Month: April 2010

When You Love Me, I’m On Top of the World

Wednesday, April 28, 2010 / Velvet / 7 Comments

Okay. I lied about something. I’m not as “together” with the wedding as these past few posts may have indicated. There’s something I haven’t told a soul until, well, Sunday when X and I were walking the dogs and it just sort of popped out. I’ll just re-enact that.

X: How many nights are we blocking on the hotels? When do we leave for Connecticut?
Me: I was thinking Thursday.
X: Thursday? We’re getting married Friday. Is that going to be enough time?
Me: Well I hadn’t really planned on leaving earlier because of the dress.
X: What do you mean?
Me: Well, the dress will probably come in that week. I’m not sure what day.
X: Wait. What? What are you talking about?
Me: The dress. My dress. Should arrive that week.
X: Okay, and are you planning on having any alterations?
Me: Um. Well. I was sort of hoping no.
X: Is this a joke?
Me: No. Do I look like I’m joking?
X: Velvet. When are they shipping your dress?
Me: July 10.
X: And how long will it take to arrive?
Me: I don’t know. They said 10 days to get through customs.
X: Aren’t you worried?
Me: Frankly, yes, but the manager called them and assured me the dress would be here on time. I haven’t really wanted to believe anything otherwise.
X: What if it doesn’t get here in time?
Me: I don’t want to talk about this. At all. I don’t want to believe anything other than that this will all work out for me.

This is typical of me. I stick my head in the sand and hope that things will work out. I’ll control the hell out of the stupid details in life, but the big ones? I make rash decisions and fly by the seat of my pants on the details. It’s fun living like this to be quite honest because I can really get shit done. This is how I decided (and got) my real estate license in D.C., Maryland and Virginia in record time. This is how I decided I wanted to get an MBA in August, 2001 when I was living in Phoenix, and was sitting in a classroom in Baltimore come January, 2002. This is how I packed a truck and moved to Atlanta to live with my ex without really thinking it through. Sometimes it’s a win, sometimes it’s not – like when I stayed at the Vortex way too long when I should have taken my life and soul and exited that place long before it became the nightmare it did.

Back to the dress.

Since this conversation with X, I have been really bothered by my lack of responsibility. Even though the store convinced me that the dress would arrive on time, a little light googling on another topic and I found a bunch of reviews of the alterations department of said location, and they were all bad. Okay. So I won’t get it altered there. But then I found scores of reviews on sites I have never heard of, all saying that their dresses arrived 2-3 weeks late. Rut-ro.

July 10th plus 2 weeks is one day after the wedding. That will not work for me.

I spent no less than 15 hours online Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights seeking a backup plan. I went through The Knot in painstaking agony identifying other dress possibilities. I saved them as favorites, and cross referenced all the style numbers into the following sites:

ebay
Pre-Owned Wedding Dresses
Once Wed
Wore it Once
Recycled Bride
Bravo Bride
Wedding Dress Market

By the time I was done with that I was ready to stick my finger down my throat and vom. Do you know how many brides out there are selling size zero and 2 dresses? A whole hell of a lot. And I swear to you that I saw Oprah sized arms coming out of what someone called a size 6. Slap margarine on my butter, lady, if you are a size 6 (which in bridal, is a size 2) then I’m writing this from Bret Michael’s bedside. (Oh poor Bret, please get better!)

Finally I found nine very viable options, and started ruling out. I googled everything. I found message boards debating two of my chosen styles over each other, with 20 replies. I wondered who the hell finds time to debate wedding dresses with complete strangers online, but then, hello, uh, me, 15 hours online between Sunday and Tuesday, and uh, you people, most of whom I don’t know, reading about what a moron I am. Gotcha.

Narrowed it down to 2 options, and then to one option – a dress so wonderful I’m giddy thinking about it. It’s not a replacement. It’s number 2. I want to be clear about that. But still, a fantastic backup. Then I found a store that carried the brand. And guess who drove to Capitol Hill to find that store shut down? Yup. Then I checked my list and realized the next closest store was in some place my old Developer boss used to send me to for various work errands, and he would warn me to not get shot. Suitland maybe? District Heights? And what I found out there at Lefty’s Bridal? Changed my life.

I bought a backup dress, sight unseen. It will be here in June. Lefty is this amazing lady, she has a fashion degree, does all the alterations herself, and she and her husband run the shop out of their home. They were in there helping their drop dead gorgeous daughter get fitted for her prom dress and grabbed a similar dress for me to try, eyeballed my size, did the measurements and I handed over my card. They also gave me a great price – less than what some of these broads are selling their cast-off size 2’s for online. Any of you getting married? Email me. We’re going to Lefty’s.

