Post-Wedding Blues

Someone commented on one of my pictures or posts somewhere on the internet in the past couple of days "plan something fun to avoid post-wedding blues."

Post-Wedding Blues?

OH...

I really don't want to go back to school yet. I don't want to be back in real life yet. Last weekend was so fun and amazing and fantastic and now I have to write a paper? Study for an exam? Be at work?

Our friends are throwing us sheva brachot, which are great! But somehow during the day I feel a little down. Like, oh, it's over now. I was near a neat little trendy second-hand shop wanted to go shopping for outfits for the wedding weekend but there's no need! It's weird not to be in prep mode. In "post" mode. It's weird! And no real time for that shift because all of my major deadlines are coming up now! Two papers effectively due this Tuesday because Passover starts Wednesday and we are traveling.

Also, our cat, who missed us terribly, is keeping us up all night to snuggle (she is loud and persuasive when she wants to snuggle) so I'm not sleeping.

Who knew there was such a thing as post-wedding blues?

I just keep refreshing the photographer's blog waiting for the pictures to show up! And we are going to help the videographer with editing the video, then there will be that. And of course there are the amazing gifts we are receiving, and the thank-you notes. And I keep looking down at my hand and it's so fun to see the two rings instead of one and how "blinged out" my finger looks (thanks CankeyB). Also I have been looking through all the pictures my friends have been posting on facebook - looking through them over and over and over again!

I tried to make some art about it yesterday and I might continue this evening after I make some headway on this major paper I have been putting off (like everyone else, I know I'm not alone, at least I kind of have the excuse of the wedding haha).

I kind of wish we were going on a honeymoon but I know that's not really possible right now. Maybe in August we will go somewhere for a little while, since that is when I have my break, but who knows.

And now, a couple of pictures, maybe I will just post them piecemeal hehehe

The picture above was taken by one of my friends during the bedeken, when the groom traditionally puts the veil over the bride. At our bedeken, I also put the kittel on JewishGuy. The veil tradition comes from either a) making sure he has the right bride (ala Jacob marrying Leah by mistake); and/or b) Rebecca veiling herself when she saw Isaac she was blushing, she was so in love with him at first sight.


This one came from the camera of one of my parents' friends - he has over 400 images, my mom is sending them to me on a CD later. My dad uploaded some of them to his facebook so I am stealing them!

You can see our simple chuppah! I know a lot of people find this blog by googling "Simple Chuppah." It seems there are a lot of other Jewish brides out there who don't want anything too fancy. This chuppah was JewishGuy's Savta's tablecloth on four bamboo poles with some daisies. Four of JewishGuy's friends carried the chuppah down the aisle and stood with us the whole time. Very neat.

I loved that we were completely surrounded by friends and family standing up there. Not just friends standing to either side of us, but as you can see we are really surrounded.

Also, funny story, that window looks out onto a golf course and we could see people putting in front of us as JewishGuy's dad read the ketubah out loud...

The Wedding!!!

One of my favorite pictures so far, taken by one of JewishGuy's friends :)

The whole weekend was amazing, I can't even begin to describe it! I keep wanting to sit down and write a whole post, but I'm not sure how to do that. Should I break it down, day-by-day? Or should I just write one big EEEEEEE post?

So here goes, one big EEEEE post, to be followed up by other, smaller posts. A compromise, I guess!

Everything went perfectly, as far as I could tell! The bachelorette party was superfun, Shabbat was great and full of enthusiasm, and Sunday was just a blur of awesomeness. I remember looking around while people were eating on Sunday and saying to JewishGuy - I can't believe how perfect this is, everyone is so happy, the weather is beautiful, this place is beautiful, and it's so fun.

I kind of want to talk about Sunday first, so I will, and hopefully eventually I will come back to the rest of the weekend at some point.

All week we anxiously looked at weather.com and talked to our friend The Meteorologist for updates on the weather. Being March and DC, the weather could do whatever it wanted at a moment's notice. At the last minute we decided to hold the ceremony inside because thunderstorms were predicted for the afternoon. No thunderstorms ever materialized, but it was beautiful inside and out. As you can see, the room was full of glass, so it was almost like being outside but without the bugs and wind.

Then we left and ate in a room by ourselves as friends banged on the door. When we came back, we were sent into the main room under a bridge of streamers!

During the dancing, someone came up to me and said "when you're in the chair, lean back!"

"What?"

Suddenly I was shoved back into a chair and up above everyone's heads! It was really hilarious. JewishGuy and I did the thing where you hold the handkerchief between you. Awesome.

Then after more dancing, we were pushed back into two chairs and given water, streamers, glow sticks and leis. Our friends and family did some funny dances and schtik for us. It was awesome and so funny!

