1 Wedding, 1 Funeral, and The Office Space Conundrum

Sorry for the brief pause, I was out of town all last week running the gamut of human experience. I attended the wedding of my childhood best friend to a wonderful man, organized and attended a memorial service for my Grandfather and got hit in the head with a lot of black walnuts tossed by a vengeful tree in West Michigan that is trying to ruin my Dad's life.

Imagine these bastards flying at your face while you are trying to rake! EEK!

The Grige is working his little behind off on a project right now, so I came home to an apartment in what can only be described as total and utter chaos. We brought home some more wedding stuff, so there were boxes everywhere, unpacked suitcases overflowing with dirty clothes blocking my side of the bed, dishes in the sink, and a week.5's worth of trash in the trash closet. Ick. Also, nothing but rotted casserole in the fridge. I've just about dealt with the mess, but it took me all. damn. day. It doesn't help that our trash deposit is in siberia (read: about 0.15 miles from our door, up a big hill).

While I was cleaning and organizing and discovering evidence of termites in our window seat I realized a few important things:

1. Keeping house by yourself is a lot of mother flipping work.

Honestly, I could stay unemployed and still be busy every second of my day making dinners, cleaning, buying groceries and doing laundry. I really could. And if we were to add kids to that equation some day? Holy Hell Raisers. I wouldn't even be able to break for lunch. I'm kind of missing our tiny apartment in new and different ways.

2. I like being busy.

There is a scene in Office Space where Lawrence asks Peter what he would do if he had a million dollars. Peter says he would do nothing. I didn't say it to my guidance counselor, but I always sort of felt like I was in the same boat. I like to read, I enjoy sporadically writing this blog, and I like to be outside, but I can't really tell how all of that fits into a career (hint: it doesn't). I can tell you this for sure: doing nothing is not equal to not being busy. I'm a very busy unemployed person. When work doesn't give me projects, I make them for myself. Sometimes that includes applying for jobs, and sometimes it doesn't. So I think I get the point now, and I wish I could apply for construction jobs.

3. Dear Mario Batali: Your recipes cannot be considered "simple" if half the ingredients are not available in a midwestern grocery store.

I had to look up pretty much everything for one recipe on the cook's thesaurus before I could complete my grocery list. I'm all for authenticity, but don't tell me it's "simple" when it's going to take me 2 hours to find acceptable ingredients.

I'll be back with more on last week once my black walnut induced concussion heals.

Around the Wedding Corner

Things change after your wedding. Maybe not to you, but to other people, more specifically to the way they view you. I'm astounded by how people's perception of me, as a woman, has changed since I donned my wedding band.

Us, with our truly adorable niece, Audrey, last Christmas. Before people started telling me how natural I looked with children.

I always thought that the madonna and the whore complex was reserved for the couches of psychotherapists and Sex and the City episodes. But the moment I said "I do", in the eyes of the world, I aged 10 years and went from a person for whom pregnancy would be a career-ruining disaster to a person whose sole purpose in life should be to procreate. With my husband. Of course.

The curious thing, is that I'm not sure he's experiencing anything similar, and by Caitlin Moran's strategy for detecting sexism (is it happening to the dudes?), I'm smelling a rat.  While I get unsolicited pamphlets on conception from my OBGYN and comments on how natural I look with other people's babies - did I not look natural with babies before? Is there something awkward about an unwed woman bonding with a small child? Good heavens! What have teen-aged baby-sitters been doing all this time? And most importantly, how did they miss the terror in my eyes? - the Grige is just sort of rolling along with business as usual, as far as I can tell.

Me with my niece Emma, perhaps we look comfortable because I've been living with her for six weeks?

Now, I was somewhat prepared for the baby thing. For people of a certain generation, I believe it's even excusable to assume that I must have family on the brain. I don't need those people to know that I actually know more about the best aeration process for boxed wine than my ovaries right now, they're not prepared for that information. But it's more than just the baby thing, and it's more than just the elderly among us.

Being introduced as someone's "wife' is a lot more loaded than you would think, especially when those people are 23 years old. I know that's not that much younger than me, but if you had told me at 23 where I would be at 25, I probably would have fainted on the spot. The good news it that it still means something important, socially, to be someone's wife. However, I get the impression that everyone was expecting a harried looking woman in her mid-30's wearing mom-jeans and waxing on about her last ovulation when they met me. I'm proud to say that I did not deliver, but all the "newness" does sort of make me feel like I should buy a whole new wardrobe, cut my hair off and start speaking in a British accent.

How can I be old? I still drink too much boxed wine and play the  Crocodile Hunter  board game!

I think the most confusing and challenging part of my situation is that I actually want all the things I'm supposed to want. The idea of having a baby does not terrify me. And eating dinner that I cooked every night with the Grige at our real dining room table in our fully furnished home like "adults" makes me happy. I am following the "perfect" blueprint for a woman's life - married by 25 to a smart, handsome man, first baby most likely around the time I'm 30 - life is on track by conventional standards. But that doesn't mean that I let someone else make those choices for me, or that they're anyone's business but the Grige's and mine (and now yours, of course).

It's challenging to feel like a feminist when my well-reasoned life choices are so in line with conventional standards. I could just let it all go and let people tell me how good I look with a baby in my arms and ask when the Grige and I are planning to start a family... But I don't think that I can. Because what if we were trying for a baby and it wasn't going so well? Or what if we decided that kids aren't the right choice for us because we'd rather travel? Of what if, god forbid, we have a baby and decide to do a bunch of traveling anyway? I don't want to spend every minute between now and menopause talking about my body with people who don't know me well enough to get the answers to those questions unsolicited.

Photo: Summer Jean Photography
As it turns out, I really, really like being a wife.

So I'm asking, since when did the window into our private family decisions become open for viewing and since when did marriage make me old? I'm thinking that having a giant wedding where we did a bunch of conventional stuff is probably buried in the answer, but I'm going to unpack that another time. 

