Dad books his trip

The day I confirmed the plans for our wedding, I immediately called my dad and told him to book his trip. That was six months ago.

So a few days ago dad calls to tell me he finally called the travel agent. Usually when dad calls it’s because he’s bored and wants to badger me about something asinine. Since retiring to the beach a few years ago, he occupies his time by working on his tan and finding new and interesting ways to bring me severe mental discomfort. He gets a lot of joy from this hobby, and he has a very high success rate.

The problem with dad is that you never actually know when he’s lying. I’ve come to realize that when I really really need him to be lying, like for the sake of the tiny ounce of sanity I am violently hoarding in hopes that I may escape this unharmed- that’s usually when he’s telling the truth.

You don’t believe that he’s driving around town in a Barney costume? Well just look out the window- because there’s a purple dinosaur in a pickup truck waiting outside your house. How about buying a life size Marvin the Martian figurine at a flea market to display in the game room? Yup. It’s there. So obviously any conversation with the man is liable to send you into convulsions. Especially when the conversation is about your wedding.

Anyways, dad starts the call by excitedly telling me he made sure the travel agent knew he was the father of the bride. Numerous times. Very very very many times during the conversation. He also likes to talk in a loud, sing-song type of way while on the phone, kind of like Oprah. He demonstrates how he relayed this information to the travel agent in his best Oprah voice.

Do you who I aaaaaaaa-mmmm? I’m the father of the briiiiii-deeee…. I cut dad short and tell him the travel agent was warned in advance about his hobby. One point for me.

Dad switches gears to his fall back routine that I like to call “I’m not talking with you, I’m talking at you”. This is an immediate win. At this point in the call I usually begin pacing the house and/or pouring myself a drink and wondering if he’s still too young to hide away in a retirement home. (He is, and he often reminds me of it.)

So for now I’ll just have to study these conversations and find a loop hole in his strategy.

I have yet to find it. 

What should I wear to the wedding…..?

You should wear pants

I think I’ll wear shorts

I need you to wear pants. I need you to wear tan pants.

I’ve got some shorts, that’ll look pretty fancy.

Please wear pants. …..   Dad!      ……         Pants!   …….        I’m begging you.

You know there’s this shop down the street. A clothing shop.

Do not go there.

Like a vintage clothes shop. My buddy went there.

Do not go to that store. (panic)

Bought himself a camel skin coat.

A what?

A caaaaaaamel skiiiiiiiin coat! (Oprah)

Do not buy that coat (extreme mental discomfort, slight eye twitching)

Paid fifty cents.

Fifty cents? There’s a reason for that. Do not buy a fifty cent coat. (searching for asprin)

Pretty slick coat…. I could wear that.

You will never wear that coat because I will burn it first. (giving up on asprin, looking for vodka)

I think I’ll go by there tomorrow. Get myself a camel skin coat.

Are we actually having a conversation, or are you just talking in the general direction of the phone?

The conversation continued in this way for another 30 minutes, and spanned such topics as his dating life and a recent awkward trip to a restaurant that turned out to be a gay bar.

So anyways, dad has booked his trip. If you happen to see a man at the resort in cargo shorts and a camel skin coat, be sure to say hello.  

Save the date, for free cake! How to make kick-ass save-the-date cards that won't get lost on the fridge.

This blog has given me the chance to meet lots of other brides to be, who email me their own stories of wedding planning disasters and questions about my plans as well. After my blog on etiquette I got numerous emails on save-the-dates, so I thought it was worth posting a little blog about them here.

Should your save the date match your wedding theme?

Well, that’s up to you. Personally I think the save-the-date stands on its own, so you can go a little bananas with it. You’re mailing them out well before you have the bulk of your plans set in stone anyways.

What is the layout for a save-the-date?

About 99.9% of save the dates I see follow this format:

It’s basically a business card glued to a sheet magnet, and I don’t recommend it. It’s just too small to layout all the information you need, and it’ll get lost on the fridge. They’re also more expensive since you have to pay for all the magnets, which you’ll have to attach to the cards yourself.  That in itself is no small feat- it once took me over 2 hours to perfectly align 250 magnets to little business cards for a save-the-date order, and I can never get back those 2 hours of my life.

