After a really good Friday (lots of little things that all either popped up in a good way or things that resolved themselves in a good way), I was looking forward to the weekend. Well, except for the one bad thing about Friday: Jared was sick. Thursday at lunch he was fine. By the time I got home, he was coughing and not sounding the best. By the time I went to bed, it was full on congestion in the lungs and misery for him. He ended up waking me up at 6am looking for a thermometer. Once we found it and he used it, it was over 101 degrees. :/ So he called in sick and stayed home while I went to work.

By the time I got home on Friday, he was still DOA on the couch, so I made sure he was okay, then off I went to upstairs to eat supper and pop a vitamin (hey, just in case!) Saturday started off better. He wasn’t quite as dead, and I ended up finally finishing the baby blanket for Bre. I did a little running around, hitting the yarn store for the first time in a while and grabbing myself some lunch (and Jared some OJ). Back home, I ended up dragging out the pair of black socks that I’ve been knitting on for forever and actually finished them off as a short-cuff pair of socks. I have enough yarn left over from them to make another pair of short-cuff socks, but I’ll do that later. And to top things off, I finished off the one fingerless mitt that’s been on the needles since Christmas.

Oh yeah, I’m a knitting goddess. /flex (ow)

Today, I actually wove ends in on all of the above projects, divided up some NON-BLACK yarn for yet another pair of socks (this time, I’m gonna try to get them to be higher than just above the ankles like all my other socks!), washed and dried the finished stuff, and have a batch of bagels rising in the kitchen. Jared’s upstairs killing stuff on his PC, and the cats are passed out in the living room.

Tonight, I have plans on making chicken & dumplings (and eating more vitamins), finishing the bagels (and prolly eating one fresh from the oven), and then working on the wedding invitations. Well, working on the invitations unless I get distracted by knitting. >.>

So last night I had a small meltdown. In the course of said meltdown, Pixie got stepped on, the kitchen was completely rummaged to death, missing item from the Kitchenaid grider attachment is still missing, Jared got growled at, Kika got snarled at, and a hood from a kitty litter box which had been no where near said box at the time might have been thrown down some stairs.

Yeah, it wasn’t pretty.

A bunch of stresses all caught up with me at once, with an end result of the above, and then me stomping upstairs to hide in the bedroom, not from anger, but terminal embarrassment from having said meltdown. Jared came up after a while to check on me, and ended up pulling me out of my funk in less than 60 seconds, just by being himself. Yeah, there’s a reason I’m marrying him.

But I found myself talking to Breana today, and experiencing one of those stressors all over again, which cued up /ravrage. No, she didn’t do anything. She was just listening and being a wonderful friend as I was going on about what had happened last night. It was left up to me to get worked up all on my own.

See, I love Offbeat Bride, The Practical Bride, Style Me Pretty and a bunch of other wedding blogs. They all have stunning, fun weddings, beautiful pictures, and some good insights on how to make your wedding personalized to really reflect you and your spouse-to-be. They even have advice on how to avoid wedding envy, deal with family and friends, and be realistic to what YOU want, not what everyone else wants.

When I first started looking at this wedding, the last thing I thought I’d have was stress. I mean, Jared and I aren’t exactly the “50 people in the wedding party” types, with all of it’s attendant stress. Just me, him, someone standing up with each of us, and boom, off to a friendly get-together where friends and family could meet up, laugh, and have a good time. Jared was all for a small wedding, and no organized dancing? Sounds great!. He’s not a “spotlight” person, and that was fine with him. Me? Same thing. I feel uncomfortable with the light pointed at me in a party situation. Instead, I’m happier making sure everyone else is having a good time.

But the stress popped up, from where I least expected it. One large hit pretty early on soured all the plans and hopes for a good week before I could start to shake it off. The end of January came, and I made a trip to Oxford to talk to vendors for the wedding, and had a great time. The lady making the cake is wonderful, the photographer is simply amazing, and the seamstress is perfect. The woman doing my hair and makeup is someone I’ve gone to for a while, and is wonderful as well. But then I got back, and things started to stress out again.

While I was looking at these wedding websites for ideas and advice, something started to happen. I started to, well, not second-guess our choices, cos I’m happy with those choices. I’m not sure what you’d call it. I’d read an article on how the average wedding has gone down from $21,000 to $18,000, and think “Yep, sign of the economy.” It had no relation to MY wedding. We’re doing it for $7k or less, with grateful assistance from my Mom, Dad and stepmother.