From Double E to Double F: Name Changing De-Coded

Since I have described my life right now as "comically depressing", I don't feel in much of a position to be giving advice. Truth be told, I'm sitting on the pull-out bed that I slept on for 6 months when I first moved to DC 4 years ago. There are two litter boxes within spitting distance of said couch/bed and I can hear my adorable new niece squalling upstairs. You have been properly warned, my suggestions come from a den of less-than-desirable circumstances. Upside: cable TV for the first time in my life. If it is possible to overdose on HGTV, I will do it in the next month.

So: name changing. This will be a two-part post, because there are two big parts to changing your name; emotional and logistical. This is the emotional part.

I ran the gamut on name changing options. At first, I wanted both the Grige and I to hyphenate our names. Then I wanted him to take my last name as his middle name. Then I just wanted to keep my name because paperwork is scary and I hate the DMV. Then I wanted us to both change our last name to Grige (I love that you think I'm joking. I totally was not). Finally, I decided after much deliberation that I wanted to keep my full name, but add his last name to the end. And then we went to the county courthouse, and I was told that my only option was to hyphenate or die and that I couldn't have 4 names. There were tears, but I went from EEF to EFF and I don't think I will look back.

Photo: Summer Jean Photography

The thing about name changes is that there are a lot of forces at work in the decision process. It's hard to keep track of all of them. Throughout the process, I was haunted by the fact that I might be making an "UN-feminist" decision. Every time someone assumed that I would take the Grige's name, I got all pissed-off and motivated to just keep my name, and demand that our kids take my name too. That didn't work out, because decisions that are motivated by spite (even if it is spite of ignorance), are generally bad decisions. So there is the spite/anger argument. As I described, I did not keep my last name because my in-laws needed some feminist schooling. I have my whole life to do that.

The rest of my arguments/frustrations were centered around the same main issue - family names. I wanted the family that the Grige and I are starting to have a name. Preferably one, non-hyphenated name. I want to share a name with my husband and kids, and it took me some time to figure out what I wanted that name to be. As an only grandchild, I felt very invested in keeping my last name. But I also love my middle name. And I hate hate hate mono-syllabic last names, which the Grige's is. I was also angry that the Grige didn't have to deal with any of this: the expectations of people who barely know me, the hassle of all the paperwork, feeling constantly uncomfortable with the way you are addressed, change in general....

He was a very good sport about all my drama, he actually didn't really say anything through the whole debate. He just listened to me, patiently. Finally, it occurred to me to ask what he wanted, and it turns out that he really wanted me to take his name. Oddly enough, that put a lot of my worry to rest. I felt so conflicted about the decision, it was sort of nice to have someone with a strong opinion take the reins and give me a reason to feel good about changing.I could have my cake, and eat it too - I would just have two middle names, I wouldn't have to give anything up and i would be giving my husband something he really wanted.

Photo: Megan Shiley and her phone

Then, 2 days before the wedding in the county clerk's office, I was told that 2 middle names was not allowed without going to family court. I finally showed my true, lazy colors and took the easy way out: I dropped my middle name and became EFF. While I was upset at the time, I realize now that this is the way I dealt with the whole wedding - I would prefer for things to be imperfect and easy than perfect and difficult. I am a pro at protecting myself from stress. 

It's not like the Grige and I are going to forget what my given name was. It's not like I can't still use Elisabeth if I want to. I just won't have to constantly run out of room in the middle-name space when I'm buying airline tickets or taking standardized tests. And I won't have to go to family court. WINNING. So for me, this is what worked. I'm still annoyed that I have to spend all my spare time running around to the social security office and arguing with credit card companies over my middle initial and the Grige doesn't, but he's being as supportive as he can be from 1000 miles away.

I think the big lesson here is that it really doesn't matter what you decide to do, and that it's okay to not be sure what you want to do. There is no rule that says you have to make a decision right now, or that you have to stick to the decision you make, or even that you have to go by the name on your social security card (hello, Madonna). So if you are stuck on this decision, just table it for a while. If you cut off the obsessing, things might just fall into place. 

We Got Married!

And it was wonderful. I don't know quite what to say about it yet, except that I'm tired. I want to crawl into a tunnel where there are no people for a very long, long time and then my poor, introverted soul can emerge a beautiful, married butterfly.

This is what it looked like.
Photo: Summer Jean Photography

Unfortunately, I'm currently 1,000 miles from the Husband Grige living in a basement with a delighfully well-behaved new-born baby and a cat whose whole life has been turned upside down. I know how he feels.

Photo: Summer Jean Photography

I'll be back soon with some good wedding re-cap stuff and some fantastically interesting information about navigating name changing, finance combining and bill handling as newlyweds living across the country from one another (surprise! there's a lot of fighting!). But for now, a few teaser photos from our excessively talented photographer, Summer Osborn.

Oh yeah, it rained the entire day. And no, no one cared.
Photo: Summer Jean Photography

A New Wedding Theme...

I have been obsessed with wedding themes lately, perhaps as a way to pass off the stress of our impending wedding. We didn't spend much time thinking about a theme, it just sort of seemed obvious. We both love green, and the outdoors, and the ceremony would be taking place under a willow: Boom! "A Walk in the Woods".

I like to think that if the Grige wasn't a designer, and totally into our wedding not being one giant joke, I would have had a more creative theme. My favorite until yesterday was "Finding Nemo". I imagine decorations sort of like the dance scene in Back to the Future, fish as centerpieces, seafood on the menu, a whale sounds dinner soundtrack, a first dance to "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid, bridesmaids in orange dresses with white stripes, seaweed bouquets, guys in orange ties... The list goes on and on. It would have been awesome, just saying. Also, decor and details would have been easy, because kid's movies make it their business to make sure there is more movie paraphenalia out there then a bride could possibly know what to do with.

Just Keep Swimming!
Source: Dinsney Pixar, www.disney.co.uk

Then, yesterday, I found the most amazing website on the planet and decided that I really should have thrown a "Cow" wedding. Moo Moo to you too! http://www.cowdepot.com/. I'm not even going to embed that link because I want you to go to the website that badly. Check out the "cow party" section (which is a grillion pages long) and let your imagination run wild. Country music would fit well with this, as would a "cow pie" wedding cake (aka: giant brownie) and bottled beer (in cow coozies, no less).

