church for a wedding music workshop to pick out the cornucopia of songs that go into a Catholic ceremony.  (No mass for us: I’m not Catholic.)  The music director gave us a few choices for each part of the ceremony that required music, and then sent us off to decide which ones - if any - we’d like to use.  The only restrictions were no secular music and absolutely nothing from Richard Wagner’s “Lohengrin”, meaning I will not be walking down the aisle to the ever popular “Here Comes the Bride.”

Darn.

Sunday saw us finishing our invitations.  We only have 8 more to address, since some slackers have yet to tell us where they live. (I’m looking at you, A.)  But, we got them addressed and stamped, which was a chore since we’ve got people from the U.S., Canada, Bermuda and Japan and they all require different stamps.

Today I dropped them off at the post office in Raleigh.  So, barring any unforeseen circumstances, they are out of my hands.

I just hope I put enough postage on them.

Yesterday I met with our caterer Vicky to finalize what we’re going to serve at the reception.  There was so much tasty food to chose from.  But Vicky’s great at what she does, and that definitely made things easier.

Oh, if you’re hungry, I suggest getting something to eat before reading this.  When I told Tim’s dad, Big Tim, he chastised me for telling him about it before he had a chance to eat lunch.  Oops.

Drinks

• Bottled water
• Different kinds of pop (Sprite, Coke, etc.)
• Wine (Merlot, Shiraz, Pinot Grigio)
• Beer (Miller Light, Yuengling, Michelob)

Appetizers

• Coconut shrimp with sweet red pepper sauce
• Chicken five-spice with tangy Asian dipping sauce

Salad

• Meditteranean salad

 Dinner (pick one)

• Herb and polenta crusted cod with lemon butter sauce, a side of white truffle risotto and seasonal vegetables
• Filet with mushroom sauce, a side of white truffle risotto and seasonal vegetables

Yum, yum, yum.  I’m glad Vicky gave me a tasty, homemade blueberry muffin (toasted with butter!) and some coffee before we started talking about this because I would have been so very hungry if she hadn’t.

Next week: Cake.  Yum.

I added this to my “blogroll” but I thought it was important enough to give it its own post.

A Brides.com friend of mine, Jess, is training for a marathon to help raise money to find a cure for certain types of blood cancers.

She has been a huge inspiration to me as I work to get fit myself.  She blogs about her progress and also is looking for donations as a part of that. 

Go take a quick look.

We’ll get back to our regularly scheduled bridal commentary tomorrow.

Yesterday, I had the distinct pleasure of getting up early and riding down into downtown Raleigh to meet with our linen rental people, CE Rentals.  There were racks upon racks of tablecloths in polyester, silk chantung, satin, chiffon and fabrics I’m sure I’ve never even known the names of. There were literally hundreds and hundreds of colours to chose from. There were overlays to put on top of whatever tablecloth was chosen.

Awesome.

Though, I do have to admit, it was a bit overwhelming.

Linda (not Amy, sorry!) helped me narrow down the myriad choices into a dozen or so more manageable ones.  She draped them all over a table to show me what they would look like.  She even put together a cocktail table look, which was awesome.

Then, because I didn’t want to decide on my own, she gave me a bunch of swatches to take back to Tim.  He actually ended up liking the same ones I did, without any prompting from me. 

So now, all we have to do is let her know what we want and it’ll be done.

Next up: catering.  But that’s tomorrow.

 As you can see, I also changed the layout of my blog.  Anyone who can figure out why I went with the butterfly theme gets a cookie. The colour part was easy: Green’s my favourite.

As the number of pre-wedding days count down, the amount of planning to do goes up and the potential for a Bridezilla moment increases, it’s nice to take a few minutes (or more) to celebrate the little milestones that go along with planning a wedding.

On Sunday (March 23, in case you were wondering) Tim and I passed a big one: We’ve been engaged for one year.

Now, the long engagement seems to be a very modern phenomenon, from what I can tell.  Neither my parents nor Tim’s had the luxury of a long engagement.  Sure, when we first set the date, it felt like it would take a small forever for all that time to pass.  It felt like we would never, ever be married. (And yes, I do know that makes me sound like a petulant child. So there.) 

But now that we’re heading into the home stretch, I’m kind of glad we decided to enjoy being afianced before becoming husband and wife. We had more time to plan the wedding, to really take our time picking out vendors and chosing back-ups if our first choice turned out to be booked. (Which actually happened, of course.  We originally wanted The Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill for our reception site, but June 14 was the only date they had booked.  Our venue, Highgrove, actually had every date in June booked except for the 14, which is weird.  It worked out though.  We, of course, love Highgrove.)

We also had the luxury of not allowing the wedding and all that planning to take over our lives (so far.)  We didn’t have to talk about it every night after work and class.  It didn’t have to take over our (OK, my) every waking moment.  We still got to be a couple, even though we were planning a major event.  And that was really nice.

So, here’s to one year of being engaged.  It’s pretty awesome, if you ask me.

