JCrew! Dresses!! GRRR!! :(

JCrew just sent me an email saying that the dress I ordered from them that was scheduled to ship on Friday isn't going to ship until April! WHAT?? So I had to cancel that order. :( That was the one I liked the most.

So I ordered two more dresses from JCrew, this time overnight delivery, if they don't ship this week then I will cancel those orders, too, and will have to just decide between the two dresses I already have.

- ALSO, as a side note, my winter class voted to have off on inauguration day instead of MLK day, and I had scheduled to have my dress-trying-on-party on MLK day since a lot of people have that day off and my winter class is too intense to do it on a regular Sunday. SO I had to reschedule my dress party to the Sunday before (Jan 18), which is annoying, because Sundays are so precious. I am racing around trying to get supplies today and also I have to go to the studio to catch up for the hour I missed on Friday to get home before Shabbat. (Why am I posting, then? Good question...)

Anyway, the two new dresses are:


(I ordered this one in ivory)


Maybe it will work out after all because I actually think I like these more than the one I had originally picked out. So if these come in time I will have 4 dresses for my party, 3 long ones and 1 short one.

Bridezilla

Outta Controlllll

After visiting two potential printers/designers for invitations, I emailed the parents asking for final guest list numbers so that we could have an accurate quote.  I had been telling the designers that we were going to invite a bit more than 200 people because we were expecting around 150 guests.  It turns out we are now inviting almost 370 people to the wedding (so even if 50% of those invited decline, we are still higher than JewishGuy and I originally wanted).  Not to mention the venue - an old mansion - only holds 200-230 people in its largest room, so if more than 60% of our guests come we cannot legally have them all in the building!

This of course was Friday afternoon, so imagine the freaking out that happened by me this Shabbat!  Much.  I think we were just totally shocked by the difference between what we thought we had discussed back in March/April, and what it turns out the reality is today.

JewishGuy and I have talked about it and it seems like we have a major breakdown in communication - the bottom line is, email lists don't seem to be working out so well right now. I think we've come up with a viable solution: A google page!  We spent a lot of time this evening setting up our google page for the parents to use.

Here's a cropped screen grab:

Hopefully this will work and keep us all organized and communicating effectively (I realize this will only work if people check it relatively frequently).

Every section has a To-Do list that is organized by who is in charge of the item, what it is, how it was resolved, and whether it is complete.  Every section also has a "notes" section, so that JewishGuy and I can write in what we were envisioning for this particular part of the wedding.  This way we can delegate, have everything all in one place, and not have to send long emails back and forth!

For example: I am asking JewishMom to be in charge of the florist.  So that she doesn't have to keep checking her inbox, searching for the email I sent her about what I want, or searching around the house for the pictures I sent of examples of center pieces I like, she can just go to this website.  There it is: Decorations -> Decorations Notes.  Pictures will be in Share Files -> Decorations Pictures.

JewishGuy and I talked about this a lot this Shabbat.  We talked about how much control we really want to have over the wedding, how we're feeling about things in general, and especially about this guest list thing (which shocked both of us, I have to say).  I was feeling very overwhelmed by the planning process, I think mostly due to the way we were going about the planning, where I was being held responsible for final decisions on things but I felt like I wasn't actually in control of the planning - for example, I would get a list of things I needed to accomplish, like someone else is in control and I was reporting to that person, but then I was asked for advice about something I was told to do...  I don't even know if I'm making sense anymore!

It's not that we didn't appreciate the help - I don't know what we would do without the parental support!!

The point is, I think us taking more of an active role in organizing the planning will help us to not feel quite so overwhelmed.  We still plan on only being in charge of the few things we want to do, but now we have a system where we are also overseeing the progress of the other elements.

This doesn't quite resolve the guest list issue.  It may happen that we will have to pare the lists down, as it's now T-7 months and we may not be able to find another venue that will be large enough to comfortably hold about 80% of the people we are planning to invite.  If these lists are the absolute minimum, there really is no way that we can comfortably fit 300* people in that venue.  We will be back to square one in that respect, which I am not looking forward to, but we'll deal with that if it comes to it I suppose!

* The event planner in me doesn't feel comfortable with inviting so many people over the legal maximum occupancy of the largest room.  I would like to plan so the largest room can hold 80% of our potential guests - just in case!

Dress Shopping Attempt #1

Well, I wish I could say I found the dress.

Remember all those pretty white evening gowns I posted constantly? Well, they exist on the website, but not in the stores, so I couldn't try any of them on. There were NO white gowns in the stores. We went to a bridal shop and I tried on some expensive gowns, but wasn't overly thrilled even without the knowledge of each of them being $3300 minimum. (I know, my parents say, do not think about the money, but I am thinking about $3300 and how at least $2300 of that could be spent on something more fun)

It didn't help that I was put on some medications the night before that made me ridiculously drowsy, and I think we only made it to about 5 stores (in 3 hours) before I really had to go home. I probably shouldn't have been driving. Luckily, I am over that now, but unluckily it was the day when I wanted to be awake and excited and shopping. I am doing fine now, I was on some strong anti-nausea medicines that knocked me out and some strong antibiotics that weren't helping with the nausea, but now it's OK :)

Anyway, I am going to keep looking, but I am very annoyed at the stores for advertising these beautiful white dresses on their websites and then not putting them in their stores. People have suggested ordering them and then returning them, but I really have no idea what is going to look good on me, so this sounds like an unnecessarily expensive way to go about this.

