Friday, December 01, 2006

Where Macrame Went

I'm having a summer wedding solely as an excuse to wear one of these. It will be so very grand as I stand beneath my light-up inflatable arch.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

My STD

O so many thanks to Toni The Reader for designing our "save the date" cards, which are beautiful, but which came in an attachment romantically titled: "MB-STD."

Clearly, not what I expected-- but then again, little is regarding this wedding... including the groom. Little girls who grow up in the white Catholic ghetto of Cincinnati's West Side marry other West Siders. So let it be written. So let it be done. I have always envisioned a full-Mass marriage with several dress-fitting sessions in a local bridal salon as my sister and mother clasped their hands at the sight of the baby in bridal white. Instead, last week I found myself wearing the ring of a Lutheran, stomping past palm trees on my way into a fabric shop to return fourteen yards of the wrong shade of chiffon.

"My wedding," Carah The BFFE said to me in exhaustion about a year ago, "is nothing like I thought it would be." And I made sympathetic bridesmaid noises, which was my primary job at that point, and thought, "Well, how could that be? It's her wedding." But now the bridal slipper is upon my foot, and I see, I see: One minute you're at some distant cousin's reception, jumping up and down to Kool and the Gang on a fake wooden dance floor in Mary Janes, and the next you're staring down at a caterer's catalogue featuring a stack of artfully arranged Moon Pies because the glitter icing is backordered and outside the budgetary realm anyway.

Our ideas cling even as the life that spun them changes. Mentally I have officially asked Julie The NephewsMama to be my matron of honor in a crying conversation in which we apologized for torn stuffed animals past and pledged our sisterly devotion 4Evah, but the actual conversation went as follows at our extended family's Thanksgiving dinner table:

ME: Oh, I--

JULIE: Hmmmmm?

JIM THE SMALL CHILD NEPHEW: Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?

ME: I wanted to--

JIM: Mommy--

JULIE: Just a minute, please. I'm talking to Aunt Beth.

ME: I meant--

JULIE: James, do not eat the centerpiece.

ME: --ask you earlier, but it--

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD FOUR SEATS DOWN THE TABLE: wwwwwwaaaaaaahhhhHHHHH....

JULIE: Oh, okay.

ME:... matron of honor?

JULIE: I'm sorry, what?

JIM: No!

ME: The--

JULIE: Sure.

But you know what else Carah told me during that conversation? She said, "When I started down the aisle and saw Matt at the other end of it, I knew he was the one, and everything was okay." Okay. It's a Lutheran's ring, but he's the right Lutheran, who is fine with marrying a West Side Catholic who twirls her hair, and the unidentified children can cry all they want. They might not have been in the original plan, but imagine how empty those pews would be without them. And then the right chiffon doesn't make one bit of difference.

so hard to let go of the garter toss at: mb@blondechampagne.com

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Decor

Many thanks to the lovely 'n' thoughtful Anne The Reader, who so kindly tapped the Amazon Honor System banner for a much-appreciated engagement gift. These FAQs are for you, Anne! It's the Anne The Reader Memorial Wedding FAQ, everybody!

Q. Where are you registered?

A. With Halliburton. There, or Target.

We have forks. What we need is cash. Small bills, please. Unmarked. P.S. This has nothing to do with Halliburton.

Q. Where's the honeymoon?

A. We had our hearts set on Australia, and then we started looking at plane tickets, and the plane tickets alone equal our combined incomes over the next fifteen billion years. So we're working on a few days Colorado.

If you happen to be connected with Colorado, and have the ability to move it over to our side of the country so as to save on airfare, please let us know.

Q. What will the decorations be like?

A. It's difficult to top the quiet elegance of my bridesmaids' shoes, but I think eight or ten of these, tastefully arrayed, just might graze that impossibly high bar:

Then, of course, there's this:

The truly awesome thing about this is, although it doesn't have the classy lights like the arch does, the A/C plug and inflate fan are included. Rock! It's what every bride dreams of: "Everybody get next to the inflatable arch for the pictures while I plug in the cake."

in search of an inflatable crucifix for the altar at: mb@blondechampage.com

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Further FAQs

Q. What is your married name going to be?

A. Mary Beth Tricia Ellis The Pilot Sheniqua Sits Pale Tha First

Q. Where is the wedding?

A. As a marine green turtle returns to its place of birth to mate, so too do I migrate from my feeding ground to my homeland. Cincinnati wedding. Skyline and guilt for everybody!