Mooooo

So there. I have planned two weddings for you. Have fun.

The theme fixation doesn't stop there. I'm starting to feel like our theme is evolving to something like "it's the thought that counts". I know, you're thinking that is a weird theme, but let me tell you why. About a week ago, I was planning to get ahead of the game and send all of the Grige's and my important documentation up to Michigan so that we wouldn't lose it in the move before applying for our marriage license. Luckily, before I sent, I opened the envelope with "THE GRIGE'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE" written on it in giant print. And guess what. It was empty. So now, the Grige will spend his last two days on the East Coast running around Maryland trying to get a new birth certificate. Fun times. Something tells me that it's not going to happen.

If that were all, it might just be funny. We'd get officially married at city hall in St. Louis in October or November, which would be kind of fun, and everything would be fine. Except that it's not all. I noticed yesterday that my wedding band (which I ordered 2 weeks ago) hadn't shipped yet. I called the jeweler, and guess what? They never placed the order. Gahhhhhhhh. In the best case scenario, the ring will arive the day before the wedding. Something tells me that is not going to happen either. Womp Womp.

Good thing I have a solution!
Photo: Chad Fisk

So now, we are most likely going to be missing two of the most fundamental and legally significant aspects of the wedding, which makes me very sad. But hey, "it's the thought that counts", right guys? ha. ha. ha.

 

Remember When I Said We Could Handle Moving and Marrying in the same Month?

Actually, I don't think I ever wrote that. I knew this would be stressful, but then stuff like the last 48 hours comes flying out of nowhere and knocks us both on our asses.

I talk a lot about how different the Grige and I are. Different personalities, different coping styles, different talents, strengths, communication styles and backgrounds. It makes for a lot of good variety in our life, and generally, I love it. But sometimes I worried that we didn't have enough in common to make for a strong marriage. Because everyone has fears like that, and it's hard to be in love with someone who is oh, so very different from you.

There is one major way that we are exactly the same, and I didn't even realize it until earlier this very summer. We are both kind-hearted, generous people who generally (and somewhat naively) assume that everyone else is nice and sharing and gives people the benefit of the doubt too. You may be surprised to hear that this is not always the case, and sometimes we get yelled at, scolded, bullied - whatever you want to call it - by people who are not quite so nice and innocent as we are. But that's not even the thing we have in common!

Packing... and Cooking Creatively.

The thing we really have in common is the fact that these interactions with people who treat us rudely and accuse us of generally being "up to no good" really de-rail both of us in very physical and personal ways. We are genuinely hurt, to the point of feeling ill, having trouble eating and sleeping, and even breaking out in a rash (that's just me, not the Grige), when people assume we're looking for a fight or trying to undermine their authority and treat us disrespectfully as a result. I know people who can just let things like that roll right off their backs, but the Grige and I are just not those people. Instead, we lie in bed next to each other all night, staring at the ceiling with our minds racing over what we could have done wrong/what we can do to fix it.

To sum up, we don't have a problem with authority or rules, and when we find ourselves in the wrong, we're willing to accept responsibility and correct our actions. We desperately want to follow the rules and we actually, physically need to be validated for doing so. How do we want to be validated? you might ask... Well, we want to be given the benefit of the doubt that we don't go around trying to make life hard for people and that any wrong-doing on our part is an honest mistake that we want to fix.

Photo: Jeanine Finch

So right now, we're not sleeping much and are generally very distressed about a problem with the condo board in our building (which, by the way, refuses to speak with us directly, even though we are NEIGHBORS, making it very hard for concerns to be addressed for either party) and our moving plans. The passive-aggressive nasty-ness and dictatorial manner have beaten both of us into sniveling, sleepless little heaps of pity while we try to deal with an ever-growing pile of wedding stuff.

Montello Condo Board! If you guys are reading this - we really want to follow your (stupid and kind of crazy) rules! Just stop yelling at us already! We are only asking questions!

Some people might say that we should just hunker down, get through the move, pay whatever psycho fines we're assessed and NEVER EVER RENT IN A CONDO BUILDING EVER EVER EVER. Generally, I agree with them. Don't do it. I know the unit is beautiful, and competitively priced, but just don't, okay? No one likes being a second class citizen, especially in their own home. And, you can live there when you are ready to buy.

However, that's not the moral of the story here. The moral of the story is that even though things are very very dark and sucky and stressful right now, I'm kind of glad this is all happening. Because it is infinitely comforting to me to know that the man I'm going to marry shares my deep, ingrained, desire to do the right thing, and to treat people (and be treated) fairly and honestly. And to know that those things are so important to him that he's up all night with knots in his stomach and eyes on the ceiling right next to me? It's priceless.

May your wedding planning be filled with slightly less stressful and upsetting reminders of why you are marrying your partner.

Today, I am a Woman

Happy 4th of July!

Tonight, the Grige and I are going on a very fancy cruise on the Potomac to watch the fireworks. It's my first (and probably only) Independence day in D.C., since the crowds are so bad, I usually skip town. I'm really excited - this is definitely the only way to do DC on this holiday, and I've never had the funds. Fortunately, Chad's Aunt's got us these amazing tickets as a wedding gift, so I get to live the high life tonight!

Seriously, just thinking of this cruise got me through all my extremely stabby episodes on the metro yesterday. I understand that people want to visit their nation's capitol. It's beautiful, and they should see all it has to offer. However, stay off the f*cking metro during rush hour. And if you must ride, stand right, walk left, and keep your kids the hell out of my way if you value their lives. K? Thanks. PSA over.

So, our fancy cruise tonight gave me the perfect opportunity to try out my newly acquired wedding makeup skills. I also have a few very lady-like tips for preparing for a fabulous evening:

Makeup + Wine

1. Spend the whole day battling dust bunnies under your bed while you try to pack up your very small apartment. Wonder how the hell that much crap fit under your bed.