L'sigh (dramatically).

Fun with Lists

Wow it is hard making a guest list.  We came up with a first draft of the guest list of just JewishGuy's and my friends today - mostly because we were concerned with the weekend events involving food.  Some of our guests are religious and coming from out of town, so we will be providing meals for them and services at the hotel throughout Shabbat.  That means we have to know how many people to expect to feed for those meals and how much space to rent at the hotel.  While we were at it, we made a list of our friends who will be eating on Sunday (well, we separated it into "maybe," "probably," and "unlikely.")

It's a pretty long list!  Right now it looks like around 20-25 of our friends will be there for the weekend and around 35 for the wedding!  I think we are looking to invite about 55 friends to the wedding, total.  Our friends list doesn't include our parents' friends and their (our-age) children, or family.

What sparked this new progress was developments in the catering and hotel arranging department.  I have only heard through JewishGuy (after talks with his mom on the phone), but it sounds like we are going to go with this caterer, which has been highly recommended by pretty much everyone we know in the area, even though we haven't tasted the food yet.  It also sounds like the hotel is going to be really flexible with us about blocking off rooms since we are renting conference rooms for meals and services - as in, instead of charging us a percentage of the costs of the rooms we can't use once we've blocked them off, we'll be able to cancel them 3 weeks in advance with no (?) charge.  That's fantastic news and a big sigh of relief, considering we are blocking off rooms in DC during the cherry blossom festival!

Things are falling into place, at least some of the major things.  Although, because I don't want to jinx it, AHH EVERYTHING IS FALLING APART AND NOTHING IS GOING RIGHT RAH RAH RAH :( :( :(

My Wedding Dress

First, a pretty dress:

(click image for info on the dress from jcrew.com)

JewishGuy keeps asking me why I don't want to have a regular wedding gown.  Like the poofy ones you see in the catalogues for the bridal shops.  Why, when I see a pretty white dress that isn't necessarily or even at all a wedding gown, I think (and say out loud), that would be pretty to wear as my wedding dress!

This is how it goes,

Me: Ooh! That is really pretty.  Really pretty.  I bet it would be really pretty as a wedding dress.

JewishGuy: Why don't you want a regular wedding gown?

Me: Because I don't want to look like a poofball.

JewishGuy: But [so-and-so] didn't look like a poofball.

To which I have no response, I guess.  Other than, [so-and-so] is much taller than me, has a much different body shape, and looks better in big white dresses!

Here is the bottom line for what I want to wear on my wedding day:

1. I want it to be white.
2. I want to be comfortable in it the entire time.  I want to be comfortable walking down the aisle, I want to be comfortable standing under the chuppah, and I want to be comfortable not only sitting at the table but also dancing.  I don't want to be fidgeting the whole time, pulling it up here or down there or holding up the skirt so I don't trip.  I don't want it to be heavy and weighed down by lace and shiny things and whatever.  I want it to fit, I want it to be light, I don't want to think about it, I just want to be comfortable.
3. I don't want to feel exposed.  I don't want to feel like people are staring at my boobs, or that my top is going to fall down.  I don't want to feel like I'm dressed provocatively, I don't want to feel like at any minute something is going to pop out.
4. I don't want it to be over-the-top.  That is not the kind of person I am.  Maybe someone who looks exactly like me could feel absolutely comfortable and feel fantastically beautiful in a dress with a massive poof that makes them look like a dollop of whipped cream with a human head and a train so long it takes four people to carry it and a million pins and folds to keep it off the ground later, but I won't.  And even if you think I'm exaggerating, and even if I am exaggerating, I don't even think that I would feel comfortable in many of the more simple wedding gowns I see on the many, many bridal websites I have been looking at.
5. I don't want to feel like I was pushed into wearing something that fits the ideals of someone else, because this is my dress!  If there's anything I'm allowed to be a bridezilla about, it's my dress!

Before anyone says anything, obviously I am going to go try on a bunch of dresses before I discount the idea completely.  And I am only putting this in bold just in case anyone is scanning this entry and not reading the whole tantrum (LOL) and wants to tell me to try things on before I discount them.  But I can tell you right now, while I think many brides look beautiful in their gowns, I don't much like the gowns for myself.

And what's wrong with that?

So It Begins

There was a little bit of drama today. Now that the original excitement of the announcement has settled a little (it's only been 4 days, though!), we can focus on getting down to business.

The Date.

JewishGuy and I have been emailing The Imahot (the mothers) about the date. Originally, we were thinking June 2009. Then we thought, that is way too far away. So we wanted September. We were informed September was no good and too soon. Then we thought March. March 29. March 29 is only a week from Passover, so there is a significant number of people who won't be able to come.

So then I had a little frustrated moment and decided that, well, I am all right with a winter wedding after all and December might be all right. I would have to change my colors from yellow, green and chocolate brown with pink highlights to icy blue, green and chocolate brown with orange highlights. Don't freak out about the orange. This is the image (of the colors) in my head:



I took this picture in December 2002. So the green isn't here, but I think this shows you how nicely the orange goes with the light blue and the brown.

OK, so here's hoping the December date will work out. I might have to have a little tantrum, shaking my fists and stomping. Wah!