"But You're Almost Done, Right?"

Saying to a new mother, "But babies sleep all the time, right?"

Saying to someone trying to lose weight but can't lose those pesky five pounds, "But if you just eat less you'll lose the weight, right?"

Saying to a bride six months befor her wedding, "But you're almost done, right?"

These are all justifiable grounds for smacking that person upside the head. And that person would deserve it!

C'mon, anyone who's gotten married EVER, ok, to be fair, in the last year or two can vouch for me. Just because you've nailed down the church, reception location, and a wedding dress doesn't mean you're remotely DONE with wedding planning, so why am I suddenly getting this question all the time! (Plus, since I'm now doing this without Matt, it's extra daunting.) I haven't picked shoes, I haven't ordered invitations, I haven't bought Matt's wedding ring, I haven't had my makeup trial, I haven't thought about cake . . .

Word to the wise: you can only tell a bride that she is done with wedding planning when it's a week AFTER her wedding!

For my friends who read this more to follow my wedding planning progress than to read me whining, here's some planning statuses:

• I registered. It was sad and strange doing it without Matt. But I survived.
• I have chosen the ceremony music and booked one of the ceremony musicians.
• I have chosen a design for the invitations.
• I have appointments with the cake people and the makeup person.
• I don't think I have driven anyone, myself included, completely crazy.

Oh and on a completely-unrelated-to-this-blog note: can we please have a moment of silence for our dearly departed golden girl, Bea Arthur. Thank you.

The Players Have Changed, But the Game's Still "Let's Plan A Wedding"

Previously, our wedding planning had me holding the playbook and Matt was my assistant coach.

Now, I'm still holding the playbook, but my assistant coach has been temporarily traded . . . to Virginia.

Matt got hired to work for the US of A and he's now in Virginia in a training program until August/September. Can you believe that the government wasn't willing to halt operations due to our wedding planning? Some nerve those people have!

So, in future posts, you may notice few references to Matt during the various match-ups -- Kathleen vs. Invitations, Kathleen vs. Bible Readings, Kathleen vs. Dinner Menu -- but I wanted to be clear that Matt's not a deadbeat groom! He's just got a different coach for awhile.

How Do You Measure A Year?

In Rent, they point out that 525,600 minutes is a year, so how do YOU measure a year?

Well, recently, it occurred to me that my transitions into and during my adult life could sort of be measured in bras. (I don't think they'll be working this sentiment into the Rent soundtrack.)

I went to the Ridgewood Corset Shop (yes, that is really the name of the store) to try to buy my wedding day underthings. Before we went, my mom traced the back of my dress using surgical tape so we knew which bra I should get. Good thinking, Mom! Anyway, this lady Marika owns the Corset Shop and has worked there for a million years or something. So she comes in the dressing room to measure me and whatnot, and suddenly, I have a flashback: I'm maybe 11 years old and getting measured - by her - for my very first bra. (On a scale of 1 to 10, that experience was a 15 in my level of embarassment.) Now, here I was, 18 years later, and the same woman is measuring me for my wedding day.

I guess the next milestone will be getting nursing bras from her!

I might have crossed over into TMI Land, so I'll sign off now.

Kathleen & Matt Have Sent You an Evite!

Last weekend I was looking again for wedding invitations. I was half hating and half enjoying looking for the one that's just right for our wedding.

Part of me, no surprise, thinks they're a waste of money and effort. No one we care about is going to say, "well, I would've gone to their wedding, but unfortunately their invitation is ugly/cheap/neon orange, so now I'm going to decline." It's a rather pricy detail for a wedding, and it's something few people remember.

And how easy is good old Evite? It knows my past invitees, it logs the responses, it sends reminders. Plus, Evites don't kill any trees. Hopefully eventually wedding Evites will be socially acceptable, but I know I can't do that in 2009. (Somewhere my mom is horrified envisioning the e-mail in her Yahoo inbox: "Kathleen & Matt Have Sent You an Evite! Hope you can come to our wedding!")

Sadly, I have this picture embedded in my mind of a wedding invitation on the floor of my friend Norma's car with footprints on it. Norma's friend spent all this time and effort picking something out that reflects the couple, the dressiness, the theme, and then it ends up being stepped on and maybe eventually the soiled invitation finds a permanent home in a trashcan. That is the future of wedding invitations, whether we like it or not.

Now on the other hand, I am a dying breed. I still send paper mail. You know, the kind that you put a stamp on? The kind that takes a couple days to get to the recipient? I think it's almost as much fun to send mail as it is to receive it. Paper mail is elegant (well, maybe not so much when I put Winnie the Pooh stickers all over it) and thoughtful. It requires using a pen and being careful that I don't write something wrong because there's no Backspace and I haven't owned White-out since high school. I get very excited when I get a wedding invitation. Someone took the time to think of us, obtain our mailing address, write that out, stamp it, AND put in the mail. That's a lot of effort!

So, fine, we will send paper mail invitations, even if I end up stepping on it when I'm a missus and a passenger in Norma's car.

M-I-C-K-E-Y B-R-I-D-E

Su and I got back on Sunday from the Happiest Place on Earth, the Place Where Dreams Come True, Four Parks One World - Disney World!