2. Shower. You are covered in dust bunnies.

3. Demand that your handsome fiance press your cocktail dress for you. You are crap with an iron, and he knows it. Revel in the fact that it took him longer to press your dress than it took you to apply 30 lbs. of makeup.

4. Laugh at your fiance when he cannot figure out the pleats on the dress. And takes that failure really, really seriously.

5. Pour yourself a rocktail

6. Clean the toothpaste crap off your mirror.

7. Apply concealer, foundation, blush, bronzer, eyeshadow, eyeliner, eyebrow filler, eyebrow holder gel, mascara and lipstick. That wasn't so bad, was it? Sip your rocktail in between each application.

8. Blow a fuse while you try to blow dry your hair. Discover that the refrigerator in the kitchen and the hairdryer in the bathroom are on the same fuse. Wonder why. Realize you are only learning this after 2 years in this apartment because you never blowdry your hair. Be glad you are moving.

9. Ask your husband to be if he would marry this face. Kiss your lipstick off all over his face when he says yes.

10. Re-fill your rocktail and sit around in your underwear until it's time to leave. Today, you are a woman.

11. (optional) make yourselves late while you write a blog post about it. Get yelled at.

xox,
EE

Bridal Gowns, Weddings and Body Image Revisited



It’s a good thing that I had such a good long run this weekend, because there were definitely some big confidence hits as well. We've discussed body image and wedding gowns before. I guess this is the scary side...

Friday began at 3:30 am after a fairly sleepless night. Does anyone else get nervous and have trouble sleeping before travelling? I do. Especially before flying. I had no problem making my 6:00 am flight to Chicago, where I got whammied with an epic delay. Normally, I’m pretty good at rolling with the punches, but I had optimistically scheduled my bridal gown fitting for less than 2 hours after I was originally scheduled to land and then packed the rest of the day with back-to-back appointments for makeup and hair trials. I made it, but missed my opportunity to go home and pull myself together.

Before I continue, just let me say that what I described above is a horrible idea. One should never put that many aspects of their personal appearance up to scrutiny in one day, and certainly not right after a 3:30 am wakeup call and eight hours of airports and airplanes. It’s a miserable experience and no one should do it. Ever. I’m serious. Also, never fly through O’Hare if you can avoid it. The place is death to your schedule.

So I got off the plane and hopped in the car for 45 minutes with my Mom, who was chipper and brought food, which helped. We arrived about 30 minutes early for the fitting, and I promptly showed my lack of sleep by making back-to-back bad decisions

Oh, Oberon... Why did I let your crisp beckon derail me?

       1.       I stupidly suggested we wait next door at a restaurant and grab a beer

2.       When we returned and the bride ahead of me was running late, I agreed to have my fitting in the un-air-conditioned, stuffy back room with only one mirror.

MISTAKESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! ROOKIE MISTAKESSSSSSSSS!

What followed can only be described as emotionally overwrought and hellacious. I stood there dripping sweat becoming increasingly horrified at how hot, heavy, tight, too-short and overwhelmingly uncomfortable and unflattering the dress was and tried desperately to keep it together while my mom wept over how beautiful I looked and snapped photos with my phone’s camera.

I’m not exactly a boss at standing up for myself, and I completely let this experience get away from me. So please, learn from my mistakes. I went along with everything the seamstress told me, and allowed the major concerns I was having to either go unmentioned or be brushed aside by the seamstress and consultant (both of whom were really nice, just not picking up on my nearly un-detectable clues that I was not happy). I now have a great deal of respect for the ladies on Say Yes to the Dress who cry and stomp and holler in the fitting rooms of Kleinfeld’s until their dresses look exactly the way they want them. Watch them. Learn from them. You don’t have to be rude, but you do have to be pointed. This is your wedding dress. And Double E, meek and mild, has been crying herself to sleep for a week and banned bread and cheese in her home. Don’t do what I’m doing. Say something. Loudly. And if they tell you it can’t be let out in the hips, tell them to try harder, because you’re not going to make it to the alter without bourbon and pepper jack cheese. Those guys are practically your bridesmaids. Repeat after me: change your dress, not your body.

Photo: Kleinfeld's Website
Also, this lucky bitch doesn't look like she needs to change her dress OR her body. Oh media, why must you TAUNT me??

I’m sure you can now imagine the state I was in – exhausted, disappointed, filled with self-loathing that only the combination of sticky sweat and skin-tight chiffon can elicit – and there I was telling everyone how much I loved it and how happy I was and hopping in the car for my makeup appointment….

Here, zero makeup

Makeup is wonderful stuff. I don’t wear a lot of it normally, because I never really thought I needed to. I have never been self-conscious about my face. And yes, I know how lucky I am to feel that way.  However, the (again, VERY NICE, just kind of clueless) woman who did my makeup found more wrong with me in 10 minutes than I’ve been able to detect in my whole life. I told her very specifically that I don’t wear much makeup and just wanted to look “fresh” on my wedding day. I thought she would slap some blush and a pretty eye shadow on me and call it good. Oh, how wrong I was. 45 minutes later, I looked fantastic. However, I also had a list of the gazillion things that were “wrong” with my looks running through my head to join the cacophony of shame leftover from the dress fitting: “bushy eyebrows, no cheekbones, circles so dark they actually need two colors to be successfully hidden…” on and on the list went.

So here - "lots" of makeup (for me). See a difference from the pic above? I don't....

To my great credit, I kept it totally together until we were half way to the hairdresser’s house before I tested just how water-proof the mascara actually was. It’s safe to say that I’ll survive my wedding day without any mascara running, but I will need to blend in the tear-tracks through my blush.

The hair trial was definitely the least brutal of the appointments. My stylist has been doing my hair since I could walk and has created every gorgeous up-do I’ve ever worn for me. She is a genius, and a storyteller, and always makes you feel good. So I can state with 100% confidence that this is not her fault…. As we’re fiddling with a way to balance my hair and long face with my grandmother’s beautiful lace pillbox hat that I’ll be sporting for the wedding, she announces “girlfriend, we’re going to have to get you some more hair”. And she’s right. My hair is thin, and to pull of that hat, I’m going to need more of it. So she told me to buy a 10” ponytail and bring it in to add to my locks. It will look fantastic.

