dullness

It's true.  I've been in a little bit of a funk these past few days.  I can't help thinking of the phrase a friend of mine mentioned recently: "post event dullness disorder."  That pretty much sums up how I feel.  The fireworks are over, the party's been packed away, and now it's just daily life again.  I've been wandering around the house, unable to decide what to do with myself.

And yet.  My man asked this morning, "Is this still the honeymoon?" And yes, husband.  Yes, it is.  There are still new things, small and sweet things for us to discover and enjoy together.  And there is a marriage now, which is a big, slow thing that will take me a long, long time to really wrap my brain around.  In short, the party isn't really over.  In some ways, the fun's just getting started.  It's a different kind of fun, though, and harder to sum up in punctuations of confetti and pinatas.

In the meantime, I guess I just need to recognize that I'm feeling the way I'm feeling, that there are some perfectly understandable reasons for it, and that my dark little mood will pass soon enough.  I'm trying to calm myself with good things, like the socks I finally finished:

And the extra time I have to catch up on recent posts at Souris Mariage and A Practical Wedding.


And the fact that the little bean plants on our back porch are blossoming:

Oh, and the fact that we're having pizza for dinner tonight.

Because is there anything better than pizza and a beer to remind a girl to sit back, relax, and enjoy the waning days of her honeymoon?

No, I didn't think so.

I'll be back on Monday, friends.  I promise I'll try to work out my kinks and cranks before then.  In the meantime, happy weekend!

the groom

I've addressed this subject before, but I'm really feeling it this week.  You all know how fond I am of Mouse at Souris Mariage, and I'm almost always in total agreement with her.  Her post yesterday touched on "how to get the guy you're marrying to do one of the things on his checklist."

And, well, look:  I understand that this must be a common thing that girls are dealing with all the time in wedding world.  It's just that, of all the troublesome things I'm wrestling with in these last precious days, my man not doing things is not among the concerns.  If anything, it's kind of been the other way around.  My partner-in-crime is in Getting Things Done mode, and sometimes, it's all I can do to keep up.

He has single-handedly constructed our pig-shaped pinata, a process that's taken almost a week, seven layers of paper-mache, and one very big balloon.

He also ended up being the person to sew together the fifty or sixty feet of pennants that I was very excited about six months ago but never managed to actually assemble.  My dear stepmother offered some initial instruction on the sewing machine, but my man took it from there, sewing away long after I'd called it a night.

He's also managed to transfer our giant wedding music playlist onto a compatible computer, led the charge on both our coleslaw and our potato salad, mowed a giant chunk of my parents' even gianter lawn, reminded me to call the tent rental guy, washed his fair share of canning jars and cute vintage tableware, met with Mike the Pig Roaster to discuss Saturday's game plan, and done pretty much every thing else that seems to suddenly need doing here in the final hours before the Big Day.

Oh, and he's also been spray painting these awesome toy animals for our "table number" scheme.  Yes, we stole the idea from Martha, but since when was that a bad idea?

Here's hoping that those of you that are planning weddings have been fortunate enough to find a partner who wants to share in the fun.  I'm constantly being reminded of what a lucky girl I am.

Three days to go.  This thing is really happening.  There's no going back now...

unpacking

How much tableware does it take to feed a wedding crowd of seventy?  Um, a lot.

Fortunately, we did some stockpiling of thrift store finds when we visited Ohio last winter, and now that we've officially got boots on the ground here in the Midwest, it's time to start unpacking the things we stashed and get to work doing lots of dishes.  After an afternoon of counting and calculating, it looks like we've got enough silverware, although the fork situation is still a little tight.

And we're still short on plates.  I think we'll figure it out in the next few days.  We'll just have to hit the thrift stores one more time, which is something I'm almost always looking for an excuse to do, anyway.  We already have a pretty good mix of both dinner plates and dessert plates--some of which are actually saucers masquerading as dessert plates, but we're hoping our guests will be too busy to notice...

And I added to the plate totals by quite a bit when I decided--after some careful consideration--to use my Grandma Sally's Limoges china.  It's pretty stuff, made in 1948 in Ohio, of all places, and while the set's sustained its fair share of chips and cracks over the years, it's still nice to look at.

When I told my dad I was thinking of using it at the wedding dinner, he reminded me that it was "mine," after all, to do with as I pleased.  At the same time, though, he pointed out that things frequently get broken at parties.  He didn't want me to make a decision that I would regret later.  Especially when heirloom china--or something as close as I'll ever get to heirloom china--was involved.

And so, I thought it over, and I decided that there's no sense in having something if you're not going to use it.  And if a plate is going to get broken, I'd much rather have it happen in the midst of our wedding celebration.  What better time could there be for that sort of thing?  I hope my Grandma Sally would agree with me...

Twelve days to go.  And it seems like the to-do list is getting longer, not shorter.  Our first day here has been pretty slow and quiet--have I mentioned that, now that I'm back in the full flush of health, my partner-in-crime seems to be suffering though a respiratory illness of his own?  Everyone is telling us it's the stress, but it's really starting to feel like the universe might be out to get us...

