Quote of the Week

"Suddenly, quietly, you realize that - from this moment forth - you will no longer walk through this life alone. Like a new sun this awareness arises within you, freeing you from fear, opening your life. It is the beginning of love, and the end of all that came before."

--Robert Frost

On Weddings

Some horrifying figures: The national average cost of a wedding is $27,690. The average for a wedding in Tucson is $25,200. My spreadsheets for potential wedding venues right now (which are all pessimistic estimates) all come in around $7,000-$7,500. And I'm having angst about spending that much on a wedding when we could probably spend $2200 and have something we're perfectly happy with. To my mind, the wedding we're planning is going to be moderately big and formal. What's wrong with this picture?

Married? Have friends who are? Any idea what real people are paying for this dog and pony show? Comments welcome.

So. More stress about wedding venues. Our first choice venue had told us to call back in the middle of April. Turns out, they had a scheduling difficulty. Now they're saying call back 6/1. Since venues tend to book a year out, our backups will have begun filling by then. (I called a friend who works there in some entirely unrelated capacity and asked him to ask around to see what the change in date is about. This resulted in an understanding that we can actually call in the middle of May, and an explanation that their hands are tied by the city (it's a City of Tucson building, although it's managed by another entity), so they really can't wiggle around that.

In an effort to knock myself out of my rut about wedding venues, I went through for the heck of it and planned the wedding RogueHistorian and I would be doing if it was strictly on our own dime. Of course, it would mean shifting from a planned evening to a 10AM timeslot (both are in hopes of avoiding the heat of the day). I'm not sure how viable that is.

And, since it came up for budget weddings, How do you suppose people feel about chairs at weddings? Some interesting options open up if it's 10AM and standing (with a few chairs for those who need them). Likewise, if it's morning-midday, a more casual reception begins to make sense. Which begs the question of whether tables are important. On the one hand, there's the whole dropping food in one's lap thing. On the other, we might be able to shanghai a friend's carport and yard and have a bunch of us bring our patio chairs over the day before. If that's an okay setup, we might have quite a pleasant time treating it as a party, where you might stand or sit around the edges in the shade during the heat of the day.

And then there's dancing. We'd planned to do without, because of the small reception venue adjacent to our desired ceremony venue. But when a friend mentioned a local Irish band that does a half-hour basic instruction on Irish country dances (some kind of set dancing I can't remember the name of), I started to think that would be so much more entertaining than a "cocktail hour" or the obligatory sitting and waiting while everybody goes through the reception line and any pictures that weren't taken beforehand happen. And I don't necessarily just mean if we go with an Irish band. RogueHistorian's talked about jazz or blues as well, and it might be worth checking to see it someplace in town that teaches swing dancing or something else appropriate would do 30-60 minutes of, "anybody who's interested, pop out onto the dance floor and we'll see what we can teach you."

This is when I realized I have no idea how much people expect or don't expect dancing at a reception, and whether there will be boredom or grumping over not having any. RH and I don't know how to dance. I would like to. He fears lack of coordination. In any case, if there is dancing, we'll be expected to do that first dance thing, and a few dancing lessons will be in order.

I asked RH about formal vs. informal (I've done this before), and his opinion and mine kind of seem to mesh: We like the theory of the formal wedding, but there's some serious sticker shock involved.

Even if we went with our original venue, but did 10AM, we'd end up with different expectations regarding the reception. We might be able to do that desert buffet we'd talked about, once, and then meet for a pay-it-yourself luncheon at some restaurant in the early afternoon.

I guess the other thing that brings this up is my poking at housing in Tucson after RH is done with his classes. He may end up getting some job on the other side of the country, but I figured I had to start someplace. His plan A (there's a plan B, C, and D, too) is to see if he can find some group interested enough in what he wants to do his thesis on to get a grant to do the research. If he could do that, we could probably realistically expect to be in Tucson for the next five years. Entry-level homes these days seem to be mainly condos and the occasional townhouse if you want air conditioning (as opposed to swamp cooling), and for something that's not a hole and has washer/dryer or hookups, we're looking at $100k-$130k. I crunched $130k with a $5000 downpayment in somebody's mortgage calculator and came up with a figure that's about as high as we want to go.

It makes you think about whether $5000 is enough, and where it's going to come from.

Never mind that the figure I've already got for doing a reasonably formal wedding and reception dinner is 1/3-1/4 of the national average. What I *don't* want is to be six months married and find that we're wishing we'd managed to horde a little more, rather than spend it on a celebration.

I'm so confused. I think because either thing would make me happy, but finding a median seems to be difficult. Suggestions? Comments? Do you like to dance? Hate it? Object to standing for a 20-30 minute ceremony?

