Day 131 - Food for thought

Although we have not yet booked our venue I am browsing through the menu of the main venue option we have right now. As a vegetarian with a vegetarian daughter I am admittedly a little flustered at the idea of spending thousands of dollars for a bunch of plates of death when my lifestyle choice is significantly less expensive!! Then to have to decide which plate of death is to be served when I myself could care less.... a little difficult.

I began discussing this openly on facebook when I was reminded about allergies, of course our best man is allergic to fish which is the only meat option who's price matches that of the vegetarian option. Now I feel guilty picking it though as that would decide for him what he was eating. I then turned to the pork and was reminded that 3 of my guests are jewish. I threw my hands up in the air, "Vegetarians, allergies, religions...anything else to consider when working out a menu? Can't we all eat salad and dance the night away?" Amazingly all of my friends piped up saying I should just order all vegetarian since it's my wedding and people should just be happy to spend it with us. As much as that thought sounds great, I don't think it would resonate with the less open minded more obligatory guests on my list.

Speaking of guest lists I was reviewing my electronic guest list today and discovered a few doubles. I was inviting the same guests twice. That's what happens when your guest gets a divorce and you add them once by their maiden name and once by their married name. Both times adding their children to the list as well. Whoops.

Everything aside I seem to be on the ball more than hubby to be. I have my wedding dress, I am 90% sure I have my venue, I have my bridesmaid, I have my photographer, I've decided on my venue. But still no groomsmen from David. *le sigh*

I'll get him on it sooner or later. <3 your hippie bride

Day 130 - HUGE growth

To elaborate on yesterdays post, my guest list has gone from a tender and personal 55 to a whopping 96...no scratch that 105. This will not and can not be the final headcount but for now it's going to have to do as I am simply too overwhelmed by the support of my friends to rationally determine which friends go and who stay home.

I think I will have to research some tried and true method to determining who is to attend a wedding. Simply because I know there are the mandatory invites, however there has got to be an easier way to dwindle this list down than just ranking friends.

I never thought this would be the hard part of wedding planning. I guess I never truly considered the cost per guest. Whoops.

Day 129 - Guest list is overweight

It is amazing how a guest list can take a mind of it's own. I thought my guest list had dwindled down to next to nothing back when I was trying to afford the curvature of the earth. But now that there is so much drama exploding I have support coming from all sides and am getting back in touch with old friends. Friends who had otherwise been on the sideline for months or in some cases years. When your house burns down you learn who your friends are and that seems to be the situation here.

In the meantime I am so touched by my bridal party and just how supportive and loving they are. I have so much love for them all as I feel they are my family and truly care about what is good for me. I have been singing "Kind and Generous - Natalie Merchant" to myself all day. 

Day 128 - Family Drama

Every wedding must have some drama at some point. Mine is no different and so today after some excessive family drama I willingly removed family members from the guest list. It kind of works out in my case because I didn't really want much of my family there in the first place. They just gave me open opportunity to uninvite them.

The extra positive spin on all of this is that when I updated my facebook status to say I had removed some unnecessaries from my guest list. My not so facebook active husband-to-be "liked" my status. It was a simple act, almost a cyber hug in it's own way. Sent bridal shivers up this brides spine.

I have made some tough decisions over the past few months, none of which I regret.

On a separate note I am now 5 dresses down and only 5 more to go. Although with this wedding dress I can only alter it 3 dress sizes so I guess some of my weightloss will have to wait until after the wedding. 

