decisions to make…

I went dress window shopping on Tuesday with my fiance's sister-in-law. I found two potential dresses at a store in Arizona Mills, and another at a bridal store in Tempe. The two at the store in AZ Mills are white (a color which I'm not favoring since I'll be borrowing his sister-in-law's veil and it is ivory), and the one at the other store is... not white, and not ivory. And it's not technically a wedding dress (but neither are the two I found at Group USA.. they're bridesmaid dresses)...

Obviously I am not having a completely "traditional" wedding. I don't want a long train, and I don't want anything that is 8 feet in diameter at the hem and poofy. A little poof is ok, to hide my hips. But not poof as in ball gown poof. Yuck.

This is a daytime backyard wedding (one reason I don't want a train.. nothing to drag along the ground), so dress type & color is technically flexible.

Anyway, it's a nice dress for its "type", it fits well, and would take sleeve modification fairly well, I think. Thing is, I want to be absolutely sure I want it before paying for it, because it's non-refundable. The longest that store will hold it is Saturday night, so I scrambled to ask my boss for tomorrow off so I could do some more window shopping tomorrow in case I find another dress like it, but maybe in ivory.

I have some pix taken with my camera phone if you're interested in taking a peek to see its color. I'll have to e-mail them to you if you want to see it, so Josh doesn't see it before the big day. ;o)

If you want to check it out and give your opinion on it, let me know in the comments and I'll forward a couple of pix. Thanks!

Real geniuses, they are…

I am referring to the lovely folks at my webhost.

Our sites were down for about a day, as Josh explains it, because our main domain had expired.

They had administrative control over the domain, and just let it lapse without notifying us?

Domain renewal is a yearly thing, everyone knows that (or bi-yearly, or whatever). But that's not something I'm going to just suddenly remember out of the blue... Oh yes, I think one of my domains is about to expire, I shall set about to renewing it immediately! Yeah. Right.

And they claimed it is not their responsibility to notify us of the impending expiration date.

Um, excuse me, but are you not our registrar??

I haven't seen the charge show up yet, but it was probably just run today. If I see it show up, I'm contesting it. I shouldn't have to pay for their incompentency.

Here’s a nickel, buy yourself a clue…

Ok, this schmuck doesn't deserve one freaking penny of his lottery winnings if he's THIS stupid...

I mean, honestly... why in the WORLD would you need to carry that much cash on you? And leave it in your car?! What a 'tard.

I feel nekkid…

We went to the Shane Company to check out our rings. I picked out some online at their website, and took the item numbers with me so they could find them when we got to their store.

Just two simple bands, white gold, for the wedding bands. Plus I had picked out a ring to re-set the diamond from my engagement ring. They had the bands, but not the solitaire ring. When I learned it would cost $80 to have the stone re-set, on top of the $110 for the ring I had in mind, I debated whether to keep my current ring. Except it's an older white gold, so it's sort of burnished (more gold-y colored than "fresh" white gold). It would cost something like $60-$70 to get it resurfaced. Hmm. The clerk offered a simple generic solitaire ring to set the diamond in, it would cost $70, plus the $80 to set the diamond.

I opted to go for that, as the simple solitaire ring he brought out matched the band well, and my current engagement ring didn't. Essentially I saved $40 by taking that solitaire over the one I had picked out originally.

Plus, if our rings ever need to be resurfaced, they will do it for free.

They de-stoned my current engagement ring, and I'll be able to pick up all three new rings on Tuesday evening.

It feels very odd not to have my ring on. I'll be putting on the engagement ring as soon as I pick it up Tuesday. Until then, I'll be going around with the constant feeling that I've forgotten something. It's already quite unnerving.

for a dress

Since the officiant turned out to be a little more expensive than I had been thinking it would, and because the style of dress I'm interested in is ranging at $400 +, I think I may have seen a dress the other day that, while it's technically a bridesmaid dress, it can double as a cost effective wedding dress (it's white)... and the fact that it's like $100-$110 is a plus, too.

It has some elements that I like and looks nice, and if I wanted to I could probably modify it a bit to try to create the actual look I was aiming for, and probably still have it come up at no more than half the cost of the other dresses..

I plan on calling the store I saw it in tomorrow to find out what their ordering procedures are when they run out of certain sizes in specific colors to see how long it may take to get a new one that's in my size.. if it will take longer than the amount of time I have before the wedding, I'll keep looking for other alternatives.. If it will only take a week or two, then I'll head over there to try on the same style in a different color to get an idea of how it looks on me and then order it if I like it..

