Wedding updates: invites and the shoe blues

1. I got the invites out! Phew! And I've actually received a few of my neat-o tear-off RSVP postcards already.

Word of caution, ladies and gents: My invitations are of a fold-up and seal style. When I took them to my local post office, the counter employee told me that, if I didn't Scotch-tape up one side of the invite, they would, at best, get mauled in the machine and worse, they might not make it to their destination at all. Take this into consideration when choosing your invites.

You may be wondering why I didn't just have them hand-cancelled. I did. But today's postal process involves more than one machine, so even after the very nice lady hand-cancelled my invites, they still had to go through a machine that can read the handwritten addresses and another that sorts the items.I'm still glad I chose the fold-n-seal invites, because it was less paper and thus less waste, and a postcard stamp (for the RSVPs) is still cheaper than a regular one. Although there weren't any love-themed postcard stamps, so I chose these lovely tropical fruit ones instead:

Very spring-y!

2. I have been overestimating the length of my dress - all this time, I've been shopping for heels, and I finally realized, while trying on some hooker-height Jessica Simpson carribbean blue heels, the dress is too short for any heel.That's right - I will have to wear flat shoes. Flat shoes with a dress! Something I've never done before.

I tell you, I wasn't happy. At all. I know, no one else can see, much less care, about my shoes. That's not the point. The point is that I wanted to wear heels. Me. Me me me me me me me.

I finally get selfish about something for "my" day, and I can't even do that. That's the point.

I'm getting over it. However, I need some inspiration on what kind of flat to wear. It has to be light, somewhat casual, but I'm afraid a flat sandal will be too casual. Arrggh!

This is not a Darryl Worley song.

I miss my friends.

This is not a new topic for my blog, so feel free to move on if you've heard it all before.

I'm feeling a little left out of the big deal of She's Getting Married. I have come to the realization that there are some things that I'll miss out on by going the solitary, online route, like trying on dresses with my friends.

I was watching the TLC show about a New York bridal salon, "Say Yes to the Dress" (we can go into the shame of that later), and maybe it was because I'd had a couple glasses of wine and it was, oh, 1 a.m. on a weeknight, but a particular scene got me a little blurry-eyed.

A bride pulls this (admittedly gorgeous, albeit stupidly overpriced) wedding dress over her head and stands on the little platform to see herself in the mirror, and suddenly the camera cuts to her mom, and then to her bridesmaids. The look on their faces said it all. "Wow. This is the dress." And everybody started laughing and smiling and hugging. Very touching.

I didn't get to have that!

And while, yes, I realize that in the long run, it's much better to have ordered my dress online, paying a pittance, a fraction of the cost of your run-of-the-mill David's Bridal thing than to blow a wad of cash on something I'll wear once so that I could experience that "moment," right now I don't care. I want that experience! I want someone besides me to get excited about this wedding.

Don't get me wrong. Kyle wants to get married. He wants a wedding. He's had opinions on things, like food and music and hiring a friend to DJ and whatnot. But it doesn't feel like anyone else is really into it.

But should they be?

Am I letting the artifice of the media version of weddings cloud my emotions? After all, it's me that's getting married, not my friends. Of course they're not being kept awake at night, thinking, "My God, what will Jen and Kyle do for a first dance?!" That would be silly.

Yes, I know why it has come to this. I have no bridal party. Showers and bridesmaid dress fittings are the stuff of which wedding buzz is made. How can they be interested in that which they are not involved? And Kyle and I made that choice ourselves; it's not as if people were begging me to not drag them into something that required random dress purchases.

If I had bridesmaids, by definition they'd have to be interested - people would be deciding who's throwing the shower, everyone would worry about their dresses (Will it suck? Will it be obscenely expensive? Will it make my butt look gargantuan?) and thus, they'd HAVE to talk to me, keep up with what's going on.

But I didn't want to burden anyone. My friends live in other towns and are very busy people (hell, most of them have children, do you know the time good parenting entails? I can only imagine). These people don't have time for standing around looking at each other in pastel-colored nightmares, deciding which one is boring enough to not make any particular person look horrible.