Though we don’t get WE (the Women’s Entertainment Network) in Greenville, Tim’s parents do happen to get it in Raleigh, where we’re currently staying. I happened to catch an episode of a show a couple of days (or was it weeks?) ago about women trying to lose weight to fit into their wedding gowns. It’s called - and I kid you not - “Bulging Brides.”

The tagline for the show? “The perfect day is still pounds away.”

These women had decided they were too “fat” to be married and had bought wedding dresses too small to force themselves to fit into them.  Neither of the brides to be I saw were even chubby, much less obese.  One was a size 8, I believe, and the other a size 2/ 4.

I know.

The trainer and personal life coach on the show weighed and took measurements of these ladies, then put them through a punishing diet and fitness regimen designed to help them fit into their too-tiny gowns.

Now, I don’t have a problem with women using their wedding to get healthier. Lord knows sometimes we need the kick in the rear that being photographed 400-plus times and cherishing those pictures for a lifetime will give.

I know I lost weight before the wedding, but it was weight I had gained after coming to ECU.  And I did it in a healthy way, through good ol’ portion control and exercise.

But honestly, if you’re already thin or if you like the way you look, then don’t put yourself through a diet and exercise plan designed only to allow you to lose weight for the wedding day.

Being thin doesn’t make you beautiful anymore than being fat makes you ugly.  I think sometimes we women tend to forget that, equating our self-worth with what the scale says.

I think, however, the most imporant part of the wedding isn’t how great the bride looks in the gown, though it sure does feel amazing to know you look fabulous in your dress; what often gets swept aside in the commotion that goes into planning a wedding is there is a marriage taking place.  And that’s the most imporant part.

You can look good at any size. Your fiance obviously fell in love with you how you are.

I was scanning CNN.com when I came across this rather interesting story.

I was intrigued because for so long the rhetoric was that being married was infinitely better for your health than being single. 

Still, if you think about it, the findings of this new study definitely make sense.  I mean, being chained to someone you fight with day in and day out really can’t be all that great for your blood pressure.

The implications of this study are a little disturbing, though.  Will elevated blood pressure and worsening health soon be a reason for divorce?  Or will people use the knowledge that by constantly bickering they’re hurting themselves and each other to try to better their marriages?

Only time will tell.

Hello to anyone joining me from celebbride.com or fastsilkweddingflowers.com.  I appreciate the mentions over there.

So, for those of you following the hospital saga, Tim has finally been discharged (again).  He is doing well.  He’s still weak (of course), but doing much better.  So any of you that prayed for him, we appreciate it.  I just hope (knock on wood!) he stays out of the hospital and keeps recovering.  I’m sure he will.

So, I sent out a bunch of e-mails to my venors yesterday, and most replied back.  I have an appointment to meet with the linen rental people Monday morning, one with the caterer Wednesday morning and two meetings at the church the last weekend of March. 

Whew.

My photographer said we didn’t need to meet until April.  I haven’t heard back from the florist yet, but he said originally he wanted to come with us to pick our linens.  And I don’t have to worry about anything dress-related until May.

I just feel like I need a kick in the behind to get myself back in wedding mode, and I think this is the best way to do it.

I hope so, anyway.

I can finally check one more wedding detail off the list.  We secured our baker, or as I have taken to calling her, our cake lady.  I’ve talked about her before, but here’s a link to her Web site.

Now all we have to do with that is meet up with her to design our cake and (the yummy part) decide on the flavour or flavours we want to be included.  It will be a delicious day, I’m sure. 

Here’s a couple cake pictures we like:

Just kidding.  Apparently, Sweet Memories’ gallery is down, or I don’t have the right applet on the work computer.  I’ll post them from home perhaps later tonight or tomorrow.

But as I was looking for cake stuff on Google, I stumbled across a rather interesting idea for a cake topper: replicas of the bride and groom.  Except they are super, ridiculously expensive.  So, I guess I’m back to square one.  Hmph.

In other news, I may have some good news on the Tim front, but I don’t want to jinx it by talking about it early.  So stay tuned.

I had always been told that, at some point, I would start having nightmares about the wedding.  Apparently, “some point” is now.

On Saturday, I had my first wedding nightmare.  Now, I rarely remember dreams and I wish I didn’t remember this one, but it is especially vivid.  I really thought it was happening.  When I woke up, my hands were balled up in tiny, rageful fists.

The long and short of it is wedding-day preparations were not going well.  My future mother-in-law made us way late (read: several hours) to our hair and make-up appointments. Everyone - and I mean everyone - wanted to be in the room with me while I changed into my wedding dress.  I forgot crucial parts of my wedding ensemble.  My mother was nowhere to be found.  People were causing all sorts of problems. 

I think I’m lucky I didn’t wake up screaming.

I guess the stress is finally starting to get to me, though from what I’ve heard, it’s pretty normal.  I’m sure as we get even closer, the dreams will get even more frustrating and annoying.  But I’ll take it. 

In the end, I’m pretty lucky.  I get to marry the man I love.  I’ll take a few nightmares along the way, so long as we get there intact.