So now I am spending my lunch hour avoiding food, so that I can feel good in that stupid dress and searching amazon.com for 10 inches of someone else’s hair with the dark circles under my eyes clearly exposed because I could not afford two colors of concealer on top of all the other corrective paint I had to buy. And I am the girl who went into this thing totally accepting that I would not look “the best I’ve ever looked” at my wedding, and that I just wanted to look and feel like myself while I said vows of forever to the Grige. That tight, heavy, beautiful dress, 10 pounds of makeup and someone else’s hair are making me feel more detached from the person I am when I’m running, or reading, or curled up in bed next to the Grige than I ever have before. I wish we had eloped. But maybe this is why we have weddings? To force me to confront expectations and figure out what makes me who I am and how to show it? Well, it’s hard, anyhow. Hopefully I’ll be able to answer that question better on August 11.

Lights.... Curtain.... SHOW!

I'm a bit bitter about the similarties between throwing a wedding and putting on a theatrical production. It's not that I don't love theatre, because I do. It's the fact that, for me, this wedding has felt so much less authentic than I want it to be. Somewhere in between being a meticulous planner, a people-pleaser and having an out-of-control guest list, I've completely lost track of the Grige and myself.

Maybe it would be better to lose track of us... We're odd.
Photo: Megan Shiley

I shouldn't be complaining: "Oh, poor ME! So many people love me and want to attend our wedding! My life is so horrible!". I'm thrilled that so many people want to be there for me, for my parents, and to meet the Grige. When I look at the list, I can't think of a single person who I would cut. But the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. Somehow, this group of individuals who I know and love has turned into an audience that I must impress. And that, is a horrible feeling.

My parents come from a small town. They've lived there all of my life, and for the 10 years they were married before they had me. They have an amazingly kind, interesting, wonderful and ENORMOUS group of friends. They've been my mentors, my teachers and my friends for my whole life. However, given the nature of small towns to be on the gossip-y and competitive side, I've been bombarded with advice on how to impress everyone and how to take the best from every wedding this group has ever been to.

We're not the world's most impressive bunch, but boy are we happy!
Photo: Tom Zych

It's all made me feel like my mantra, "this is just a party to support and celebrate the commitment of two people who love each other", is a bit quaint. It's to the point where I wonder if people who will be receiving our painstakingly designed and beautifully letterpressed invitations in a few short weeks will even be thinking about the Grige and I when they open them. Or will they be thinking about what kind favors we'll give? Or why we didn't offer chicken? Or, god forbid, how much did these fancy invites cost???

It's like the playbill is out, and everyone is sitting in the theatre wondering if the players are up to their tasks. Wondering if the set will be realistic, if the script will make them cry, if the tickets were worth it, how long will the show run?

And for me, the person trying to write the ceremony script - to pick readings that will be meaningful to us, but relatable to other people; to pick music that we like but that makes sense at a wedding; to meaningfullly incorporate our values and visions for our marriage without ending up feeling too exposed or vulnerable in front of so many critics - I mean guests.... Well, it's kind of a lot of pressure.

Something relaxing - to relieve the pressure...
Photo: Evan Quasney

And frankly, it's pressure I didn't sign on for. I am an extremely sensitive introvert. I do not like large groups of people and I do not like exposing my work publicly for criticism. In fact, it's kind of a miracle I have a blog at all. All I wanted was to marry the Grige, and to make as many people happy as possible in the process, which inherently meant a big wedding.

I'm left feeling like I'd like to have a banner with a disclaimer made to hang over our ceremony site to remind people that they are witnessing an authentic commitment, and not a performance. There may be a script, and it may be a big party, but the real reason for a wedding is to celebrate love and support two people as they start their lives together. I wish I could shake the feeling that I need to remind people of that.

ACTION! The show must go on.
Photo: Jeanine Finch

It Is What It Is - On Bridal Attire and Loving Your Body

I have seen so many pictures of perfect brides. I actually didn’t realize that it was getting to me until people started asking me why I wasn’t more excited to get a dress. I really, really wanted to wear my grandmother’s wedding dress. My mom wore it too, and I just loved the idea of continuing that tradition. Unfortunately, the dress has seen better days, and apparently so has my weight. It didn’t button, which is kind of a relief, because if it had, it would have looked pretty frumpy.

And then I found the wedding blogs. I discovered all the pretty pictures of beautiful weddings where every bride looked so stunning it was hard to look straight at them. So I put off making dress appointments. I figured I would just wait until I lost some weight and felt a little more comfortable with being the center of attention for an entire day. So I didn’t look at dresses too much, and just tried to focus on losing the weight.

Honestly, I didn't really want to leave the "engagement phase", because it looked like this.
Which is to say very happy and wearing sweatpants.

On a visit home, my mom finally hustled me into a bridal appointment. I had the small store all to myself with two kind sales girls and I couldn’t have been more surprised to learn lesson number one (of three) about bridal gowns and self-image.

Lesson Number One – Designers make money by making you look (and feel) amazing

Wedding dresses are the most flattering pieces of attire that will ever grace your hips. Seriously. I very very very much regret the energy I spent worrying about losing weight, because these dresses are designed to make a woman’s body look fantastic. Until I entered the store, I’d only seen these dresses on bone thin models, so it didn’t occur to me that they might actually look good on normal people too. The regular rules do not apply in bridal land, because these dresses actually look better on real life women with a little meat on their bones. I do plenty of hating on the bridal industry, but trying on dresses convinced me, without a shadow of a doubt, that there are designers out there who care about (and study) women’s bodies and work hard to make a wide variety of dresses that will flatter them. In my experience, a great deal of these dresses were actually under $1000 as well.

