Only in my dreams...

I had my first wedding nightmare this morning. And as mundane as it may sound to be, it wasn’t. It was truly terrifying.

Which says what about me? I dunno. How about if I describe the dream for y’all and we’ll see what you think…

I can’t remember much of it, of course. But I do remember that I was getting ready for the ceremony. It was about noon (ceremony is at 1:30), and I suddenly realized that I didn’t have my hair or makeup done, and I got very confused about how that had happened. I started to freak out a bit (i.e. whine and bitch and moan), and my bridesmaids wanted me to stop it, I’m sure, so they all told me that it would be fine, and one or two of them offered to help with my hair while another one helped with makeup. (Don’t ask me why I couldn’t just do it myself in a situation like that…apparently in my dream, I was the retarded bride from hell.)

So the one friend, my best friend from forever ago named Mandi, asks me what I was planning on doing with my hair. I told her about what I had thought we could do, and showed her sort of what I meant, and then she went to work. Her little sister Liz was there to help, too, for some reason. I think that had to do with the fact that she did Mandi’s hair for her wedding a couple of years back, but I can’t be sure.

All of a sudden, everyone was done, and someone handed me a mirror. I was still feeling beyond anxious without having seen a reflection of myself, but afterward, I REALLY freaked out! My makeup was HORRIBLE. I looked like I’d been aged about 20 years, like they can do in movies sometimes, except my skin seriously looked wrinkled and dried out and nasty. My eyes stood out the most makeup-wise though. Whoever had done the makeup had decided that purple metallic eye shadow was most appropriate for the day, and it caked my eyelids to the point that it wouldn’t rub off at all. (Of course, she had wanted my makeup to be tear-proof! AUGH!) My cheeks had a freaky amount of rouge on them, and my lips were…well, that was the one thing she did right, whoever she was. My lips didn’t stand out at all, now that I think about it. So she had stuck to the golden rule of makeup and had only emphasized my eyes, and not both my eyes AND my lips. Good for her.

But my hair - holy crap! My friend hadn’t done ANYTHING that I’d suggested, and instead had straightened out the curliness of it, and then put a bunch of product in it that made it greasy and dirty looking. And it was blond, for some reason. It looked gross.

It was about then that my alarm went off, and I woke up feeling truly horrified. Jesse came in the room a few minutes later, which surprised me because I didn’t know he wasn’t in bed with me all that time. I asked him if he was ok, and he said he hadn’t been able to sleep, but he was fine. I asked him if I had been making any noise that woke him up…I was worried that I was screaming in my sleep! He said no. So that’s nice…at least I’m able to keep my insane dreams inside my head while I’m having them.

How crappy of a human being am I that I consider a dream about my hair and makeup not being done and then being done improperly to be a frightening nightmare? I told my physical trainer about it this morning when we were working out…I said, “I had my first wedding nightmare this morning.” He said, “Oh yeah? What was it about?” I replied, “Hair and makeup…it was TERRIBLE!” He couldn’t stop laughing for about a minute and a half.

Anyway, I hear that this is how it happens. Brides have nightmares about the actual day of the wedding, and grooms tend to have nightmares about the bride leaving them sometime before the wedding happens.

I don’t want any more dreams like this though. No thank you.

Good news...

I know now what is going on with the dress and the dress shop, and am much happier over all because of it, which is sort of sad, but that's ok. I'm surprised at what stresses me out these days, is the thing. Anyway...

The store is currently being run out of a conference room of some sort at the Marriott on the Plaza, and it sounds like they're looking for a permanent place to reside while they're there. When the dress comes in (hopefully in the first week of May, since it's being shipped from the designer on April 24th), they'll call me to set up a fitting, and all that good stuff. Maybe by then, they will have found their new shop location. I hope it's as cool as the last one was!

So, all is well on the dress front again. I'm sincerely hoping that we don't have any other drama like this (or any other sort, really) throughout the rest of the planning. I suppose I'll just have to keep taking it one day at a time...

Just a boring ol' update...

Still unsure about what’s going to be happening with the dress, I’m attempting to shift my focus elsewhere until later this week when it might be a good time to try to contact the Gown Gallery again to see what’s going on.