The rest of the night kept going just as fast, I don't think it slowed for a second. The speeches were great, JewishGuy and I played "The shoe game," which we kind of were hoping to play (thanks SportyJew :P). We took pictures with the various contingencies at the wedding - friends from other cities - and ate delicious food.

When it was over we went back to the hotel and hung out for a couple more hours ... then it was all over! How bizarre! It's over?

I'll write more about it later, shorter stories about specific things that happened. Now I'm kind of back in the real world and have massive papers and exams I have to recognize as being real and coming up.

Veil, phew, & Bridal Therapy

Who knew you had to custom-order veils? I certainly didn't. If I did, maybe I wouldn't have put it off so long (okay I probably would have, but I would have stressed about it more and gotten more nagging).

I tried to make an appointment at Macy's, it was really confusing, they gave me the wrong date for the sample sale, etc etc. Well, I made an appointment anyway to see what samples they had left. Apparently because the wedding is in less than three weeks I don't have time to have a custom-ordered veil. I don't want that anyway! I wanted to walk into Macy's empty-handed and walk out with a veil. I wanted a really simple veil, not too long.

So today was my appointment. I had to go alone because of the weird timing of this appointment, it was an hour after my therapy appointment (so I wouldn't be able to hang out in the down time) and nobody was going to be around downtown until then without me. I went to Macy's to shop for that hour before the appointment. Then I went to the bridal department and waited for the lady to attend to me.

While I was waiting I met this bride whose wedding is in November and she was freaking out quietly with the swatches for the fabric for her bridesmaids' dresses. We got to talking and it sounded like she was a lot like me, anxious about all of the attention. The conversation actually went something like this:

Me: I don't know, for some reason with the bridesmaids it wasn't AS important for me what they wear, just what they want to wear. But when it comes to me, I'm so picky, it has to be exactly right.

Other bride: BECAUSE EVERYONE WILL BE LOOKING AT YOU.

- OKAY - I literally had that exact anxious mantra. Still have it, but I'm dealing with it. Kinda.

I told her about Offbeat Bride, because she was talking about how there are so many nutsos on TheKnot, these people who are taking everything very seriously and are making her freak out (she had already bought her dress for her November wedding). I told her that Offbeat Bride literally just had an article about tailoring weddings for brides who are anxious about being in the spotlight. I explained that the site gives ideas for alternative ways to plan the wedding, not being so caught up in ettiquette, etc. When I told her I bought a white evening gown instead of a bridal gown she was like, why didn't I think of that? I said, Go to Offbeat Bride.

I should get paid for that kind of advertising!

Anyway, when I told JewishGuy about this later, he said that once I become an art therapist I should specialize in Bridal Therapy. I am seriously considering it! I mean, all I would have to do once I get my ATR and am legally allowed to practice would be to put my card in bridal salons. People would have to pay out of pocket but it might be worth it for anxious brides like me. I mean I don't know what I would have done without going to therapy during this engagement! haha.

OKAY back to the veil.

I went back with the attendant to try on the veils. Once I told her I had a white evening gown instead of a bridal gown, she tried to sell me a long veil. It was plain but it was very long, the back went to my calves - she said it would make me look more bridal since I don't have a bridal gown. I'm not sure she understood the point of buying a white evening gown instead of a bridal gown (well, maybe she thought it was for economic reasons). I had to convince her to show me the shorter veil! She eventually did, so I tried it on and it was great. It's a two-tier veil (one tier with a blusher) that is elbow-length. I said, I'd take it. How much?

She said, $300.

....

Are you kidding?

Hooray for my bargaining skillz. Although what I paid is still a lot, it is 2 1/2 weeks before the wedding and I won't really have time to order from the internet. So I bought it. I probably could have shopped around for cheaper, but I think I would run the risk of having a poofy, low-quality veil. I'm looking around online and I see similar styles for less than $100, but I am not sure if they would lay correctly on my head. Anyway I'm happy with the purchase.

It looks like this:


(That's not me in the picture of course)

So... hooray. Veil. Phew.

How Grandma & Grandpa Met

Today I visited my grandma after spending the weekend with JewishGuy's sisters and niece and nephew. It was a crazy weekend (I start class tomorrow)! While at early dinner / late lunch with grandma I asked how she and grandpa met and about their wedding. I'm going to rewrite the story here in the first person as best as I can remember it.

---

I had just come back from the army, I wasn't even back a week! My cousin invited me to go to a public dance - they had a lot of those back then - because she didn't want to go alone. We were there and sat waaaay in the back corner talking, I was telling her about the army, and a skinny guy carrying a beer walked past me. I had my leg out a little bit and I tripped him! He walked away and came back without the beer and asked me to dance. I thought he was maybe 20, he was so skinny.

But then when the night was over he said he would want to take me home but he was there with his sister so he had to take her home! I gave him my phone number instead. We started talking on the phone and we found out we had so much in common, and then I found out he graduated from college, and that was it. We were getting along so well that six months later we were married! I only had a few weeks and $300 to pull together a wedding. Most of the money went to the rabbi. There was a discount dress store across the street where I bought my wedding dress - it was aquamarine!