So, I’m sorry, indie blog world. I enjoyed shopping for a dress at a regular bridal boutique. The sales staff was nice and down to earth and all the dresses were within a reasonable price range (no “surprise! Now that you love it, I can tell you that it is $30,000!).  Furthermore, many women complain about the fact that there are only strapless wedding dresses available. In the same breath, they complain about having to custom order a dress instead of buying “off the rack”. Here’s the thing: Strapless dresses are much easier to design (and alter) than dresses with straps, because women’s sizes differ so much. The wild thing about it, is that when you custom order a dress (which is the way they want you to do it), it’s very easy for the designer (or your seamstress) to add straps that will fit you exactly. Sometimes they even use scraps from your hem, which makes them virtually free. So seriously, stop complaining. I don’t know what boutique you went to, but I don’t think you looked hard enough to condemn the whole industry.

After I found my dress and learned lesson number one, I went back with a closer eye to those “perfect brides”. I was surprised to notice (after very close scrutiny) that they were not, in fact, skinny models, but real women who happened to be wearing flattering dresses. It didn’t seem like enough to account for how amazing they all looked. So I began to ponder. Finally, I stumbled upon lesson number two…

Lesson Number Two: Those women look amazing because they are happy. Because they are getting married.

Right? Duh. Happiness makes you look good. Especially when you have a professional photographer to photograph and edit your happiness. So I can’t imagine how I could possibly look bad on my wedding day. I have a flattering dress, and I am insanely happy to be marrying the Grige. Done and done, no diet or makeup required.

Three cheers for getting married!

So after all that, you would think that I wouldn’t be worried at all about my appearance. Sadly, I still have nightmares about forgetting my makeup. I worry that my awesome 40’s wedding hat will make me look like a cone-head. I’m afraid I’ll get a zit or that my arms will look flabby. Even once I was able to step away from the idea that I had to look like a model, I still wanted to look like the best version of myself. I wanted to weigh what I weighed in High School, I wanted to have the clear skin I had before work stressed me into acne and eczema, I wanted to have the toned arms I have when I fit yoga in every day and the long hair I had 2 years ago. I convinced myself that it was okay to judge myself against those standards because I’d had those things before. All I wanted was to be the best version of myself that I could imagine – was that so bad? It was. And as we approach the wedding, I’m finally getting a grip on lesson number three….

Lesson Number Three: You can only be who you are on your wedding day. Learn to love that person.

On the day I get married, I just want to be happy. Planning a wedding (and moving across the country) is stressful. I might miss yoga a few days a week. I might miss a few runs too.  I might not have time to cook healthy food. I probably won’t have time to get a tan, and I won’t be able to afford hair extensions. I definitely won’t be able to get botox injected into my armpits to stop me from sweating outside in August. The stress of all these things might make me break out. But you know what? That’s the person I’ll be on the day I get married. The Grige loves that person and wants to marry her. I always try to eat well and exercise frequently and manage my stress, but in the middle of wedding planning is not the ideal time to step all of that effort up, because you have other things to worry about. Like guest lists, and feeding hundreds of people, and whether or not your grandmother feels included.

So when the Grige and I say “I do”, I’ll be myself in a flattering dress that is hopefully not destroyed by tan lines. It probably won’t be the best I’ve ever looked in my life, but I bet you won’t be able to tell. I’ll be that happy.

Yep, this happy.
Photo: Jeanine Finch

A Small Identity Crisis

As part of our pre-marriage counseling, the Grige and I took the Myers-Briggs test and discussed our types and how they impact our communication with our counselor. The Grige and I have taken M-B before (or at least the free online versions) and I always come out as an INFJ. Well, this time, my results indicated that I was an ISFJ. This makes a lot of sense – “N” indicates “intuitive”. Intuitive people like abstract concepts and don’t always operate well with schedule or reality. They’re dreamers and innovators and forward thinkers and they never do things the same way twice.  “S”, on the other hand, indicates “sensing”. Sensing people are careful observers, calculators and have a love of the concrete. Given my addiction to spreadsheets and schedules, it’s not surprising that I’m an “S”. The Grige is and always has been an ENTP (for those of you whose alphabet skills are sharp, you’ll notice that we’re opposites in EVERY CATEGORY). This will make for a very “exciting” marriage, but more on that later.

I didn’t think too much about researching my “new” personality type until last weekend. It sounded like me, so I wasn’t too worried. Since I’m in the process of grudgingly applying for jobs in STL, I thought it might be a smart idea to read up on the characteristics of my type and see what kind of jobs I might be well suited for. Boy was I shocked. I’m not even going to talk about the job recommendations, because I’m still trying to wrap my head around them.

I can describe the feeling I felt while looking at the rest of the description and list of famous people who are ISFJs as similar to what I felt when the sorting hat app on facebook kept putting me in f*cking Hufflepuff house.  I get it – loyalty, friendship, whatever. It’s basically just another word for frumpy in my dictionary. My apologies to Cedric Diggory. Two from the list that stuck out initially are Porky pig and President William Taft. That’s right folks! I can now compare myself to an animated pig and the president who got stuck in the bathtub due to his portly size. O.J. Simpson is on there too. Awesome.

I try to think of it more like the Honey Badger.....

I always love the personality comparisons with Shakespeare characters because the bard’s characters are so richly developed. It is fun to re-read the plays and examine their behavior, especially since the circumstances are so extreme. It really gives you a great idea picture of the actual functions of these traits. Unfortunately, ISFJs in Shakespeare provide little inspiration. In fact, I think they might be my three most hated characters ever: Bianca from The Taming of the Shrew, Hero from Much Ado About Nothing, and Ophelia from Hamlet.

Seriously? UGH. My inner feminist just threw up. While not evil, these ladies are pretty much useless except for plot development. They are your typical damsels in distress, and I’ve always seen them as literary tools to provide a lame-o backdrop for stronger female characters like Katherina in Taming and Beatrice in Much Ado.

