Perspective

I'm now staying with my friend Martha. We have been friends since 7th grade and are no strangers to living together - we did so throughout college. Yesterday I was sitting on the couch and said "you know - next weekend I will not be married." Knowing that this coming Saturday is now what I call my "not wedding day"
Martha, who is going through a divorce said "I wish next weekend I would no longer be married"
So it's all perspective.

This Crazy Life

Friday we decided to postpone the wedding. I can't believe it. I realized that something I've dreamed and planned for months can be cancelled in a mere two hours. This is probably the most painful thing I've experienced. The wedding has been postponed for reasons that are not my own so I will not share them. My hope is that we get past this moment and it makes us stronger. It's just crazy timing.

Yesterday was my last day with the Girl Scouts and today is my first day at my new job. So far the new job is great. They made me a vegan cake and I had coffee out of a rainbow mug. I will go home and pack for the next week or so. I'm not sure where I'm going as the house is not ready right now. I think I'll stay with friends for a couple weeks.

I'm trying not to let my sadness of cancelling the wedding affect me. Emotion is bubbling inside me but I know that the decision is for the best and I have good things ahead of me!

The Gown

So I tried to upload the image but because its moving and blah blah blah. I'm not that savvy. But, in my search for the ultimate bargain I purchased this dress:http://www4.jcpenney.com/jcp/X6.aspx?ItemID=139394b&ItemTyp=G&GrpTyp=PRD&ShowMenu=T&ShopBy=0&SearchString=bridal&RefPage=SearchDepartment.aspx&s4PageSize=15&CmCatId=searchresults&Search1Prod=True

Let's talk bargain, it is originally priced at $150
I found it once and it's current cost for $75
I wanted to show it to G and on that weekend it was $50
I searched the web for a 15% off coupon
Now the dress was $42.50
Add shipping and tax, I've paid $53 for my dress

That's right! $53! I will have to have it shortened, and maybe taken in if I can get back on the workout train. G's clothing will most likely cost more, but not the challenge is on!

the Whirlwind

Getting married certainly puts a new spin on a relationship, in the short amount of time that G was in town we experience quite a few emotions...

First, I'm angry at Delta right now and their rules. G's mother's surgery was rescheduled and I now won't be leaving town to see her, because she'll be here. I want to change my flight. My flight cost me $200, and the change fee is $150. Who wins here? Not me. And, they won't do anything on domestic flights for family emergencies....

Next... Appointments. Yes, we filled allot of our time together with meeting with potential vendors for our wedding. Is vendor the right word? I don't even know.

Let's start with the cake. Like I said in a previous blog I want it to be vegan. I want to be able to eat my wedding cake. So we met with one person how makes amazingly beautiful cakes. She was a sculpture in a previous life and, she makes great stuff. The taste is not great at all! This was discouraging. G was not happy. We searched and found another person... and bam... we had success. The Sweet Water Bakehouse makes amazing vegan cakes and a good price, nearly half the cost of the other woman. Her husband is vegan and when she makes non vegan cakes she at least uses a local farm with completely free range chickens. I like that she does not fuel factory farming.

Caterers - this is bad. G and I have exactly what we want in our mind. And I believe we have conveyed our wants and needs to the potential caters. I said EVERYTHING will be vegan. The only non vegan item will be chicken that will be free range and grilled separately. The salads, pasta, etc will be vegan. I got the first quote back from a potential caterer and it was full of cheese and some pepperoni, maybe there is something I don't know here, but I'm sure that these items are not vegan, pepperoni doesn't even fit for a vegetarian. But success is possible here, we had dinner at VegHead in Loveland on Saturday night and talked to the Chef, he might be able to be the answer to our catering dreams at a reasonable price. He buys locally, we'd support small business, and he knows what vegan means! I'm crossing my fingers to hear back from him with a proposal.

Photography - I will only pay $4,000 for photography if this individual will take pictures of me for the rest of my life. It's true, that is crazy to me. We met with some people and weren't terribly impressed and then, a camp friend offered to do it for free as a gift. Her work is better than some of the professional wedding photographers have been. The question is, do we want a second photographer?

Invitations - yes we can spend almost $1,500 on invitations. This is about 70 total invitations. And these invitations will be amazing, and organic, and recycled, but the person receiving it in the mail will most likely throw it out. I'm willing to pay under $100 on invitations, so we will continue the hunt. I hear Costco is reasonable.

Dress - Dresses are crazy to me. Paying hundreds of dollars for 6 hours of my life. Alas, I found a bargain through research and sales and have spent $53 total on my dress and it looks good. I just need to have it a bit shorter.

So where are we? We are on our way to planning a wedding that reflects us and is at a reasonable cost. Our fingers remained crossed, mine a bit tighter than G's. She'll be back in town in a few weeks and we will continue the search for perfect wedding items at a reasonable cost!

