Cautionary Tale

Weddings are important for a lot of people involved- parents, grandparents, siblings- not just the bride and groom, and it's easy to feel pressured to make everyone feel happy and involved.

I ran into this situation with wedding dress shopping. My mother very much wanted that to be a mother/daughter only experience, but Mr. B's mom also really wanted to be involved. Both women felt strongly, and I was feeling the pressure on both sides. I was also nervous because Mr. B's mom has a little bit of a blabbing habit at times.
FMIL B eventually wore us down though, and we brought her along for a trip.

A mistake, as not even two hours after returning from the store, she described the entire experience to Mr. B and his dad, detailing a contender dress' price, veil, and beaded sash.

So I decided not to involve her again. I didn't even tell her when we found, and bought, my real dress.

But when it came in, she started asking to come to fittings, which I ignored until she eventually came to me in tears, saying that she felt like I didn't want her to see the dress. I should have been strong and honest and explained I wanted it to be a surprise, but instead, I caved, and invited her to the next fitting.

She came, and swore up and down she wouldn't say anything to anyone, and it seemed fine. My mother even admitted we were probably causing more bad feelings by being so secretive. Everything seemed okay.
Till this weekend, when I was driving back from dinner with Mr. B and his parents. His mom's friend had gotten a dress for the wedding that was ivory and shared some similarities to my dress*, and Mr. B's mom told me the story and all about this girl's dress, saying, "You'd be so proud of me, I didn't tell her anything! Even though the dress is the same color as yours! And even though it has this detail that's similar to yours!" etc, etc. All while Mr. B sat in the back of the car, listening to everything.

In one fell swoop of a stupid, pointless, not even remotely interesting story, she blew it all. Mr. B coughed loudly in the back, reminding her that he was in the car, and she stopped dead and said, "Oh my gosh" realizing what she had just done.

Everyone started yelling at her and she kept apologizing. It was a supremely awkward, tense car ride. She felt really bad, I could tell, and kept apologizing repeatedly.

I do know it was an accident, but that's exactly the kind of thing I expected from her, and the reason I hesitated on involving her. I'm really upset that some of my dress may be given away to Mr. B, and I feel upset that I ruined a mother-daughter thing my mom wanted.

I mentioned before how I got suckered into inviting a close friend's ex to my wedding, and just like that situation, I really regret not just standing up for myself. I felt strongly about not wanting her involved, but I was afraid to offend his family and afraid to look like a Bridezilla, especially since I knew I had been very Type A, possibly slightly bossy, on a lot of details so far. But you know what? We're getting married and I'm not going anywhere. It would have been okay to stand up for myself, and if she got upset about it, too bad.

I'm not writing this to complain about FMIL B, I'm just writing this to warn other brides that if you feel strongly, don't worry about what someone else thinks. YBe true to yourself and don't worry about offending or annoying people, because you inevitably will anyway.


*What the F$#%?!

Still Surreal

Our wedding is less than thirty days away, but it doesn't feel real. I've spent our entire engagement planning, and it's always been so far in the future that now, even though it's very close, it still feels like a far-off, distant event.

Our RSVPs in, our final meetings with vendors happened, we even applied for our marriage license. I pick up my dress soon, and we're starting table numbers. But none of these items are triggering a "holy-crap-it's-almost-June" freakout.

We're on track really in terms of DIY projects, and things seem to be going smoothly, so I'm not feeling much of a last minute crunch.

Is this normal? Why is it not sinking in that we're really, really close?  I'm started to get nervous that the reality of it will hit me at a really inconvenient time, like say the morning of the wedding, and I'll be temporarily incapacitated with a bad panic attack.

Anyone else feel like this? It's weirding me out!!

Post Wedding Goals

I looked at my calendar yesterday and realized that almost every ounce of time I have in the next two months is going to the wedding. And I am loving every second of it, so much so that I am nervous I'm going to go into a post wedding withdrawal.

I love to be busy, creative, and at work on a project, so the wedding is a perfect outlet for me. But without it, I'll have more time to work on other things, so I set some goals up for myself:
1. Have people over more. I want us to have the kind of house where people always come to, and right now we're not really there. I'd love to have our families over more, plus we've got some close friends moving three blocks from us, so I hope they're ready for lots of Italian Sunday dinners!

The last time we had people over was the Superbowl!

Which, btw, I got totally carried away with  I love party planning! 

2. I also really need to go through all our engagement/shower gifts and see what we're keeping, returning, etc. I can't say I need 18 place settings of china, nor can I believe I actually received that many.

