Longest Engagement in History.

Okay, that's not actually true. The Guinness Book of World Records establishes that the longest engagement on record belongs to Octavio Guillan and Adriana Martinez. They got engaged in 1902 at age 15 (okay, things were different then). They married in 1969 at age 87, after having been engaged for much of the 20th century.

Jimmy and I got engaged in July 2012. We originally planned to marry in June 2014, which was a respectable 23 months. However, that turned out to be the single most inconvenient month for half the wedding party, and thus the wedding was postponed.

The current (tentative) date is November 8, 2014. But we've also discussed moving it up to September 21. Whichever date we choose will become not-so-tentative once we make up our minds on certain salient details and save sufficient money to put down nonrefundable deposits. That's really when a couple ties the knot, you know.

On a more serious note, since becoming engaged we have survived Jimmy's layoff and subsequent unemployment, my temporary furlough from my job and more car troubles than we care to think about. Silk and pearls sometimes have to wait in line behind bread and milk, particularly when feeding teenagers.

In the meantime, we are happily ensconced in our home, enjoying our engagement and ducking the question, "So when's the wedding?" The people at the wedding shows have begun to recognize us on sight, and my collection of price lists and brochures is becoming ridiculous.

Yes, we will get married. Eventually. And if anyone suggests we try to beat Octavio and Adriana's record, be prepared to face Jimmy.

Be afraid...

...Jimmy has discovered Bitstrips. It's entirely possible that you will see a number of these silly things, unless he gets distracted by something shiny.

T-minus 366

This conversation began by discussing the seventeen (17) Godzilla T-shirts Jimmy wants for Christmas. Seventeen, people. I'm not even discussing the Jerry Lewis DVDs, because then I get flustered and need to lie down.

ME: I guess I'd better get used to it, unless you've changed your mind about tomorrow.
HIM: Tomorrow?
ME: A year from tomorrow, that is.
HIM: Oh yeah! It's tomorrow!
ME: 366 days to go.
HIM: No, of course I haven't changed my mind.
ME: Unless we postpone again.
HIM: ... No.
ME: It was your idea. You said if I needed the vacation days for touring we should consider postponing to 2015 -
HIM: But you said you probably won't need the days, so I changed my mind, so NAH.
ME: So nah?
HIM: So nah.
ME: You realize that with us being exactly one year from doing this, we're actually going to have to get serious about planning this damn thing?
HIM: Yup. Instead of just hanging around wedding shows, where they all recognize us now.
ME: I'm afraid to go back to any of the shows, even for the discounts.
HIM: Not me. Free cake.
ME: ... Okay, this is stupid.
HIM: What?
ME: I'm actually nervous about how nervous I'm going to be a year from now.
HIM: *sporfle* Me too!
ME: Oh thank God.
HIM: I'm going to have butterflies in my stomach.
ME: Wait, why are YOU going to be nervous? This whole thing was your idea!
HIM: Because I'm the groom and that's my job!
ME: If you're going to be all nervous and everything, I guess we don't HAVE to...
HIM: HUSH. Don't SAY that.
ME: *giggle*
HIM: I love you.
ME: I sure hope so, otherwise this whole getting married thing is probably a bad idea. Of course, love and marriage often being mutually exclusive, but -
HIM: Hush, woman!
ME: Hee.
HIM: I love you and I'm going to marry you by God or Godzilla!
ME: *facepalm*

The edge of what we know

When I was ten years old, my family spent a week at Cape Cod. We shared a little cottage with another family, but the other kids were not my age - and I was shy, anyway.

I kicked myself all week because I had only brought one book. It was titled Thirteen, a coming-of-age novel totally foreign to me because it was clearly written by an adult who had been thirteen in my mother's era. What the heck is madras, anyway?

Now, I'd like to go back in time and kick myself. That little cottage was all of two blocks from the Atlantic beach in West Dennis. I think I walked to that beach maybe once, taking in the beauty of the ocean, but not really experiencing it. I spent most of that week reading and rereading that one novel and moping in my room, which was my main luxury since I had to share a room with my sister at home.

When I was fourteen, my best friend Carrie and I went to Assateague Island with her family. I didn't feel all that well - my stomach was sensitive even then - and the island was rife with giant biting horseflies. Because duh, Assateague Island is where the ponies live. I remember the beach, but only vaguely.

From age fourteen to sixteen, I saw the Chesapeake Bay whenever I wanted. We lived in Baltimore, after all. And when I was sixteen, there was San Francisco Bay, on vacation with my family. I saw the Pacific Ocean whenever my parents could manage it, on our family vacations in California. When we buried my grandfather, I stayed with my cousin two blocks from the sea and visited it to say goodbye on the day we left.

The water always speaks to me, whether it's rivers or lakes or oceans or ponds. In A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean states that he is haunted by waters. I never saw it as haunting. The water speaks to me, and I am drawn to it, even when I barely notice it.

This comes to mind today*, because I am on a double-decker bus and it's making me a little bus-sick. It could be that I've eaten nothing in six hours and probably won't get to eat for another six hours, which was very poor planning. It could be the rocking of the bus, or my attempts to write while riding it. Jimmy texted me to give it time, let me get my sea legs.

But there's a woman nearby who is blaring whatever music she loves in huge earphones, which for some reason are not clamped over her ears but wrapped around her neck. That way we can all enjoy her music. It's fine enough, but distracting, especially since it seems to be one song oer and over with the same two lines of music. It never ends. Who records songs like that?

So I put on my own earbuds, with my white noise app: sea sounds. The sound of the ocean is on a timer to let me sleep.

I close my eyes, and instantly I see the ocean. But it isn't the Chesapeake Bay or San Francisco. It isn't the Pacific as it was the day after Granddad's funeral, or the island of Assateague, or the Mississippi, or even that long-ago West Dennis beach.

All beaches are Cocoa Beach.

It was the beach a block away from the Florida condo that my folks rented last summer. Shining white sand in brutally hot Florida sun, or shimmering silver in the full moonlight, it doesn't matter. It was the beach where I showed Jimmy the ocean for the first time in his life, and the delight in his eyes made me see it fresh as well. It was the beach where we watched the fireworks explode, and the kids built sandcastles. The beach where we drank overpriced margaritas in the moonlight and listened to the house band.

We sat on the sand the night after we got engaged, talking about all the sappy goopy stuff you talk about on nights like that, things that you never put in blog entries or tell other living souls, because the sunlight hurts them. It drags them out into the blaring light of What Other People Think, and it diminishes them. It is the things whispered in the moonlight that mean the most, and are reduced the most by examination in the light of day.

On the day we left, we visited the beach last. We were alone except for the birds, the three of us. Jimmy drew a valentine in the sand, and we watched the tide come in before we drove away.

All beaches have that magic to them. They force us to stand on the edge of what we know and contemplate something much larger than ourselves. But Cocoa Beach now has become all beaches to me, the edge of what I knew and a vast adventurous unknown before me. When I think of the sea, I think of that beach, of our names written in the sand, and his face when he saw the ocean.

All beaches are Cocoa Beach. And you know what? I'm just fine with that.


* This blog entry was written while I was traveling several weeks ago.

Running rings around each other

Poor Jimmy. He proposed to me last year at the Castle in Disney World, remembering an offhand comment I'd made years ago. It was magical and beautiful and supremely sappy, all the things he is. And for the last six months or so, he's been making payments on an engagement ring for me, which means he had to put it on my finger again. So how do you top a proposal at the entrance to a castle?

We went ring-shopping not long after we were engaged. This was a comedy worthy of a sitcom: my taste in jewelry tends toward small, elegant, understated. The giant freaking rocks they hauled out not only cost more than our combined salaries, but I think they could be used as lethal weapons for hand combat. How do you type with four pounds of rock on your finger?