I hadn't been there in 15 years and it was fantastic. I could go on and on about my trip, but that's not the point of this blog. I actually have some wedding-related observations to share.

First, the monorail informed me that I can get married in their wedding pavillion, so Cinderella's castle is my backdrop. I of course acted like this was uber tacky and I'd never do it, but then Su and I admitted that we secretly thought it sounded a little awesome.

On the topic of Disney weddings, we saw quite a few couples wearing bride and groom mouse ears.

I grinned and rolled my eyes (and then giggled at how Matt would react if I suggested wearing these to our wedding rehearsal). The couples wearing their coordinating mouse ears looked like happy, Disney-loving dorks, and I really don't mean that in a bad way.

Now, what I did see and I didn't like was young girls wearing those bride mouse ears! Walking around Disney World dreaming of being . . . a bride? That is so very sad.

Yes, Disney is about dreaming, but you dream about fantastical things like flying with Peter Pan or being a princess in a sweet castle or being a pirate searching for treasure or having a fairy godmother hook you up with glass slippers. These are fun, harmless things to dream about because we all know, even when we're really little, that it ain't gonna happen. (I mean, I REALLY wanted to be a mermaid when I grew up [thank you, Daryl Hannah], but I think I knew deep down I was doomed to be a landlubber. )

Being a bride is not in the same category as having a magic wand. Sorry, it's just not.

I fear that those little girls in their bride ears are going to be the types of unrealistic weirdos that really think they can find love on The Bachelor. Hey, I bet these are the people who buy those Just Married flip-flops!

Tied Up in The Knot

I was looking at a message board on The Knot the other day (don't make fun), and can I just say again what aliens these women seem like to me? Not only do they speak in codes, but their whole identity is GETTING MARRIED. Guess what? Getting married takes like an hour. Can you imagine your identity being something that takes an hour? OK, actually, let's say these people are obsessed with something that take a whole day - ceremony + reception. What other things could their identities be?

Painting a bathroom

Completing a big jigsaw puzzle

Shopping for a mattress

Hosting a garage sale

Driving to Pittsburgh

I mean, really people, get a grip. Yes, the wedding day is way more fun and memorable than hosting a garage sale, but both take up the same same percentage of time in the grand scheme of your life. (I'm just talking the wedding day, not all the planning too!)

What also makes these people on The Knot weird are these signature things they have. They have these cheesy counters, like "479 Days Until We Promise Forever." I kid you not! My two favorites are below.

The first of a slider showing the timeline until her wedding and a slider of the woman's weight loss success (or I guess failure). Do we need to broadcast how stereotypical we are to lose weight for our weddings (yes, I'm included in this, but I don't have a widget to prove it).



The other is a timeline counting down the woman's first anniversary! In other words, this woman's ALREADY MARRIED and still hanging around on The Knot! The wedding's over, sister. Get off the computer and go pay attention to your husband (he's the one who wore the tux and stood next to you for the vows).

A Rose By Another Other Name . . .

. . . might not cost so much!

I put my mom in charge of flowers because, well, I don't care about the flowers. They're expensive, they die, and I don't know about any of you guys, but I pretty much never remember flowers at weddings anyway. I remember food! To be honest, Matt and I would be just fine with almost no flowers, but if you know my mother, that was definitely not an option.

You can imagine what I treat I've been to deal with. Here's an example of the conversations I've been having:

Mom: I need some help so I know where to start. What's a flower you don't like?
Me: Dead ones.
Mom: Okaaaay. What about color?
Me: I like color. Color is good.
Mom: This is progress. Any colors we should rule out?
Me: Um, I guess I don't want ugly colors.
Mom: Thanks, Bean. You've been very helpful. [rolls eyes]

So armed with this really useful information, my poor mother goes out to talk to florists. She did the initial work picking a florist, thank goodness, then had me go meet Mr. Florist.

Now this guy, Mr. Florist, is really something, and totally not what I was picturing. Like if we're expecting a flamboyant man who would clap his hands talking about blossoms and get choked up looking at bouquets, we had it all wrong. Mr. Florist is more like the guy who might work at a hardware store and give you the selling points on various power tools. This guy cuts the bullshit and gets down to business. He has a very dry sense of humor (at least I think it was humor). Another bride might not dig him, but I actually did.

These were the kinds of things we talked about:

Mr. Florist: Are there any flowers you know you like?
Me: I like sunflowers, but if they're expensive, strike that from the record.
Mr. Florist: What do you picture for your bouquet?
Me: Um, flowers?
Mr. Florist: Yes, thank you. [My mom shoots him a look like, "I warned you about her!"] OK, do you want your bouquet to be whites and ivories, or colorful like the sisters' bouquets?
Me: Colors! I like colors! [Getting nervous...] Is that normal for the bride to carry colors?
Mr. Florist: Look, it's your day. You can do whatever the hell you want. If anyone tries to tell you what to do, you just nod politely then promptly disregard their dumb ideas. Trust me, it's for the best.

I liked him! He was a little bit of a smartass, and I think he'll do a great job.