Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Wednesday wedding day

This whole planning a wedding process has made me feel exceedingly girly. I'm reluctant to admit how much I've been enjoying myself through the whole thing, researching and planning and deciding this big fun party we're going to have in a few months (and oh yeah, getting married too). For a while I thought about keeping a separate blog just for wedding stuff because I didn't want to overwhelm this one with it, thus alienating any reader who could care less about weddings. But it is on my mind, something I think about every time I look at my left hand, every time I go to the gym, every time I surf around looking at wedding stuff on the internets. It's a big part of my mental space right now.

The dress shop where I bought my dress back in August called me today to tell me my wedding dress was in. My heart jumped a little bit when she told me, even though I know I won't be able to see it until we go to California in December. I hadn't looked at a photo of it online in a while, so I went to the website and looked at my dress - at least, what my dress will mostly look like. I'm going to make a modification or two to make it my own. I've started to think about how I should do my hair, whether to pay someone to do it or do it myself (I'm leaning toward pay, since I've never in my life done that. I did my own hair for prom both times). Thought some about jewelry. I've had my shoes since early this summer, and I can't wait to bring them with me to try on the dress.

Those of you who read my post about wedding dresses back in May (or those of you who know me personally) probably know that I'm not a terribly traditional person. I don't care whether stuff matches exactly, or whether the centerpieces look just so, or about having things perfect. My dress is a lot more traditional than what I ever pictured for myself, but I secretly kind of love that I'm wearing a "real" wedding dress from an actual bridal designer. Part of me wishes I'd found the perfect thing on ebay or on clearance or something, so at least I wouldn't have such an expensive dress (though, as far as wedding dresses go, it's really not expensive). But part of me is kind of happy that I got a new dress, made just for me, because I've never had anything like that before and won't ever have the opportunity to wear something similar again.

Speaking of wearing again, I've been thinking about what to do with my dress after the wedding. There's no way we'll have room to store it in a big box, and I can't imagine ever having occasion to wear it again. I'm torn between a few different options - one, keeping it for any potential progeny to play dress-up with. Two, cut it up and turn it into something else.That's a lot of nice fabric. Three, give it away to one of the wedding dress-breast cancer charities so someone else can benefit from it. I'm leaning toward the third option, but I haven't decided yet.

I've taken on a wedding project, something crafty that I can actually do. We're not do a lot of fancy decorations or anything (I think the place where we're getting hitched is beautiful and doesn't need embellishment), but there are a few things we're doing to decorate. The project I'm working on will, to some extent, use up all the old calendars I've been saving for years for just the right thing. I'm sure I'll have to buy some paper as well, so I'm going to look for some stuff that's recycled. I do feel strongly that we should be as least wasteful as possible, and I think that in the case of this project I'm working on, at least someone will want to use it later for another purpose. I'm being deliberately coy because I might write a whole blog post with pictures once I'm done; plus, some of you who read this will be coming to the wedding, and won't some surprises be nice?

Dan is working on our invitations, which is another project I'm really excited about. I won't say anything about them because I bet they're a surprise he'd like to discuss if he wants them to be talked about, but they'll definitely be different than any other wedding invitation I've seen. We also need to get on booking our accomodations in Italy, as that's coming up kind of soon. Woo! We're going to Italy! But before that, we'll have an engagement photo shoot with our photographer in California. I'm hoping it will be a good experience and help me feel more comfortable in front of a camera, since I'm not really used to having my picture taken. I haven't been photogenic since I was a little kid. Any suggestions for how not to look like a total tool for photos?

4 comments:

heather said...

I used to hate getting photos taken of me, but you know how they say 'practice makes perfect'? Well, start taking photos. Lots and lots of photos of yourself, digitals are easiest cause you can see them and delete the extra without much waste. Try all different angles, have fun with it and play around. Eventually you'll just get a knack of what angles look best to/for you (and also how different things you do can change your face angles etc) and what do not work at all and you can go from there.

That's my advice. :)

Cilicious said...

Just be yourself, though I definitely agree that when it comes to being photographed, many people do really have a "good side."
And don't forget "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue."
It's great to be unconventional, but some traditions are actually *fun* as well as meaningful. My "borrowed" item was a tiny silver spoon ring belonging to my mom, and after she died I kept it permanently.

Sara said...

I was just going through my Google reader and Not Martha links to an article about how to look natural in photos! Maybe that will help.

Anonymous said...

I think I remember hearing sometime on tv one time about being "fierce"?... :)