Quote of the Week

"I've got a dream too, but it's about singing and dancing and making people happy. That's the kind of dream that gets better the more people you share it with, and I found a whole bunch of friends who have the same dream - it makes us kind of like a family."

--Kermit the Frong, in The Muppet Movie

On dresses

It's not really that I have so little to say. It's more that there's so much, I feel buried by it, so I've been dodging. Maybe I can break it down into small pieces and do it that way.

First of all, the poofy dress expedition went very well. (By the way, it turns out that I made life hard for RogueHistorian--he explained it to people that way and then had to dodge while telling several folks that I'm the one who coined the term. Including his mother). We looked at lots of different dresses, and I found myself torn between one that I really liked, and another in a very different style that everyone along said looked very good on me. I could acknowledge that, but I just couldn't warm up to it, somehow. I think because, despite having good elements, as a whole, it just wasn't the right dress.

So I did what any good computer geek would do. I went online and looked at hundreds of dresses. Literally. Until my eyes bugged out. I marked all the ones with the right elements, and then I opened them all in tabs (the first time this feature of Firefox has really proven handy for me) and flipped back and forth. And was amazed to discover that I'd found the perfect dress. And yes, I believe I'll be ordering it in the light gold.

Of course, that complicates my life. Why? I decided I should dress my bridesmaids in burgundy. I like rich, saturated colors, and there's actually a possibility one might wear a burgundy formal more than once. Alas, burgundy falls into a very broad category called "wine," which is sometimes broken down into claret, burgundy, and bordeaux. Claret is a very true, rich red. Burgundy is a red so dark it's almost brown, without ever turning purple. Bordeaux is a red that has just turned purple. I base these explanations upon having looked at color swatches from dozens of companies. The catch is, any given company's "burgundy" may be somewhere between a very light burgundy and a medium bordeaux. And by picking a light gold dress for myself, all of a sudden, I can't invoke any hint of purple in the bridesmaids' color. It begins to evoke easter eggs.

Additionally, my sister has pointed out, "satin shows every bump." She's got a point. And something matte is so much more re-wearable than something shiny. So I am now looking for a crepe or chiffon true-burgundy that will work on bridesmaids of three very different body types. Oh, and I have a self-imposed price limit, because I'm not into torturing my friends. So far, the lead contender for a dress is this cowl-necked number. But just yesterday, I found a new style I think would look wonderful on everyone. Catch is, it's so new, I can't even find a retail price on it, yet, let alone a discounter.

And while I was grousing, I found a line of separates with some new pieces, including a top I actually like, as opposed to just a "yeah, whatever" top. One of the things I thought would be nifty to do, since the venue we're aiming for is a kind of a Spanish-colonial-mission-style and the veil I want evokes the flavor of a mantilla, is to pick up a Spanish flavor with the bridesmaids' dresses. This could do that, with the right skirt. So lookee, I found a sedate, matching skirt I don't despise, a middle-of-the-road skirt with just enough flair to complement the top, and a skirt with flair which I really love, but which might get my friends arrested. I need to consult with my sister on whether we could discretely reduce the slit on that last. But I can just see Amy wearing her combat boots with it.

The whole point of separates, I'm told, is to let your bridesmaids have a great deal more freedom in what they wear on their very-different-bods. But, dammit, I'm picky! And, truly, there are some other tops I don't object to--I'm just not wild about them. But I'd still have to reserve veto power, because some of them are just odious.

When we were doing the poofy dress expedition, my sister described me as "regal," and then didn't-quite-backpedal trying to explain that that wasn't quite what she meant, but it evoked something in particular to the saleswomen in the bridal shops that steered them toward better dress selections. I thought of this again on Saturday night, when I saw all the little girls in the restroom at P.F. Chang's dressed up for prom, and pulling awkwardly at bits of their dresses and complaining about their shoes. No one teaches girls how to wear dresses anymore.

kenilyn is regal. When I think regal, she is what comes to mind. Her picture should be in the dictionary next to the word. What I have is just a little different. It's more that I tackle every small thing in my life a little bit like going to war.

Including dresses.

Because I needed a laugh . . .

--Go to Google.com

--Click on Maps.

--Click on get Directions.

--From New York, New York

--To Paris,France.

--And read line #23.

If it ain't one thing, it's another.

I think I found the bridal gown I want. I think I found a bridesmaids' dress that goes well with it, which matches the style of my wedding and which will actually look good on my three very different bridesmaids. So what happens? They don't make it in quite the color I want.

The important part, thank heavens, is going home married to roguehistorian. Everything else is just bells and whistles.