Your best bet is postcard sized cardstock, and skip the magnet. The larger size gives you more room to put the important stuff on the card. If you’re a super stealthy tiger bride on a budget, I’d skip the picture too. It’s cute, but pricy. And I don’t need your smiling faces staring me down when I’m raiding the fridge at midnight for snacks.

   

What information goes on a save-the-date?

Glad you asked.

Who

What

When

Website (If you’re using one)

“Formal invitation to follow”

Put all that stuff on the card in that order, and you're good to go:

Save the date- for free cake!

Judy and Mike

are saying "I do!"

June 10, 2011

Formal invitation to follow

If half or more of your guests will need to travel for the wedding, I'd recommend adding the location as well. 

Judy and Mike's dreams will come true

at Cinderellas Castle when they say "I do!"

Walt Disney World, Florida

June 10, 2011

Formal invitation to follow

Cheesy, right? That's my niche. 

Anyways if you can’t fit all that on the card, then pick something bigger.

What did your save the dates look like and did you make them yourself?

I designed my save the dates using an online printing company. There are so many to choose from you can honestly just Google it. Find one that allows you an insane amount of freedom with font and placement. You really just want the card stock from the company. Save-the-dates are super easy to design, so have a little faith in your abilities and just design them yourself. It’s cheaper, and you can buy lots of flip-flops for the summer with all the cash you'll save.

For our save the dates, I needed something a little different. This is a destination wedding, so I need my guests to ACTUALLY READ THE FREAKING CARD. Honestly when I get a save the date I read the names and the date, and then if it’s a magnet I use it to stick NFL schedules to the fridge. If I need more information than that, then something on that little card better scream it at me. It better be bright, colorful, or just different in some way. You want me to go to your wedding website? Then it better be in a large enough font for me to actually read the web address.

So after Jose laid down the sledge hammer on my first four designs, I came up with this one:

It’s a 4x8 inch card, almost the size of a plane ticket. Jose was very clear that he did not want anything cheesy, hot pink or generally girlie and/or bizarre, so I had to come up with some other way to grab peoples attention. The odd-sized card was a good fit. 

It not only lists the standard information, but also tells guests where the wedding is. I added this info on the side of the card to make it stand on its own since I really needed my guests to see it. It took me all of an hour to design, and my guests really liked them.

So now you know the steps: Google, postcard, important info, attention-grabbing. That wasn’t too painful, right?

Happy Planning J

Prepare for battle. We’re going to David’s Bridal.

So after my triumphant purchase of a reception dress, I was all too happy to show it off. I loved it so much that I decided I didn’t need a big white dress- this was the only wedding dress I needed.

That is, until, Jose’s mother saw it.

If you’ve never met Jose’s mother, I’ll be the first to tell you that she is a very lovely woman. She’s an amazing cook and my ever present translator over holiday dinners, where I am awkwardly the only one at the table who does not speak Spanish. That’s also when I tend to catch up on my drinking.

But none of that matters now, because she’s about to become the mother in law. My sole purpose in life is no longer testing the limits of my own liver or researching the possibility of hitting puberty after the age of 20. It’s making sure that little Peruvian woman is absolutely in love with me. Forget the wedding vows, seriously. If his mother hates you then a slow painful death will sound heavenly compared to facing her at every family event you attend for the rest of your miserable little life. Make sure mom adores you. That is your new purpose in life.  

So when Mamma Rosa sees the wedding dress and asks…. This is for the wedding? Well that dress very well may be for the wedding, but do you know what you say? You say No mamma Rosa of course not! This is just some dress. That I bought. Because I need a white dress for some occasion other than my own wedding. Honestly I don’t even know why I showed you this. I have a dress. It’s a big white dress. Where? It’s… not…. here- it’s at the store! I need to pick it up. Yup. I need to do that. Frick.

Crisis adverted, but I suddenly feel nauseous and run for the bathroom. Once there I succumb to an EPIC PANIC ATTACK and proceed with literally banging my head against the wall while verbally abusing myself. Frick frick frick! Seriously what were you thinking? You don’t have a big white dress and you can’t get a big white dress because you have now gone down in history as the only person dumb enough to be banned from a bridal store. This is tragic.

Mamma Rosa wants to see a big white wedding dress and you’d better find one quick. Now put on your big girl panties and march your happy tail into any store that sells ANYTHING resembling a wedding dress and buy it. NOW.