The jewelers were perplexed by me, as I kept saying, "Do you have anything smaller?" At one store, I started the conversation with, "What's the smallest diamond you have?" At another store, they cracked a joke with us after I kept looking for smaller rings: they suggested that I might shop at Victoria's Secret for a present for Jimmy, and they'll deal directly with Jimmy on the ring. I took it in the spirit it was intended and laughed my ass off; Jimmy was less amused, feeling like they were dismissing me. In many ways, he's more of a feminist than I am, though he would probably protest that statement.

At another jeweler, I was trying to find lower-cost rings and the saleslady leaned over with a conspiratorial wink: "Oh honey, let him spend a little money on you. You're worth it." Yeah, lady: I might be worth my weight in diamonds, but we can't freaking afford them. I couldn't live with myself walking around with a $5,000 rock on my hand; hell, that's a used car! That's a semester of college tuition! That's seven months' rent!

And the fact is, I don't really like diamonds. I mean, they're okay, but they're kind of boring. I think diamonds work best as accents for other, more interesting stones. So I was really looking at settings more than the rock itself. And we weren't seriously looking at first, mind you; Jimmy was laid off not long after we got engaged, so we knew buying rings even on layaway would have to wait until he was re-employed.

One day in January, we had concluded another session - this time at Jared Jewelers. It was more successful than most, as we'd narrowed down to two choices for Jimmy's ring, but I had yet to find anything affordable that I really liked. We were actually on our way out when I stopped at the sapphire display; dark blue is my favorite color.

There it was. A glorious natural sapphire cut in an oval shape, with a delicate white-gold setting and two tiny accent diamonds. The scrollwork on the sides seemed to be nearly in an infinity symbol. That's a very important symbol for us. In the early months of our relationship, we got lost on the back roads of Tennessee, and joked about crossing over into another dimension. The plot we came up with as we wandered the hillsides turned into my novella Infinity, in which the infinity symbol is vitally important. We had already decided we would engrave infinity symbols inside our rings, and here was an engagement ring with the symbol already there!

I wrote down the ring's SKU number, but in my mind it was already decided. No other ring we saw was anywhere near as beautiful. And there's no law that says your ring has to be a diamond; in fact, sapphire engagement rings are traditional in England. Jimmy was quite pleased, not only that we'd finally found a ring I liked, but it was about half the cost of a diamond ring. I was pleased, because it seemed to be uniquely mine.

Months went by. I eventually paid off his ring, which is currently in a box awaiting the wedding. It is a beautiful and intricate quasi-Celtic design, and made out of a durable stainless steel, which meant I got the better deal on the price, let me tell you.

Jimmy paid on my ring for most of the year. Then a few weeks ago, we stopped by the store to make a payment and discovered it had gone on sale. With that discount, he was able to pay off the whole amount. We picked up the resized ring two days later.

But he couldn't just put it on my finger; oh no! There are two proposals in this modern world: the one where you find out what she's going to say, and the one with the ring. So I told him that if he was going to ask me again, he'd have to top the Castle.

Let me be clear: I was kidding. Short of winning the lottery and whisking me away to Nantucket, there's no way to top the Castle. Hell, the miniaturized model of the Castle is now on my wish list, because of that special moment. I was also kidding when I said maybe I'd have a different answer this time, like, "Can I have a few days to think about it?" He said that would be mean. I replied, "Hi, have we met?"

That Sunday, he managed to top the Castle.

We had a guest priest serving at our church, and Jimmy was scheduled to read the lessons. After the passing of the peace, the priest asked if there were announcements. Then he said, "Jimmy has one."

I blinked. Twice. What announcement would Jimmy have? Then I saw him heading down from the altar to where I was sitting in the pews, and I figured it out. "Are you kidding?" I asked, blushing terribly. He smiled and drew me out into the aisle.

Because Jimmy is Jimmy, he was still shaking and emotional as he told me before the entire parish how important I was to him and how much he loved me. He went down to one knee and said, "So I am asking you again, to please be my wife and allow me to be your husband."

I wish I could have thought of something better to say than, "Yes." I was totally unprepared, and I shouldn't have been; I should have known that ring was burning a hole in his pocket. I should have said something profound that we would always remember.

But I couldn't think of anything beautiful or sweet or funny. I just said, "Yes," and he put the ring on my finger and kissed me and the whole church applauded.

As Jimmy went back to the altar, the priest said, "Good thing she said yes!" Jimmy replied, "Amen!" and everyone laughed. The ladies sitting around me all clustered to look at the ring, and I think I turned about six shades of red. They asked if I'd known what he was up to, and of course I hadn't a clue. Later I told him that it really was a good thing I said yes; if I'd said anything else, I think there would have been seventy hymnals flying at my head. Ow!

It was a wonderful moment, and yes, it tops the Castle. God trumps all, and sharing that moment with our church family was a wonderful corollary to sharing the original proposal with our family-of-blood. My only regret was that Jimmy's kids couldn't be there for either moment, but I know they will be with us when we (finally) marry, and that's the most important part.

And now I wear the most beautiful ring in the world, placed there by my fiance. Thank you, love.

Popping the Question...Again!

I finally paid off Elizabeth's real engagement ring about a week ago. Through a stroke of good luck, we were able to get it sooner than we thought because the price had dropped on the ring and we were able to collect the discount on it.

Elizabeth and I were very happy the day we picked up her ring from the jeweler after it was sized to fit her finger. Elizabeth joked with me that when we got her real engagement ring, I would have to ask her to marry me again. AND TO TOP WHAT I DID LAST YEAR!

How in the hell do you top proposing in front of a freaking castle? In Walt Disney World, at that? That moment was just so special and perfect, there was no way I could ever in a million years top that! I kept trying to think of some way I could even come close to what I did last year. Everything I could think of just did not measure up to it.

But then, I realized that I didn't have to surpass it, I just had to make it as special and as beautiful as the first time I asked Elizabeth to marry me. But the only thing I could think of that could come close was to bump up the sap level and yes, the embarrassment level. In order to do that, I would have to call in a pretty big gun.

What would be the most special and wonderful place I could ask her? Our church, that's where. St. Andrew's is a wonderful little church that we go to, and I love all of the people there. My church family means so much to me, and I love serving God in my way as a cup bearer for communion.

The day that I decided to throw myself on the 'altar of dignity' was not only a Sunday that I was serving the church, but that we had a priest visiting us to lead our service that day. I met him before church started and showed him the ring that I brought with me and told him the story of Elizabeth's wish for me to ask her again to marry me. I told him that sharing this moment in the house of God and with my church family would be the best way to make this just as good as the Castle from last year.

He asked me what Elizabeth would think about it, and I told him that she would be sure surprised about it. He thought that it was a wonderful idea, and we agreed that when it came time to ask if anyone had to make an announcement that he would call me from the front to say that I had one to make. I thanked him, and went and got my robes on for the service. I had the ring hidden in my front pocket of my shirt; that way I could reach it quickly when the time came. I did my reading from the Bible, and when the time came I did Prayers for the People. And I didn't flub it this time either. Shocking, I say, because of what I had planned to do soon.

The time came for the Peace, and then the visiting priest asked if there were any announcements. He said I had one to make. I could hear a little murmur going through the crowd as I walked down from the front of the altar to where Elizabeth sat.

She looked at me and in her Elizabeth voice said, 'Really? Are you serious?' I helped her stand and slowly took her promise ring off her finger. I then looked at her and smiled, and holding back tears and choking up on emotion, I said these words:

"You are the most important thing in the world to me. I love you more than anything else in this world. So I am asking you again..."

I then went down to one knee. Which was a real trick to do wearing vested robes. I held out the ring to her, and in a voice cracking with emotion and love I said:

'Will you please marry me?'

Elizabeth smiled.

'Yes,' She answered.

I stood and we hugged and kissed, and the entire church erupted in applause. I placed the ring on her finger and kissed her one last time, and walked back up front to do my duty for the day.

