Did I Mention the Wedding?

Another reason I’ve been at sixes and sevens, and utterly absent from the blogosphere, is that Aaron and I are getting married on June 7. That’s just 89 days from the day we announced it via email to the friends and family we’ve invited to what we’re trying to keep as a small affair. And as of this post, it’s 41 days away. Yeah, 6 weeks. My bridal shower is Saturday, May 3, the same weekend Aaron is set to go camping with the guys for his bachelor party.

Fortunately, we just need to figure out flowers, the DJ, the marriage license, and the details of the bowling party we’re having by way of a rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding. Amity’s picked out her bridesmaid’s dress; it just needs to be ordered. We still haven’t figured out the ceremony or vows, but we’re both procrastinators who work best under pressure. So we should be alright as long as we have that sorted before, say, June 1.

We are making considerable progress, but experience of planning a wedding has been a draw. Parts are a drag. For instance, making our own invitations sounded like a really good idea, until we put over 20 hours into doing them over last weekend and by Sunday night weren’t even halfway done and I was on the verge of tears. Aaron, not wanting to see me cry, finally had to enlist Vickie and Rob as reinforcements to come over and help get them done on Monday night before we all left town for Cincinnati for BotCon, the weekend’s Transformers convention.

Probably the worst part of planning a wedding, for me, was shopping for my wedding dress. Now, I’m not the cheesecake poofy white princess dress kind of gal anyway. Combine my sassiness with being nearly 30, pregnant, and tattooed; and I’m not going to be making the cover of “Brides” Magazine any time soon. I felt old, fat, ridiculous, out-of-place, and like I wanted to call off the whole wedding and just elope somewhere that didn’t involve white dresses, veils, tiaras, foundation garments, and saleswomen. I’m more interested in being married to the man I love than I am in starring in a cotillion wedding. The whole experience, in which I was surrounded by flouncy 20-somethings playing dress-up, made me disgusted by all those silly girls who want to be brides, and have no idea about being a wife.

Truly, I began to understand why women today who get pregnant a little early usually just wait until after the baby is born before putting themselves through a wedding. But I found a dress, it’s fine, and I don’t want to think any more about it. I swore I’d never set foot in David’s Bridal, but after several attempts at shabby local “boutiques” my mother wore me down. That and I was in the throes of the first trimester fatigue, and after hours of shopping I was so brain dead that would have joined the Bader Meinhoff if she’d suggested it. What won me over is that they carry every dress in their catalog in every size, so I could actually zip them up and see how bad it was. And if I expand any more between now and the wedding, I can trade up for the next size without any difficulty.

However, the parts where we’ve gotten to make this event personal, and therefore special, have made it more worthwhile. The cake toppers will NOT be some hokey bride clubbing a groom over the head (an idea I find offensive at best), but rather something custom-made that will remain a surprise until I have a photo to upload here. I’ve already told half the wedding guests anyway, but I’m saving the visual for y’all on the interwebs here. The music selections have been fun too. The best part though is looking forward to gathering our friends and family from across the country (and even a couple from around the world) to share the weekend with us, and to be there as we officially kick off our new family.