Wedding Watch - I'm not Dead (Crazy)HA Yet...

HA FOOLED YA! BWAAAAAA

Ok, not crazier than usual... and it's admittedly quite early yet.

This weekend marked one of those landmarks of the long engagement-road to marriage: The ever exciting meeting of the parents! Or some of the parents. I am happy to report that things went as well as I had expected. Then again, it certainly would make for a boring blog entry to talk about things going well after the years of internalized expectations for comic hijinx. The course of true blog never did run smooth, after all. We had our hurried harried moments of rushing when there was a misunderstanding about whether Andrew et. al. were in Seattle still or actually just checking into the hotel and ready for dinner and this naturally coincided with a spell of bad traffic. But after that, things mellowed like a fine wine and even the weather behaved.

 So, one landmark passed with mostly some achy quads and on to the next: STD's!! Wait, no, not like that... Really... That's a different kind of milestone there... No, I refer to the equally ubiquitous save the dates, which is one of those wedding traditions that is to invitations what getting pre-engaged is to getting engaged. And it's ... interesting. Because it's the first tango with the ever convoluted guest list. Sure, we kind of hemmed and hawed something together last month in a shared google document in order to guestimate what kind of hall we might need (more than 200 means extra fees, so we have kind of a cap at least). But this is where things get real, yo! It's a two part thing: first there's the deciding who does and does not get a reservation on the invite list (hey, you asked them to save that damned date, so now you're kind of committed to keeping them or else sending out envelopes that look like invites but actually just have PSYCH - YOU'RE NOT INVITED on the inside). Then there's the logistical part of things, like having addresses and making cards and mailing them.

The latter part was easy. I found vistaprint and it was fun and I then ordered waaaay too many cards to be on the safe side. And while it is a laborious process, emailing all my friends and family to get addresses has been a gradual but productive process.

The decision-making part is a little more confusing. On the one hand: BIG PARTY! Everyone I love! And, of course, well, if I want person A to be there, then I have to also invite B, C, D-X or there would be drama!! On the other hand: Catering prices are per person! Large groups of people are far more prone to rioting and their riots tend to be more destructive! 

I feel like you need to know pretty far in advance who you want (or at least how many you want) at your wedding for any semblance of planning to occur, but at the same time, who knows what a year will bring? It feels a lot like figuring out who to ask to prom. I remember my sister went to the prom with a guy who was blissfully dating another of her friends, who in turn was going to prom with a guy who... mostly because apparently prom dates needed to be locked down far more in advance of the tumultuously turning love lives of teenagers.

So push and pull and then there's balancing my guest list and Andrew's. Early on, I've decided that I need to follow some ground rules for myself in order to avoid the inevitable slide into Bridezilladom. In this case, it revolves around remembering two different connotations of this simple truth: It's our wedding. 

That means first that it's not anybody else's wedding. I'm really happy to be of an age and (har har) wisdom to be able to be the one throwing this party. My parents aren't passing me off into adult life: despite protestations to the contrary I am already an adult transitioning from being single to being married. I'm proud that I'm able to finance observance of this tradition with money that I've scrupulously scrimped and saved and budgeted and even earned. When you consider what does and doesn't merit the sacrifice of a few extra hours' work or a little luxury or two deferred, I think everything there has slightly more meaning. While I'm happy to accept any financial help offered (I'm proud, but not insane - weddings even on a shoestring are expensive! So please if it's between that luxury chinaware set and cold hard cash... we could take the cold hard cash), it still means something to me, that ultimately it's ours and we choose it because it has meaning for us.

Well, I should insist on tights for Andrew

So people have flowers at weddings? I'm not a big flower person. So brides walk down an aisle on their father's arm with an awaiting groom, and have full flanked wedding parties? Nobody needs to pass me off here - we can meet in the middle. So guests are often given delicately constructed place settings, favors, table assignments? I have faith ours will find their way to tables.


But, Andrew and I both have a history performing dance. We met and our early relationship evolved in part due to dance. Are we going to have a first dance? Hell yes! My dad and I found a new bond doing dance performances together at little showcases. Is there going to be a father daughter dance? Absolutely. Will my best friend be there to sign the document that validates the legal aspect of our promises and the creation of a federally recognized partnership? Of course. And does it mean something to have those who have been there with me through my life and in this relationship hear the promises that I make in addition to the legal promises - to remind me in the future what I have pledged, to support me in that when it may be hard, to share our celebration, and to witness something extremely meaningful to me? Yes.

It also means, it's not just mine. And I know, brides always say that, but it usually devolves into the bride doing most of the planning and wrangling and stressing and going nuts and the groom having a killer bachelor party and being rightfully terrified of the bride for a while. I'm staying ever vigilant on the memory that actually it's Andrew's responsibility to throw this party, just as much as mine. So we're splitting costs 50-50 as we go to avoid any weird money issues down the road. And I'm leaving him his half of the planning work.

In this case, that means that after realizing I could continue to stress out about the amorphous side of his invite list until it's pinned down because I'm ready to send out the damned save the dates and operate on assumptions that we know how many people are theoretically going to be invited... I'm just saying that we agree to cap our side of the invite list at an equal number and if we go over, we pay the proportional share of the overage. I'm also sending out the save the dates and invites for people on my side of the guest list and leaving Andrew's side to Andrew. Since we have really different styles, that probably means my side of the non-existent aisle may be getting all of these things about two months earlier, and I hope that doesn't cause any friction, but I really don't think it will. And, well, if it does, I am sure he's perfectly equipped to handle it.

Ok., ok, I'm not going to just call the caterer and provide food for my half of the list, really... maybe. No, there are things that matter more to me and I'll probably take the lead on those. I'll put the music together, for instance. And I may do some more of the initial research on catering since I'm historically the hard one to feed and have the vegan/gluten intolerant/etc. guests that I personally would like to accommodate. But we'll get to those. For now. Save the Dates. Printed. Shipped. Shared. And one thing from the five thousand listed on the rather terrifying knot.com site taken care of!

Insanity watch still on stand-by

Lest we end up here again!