Ducking the Punches

So I was listening to NPR the other day, and as usual, heard something awesome. It was this lady, Laura Munson, talking about her book called "This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness”. At first, it sounded like your typical self-help, relationship advice, claiming your life kind of book. Which I'm totally going to admit that I'm a sucker for. I'm constantly self-helping. Not because I really need help, just because I'm always trying to be bigger and better. I see my potential and I want to reach it, dammit!

Anyway, so this book. She talks, she is empowered, she saves her marrigae, it all sounds great. I haven't read the book and only heard pieces of her talk on NPR, but I found an awesome (and short) article that she wrote that covers the gist of her book.

In it she tells of how her husband came to her one day and said, “I don’t love you anymore” and wanted to leave her and their children. Following some crazy zen path, she said “I don’t buy it” and in effect waited him out. Eventually he came around and they have continued to be happily married since. Part of her philosophy is to not take things personally – and even when her husband told her he didn’t love her anymore, she worked to not take it personally. As she describes, he threw a emotional punch at her and instead of making it a fight, she just ducked.

This amazes and baffles me. Its amazing because I totally see the logic behind it and understand how not taking things personally means you can actually work through the issue at hand. It takes a lot of the emotional warfare out between two people and gets to the nitty gritty of whats going on. But it baffles me because I can’t imagine being able to do that! She must be a zen master!

As I said earlier, I’m a sucker for books like this, and this is an area that the mister and I could definitely work on. We come from families who address conflict very differently. I’m a soft Minnesotan who grew up in a soft spoken family where we didn’t argue and never raised our voices. His family is constantly raising voices across the dinner table over whatever hot topic they can find. We’ve worked on reconciling these two styles and have made lots of progress, but the arguing is an art form that we are still learning. We haven’t learned to duck each other’s punches yet and still seem to walk straight into them!

But luckily we have lots of time to learn and even if we get into nasty fights we always come back together stronger and better than before.

New vibe in town!

So far, most everyone around me is pushing for a traditional wedding - parents, in-laws, awesome-and-helpful aunties, the big, bad society, and so on. But the vibe just changed.

One of my best ladies, lady of honor, sister-from-another mister, just got back in town. She was off living the ski bum dream but is back for the non-ski season! Its great to have her back in town and I can't wait to have her help for the wedding. We totally vibe together and I don't think I would ever hear her say anything along the lines of "Well, traditionally people do this..." or "You should do this - thats the way its normally done!" Such a relief not to have another person pressuring me to do dumb crap that costs way to much! :)

At the same time, this wedding is well underway and has been swayed by the traditional wedding forces. Its hard to avoid when all I have is people telling me to do things one, traditional, big, white, expensive, crazy way! I like to think that I've done a good job holding my ground and making our wedding what we want it to be...

But then I enter the What If zone. What if Ski Bum Bridesmaid had been here helping steer me away from crazy? Would our wedding look different? Is our wedding too big and crazy already? EFF!

Ok, really, I'm fine. No worries. I just feel pulled in two directions. The super hippie, chill, just let it flow direction and the traditional, heart attack, consumerized wedding direction. Hopefully I can fall into some sane middle ground where our wedding will look like us and feel like us and just be happy. Because that is my theme. When asked at our engagement announcement about colors/themes/whatever I just told them that our theme is going to be "Happy" and I'm sticking to that.

Oh! Em! Gee! 4 Months!

Holy buckets! In exactly four months it is gonna be my wedding day!!!!I can believe it! Its so surreal! Me? Getting married? wtf? This is a day that's always been talked about in the far, far future. And now we are half way through our engagement, four months out, and its starting to feel real.

EEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!

Our Wedding: Accessories!

After finally dealing will all the dress stress and insanity inside my bridal brain, I've got my dress...now its time for accessories! YAY!

Now I gotta say that this whole 'fashion' thing is not really my realm. About 90% of the time in the summer you can find me in some comfy as hell capris and a tank top, and a simple necklace is as fancy as I get within the accessories world. I pretty much wear one pair of shoes as long as I can until they are worn through with holes and then my mom (still) yells at me that I should go get a new pair. And that new pair will probably look a lot like the last... just saying that me and fashion are not best buds who stay up late chatting on the phone and sharing all our secrets. Me and fashion are more like next door neighbors who wave at each other each morning, talk about the weather, and then carry on with our day.

That said, I am pretty excited to accessorize with my dress! This is where I wanna take that piece of big bridalness and tone it down. Less formal! More fun! WEEE!

Necklace: Right now, I've got two great contenders for this - thank you, Etsy!

Exhibit A: This is the top runner by far. Its simple and you can't get much more classic than a string of pearls. But its got that color and that POW and you can't get much more 'me' than a nice bright green! I think I'm going to introduce this one to the dress and see if they get along.

Exhibit B: Runner up is this simple beaut. Something I'd wear over and over with a nice touch of color. Not quite the same POW but still pretty. Who knows, maybe my dress is an attention hog and won't want to share? Then this little guy could be the subtle touch I'd need.


