Photographer

After some seemingly unnecessary stress over photographers, we've decided on someone!

Her name is Kate DeWinter, and I think her photos are fabulous! She's been great to work with so far, and although the distance has prevented us from meeting her in person, I think we'll get on great together - our emails have gotten very friendly, while maintaining a really nice professional touch.

She emailed yesterday offering 40% off for the first five customers to book; as we were already seriously considering her to photograph our wedding, the cost savings sealed the deal for us, and we were actually able to upgrade to a higher package, for less money!

I love saving money, so I was pretty excited about that. J wanted to stick with the middle package and save even more money, but the higher one includes so much more, and after the prints and such that we would end up buying full price (but instead are getting included and thus discounted), it's definitely worth it to go with the higher one.

Plus, even the higher package comes in well under budget after the discount has been applied!

Settling this made my day - we had a verbal agreement with another photographer, but she never sent us the physical contract and stopped responding to our emails. I was a little heartbroken and a lot frustrated, because it felt like a pretty major setback in planning, and happened just before I left the country again. Adds to the stress level, you know?

Once we get this contract officially signed and the deposit put down, it'll be one more HUGE thing off my shoulders. I'm so ready for this wedding to be planned already!

Engaged - full steam ahead!

We're engaged. Yay!!!

See, this is why I'm not a real blogger. I forgot I even had a blog about wedding crap, and never even told our proposal story here. And now, I'm not going to. Ever. Oh well.

Planning is going well though. We've got the chapel and the conference center booked, photographer on the line, 2 of out 3 bridesmaids asked and confirmed, rest of the party picked (gotta get on asking them...), plans for the cake and flowers that don't involve a baker or florist; J is in charge of finding and booking a dj in the next 4 weeks, and he's working on that. My cousin-BM offered to help design our invitations (YAY!), and I started our website today. My dress is in the planning stages with a seamstress through Etsy and mom found a friend to do minor alterations in GR. I think I found the shoes I want today, and feel confident about DIYing my veil. I've all but chosen colors and have ideas for centerpieces. I feel really good about where we're at!

Finally, a good wedding day.

Dress Shopping - My reflections

My mom and I spent 6 1/2 hours at 3 dress shops - David's (of course), a little place that's going out of business (where my mom tried on dresses 30 years ago! Not where she bought though), and at a shop that had high reviews and carried Maggie Sottero, Mori Lee, Allure, Alfred Angelo and a few other designers I've heard praised to high heaven on the WB boards.

It was a long day. I tried on more than 10 dresses at David's, about 15 at the little place going out of business (none fit right, which is disappointing, since most of them were really cheap, deeply discounted; plus I tried on at least 10 bridesmaids gowns, since they were on sale for $10!!! but none fit right, sadly), and more than 50 at the other shop. I tried on anything. Everything. If the girl brought it, I tried it. My one real criteria? No beads, no sparkle. I'm into shiny stuff, like diamonds, but not on my dress. I want my wedding to be about ME, not my dress. I want eyes on ME, not my dress. Well, a little on my dress.

David's was definitely an eye opening experience. I was in fitting room #3, random-girl-named-Chelsea was in fitting room #2. Everything Chelsea tried on looked identical to me. Pick ups in the skirt. Sparkly beading on the bodice. Strapless. Ruching. I had no idea so many dresses could look exactly the same but not be the same dress! She probably thought the same thing about my constant stream of v-necks and straight skirts. :)

Chelsea had her mom, and someone older, maybe Grandma or an aunt, and her bff or sister there. They ooh'd and aah'd. They clapped. They cried.

My mom? She sat and looked through the Men's Warehouse catalog, once she was finished with the David's catalog. She got up when I came out and took the obligatory pictures when I asked, but that was about it. She offered no opinions. Neither of us cried.

Monica, our sales girl, brought back an armful of 'matching' veils for Chelsea, who tried them all on with several gowns, first with her hair down, then with her hair up, then under the mess knot she'd tied. She thought the floor length was just a little 'too much', but loved how the fingertip veils looked.

Monica brought me a veil, I put it on and laughed at the mirror. I'm so not a veil girl. I tried on a birdcage later, at the last shop, when no one was looking. It looked okay; I'll probably go that route. Simple. Small. Understated.

A year ago, I didn't know the names for different kinds of veils. Weddingbee has taught me so much...