But what were the first comments to that article? “Wow! that’s ridiculous! I could never spend that much on our wedding!” “Omg, tell me about it! We’re spending $5k and that’s way too much still!” “You’re spending that much? Wow, that’s unreal. We’re getting friends and family to make most of ours and we’ve only spent $50!” “Well ours is free!”

/cue ravrage (bad words, ahoy!)

Okay, seriously? Fuck you all. This “I’m better than you cos we’re doing [insert gloating item here]” shit has got to friggen stop. I don’t care if you’re not seeing the gloating and smugness. You are coming off as gloating and smug. Your wedding is your wedding. Not mine, not the second person to the right of Detroit, not anyone else’s. How you do your thing is up to you. So if someone has a $50 wedding, if it’s what they want, fantastic. If someone else has a $50,000 wedding, if it’s what THEY want, great! When did it become a fucking competition to be weirder than everyone else, cooler than everyone else, hipper than everyone else, greener than everyone else, AND have the entire thing for LESS than everyone else? That’s great that YOU had soooo many cool and hip people come to your wedding that the photobooth that someone made for you guys was a fucking blast and the internet sees how great it was. And I’m amused that the “in” thing to have at weddings these days is a photobooth. Oh look, you’re so original and hip! Just like the other 400,000 people before you!

HEY INTERNET! YOU ARE NOT A BEAUTIFUL AND UNIQUE SNOWFLAKE! SO GET OVER IT!

/fume

Now then, since that’s out of my system, am I going to continue to look at wedding websites? Sure. I’ve found some cool stuff and had some great ideas from it. Case in point, our wedding rings. I’d have never thought titanium/tungsten if it wasn’t for some couples on Offbeat Bride. Awesome. And the sites as a whole have been great reassuring me that Jared and I -aren’t- weird for wanting something that’s not “traditional” in the strictest sense. Church wedding? So not us. JP? Ain’t nothing wrong with that. Backyard wedding? Hey cool, they had one too. Looks like people had fun at theirs. Awesome. Postcards instead of printed Save The Date cards? Woot! That’s great!

So pictures and a few articles will get looked at. Comments? Not so much. Is it wedding envy? Nope. I’m happy with what Jared and I are doing. It’s what’s right for us. And anyone that wants to sniff and say “Oh, you’re doing -that-?” can go taking a flying leap off a very tall cliff. So there.

I’ve started reading quite a few wedding blogs since this whole thing kicked into high gear. Offbeat Bride was one of the first, because, and I’ll admit it, I’d been reading it before I proposed to Jared. It’s a kickass site, no matter if you’re way off the traditional path, or like us, toeing the line between “normal” and “funky”. Jared keeps looking at me when I ask him for opinions, but it’s because I want this to be a wedding that reflects us both, not just me. The day is about US getting married, not about “ME ME ME OMG PRETTY PRINCESS!”

I’ve been watching a show when I’ve been at home during the day (those few times), and it’s a total guilty pleasure: Say Yes to the Dress. For those that don’t know, a bridal salon has brides come in looking for that perfect dress for the big day. The budgets for the dresses are usually more than the budget for our wedding, but hey, it’s their wedding not mine. So I get to watch the brides try on dress after dress and finally pick one that they love.

Today, though, I saw two repeats that made me have my jaw sit on the floor. Two brides were, well, I couldn’t believe them. One was assuming her budget was $10k and that her grandmother would buy the dress for her. Grandmother, on the other hand, was saying “I said I’d pay for the dress, but are you kidding me?” Guess who got her way? Yep, the princess. The other bride came with her fiance, and proceeded to go for the over the top dresses. Hey, if that’s you and your guy, go for it. But she could not seem to grasp something called a “budget”. In her mind, as long as she was happy, that was all that mattered and he should just pay for the dress already.

Contrast this with another bride on one of the shows today. She wanted simple understated elegance, and balked at a dress that was stunning on her, just because of the price tag. Her family was with her, and they all agreed she was a vision in it, and by god, they’d help her get that dress. She didn’t want to be a bother, and you could see she was overwhelmed and touched by the love of her family for her in wanting to make that day perfect for her and her husband to be.

I just couldn’t imagine looking at Jared and my family and saying “Okay, this is how it’s going to be, and it’s all about MEEEEEE!” Both of the ladies that made my jaw hit the floor were completely self absorbed. Anyone else’s feelings, including the men that were going to be their husbands, was completely and very distantly secondary to their wishes. I just can’t fathom being that shallow in all of this. Have I told my seamstress that I want to look and feel pretty? Yep, sure have. But I’ve also said I’m going to need something to calm me down before I go down the aisle, because I’m so thrilled to be marrying him. Honestly, at this point, I could wear jeans and a tee shirt and be thrilled to say “I do” to him. Because, in the long run, it’s about him and I getting married, and our friends and families celebrating that desire to become a family with us.

