Racket Wars-Veni, vidi, vici.

I'm a yankee.

It's runs deep in my soul.

As such, I cannot stand the wedding racket. A bouquet of roses should not cost more because it says "wedding roses" in the little product description. Neither should cakes, venues, shoes, jewelry or anything else that is not overly ostentatious. (Some stuff deserves the price tag, most stuff doesn't)

Dresses are a little more understandable because of the amount of material in a wedding dress (I mean, you could build a tent for four out of some of them).

My goal with planning the wedding has been not only to plan something beautiful and meaningful, but to avoid the racket. Imagine my delight, then, when I found a pair of Nine West shoes for $14.69--wedding shoes: check.

Some unrelated pictures for your pleasure (from the wedding of a friend who enlisted talented friends to create a summery wedding with an elegant take on the backyard wedding):

summer snapshots

This is us at Hannah and Michael's Wedding.

[edit: We actually didn't take a picture of both of us at each wedding we attended so there are gaps in this picture narrative.]

Heather and Aaron's wedding

on a scouting mission to Cape Cod

Bekah and Michael's wedding (different Michael)

-The Lady

Lists and 80 day adventures

I once took a personality/gifting test that asked: "Do you constantly make lists?" Answer: Very True. (As a random aside; does it bother anyone else that so many of those tests have scales of "agree/strongly agree/disagree/strongly disagree" or "true/not very true" but questions that are structured for a yes or no, or perhaps a complete sentence answer?)

As a chronic list-maker, I have had a hey day with wedding planning. Last night I sat down with my legal pad and stuck 3 sticky notes of to do lists (with several duplicate tasks) and combined them into a schedule for the evening (two evenings, really).

A wedding generates lists like nobody's business--not only is it the biggest party you'll potentially ever throw but it has tradition mixed in. What traditions are you going to use? Why? What traditions will people flip out if you do/don't do them? (some of these decisions have been easier than others: No garter toss. That was easy)

You can even make lists of the things you need to make lists for. (Reception decorations, ceremony decorations, things to do the day before the wedding, things to ask Mom, things to ask Nick, etc, etc...)

I even put "make dinner" on my list. I should have put "eat dinner" on my list because then I could have had the satisfaction of scratching something else off my to do list. When it's just me at home, I really do need to put "make dinner" on the list otherwise I may forget, or it will get swallowed in all the other things I need to do (because they are on my list of things to do, and thus, get priority.)

In the midst of all of this list mania, I realized yet again that this blog hasn't been updated since the beginning of the month. I also remembered fondly all the brilliant ideas I've had for posts but didn't have time to write. (I was writing lists, sorry)

When we hit the 80 day mark I wanted to post about how Phileas Fogg went around the world in the span of time between that day and my wedding day. As I recall he met a girl, fell in love, and got married in that time frame too...See, Mom and Dad? A 6 month enagement isn't that short! ;-)

(blog post: check)

Did you know?

Every now and then I step back and evaluate my position in life: realizing that in the big picture, each stage really is rather remarkable.

You are only a highschooler once. You are only a (first time) college student once. You are only a recent grad once. You are only engaged once. It's interesting to look back at the different phases of my life, and of my relationship with Nick--I laugh at the awkward-but necessary-parts, and remember other parts with fondness. I'm enjoying engagement, even with all the wedding planning (and really, though I like this phase, I don't know why anyone needs to be engaged for a year...)

All that is an aside for what I'm actually here to tell you: If you have not yet been engaged here are a couple things for you to remember:

Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Chances are you know a lot of people who registered there, and maybe to be different you don't want to (I was tempted down that road)--but there is a very good reason why people register there. Not only do they have good products, but they treat you like royalty. This isn't to say they assign guards and schedule meetings with the Prince of Monaco, but:
-they take you on a tour of the store. This seems unremarkable until you've tried registering somewhere else. They show you where things are, what the product lines are, what they are known for, they ask what sort of lifestyle you have (ie "do you like to cook?") and try to give you useful information.
-they check on you periodically. This is especially helpful if you decide you have more questions, or if you get thirsty. They offer you water/soda/tea, etc.
-they give you coupons and other perks for the things that people don't buy you.