Hair Piece: No way, no how is a veil going to go on my head, so I turned to the wonderful Meg at A Practical Wedding and her What to Wear on Your Head While You Wed posts. There are so many great options, but I hear the big side-o-head flowers or feathery fascinators calling my name.

Exhibit A: Is a light, cute, simple option. I like the size, that there are two, and their little pearly centers.
Exhibit B: Is a fun flower of a good size that would look great plopped on the side of my head! I think I'd add some frenchie bird cage netting to this to be oh so chic - maybe the netting could be on during the ceremony and off for the reception. This (the big ol' flower in my hair) was the original plan and the one I'm still learning towards. I'm chopping of my dress' train and could use the fabric to make a nice flower with some pizaz.
Exhibit C: Va va voom! What a sexy little feathery piece with some bling going on! I love the shape of these fascinators (the seller has a bunch of purty ones) and these could also be great with some birdcage nettting. The price is a bit high but I'm thinking maybe I can make something like this relatively easily, too. Oh the options!

Phew! That's all I got for today. Shoes are my next big adventure since I'm kinda a picky shoe shopper. I am looking for flat flat, cute, colorful sandals that are nice enough to wear to my wedding but still comfy as can be. Luckily for me flats seem to be 'in' this season. *crosses fingers*

Cheers,
Jen

The Shower

Oh, the epic bridal event that is the shower. With its ladies gabbing and adorably arranged trays of food and games of toilet paper wedding dresses. What to do with you, wedding shower?

My lovely aunts have offered to throw me a bridal shower and I feel really mixed about this whole event. I'm extremely flattered that they are willing to go through all the effort for me and I know that whatever they put together it will turn out spectacularly (One of my aunts is, after all, referred to as Franck. As in Franck from Father of the Bride because she can throw down some fabulousness!) It really does make me feel all warm, fuzzy, and special that they would go out of their way to do a shower for me.

I'm all for the gathering of the ladies and having an afternoon of mingling - I just don't know what to do about the whole gift giving tradition. The mister and I have lived together for the last three + years (sinners!!!) and don't need or want many things. We live in an apartment that is already full with our loads of gear (two bikes each, skis (alpine and cross country), snowboards, camping gear, etc.) I don't feel like we can even register for enough to cover a shower AND a wedding! Also, I feel bad asking for gifts twice. "Hey, come to two separate events just for me where I will require gifts of you both times!" Awkward.

My aunts are pretty traditional, though, so I can't stray too far from tradition on the shower. I was mainly hoping to come up with a shower theme that would ease the gift burden of the attendees and allow for more time for fun and mingling (aka less of the staring at me as I open things that I put on a list for people to buy).

Here are the ideas so far:
- Books, Booze and Beauty "The bride would appreciate gifts of great literature, nummy drinkables, and Aveda goodness!" (These items can come in wide, wide ranges of cost. There is many a great bottle of wine for under 10 bucks!)
- Themes such as "month of the year" gifts where each guest is responsible for a gift that goes with a month of the year. (aka scarves for January and a beach towel for June)
- Just let the older ladies get whatever and trust my friends to know me better and get something fun and creative that I could actually use (like books, booze, and aveda gift cards for nummy, nummy goodness)?
- That's it. I'm out of ideas.

Any other ideas?
What are your shower plans?

Suck on this, favors!

Favors are stupid. Plain stupid. But that's just my (strong) opinion on the matter.* I've never been to a wedding where there was something waiting at my place that made me say "cool!" Usually its just little tokens that cost the couple way more than they are worth. To have a worthwhile favor it would probably have to be something meaningful to the couple, useful or tasty to the guests, and not be something people say "wtf do I do with this now?" And those kinda things cost more than I care to spend on my guests (sorry, guests!). We are already feeding them and providing a party for them to have fun at - they don't need a silly token from us.

So that's my biz on favors. BUT I do like one 'favor' idea and that is the donation favor where you can put a little note on the tables saying, "In lieu of favors, a donations has been made to the Bomb Ass Foundation of Hope and Love" (or whatever charity you choose). We thought about doing that....then decided just to skip favors...

UNTIL I heard an awesome idea that I'm totally stealing and think you should all steal too! (if you want to, of course. no pressure!)

It goes like this. Each place setting is given 3 (or 5 or 7 or however many) beans with some simple instructions. Guests follow these instructions to a table where three jars sit. Above each jar is a description of a charity - what it is, what they do, what donations are used for, etc. Each bean that the guests have is worth a dollar donation, and each guests get to decide where they give their dollars/beans to! With less than 100 guests, if we give 5 beans at each place setting, that means a total of roughly 500 bucks for donations. I'm definitely willing to do that instead of giving some little piece of plastic that will end up in the trash.

The lady who shared this idea with me said the guests all had a great time reading about each charity and making their choices. It got them involved and made them feel a part of the donations.

We are always looking for more ways to bring our guests into the day, and I think this is a great one! I'm really looking forward to picking the charities, and I hope the guests have a fun time deciding as well.

xoxo,
Jen

(*Note: While I think favors are stupid, I'm not saying you are stupid if you are going to have favors at your wedding. I'm positive that favors are part of the WIC of pressure, madness, and unnecessary things and that no one should provide them unless they want to and have found a favor they would enjoy giving! The End.)