Sick or not, though, we're going to have to get moving.  I'll be back on Wednesday with an update for you all...

hooray

I've been waiting all week to tell you about one of last weekend's more exciting moments: I won something!  More importantly, I won something that we needed!  Boutonnieres for my man and his brothers/groomsmen!  Just when I was starting to think about making some, I entered this contest that Mouse was hosting over at Souris Mariage.  And then I won!  How great is that?

It's pretty great.  I wasn't feeling very inspired about boutonnieres, and my big plan was to put the project off until the last possible moment, just in case a good idea finally occurred to me.  I was thinking of using fabric.  Or maybe paper.  To be honest, I wasn't thinking very hard about anything at all.  I just couldn't figure out what we should have.

My partner-in-crime, however, was pretty sure he knew what we needed.  A sheriff's badge for him and deputy badges for his two brothers.  I thought it was a fine plan, but finding the right badges turned out to be harder than we thought it would be.  Ebay and Etsy were both full of either extremely expensive collectibles or cheap plastic junk made for a seven year-old's birthday party.

And then there was the fact that my man's desire for a sheriff's badge led to the desire for cap guns.  And for our officiant--my hero of a brother--to wear a big black hat with a wide flat brim.  "Like the preacher on Little House of the Prairie," said my husband-to-be.  To which I said, among other things, "no."

But now, we have one less thing to worry about.  Lovely, handmade boutonnieres that will hold up well in the late-June heat.  They even have buttons on them!  My man and I both agree that these will do just fine.  Big thanks to Mouse and to the good folks at Eventcetera!  We're truly grateful.

partners

In retrospect, this post really should have come a long time ago.  I know I've mentioned the fact that my man has single-handedly crafted our invitations, facilitated our heart-making adventure, and chosen our wedding colors--or lack thereof.  But maybe I haven't been totally up front about how involved he's been in the other departments, too.

We've been collaborating on almost every aspect of the wedding planning.  This hasn't been a big surprise to me.  Right from the start, I fully expected to share the fun--and the challenges--of putting together a big party that also happens to be a celebration of our commitment to one another.

What has been surprising to me, though, is that many people--even a few who know us--have been under the impression that the wedding is my territory.  They assume that the decisions we've made are my decisions and that while I'm struggling with catering contracts and difficult bridesmaids, my man is quietly cheering me on from his (imaginary) armchair.

Apparently, the stereotype of the well-meaning but generally clueless groom is alive and well.  While I think it's all pretty silly--this is the twenty-first century, people--I do understand where all the misconceptions come from.  I recently met a groom-to-be who simply shrugged his shoulders when his sister asked where he and his bride were registered.

I think it's sad, really.  That shoulder-shrugging guy is totally missing out on what could be a pretty good time with his special lady friend.  Planning a wedding together is a little bit like building a house.   Except maybe with more drinking and dancing at the end.  Oh, and funny clothes.

Lucky for me--and lots of other girls out there--plenty of grooms are stepping up.  For every shoulder-shrugger, there's a guy who's booking venues and loading ipods with cocktail hour music.  Some of them are even blogging.  It all makes good sense to me.  The marriage isn't supposed to rely on the hopes and energies of just one person.  Why should the wedding need to?

So, with all that said, here is my over-due thank you to my partner-in-crime:  Thank you for being an active participant in this little adventure we've undertaken.  I won't say that I owe you--because that would imply that I think the whole wedding thing ought to be my "problem" in the first place--but I will tell you that I am eternally grateful that you are the man you are.  I'm genuinely looking forward to the last few weeks of this--and to the years and years that will come after.

oh yes

My man has a suit.  It came in the mail a few days ago, and it looks like this:

I know.  I'm a tease.  But look, I can't show you the groom in his wedding suit.  It would be like giving you peeks at the invites before they went out in the mail.  It would ruin a beautiful surprise.  Besides, I think it might be bad luck or something.

I guess I could show you someone else wearing a very, very similar suit.

This is not my groom-to-be.   It's just a nice fellow from J. Crew.  If you want to, you can see more of the suit--and, oh, of that handsome young man--by clicking here.

Suits are kind of a big deal.  It turns out that buying a suit is expensive.  And kind of complicated.  In the end, getting fancy duds for my partner-in-crime might turn out to be more of an ordeal than me landing a dress.

I didn't realize it would be that way.  And honestly, I don't care.  It's totally worth it to see my man all dressed up for a party.  He's only gotten fancied up a handful of times since I've known him--and now that I think about it, one of those times was actually when he was just dressing up as John Wilkes Booth for a costume party.  I don't think that one counts.

Some people have asked me whether the men in our wedding party were going to wear tuxes.  My response--and my man's--has consistently been, "of course not."  A little part of me does wonder whether we're missing out on something by skipping the tux, but I'm pretty confident that making decisions that really reflect us, instead of what other people are doing, will keep us on track.  Yes, I'm mostly talking about the wedding here.  But not just the wedding...

But, gosh, there's this suit.  I'm excited about it.  I'm sure you can tell.  I'll be really honest, though, and pay attention, because I do mean this.  My partner-in-crime can wear whatever he wants.  A tuxedo t-shirt.  Tie-dyed board shorts.  It doesn't matter to me.  Just as long as, at the end of the day, we're married.

Oh, but I, on the other hand, absolutely must wear my fancy, fancy dress.