Month: July 2010

I wish I could give you a blow by blow detail of the wedding, but sadly, it all blew by so quickly that I barely remember anything. And I only had a couple beers.

When we caravaned to my parent’s house on Thursday, X’s mom was so pleased to meet my mom – a fellow Greek. X’s mom is just beside herself that this wife (cough, ME) is Greek. They had a grand old time those two. But because Number 1 and Number 2 went to bed at 5:15 a.m. Wednesday night, and we woke up at 5:30, they needed naps upon our Connecticut arrival. They went back to the hotel, and my mom went into mom-mode.

“So, you promised you would take that thing out of your tongue when you got married.” (I’m not exactly sure why I promised this to my mom, maybe because it represented the last vestige of my crazy single life.) I reached inside my mouth, unscrewed my tongue ring, and handed it to her. She laughed and said, “GREAT!” and threw it across the kitchen. Who knew that bothered her so much?

What was bothering me was a sudden appearance of two bruises on my right arm that looked like Lyme Disease. The entire family gathered around my arm trying to decide wtf was going on. Then I said, “Oh, can we also discuss this?” At this point I showed them the zit/goiter/new planet that seemed to take hold on my jawline. Ugh. My mom thought I was breaking out in hives. No amount of makeup would cover this.

X and I had a plan. The hotel/restaurant where we were having the wedding cost a fortune, so we blocked rooms at a Hilton in the next town. Thursday night he stayed with Number 1 and Number 2 at the hotel, and I slept my last night in la Casa Mommy and Daddy with my brother, the Elitist, slathering zit medicine on my goiter-zit, every hour on the hour. The next morning he and I inspected the zit and thought we did pretty well. I figured the rest of the roadkill could be covered with makeup. Then I went downstairs and my dad said, “WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO YOUR NECK?” Great! It metastasized! And the oldest guy in the room saw it first. Not. Good.

Back to the plan. X was going to dress at the Hilton, I would dress at our wedding location, and we would meet on the deck to get hitched. No. Such. Luck. My half hour makeup appointment went in excess of 90 minutes as the entire staff at the MAC store attempted to cover my lyme disease and the puberty-redux happening on my neck. When I got back to my parents house, my dad had hijacked my friends from Atlanta after picking them up at LaGuardia and had them at the kitchen table eating sandwiches. At 4:00!!! When the wedding was at 6:00!!! And all the vendors were at the hotel!!! And X isn’t. And neither was I! Where the hell did the day go? Then just as I got to the wedding location, X calls and says he was almost there, and realized he forgot his suit. He had to turn around and go back to the other hotel to get it. When my mom showed up she was like, “Oh my God can anything go right right now?”

I went downstairs in my bathrobe and put out the placecards and the table identifers. We used Greek Islands instead of numbers. But because each table had a different number of guests, I had to sit there and count. “Okay, this table has 10 places set…this is the Rhodes table….okay lay out cards for people who I put at a 10-top…” and so on. The waiters thought I was the Wedding Coordinator, the Event Manager thought I was the bride’s sister and I was thinking about finding some narcotics, crushing them and rolling around in them on the floor I was so freaked out.

The photographer and I had a few nice moments in the room before the melee. First Mommy. Then Daddy. Then my brothers…friends…nieces…dogs….X. We literally got dressed in front of 10 people, with cameras snapping all over the place.   There is clearly nipple (mine) on the video. But I wouldn’t trade that part for the world, because here occurred what will no doubt lead as one of my most cherished moments in my life. Once I got my skin tight dress on, I realized I couldn’t bend to put on my shoes. Without prompting, each of my nieces took it upon themselves to grab a shoe, and put it on one of my feet. I should mention my nieces are 3 & 1/2 and almost 5 years old. And I should also mention that my shoes tied around the ankle and had a belt-like strap that had to be poked through a hole.

A lot of you have read this blog for 5+ years and know that I have never posted a picture of myself. I’m changing that rule because this picture absolutely must be shared.

Here’s where I’d like to say that the rest of the night was fantastic, however, that would be a lie. Let’s see…how shall I put this?

I fucking fell down the stairs when I was going down to get married. In front of everyone – my mom, dad, brothers, sister-in-law, nieces, X, X’s mom, X’s two kids, the photographer, they all saw. And we all laughed. It’s on video. When I watched it I was like, “Damn, I went DOWN!” In my mind I had only slipped a bit. Nope. I really ate it.