In Much Ado, Benedick sums up my opinions of Hero perfectly: “Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little for a great praise: only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her.” In other words, she’s not really worth noting – dry, white toast at its’ finest. She doesn’t do much except get woo’d by a war hero and faint at the appropriate moments.  Even her lover, Claudio, can’t offer higher praise than “she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on”. So there’s a plus. She’s sweet and she’s pretty and she’s chaste (though she doesn’t put up much of an argument when her chastity is questioned. She lets others do that for her).

A Lovely still from the film adaption featuring DENZEL as Don Pedro! In case you are able to tear your eyes away from him, Hero is the cranky looking one with dark hair.

Thankfully, Bianca from The Taming, has a little more sauce. She’s boy –crazy, coquettish and manipulative. However, She does manage to actually take action for herself, unlike helpless hero, when she elopes. While manipulation is really the only tool Bianca would have had to assert herself in the period, I think Katherina’s agency is more appealing. She’s stubborn, unconventional and honest.  When I try to imagine myself as an angry, conniving little social climber like Bianca, my skin sort of starts to crawl.

Maybe she's just whelmed?
Come on, you knew you were thinking it too....

And then there is Ophelia. Hamlet is not my strongest play, so you’ll have to bear with me on the analysis. It’s my first impression that Ophelia is just another fainter, static and one-dimensional, though her psychosis is a bit more intriguing. Shakespeare uses her as a tool to emphasize Hamlet’s reactions to all women, and to create some pathos, since she’s so representative of innocence.  Ophelia is extremely frail and totally incapable of coping with the events around her, which are admittedly pretty tragic. At her best, she’s just a canvas of goodness for the world to paint evil on. She does not attempt to adapt or fight back. Not a great way to live, if you ask me.

So my project for the next week or so will be to re-read these plays, perhaps watch the movie adaptions (if I can get the Grige to relinquish the remote for long enough) and try to find something I can relate to in Shakespeare’s lovely ladies. Stay tuned for the flip side. Hopefully….

 EE

Wedding Planning - 4 months out

The wedding is definitely creep creep creeping up on us. It feels like our to-do list is pretty never-ending. I’ve learned a ton about our relationship though. Someone wise once told me abouthow in many relationships, one person is the CEO and the other is the CFO. I think I’ve finally nailed down our relationship – I am the CEO, the CFO and the janitorial staff. The Grige is the art director, the chef and the stress management counselor. The stress management position is actually a job share with a great guy named Johnny Walker, but they make an excellent team. Thankfully, between the Grige and my mom, we have beaten my “I must do everything myself” syndrome into submission and I still think we are reasonably on track to have a successful wedding. When I say successful wedding I simply mean that we will be married at the end of the day and there will be food, drink, and invitations to alert guests of the time and date. Low expectations are the key to success. Please note: low expectations are not the same as low standards.

Us, Happy.

My biggest gripe is the fact that I spent hours – nay – tens of hours, working diligently on our website. I wanted to make sure that the answers to all the questions could be found quickly and easily in one place. I also brayed incessantly in multi-colored and bolded text about how important it would be to book hotels early (not surprisingly, I am having this EXACT SAME ISSUE with the event I’m planning at work, but more on that later…). I guess I should have defined “early” more clearly, because at least 5 area hotels are already sold out for our dates, and many important guests are still not booked.

Now, I know I can’t make people do anything. I constantly remind myself that this is not my problem. But, But! I made it so easy! And when I get panicked phone calls about what hotel to book, what airport to fly in to and “why is everything there so EXPENSIVE???”, I want to scream profanity that only the daughter of a serious sailor would know. The craziest part? The people who keep pretending the website doesn’t exist (even though it’s plastered in reminder emails and on the save-the-date) are the millenials! All the folks in my parent’s age bracket have raved about how helpful it is. All of the kids who grew up using Google to answer every question are like – huh? You have a website? So if you’re attending our wedding and you are reading this, please, I beg of you, just go to the website. I worked very hard on it so that I would not have to be worried about your travel plans when I have things like bunting, budgets and bridesmaids dresses to focus on.

This is not the face of an unstressed person. I am making this face NOW.

In addition to the wedding, I’m also planning a massive event at work – dinner for nearly 500 guests and 2 days of meetings. Thankfully, I’m not in charge of everything, but I’m in charge of enough to make me never ever ever want to see an event timing spreadsheet or RSVP card ever again. I never thought I could be sick of excel, but I definitely am.  As an addendum to my earlier post on wedding planning as project management experience - I am never mentioning my event planning skills at work again. Doing this event and the wedding at the same time SUCKS. I keep having nightmares about where I will seat the firm chairman at our wedding reception.

And also, MOVING

Yep, I’m still pissed about it. But at least I’ve given notice and started pricing boxes and trucks. Has anyone out there ever used pod movers before?

What to WEAR!?

So I've been stressing a bit about what to wear to our rehearsal dinner. It's like the wedding dress part was so painless that I feel the need to stress myself out about another piece of clothing that I'll probably only wear once.

I'm usually a bit skeptical (to use a nice word) about Victoria's Secret, mostly because their models perpetuate impossible standards for beauty that I don't like being reminded I'll never fit. However, they know how to cut a dress for a woman's body. Everything piece of clothing I've ever bought from them has been well-made, relatively (hello, J.crew!) inexpensive and has made my body look FANTASTIC. This cannot have been easy for them, because I am flat-chested and look perpetually 3 months preggo (thanks for the genes, Mom!). However, if you haven't given them a try, order a few dresses for this summer/spring. They're great to wear out because they are machine washable and very comfortable, usually with an excellent built-in bra.

So back to the task at hand - a rehearsal dinner dress. What do we think of this?

Photo: Victoria's Secret
http://www.victoriassecret.com/ss/Satellite?ProductID=1265748336949&c=Page&cid=1329190976476&pagename=vsdWrapper

I'll be awaiting reactions...

About Those Lovely Engagment Photos I Keep Using....

Check out my very talented cousin Jeanine Finch over on Wordpress. She's a budding photographer in the D.C. area and I can't say enough about her ability to make you relax while she's pointing a camera at you. Her photos speak for themselves.

Did I mention that using a photography student for things like engagement photos or family portraits can be a great way to get some amazing photos, help a student build their portfolio and save some $$?