Inspiration

Babble

I feel like yesterday I babbled on my blog... maybe it was rambling... am I a rambling woman? HA! Anyway, I have to say that the bag of information from the bridal expo is still sitting on my living room floor. I'm getting ready to make appointments to meet with various vendors. I would like to be at the point that I just sign contracts and have things nailed down.
So here is the plan:
Look at new potential location
Taste Vegan Cakes (so far one baker can do this)
Meet with and get bids from Caterer
Figure out if I think I really can grow my own flowers
Photographer, in my future life this is what I should do for a living... $3,000 in one day seems like quite the business.

Ok I know there is more... I have to decide on attendants... ask them...
I have to figure out the dress thing and hope for no back fat! ACK!

Overload

Me, like many people I'm sure feel the time crunch. This isn't just the wedding time crunch, it's the life time crunch. I have made a rather large "to do" list for work and life. And, I'm going to have to start saying no when asked to add things to my plate:
So this weekend.... It started out by doing something for work on Saturday, then I was on the phone for three hours trying to figure out getting Internet to my house, and then it was out to see a show at the Southgate House. I woke up on Sunday, went to a bridal expo then took my little sister out. I got home around 6:30 and was too tired to do anything productive. I got some things done around the house like loading the dishwasher, laundry, moving some stuff to the massive garage sale pile... but I felt pretty brain dead.
I went through the pile of information and fliers I received at the bridal expo and was unable to process any of it last night. Poor G, I was on the phone with her last night and she could hear the exhaustion in my voice. It's times like that which make the distance worse. Ugh!
But let's talk a little more about this expo... there was a lot going on there. I knew photography was expensive.... but geez, it can get pricey! I looked at some people and thought to myself, hmmm, how would they feel if I told them this was a gay wedding. I mean, I was in a heterosexual mecca! When I would tell vendors that it was a same sex ceremony they instantly thought J.C. was my partner. This made me giggle a little on the inside. (J.C. you know I love you!)
My favorite response was:
Me "have you ever shot a same sex wedding"
Photography guy "Is that what you are doing?"
My thought "Yes sir, just made up my mind yesterday, I'm going to marry a woman instead of a man" Ha, what a funny comment. I'm sure it was just the shock of it, he had photographed a same sex ceremony before, so no bid deal, although it was a funny comment.
Last night I received a call from some travel agent at the expo telling me if I sat in on this thing I'd get a two night three day stay somewhere - wow, they work fast. Unfortunately my fiance has to join me and she is on the other side of the country. Oh well... it really was too good to be true.
I'm expecting a boatload of emails today from all the people I gave my email to. So wait and see... Oh wait there is more...
How could I forget....
Vegan...yes, Vegan... I love talking to people and seeing their face when I tell them I want no animal products in anything. I even asked the Pure Romance people, ha! So the cheesecake lady was definitely baffled by this... how does one make a cheesecake with out cream cheese... well you use vegan cream cheese... So the same sex vegan wedding is still on the hunt for the perfect group of vendors.....

All of it

I've been thinking I should post a blog... and I haven't... so here I am.
Getting married is so much more than a wedding. It's everything... absolutely everything. If someone told me even one year ago I would meet someone that I would share a bank account with... be willing to get rid of stuff I've had for years. On that note... who knew living alone for 6 years would make one acquire so much stuff.... ugh... I hate the amount of stuff I have.
Really, I never would have believed that I would be where I am today, fully committed to sharing my life...

With the floweriness of this it also has it's rough times... What bed will we choose, yours or mine, what couch... will we just buy new... can we afford that?

People get so worked up about the wedding... what about the marriage?

Money, Money, Money

I can't believe that people lay down tens of thousands of dollars on weddings. It is one day. If I had just $10,000 to spend in one day what would I do? I can tell you getting married probably would not be the first thing that comes to my mind. Well, maybe it would now that I'm engaged, but prior to that.... I would have to say no. I would maybe buy a car, pay off my student loans, pay off some debt. I'm trying to think of something I've always wanted and never spent the money on.... I would definitely spend the money on a vacation - a trip to Australia, maybe tour all of Europe.
So I'm trying to figure out why people spend all the money. Now I'm trying to imagine a wedding I've attended that I was so blown away that I thought "this is what I want". Nothing comes to mind.
G and I have really been toying with this whole thing. The expense alone is crazy. I think we run the risk of people judging us a bit if we don't go all out, but I imagine those people won't even make the guest list. We don't really like all that many people in general.
So why? Why spend the money on one day? What else could we do with the money?
Don't worry folks... it's still going to happen, maybe for a lesser cost though!

The Dress

So today we did the preliminary dress hunt. I thought today would be super fun. I would try on fancy dresses and ultimately find exactly what I wanted. This is not what happened. I tried on lots of dresses. The first thing the lady gives me are undergarments to make me thinner. So these items are super uncomfortable, then I found that some dresses give me back fat.... or back crack.... wtf! Strange. Who knew that existed. Other dresses had crazy ass beads and shit on them. Not ok! Some are cut in such a way that my breasts look even bigger.... I didn't know that was possible. So... if you are still reading this you know that today was an unsuccessful dress shopping day. I was not happy with anything. Wedding dresses are not comfortable... Why is this? Men must make wedding dresses.

