The Bridal Ball

First off: why does this blog exist? Answer: Our friends are evil.

Jimmy Gillentine and I are engaged. It's a long engagement. Jimmy asked me to marry him on July 5, standing in front of Cinderella Castle at Disney World. (Now how does a girl say no to that?)

But getting engaged doesn't make us any less broke. We have two cars to pay off before we can afford to get married. And we're both writers, with three or four books coming out next year between us. Two day jobs, three kids and four books makes for a busy year. So we're not getting married until June 2014.

Still, I'm a planner. I like checklists and budgets and calendars. Therefore we are scouting out the things we want or need for the wedding now, to get an idea of what it will cost.

That means the dreaded experience of... the bridal show.

I've been to three so far. Shut up. I don't want to miss any vendor that might give me a better deal, okay?

I went to one at the Gateway Center with my stepmother, where I stood in a cyclonic booth and caught money flying around me, which ended with a $180 credit toward the tuxedos. I went to the Giant Ridiculous Bridalpalooza in downtown St. Louis with my friend Katie, so she could share snark with me while we asked every baker if they can do a Godzilla groom's cake.

Today it was the Metro-East Bridal Ball, hosted at the Regency Conference Center. This time Jimmy came with me, and no, I did not force him or drag him kicking and screaming. He was curious and he wanted to go. (My father: "Wild horses....")

Unfortunately the Bridal Ball was very small. There were only three rows of vendors, several of whom I'd already seen elsewhere (the money cyclone was back!). Only one cake vendor - but they can do Godzilla. Two bridal shops, but neither has a large inventory of plus-size gowns.

The upside was that unlike the other two shows, I actually saw the bridal gown show. In both other shows, it took me long enough to walk through all the vendors that I missed the show each time. This show was so small we had visited all the booths that interested us in half an hour.

That meant poor Jimmy had to sit through model after model wearing skin-tight mermaid gowns while obnoxious music blared - seriously, one dress was so tight I could tell what kind of underwear the girl was wearing.

That said, some of the dresses were kind of nice, and I was glad to see one of the four models was not a stick. She wore a few dresses I wouldn't hate. I've posted elsewhere (and will again here) about the ridiculous dresses I've seen while shopping - is there some rule that says 90 percent of all wedding dresses must be strapless now? Still, none of them were really exciting - certainly not enough to pay $1000 for them.

The highlight of the show was the moment I tried to put my arm around Jimmy and ended up elbowing him in the eye instead. He is a long-suffering man.

In all, the show was all right, but a bit of a disappointment after the first two. I think we'll wait until the next Big Ridiculous Show in January to try again. After all, nobody has the real prices for 2014 yet, so this is all just ballpark figures to give us an idea how much to save.

Oh, and why this blog exists? Our friends suggested that we write dueling blog entries about our engagement, because men and women experience these things differently. I think they just want to see me write nine paragraphs about a tasting and watch Jimmy write, "Food was good."

So it's all their fault.