So many other details require my attention right now that it’s easy to change gears, I think. Tonight, we have a meeting with our priest to go over the compatibility test that we did together (sort of…) around 2 weeks ago. We’re both interested in seeing the results, and know for sure that even if the test says we’re not compatible, we’re still sure we are. (We’re kidding around when we discuss that, though. We don’t think the test showed any great differences between us that we need to attend to before we should even consider getting married. I think that the questions about children and money are going to be the ones that will call for the most discussion. But, to be fair, the questions about children don’t really allow for the idea that some of the couples that are taking the “test” might have decided against having children, or are considering the possibility of adopting in the future. So that made it harder to answer those questions, really. The money questions? Well, money is a hard thing to deal with. Some deal with it better than others, some never learn how to deal with it at all, etc, etc…Jesse and I have discussions about money when required, which isn’t often. We’re pretty confident in our ability to communicate well throughout our marriage about money and whatever issues regarding it may arise. So that’s that.) This should be the last thing we have to do in terms of prepping for the ceremony, besides the Engaged Encounter weekend thingy we’ll need to attend a few months before the wedding itself. There are other things I’m doing to prepare for it, of course, but they involve musicians, and not so much anything having to do with preparation as a couple.

I’ve contacted a musician about singing at our wedding, actually, and was looking forward to heading down to her parish where she’s the music director on Friday night, as she was going to be singing for a wedding there. Unfortunately, we had a freak snow storm thing move through the area at rush hour that evening, so I had to cancel those plans. Not such a huge deal, as I will have a chance to hear her again on March 3rd at the church where Jesse and I are getting married. However, this past wedding would have given me the opportunity to hear her along with a string quartet, as that was the accompaniment at this particular wedding, and which I’m interested in having for our wedding. After the wedding on the 3rd, there won’t be any until Lent is over, so I’ll have to wait until mid-April to have the chance to see her sing with a quartet. Not a big deal, I guess. Just a little disappointing that I couldn’t get it taken care of like I’d planned.

This weekend, we’ll be having our first meeting with a baker about the possibility of her handling our cakes. I hope to set up meetings with at least two more bakers, but the other one I was particularly interested in meeting with is unavailable for our wedding date. Thankfully, plenty of bakers have info on The Knot for me to review, so I can look at pictures of their work online, and all that good stuff. It’s really helping me in figuring out what style of cake we might want to do. It’s a detail that seems silly to pay too much attention to, though. Maybe after visiting the baker, I’ll feel differently about it. (I don’t get it, is the thing. Why pay thousands of dollars for an ornately designed cake, when all you’re gonna do is chop it up and eat it? I mean, make it look pretty, yeah. But don’t go overboard. It’s the inside that counts to me, dammit…)

It appears that this is just a boring ol’ update for today. No funny stories to tell…no interesting facts to share. Just plain info about what’s being done. But I suppose that’s what some visit this blog for, anyway. So yeah…there’s that. (I’m kinda grateful I don’t have more scary/interesting stories to tell, to be quite honest! That means that things are going smoothly, and not much is happening to cause us any true worry. Even the dress thing will work itself out, I’m sure. I’ve got a few months before I really need to worry about it, anyway!)

Hope everyone has a great Monday!

The first battle has begun...

The store where I ordered* my dress and veil from burned to the ground this morning.

After a lunch of homemade chili and a small caesar salad, I'm feeling a bit better than I did when I first heard the news. I need to get to work now, and forget about it for a while. I won't be able to find out details of what to do next until a little while has passed, and the store has gotten its bearings. I'm going to try calling them next week. (They have a prom dress store across the street from the bridal salon location. I'm hoping their computer systems were connected to each other, and that all records of bridal orders weren't lost in the fire...)

My prayers are with the firefighters that got hurt while trying to battle the blaze. And also with the girls who have weddings in the immediate future, and who's dresses were being stored at the shop, possibly still being altered, and/or having just arrived without even being tried on for the first time at all. Jesse's general manager at the Moose has a sister who falls into my prayers...her dress had already arrived, and was waiting for her to use it in her June wedding. Now it's gone, and the poor girl is going to have to try to find a new dress very quickly. Thankfully, she's a petite girl, so hopefully that will aid her in her abbreviated search for a new perfect gown.

UPDATE: Just read this story in the KC Star. All is not as lost as I thought. But some is...apparently, they lost all records in the fire, as they had recently consolidated their two stores into one, and they no longer have the second location across the street I was hoping they would be able to rely on for back-up record keeping. They're currently trying to remember all bride names that they were dealing with. Holy crap. Holy, holy, holy...go and read the story for more info.


*My dress wasn't there...it's not due to arrive until late April, thank goodness. But I do wonder what will happen to all the records of our transactions, as well as the design notes for the veil and tiara I ordered last week. I'm sincerely hoping that the designer took the design info home with him, since he doesn't actually work on his designs there in the store, but rather just uses it as a place to meet with brides and to partner with the company in order to sell his designs.

