Say yes to the dress.

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Detail of a Vera Wang wedding dress.

Detail of a Vera Wang wedding dress. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m somewhat at loose ends, now. I picked a wedding dress over the weekend, and it seems like I don’t have anything to do for a while, wedding planning wise. Now it’s just save, save, save, since I have to pay for the dress, and put down another deposit on the venue, and book all the vendors…but that’s for later. The wedding is still nearly a year away, so I have a little time to catch my breath before the next big thing.

(The picture isn’t of my dress, by the way. My fiance doesn’t want to even hear me talk about it, much less see it on the blog! I could never afford a Vera Wang dress anyway.)
I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t have that magical moment when I knew I had on THE dress. Honestly, I don’t really like trying on clothes (though I don’t mind buying them. I certainly have enough) and I don’t think I’ve ever fallen in love with a pair of shoes, much less a dress. I think I’d be pretty happy with whatever I found, and I’m lucky to have somewhat of a nice shape so most things look okay on me. I tried a few, figured out pretty quickly what looked good and what didn’t, and even gave my mom’s picks a chance. I’m glad I did, because it turned out that the last dress I tried was her choice, and  that was the winner. It took a while and listing the pros and cons of other ones I liked, and a discussion about price and alterations. This dress was on clearance, so the store couldn’t order a different size. Luckily the dress fit, but with a few additions, it could turn into the perfect dress, AND save me some money since I don’t have to search for one with every single specification. It’s not super fancy, it’s not designer, but it looks good on me and turned out to be even less expensive than we thought. SCORE. The alterations won’t add too much to the price, and I’ll end up with a dress I like when I walk down the aisle. I might even look a little like a princess.
That teary-eyed moment may not have happened, but thinking about the dress kept me up last night. I usually wake up during the night, and I couldn’t keep myself from thinking about wedding things. Every time I’d get frustrated with that, I’d tell myself to quit and just get back to sleep, but I suck at Zen. I’m excited about the wedding, of course, but I’d rather have my sleep, thankyouverymuch. I hope now that I have some time when I don’t have to think about weddings I’ll relax (she says, with NaNoWriMo looming). I’m really glad I got the dress out of the way now. I can concentrate on NaNo and enjoy myself for a while, without spending money. Next up, in a few months: creativity with pictures, I think.
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Yes, I am just having dinner at 10:30 pm. What of it? Meatball soup is worth waiting for.

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Yes, I am just having dinner at 10:30 pm. What of it? Meatball soup is worth waiting for.

Planning

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I haven’t blogged all that much lately, and hopefully that will change, since I have to get myself writing more. It’s been a month and change since Mike asked me marry him (and I said yes, of course!) so sharing wedding plans with you all seems like a good way to get back into it. This time next year I’ll probably be freaking out because we’ll be just days away from our wedding!

(Before I do that, let me tout our NaNoWriMo region’s massive planning spree and our relationship with 7 library branches around town! And we got all this figured out in August!)
Being the somewhat obsessive person that I am, I have a bunch of wedding magazines and a couple of wedding books (aside: a few of these are a decade old, and the information is still pertinent, if some of the styles are terribly out of fashion and the prices are surely too low) and everything says the first step is to find a venue. The venue determines more than you think: how many people you can invite (though you have to have an idea of how many people you want to invite to pick a venue), what kind of dress to get, what sort of decorations work with the venue, how much extra you’ll have to do (does the venue cater? Will you have to decorate the place yourself?), how far will people have to go to get from ceremony to reception, where your wedding photos will be taken, &c. It also seems to determine the overall budget. You can go low and rent a location only, and DIY that thing to high heaven. Or you can blow the biggest wad you’ve ever seen with a massive ballroom and a steak and lobster course.
It happened, though. We picked a place, and I can’t say I wasn’t stressed before and after we did. Writing that check for a deposit on our chosen date made me sick–it’s so much money. Everyone says weddings will cost more than you think. That’s scary when you’re the ones picking up the tab. As much as my parents love me, there’s no way my dad’s going to hand someone a huge check at the end of the day. That’s fine–I don’t mind, and I always sort of figured that I’d have a DIY wedding. But this is one of those moments when I wish I had a trust fund.
We’re going to be very poor for a while. Planning a wedding is exciting, but not when you have to pay for it. But that’s okay. We have a budget, we know what we can spend, and we’ll try our hardest to make it a great party. I just want to have fun. And if that means we spend the whole time in half-lit hotel lighting, that’ll be okay. We’ll save, save, save, and hopefully not go insane between now and next October.
If you’ve got any wedding related advice or vendors you love, please leave a comment!
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Happy, happy day

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Stairs at the Moonrise Hotel

Hello from the Moonrise Hotel! You should go. It’s awesome. Expensive, but super fun. Mike got us a room for my birthday…and another little thing. But before I tell you about that…
I turn 32 today. Happy birthday to me! Today is the first day of my week-long vacation. The past weekend we played softball in the rain and won, then played some accountants and lost. Ironic how it didn’t rain all season then dumped a bunch of precipitation on us in one weekend. Good thing we’ve got this hotel room to enjoy…
Especially since this happened.

I said yes

Jen’s a happy birthday girl.

Waiting for the rain

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Was that thunder I hear? Or just

A car rolling past, pulling
Into the driveway to make
A U-turn

So much noise that means nothing
Just humidity and heat
The plants wither on the porch
As we wish for a storm

Fourteen weeks without a rainout
In softball. It was a joke that you could tell
The weather the day of a game–it always
Rained on Thursdays.

I wish we could make that joke this year.

Halloween costumes!

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Halloween costumes!

Originally shared by ThinkGeek

Be prepared, test subjects! Sign up now for updates on the limited edition Chell jumpsuit http://j.mp/NgZA2i & Long fall socks http://j.mp/NeYyl7 & Portal Gun stands http://j.mp/Nmnq99 coming in October! Oh, and by the way, Atlas’s gun will be here in August: http://j.mp/NmnqpC

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It makes me sad to see political attack ads that say the candidate fought against “Obamacare.” Basically that candidate is saying they fought against my mother and father and anyone else with a pre-existing condition who is trying to figure out how to pay for the next medical bill.

This batch of glass tubes has ripples and ridges so it looks like I’m viewing samples through a curtain of water.

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This batch of glass tubes has ripples and ridges so it looks like I’m viewing samples through a curtain of water. #lifeinthelab