So if you hear a “pop” from my direction, I’ve prolly had my brain explode over someone else doing the “OMG it’s all about MEEEEEE!” song-and-dance. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine right after I go tell Jared how much I can’t wait to marry him for the 40th time, and have him pat me on the head, confused but happy.

So I did. A lovely little site called Style Me Pretty has a “create your inspiration board here” section, which I promptly signed up for and started combing through their pics. I could also add in pics I found and added a few things.  So here’s the board I came up with:

Oh yeah, I’m all about the blue. The grey didn’t get represented nearly as well, cos I found a serious lack of pretty pictures with grey. That will be rectified later on.

And now, time to compile numbers and make a rough budget estimate! Whee!

Yep, wedding rings ahoy. There were these sales, and well, we might as well get them NOW as opposed to paying more for them later. Although, with this economy, the sales just might get extended like some others have. in any case, it’s one more thing off the list of “Things To Get For The Wedding”.

So what did we get? Sure, we could have gone the traditional route and gotten (name your color/carat weight here) gold rings. Buuuut, that’s not us. I mean, sure I have my traditional streaks, but that’s not one of them. I’m also not so wild and crazy to do his-and-hers piercings. That’s fine for some, but not us (also, pain? Not a fan of that). We’re just mildly weird. Geeky. Nerds. (NERRRRRRRRRDDDS!) So we went looking around the internet, I showed him my thoughts, he showed me his, and this is what came out: I’m getting a titanium 4mm wide traditional-style band. Not unlike this one:

Simple, understated, and will go nicely with my engagement ring. Perfect! For the inscription, I wanted something more that just our names and the date. It wasn’t quite “us”, and I did some playing around with things, then finally settled on having the following engraved on the inside: Le uivelin, meleth nín. 7/17/10

What on earth is that? “I will always love you, my love. 7/17/10″ in Sindarin, one of the Elvish languages in Lord of the Rings. Yep, I went there. Mwhaha.

But, to be honest, I didn’t start it. Who did? Jared. How? Well, he went looking around the internet and found the ring he wanted. He showed it to me, and after I declared it brilliant and actually kinda perfect for him (yes, dear, you’re really a Sith Lord mhmm now go feed the cats please, Mr. Big Bad and Evil), he asked if I was REALLY okay with it.  I told him that honestly, if it made him happy, I was happy. And you should see the look of glee on his face when he sees this ring…

That’s right… HE went there. ::grin:: Let me introduce you to a black tungsten replica of The One Ring, also known as Jared’s wedding band. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?” “Sweetie, it’s actually perfect for you, and honestly, the only thing I care about is that you actually wear one. Now hang on a second, I’m trying to find translations of Sindarin for mine, since you’re going that route.”

No, the wedding isn’t going to be LoTR based. This might just be the only LoTR bit we do. But it’s us. We’re geeks, and proud of it. Hell, we’re planning a honeymoon at a sci-fi/fantasy convention, for crying out loud! So yeah, the rings are “us”, and I can’t wait to see them when they come in.

Now if I can only figure out how to sneak a tiny Prince from Katamari Damacy somewhere into everything… /cackle

And we now return you to your regularly scheduled insanity.

We’re making progress on the wedding front, but not too much is going to be done this week other than picking up the engagement ring from the jewelry store. Next week is when I head up to Oxford for various meetings. Included in that is going to be checking out the various hotels in town for both me and guests. I’d prefer that everyone not get killed with hotel bills. ><

Other than that, we finally have a wedding website up. Here ya go! Once the trip to Oxford is over at the end of the month, I’ll be able to fill out some more info on there for everyone.

And on that note, off I go to deal with the latest sinus headache. ::sigh::

In other news, I cast on a baby blanket for Breana, took it apart, cast it on again, knitted one row, pulled it apart, cast it on again, counted, pulled it apart, then cast on a 4th time. I think this one is going to stick. Sheesh. After I get done with that, I have another baby blanket, same pattern but a different color, to do for my friend Anne’s sister-in-law. At least this time, I know what I’m doing for the cast-ons!

Game-wise, I’m trying to get back into LoTRO, but my brain can’t handle it right now. I did get a Wii for Xmas, and bought myself a Wii Fit Plus, and have been making myself very very sore as a result. I think today is the first day that I’ve woken up with no back pain, but there were other things causing that, so we’ll see if it was the Wii or the other stuff soon.

Now to -finally- get to that book order and get some stuff done around the store!