Think I'll drop down to 12 and buy some of those pretty crystal glasses! (Personal Pic)

3. Paint our apartment. I think we have a pretty nice place, but the landlord painted it this awful peachy beige with salmon colored molding. It. Is. Hideous. 
4. Also in terms of apartment decor, I've discovered a great blog, The Peak of Tres Chic, which features tons of amazing design inspiration. I turned our second bedroom into my walk-in closet, and now I want to further morph it into an oasis of girly glam, with this picture as my inspiration:

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Love the lavendar and mirrored furniture!

5. Keep blogging. Started this blog to become a bee (fail, twice over), but I really love blogging so I want to continue. Without a wedding to yap about, I'm torn between doing a straight up food blog, or a more all-encompassing lifestyle blog.

You'd see stuff like this- a recent lunch of sausage and bean soup with escarole (Personal pic)

 6. Get my career act together. For the past 3.5 years, I have been a government budget analyst, flip flopping around to three army bases. While I loved my first two locations, I'm kind of hating the current one, but am not in a spot in life where I can make big moves. Since I've gotta stay put for now, I'm going to work on improving my attitude and taking charge of what I can to make it better (I do recognize I'm 50% of the issue). In the meantime, maybe I'll think about some other options or further schooling. Technically this goal should start next week, not post wedding, but whatever.

My beloved original base- now closed, hence all my career movement (Source)

7. And finally, translate some of that wedding energy into great things for my friends! I've got a few weddings next July, so I'm looking forward to having more freedom to work on showers and surprises for them.


So that's just what I'm thinking, who knows what real life will bring? Anyone else have some post wedding goals?

Command Central

My life lately looks like this:

My dad calls this "Command Central," and it's my set up of Excel to-do lists, tasks in my planner, my wedding binder, and a much-needed cup of coffee. We're two and a half months out, and I woke up crazy early Saturday with a compulsive need to organize our growing list of tasks.


It's huge. We need to print and assemble programs, meet with our band, choose ceremony music, finalize ceremony plans, I need accessories, I need more fittings, he needs groomsmen's gifts, menus have to get printed, but tasting has to happen first, flowers need to be finalized, my mom needs accessories, my dad insists I take dance lessons, must make a cardbox, must stuff invites, need stamps, only one girl has picked up her bridesmaid dress, and on and on. I assume most of my readers are brides- you know how it goes.


I love planning my wedding and am usually pretty levelheaded, and insanely advance-prepared about it all, but I have to admit that as I thought about all this, a knot began to squeeze itself around my chest. I felt stressed and overwhelmed. Luckily it was St. Patrick's Day, and Mr. B and friends dragged me out to spend the afternoon boozing it up in the West Village:

And then on Sunday, Mr. B and I began to tackle some open items. We finally ordered wedding bands (and saved $250 thanks to a gift certificate from BM Kelly!) and our favors. My glorious saint of a mother went through our guest list and every single envelope, carefully typing out any errors (mostly people I left off the guest list, ack) and sending a neatly packaged box of spare envelopes and new instructions down to our calligrapher.

And now I feel a lot better. It's a lot of things to do, but most of it is extras that I'm choosing to do, because I want to- which means I shouldn't allow myself get stressed about it- I don't have to do any of it.

And the other thing I realized is that this is all really fun to me. Yes, it's a lot and that can make it stressful at times, but honestly I'm shocked at how fast 16 months went by, and I really want to savor and enjoy these last two. 

How are you guys handling a gigantic to do list?



Program Planning

Mr. B and I are in the process of planning our ceremony, and it's got me thinking a lot about programs. I really want to create something useful and elegant, even though I know 90% of the guests will leave them on their chairs after the ceremony. 

To avoid the black hole of craziness that I hear occurs in the month before the wedding, I'm compiling my program inspiration and brainstorming the project now. I'll share the progress with you guys in the hopes that maybe it helps with your own program design.

I know there's lots of cool programs out there, from fans, to trifolds, to those little origami fortune tellers we all used to make in fourth grade, but I'm into square booklets, like below:

 

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There's so many ways to make these look elegant and beautiful, from messing around with cool font layouts:

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To fancy ribbons to bind the booklet together:

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I ordered some sample folded cards from Cards and Pockets, and loved the quality and color, so that's the cover stock game plan. Turns out C&P also prints, and provided it's not prohibitively expensive, I'll have them print the cover too. I'm all about convenience. 

I don't have to tell you that I'm obsessively debating between these two near-identical colors, right?

(Personal Pic)

For the inside, I'm using Mrs. Corn's incredibly helpful template, adjusting her margins to match my 6 x 6 folded cards. I plan to print on resume paper, to give the inside of the booklet a nice heft and a classier appearance over normal printer paper. 