As I walked by the priest, he said, 'Thank God she said yes!'

'AMEN!' I answered.

It turned out to be just as special and beautiful as the first time I asked her. But this time it was done in the house of God and in front of my fellow church members. I guess this means I'm stuck now. You know what? I wouldn't have it any other way.   

Sometimes you just have to wait a little longer...

 Well,
       Today is the day that I went down on one knee and asked Elizabeth to marry me. Last year I was so nervous that she would have said no. But when I asked her and she said yes it made me the happiest man on earth. Since then, we have been trying to plan our wedding and get the money together to pay for it. We were wanting to get married next year on June 20th. That date means a lot to me for very many reasons. But, with me getting laid off last year for a few months really hurt our money situation. I have gotten another job, but it pays less and I can barely help out around the house let alone help save up for the wedding. Hopefully I will get hired on full time or find a better paying job to be able help out more. We also have found out that a friend of ours who I really want to be in the wedding won't be able to be free in June to attend. We need this person in the wedding and I will not do it without him there. Plus, Elizabeth's father and step-mother are moving in the month of June and it would really make it hard on them to have the wedding in June also.

      So, it has come down to us having to postpone the wedding. I will let you know that I HATE having to do it. I have waited so long already that postponing it hurts a lot. I want the honor of being her husband so badly that I can feel it make my heart ache that it will have to be moved up. But I also know that there is really no choice in the matter. We need the extra time to put money back and we want and need our friend there to be a groomsman. Plus it will make it easier on her folks. So we have decided that the wedding will be moved up at least to November. I wanted it to be earlier than that but it looks like that will be the month it will happen. I know that the day will get here, but sometimes the wait can really hurt. But she is more than worth the wait for it.

Almost...a year.

Tomorrow it will be almost a year. A whole year since I went down on one knee and asked Elizabeth to marry me. Wow. Hard to believe that it has been this long. I will talk more about that tomorrow, but until then have a Happy 4th of July.

Calendar Confusion

Last night I had the terrible sensation that I was forgetting something. As is standard when I have this feeling, I checked my calendar.

Oops.

I put this particular bridal shop on my short list solely because they sponsored a bridal-gown fashion shop at a bridal event I attended, and fully half their models were plus-size. This is a rarity in Bridal World, where every woman is a size eight. I thought perhaps this store might have some dresses that might actually fit me.

I set up an appointment for late May and promptly forgot about it. I realized approximately two hours after my appointment that I'd been a nitwit. So I called, and apologized profusely. They were kind and understanding, and rescheduled me for a Sunday in July. That wouldn't be a problem, right?

Oops.

When our annual camping trip with friends was rescheduled to the weekend before the Fourth instead of the weekend after the Fourth, I neglected to note the conflict in my calendar. I was sweating like a pig taking down my tent in a field when I was supposed to be strapping myself into silk and lace.

I have been a no-call, no-show twice for the same bridal shop.

This is so embarrassing. To the poor workers in this shop, I am either a raging Bridezilla with no appreciation for others' time, or I have approximately the IQ of a Mr. Clean sponge mop. Either way, I can't bring myself to call them again.

In fact, if we see them at the next bridal show, I may have to duck and cover. I'll hide behind Jimmy. They never look at the grooms anyway.

Dinner and a Show

Dear Nutbars of Bridal World:

I am not going to your "dinner bridal show."

It's over. You can't win me back. No matter how many spammy emails you send me begging over and over, we're not getting back together. Once I liked you pretty well, but you have sent me six emails this week alone begging me to go to this "dinner bridal show." Pro tip: One more email probably qualifies as stalking.

Look, I like bridal shows, as silly as they are. I haven't gone to one yet where I didn't come away with a deal or an idea worth saving. My fiance even likes the bridal shows, in defiance of gender stereotypes and the laws of physics. But we are still not going to your "dinner bridal show."

Want to know why?

Twenty dollars per person, that's why.

I find it beyond offensive that you want us to pay money for the privilege of listening to your sales pitch. I have seen your reception hall, and it is lovely. I have attended events there, and the food is tasty. If we could afford your outlandish prices, you'd be in the top ten choices for our reception.

But we are inundated with ads and sales pitches for our wedding, and none are more insistent than the reception venues. Everywhere we turn, someone wants us to give them our money, even when they find out how laughably small the budget will be. We don't need to pay for the privilege of a hard sell; all it took was signing up on The Knot and attending one (free) bridal show, and our email, phone and address is on everyone's list. Hell, after this shindig is over I'm probably going to have to burn that email address.

Twenty dollars a head? Here's a news flash for you, Nutbars of Bridal World: If my fiance and I intend to blow forty bucks on a dinner, it would be a nice steakhouse with soft lighting and cloth napkins. Sure, you'll put on a nice spread, and I bet we'd have a good time watching you try to sell us on your reception hall.

But in the end, we'd be paying you for the privilege of listening to your pitch. Maybe that makes sense in the weird and wacky Bridal World, but I have sufficient self-respect not to fall for it.

Enjoy your shindig. Call me when the pitch is free.

Pre-nniversary

It's a little bit of heartsick, even as it's kind of sweet.

Today is June 20, 2013. Our plan was to wed on June 20, 2014. Today would be our one-year pre-nniversary.

Unfortunately, Jimmy and I know now that we will have to postpone our wedding. We already had a seriously long engagement, but there are a lot of reasons for that. Now we have a few more.

One of the biggest reasons we decided to be engaged for two years was money. No, we are not having a big wedding - in fact, it's a pretty small affair. But there are still some minimum costs. It may not sound like much when you put down the numbers, but when you consider how little we make and how much teenagers eat, you realize it takes a long time to save even a small amount of money.

But there are other reasons for a long engagement. It isn't just about flowers and rice, you know. It's about preparing to be married. Both of us have done this before, and we know the devastation of divorce much too well. We do not want to rack up another disaster - we've already got three between us. We decided to be engaged for a long time to prepare ourselves emotionally and spiritually to be married.

Spiritually: that's a part that no one really talks about. We were in a bookstore some months ago, and I remarked that there were tons of books on planning a wedding, and plenty more books on how to catch a man (only two on how to catch a woman, both sleazy), lots of books on fixing your broken marriage and surviving your divorce. I couldn't find a single book on preparing for marriage, not in a religious sense or the secular.

Our priest recently retired, and our church won't have even an interim priest until the end of the summer. Our premarital counseling is required by our faith, and we will need approval from both the priest and the bishop in order to be married in the church after divorce. That takes time, too.

Still, we had a plan. We would go through all our preparations together, save our pennies and get the banns stamped by the church. Then we'd snag our tax returns next winter and marry in June.

But Jimmy was laid off for a while, and that hit us hard. He's thankfully employed again, but at a much lower salary. I've started my photo shop to raise money, which is helping to make up the shortfall, but we were getting nervous. Still, we thought we'd just downscale our plans to fit a lower budget.

However, we've been informed that one of the people in our wedding party can't travel in June. Sticking to our original date means losing him from the wedding - he wouldn't even be able to attend, much less don a tux. And it's absolutely horrible timing for my father and stepmother; that's the month they are planning to move halfway across the state after their retirement. We couldn't have picked a worse time for them to help us celebrate our marriage.

So Jimmy and I reluctantly came to the conclusion that we will have to postpone the wedding. The date of June 20 means a lot to us, so I briefly floated the idea of waiting until the following June 20, in 2015. Jimmy's head spun around and he began speaking in tongues, so I figured that meant NO. August, maybe. Or September. Possibly a Saturday afternoon, now that we're not tied to that particular Friday night.

Still, there's a bit of bittersweet today. My email inbox is full of helpful reminders from The Knot and other wedding sites that today is one year until my wedding! Here's a list of things to do this month! Not so much, Knotheads.