David's Bridal. The prices are tempting, girls, but I recommend resisting unless the floor model fits you perfectly and you can buy it off the rack. Their customer service is notoriously bad, and even if the people are nice, it's usually extremely difficult to get what you want (or even try on what you want) and I have heard and seen with my own eyes the nearly disastrous results of alterations there.

Ice Cream: you laugh. For you, it might be coffee or cheesecake. In all the mayhem of planning a wedding (whiiiile working full time and going to weddings/birthday parties/visiting family/and other aspects of life that don't stop because you're engaged) don't forget to take time off and spend a little time with your fiance in which you don't talk about the details of the wedding. Actually, I recommend hiking, ice cream (cake/coffee/whatever) is a great accompaniment to planning sessions (whereas it's extremely difficult to work out the details of a ceremony while huffing and puffing up a mountain).

Blogs: Not the blogs of brides (though a couple of those are useful), but the blogs of photographers. They are just happy to be alive and taking pictures, they will brighten your day and give you brilliant ideas.

That's all my tips for the day--Hopefully they made you laugh even if you aren't engaged :-P

-The Lady

The Proposal: Her side

My side of the story...

We went for a drive on a Tuesday night. Tuesday’s were our date night all winter and with the weather getting nice scenic drives were not at all unusual. The last time we went for a drive to watch the sunset we pulled off at the mouth of a really long farm—only the owner came home while we were there. It was very awkward (at least to me!).

This time we went to a look-out point on the Appalachian Trail that is just a short hike from a parking lot (which was a good thing, because as far as I knew we were making things up as we went along so I was wearing flip flops and a cute little beige trench coat). Other than an inchworm, no one drove by to look at us suspiciously this time. There had been clouds most of the day, but they cleared for the sunset, and blew pretty steadily across the sky in gargantuan swaths.

Having left the flashlight in Nick’s Mustang we had to beat the evening shadows back to the car. Nick asked what I wanted to do next. I gave him several options—most of them involving hot drinks. By then it was too late to start a movie (which was our other economic date: rent a movie at redbox, go to a coffee shop, watch it on a laptop with headphone splitters). He had been thinking ice cream—never one to turn down ice cream, I readily agreed and we drove to the local grocery store and bought a pint of Haagen-Dazs. I'd expected to have a picnic in the parking lot or something like we did the week before at Taco Bell (yes, I’m easily amused) but we took off down the road to “find a place to pull off and eat the ice cream"—which was sorta like that one time we pulled off to watch the sunset, I hoped we’d take a side road this time and not someone’s driveway (at 9 o’clock at night).

Nick pulled off the highway onto a dirt road—I barely saw the sign overhung with tree branches which declared we were entering a vineyard—I didn't think he'd noticed it was a vineyard but he wasn’t deterred when I pointed out that it was. All of a sudden I wasn’t sure if maybe it was a normal southern thing to just drive up farm/vineyard driveways in the dead of night (I mean, they still fox hunt here…) but I did talk him out of parking in the vineyard parking lot. I only vaguely remember giving him a truly mortified look when he indicated we were getting out of the car to sit in someone’s vineyard. But we climbed out to have a picnic under the stars just outside the grapevines. Of course it was so dark that if there were grapevines, you couldn’t see them. After a little while of me jumping every time a car drove past on the high way, he suggested a walk on the "path" next to the anti-deer fence. I wasn't terribly keen on the idea. He persuaded me with some assertion that his leg was cramping so he needed to walk. We walked a little ways and then stopped to talk and look at the stars.

To me, the evening had been just another one of our experiments in spontaneity so I had absolutely no idea what was coming until he said “I have a question for you” and proceeded to fish in his coat pocket and then drop to one knee.

Of course I said yes.

It wasn’t until a car came up the driveway and completely ignored his Mustang that I found out that this was not a spur of the moment proposal but carefully planned—and we had permission to be at the Vineyard all along.

-The Lady