And I'm also brainstorming the content, right now planning to include:

• Order of ceremony
• List of ceremony participants (bridesmaids, groomsmen, etc)
• Explanation of traditions, since it's an interfaith crowd
• Secular love quote (unless I can break down Mr. B, in which case I'm totally using this awesome quote from CS Lewis, a recent favorite author).
• Thank you to guests and parents
• A line remembering our deceased grandparents

So that's the start of the program project! What did you guys do for yours, and what kind of content did you include?

Save the Date? Meh

I'm not sure what I thought the reaction to our save the dates would be. Maybe something like this:

 

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Okay, maybe not that psyched. But I did anticipate a bunch of excited phone calls, "the date is SO saved" texts from friends, that type of thing.

But we got nothing! Save the dates were mailed to around 120 people; three days later, not one person had commented.  I started to worry that something went wrong, since our recipients were mostly local and usually receive things the next day. We did use a flourishy, decorative font on the envelopes, after all.  Maybe the post office couldn't read them. I made a few phone calls to check on the situation. Things were fine.

In the end, my MOH and her mother reacted excitedly, calling them classy and beautiful, and Mr. B's mom heard from two guests. On my side, my dad's sister called to acknowledge receipt, and I'm not sure what was said but I know that the exchange somehow wound up in an argument. Definitely not the outcome we were going for! 

So 5 total acknowledgements out of 120. This surprised me because I spoke to plenty of recipients- friends, bridesmaids, cousins- in the five days since we mailed them. I don't expect the world to turn upside down because Mr. B and I formally announced our wedding date, it's old news now anyway, but since I was talking with people regardless, I thought they'd mention it. 

It's not keeping me up at night or anything, but after spending money and time on them, I have to admit I was hoping for a few compliments! At least notice the effort we put into beautifully addressing them, at midnight on a Saturday night no less!

Oh well. Hopefully the invites get our guests a little more pumped.

What reactions did your save the dates get?

Friendship Changes

At my first job, I shared a cube with a girl named Cindy, who had the most gorgeous wedding ever, a destination in the Bahamas. I loved to look at her pictures.

I noticed in the ceremony shots she surrounded entirely by guys. “Where’s your bridal party?” I asked.

She explained that they decided to have her husbands’ two brothers as best men, and her best friend of 17 years as her maid of honor, except the girl was clearly nowhere to be found.

“She got married and stopped talking to me” Cindy explained, as if this was totally normal.

I was confused. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Cindy told me that she’d been the maid of honor in her best friend’s destination wedding 8 months prior, but by the time it was her turn, her friend was settled into married life, spending her time with her husband and their families. She said her friend barely returned her calls, and had very little interest in keeping the friendship up. By the time Cindy’s wedding rolled around, their friendship was in such disrepair that the girl wasn’t even invited.

Okay look, I don’t know Cindy or her friend too well; her story may have more to it,  but I was 22 and fresh out of college when I heard this, and it totally freaked me out. My life was still about being attached to my roommates, bonding over dollar mugs of beer and Sunday movie marathons. I couldn’t imagine the idea of that any of it changing. Cindy had always struck me as a bit odd, so I shrugged off the story, assuming that kind of thing didn’t happen to, well, more normal people.

Yeeeeah… it does. (You knew that was coming, right?)  I haven’t had a situation quite as dramatic as Cindy’s, but I notice changes in other areas. Some friendships change because we’re in different life circumstances, and either can’t or don’t want to bother understanding each other. Some friends fade more, when you realize who you really have time for. And some friendships I took for granted I’m now realizing are the best ones I have.

One of said dollar mug drunk nights

I’m changing too. I notice myself actively disengaging from certain people. Mr. B and I have a hilarious and awesome group of guy friends, who I used to have personal relationships with. I think they’re awesome but I have less in common with them. Their lives are about picking up girls in a West Village bar until 4 am, which is cool for them, but I’m more likely to get my panties in a bunch over the latest issue of Food and Wine (I really wish I was kidding).

So things do change. At 22, it never occurred to me I’d stop dressing up in spiky heels and pregaming on $4 champagne. Or at least, I didn’t know it would end quickly. I miss it sometimes, but I’m also different too, learning more about myself, my friendships, and my priorities. And you know what? I’m still lucky enough to be surrounded by great people.

And if I need to revert back, I am only a 10 minute train ride from those West Village bars.

 The drinking buddies at a bar night in Cabo last month

Have you seen changes in your friendships as you’ve gotten older and/or engaged?