Anniversaries are important. Grumps may complain that they're just excuses for Hallmark to exist, like Mother's Day and Valentine's Day. But anyone who's ever been married knows how easy it is for days to become weeks to become months and suddenly you realize it's been forever since you remembered to say "I love you" to the one sleeping next to you, and much longer since you really looked at her and saw her. The people we live with seem to fade into the furniture, and taking someone you love for granted is much too easy in the hustle of everyday life.

Anniversaries help us remember, and so do the Hallmark Holidays. They remind us to take a moment, to share a memory or two, to really look at each other and marvel that someone is in your life. It may be the anniversary of your wedding, the anniversary of your first kiss or your first date or the moment you first looked at her and felt that strange sensation in the pit of your stomach, like the world just turned under your feet. Next month it will be the anniversary of our moment before the castle, when Jimmy tripped on something and fell down to one knee in a magic land with glitter in the air. That's a memory worth keeping.

So now we need to pick our next anniversary, the big one. And we'll pick it for sane and practical reasons, but keeping in mind always that this step is bigger than lace doilies and cake, people. It's more important than the party, as much fun as that will be. It's a sacrament, a binding intended for lifetime, and it's worth preparing for properly - and celebrating with our family and friends.

Happy pre-nniversary, love. Even if it isn't.

Engaged Encounters

Being engaged isn't just about flowers and dresses. We put a lot of effort into planning a wedding, and those silly magazines are full of pretty pictures. But that can distract from the real purpose of engagement: the emotional preparation for being married.

I know people who are engaged only about three months and whee! They're married! To each his own, I suppose, but I wonder if they even have time to comprehend what they're doing before they waltz down the aisle. There's a statistic I read in a book titled Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage, and I cannot remember the exact numbers. But it turns out that 50-percent stat is a little misleading. Your odds of divorce are catastrophically higher if you marry in your 20s - on the order of 90 percent, I think - and go down the older you are when you get married.

Is that because you're stupid in your 20s? Well... yes. The older you are, the more likely you are to know who you are, what you want and be more focused on living the rest of your life with someone than cake and centerpieces. It's easy to get swept up in the romantic stuff, to be so overwhelmed with tulle and lace that you shortchange yourself on the things you really should be doing to prepare for your marriage.

In fact, that's one of the criticisms of the whole wedding concept. "A wedding is a day; a marriage is forever!" they yell. This is true, even if it is kind of a killjoy - hey, weddings are fun! And expensive, and preparing for them is complicated. But the other stuff - that's the really important part. That's part of why Jimmy and I decided to wait nearly two years: we have both done this dance before, and we are not lining up for another divorce.

Here's the frustrating thing, for me: I want to do this right. I was just as interested in premarital preparation as I was in finding a good deal on tuxedo rentals. I knew that the Episcopal Church does a version of Engaged Encounter that is quite helpful for preparing couples to be married, and I looked up the local version.

All Catholic. Every local session of Engaged Encounter was Catholic, and we might be next door to a Catholic Church, but we aren't allowed. I'm pretty sure they don't have sessions on marriage after divorce, you know? So I called the Episcopal diocese, and they had no idea what I was talking about. I contacted a friend who worked for another diocese, and he said he had not heard of any such program.

I know I'm not nuts. (Well, not too nuts.) I went through this program with my first husband. It wasn't the full weekend, just a Saturday session, but it was better than nothing. I remember little about it except that we had to draw each other's family tree, and I was terrible at figuring out his family. Heaven save me if they make me do that for Jimmy; he is related to half the state of Tennessee. But the full Engaged Encounter is a weekend retreat, in which the couple spends time with other couples and with spiritual advisers talking about the mental and emotional aspects of binding yourself to another person for the rest of your life.

Finally we appealed to a priest who has been cheerleading for us since he met us a few months ago. He made a few inquiries on our behalf. It seems the best option for an engagement preparation weekend he could find is in central Florida.

Wow. Everywhere I turn, somebody wants to help me pick out lace and floral arrangements. I'm deluged with emails for invitations and china patterns and photo booths. But to me, the most important part of being engaged is our mental and emotional preparation for a lifelong commitment: to love, honor and cherish each other until we are parted by death, including the sharing of a toothpaste tube and not stealing the covers. This is serious stuff.

It seems there should be at least as many opportunities for an Engaged Encounter as there are for interviewing florists.

We can't afford central Florida, much as we'd like to go back to the scene of the crime. And we continue to search for a weekend program that will let us attend. If I have to, I'll find a workbook for the damn thing and book us for a quiet weekend on a lake somewhere, to watch the sunset, wax philosophic and talk about all the things we're supposed to discuss before we take the biggest step of our lives.

Hey, if we have to do it ourselves, we can skip the whole family tree thing. I'll make him remember my birthday instead. Here's a hint, babe: it's this month.

Why do it again?

I have been asked just why I would want to get married again, after two marriages that crashed and burned. Good question! Now let's see if I can come up with a good answer.

First, let me tell all of you that I had to think long and hard about this. I did not want to jump into another marriage without giving it some serious thought and soul searching. But the more I got to know Elizabeth and have fallen more and more in love with her, I realized that she was the one I was meant to be with my entire life.

It is such a wonderful thing, being with someone who is a geek just like you. Elizabeth loves science fiction, horror, and going to geek conventions. What more can someone ask for? A big plus is that she is also a writer and we can bounce story ideas off each other. Granted... her ideas are way better than mine, and I have no problem saying that. But it is a good feeling talking to someone that, you know, gets it!

We don't always agree on the things we like. I love the Big G, Godzilla. Elizabeth can't stand the films. Well... she likes the... GAG!... American-made Godzilla movie. You know, the one with the lizard that did NOT breathe fire and who was taken out by two stupid missiles. YUCK! She thinks the costume in the new Man Of Steel movie coming out doesn't matter. I think you shouldn't mess with tradition and stick to what the original looked like.

Well, even when you are in love you don't always have to agree on everything. But I think that is the one thing I love most about her. Even though we don't see eye-to-eye on everything, we do our best not to let it get in the way of our love for one another.

I feel like I can be myself around her, and go all geeky about something and not be made fun of or made to feel like I'm stupid about a subject that I like. Trust me, it's not a good feeling when it happens. So I know that I am with a very special person, one that is worth any risk to be with and someone that I would gladly take the walk down the aisle to marry. 

I love her. With all of my heart and soul, I love her. And I can't wait until the day we are husband and wife. It will be the best thing to happen to me since my kids were born. I thank God everyday that she is in my life.

I will be honored to do it again. I look forward to spending the rest of my life with her, as her husband. My Star...

Paper Dolls, Life Size Edition

The people at the wedding shows are starting to recognize us. That probably means we're going to too many, but honestly, we always seem to come away with something else free or a new idea. I'll stop going when it stops helping, I suppose. This recent one we attended in part because it was a chance to show Jimmy the Gateway Center room we were considering (awesome, but way too expensive with their food) and because a baker who can do castle cakes would be there.

The baker was recommended to us by the Dillards saleslady, and we both fell in love with the castle cakes on her web site. A close examination of her cakes on display told us she was quite talented, and her cake tastes good, too. Unfortunately, she is also on the high end for cost. Still, she's the first we've seen that does castles, and since Jimmy chose the bridge in front of Cinderella Castle to trip on something and ask me to marry him, we've got this whole fairytale thing going on.

That, and Jimmy's all about the free cake. He carries the bag full of surprisingly heavy weddingshit at the shows, and bounces from caterer to baker to candymaker snagging free samples. He discovered calamari at this show, and then tried to kiss me tasting like squid. Bleech! I smacked him with the long-stemmed red rose one of the florists gave me. Don't worry, no thorns.

The show was notable for two other reasons. First, the fashion show was at least 65 percent plus-size models. Yaaaaay! Nothing has been so annoying in this process (besides the part where we're broke) as the skewed size of the dresses. I get that a majority of brides doing the traditional thing are in their early twenties and have not yet borne a child, but even when I met that description, I still had hips, dammit.

