I Know It’s Hard to Keep an Open Heart

After reading Becca’s excellent post on wedding envy and how to overcome it, and all the thoughtful and intelligent comments exploring individual struggles with wedding envy, I would like to add my totally shallow and lame thoughts on top of the pile.

All of my wedding envy can be summed up in one nine-minute music video:

We’re having a secular Jewish wedding, but when I see Stephanie Seymour walk down the aisle in her $8,000 dress that is missing half a skirt, I want it ALL:  I want the stupid dress with no front on the skirt.  I want the big veil in my face.  I want a giant golden crucifix!¹

I want Collin to comb his hair, and I want this to be notable. I want him to wear a ruffly shirt.

We’re having the ceremony in the same place as the reception. But I want everyone to throw rice at us and clap as we leave the church. I want to step into a classic convertible, my stupid frontless skirt posing no obstacle.

I want to change into a slinky black off-the-shoulder number for the reception. I want Collin to change into a shiny blue jacket.

And we’re probably not having a wedding cake, but I want to lick the icing off the cake cutter in a provocative manner.

Most of all, I WANT SLASH IN A PINSTRIPE SUIT STANDING NEXT TO US WHEN WE CUT THE CAKE.

I didn’t want to get married outside because I was afraid of Mother Nature, but watching this video I wish I’d thought about the potential for a riotous fleet from the reception. Wine bottles knocked over! Bouquets discarded to soak in puddles! Some long-haired rocker dude doing a slow-mo crash through our tiered wedding cake! Why didn’t I think about these things? Oh, regret.

I hope this doesn’t come across as mocking, because I am serious as an oil spill. I comfort myself by thinking about how annoying it would be to attempt to recreate a fake wedding from a music video with a seven-figure budget. Even if I succeeded perfectly (and of course I would not), that success would not be appreciated by others. The wedding would be not at all “us,” because Collin is a scientist, not a rock star, and I am a wannabe lawyer, not a supermodel. Which would alienate our friends and family and suck out a lot of the meaning of the thing. Not to mention some of our oldest and youngest guests wouldn’t get the reference, and a lot of people who did get the reference would think our imitation was not particularly funny or awesome.

Plus, you know, I’d prefer not to die at the end of my wedding. So this is probably for the best.

¹Please don’t tell my rabbi, once the bar is over and I find one! And don’t tell Collin’s Jewish grandmother, Dottie. And don’t tell my Catholic Grammy, either! Please!

Aww!

The past couple of days, the wedding has been a stressful topic leading me to do silly things like sob in airport restrooms. So I sort of skipped out on reading blogs and watching wedding movies and doing all the normal “wedding planning”¹ stuff I usually like to do.

But then I saw the name of my blog on Souris Mariage’s post about adding a newbie to the blog roll, and did a “Wait, that’s MY BLOG” double take.

Thanks to those who nominated me in the comments, and if you want to head over and comment about how awesome I am on the semi-finalist post I will not discourage you. If you want to head over and comment about how awesome the other blogs are, I also will not discourage you, because let’s face it: we’re all awesome.

¹Webster’s 9th defines planning as “to devise or project the realization of.” HitchDied’s 1st defines planning as “obsessing over without making constructive progress toward any goal.”

The Bar Exam Is a Threat to Marriage and Families

I started bar review classes this morning, and in the introductory lecture included two terrifying bits regarding couples and the bar exam:

1. The instructor suggested that if we should be getting married in June and are honeymooning in the U.S., there may be local bar prep lectures we can sit in on while we’re away!

2. The instructor did however warn against a couple from last summer’s class decision not to have sex for the two months before the bar so they could regain that time for studying. Ceasing to have sex with your partner will make you fail the test, he said.  He did not reflect upon the celibacy’s implications for the health of your relationship.

I Like Being Engaged

My life is changing tomorrow.  I’ll be handing in my last law school assignment.  I’ll be turning 26.  My post-graduation plans really solidly outline the next two and a half months (studystudystudystudy BAR EXAM), but become as sketchy and unclear as the bottom slip of carbon paper when you wrote on the top copy against your palm.

I don’t know where I’m going (and I’m not sure how to feel about where I’ve been) but I do know I will be with Collin.

I like that feeling. I like looking at Collin’s face when he rolls over in the night and smiles at me in his sleep, and trying picture how that smile will crinkle his face when he’s 50.  I like thinking about all the places we might end up living, and believing any of them could feel like home because Collin will be there (except for NYC.  Guh.  We’re never moving there).  I like knowing that as much as I beat myself up for being un(der)employed for the next however many months, Collin will still think I’m great, and will help me have faith that the right opportunity for me is just around the corner.

I like having something knowable about the future. So I like being engaged. And I think I’m going to love being married.

Preamble

Hello Internet,

We’re Robin (Hitch) and Collin (Died), and we’re getting married.

Planning a wedding and planning a life together both require lots of thinking, questioning, researching, anticipating, fretting, regretting, delighting, hoping, wondering, worrying, OBSESSING.  We’d rather not bore our friends and family with non-stop wedding blah blah.

So with that in mind, we do ordain and establish this Blog for the Planning of our Wedding.