Day 127 - Hippie says yes to the dress

Today was amazing. Those who know me know that I don't have family I have family drama. I have no parents (by choice) and only 1 sister. Although my family is biologically a 6 person gathering the actual family of mine is just two people. Myself and my sister (who is also a bridesmaid). It took many years for me to fully accept this and begin the healing process. In that time I have made some very dear friends. In the past 4 years I began saying, "Friends are the family you choose." Never has this felt more true than when planning my wedding.
Instead of a mother to brood over my decisions and hear me cry over small insignificant tiffs with my fiancé I have mama Jer (our best man) to listen to and offer a shoulder for my tears. Instead of a surrounding family of sisters excited for my wedding I have one bio sister and 3 others who I couldn't imagine life without. I have the logical one who lives in an organized chaos. I have the deep one who, like me, enjoys studying body language and different human behavior and I have the wild one who is as quiet as a mouse but as dangerous as a cheetah! ;p
Together they form my crazy family.
I gathered this family together today and went to the bridal shop. One bridesmaid had to work so although she wasn't there this time she had seen the dress and gave it her vote! Of the other 3 bridesmaids one had seen the dress in person and the other had seen it in photos. My best man had also seen it in photographs and so it was only my biological sister left to see it.
The plan was we would each select one dress and she would not know which one was the actual dress. She would know it wasn't the one she had picked of course but by picking one she would also be adding to the options she would then be picking from.
As I said before, I knew that a bride can get caught up in the moment and love the dress because it's in her budget and it's pretty but not because it's HER dress. Since I had already proven this before I was determined to ensure this was my dress beyond a shadow of a doubt.
We started by running around picking all our dresses. While we waited for the consultant to become available we paraded around picking out possible bridesmaids dresses. I wanted the same consultant that had initially picked out the dress for me. Once she (michelle) became available it was onward for the barrage of bridal. Everyone had cameras it seemed and before the dress trying began I laughed with two cameras in my face I said, "I feel like I'm on a TLC reality show." I enjoy editing together video of the important moments in life and so having the multiple angles to work with made it something special. I enjoyed not only being able to capture the dresses but also the people who were there to enjoy the day with me as well.

And although one of my bridesmaid couldn't make it, I later cropped in some photographs and made sure she was included in the video. Of course my fiancé wasn't there either so I had a few photos of him thus including my entire family. I have uploaded the video to my facebook page and for the first million times I watched it I teared up!
After all the dresses were tried on I put on and stood in THE dress and the discussion began. One dress was a close second but it was super heavy. Another I found had too many things going on and thus was shoved in the scarlett o'hara pile. Another, although gorgeous, was too blunt for my sister. Something that didn't even bother me while IN the dress but upon review of the video I see what she was speaking of and is an example of why others input is so important when you are surrounded by bridal glow.
There I stood, in the dress I felt best represented what I had always imagined for my wedding day next to another beautiful dress that is gorgeous on me but was more for a big church wedding than for what I have planned.
It was agreed by everyone quietly that the dress I was wearing was absolutely my dress. But it wasn't until one of my bridesmaid brought tears to my tired, stressed eyes that everyone knew for sure that this was my dress. She began talking about how long I'd been planning and all that I could think of was everything I'd gone through to get to this point in life. All the trials and tribulations I had endured to bring me to the safety of these friends. The people who had hurt me and made me who I was and how now I left only room for loving people such as these. Leaving me overwhelmed and wimpy I bawled like a baby without it's blankie.
And thus the dress was decidedly chosen. Now the concern left is that I have another 20 lbs to lose before I'm completely happy. I sure hope the dress still fits in a year.

Day 124 - One venue down....

Went with a bridesmaid and Mr. Fiancé today to look at the first and only venue option at this point. I've selected this venue because the price is right and it's very near the hill where I want to have our photographs taken. The venue wasn't terrible or anything, I think we could make it work. I liked the fishtank in the wall. But the venue didn't make me gasp. The view wasn't anything to write home about. I'm sure before downtown grew the view was beautiful. But now it just looks at the street and other buildings. It's a surrounding bay window. There is no break in the windows for a headtable so we'd have to rent a room divider to block the light from behind us so the photographer could actually get photos of the head table without a glare.
The colors were primarly red gold and green. Doesn't really work with our wedding colors but we could work around that. I could switch from red and pinks to red and golds. The ceremony location had no windows and you had to come in from the side, walk to the back and then up the centre. I'd rather walk straight across but that's not really a logical possibility. It does have the option of a video before the ceremony started though so that's a plus. It would also include a room for the honeymoon.
Guess it's time to make decisions. 

Day 121 - Bikini time

I bought this bikini as a goal bikini before I got pregnant. I was pregnant a month later...whoops. No post baby it fits. At least it fits, I am comfortable in it.... sort of. I will likely never wear it but hey...it fits

I didn't smile in the photo because I was standing on my toes and focused on getting the shot. But here I am minus 25 lbs