Friday was a complete blur. Seriously. There are definitely regrets and things I would do different, but honestly – I would hire a freaking videographer if I had this to do again. X and I felt like with a wedding of 30 people, that having a video camera in people’s faces all the time would be a hassle. They wouldn’t have a lot to film if they only had 30 people to rotate through. Plus it was around $2000 for the night and that just seemed like money wasted. Now? I really screwed that up. I would hire 20 videographers if I knew that the entire night would zip by me without me even realizing it. Barely ate, barely drank, and barely feel like I talked to anyone. I even forgot to dance with my dad. Please. I know. Don’t get me started. I cried the whole drive back to D.C. over this yesterday. My nieces were just loving the wedding, and my focus suddenly became on them, to the exclusion of almost everyone and everything else. Kids are really a time vortex.

Anyway, my photographer is working on the pictures, but she sent me her favorite.

She’s really good.

X is officially Mr. Velvet. Or, I am Mrs. X.

Woo Hoo!!!

I have new advice that anyone getting married (Shannon, Carrie, Carla – who already did this) should pay attention to:

Get. Two. Dresses.

No, I’m not kidding. Actually, my journey to ending up with two dresses was a weird one. To recap something I posted 2 months back, I ordered #1 too late, so got #2, an adequate but much less expensive substitute “just in case.” Well, #2 ended up coming in a few weeks ago, needed no alterations, and was shuttled to my parent’s house this past weekend where it has taken up current residence in my childhood bedroom closet.

While X and I were in the land of Gloom and Doom, I got a call from the sellers of dress #1 that it was ready to be picked up. X and I went over there because he had already seen #2, so I just figured let him see the first one and he can pick. We got there, they located my dress and put me in it. It’s 1 size larger than their sample size – which now fits by the way, like a glove and feels like a nightgown.

I put on the dress that was custom made for me, knowing it would be too big and would need alterations, however, I was unprepared for what happened next. Itch. Scratch. Itch. EEK! The level of lining closest to my body was forcing my thighs into some sort of tourniquet situation, they were begging for release, and everything below mid thigh broke out into full blown itchy madness.The nightgown feeling of the sample is in direct contrast to feeling like I’m rolling around in a sausage casing lined with sandpaper. Get. This. Off. My. Body. NOW.

????

I have no idea either. X and I sat there for 4 hours while they took the dress away, pressed all the layers, came back, tried it on, still itched, looked at the sample, figured out that the sample had thicker lining between my body and the tulle, then had to exit because the fire alarms went off, went back to the store, smelled burning rubber, hoped it was my dress so I could just get my money back and be done with it all, tried it on again, got stuck in it when the zipper jammed, had to slide out of it so they could fix the zipper, went out and sat with X who started planning how I should get my money back, then tried the dress on again, then it was itchier in the back of my thighs, then everyone said they didn’t know and I would have to come back tomorrow to talk to the manager. I’m making the manager try on the sample, then try on the dress that was made for me. And did I mention when you pick up the layers they are all shredded and tattered at the seams? THIS is a custom gown? Yikes.

As X and I sat there waiting for this to be figured out, I looked at him and said, “Considering this wedding is in 2 1/2 weeks, can you imagine how much I would be jumping off a ledge right now if I didn’t have a backup dress, safely nestled at my parents house?” It resulted in our having a conversation on how everyone should have a backup dress. Instead of blowing your whole budget on one dress, get a second one. It really helped me not lose my shit today.

X said, “Yeah, and we haven’t even discussed that black grease stain down the front of it.” Um. Yes.

Tomorrow I’m going to request that they keep the stained itch-factory,   clean and press the sample instead and give that to me.

And it makes me wonder – all these bridal salons try to convince you to not buy them from the ebay $100 sweat shops, but you know, considering the condition my dress was in, I’m not sure that I didn’t just overpay for something out of one of those very same factories.

What did we learn here today? Two. Dresses. You can always sell one.

Well, my mom has kicked into Mother-of-the-Bride mode. Woo hoo. Finally. Among other things, she told me that she was thinking to ask my brothers to make a toast at the wedding. I said, “You and Dad don’t want to do it?” She doesn’t want to speak in public. And my dad? Well, let’s just say that as children, we were so confused how the man who words failed on the regular could actually be a lawyer and argue, and win a case, that my brother went to watch him in court. He came home after and said, “Daddy is a totally different person in court. He’s not the Dad we know, who says ‘Velvet, it’s uh, time, uh, what’s this over here? Who left this here. Hey. Time for uh, dinner. Did anyone see my glasses?”

When my mom bestowed this news on my brother and added in that he needs to say something simple and nice, my brother responded with the following:

“I was thinking of doing a slideshow of all her ex-boyfriends and saying ‘Well, thank God THIS is over’ then slapping her on the ass and giving her a big wedgie in her dress.”

My mom was hilariously laughing. Camera pans to my dad.

With a totally straight face because the joke eluded him, he said, “Uh, I wouldn’t do that if I uh, were you. She uh, might get mad.”