Let’s revisit the shoes for a second…

Still love them, but they are currently in a box on a UPS truck on their way back to Piperlime. You know how when you have a pair of heels for 20 years and they look all raggedy and out of shape? Yep. That’s what they sent me. No packing material, and they were scuffed AND WORN before. Ugh. Buh-bye. I’ll buy my shoes in person Bloomingdales, because it’s like no other store in the world.

Something About the Woman Makes My Heart Go Haywire, and She’s Gonna Be My Wife

Sunday, April 25, 2010 / Velvet / 11 Comments

Well, X and I have a new favorite show. That stupid “Say Yes to the Dress” show. I think in the absence of me making a huge deal of the dress shopping, coupled with the fact that I stumbled into a place and found the dress without giving it much thought or bringing anyone with me, I am obsessed with other people and their search for the dress. Maybe I feel like I missed out a bit on that experience though I am happy that it happened the way it did. I wish they would put that thing out on video already.

I found my shoes. Love. Love. Love.

We really rocked and rolled this weekend. Again, who needs a planner? My dad confirmed that he found a JP so that’s done. Then my dad sent the funniest email. He is so conditioned to eating dinner at 6:00, and we’re planning on starting the ceremony at 6:00, then doing a cocktail hour, so dinner won’t be until after 7. My dad says, “Can’t you start the wedding at 5 so we can sit down to eat at 6?” I’m crying now. I called him and said, “No, I cannot do that because first of all, I think the few random out of towners need as much of Friday as possible to get to town, and because traffic in Connecticut is horrendous on Fridays in the summer and because frankly, the later the better. I’m already going to be sweating my ass off in 50 pounds of dress.” X was like, “Can we get him a snack?” My dad is a comedian. Now might be a good time to tell X that my parents will probably be packing up any uneaten food and taking it home to live off of for weeks post-wedding.

X and I spent Friday drinking so we spent Saturday nursing my hangover until X demanded I get out of bed so we could get going on our list of crap to accomplish. He found THE BEST jeweler in Falls Church, and they had great reviews online. We went there to figure out the whole wedding band / ring issue. They buzzed us in and this girl met us right at the door and literally solved our issue with my ring and sold X a band for himself. Five minutes and $2000 later, we were out the door and heading back to my place. They are going to make a mold of the band so I can see what it will look like, then if I likey, they will make the notched ring. Done and done. Dominion Jewelers people. Dominion Jewelers in Falls Church. Amazing.

We had been looking at invitations online and they were all blah. Until I stumbled across Zazzle. You have to design the invitations yourself but once we figured that part out, it was easy. Well, aside from my bitching about it. We got the invitations, response cards, placecards and thank you cards all for $160. Are we good or are we good? I still maintain that I can make all these phone calls to the family and couple close friends within 10 minutes so why the eff do we need invitations, but look how cute they are!

Then I came up with the best idea for party favors. I actually saw it in a magazine, but it was too cute for words. Sweet tarts in the shape of dog bones as the favor, with a note that a donation was made to the ASPCA in the name of the person. We both really liked that idea, and since the dogs are going to be part of the wedding, this seemed like a great idea. A little hunting around online and here’s what I came up with:

This candy, inside the doggie bags, tied with ribbon!

Soooooo cute! Love it. Now, I have to come up with the outfits for Sammy and Thora.

Take My Hand, Take My Whole Life Too

Wednesday, April 21, 2010 / Velvet / 3 Comments

The ring drama continues. I found this great notched ring that I even sent the link for to Tyler, thinking it could help him solve his issue too with their ring. Today the ring arrived. I knew X was coming through the garage at the same time Fed Ex was pulling up to the front but it didn’t stop me from ripping open the package. Wait, let’s do a quick review first.

My ring is a solitaire and very low set. I decided I needed something like this to fit snugly against my ring:

So that’s what we ordered. They even called X to ask the measurements of my diamond which he gave them and we were so excited to get the ring. Back to today. Fed Ex arrives, I ripped open the ring and I think my jaw dropped to the floor. I said to the dogs, “What the f is this?” Then X walked in.

The band you see above is mostly flattened out with a nice sizeable notch. Right? Right.

This is what arrived today:

Of course you can’t see what I really want you to see, but basically it’s a misshapen, sort of knife’s edge thing with a barely discernible notch in it. It wasn’t surprising to me that the picture could be so far removed from the product. What was surprising was that the guy actually called X and got the measurements and they “custom made” this ring for us. So, uh….we have to send it back. And we’re back to square one.