I've decided on lilac or dk purple as the colors.. so I've also been browsing Joann Etc for flowers to see what types are in purple to get an idea of which ones I'd like to use in the bouquet and decorations.. which I haven't yet decided whether I want to undertake doing those myself (probably with help from a few family members, of course), or pay to have the floral dept at Joann's do it.. (I was told by a clerk it costs the cost of materials plus 30%(of the materials) for the labor)..

Probably will do it myself in order to try to save money... plus there's lots of books available to assist with that anyway, and a few ideas online at Michaels.com.

identity crisis?

I just had to chuckle.. I understand ministers are probably very busy with various weddings. The lady that e-mailed me the script said she would place our names in the various places where our names would be spoken and whatnot, so we could read it as it would be referenced to us..

She must've been in a hurry, because she left the names of another couple in a few various places.. even putting Josh's name with the other lady's, and my name with the other fellow's.

The script she sent is fairly long, with the minister doing most of the talking. There is one short prayer before the vows (appears to be non-denominational, as it says Spirit of Love and Life), a brief reference to God in the vows,

In a Holy Partnership of the Soul . . .
That we may do together God's work . . .


and then another prayer of sorts in the blessing of the rings, although I'm sure it could be left out.

Of the three "optional" additions to the end of the ceremony (after the vows but before the pronouncement of "husband and wife"), I think the "Rose Ceremony" and the "Blessings of the Apache" look good. The "unity candle" one is a bit long.. even thought the Rose Ceremony is long as well, I think the unity candle thing looks longer, at least this minister's version of it is.

Of course, this is just one minister to choose from. I'll need to send the whole script to Josh to have him read it and get his opinion too.

shopping around…

I think my head is starting to spin.. and no, not in the evil, possessed "Exorcist" kind of way.. but just because of all that needs to be done in the short amount of time before Feb. 29th!

hmm.. a little, um, shrinkage, maybe?

BWAHAHAHAH!!!!!!

Those wedding bells…

Yes, we finally decided upon a date.
I know I spoke last fall of probably getting married before the end of 2003, but we decided to take advantage of one last big tax refund by staying single for all of 2003. That's primarily how we'll be paying for the wedding, is with the big-ass tax refund. And if there is enough left over, we'll be getting a new washer & dryer set, too. (because our current set simply sucks.. they work, but the washer has eaten too many of my silk shirts, and the dryer has to be run twice to dry the clothes completely)

But anyway.. You're probably curious about what date we set, right?

That would be February 29. Yes, we chose the extra day added to 2004 to make it Leap Year. It's certainly a date you can't forget, since it only happens once every four years. Celebrating anniversaries may be interesting. Do we celebrate on Feb 28th? or March 1st? Or in the seconds between 11:59pm on Feb 28th and 12:00am on March 1st? Eh, we'll figure something out.

I realize that choosing a date so near doesn't leave much time to plan. It's not going to be anything huge, and it won't be in a church. I think we've decided to hold it in Josh's mom's back yard.. only problem is we didn't give her enough warning so the grass won't be green. I just hope the dry grass won't be causing anyone's allergies to kick in. 😕

Now, to spend my day (it's been slow here at work so far) doing what planning I can online.

To those who've done tied the knot already, out of curiosity, how long did you give yourself to plan your weddings?

Did you know…

... that Arizona now has a National Lacrosse team?

They're the Arizona Sting. They used to be the Columbus (OH) Landsharks.

We watched their first game on TV, as it was the first game of any type to be played in the new Glendale Arena. We decided, after watching this game (which they won), to attend one of the next home games if we could. We went last to night's game, sitting in row C, right behind the penalty box for the home team.

They didn't win this time, but that is ok. We got to check out the new arena in person, which was another reason we wanted to go to the game (since hockey tickets for the same seats would be painfully expensive).

Lacrosse is rather interesting, and it's no game for wimps. The players are allowed to beat each other with their sticks (to a certain extent.. it has to be below the neck and above the waist).

There were no fights in the first game we watched on TV, but there was a full fledged fight last night, as well as a few other tense moments where we thought a fight was going to break out but it was busted up by the refs before it could begin.

We wouldn't mind attending another of their home games in the future, except it would mean asking for time off from work since all the home games are on a Friday or Saturday, except one being on a Sunday... but, that game, falls on the day we have chosen as our wedding day...

Oh, did I fail to mention that until now? 😉

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