I need to pick a dress. I don't think I'll be one to cry, but that won't make my dress any less mine when all is said and done. When I got home and looked through the photos, one dress that I had cast off almost as quickly as I'd put it on caught my eye. The more I look at it, the more I like it. I'll have to go back and try it on, maybe in the proper size (some where a size too small) this time. Maybe if I go with a friend who's excited about weddings, I'll be able to get excited too, and it'll feel less like an overpriced white snow suit, and more like a gown is supposed to feel.

I don't know. I'm just not sure I'm the bridal type.

The Chapel

It means a lot to J that we get married in the chapel on his alma mater's campus. I'm cool with that, I don't have any particular attachments to any church (since getting married at my church out in California just isn't an option).

So I called today. From October - December, they have 3 weekends available. And not the ones I was expecting. October 1/2 (they only allow one wedding per weekend, and on Friday or Saturday), 15/16 and 29/30.

Well I can tell you right off, I'm not interested in that last option, for 2 reasons: 1) I'm not the "Halloween" type of bride, and 2) my crazy ex is getting married on the 31st. I know, I know, I shouldn't even know that. Facebook is a b!tch sometimes. Either way, no thanks!

So I guess we'll get married in October? Hope the restaurant is available one of those weekends...

OR, J finally came around (you know, AFTER I researched my tush off from around the world to find stellar reception venue options) and has said, as of this past weekend, that he thinks a destination wedding would be nice. You know what finally changed his mind? It sure as heck wasn't my eloquent soliloquizing about the beauty of getting married on a white sand beach, or how much money we'd save on having everyone we know come into town. Nope, it was the couple in front of us in line at the supermarket. They saw me perusing Brides magazine, asked if we were planning a wedding, and said that they're DW in Mexico is coming up soon.

And like that, he was suddenly on board with this idea.

WHAT!?

*sigh* Oh well. It's a good back up option, should we need it, I guess. For now, I'm pretty sure we're going to pursue the more traditional route (I think my parents would have a heart attack if I suddenly sprung a DW on them ... they were sosososososo happy that we decided to stay in town for the wedding), but I'm trying to stay open to options.

At some point, I need to close myself to options. But that time isn't yet. I just really hope I'm still enthusiastic about this wedding by the time it actually gets here. Maybe sooner is better...

ps - October 1st. That was our 'original' date. The first one we ever talked about. Evers. Fate? Maybe. Hehe...

Hard going

I had been told, by pretty much everybody (well, mostly by ejs, over and over) that this time together wouldn't be all rosy and fun, that it would be hard too. And I knew that the culture shock would be hard. So why do I feel so unprepared now that it IS hard and that I'm really struggling?

I'm sure some of it is hormonal, because, really, bursting into tears in the supermarket aisle when J asks what flavor of yoghurt I want, is a little extreme. Even for me.

A lot if it is the culture though. I'm totally overwhelmed. I know I'm comfortable in China, but too often that means I'm not comfortable here in the States anymore. Groceries in China means visiting half a dozen markets, each specialising in something different - vegetables at one, fruit at another, the butcher next door. Everything comes fresh and cheap, and all the basic necessities are available on my walk home from school. Meals don't need to be planned ahead, and grocery lists can be made one day at a time. Things here aren't like that. Grocery shopping here means choices, because anything you want to buy has an entire aisle dedicated to it in the supermarket, a huge, overwhelming building where the English screams off all the boxes and cans and bottles and bags that I haven't seen in 18 months, and the smells change from aisle to aisle, and only the produce seems to be odorless - everything seems so backwards, and so unlike I remember.

Poor J has to endure it as I stand there and cry, completely incapacitated and unable to make simple decisions, white or wheat bread? But in my life, bread has become bread, and the choice is usually between sweet Chinese bread or darker, less dense western bread. White or wheat is a question of my childhood, one I'd nearly forgotten existed.

It's hard to put into words why I am so upset. Overwhelmed doesn't begin to describe the intensity and hugeness of this emotional weight pressing on my chest. It is something akin to terror, something like grief, something of annoyance, but bigger and more capable of eating alive my energy and my joy.

I need to tell him, because I'm afraid he thinks it is him I am upset with, or that he is simply annoyed with me for being so incredibly broken right now, but he has a right to hear it from me, straight forward and honest, and anyway, I need him to get through it.