According to my dad, he’s still working on a Justice of the Peace and we’re still looking for invitations. Then I realized we have to make food choices so that we can put those on the reply card. This shit is hard. No wonder people hire Wedding Coordinators for them.

She’s Picked Out a King Sized Bed

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 / Velvet / 7 Comments

I’d like to say that the swift pace at which X and I have been making wedding decisions has endured for each area of decision making. But when it came to the dress, progress came to a screeching halt. Let’s review my thought process as it unfolded in my brain:

Wearing dress for a couple hours. Frugal. Don’t like spending money on things. Decide to buy off rack. Hate frou frou stuff anyway. Loved Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s dress since the day I saw it. Looked for a sheath. Wonder where hers is, she’s clearly not going to use it again. Oh. Going to hell. Looked at my stomach. Wondered about reality of a sheath and my stomach taking a meeting and realizing they don’t like each other very much. Must lose extra 10 lbs that arrived since January. Must get back to working out. Nachos. Tacos. Pizza. Okay. No sheath. Something else. What though. What.

The idea of a sheath has been in my head since the 90’s when JFK and CBK got married. Simple, classic, very, um, me. Shut up. I am old enough now to qualify for classic! But there are an additional 10 pounds on me since the mid 90’s. So the hunt began. First, I had this Carmen Marc Valvo dress shipped to me:

As I suspected, the sheath and my fat pockets had a big fight, the fat won and the sheath was boxed right back up and sent back to where it came from. For a split second, I entertained my “dream” wedding dress. It’s clearly this Halston:

But then I had to slap myself. This lady wants $2400 for it, she wants all cash (um, hello?) and I think that price is pretty ridiculous. It doesn’t mean that I won’t one day write her a check for it and buy it just to try it on but for now, it’s back-burnered.

Okay, other dream dress? This! EEEEE!

Yeah, I know. They aren’t easy to see. Believe me, witches, I had a hard time too. What the deuce is wrong with all these photogs putting pictures of white wedding dresses against white backgrounds? I was turning el lappytop in all sorts of contortions to try to get a visual on some of these dresses.

Anyway, Bottega Veneta dress above? $6000 and sold the eff out anyway. Onwards.

You may recall that J Crew was in the throes of filing bankruptcy when one Michelle Obama wore something of theirs to some stupid event and the entire brand was resuscitated. Well, J Crew has a wedding department and they have some awesome dresses. Here’s my favorite, and by far the one that rose the ranks quickly:

Love it love it love it. Fabric? Something I never heard of. I swung by the store in Georgetown to check it out and was told, “Even the skinniest girls have to wear spanx.” Let me tell you what doesn’t sound fun. 1) Wearing a girdle. 2) Wearing a girdle in July in Connecticut on the swampy humidity of the freaking Long Island Sound. Effectively back burnered. Say Hi to Halston!

Next!

My lovers at BCBG never fail to disappoint. I hopped on to Nordstrom and bought a handful of dresses from them. Why didn’t I do it at BCBG? I’ll tell you why. They don’t have a return policy. Are you people joking me? You know we’re in a recession right? I’m not going to tape the tag inside my dress and do the wear/return, but still. NO RETURN POLICY? Within 10 days you get a store credit with a receipt, but you will NEVER EVER get your money back from Bon Chic Bon Genre. Bah. So Nordies. Here’s what went into my cart and on to my credit card:

I like them all, but I don’t love them. However, I resigned myself to the fact that this may be what I’m destined to have.

And during this whole process, I can’t stop thinking about this other dress I saw online but called every store as well as the maker, and cannot locate one anywhere:

So it’s been a mess. For something that was supposed to be so simple, and that was going to be a minor part of the budget, this whole shebang has been causing a lot of heartburn. Just like with the man, everyone said, “When you find it you’ll know.” Bah. What the f*ck ever. X and I danced around being in love for 4 years before we got together, all the while I was entertaining YOU people with a dating blog. Ugh!

After a day at Tysons (I and II) and then out to Fairfax to a bridal place to see a dress similar to the one just above, I was a mess. I called X, because I value his opinion so much and because his taste level is so on target. This is evidenced, in fact, by the ring that he got me all by his wittle self. And no I’m not posting a picture because here’s a cold hard truth: It’s f*cking tacky to ask people to see their ring, to ask for a picture of it or to make comments about it one way or the other. Is anyone listening? I hope everyone’s listening. Tacky. And that’s why for anyone who has asked me for a picture, I haven’t sent one. So there’s your answer to that quandary.