This calls for a drastic change in plans. I need a dress in a hurry. I have to go to Davids Bridal.

For lack of better words, David’s Bridal literally scares the crap out of me. It’s full of screaming, delusional, and quite possibly homicidal girls tearing through isles with arms full of dresses in giant plastic bags. Do not come between a girl and her dress unless you have military combat training or suicidal tendencies. You see, wedding dress overload short circuits their brains and morphs these otherwise logical and well-adjusted ladies into half crazed murderous zombie-brides. And those helper women that work there are always stalking you around like a dirty old car salesman. How am I supposed to be a stealthy tiger with you following me around asking about my cup size? That’s not helping me, that’s giving me a complex about how unconvincing my push up bra must look.

Helper women, homicidal bridesmaids, and zombie brides. No thank you. Or… face a lifetime of angry mamma Rosa. She could curse at me in no less than six languages.

I choose the lesser of evils and put on the big girl panties. I give myself numerous pep talks. I procrastinate and fall into the “circle of despair”. Eventually, I get out of the house and into my car, and drive to that industrial sized warehouse stocked full of crazy women fighting over white and poof and glitter…. I go to David’s Bridal.

My trip to David’s Bridal was surprisingly calm. I went on a random Tuesday afternoon to avoid the vultures. I marched into the store with my head high and refused to make eye contact with any of the women sitting behind the helper desk. On a side note, I’ve noticed that if you walk into a store and look like you know what you’re doing, people tend to leave you alone.  

So anyways I marched into the store while replaying in my mind a vision of the perfect helper lady. She came in the form of a tiny overweight woman wearing an animal print jacket and lime green eye shadow, cursing at tiaras that would not sit properly on a high shelf that she could barely reach. She was wearing a toxic amount of perfume, rings on every finger, and gold flats. She was 100% Italian and quite possibly drunk. I tend to stick with my own kind, and this chick was perfect.

I adjusted the tiaras for her and explained my terrible situation, my fear of wedding dresses, and the possible nightmarish outcomes of not presenting my soon-to-be mother in law with a proper wedding dress. She laughed so hard she had to sit down. Seeing as she was drunk before noon, I had to help her get back up.

Drunk Italian helper lady told me to sit quietly and not touch anything while she ran off to find dresses, not once asking about my size, preference, or the ever important “wedding theme”. I was thankful for that last part seeing as I was lacking any theme outside of “survival”.

Ten minutes later she comes back with one dress, just one dress, which I immediately hate. She gives me a look that clearly states “When I want your opinion I will give it to you” and finds a mirror to put in the biggest dressing room they have. Then she shoves me and the dress in the room with a stern warning about the repercussions of not putting on the dress.

I hate this dress. I cross my arms and pout while reincarnating the perfect “authority bashing teenager leaning on a wall while intensely staring at a corner”. It was surprisingly good considering I haven’t used it since my mother wouldn’t let me go to HFStival when I was 15. I scowl at the dress and blow raspberries at the door.  Drunk Italian helper lady bangs on the door and repeats her warning. I admit defeat and get into the dress in much the same way a 4 year old puts on a school uniform. Hostile. 

Wouldn’t you know it, the damn thing fits like a glove. And it’s on sale? Oh you’re kidding me. “I told you so” from the other side of the door. Never doubt an Italian woman.  

Once again triumphant, I skip out of the dressing room with my prize as the zombie brides peer over mounds of dresses to catch a glimpse of my glorious dress. Straight to the register where I happily pay an obscenely low amount of money and daydream of all the shoes I can buy with my extra cash while absently signing my receipt. I hug my pretty dress like a carnival prize in its giant white bag while twirling towards the car as bluebirds and bunnies and deer appear from seemingly nowhere to follow me and sing a cheerful little melody in perfect harmony. I take one last peek at home before carefully tucking my prize away in a closet where Jose will never find it. It was the perfect day.

And in fact, Jose never did find the dress. He did however find the pictures of me in the dress on my phone about a month later.

And that was the abrupt end of the glorious and short life of wedding dress number two. 

Who is that behind the curtain? It's mom.