Champagne & Lace Bridal apparently understands that the average American woman is a size 14, not 4. I let them sucker me into making an appointment (which I usually avoid at all costs) because their gowns are clearly designed for adults. I don't know what they'll cost, but it's worth a try.

The other notable item at the show was a horse-drawn carriage service. I couldn't help myself; I grabbed a flyer. Sensing a sucker, the salesman (in full carriage-driver costume) offered to let me sit in it. As Jimmy and I sat in the carriage, he leaned over and said, "Let me give you my sales pitch, then you can tell me I'm full of it." I liked him immediately. His pitch was good, and both of us instantly fell in love with the idea: a nice quiet sunset ride in a horse-drawn carriage after the ceremony to take a breather together before delivering us to the reception.

I knew it was just a pipe dream, that we're supposed to be cutting costs out of the wedding, not adding costs to it. We got out of the carriage and I sighed, putting the flyer in the bag. Then Jimmy surprised me by saying, "Oh, we gotta do that." I reminded him that the budget is too high anyway, and he insisted: it was perfect, and it fit the whole fairytale theme. He really really wanted it! I shook my head and said, "Okay, where do we find another $350?"

Still working on that part.

The next day was my appointment at David's Bridal. Yes, I know. DB is the Wal-mart of the Wedding Wonderland. High-pressure sales, service by assembly line and inferior products, or so the articles say. But you know what? I haven't yet found a dress shop selling wedding gowns for women in my size under $500. I've found a web site or two that sells in my size, but you have to order from a catalog and pay in full before you get to actually try on the dress, and trust that if you hate it or it looks awful on you, you can return it. Maybe. Sort of. If the moon is in alignment.

I know that probably I'll get my dress from a consignment shop or used on eBay. At first I was worried about buying someone else's bad karma, but I'm getting over that as I see the prices. Cruising the dress shops is important so I can see what I like and what looks good on my figure shape, so that when I find a good buy online or used, I know whether I should jump on it. As I told Jimmy, if I buy a used dress for $100 and it looks lousy, I can always resell it and try again. Buying a $500 dress from a shop is decidedly non-returnable.

I've also learned that once we tell vendors we're trying to do a whole wedding on $5,000, they lose interest in us fast. Therefore, I have patented the line, "We aren't sure what the budget will be yet. We've got 18 months to go, so we're testing out all our options to figure out how much we need to save."

That's the line I gave David's Bridal. The one I liked the most was a quasi-Renaissance V-front style with red detailing and inset. I can order it in ivory with dark blue detailing, which I've seen on their site and it's just gorgeous. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it was strapless, and I want some kind of lace over my shoulders unless I plan to do pushups for the next eighteen months.

Just imagine this in ivory, with dark blue inset, and without the goofy grin.

Apparently David's Bridal will add lace straps or sleeves in a variety of styles for $39, including the cost of the alteration. That price seems a little too good to be true. All the seamstresses I know live far away! Anyone know if that's standard?

The next dress kicked off Jimmy's waterworks. Okay, I love the man and I know he acts all gruff and silent and tough-guy with his leather jacket that weighs forty pounds. (No kidding, the coat-check kid at the bridal show remarked that Jimmy's coat weighs a ton. I think it's lined with lead sheeting.) But anyone who knows him at all figures out quick that Jimmy is a giant marshmallow who sniffles at the end of sappy movies and is prone to snuggly hugs.

I tried this dress on twice, and each time he teared up when I stepped out. This amused Johanna the Saleslady very much. I liked it quite a bit, though I'm not entirely sold on the bodice. It's kind of... busty. But that didn't seem to bother Jimmy. (Shaddup.)

Look, Ma! Sleeves! Almost kinda ... okay, they are pretend sleeves...

The next dress I liked quite a bit in the store, even though it's a very plain dress until you add the floor-length coat thingie. Look, what do I know from dresses? I barely remember shopping for a dress the first time, and that was fifteen years ago in a galaxy far far away.

Note the distressed bride in the background. I thought it was a perfectly nice dress.

This one (above) looked a lot better in person than it did in the pictures. But that wouldn't be important, right? After all, who's really going to be taking my picture wearing this dress.... wait.

The next one was Johanna the Saleslady's idea, and it turned out to make the short list. I wasn't all that interested in halter dresses, but this one nearly made me a convert. It's a size too small, but they don't always have samples in my size.

Hey, I'm four pounds down this month. Let's call that progress.

All this time, Johanna the Saleslady was wrangling me in and out of dresses, not to mention about sixty yards of undergarments - apparently there needs to be about eight layers of fabric between my ass and the air. I was barefoot, since I haven't bought shoes yet and after all, we're not hemming anything.

Here's something I now know about dress shopping: I will wear my Birkenstocks. I don't care if they're clunky and will look silly with the dresses - nobody can see them anyway. After two and a half hours on my bare feet with and without miles and miles of white satin wrapped around my bod, my poor dogs were barking. Also: I am so not wearing heels to my wedding.

While I was playing paper doll with me as the doll, Jimmy got sneaky. He went over to the headpiece rack and selected a lovely tiara. Then he made me wear it.

I cannot keep a straight face in this thing.

Sneaky McMarshmallow was using my phone to take pictures and kept posting them to Facebook, in between his sniffles. Apparently there is strong public reaction to me in a tiara. I still think I look silly, but hey, it's important to Jimmy. Not princess, mind you - queen. We are not buying this one - seems that price tag stuck in my hair there says $200, so that'll be an eBay item for sure. Jimmy put it back very carefully.

Once we were done, they wrote up a list of the dresses I liked and their prices. I was dismayed that every one of them was double my ballpark budget, and the one I liked most, the Renaissance dress, was $599. Johanna the Saleslady also told me it's about to be discontinued. I figured that means a) it's going away and might be discounted to $99 next month because that's what DB does, b) it's going away and I'll just have to be screwed because I don't have $600 in the wedding fund right now, or c) it's not going anywhere and that was Johanna the Saleslady's desperate attempt to get me to buy something on the first trip.

I'll be really disappointed if it's (c), because I quite liked Johanna the Saleslady. She was sweet and helpful, shared my disdain for "Say Yes to the Dress," gave all sorts of advice (such as the best place to find a longline bustier in my *ahem* size) and really had a good eye for picking things I liked. I don't suppose I'd blame her, either, since I'm sure DB puts major pressure on their salesladies and it's not so great for her to spend two hours with someone who doesn't buy yet. It's all beside the point: the Renaissance dress would have to be a special order, and I can't afford it now or later unless there's a serious price cut. *kicks can* Still, should I end up buying a dress at DB, I'll make sure Johanna gets the credit - and I'm almost positive they'll be our choice for bridesmaid dresses.

Since I had the day off, Jimmy and I decided to make it a Weddingshit Day. We went to ArtMart and checked out the relative costs for do-it-yourself wedding invitations - that little project will consume my life and probably make me insane, but I'll do almost anything to save money. We went to Macy's to fix a problem with the registry (and I still managed to keep him from scanning a panini press). We went to Nordstrom's on Johanna the Saleslady's advice and got the price on the longline bustier. One more item for the budget. *sigh*

And we spent a lot of time talking about what we want. Things like invitations and a full plated dinner aren't as important as spending time with our friends. And we had a great example that evening: a birthday ball for my dear friend Rebekah. She'd rented an American Legion ballroom, had hors d'oeuvres and desserts, cash bar and a DJ. It was a wonderful time! People sat and talked, danced, sang along, laughed. Pictures were taken and friends were hugged.

