Registry

Have you ever picked out a china pattern?

I'm lost. So forlorn, in fact, that I've come to this blog--the one I haven't touched in months--because I'm so lost.

Here's the thing about wedding planning: it's exhausting.

Rob and I work a lot. On days off, the last thing we want to do is plan our wedding (one interesting exception: wedding rings. Just because diamonds are fun.)

The good news is that there is only so much procrastination one can do. Wedding planning is well underway and I'm happy to report that I like how our special day is coming together.

But now I'm sitting here, just about four months from our wedding, and I'm doing some preliminary selection of what will become the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner vessels for our future family.

And there are 100,000 choices just at Bloomingdales!

Flowers, bows, butterflies, hummingbirds, camels.
There's actually china with camels on it.
Camels are cute but I don't want them under my mashed potatoes for the rest of my life.

Pretty sure I feel the same way about the elephants and carousel horses.

For now, maybe I'll go back to looking at diamonds :)

L-O-V-E

I got this from Rob's mom just now, and I had to share:

"Andy darling, thank you so much for the note. You and Robert are the best kids parents can be blessed with. I wish I was there.
Love,
Kathy, your future mother-in-law
It is so beautiful to be conversing with the woman I've been praying for to come into our son's life."

Right now I feel like the luckiest girl in the whole world.

Bridal fitness

The good news: I joined a new gym.

The bad news: They believe me to be tremendously out of shape.

They had me come in for a "fitness assessment."

And it was like a bad middle school flashback.

Remember the tests in school where you had to do as many sit-ups as you could in a minute, stretch as far as you can to test flexibility, and do pull-ups (or in my case, desperately attempt to do ONE pull-up)?

Essentially the worst days of my teenage years.
I had to do that again the other day at my new gym.

I kicked ass on the cardio portion of the test, falling into the "excellent" category.

That's where the good news ended, unfortunately.

I rated average to poor in every other category.

If this was a sales tactic to get me to purchase personal training sessions (and I have to tell myself this very thing to get through the day), it worked.

My fitness rating was something like 14 out of 40. Ouch.

I have some work to do. Trying to bump it up to the mid 20s by my wedding day.
I'll let you know how it goes.

Bridal Fairs

Has anyone ever been to one?

Rob and I went to our first one this Sunday (he wasn't supposed to go, but in an unfortunate turn of events, he got the pleasure of being one in four men in a sea of aggressive brides-to-be.)

We don't like bridal fairs.

We felt like the vendors were sharks and we were guppies in the middle awaiting attack and there was no escape.

They make you fill out these forms to win a free honeymoon to Paris and a free wedding registry and a free washer/dryer set and your hand starts to cramp up from writing your email address one too many times.

I ate more than one pastry that I had to spit out (vegan cookies will not touch the lips of my wedding guests.)

And in my opinion, bridal fairs are fairly unnecessary unless you are starting completely from scratch. If you have an idea of what you want and vendors somewhat picked out, bridal fairs are a nightmare because they just confuse you and make you question any decision you've made.

And you see things like this:

And you think it's an amazing idea (possibly fueled by the free champagne they give you). And then you go home and show the brochure to your mom and she throws it back into your face and tells you you're ridiculous.

(Not that this has ever happened to me. I'm just sayin'...)


Also, I love this: 5 Tips for Guys on Surviving a Bridal Show

I love how they say that he shouldn't be hung over but he should be drinking (I know Rob was very thankful for his free champagne offering.)

Good news!

We have a venue we've decided to commit to. Whew, that took longer than I would have liked, but we're very happy with our 3-month-long decision.

Even better news:

I found a wedding dress!

Kind of.

I found it online.

And there are two small problems with what has quickly become my day in-day out dress obsession (it's true: I watch wedding videos of people I don't know that feature this dress.)

1. It's Vera Wang. (Of course it is. I have expensive taste with everything else--I don't know why I ever thought wedding dresses would be any different.)

2. It's from Spring 2010.

So, my options are finding it used or ordering it from any number of very shady websites out of China who claim they can tailor it to my body for $273.

I always thought people wanted Vera Wang dresses just because they're Vera Wang dresses dresses.

But that's not true!

They're amazing!


All other dresses now look radically inferior in comparison.

Fortunately, I had always thought I'd buy a used wedding dress. To me, it just makes sense. So now instead of paying $1,000 on a used designer dress, I just have to shell out about $3,000 more than that.

Not the best plan for the world's most frugal bride.

PS. I'm not featuring a photo of the dress on the slight chance that I may actually find it used. In my size. For a reasonable price.

It could happen.

Places to sleep

Today's post is not necessarily about wedding planning, but it is about my cheapness, which is, let's face it, an unfortunate bi-product of wedding planning.

Today's post is about how it seems I'll sacrifice rest, sanitation, and the respect of the man I'm going to marry...

All to save a buck.

This sounds dramatic, and perhaps it is, but bear with me while I tell the story.

We're so fortunate to work for a wonderful company that provides us with many perks--a good medical and dental plan, free language classes, and cheap hotel rooms! It's a frugal bride's dream!

As avid skiers, we often take the 4-hour drive up to the mountains of Lake Tahoe to ski. Here we are:


We usually stay here:


But this time, our super special associate (read: cheap) rate wasn't available.

This time, we stayed here:



It' s the Alpine Inn & Spa, and it'll set you back $35/night.

But it's not really a spa. Not in the traditional sense of the word, anyway. Unless you're one of the few who consider an above ground jacuzzi surrounded by caution tape a spa, you'll be disappointed.

It kept us warm from the cold, but unfortunately that's the end of its accolades. It was loud and uncomfortable, and Rob made me wear flip flops when I took a shower.

It was also very evident by the condition of the lock that our door been previously kicked in, perhaps by a tenant that was frusterated by the "spa" nomenclature.

It only took a couple of runs on the hill the next day to feel how little sleep we had actually gotten. For now, I'm assuming and praying that Rob's fears of any shower-born illness are just an overreaction.

I'm hoping (and Rob even more) that this was my low point, that maybe this was my "aha" moment that will turn this cheapness thing around.

Yeah, maybe so.

I'm going up again with weekend with some girlfriends, and we're staying here:



See? I'm getting better already.

I'm going to be a bride!

The love of my life asked me to marry him.

Sometimes I wonder why. Most of the time, I'm just in awe that the crazy road I've been walking brought me to him.

The hardest part is over. I met a man who I love and who loves me back and has decided for better or for worse to be with me forever.

But there's just one thing.

It turns out I'm not so good at wedding planning.

My mother can't believe she raised such a frugal daughter.

She thinks I may need therapy to deal with aforementioned frugality.

But here I am, planning our wedding, therapy free (mostly because it's too expensive.)

Welcome to my ride.