Carol, before her name legally changed to "Mom"

So it’s mother’s day, which means I should be invading my mother’s house right now. For me this just involves getting out of bed, putting my face on, and getting in the car. For mom it means cleaning the house, buying food, cooking the food, playing hostess, and possibly not sitting down for the entire day. This is pretty typical for every mother, and it’s kind of backwards if you ask me. So today my mother is off at some festival, and I’ll meet her later for pizza. It’s her day, that’s what she wants to do, so that’s exactly what she’ll get. 

I’ve learned that every mom has her niche. I know some amazing scout leader-moms, moms that can sew wedding dresses, moms that can bake 50 cupcakes in less than an hour. My mom is none of these. You’d be hard pressed to find her clamoring towards the kitchen to bake for the masses.

My mom is the “I’m going to do something for you and you won’t even know it” mom. I didn’t realize this until a few years ago, when all those magical childhood memories come into focus and you realize that someone was behind the curtain. It was mom.

Here’s how she does it. Many years ago mom heard about a family that was struggling financially, and was hard-pressed to have a Merry Christmas. Mom decides to help. Things mom does not do: she does not ask for donations, make flyers with their names plastered on it, or ask them for a list of toys the children want. In other words, she does not embarrass them. Mom just goes to the store and buys the toys, she discreetly gives them to the family, and she tells no one.

Or a few years later, when she found out a friend had cancer. Mom is a true dog lover, and had trained one of her prized champion herding dogs to function as a therapy dog. Hearing that her friend would spend hours at the hospital receiving chemotherapy, she gave her the dog. Just asked her to stop by the house one day and convinced the friend that she would be doing mom a tremendous favor if she took the dog home.

You don’t just give away a champion show dog, especially one that you love with all your heart. But she had a friend in need- and that friend needed a dog who could sit by her side while in the hospital. In mom’s eyes, it was just a perfect fit.

Cheyenne, our favorite girl.

The best memory I have of mom’s magic was when she bought our house, and I was four years old. Here’s how the story went in my eyes:

Mom says we’re going to look for a new house. We go to many houses until we find the perfect one. There is a yard and a park out back. There is a big basement for all my toys. There is a perfect bedroom with a pretty tree outside the window. This is my room. I must have this house.

I go to school, and I draw pictures of the house. I dream up stories about all the adventures I will have in the park behind the house. I decide that I will have a dog at this house, and she will sleep with me in my bed and we will wake up in the morning and look outside at our tree.

We move- into an apartment. We move out of our townhouse and into an apartment. This sucks. I draw more pictures and tell more stories. I whine excessively. I tell her I want to live in that house and I want a white poster bed with Rainbow Brite sheets and I want a dog and I want that park. I interrogate her about the house- for six months.

My whining pays off. Mom says we can visit the house again and if my poster bed with Rainbow Brite sheets is there, then we can stay.

We go to the house. It’s empty. Completely empty. I sulk my way up the stairs. I go to the bedroom and open the door- and there is my bed. My brand new bed and Rainbow Brite sheets and curtains and a dresser and EVERYTHING. We move in that weekend, and soon after we get a dog.

So here’s what really happened:

Mom puts the townhouse up for sale. As the agent is installing the sign out front, a man drives by and asks to see the house. He buys it that day. Mom frantically looks for a new house, and finds one. It’s a closed bid, which means everyone who wants it submits an envelope with a bid on the house and the owners decide which to take.

The owners take mom’s bid, but they’re new house isn’t ready. They rent the house back from mom for six months. Since our townhouse has sold, we have to move into an apartment until the house is ready.

She lives with a whining and badgering four year old in a tiny apartment for six agonizing months.

Mom gets the keys to the house and orders that damn bed I’ve been screaming about. She asks a friend to help her set it up. They turn the room into the perfect little girl hideaway, and leave the rest of the house empty.

She picks me up from school, takes me to the house, and waits at the bottom of the stairs for me to find my perfect bedroom. She waited six months to stand at those stairs.

I have a million other memories of Mom’s finest moments, but this will always be my favorite. She still lives in that house today, and she still has one of the many pictures I drew of it. It may be just a house, but for me it will always be the house that magically became my home.

So this mother’s day; do not let mom do the dishes, no matter how much she fights you. Maybe get her a cup of coffee. Even better- host dinner at your house. And thank her for all those things she ever did without you ever even realizing it. Because motherhood is said to be a thankless job; but it doesn't have to be.