At one point I looked around and told Jimmy, "This is all we need. A room, tables and chairs, munchies and dessert. As much as I'd love to waltz across a stately ballroom while our guests dine on prime rib, if it's just snacks and cake, I'm still marrying you." I hope he actually heard me over the music, because he nodded yes. On the other hand, maybe he's just doing that by reflex now.

I haven't talked much about this other part, but I have to mention it: I am really floored by the kind people who are offering their services as a gift. I won't put them on the spot - yet - but there are wonderful talented people who will be a part of our wedding and they are kind enough to do it for the love, as they say in the publishing biz. I have known it for many years, but these people have reminded me again and again that I am truly blessed beyond imagining in friendship. Thank you all, in advance.

Also, I am totally getting Jimmy to wear the tiara at least once. And that photo's going on Facebook too.

Tears of love.

It has been a busy week for Elizabeth and me when it comes to the wedding. Thursday night we went to a really cool wedding show at the Gateway Center. A whole lot of vendors were there showing off their services.

And you know what that means. You guessed it. CAKE! But that isn't they only reason I go to these things. (Although it is a pretty good reason.) I go to these shows to support Elizabeth and to let her know that I want to be involved in this wedding as much as possible. Granted, it doesn't matter to me what color the tablecloths are, but I want to at least be able to talk to Elizabeth about it and show her that I want her to be happy with whatever color we finally decide on.

Now here was something that was funny. Some of these vendors are starting to recognize us! There were more than a couple that saw us and remembered us. I thought that was really funny that these people are that good at remembering people they met at these show. But I guess that's part of their job to do those things.

The coolest thing the two of us saw at the show was a white horse-drawn carriage. It looked so awesome, and we even got to sit in it. We fell in love with it and I know one thing, one way or the other we are going to have this for our wedding. Elizabeth deserves something like this. Plus it goes really well with the whole fairytale thing we got going on.

But the funniest thing that happened at the show was I got to try out calamari. You know, fried squid. Man! That stuff was good! I have never tried it before and I really liked it. The only thing was that Elizabeth refused to kiss me after I ate it and called me squid face. Mean!

On Friday, we went to David's Bridal so Elizabeth could try on dresses. I know some people are thinking, why do this now? The wedding is next year. That might be true, but Elizabeth is wanting to try on stuff now to get an idea of what she likes and just what the prices are for the dresses.

Yeah, I know I'm not supposed to see her in the dress before the big day. I don't think it will hurt anything for me to see her dressed up. I mean, come on, this isn't like going to Olive Garden to eat lunch. THAT is a big taboo for me. LOOOOOOONG STORY.

She tried on a very beautiful wedding dress that was white with a red inlay in the front. It looked like it was from the Renaissance era. It was very beautiful on her. She wanted the color of the dress to be ivory with a blue inlay. My God...that would be so wonderful on her.

She tried on a few more dresses and each one made her look so beautiful and lovely. With each dress, I cried tears of love and happiness seeing her in those lovely dresses. Crying now just thinking about it.

But something was missing to make it look even better. I went and found the display of tiaras and picked one out and brought it over to where she was trying on the dresses. After she put it on, she looked like a beautiful queen out of a story book. I took several pictures of her in the dresses and the tiara. I put them up on Facebook and the comments rolled in. Everyone agreed that Elizabeth looked lovely in the tiara.

So now it is a done deal. She has to wear one for the wedding now. COOL! I get to marry my queen on the wedding day.

Wedding Wonderland

Today wasn't actually supposed to be an all-day fall down the wedding rabbit-hole, but it turned out that way.

We had a very simple plan: pick up a dresser in Belleville (I love Craigslist) and go by Savvi Formalwear for paperwork, because I stood in a phone booth and grabbed money.

A little explanation is required here.

Back last fall, my stepmother Karen and I went to a bridal show so I could scout prices. We spied the booth for Savvi Formalwear, and they had a glass phone booth in which air blowers were circulating wadded-up bills. Brides entered and had fifteen seconds to grab money.

Karen practically shoved me into the thing, mostly because she wanted to see my hair flying around in the wind, I swear. Rather than grab at flying dollar bills like an idiot, I just cupped my arms above my waist and let it accumulate for fifteen seconds. Then I dumped the armful into the lady's bin and watched them count it.

Silly me, I thought I'd get to keep the money. No, the $180 I'd grabbed was my credit toward our rentals at Savvi. I was losing interest, but they told me with five rentals I'd get a groom's tux free, and that caught my attention because we are on the hook for three tuxes: Jimmy's and both sons. They had Karen once they said we'd also get two free airline tickets; see, Karen and Dad have offered to buy our honeymoon as their wedding present, so that works out nicely for them. Karen tossed them the $20 deposit to hold this deal, and we wandered away.

Fast forward to last week, when Savvi called me. They said we needed to come in and sign papers for our deal, and that would cement our free airline tickets. Now, I still don't believe for a second that we're really getting two free tickets to the Caribbean out of this. The most important thing I have learned from the wedding wonderland is that there is always some catch preventing them from giving me whatever spectacular deal is advertised on a giant banner at a bridal show. There's going to be some provision that we can only use the tickets on Tuesdays during Ramadan or something.

Still, we wanted to do our best to save Dad and Karen money. So after we picked up the dresser, we went to Savvi for our paperwork.

Jimmy may not care about most of the wedding nonsense, but he cares about the tuxedo. He wanted black tails, the most traditional of menswear. It's kind of funny that he is such a super-traditionalist in all things, whereas I'm pretty much "yeah, whatever." Whether it's awful wedding marches, men in tails or his insistence that he is going to carry me over the threshold like we haven't been living together for a year and a half, he is Mr. Tradition.

The funny thing is, traditional tails are very out of fashion. Last year we'd checked out other places, because catching dollar bills in mid-air is a silly way to choose a vendor. Men's Wearhouse told us that they hadn't booked a wedding in tails all year. They also told us we could choose between a free tux for the groom or a $500 credit toward a suit, which sounded like a fine deal until you realize their suits started at about $800.

Savvi dug out the tails, all two varieties, and Jimmy chose what he wanted. At first we put the vest and coat on Ian, but the blue Superman T-shirt kind of ruined the effect.

As you can see, Ian is absolutely thrilled about this part of the process.

The salesgirl then dressed a dummy in the dark blue vest and coat, and it looked really spiffy. Of course, a dark blue vest was only if we could match it to the bridesmaid dresses I haven't picked at a store I haven't chosen for bridesmaids we haven't asked yet. Thank goodness it's not carved in stone.

Jimmy changed his mind when he saw the gray vest with the black tux, and it was really quite dashing. Ian even managed to contain his snark; apparently he thinks the tails will make them look like waiters.

I personally can't wait for their rendition of "Puttin' on the Ritz," in the best Mel Brooks style.

Then I had a little fun taking pictures of the lady measuring Jimmy for his tux. We did not bother to have her measure Ian, since he will probably grow a foot taller before the wedding.

It's been a long time since Jimmy was in the military, but for some reason he decided it was a good day to stand at attention. Hut!

Then she had to measure that barrel chest of his.

I'm still pretty sure he's not breathing

Then she had to measure his leg. Awkward. I'm being mean, she was very sweet and helpful and I'm sure there was a very good reason for this stance...

Jimmy has no idea why she made him perform a Nazi salute.

You're not supposed to be able to tell that he's still wearing the Godzilla T-shirt underneath this.

Jimmy is forbidden to wear a Godzilla T-shirt under his tux at the wedding. I shall instruct the groomsmen thusly.

"Can you breathe, sir?" I'm pretty sure he can, since it fits fine, but he's still at attention. Those funky stripes are not on his tux, by the way - this is the special fitting tux that tells them how long his arms are, so he can't flap his wings and fly away.

For the love of God, darling, it's just the first fitting, breathe!!

Poor Jimmy. Don't worry, I'll humiliate myself later.