Not being a bridesmaid isn't the only reason why I don't see my friends as much as I'd like to, of course. We're all busy women, with jobs and/or kids and new homes or new relationships. And when you're on different tracks, it's hard to run into each other. Many of my friends have been married for several years, and now they're parents - that's a completely different social life than someone who's just starting a relationship, or someone like me, still trying to figure out just what my routine is, as a wife-to-be, new homeowner and employee. Some of us are going to Disney World, or are camping with our kids. Some of us are still going out on dates, or have the free time to fritter away on Christmas tree placement (against the wall? which one?). We're not exactly going to run into each other like that.

Where am I going with this? Nowhere, really. There is nowhere to go.

I think, perhaps some of this is really about growing up. This is not the wedding of someone right out of college. I'm trying to plan a big-ass party of a lifetime, and I'm squeezing it in between buying new tires and finally getting around to registering for homestead exemption - and my friends are too. So I guess it comes down to this: I just can't have that TV show wedding experience; I don't live a TV show life.

Not too cool

I am, by nature, a timid person.

At first glance you wouldn't think so. I talk - a lot. Sometimes loudly. And I got my blog title the hard way - I earrrrrned it.

(John Housman just rolled over in his grave.)

And I've accomplished things of which I'm very proud. I worked my way through college. I bought my first home as a single woman on a public salary.

But I'm afraid of so many things.

I'm afraid to go into my own attic alone. I'm afraid to jump into water from even the slightest bit of height. I hear every noise in the house at night, and sometimes they keep me up.

But it's my fear of change that's the most frustrating - my fear of doing something wrong, different, embarrassing, "not cool."

I rely on the people around me for acceptance.

There is a certain style of dress that I've always loved: a printed, empire-waisted hippie-type cotton number. And I would try them on and someone would always say, "No - that's not flattering on you" or just "Really?" with an arched eyebrow.

And I would always put it away. Even if I loved the swishy-ness, the wild floral, the silliness of it. And even when I thought it looked nice on - it felt nice on. I put it back on the rack.

I was afraid of looking different than I always look, of looking like I'm trying to be something that I'm not, of trying too hard. That arched eyebrow stayed with me, and I cringed at the idea of people thinking badly of me. Really, I'd rather not be thought of all than be thought of with disdain.

I wish it was only a dress. But it's not. There are classes that I've signed up for and never attended, races I registered for and never ran. If it was something different, something people like me don't do, I was afraid to do it. And more often than not, I didn't.

I think about this now with my wedding. I've looked at so many pictures, web sites, magazines, books. And I've seen some amazing, fantastic stuff. Check out these shoes:

I'd love to show you the whole bridal outfit for context, but that's a little invasive. But I love these shoes - they're like ruby slippers!

And isn't this one of those very few moments in life where the event is supposed to be an expression of you and your spouse-to-be? Where you get to really do what you want to do?

Would I ever wear those shoes? No. Why? Because nobody else I know wears those shoes. And I know, for a fact, that certain people in my life would roll their eyes. "Please. Who's she trying to be?"

I don't know. Maybe this post is my way of chafing at the bit. Stamping my feet and saying, "I'm going to wear what I want wear, damn it! I'm going to go to that concert - if I have to go by myself. I'm going to that 'flaky' seminar on meditation, f*ck you." Maybe not.

Maybe I could just start with the shoes.

Too Hot to Blog

The AC is broken in my office, and it's 82 degrees - in the office.

Me and Emily are dying, while the rest of our coworkers are trying to make the best of it (easy to say when you've got a fan, adorable-coworker-who-shall-remain-nameless!).

I don't mind heat. Hell, I grew up in Florida with no air conditioning. I love the beach. I like working up a good sweat. But sweating at your desk while you're supposed to be thinking - that's not a good sweat. Usually when you're sweating, you're enjoying yourself, be it exercise, outdoor activities, lounging about in a bathing suit, engaging in, you know, a loving moment. Looking up information on shallots as a plant for your fall garden? Not so much.

Add the hassle of evil, sneaky Best Buy credit card minions and a bed that won't be showing up for another month, and you've got misery. Seriously - imagine the hell of trying to find a human to speak with on the phone, and then that person's first language is obviously not English and their whole job description is "Whatever you do, don't let them drop the 'credit protection plan.'" Now add stickiness and heat.

Yeah, it's that kind of day.