Cheers,
Double E

Wedding Planning as Project Management Experience

I mentioned in an earlier post that one of the reasons I blog is because it’s a good way to hone my writing skills, because I want to write and I’m not getting trained to do it better at work. I think it’s easy to forget that your job isn’t the only place you can do professional development.  In fact, the experiences you have outside of work are probably much more valuable because they give you more responsibility and are more tailored to your interests.

Oh, you like to backpack? All signs point to organized, resourceful and low maintenance.

A wedding is probably the biggest and most personal project that many of us has ever managed, and it would be foolish to pretend that it’s not a huge learning experience. However, there are very few wedding resources out there that actually admit that you should approach your wedding like a work project (APW and Lowe House Events, thanks for the spreadsheets!). Think about it: when you are planning a project for work and something pushes you over budget, you take a step back and trim the fat until you are within budget again. You don’t cry over the lack of glossy handouts, and nobody ever notices their absence. This is true for your wedding as well.

When I think about “wedding planning” (and when I mention it to people who have not been through it), the general idea seems to be that I’m spending time thinking about creative, pretty things, arguing about the guest list and shopping for dresses. My Mom laughed at me when I sent her my meticulously timed schedule of events which included when everyone would need to be dressed and what time cars would depart from which locations. She will not be laughing on our wedding day. She will be thanking me.

We didn't just pick those bouquets on our way to the ceremony....

Nobody talks about logistical coordination, scheduling, creating databases to track all the different showers, rehearsals, parties, gifts, guests and vendors. All the pretty wedding blogs fail to mention that you will need to be able to manage and motivate an unpaid workforce of people who love you in addition to a paid workforce of vendors who aren’t used to working together. You will manage a budget and you will make hard decisions. You’ll have to plan an entire day in 10 minute intervals, arrange for cues for musicians and speakers, and make sure that potentially hundreds of people all receive the information they need to attend on time.  Oh, and by the way, you have to communicate and delegate every part of your plan effectively because you won’t be able to do ANY of it, because everyone will be staring at you in your pretty white dress with which you cannot wear a watch.

What shocks me is that this fact hasn’t yet translated into a widespread belief that women who have successfully planned weddings have great management and coordination skills paired with strong attention to detail. Why are we not talking about the amazing job we did planning, managing and executing our weddings in interviews? Why are we not bringing those spreadsheets and idea boards to work and saying “this is the kind of effort I’m capable of if you only give me a chance with this project”?  Why does it seem so awkward when I think about walking into my boss’ office and saying “why don’t you let me try balancing the budget this month. I just planned a wedding for 200 people on X amount of dollars and I think I gained the skills I need”.

Sailing, like other team sports, requires good delegation skills. Example: "Hey you! Hold my boat!"
I know, I'm stretching with the pictures here....

It’s a problem that women (and men) aren’t able to take their valuable experiences outside the office (like wedding planning, child-rearing, budgeting for student loans etc..) and turn them into promotions and pay raises. We need to talk about our blogs when employers ask about our writing experience and we need to talk about wedding planning when employers ask about our management skills. We especially need to talk about time management and child-rearing, because moms who have been at home managing their families for a few years while their children are young are having way too hard of a time getting credit for those skills when they re-enter the workforce.

Paying attention to these skills is important for businesses and firms that are hiring as well. My biggest strengths are communication (written and oral), organization, and managing information. The best way to find that out is to look at the things I enjoy (and do well) outside of work. Employers will miss out on great employees, especially diverse employees, if they only measure experience by things you did to earn a paycheck.

Musical performance experience = good public composure and comfortable in front of a crowd.

So I put it to you – what would you say if someone walked into your office and told you they were a great candidate for a job and cited the fantastic job they did planning and managing their wedding?

Double E

My Vow to Our Wedding

At this moment, I am staring at a stack of the first wave of save-the-dates and fighting the urge to call the Grige and ask if he’s sure I should send them today.

They’re all neatly addressed in my handwriting, with directions to our wedding website and covered in beautiful hand-drawings by the Grige. I think I want his permission because putting those suckers in the mail is a big flipping deal. Perhaps I’ve watched too many sitcoms where the groom stands paralyzed before the mailbox pondering how his life is about to change. Commitment issues are not strangers in our relationship, but it’s never to each other that we struggle to commit. I’m paralyzed over committing to the wedding we are going to have.

I would like to be this happy on our wedding day

I’m only planning to have one wedding, and if there is one unifying factor between the literature on budget weddings and the wedding industrial complex is the obsession with individuality. No matter where I look, I’m being bombarded with quirky, sweet and crafty touches that utterly represent who the couple is. A lot of that is good marketing paired with the advantage of the rear-view mirror as couples leave their weddings behind. But from this end, looking down the tunnel at a very vague idea of what the day will be, it’s very hard to see it all coming together. I’m feeling the pressure big-time to make everything more personalized, more handmade, more “us”.

"Us"
The Grige being artsy with a camera, Me jumping around like an idiot.

When I run back through the decisions we’ve made so far and really break down our reasoning, I don’t think I’d change anything. We made the best choices we could, based on the resources and circumstances that we’re working with. But I still end up looking at the wedding “product” (so far) and thinking “huh. How the hell did we get here?” The answer is simple: a compromise here, a little bending of my formerly strict boundaries there… add about 100 more people than we planned on and a discovery of my inability to coordinate too many moving pieces from afar and voila! All those little changes turned into something I barely recognize.

Photo: Jeanine Finch

I will put those save-the-date cards in the mail today, and when I do, the focus is going to have to shift from questioning my decisions all the time to actually making things happen.  Because that is what commitment is: acknowledging differences and imperfections, making a monumental and firm decision to accept them anyway, and plowing ahead with determination unparalleled to make it the best damn decision you’ve ever made. That, my friends, is how planning a wedding helps prepare you for marriage. Dropping those save-the-dates in the mail will be my vow to our wedding. I don’t like you right now, but I will love you always, because yours is the day I will marry the Grige.