Rings

Well together at last... G and I are sharing the holiday season together, I'm just happy I got here, I was worried with the weather in Portland it might not happen. So far so good. I love everyday I share with her. Alas, in my true fashion I'm thinking about all the things we have to do for the wedding, so today we went to the jeweler who made my ring to figure out what our wedding bands will be. We picked them out, the deposit was made, and in a few days we will see a mock up of the finish product. They actually make our rings in wax prior to making them in metal! So cool!
Tomorrow, we are getting on the wedding "to do" list.

The Food

For some reason I've been thinking about the food at the wedding. I don't know why. I'm not even sure how important it is. I don't remember what I ate at the last wedding I went to. I remember I drank a lot - not really what I want people to remember at my wedding - but I guess some weddings are like that.

So I did a preliminary search for vegan weddings and this is the best I got:

http://www.caringconsumer.com/feat/veganwedding/
http://blog.vegcooking.com/2008/11/vegan_wedding_feast_1.php

Mt. Echo - the winner! (We think)

dietary needs

I have been on the hunt for someone to make a vegan wedding cake. I have emailed a lot of people. I have had varying responses from those who don't know what vegan is... which makes me laugh. Using common sense, I feel if I owned a bakery and a potential customer made a request I would at least google it to find out if I could do it or not. Here is my favorite email:

Mary Beth,

I'm sorry NO I do not do a cake like that.
I don't use any animal fat but I do use vegetable oil,eggs & butter,
it just wouldn't seem like a cake with out eggs & butter.

I hope you can find someone to help you. I will ask around and if I hear of any one I will let you know.
I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas and New Year.

Thanks, and many blessings

Patricia

So... Patricia does not do vegan cakes... Apparently my cake really isn't a cake because it wont' have eggs and butter. She will never get my business!

Slowing Down

G and I have been engaged for two weeks... and the momentum has certainly slowed down. It's funny how we were so anxious to nail down a location,we did hours of research and yesterday there was no wedding talk at all. It was kind of nice. I think we are still leaning toward our first gut reaction of having it all at Mt. Echo.
The other day I had a small obsession with what everyone who stands up for us might wear... then I thought maybe we'd have no one stand up for us... but for now... it is wedding in the slow lane.

Working Backwards

So yesterday, I think to myself "I should see if I can make an appointment to get my hair done". I don't want to spend a lot of money in general, so I call the Aveda School (and Aveda is vegan). The woman asks me "what time would you like your hair done?" I figured an afternoon appointment if the ceremony is at 6:30. That makes sense. Then she proceeds to tell me that I should be working my day backwards - time everything....
So here is what I should be thinking about:
6:30 ceremony
What time should I be at the sight?
How long will it take to drive from the location I get dressed to the ceremony?
How long will it take to get from my hair/makeup to where I'm getting dressed? It could take 2 hours for hair, one hour for make up....
When do I eat?
When do my other girls get dressed and made up?
Can I do my own hair and Make up?
When will we do pictures... before the ceremony? after the ceremony? With G without G?
UGH!!!

No news.

I really don't have much to report. I looked at the Taft Museum yesterday over lunch. It is super cute. I would get married there, but I don't know if it is "The One". Then G found more places so i sent out even more emails today for locations. Geeze, when will we solve this mystery? I feel as though G and I are perfect for eachother, we are everything the other is not. We are exactly what we've always wanted in the other person, so in planning our ceremony we want the other person to be happy. She's concerned about what I want, I want her to be happy... and we both want to fall in love with a space and make it all happen. And it doesn't help that we have somewhat expensive taste... she's a foodie, I'm vegan, I want outdoors she wants classy... She's going to make some phone calls today! And the fun continues!

Getting what we want.

Getting what we want is trickier than we think, especially if we want to stay on budget. Where do we give? Is it on the location? Is it on the chairs? Is it on the guests? Is it on the photography? Or do we just make it happen and try to stay close to budget. Of course if we had unlimited amounts of money we would do it all. Women are the lowest paid of the two genders, put two together in a relationship and well... we don't have a shit ton of money. We don't even know if G will have a job when she gets to town....
Alas... We have made a list of priorities and are going to work with them... Crossing our fingers we can get what we want for an affordable price.

Location, Location, Location

This seems to be the most important thing right now. Where will we do this blessed event? I mean should we run away, get married, and forget the whole thing. I know our families would love to see us get married, I just am reluctant to feed into Corporate America Wedding Bliss. I guess I'll start looking at more locations and see what happens.

Where oh where should my wedding be?

So the search continues, just when G and I think we have our location pinned down we then find some magical hidden costs and fees that piss us off. Is there a hidden gem of a place in Cincinnati or Northern Kentucky? I don't know... I'm beginning to hate the Cincinnati Parks, so if my caterer leaves a dish and wishes to retrieve it I get charged at least $200. It seems the possibility is that if I pay my invoice, I might have a surprise invoice later... grrr. I also have crazy fees like 12% of all rentals in case of damage is non-refundable and 15% of the caterer bill has to be paid to the site. This makes me angry, like the $3.50/chair and $.85/put up and another $.85/take down place a $500 site clean up isn't enough as far as extra fees go.... ugh!

I'm not sure what to do with this - I guess we'll just pay the money....