Q. Are you going to be one of those insufferable women who is under the impression that there is nothing more fascinating or important than her wedding plans?

A. Let me tell you about my place card holders!

Q. Should we go to the mall?

A. Today.

any further questions at: mb@blondechampagne.com

Monday, November 27, 2006

Proposal FAQ

Q. Are you really engaged?

A. I have a ring and a large amount of tulle in my living room and a recent fight with my mother. I appear to be engaged.

Q. Can I come to the wedding?

A. Invitations are available in exchange for large cash donations to the MB and JTP Attempt to Plan a Wedding On the Combined Budget of a Freelance Writer and a Very, Very Newborn Air Traffic Controller Whose Student Loan Debt Makes the Baby Jesus Cry Fund.

Q. Is that a sapphire?

A. It is indeed.

Q. Why a sapphire?

A. See above. Also, sapphires are the color of Mountain Blast Powerade, so you know they have to be quality. Diamonds are only the color of Crystal Lite Lemonade, which is far less awesome.

Q. When's the wedding?

A. July 14, 2007.

Q. July 14? Isn't that--

A. YES. Okay? I'm getting married on Bastille Day. I'm a great big Frenchy-French lover and we're all going to sit around and get married and eat crepes and hate America.

Q. I'm so surprised! This is such a surprise! Weren't you surprised?

A. I hereby direct you to the last comment of this post, in which the sharp-eyed, picture-expanding, slightly creepy Anonymous caught sight of my birthday present, which was a This Space Reserved For an Engagement Ring ring. I was hoping to slip this past everyone, assuming that the sight of the horrid Hair of the 80's would either distract you or kill you.

As with everything else, including parallel parking, I have gone about my own wedding completely bass-ackwards. Because I am a romantic, Josh was under very strict orders to not come at me with an engagement ring unless there was a health insurance policy behind it. We didn't know if this was a fer-sure thing until he passed his initial training courses in Oklahoma City.

But for us to marry this summer, we had to secure the date early on. So I've known for three months I was going to get married, and I had to shove the mules overboard to pay for wedding stuff, and I couldn't tell anybody until it was official. I couldn't write about it. I couldn't talk about it. I couldn't b*&^%$ about it. I have gone through all the preliminary planning without the ability to type one word about how weird and exciting and upsetting and amazing it is.

For example, while securing the bridesmaids shoes, I found these

and couldn't tell you about how I got a great bulk price in all the sizes I needed! Don't worry; they don't light up all the time-- that would be tacky. They only flash when heel-to-floor contact is made.

I'm so glad you know now.

Q. How did Josh propose?

A. Perfectly.

Q. But details make us happy!

A. Josh told me the day before Thanksgiving that he wanted a picture of me against the Cincinnati skyline, and it had to be taken THAT DAY, RIGHT NOW, BEFORE DINNER, and NO we couldn't ask Julie and Britton and the boys to come with us. So we drove off on this perfectly normal everyday mission during which I did totally not suspect a thing to Eden Park, where I totally did not suspect a thing further as he left the camera in the car.

Q. Did he get down on one knee?

A. After I reminded him.

Q. Do you have a dress?

A. It will go a little something like this. I'm having a discontinued, hem-dusty, 90% off blue and silver strapless dress modified by a seamstress to look like the flowing Tolkien drunken haze you see here.

Q. Who is the wedding party?

A. Julie The NephewsMama, starring as matron of honor. Carah The BFFE, flying in from Scotland. Esther The Pending Sister-In-Law, flying in from Africa. Most. Intercontinental. Wedding. Ever.

Josh has asked his twin, Jeremiah, and his younger brother, Daniel, to be groomsmen. There is also a rumored best man, "Jason," but I have never met him or talked to him or seen pictures of him. Clearly he doesn't exist. I suspect Josh is making him up so he has someone to blame potential wedding lateness upon.

His Majesty Jim The Small Child Nephew will attend as ring bearer. It will be the first wedding ever in which the party consists of the bride, the groom, their parents, six attendants, a ring bearer, and a stuffed kitty.

Q. Does this mean Josh has secured the approval of The King?

A. They brokered a preliminary agreement in an official summit over smiley face potato wedges, in which Josh obtained Jim's aunt for five goats, eight ounces of Hi-C, and a cookie to be named later.

thank you all so very much for the good wishes, which will be printed out for the engagement journal (of course there is an engagement journal): mb@blondechampagne.com

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