---

I really thought her dress was white! It's funny how the pictures and our expectations change reality.


It was really great to hear the story, I hadn't heard it before. It's funny how she said he was so skinny and looked really young! haha, but then she heard he had gone to college and that was it! awesome :)

The Make-up Consultation

I guess I will preface this by saying I have a lot of hang-ups about make-up and my face in general. I have low self-esteem and have always had low self-esteem, and sometimes when people talk about make-up on my face, and about how important such-and-such is, sometimes (okay, all of the time) I get the thought in my head that my face is not really all that pleasant to look at on its own and I would be doing a service for humanity by wearing make-up. When someone tells me about the make-up I SHOULD wear, it always comes out to me like a list of the faults on my face: you have bags under your eyes so you should wear concealer, your eyebrows are light so you should darken them, and on and on. Instead of hearing, there is natural beauty in your face, let's highlight some things, I hear, here are your faults, let's cover them up.

In general, in life, I don't wear make-up, and when I do it's for a fancy occasion and I can't wait to wash it off after. If I didn't feel like my dress would completely wash out my face in all of the pictures because I am super-di-duper white, I wouldn't bother with make-up at all.

I am pre-wired to be defensive about my face. Or really about anything. (This is something I am working on)

I guess I should have told the make-up artist that before I went, because after I told her I didn't wear any make-up ever nor did I know anything about make-up or what looks good on me, I kind of felt defensive the whole time. I felt defensive because I don't use a different moisturizer in the winter than in the summer, or an eye cream (because of my previously mentioned bags under my eyes), or have an extensive make-up routine, and on and on. I said, I concentrate all of my face-care efforts on preventing acne.

I am so sensitive about comments on my face. Like, "oh you have big eyes!" which should be a compliment, I guess, but it was followed up with, "oh, this one is bigger than that one," which is my NUMBER ONE anxiety-producing aspect of my face, the thing I see in every picture and every time I look in the mirror is that one eye is bigger than the other, and I had it pointed out to me by someone else. And she said, well, it's natural for one side of our body to be bigger than the other, which is true... I know that's true, but it's not exactly a compliment.

She did a very nice job with the make-up but I have to say I felt kind of down during the consultation.

I also felt defensive because we had only scheduled an hour and a half for make-up, nobody knew how long it would take, etc etc... "You aren't having a wedding coordinator?" "Isn't the bride's family the one who pays?" "You're letting your fiance see you before the wedding?" (We are doing the picture-taking before the ceremony) And all these questions and I was just like ........... I just wanted to see what you would do to my face...?

Dress Nightmares!

I had the most annoying dream this morning. It was annoying because it played on my worst fears of the dress-deciding process.

To make it short, because I know reading dream posts is boring, in the dream I was in the car with some people from school and I said, let's stop at the mall and I will try on some wedding dresses, it won't take very long. It ended up taking 6 hours and I was unsuccessful. After trying on no fewer than 15 dresses, other people modeled them for me, and my friends were getting impatient. In fact, all of them at one point or another had gone into the mall to do their own shopping because they were bored. I wasted their entire afternoon and didn't even have a dress to show for it!

This is honestly my worst fear about dress-deciding. This is why I'm having a trying-on party at my house. At least then if it takes a while, everyone's sitting down and eating and drinking and talking to other people. I don't want to waste my friends' time. I know when people volunteer to help me shop for dresses they know that they are just watching me, but I assume they don't mean for hours on end with a picky shopper who also always thinks she looks fat. It's exhausting, I'm sure.

Weird Gift Dream: Pyrex?

I had a dream that, for our wedding, someone gifted us with a new Pyrex bowl that had one of their awesome vintage patterns:

I used to drool over the awesome old patterned Pyrex bowls at the thrift store.  The problem?  You can't kasher Pyrex.  IE: No vintage Pyrex on our registry (unless the previous owner kept kosher).  If only they made them new with those patterns. :(

(Click the image for more items with that pattern on pyrexlove.com)

Cutiepants (my future) Nephew

DoraBoy, JewishGuy's nephew, is turning 3 years old in October and he is a cutiepants.

SportyJew, JewishGuy's younger sister, just bought her dress for the wedding recently.  She was explaining that the dress was for our wedding to DoraBoy when she was trying it on for BigSIL (JewishGuy's older sister).

Later, they were listening to Rafi, and my name happened to come up in one of his songs.  I have one of those names that comes up relatively frequently in children's songs from the 20th century.  DoraBoy exclaimed, "Wedding!"

BigSIL and BigBIL were confused.

DoraBoy said, "[JewishGal] and [JewishGuy]!  Wedding!"

We have a fan :)