When my dress is due to come in, I don't know what we'll do. They were supposed to store it for me (part of the purchase price of the dress is a $75 "storage fee"), and they would alter it if it needed any altering, and all that good stuff.

Lots of questions and no place to get answers from. Very frustrating. And very, very sad...

When does 9 months not feel like 9 months?

Wow. Things are really starting to wind up over here. I feel like 9 months is a good amount of time to plan for something like our wedding, but at the same time, I feel like I'm forgetting things. Even though I'm not. So what gives?

I feel bad for people who had to plan their weddings without the help of a handy-dandy online tool like The Knot.com. If it weren't for their checklist of things to do that I can constantly refer to, I might not remember to call and find a musician for the ceremony, or to get the registering done within the next couple of months. The only thing it isn't helping on is the planning of my shower here in Kansas, which is going less than smoothly, but that's because I seem to have "planner's block" for some reason. I can't think of a place to have it. I wanted to have it at a hotel downtown, but after checking out their prices, and seeing how many people I'll likely have at the shower, it simply isn't worth it. I'm sure it'd be lovely if we had it there, but not for that kind of money! I'm going to be checking with a few other hotels today, and hopefully I'll find an option that works for me soon.

For those of you who are wondering, yes, I am throwing my own shower here in Kansas. My sister and best friend are throwing the one in California, but with the fact of needing two showers to be thrown due to the living situation I'm in, I have to plan the one for myself here. I'm not going to ask my other bridesmaids to take care of it, as they have college to pay for and a baby on the way, respectively, and none of us really have a great big space that can pretty well accomodate 20 - 25 people, unfortunately. I don't know anyone here that has a large living room that we can "borrow." And I'd throw it at our house, really I would. But as it's in June, and weather can be spotty that time of year, I'd be in trouble if the back deck wasn't available for people to escape to when the crowd inside got too close! Plus, the idea of having it at a hotel, where set-up and clean-up are done for me, just seems so awesome. So cross your fingers for me that I find (and can even think of!) a place to have it at pretty soon here. I gotta get cracking on this thing, really.

Ok, work has beckoned, so I must run now. More later this week, I'm sure!

Weddings, weddings everywhere!

I've got two coworkers who are going through the wedding excitement along with me here at work, although one of them will be over it by Monday next week since her son's wedding is this weekend. The other one has a daughter getting married in April, and she's been fun to talk to about plans and dresses and how many are invited, etc, etc...as well. Since they're both in the position of being mothers involved in the wedding, it's been great to have their perspective on everything for these past few weeks. The one who's son is getting married this weekend has been very involved in the planning of the wedding, it seems, helping with everything from arranging for music at the reception to finding a cake at almost the last minute. (Apparently, her son and daughter-in-law-to-be had originally been planning a May wedding, but they pushed it up for some reason...she doesn't know why.) She only just found the outfit she'll be wearing to the wedding last week, and I'm glad because she'd been a little stressed over it. (She would prefer to wear pants, but she didn't think it would be appropriate, and neither did her husband, so she had to find a skirt, but she didn't want a long skirt, even though it's what she wound up getting anyway...I don't understand what all the hoopla was about. If she wanted to wear pants, she should have worn pants. I can't see why anyone would have cared, as long as she doesn't wear jeans, or something!) I didn't really understand why she was doing so much regarding the planning, but then she told me that her son is my age, and his fiance is only 25, and that sort of made it all come together for me. Perhaps his fiance doesn't have family near by...I dunno. I really can't figure out why it was left to my coworker to help find the cake. I'm sure she offered, but I just didn't understand how that worked out, is all.

Anyway, most days can go by without any one of us having a chance to talk about wedding stuff. But then around twice a week, we're at it like hens in a hen house, chit chatting about everything that's going on. Just now, I had a conversation with the mother of the bride coworker about how her daughter just got the engagement pictures back from the photographer, and she thinks they suck and she'd like new ones taken, but she doesn't want to be mean about it. This coworker and I agree that there's nothing mean about asking for quality work to be done. Apparently, several of the pictures that she got back were distance shots of her and her fiance sitting on a bench in a park (taken on a very cold day in January, mind you!), and the shot was taken from so far away that they aren't even identifyable in the photo! I don't understand how a photographer can be so stupid about something like that. I mean, there's art, and then there's the fact that you're helping to capture memories for a couple and their family, dammit. A little perspective should be in order there.

