11-19-2000

This afternoon my mom and I did our monthly wedding planning meeting. We sat down and hashed out a reasonably firm guest list, and then revisited the whole issue of where to hold the reception. This decision is a bit complicated by some of the ideas my mom's had for the entertainment. I'm not so sure a sword fight should be indoors in a room full of people wearing nice clothes - regardless of whether it might be appropriate to the period of the wedding or not. But some of the other ideas will still work...and now that we have some good numbers, it looks like we can finally decide on a place to hold this little shindig.

There are times when I think that I'm not getting into this wedding thing as much as I should. Perhaps it's just that I'm comparing my reaction to the wedding itself to that of my friends and sisters who've gotten married. My older sister dithered over the color of the napkins. I've friends who seriously pondered ice sculptures, developed nervous tics over flower arrangements, and agonized over getting just the right cake server. I dunno - as a full-blooded female, aren't I supposed to be getting giddy with anticipation by now? Shouldn't I be poring through bridal magazines and pondering china patterns and pricing extravagant wedding gowns? The mere thought of attending one of those bridal faires makes me shudder. I went to enough of those with friends and sisters, thank you. No more. Please, no more.

Getting married to Richard will be the single best decision I'll make in my life - I have no doubts at all on that. It's just the wedding that seems to be the issue. But do I really have to care about whether all the candles match, and really, who ever saves most of the favors you get from weddings anyway? Is this yet another one of those areas where I'm lacking in the whole 'girly' thing again?

If I actually think about it logically though, I know that it's because of what we're actually doing with this theme. The very nature of the theme means that all the 'normal' wedding things - foofy wedding dresses, bridesmaid gowns that my friends will never forgive me for, trying to match cumberbunds to the color of the balloons - none of that applies. I haven't a clue yet as to what color the bridesmaids will be wearing, but the very nature of this theme means that I can get away with having everyone in different colors (although I'm sure my bridesmaids are horribly disappointed that they won't be wearing the Madonna dress). I've got ideas - bits and pieces of random thoughts scribbled down on paper between my mom and me - but nothing concrete. And it doesn't help that right now my brain is focused much more on the overwhelming volume of decisions that still have to be made for this house that has begin to spring up on what was once a lot of weed-infested dirt. My saving grace for this so far has been that my mom has jumped into this theme whole-heartedly. By picking this theme, I ended up inadvertantly giving her a research project, and there's nothing she likes better than that. So between the two of us - especially after the brunt of the house stuff is finally taken care of and I can actually *think* about wedding stuff - it will all turn out just fine.

That is, of course, if we can find enough big white candles, and we can figure out where to rent candalabras, and if I can find a seamstress to sew my gown, and if we can get spats that look like leather boots for the groomsmen and...and...sigh.