We did get into a bit of a wrangle with the Savvi people. It seems that since tails are so far out of fashion, they're considered a "value" tux, and thus the cheapest. Awesome! Except they can't apply further discounts to value tuxes, such as my $180 bridal show catch.

That's when I lost my sense of humor fast, as this is about the fifteenth time a good deal has been reneged at the last minute, and I keep walking away. I told them that wasn't declared to me at the show, where I had mentioned the tails, and that the show credit was the reason we chose them. Killing the credit when we have to cover three tuxes took my costs from $40 to $200, and that's unacceptable. Perhaps guessing that they were losing me fast, they conferred quickly and made me a great deal: the boys for $20 each as well as Jimmy's freebie. That, folks, is how you keep a customer.

We signed on the dotted line. We have booked our first vendor. It also made Karen's long-ago $20 deposit nonrefundable, so I guess that means we really have to go through with this thing.

We grabbed a quick Starbucks while Ian quickly ditched us to go "do his thing." Which pretty much means shopping for things he can't afford while not being seen with boring grownups. We skimmed over the little bag of freebies Savvi gave us - we don't seem to be able to walk into or out of a store without a bag of free stuff, folks.

The most ludicrous item yet: a fan that displays the shiny laser name of some real estate company.

I cannot make this up.

We spied a special deal: register at Dillard's and you'll get a $25 gift card. Now, we're already registered at Macy's and Bed Bath & Beyond, plus the Gift 360 thing that lets us combine everything on one page. Three department stores seems a little over-the-top. But we are craven opportunists and can't resist a freebie. Plus there are a few things we didn't find at the other places, like a comforter set that doesn't make my eyeballs scream and roll back in my head trying to hide.

So we meandered over to Dillard's, and the friendly people there put a scanner in Jimmy's hand. This is his favorite part. Scan, beep and glow: the little registry screen shows what we just scanned. His mad cackle echoed through the housewares department. Scan scan scan! Panini press, waffle maker, that ludicrous KitchenAid stand mixer with five billion attachments... That man is a danger with a scanner in his hand.

We did the whole china thing again, figuring this way people can pick which store they want. Or something. It's not like we actually expect to get anything; but it's kind of fun to plan. Hey, if nothing else it gives me a wish list for future Christmases and birthdays. Hint hint, Jimmy. (Though the panini press is ridiculous, dear.)

Finally we escaped the mall and were passing Jared Jewelry. We had been there months ago, right after the engagement, and picked out a ring I liked. Again, we needed to know what things would cost, so we could save. We stopped at Jared on impulse, and were pleased to see that the lovely ring we picked out before is still available (though $50 more expensive than it was last year). 

We looked at wedding bands, with a little more freedom now; Jimmy was working with heavy machinery at the factory, so we thought a tungsten or cobalt ring was all he could have. Now he can have anything, and scanning through the case he stopped and said, "HEY." Nothing has caught his eye in this whole process as much as the ring he saw: a lovely ornate band with lots of detailed scrollwork. Funny; out of all the men's rings, that's the one I liked best, too. I had thought it too ornate for his style, yet it was the one he picked out.

Naturally we asked the price. "$99," she said. I thought I had heard her wrong and asked her to repeat it. Turns out it's a stainless steel ring, so it's supercheap. Bingo. I think I'm definitely getting the better deal here. We are not buying yet, but it's good to know what we can get and how cheap we can get it.

Speaking of cheap, our next stop was Goodwill. Not for wedding stuff, seriously. The boy needed a bedside table for his alarm clock, which doesn't quite fit on the windowsill. We found one for six dollars, and then for laughs, I checked out the wedding dresses.

Yes, I'm looking at used dresses. I am very leery of buying someone else's karma, but beggars can't be choosers and our plan is to bring this thing in for less than the cost of some of these dresses I see in the magazines. Who knows? I might find a real treasure. So far all I've found is a series of reminders that I am a woman of curves and bridal designs hate me. This Goodwill had a beautiful silk dress - with SLEEVES! - that was fully lined, covered in lace and seed pearls, and had a long, beautiful train. It was also a size 10. I haven't been size 10 since I WAS ten.

However, it had a veil headband. Not satisfied with being the only one taking silly pictures today, Jimmy made me try it on.

I'm going to get you for this later, honey.

Thus ends today's fall through the rabbit-hole. It's a strange place, Wedding Wonderland. It's a land where it actually seems sane to charge people a dollar a napkin for a color other than white, a dollar fifty per person to pour water into their cups and that doesn't include a 20 percent surcharge to pay the waiters... wait, didn't I just pay them a dollar fifty for water alone? That ridiculous pile you see up there in front of Jimmy (the one with the stupid fan) is our attempt to cull the flyers and brochures and coupons into something like a manageable pile, while we also realize we can't have twelve people up front with us at the altar without expanding the church walls, and as much as we want to, we cannot invite all 2,000 people on our Facebook friends lists to this shindig. At some point, sanity must prevail.

Which probably means I'm going to quietly remove that silly panini press from the registry as soon as he goes to bed...

Rings and tuxes...

  Today we went to Savvi's to check out the tuxedos styles that I could have for the wedding for myself and the poor guys that I can get to be my groomsmen. When Elizabeth and I got there, my mind was already made up with what I wanted to wear for this little event. I wanted a tux with tails. The girl there showed us two different styles of jackets that I could choose from and after I made my choice, she put the clothes on one of the dummies in the store to let us see what it would look like.

  What we finally decided on was a combination of a black jacket with grey vest and bow tie. We thought of going with a vest and bow tie for the groomsmen that matched the brides maids' dress color. But that just didn't seem right. It didn't look good with the black jacket. But the gray color with the black really caught my eye. We may still go with the colored vest and tie, but we will have to wait to see what the finally color for the bridesmaids' dresses will be.

  Now...I have had some people ask me why I want a tuxedo with tails for this wedding. I have even been told that they aren't really used that much anymore. But to be honest, I don't care about what is in style or what is popular for weddings. I think that most tuxedos that are out now just look like regular suits. Just a little fancier, but nothing to tell them apart from another dress suit. But the way the tuxedo jacket looks with tails adds a certain class and style. Something that sets it apart from other suits. I think it makes the wearer look, as Elizabeth put it, smashing. So it's tails for me and my guys that I choose to stand up there with me.

  We later went to where we had decided to get the wedding rings for us to wear. Luckily, the real engagement ring that Elizabeth fell in love with is still available. So that was a load off my mind. What was really cool was that I found a ring that I fell in love with. A very ornate ring with very detailed carving on it. It was very unique and best of all...very affordable. It was only 99.00! We couldn't believe that it was so cheap. The lady told us it was made out of stainless steel and that was the reason why it was that price. I didn't care what it was made out of, I want that ring. It was just so different and I fell in love with the cross symbols on it.

  So all in all, this was a fun filled day of wedding planning, getting fitted for tuxes, and looking at rings. Plus, Elizabeth made a good point. We have put down our twenty dollar deposit on the tux. It nonrefundable, so guess what. No turning back now. Time to get this show on the road and get it planned. Tails and all.

The show must go on

The road to hell is paved with good... wait, that's a different thing.

Our path toward the castle has been sidetracked a bit, with Jimmy laid off from his job for the past month and a half. We don't know for sure if we'll still be able to marry the day we'd planned, as we've had to stop putting money aside while we're a single-income family.

But we're keeping the faith that one of the jobs for which he's interviewed will pan out, and we'll be able to get back on track. It's very important to Jimmy that we marry on that day, and one thing I've learned about this is that we have to figure out what's important to each of us, and what we can let slide. I could move the date fairly easily; to him it's anathema. I care about flowers; he doesn't give a leaf one way or the other. Neither of us cares much about invitations, but both of us are adamant on being married in our church.

