“Elvis has left the building”

Well, not Elvis. But the wedding invites have departed to the United States Post Office. Time to check a rather large checkbox as “DONE!” Granted, I still have a few to get out, but 98% of them are out of my hands now. Jared’s already sighed at the pile and remarked that we are not having a small wedding.  I’ve just patted him on the head and said that we are, no matter what he thinks “small” is defined as. ::grin::

As far as what the invitations look like, at some point next week, I’ll post some pictures. I’m fairly pleased with how they turned out, after what seemed like 3 months of wrangling with designs and ideas.

In other “left the building” news, it’s not like we’ve been hiding the fact that we’re not really playing any MMOs lately, but it’s true, we aren’t. I don’t know about Jared, but I’ve canceled LoTRO. I’ve not played it since January, and as much as I was fond of it, it just didn’t grab me in the same way that WoW did. Ensidia’s Muqq’s put out his “I’m leaving” post recently, and after reading it, I kinda have to agree with quite a large chunk of what he was saying. There were several reasons Jared and I left WoW, and some of them dovetailed with Muqq’s reasons, and some of them are our own. Are we ever going back? I’m not sure. I think if a large chunk of the guild we were in came back, we’d seriously consider it. But right now, we’re both looking forward: him to Star Wars: The Old Republic and me to SWTOR and Final Fantasy XIV.

But we’re both still gaming. Jared’s been working his way through more Dragon Age: Origins, as well as Madden and NCAA football. I’ve been slowly working through Final Fantasy XIII, DA:O:Awakenings, and knitting. And then there’s all the wedding planning, which I think is starting to slow down in the “need to think about NAO!” column, thank the stars.

This weekend, it’s a trip to Atlanta to visit with friends and hit up the Georgia Renaissance Festival. Back when I was more involved in ren faire culture, this was my “home faire” and I love it. Right now, I’m just praying it doesn’t rain, or at least holds off til we get into the car to leave the fairegrounds on Saturday. Pleaaaaase don’t rain! On the plus side, it’s Highland Fling Weekend. That means Border Collies herding sheep. That also means Scotsmen. And that means men in kilts. Aw yeahhhh.

Wedding shower – yey!

I really don’t mean to go a month between posts, but I swear I’ve been busy. And April seems to be the busiest month for me by far, and I’m only halfway through it!

After the March trip to Oxford, multiple emails with printers, vendors, and more phone calls than I care to think of, I’ve finally gotten most of the wedding at least outlined, if not nailed down. This weekend is yet another trip to Oxford, this time for hair/makeup trial and picking out rental stuff. When I get back, it’s going to be a flurry of putting invitations together and getting them in the mail. Next weekend is a trip to Atlanta to see friends and hit the Ren Faire. And the weekend after that, I’ll be passed out in my office at work, wondering how I lived through April.

On the positive side of things, I had my bridal shower this past weekend! I wasn’t planning on having one, but my mom’s business partner asked if she could host one for me. I said yes, and even if it was small, we had fun!

Barbaree (on the left) was a wonderful hostess, and I had a grand time. I still need to beg her for her chicken crepes recipe, cos it kicked butt. There was a lot of laughter from everyone that came, which is what I wanted for the shower and what I want for the wedding. Fortunately, none of it was at my expense. And I think the mimosas she handed us all when we came in helped get the giggling started. ::grin::

And now, to relieve a little more stress, I’m going to go back to knitting on my new project. Hopefully, when I’m back next week, I post a little on the knitting front. /wanders off

Eeee! I’ve been Bee’d!

So once Jared and I got engaged, I started reading a ton of wedding blogs I found online. In recent weeks, one of them I’ve really enjoyed: Weddingbee.

Part of their site is a huge community of readers and the ladies who write the site, all chatting and sharing info, projects, news, etc. I’ve had a good time joining in, and I’ve found a few projects on there that would be easy enough to do for the wedding, and thus save money along the way. They also allow you to put up pictures of you’re doing for your wedding, and I posted the Save The Date cards, because, well, I thought they were cute/awesome, and apparently everyone that got them thought so too, from the reactions I’m getting.

Apparently Weddingbee thought so too, cos today, for the Gallery of the Day picture, where they go tromping through the pictures uploaded to the site and pick one to show off, they picked mine!

Eee! I feel so proud! And wish my handwriting had been better. ><

/ravrage

Warning: Swearing is involved. So there.

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.

Wedding Inspiration

So there’s these things on the internet (and other places too, but I saw them on the internet so that’s where I’m going, so nyah) called “inspiration boards”. You can make these for anything, but where I first stumbled across them was in relation to weddings. Oh hey, we’re planning one now! Let’s make a board! Whee!

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!

Oh yeah, we’re geeks

So the wedding planning continues. I’ll be putting more information up on the wedsite later once I get back from my trip to Oxford this weekend, but one thing did happen over the weekend that advanced things a bit. We bought our rings.

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

Wedding website, wooo!

Not too much to report in my end. It’s been a long crappy week, with lots of headaches over various things. I’m hoping that this week is gonna be better, cos the other option is just too damned tiring!

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::

It’s Monday

Thanks everyone that gave me congrats. It’s been one hell of a rollercoaster the past few days, and I still can’t believe it’s only just happened 4 days ago. Everyone keeps asking when we’re going to have it and where, and that stuff is still up in the air. The engagement ring has been picked out, purchased, and sent off to be resized, so once I get that in, pictures will happen. Colors have been picked (I picked blue, like that was a shocker, and Jared confirmed that purple is awesome). Other than that? Not. A. Clue. ::grin:: Discussions and negotiations will occur later this week.

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!