Wedding bell blues
I would like to note that at this hour exactly three months from today, our wedding will be over. Can I hear y’all say, “Hallelujah!”?
Because I gotta tell you, this whole wedding planning thing is really getting to me. As my friend and colleague Chitra noted, “There is absolutely no natural relationship between deciding to spend the rest of your life with someone and being an event planner.”
We did get these lovely rings, however. Just in case you are wondering, at the last minute we decided against having “Really love your peaches” engraved on the inside. I still think of it as a missed opportunity.
Chitra is right. Our wedding is all about the “less-is-more” concept, so much so that it cuts against nearly every received idea the wedding industry has tried to sell Americans, and yet somehow there still seem to be a fifty gazillion nagging, irritating, and emotionally-charged details to deal with every single day.
And ultimately, no matter how much noble breath is wasted on the idea of gender equity, when it comes to a wedding, every single one of those details is referred for adjudication to…the bride!
But here’s some bad news, folks: the bride barely knows a tea rose from a dandelion. The bride is not an etiquette expert. The bride does not have strong opinions about cake fillings. The bride is not interested in matchy-matchy bridal swag or “The Future Mrs. Wellerstein” t-shirts.
The bride is frankly just not that, well…bridal. And that is why the bride is considering erasing her identity, running away to the Greek Islands, and living out the remainder of her days under an assumed name. The bride can develop a discerning taste for retsina and Greek men, trust me.
But since that whole erase-your-identity thing is kind of a radical move, and since I was kind of having a mini wedding meltdown today, I decided instead to relieve some of the pressure by starting a new project.
You have to admit that more knitting is a better stress-relief strategy than drinking three-quarters of a bottle of Jack Daniels and heading out in the woods with a shotgun. Heavens, the last thing I’d want to do is drink three-quarters of a bottle of Jack and go out into the woods with a shotgun!
But it is on the list.
Not that Minnie has been abandoned. Far from it! She is developing into a lovely girl:
I’m quite pleased with my progress on the fronts.
I just decided to start these socks:
From this delightful new book from Interweave Press:
Cascade Fixation in pink (pink!) on size 5 needles.
These babies will be done before you can say, “Something borrowed and something blue, my *ss.”
March 21st, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Thankfully, I remember little of that planning thing. My Mom did most of it, thank goodness, otherwise it probably would have just been a JP and a kegger. Or maybe eloping to Vegas, which sounds kind of fun in a cheesy sort of way. I think you should put whatever you want inside the rings. It will always be something you’ll smile about and no one else needs to know if you don’t want to tell them.
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:23 am
I love that inscription idea! 🙂
I have found that knitting socks is a cure for all kinds of stressors. I hope it also works for you 🙂 That’s a great book!
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:23 am
Oh, how I remember. When DH and I married (almost 36 years ago) we had a church wedding (in the small side-chapel that only seated about 20 skinny people), but wanted it to be as informal as possible, and since my Mom was unable to help and I was in my first year of teaching, we chose to not do most “required” pre-wedding things like sending out invitations, etc. It was still almost more than I (we) could handle…I can still remember being out in some farmer’s field two evenings before the wedding trying to glean wheat stalks for the altar flowers because our little flower shop couldn’t supply any wheat stalks, and for some silly reason, having wheat stalks on the altar was really important to us … Who knows? Good luck with your wedding. Socks sounds like the perfect antidote to stress.
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I’d plead dissertation stress, drink the JD, and go to Vegas – but that’s just me.
March 22nd, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Cool-looking socks, Minnie is showing very pretty, and oh my, what beautiful rings!
As to wedding planning – oy. I actually did elope to Reno, and y’know what? It was a wonderful wedding. We had a great casual reception a month later, and my mom nearly went nuts enough over that! It’s just been a really lousy month or so for you all. Deep breaths. Keep knitting. Refer ’em to Shelley when anyone gets too persistent. Tell them she’s your last arbiter on complicated decisions. It might at least buy enough time for you to escape while they wonder if you’ve gone completely bonkers. [vbg]
March 22nd, 2007 at 3:06 pm
The Jack will give you a TERRIBLE hangover! Skip that part. The Greek men sound good but is the weather cool enough for sweaters, etc? No point is living where you can’t wear sweaters!!
I got married the second time in a church (his idea) with just witnesses (friends). I wanted to go to Vegas. I have since observed several weddings in Vegas and they appeared to be a hoot!! That’s the whole idea, you know, having fun. When it isn’t fun any longer, you need to be somewhere else.
March 23rd, 2007 at 6:09 pm
You could just elope. I couldn’t bear to do it, but looking back, I might’ve preferred to just have the money from throwing the wedding instead….
Beautiful rings. You’ve got great taste. Those matter; you see them every day. Nothing else does.
I was kind of into the wedding planning thing. Is your man? Because the way I simplified it was I shopped around, and brought back 2 choices – the eye doctor thing: “this way or this way?” And we kept telling ourselves that whatever choice we made was good enough, we don’t have to shop anymore.
I hear choices surrounding parenting are just as bad, or worse.
March 25th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Ellen, whatever happened to Matt (the archelolgist)? Does he have a website? Is he still in Chicago? Does he still go on digs? Email me with any info you have. Thank you. Cat.
March 26th, 2007 at 12:14 am
Have you read the book “Going Bridal”? I wish I had before my wedding. It goes into detail about how weddings make people (not just the bride) act badly (during planning, esp.). It’s funny. and offers no opinions about flowers, colors, etiquitte. It does expose how humiliating gown shopping can be, how mothers-in-law go batty, etc.
April 2nd, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Well, really -only one should say ‘really love your peaches’
Who gets to shake who’s tree is of course an exercise for the student.
And you should, I think, wear the pink socks for the wedding. Maybe with white high heels, like a zz top video.
April 9th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Do you think “…really love your peaches…” will fit on a ring? My sister played a sweet song as she walked back up the aisle “…momma’s got a squeezebox…” and it was o.k.
It will all be just fine.
Let them eat cup cakes.
Love you guys.
Wooooooof