Part of keeping the faith has been continuing the wedding planning. We set it aside for the holidays, because goodness knows we had plenty else to do, but we still talk about it from time to time. One of these bridal shows signed me up for Brides Magazine, God save us. How often does that thing publish, anyway? About nine issues piled up in a month, I swear. They're stacked on my beleaguered crafts table, beside my unopened wedding organizer and a sackful of vendor brochures.

I scan through Brides when I need a good laugh. These people are frightening. Sure, this bride had the ballroom of the New York Ritz-Carlton swathed in white linen and covered in trees and greenery brought in just for her wedding to look like she was marrying in a forest! No price was mentioned, of course. Let's not forget favors for your 500 guests that only cost $12 each. (Multiply, carry the 6... oh, more than my entire budget.) Want something blue for your feet? Try these lovely blue shoes from Saks Fifth Avenue! Only $675!

But it's a new year, new hopes and in keeping with that, we ventured back out to the Gateway Bridal Show about ten days ago. Jimmy insisted he wanted to come. I think he mostly wanted to come because there were almost no food vendors at the teeny show he attended with me last fall. He's all about the free cake. Mmm, spedini.

It was pretty much the same show as the one Katie and I attended last summer. Many of the vendors were the same, with a few newbies and the same crazed atmosphere. We planned better, and Jimmy and I actually got to see the bridal fashion show. He was pleased to finally see grooms in tails; he's such a traditionalist. Frankly, I think he's going to look quite dashing in tails, even though my devilish son is already complaining about them. "I'm going to look like a waiter!" he wails.

Of course, Jimmy had to torment each of the bakers by asking them if they could do a Godzilla groom's cake. Now, just about any of them can do a flat 2-D cake, but a 3-D cake is a different beast. A few weeks before, we had our annual Christmas date in historic St. Charles and met a baker who was positively excited at the idea of doing a 3-D Godzilla. Jimmy got a little carried away, though, and asked a baker about doing Godzilla attacking the Arch. I'm a little worried about him.

Seriously, he became enamored of the idea that a Godzilla ice sculpture in the punch bowl would be awesome. Sure, hilarious. Except he actually grabbed a brochure from the ice sculpture people. As if it were a serious consideration.

He's crossed over. He's become one of them!

And then there was this monstrosity:

Katie hates pink. Despises it. So do I, actually. But that didn't stop me from posting this picture and threatening to make her ride in it. She was... profane in her response. She needn't fear; I could not in good conscience rent this Pepto-Bismol abomination, or the Hummer limousine. I'd hear the screams of little birdies dying in my smog-choked wake. (As one of my friends put it: How many gallons to the mile does it get?)

I did find a florist whose creations were so lovely and so perfectly in tune with what I want that I let myself get talked into making an appointment. It turns out I'll have to cancel it, since it conflicts with a Boy Scout outing. It's probably just as well; there is no way I could afford the incredibly beautiful designs they had on display, and it would be an exercise in frustration. I love flowers and know that getting real flowers is one of my few non-compromises. In fact, there was a vendor there who specializes in freeze-drying your bridal bouquet (or part of it) and turning it into art for your home. I took her flyer even though I know it's probably ludicrous and impossible. I can't imagine anything better than keeping a piece of my bouquet.

I also got talked into an appointment at David's Bridal. I know I'm going to end up getting my dress there, because I cannot find another shop in this city that carries dresses under $400 in my size. Even if the salons can order dresses in my size, they don't keep samples in my size for me to try on!

And I can order on the internet... if I don't care about actually trying on my wedding gown before paying for it. If I were a size eight, I would not have this problem. And I'm not really shopping yet, since I'm hoping to be a size or two smaller by then. But if I were reduced to my skeleton, I would not be a size eight. I have hips. I bore a child.

Here's another problem: strapless dresses. What. The. *bleep*. Every freaking dress in the bridal show was strapless, yet again. I found myself longing for a spaghetti strap to remind these designers that very few women look good in a strapless dress. I'm going to have to do pushups every night for the next 521 days if I'm going to wear any of these freaking dresses, and buy the extra-special undergarments.

Possibly the highlight of the afternoon was when Jimmy made me wear a tiara. I told him I'd look silly in a tiara. He made me anyway. We will debate tiara vs. flower wreath vs. circlet vs. veil eventually. The feverish debate already launched on Facebook, with the sides evenly matched between "every woman should have a tiara" and "let go of the princess thing already."

Personally, I'm not fond of the princess thing. Queen, on the other hand, would do just fine.

Well, we've got the fairytale thing. Castle, you know. Blame him, he's the one who started all this. And he gets overwhelmed with sappy happiness at the drop of a seed pearl these days. It's adorable and sometimes confounding.

Me? I'm a little nervous. Not about marrying him. But that silly wedding site has the helpful countdown telling me we're getting married in 521 days, assuming that he gets a job again soon. And I think of trying to raise the money in that time, and I get nervous. Not that we need to spend a fortune, but I want our friends and family to have a good time, to dance and laugh and enjoy our non-cheesy celebration. Well, non-cheesy until you see the groom's cake.

People have $5,000 weddings all the time. There's a way to pull it off. I'm almost sure of it. It helps that I'll never spend $675 on a freaking pair of shoes.

More Cake!

  On the fifth of January Elizabeth and I went to another bridal show in St. Louis. This was a much larger show than the last one we went to. Vendors from all over the area were there and man, was it a little over whelming. Everything from limo services and big buses for the wedding party to floral shops were there. We checked out the buses just for the fun of it knowing there was no way in hell we could ever afford one. They were really cool. One even had a stripper pole in it! Now, I ask you, is that bus for the wedding party or the bachelor party?

  One of the big limos was pink. A very sickening shade of pink. Who in the world would want that ugly thing? Not this groom that is for sure. After we made it through the limos, we started to hit the main aisles of the show. Even though I knew it would drive Elizabeth crazy, I checked out the ice sculptures. Now I thought they looked way cool. I asked the guy standing there if they could do one that looked like my hero, Godzilla. He said they could and that made me have a cool idea. A ice sculpture of Godzilla standing in the punch bowl with a wrecked building next to him. Ahhh...the sight of that at the reception would be such a cool thing for the guest to see. I told this idea to Elizabeth, who immediately shot it down. Sadly, I left the ice sculptures a sad, broken man with visions of a icy Godzilla stuck in my head.

  We continued to check out the different vendors and found one that would freeze dry your flowers. This is something I wish we could do for Elizabeth's flowers. It would help save the wonderful memory   of our wedding day. We haven't checked out the price for it yet, but I do hope we can do something like it. Finally, we got to the most important part of the show. Or at least to me. CAKE! They had a couple of bakers there that had the most tasty cakes! Mmmmm...they were so good. The butter cream frosting melted in my mouth with each wonderful bite I could get my hands on. Of course I asked the question that I'm getting famous for, 'Can you make a cake that looks like Godzilla?'. But this time I threw in that I want Godzilla breaking the St. Louis Arch. The baker I asked smiled and said he can do it and it would look cool. God I want that for a groom's cake. I love my hero Godzilla.

  Elizabeth and I finally made our way to where they were having the fashion show for the different dresses. I saw a couple that I think Elizabeth would look very beautiful in. I almost teared up thinking about it. Just nearly teared up just NOW writing about it. Man I am a sappy. The thing I liked about the show was that the male models at one part of the show were all wearing tuxedos with TAILS. I was told by one store that tails were not in style. So it really made me feel good to see tuxedos with tails. I really want to wear tails at this wedding. I just think they look so classy. But NO! I will not wear a top hat and sing the song 'Putting on the Ritz'. PERIOD. All in all we had a good time.

  As we were leaving we got on the subject of the ice sculptures again. Elizabeth kept telling me thehy were so crazy. I looked at the doorman as we were walking out and asked him if it was cool to have a Godzilla ice sculpture sitting in punch bowl. He thought about it for a couple of seconds and said, 'A man has to go with what he feels sometimes.' Well...I got one man on my side at least.