But it just helps solidify the need I have to collect photos of things that I do like, and things I don't like. Even our photographer told me to get some together, so she can review them before we do anything. It's so very important to illustrate these things, since it can be awfully hard to communicate it through words sometimes, I think. Kind of like my hair do that I think I'd like to do for the wedding day...I probably wouldn't be able to describe it very well to the hairdresser, so I'll be printing off photos (one of the hair I'd like to do, and another of an up do that can be done with the original style already in place...I'm still not sure if I want to wear it up or down!) to take with me, so I can show him what it is that I'm thinking would be fun to do. The last time I tried to describe how I wanted an up do done, I wound up paying $100 for something that made me look like an alien ghost from the year 3045. It was really scary. And it was HUUUUGE! So, yeah...not doing that again!

Anyway, it seems like weddings are all around me lately. The girls at the gym that are all getting married, the coworkers here at work that have kids getting married, my trainer at the gym that's getting married a week before I do, the friend at the Moose that felt lucky to be able to attend both our wedding as well as one for one of her oldest friends who is also getting married in October...lots and lots of weddings. And I'm making things more fun by having not one, not two, but three parties in celebration of me being a bride as well as Jesse and I finally becoming husband and wife! It'll all be fun, though. Parties are parties...I've thrown many before in honor of work occassions, and had a good time putting them together, so putting together a shower for myself should be a relative snap, especially since I've decided upon doing it at a hotel somewhere here in town now. Hotels are so easy like that...plus, they set up, and clean up, and provide yummy food (usually). It's a win/win! Now I just need to decide which hotel to set it up at...

Ok, I'm just rambling now. I need to get some more training done here at work before I go to lunch. Hope everyone is having a faboolous week!

Don't get used to this...

I have time to post, and I also have stuff to post about, so I just figured it’d make sense to go ahead and do it. Next week will probably be a totally dead week compared to this one…

Last night, Jesse and I went and met for the 2nd time with the priest that will be performing our ceremony. We talked about football a bit, and how things are going for us right now, and then got down to business. We needed to complete a little “compatibility test” for Father, so he could review it and see how close we are to being on the same page regarding issues that have to do with money, child rearing, communication, past family issues and how they have effected us, etc, etc…It was kinda fun, since Father left us alone to complete the questions (of which there were about 150 that we were required to answer…), and we were able to discuss the ones that didn’t immediately make sense to one or both of us, and on some of the ones that stumped us for answers (which usually had to do with the child rearing issues…) we were able to quickly discuss our same-pageness. We didn’t “cheat” really…there were a couple where he or I said, “Well, I agree/disagree with this…don’t know about you.” But we tried to answer honestly from our own viewpoints, mostly so that we would know what we need to discuss before we actually get married. The questions about our sex life were the ones that made us giggle the most, of course, since we’re apparently both only 12. But ones such as the questions about whether our future spouse had moodiness that was difficult to deal with made me cringe. What can I say, though? I’m a girl, after all. We weren’t built without moodiness issues, so Jesse can take that up with evolution or God or whomever he wants to blame for that problem.

Regardless, it was a fun activity that I appreciated over all. On the way home, we discussed some of the things that we could remember from the test that we had marked the “uncertain” circle for. I don’t know that he opens up to me as much as I do to him, sometimes, and it worries me. He thinks that we solve problems we have with each other well, and while he still has concerns about my perceptions on how he handles money, he thinks it’s getting better all the time. It was a productive evening, to say the least, and I hope that we can always communicate like this. I have some things I want to improve on in myself, but it still works pretty well over all.

Jesse hasn’t seen the church we’re getting married at yet, and I need to figure out how we can find a time to visit it when it’s open so he can check it out and see how beautiful it really is. I don’t know that he cares much, but it’s important to me that he sees how amazing the architecture is, and how beautiful our ceremony is going to be. Hopefully, I’ll have a holiday coming up relatively soon (does Memorial Day come between now and the 4th of July, maybe?) where we can take some time in the middle of the day and go check it out. (Ooh…I just checked the calendar and saw that St. Patty’s Day is on a Saturday this year. That’s gonna be one messed up day, I think. Not that this is relevant at all to what I’m talking about, but it was just something I happened to notice…)

So that’s what’s going on this week. I think we’ve pretty well decided on the DJ we’re going to use, so I need to get on that. I’m going today to look at a bridesmaid dress that I like, so I can check out the material and see if it will work on all the girls that are in the party. I wish I could try it on, but they only have it in a size 10 or 12, and that doesn’t work with my body unfortunately! We’ll see, though. Hopefully, it’s available in the stores that my maid/matron of honors are checking out pretty soon, so they can try it on. I hope. I love it, so I really want it to work!

I can’t believe that February is already here…this is going to be a crazy year, me thinks.