Anyway, X pretty much said I had to do this on my own. (Don’t even ask me why my mom wasn’t with me. You all know the answer to that. Oh, you don’t? Because if I wanted someone telling me how fat I was and how I don’t even fit into the moo moo size dresses when I’m a god damned size 8, then I would have invited my mom.)

I waltzed into Macy’s Bridal on a whim, shook up what I wanted, and spit it back out. This lady pulled a dress about 4 times my dress budget. I put it on, and it literally took my breath away. She said, “This is it?”

Yes. This is it.

She’s Telling Me We’ll Be Wed

Sunday, April 4, 2010 / Velvet / 4 Comments

We have very little requirements in the way of locating a Justice of the Peace.

1) Must be non-denominational since X and I are basically atheists.
2) Must be open and willing to performing same-sex marriages. No, this is not when I unveil that X is really a female. But, I strongly believe that anyone should be able to marry anyone else and so I want to know that our JP won’t deny anyone else the right and privilege of being married because of who they want to marry.

Doing a ceremony in the town in which I grew up has some really funny townies sort of things that crop up. I found a list of town approved Justices of the Peace. I forwarded said list to my parents and said, “By chance, anyone on here an enemy?” See, in addition to living in this town for 40 years, my dad was also a lawyer for most of those years. And he found himself on the opposite side of the courtroom with, well, everyone. Oh the times bumping into people in town and hearing “I sued that bastard,” or having the doorbell ring and being forced to hide in the dark because my dad was going to be subpoenaed. Or his client was. Can you imagine how bad that would be if I randomly picked one of them to marry me to X? “Well well well, I’ve been waiting for 38 years Mr. Velvet’s Dad. You’ve been served!”

Anyway, after I sent this email to Gloom and Doom, I continued perusing the list. Several names jumped out at me but I couldn’t place who they were or how I knew them. This of course means that I could never pick any of these people because, Pete DiLeo, I don’t know if I dated you, or my slutty friend did, but I can’t risk you showing up to marry me to X and busting out with some story about a broken heart, a broken marriage and a broken car window.

Then I see it. There it is. Even the phone number is vaguely familiar from when I called it. So I texted K.

“OMG OMG OMG, only you can appreciate this. I’m looking for a JP in CT and Teresa’s dad is on here! Remember when I had that fight with him?”

K texts back, “Yeah, to tell him to get his psycho daughter off your back and to leave you and your boyfriend alone!”

Then I drew a blank. I remember the call. I remember it was to tell the girl off and her dad picked up. But a boyfriend? Huh? I texted back and said, “I cringe to ask, but which boyfriend was this?” K had to enlighten me. I forgot most of those details. You know, when you move away from your hometown, and then move several times in a decade, you lose entire blocks of time filled memories. They somehow fade away each time you pack and unpack a box. Or maybe it’s from the drinking. Hmm.

Anyway. There was no response from Gloom and Doom. When I asked my mom in an email, she said, “Your father is working on it.” Oh no. OH NO! The town only allots a certain number of JP’s and if anyone can manage to piss all of them off between now and summer, it’s my dad! Shit!!!

My mom emailed back to not worry, so I said to X, “Well, the more involved they are, the less of a chance they will come up with some stupid reason not to show up like, ‘We went to the movies, and your father got his hand stuck in the butter dispenser.'”

X: Yeah, but the Justice of the Peace baby? I mean, can’t they work on the flowers or something?
Me, not really listening to X: Oh! Wait, I know, maybe my dad knows someone else in another town in CT that he wants to ask.
X: I hope you know what you’re doing.

Then, 3 full minutes of silence.

Me: It just occurred to me where your thinking is. I’m thinking they are just going to hire some flake they are friends with, you’re thinking they are going to hire someone who doesn’t show up. Or that they are not going to hire anyone at all….
X: Yeah, there she is everyone. She finally got here.

On yet another call to my mom, she said they were indeed working on it. I said to make sure whoever they pick will actually show up. I didn’t even bother making my second request on the whole gay marriage thing. That would really be pushing my luck.

Gloom: Oh don’t worry. Your father knows most of those people. He just wants to ask his friend which would be the right one.
Me: Okay.
Gloom: Do you think we have to feed this person?
Me: I think we have to feed the photographer.
Doom, from the background before I could even answer: NO WE’RE NOT FEEDING THEM! THEY CAN EAT AT HOME.