Wedding Tactics

I’m getting married in 52 days.

And, yes, I’m totally excited and YES! totally stressed.

What about? You ask.

Everything. I’m worried about leaving my pets with a pet-sitter for two and a half weeks. I can’t decide between having my mail held and having my pet-sitter/house-sitter pick up my mail. I am concerned that I will forget to bring my garter (which is SO cool by the way, of course, pictures AFTER the wedding) with me to Florida. Just this past weekend someone started talking about the rain/inclimate weather alternatives … and after I stopped hyperventilating and sweating I calmly retorted, “Fine. I agree. Have a plan. Don’t tell me what it is or anything about it. If you have to move things because of rain, that’s fine. I don’t want to know until the day of the wedding, because then I won’t care, I’ll just want to be married.”

The being calm? Felt great.
The not caring? Even more great.

It’s a real toss up between freaking-out and not caring but I figure it will all work out in the end.

After the flowers have been chosen and the food options tasted, the dress altered and the tuxedo rentals secured, the plane tickets purchased and the hotel blocks reserved, the ketubah waiting for me in Sarasota and the kippots ordered there is a definite release of stress as you cross these items off of your MUST-DO list. However, you might remember that you still haven’t had a second meeting with the Rabbi, and you still need to arrange for your parents flights to the wedding destination and you want to lose five more pounds and avoid a stress-related break-out, you start to feel that rapid-heartbeat Oh-Shit feeling returning to your every waking step.

Getting married is a huge, life-changing event. Even if you have lived with your partner, there are new levels of shared property and space. At this point, I am really excited. I do waiver between being stressed and being blasé about the details. I think that is normal.

Slowly you become closer to your partner. Slowly the families accept your wedding choices. As the entire event starts to come together, you might even find yourself sitting back and smiling. At least until a distant relative who calls you and wants to know if they can bring their children and babies to the wedding and if the food is kosher and the fish wild-caught.

See? I can still laugh and drive at the same time. In fact, I was on the way to my hair and make-up trial when this was taken. And, I had just saved $500 on my florals. Total score!

wedding stress, bride, ketubah, kippot, pet-sitter, wedding, wedding tactics

STACY CLASPS HANDS TO CHEEKS, ALL HOME-ALONE-ISH, AND SCREAMS SLACKJAWWED AND THEN PASSES OUT INTO NEARBY CHAIR

If you are getting married in the next three months, chances are you have had similar moments. If you haven’t, well, don’t tell me, please, and also, you are letting someone else do way too much for your wedding. You should be squirming and stressing and having a great time.

On Friday I sort of freaked out and came home early from work, took a nap and made a dinner of fish sticks. Blech! I have no idea what happened to broiled salmon and salad.

I slept off my stress and went to bed until 10:30 Saturday morning. I spent part of Saturday fighting with Marc over, surprise! money! the wedding! cleaning and chores he had not done. I felt better after I worked out for an hour this morning.

In the midst of our arguments I told Marc that we had a lot of decisions to make and choices to choose. He shot down my first dance song suggestion of “Can’t help falling in love with you” by Elvis Presley. I secretly think he is against the song because he is weirded out by Elvis. Whatever. So I told him to come up with FIVE songs by Sunday night and we’d talk.

Fast Forward to NOW (Sunday night, 10:30pm):

ME: Did you come up with any first dance songs?

MARC: SHAKES HEAD. No, I didn’t.

ME: LIVE BLOGS THE SAGA AND USES CAPS LOCKS FOR EMPHASIS OF HOW MEN? AND WEDDINGS? DO NOT MIX.

Days 61 - 57
1. Decide on first-dance song
2. Meet with Florist and make final choices for bouquet, ceremony and centerpieces
3. Have first and major dress fitting, (hopefully lose 5 pounds by then too, just because that would be super cool)
4. Have my hair and make-up trial
5. Make some final budget calculations
6. Breathe
7. Stay calm and collected and continue to wish the BIG DAY here quickly and inexpensively

And don’t let the cat eat your centerpiece.

migraine, wedding, first dance song, elvis, wedding budget, florida

Last night I was sitting at Marc’s desk in the office downstairs using his newly purchased and what still remains to be a slight mystery to me, Mac computer.

As I was ripping CDs and adding songs to my iPod I saw a binder of CDs on the floor. I don’t keep my CDs organized very well. I never have. I take out three to take to work and then I never put them back in the cases so the original cases sit empty until they are stepped on or thrown away. I have small CD envelopes that hold twelve discs and large ones that hold over one hundred. I never seem to get my CDs alphabetized or organized so they end up sitting in stacks organized by, “listened to recently” and “dear GOD why did I ever buy this“.

I found a CD folder on the floor and started looking for something to add to my workout mix. I realized with this horrified and disgusted look that my CDs and Marc’s CDs are all blended together. I do not know how this happened. My CD filing system is perfect and I know where everything is located.

It was a very surreal moment and I felt like I was actually looking at myself and I realized that I was totally okay with our CDs being mixed up because we are going to be together forever and I will never have to separate my CDs from his. Our CDs are meshed and intertwined and so are our lives.

I was most surprised at how comfortable it actually felt.