Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Naysayers

It's always funny how people who don't even know you feel compelled to chime in on incredibly personal matters with their own two cents.

This week it was a complete stranger telling me not to get married. Even better, he wasn't even saying to just be single. Just stick with the same person but don't get married. For yeaaarrrsss. But I pointed out that if you're with someone for that long, even though there is no legal technicality to go through (and no laws to actually help you out), your lives are intertwined and separating the two is going to be a big damn deal. Even after Justin and I hadn't been together for more than two years, it once occurred to me how hard it would be to go our separate ways. And I'm not just talking about emotionally - I'm talking about my bike in his shed and my groceries in the cabinets and my bathroom drawers and all of my kitchen goods since they kept migrating to his house as I needed things. We don't even live together. So this guy thinks that just not formalizing the commitment is the way to go to make this all easy. Thanks for the advice dude. Here's my advice to you: do a better job of choosing and if you're going to make a commitment, make a commitment. I don't know what happened in his past but... I'm kind of thinking that he played a role in the downfall.

The question of whether or not I've chosen the right one is something I do think about. Because I take this really seriously. We're talking the rest of our lives and I think that is serious. I love Kevin. I can't imagine being with anyone else. While he drives me absolutely insane sometimes with his undending fretting, he also does things that make me smile from ear to ear while tears of happiness sting my eyes. He's my partner. We respectfully make decisions together. We thoroughly enjoy each other's company but we respect that we each need time to do our own things.

I think what worries me is that I'm not all gooey. But I think that I'm just not a super gooey person.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

I'm optimistic!

So today, things are looking good. I have a lot of stress (as in I can feel the adrenaline) about the next week and a half. Finishing getting ready for Sam and Chuck's wedding and Sam's bachelorette party, getting packed up and organized, hopefully, oh so hopefully nailing down a venue and a wedding date, and oh, yeeaaaahhhh work like whoa for the job that actually pays me money. If I'm going to be gone for two weeks during a busy time, I've gotta get well ahead of the game. And I was already behind. Crap.

But in venue news, we have a date to look at a place on Saturday (the timing of which means that I'm going to miss my class at the gym but that's the way it goes) and the planner brought up the notion of using the zoo. Which I think I had sort of written off as kind of over the top but it supports the zoo, and it's also a venue in Point Defiance Park, where we have a lot of history. It's close to the house, we've biked there, ran there, kayaked there, picnicked there, and are zoo members. So I'm trying to set up a date to go look at that soon.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Fresh Perspective

This may be short-lived but at the moment, I'm feeling somewhat optimistic. Once we come back from Asia, I'm gonna own this wedding.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Rough Week

I can't really put my finger on why but I'm having a lame week. I just feel... blah. As in it actually crossed my mind to smack the next person who exclaimed, "Enjoy the sunshine!" Over the weekend we spent some time with Kevin's brother and sister-in-law and got grilled on wedding details something with a light "I haven't been told anything!" guilt trip. Well, lady, that's because there's nothing nice to say. Just headaches and swearwords.

Couple that with the fact that the planner's last facebook post is a pre-congratulations to one of her other brides exclaiming that their locale "has NEVER seen a wedding like this before... :)" And one of the guys at the office is talking about all of the cool fancy tricks that his future daughter-in-law has up her sleeve for her wedding.

Yeah, I got nothing. No fabulous theme. No date. No venue. No dress.

I think the worst part is that I feel like I'm wasting this supposedly really fun time just being frustrated with it and then avoiding the whole damn thing. I'm afraid I'm missing out on wedding planning.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Wedding Tears

Oh, what fun wedding planning is. Yesterday I had to leave work and drive to Safeway so I could cry can talk to Kevin.

Kevin and I have been engaged for, oh, eight months now and people are asking about the blessed event. Like perhaps a date. Which they'll all ask you about first thing after you're engaged. I'm talking 15 minutes after when you're still in shock saying, "I thought my hair would be clean! I thought I would be wearing something pretty!" They'll bust in with the "Have you set a date?" It's just bizarre.

But eight months later, it's a legitimate question. And no, we don't have a date. We figured we would let the venue we found sort of dictate the date since there isn't a particular date we really have to have. And no, we don't have a venue.

I have spent the last eight months on researching greater Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia area venues - I have a spreadsheet of 135... and I have found nothing that matches on all points. Frustrated, I hired a planner in April (after a tearful outburst of "I'm going to need a planner and Botox!"). Since then, there have been a few places that really got my hopes up... and then crushed them. Apparently the, to me, seemingly extravagant budget we have of $15,000 is sort of crazy for the area. Once the wedding planner broke the budget down, I saw how far off of what vendors typically charge we are. Oh s#*$.

So we went to an open house at The Loft in Bothell and fell in love. The food was delicious. The space would easily dress up. The rental for the space was cheap! Yes! Yes! Yes! Then the food quote came in. Cue screeching record.

Court in the Square? Yes, I hear the guy can be rather difficult to work with but with a planner to keep on top of contracts and everything we should be good. They have a parking garage available. The space is beautiful and they promise big enough. But the food is 'okay'.

Golden Gardens Bathhouse? I am in l-o-v-e love. It's got charm, and trees, and water, and sand, and meadow, and the price is right. Their website says it fits 150. That will easily hold our 130! But does it really? No.

That was the one that kicked off the waterworks yesterday. I got word from the planner that the biggest she had ever done there was 120 and that that was pushing it. Not to mention space for dueling pianos and a dance floor. I forwarded the email to Kevin adding, "I quit." I was really thisclose to saying, "You. Me. Dress. Suit. Flowers. Vegas. Next weekend?" I am so over it. Completely. Yeah, everyone expects wedding planning to be busy and a bit stressful but they also make it out like it's this otherwise just blissed out time.

Wrong. At the same time that $15,000 isn't much in wedding speak, I often question how wise it is to drop $15,000 on one event. But then I think about the people I want at my wedding and who I will miss out on having there if we elope. It makes my head swirl. So I go back to wanting a 'real wedding' - both of my sisters had piss-poor weddings that said a lot about their piss-poor decision making that led them to be marrying piss-poor grooms. They're both divorced.

I just want to have a great party with great entertainment, great food, some amount of style, lots of love and laughs with all of the people I love and care about. Really, it's a way to honor a lot of the people who have helped me along the way and especially through the rough times. So I guess is that worth $15,000 to me? Yes.

I just don't want to spend that kind of coin on a party that ends up being sucktastic.