Dress stress - a decision?

I'm definitely keeping that question mark on the end. I'm making a dress decision and lack of time is making this decision final, but I'm sure doubts are going to resurface. And that's ok. I'll just have to deal with it. Because I've given this a LOT of thought and I have to trust myself in making this decision. I have to know that I made the best decision for myself that I could in this moment...and however it turns out in the end - whether I love or regret my dress decision - that's all I can ask from myself.

I'm sticking with my current dress and am going to focus my energies on making that dress mine. Its a great, flattering dress, and I'm sure it will make me feel special. Plus, my mister's jaw is going to drop. And that is all I need to feel great in any dress!

Now on to the Dress Stress Lesson of the Day!

Our culture puts enormous pressure on women to look beautiful on a daily basis. Mucho money is wrapped up in the beauty industry – they show us these false, unattainable ideals and the dollars flow in as we try to achieve that photoshopped look. (Ok, we stand no chance when up against a photoshopped Jessica Alba. Not even Jessia Alba stands a chance against a photoshopped Jessica Alba!) It’s no wonder then, that with “one big day”, the pressure is just unimaginably amplified. And I’m not sure how to combat it. There are lots of great discussions about it, and I think the best we can do it support each other and work to reaffirm ourselves. Over and over. Because this shit is well ingrained.

Even with my best efforts, I feel prey to expectations hardcore. I may have tried to deny it, but I was totally shopping for the ‘one’, ‘perfect’ dress. Even though I think that ideal is BS, I wanted it to be perfect. And I somehow expected to find this one perfect dress for under 500 bucks!? What bizzaro world was I living in!?

One of the things I most feared most was looking too ‘bridal’ (whatever that means). I don’t feel like a typical bride, so I didn’t want to look like a typical bride. I was scared that if I did people would place typical judgments on me – like spending frivolously, being shallow, being bossy, and all those horrible, stereotypical, and downright nasty labels. It’s hopeless to worry about what other people think, though. No matter what I choose, there are going to be people who think I should have done it differently. So eff it.

Perhaps the best thing I learned through all this dress stress and searching for the perfect dress to represent me is this; I simply can not be summed up by one dress. No dress, no matter how beautiful or well crafted, can represent the complex person that is me. I am bigger than any dress. I can shine more brightly than any fabric put together can. The dress is merely going to provide, for one day in my life, an accent to my already bright self– and that’s all I need. It may not be the "one" but its MY dress.


(Note: That’s my pep talk to myself. But I also want to say thank you all for your support and helpful comments! The blog community has been crucial for keeping my sanity. I can’t even imagine the mess I would be in without the safe and sane sounding board that blog land provides. Thanks you thank you thank you!)

Dress stress!

I've talked a little bit before about my dress. And about torn feelings towards my dress.

Well, a few days ago I saw a dress from Davids (of all places! For some reason, I hold a serious grudge against Davids.) that would be super easy to shorten to tea/knee length and had a top like I was dreaming of. I sat on that thought for a day as it burned into my brain and then ran over the Davids to try it on.

The top was just completely adorable and I love it. The only part I didn't like was that it poofs out right at the natural waist...so it would be a great dress if you are slightly preggers for your wedding! Of course the sales ladies were there telling me that no one would think I was preggers and that that is how its supposed to fit and that it was just adorable on me and so on. I really wanted that dress to work. Its so close to perfect! But not quite right...not worth it to risk the whole drama of changing dresses on a 'not quite' dress.

Even so, I couldn't get it out of my head. So after talking to my mister and an opinionated bridesmaid, I figured I should talk to someone about altering to see if it could be made into my perfect dress. I get an e-mail response today that says, yes, (based on online pictures and my descriptions) it is likely possible to alter it to remove the preggers affect. It may add a few hundred to the cost of my dress in the end...but it could possibly be the dress I was hoping for.

Now I am completely torn. I feel so stuck in the middle, unable to tell which way I'm leaning because every hour it changes. One hour I want to go for it...run the risk, buy a new dress, and see if this lady can work magic and make it the dress I was hoping for. The next hour I'm telling myself just to go with my current dress. Its a great, flattering dress and the alterations will make it less bridal and more me.

In the end, I just want to feel like myself on my wedding. I don't want to feel like a bridal dress up doll in some overly fancy gown (Note: this is coming from the girl whose most complicated hairdo in her arsenal is the amazing ponytail!). I want to be the best version of myself, not a different self.

So...
Is it worth the risk of buying a new dress when I already have one? Go for the gold or commit to my silver medal dress? What if I take the risk and the dress misses gold and ends up being a silver anyway? What if I can't sell my current dress (anyone interested?) and end up out the money and with two dresses? What if I have no idea what to do!?!?!

(PS Sorry for the whiny post today. I feel like a big baby who can't decide anything and is being a brat looking for her perfect dress.)