In Case of a Wedding Disaster

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For those of us that live on the East coast, the post-Hurricane Irene news stories contained tons of tales of weddings ruined by the storm. We saw optimistic brides and grooms throwing it down anyway, despite cancellations by half the guests, heard of florists and caterers bailing at the last minute, and venues forced by the state to postpone all weddings. As a bride to be, I could only imagine the sky high stress, disappointment, and wasted money.

The whole thing made me realize we should have wedding insurance. It was in the back of my mind for a little while, but now I’m ready to get serious.  I'm not concerned about a hurricane, but I am aware that freak things do happen sometimes. My dress shop could suddenly close or my venue could go bankrupt a month before the wedding. Of course, if those happened, I’m screwed regardless, but at least if I had insurance I wouldn’t be screwed and out thousands of dollars. Call me crazy, but didn't a hurricane flooding Vermont seem crazy too?

Plus, I insure my car, my apartment and my engagement ring, and the wedding, while not a million dollars, isn't exactly a minimal investment either. So why would I not protect that too? At least, this is how I see it, but I’m not sure if I’m crazy, as I really very rarely hear about this despite all the time I spend on wedding sites. Mr. B doesn't think it's necessary, but he's much less of a worrier than I am!

Right now, I'm leaning towards a policy with WedSafe. They’re recommended by Suze Orman, they cover many scenarios (including change of heart, not that I would expect that!) and costs less than 1% of my total budget.

Before I buy though, I'm wondering if anyone has experience or advice with this. If so, please share your stories! And be honest: is it ridiculous to want?

Really Good Advice

 A while back I posted some questionable marriage advice I’d gotten from random people. Now I want to post the only useful advice I’ve gotten, courtesy of my dad (who has been married to my mom for 37 years).

(Photoshop skillz)

It sounds so simple, but I find it deceptively hard. I mean, don't we often automatically and subconsciously put ourselves first? Take our second week of living together: Mr. B had his last softball doubleheader of the year, and he planned to play. When I found that out, I freaked a little bit. I was nervous being home alone in a new place (I know, I know, grow a set) and offended that he'd want to play when he could be home watching me blowdry my hair and go to bed early.

We argued back and forth a little, he played, I stewed for a day or two, then we moved on. But if we were thinking about each other, not ourselves, I'd realize it was fun and important to him, and he'd realize I felt unsettled and just needed a little extra support. Maybe we could've compromised on him playing only one game: he'd get to play, and he'd be home before I fell asleep. It's maybe a silly example, but these are the kinds of little things that come up all the time, and I do think these little, everyday things are often what your relationship builds on.

Anyone else find this easier said than done sometimes?

Bridesmaid Guilt

The other day, I made a list of the bridesmaids’ potential expenses.

There’s a LOT of them: dress, shoes, accessories, nails, hair, makeup, hotel, bachelorette, shower, and related gifts. Things could quickly could reach the thousand dollar mark.  I am racked with guilt at them spending so much, even though it is the reason that I asked, not told, them to be bridesmaids. We all know what being a bridesmaid entails, and I know they are comfortable or they wouldn't have said yes, yet I still feel bad about it.

To make it easier on them, I wanted to cover hair, makeup, nails, and hotel, but that would be $2,000+ for me, and I can’t definitively commit to all that right now,  especially considering no one else does it. But I feel bad anyway.

For sure, I want to cover makeup OR hair for each bridesmaid, their choice. Which might seem nice, except I’m secretly feeling guilty for an inner bridezilla thought:  certain girls kind of need their makeup done. But you can’t exactly tell your friends, who are beautiful, that their tinted moisturizer won’t photograph well next to professional makeup, right? (Eek I feel mean just typing that!)

I feel guilty that my wedding is going to eat up a lot of their schedules- an entire weekend and probably that Friday off from work, weekends for showers and dress shopping and bachelorettes, especially when they have super busy work and school schedules.

I feel bad that some of them are really unhappily single/waiting and that it's hard on them to be reminded of weddings. They're doing the best they can, I know, though lightening up on the haterade wouldn’t kill them either.

I'm also kind of uncomfortable with the idea that a bridal party feels like choosing favorites. Like, out of 4 equally close cousins, I only chose BM Katie. So doesn't make it seem as if I like her better? I don't, I just thought she'd be the most into it.  Or the maid of honor: it feels a little like openly identifying my favorite person, when all my friends mean a lot to me or they wouldn't be bridesmaids! Even though my MOH is especially significant to me, I hate that it's like saying she's above the rest, when I'm not looking to make any declarations.  It was uncomfortable too because I really struggled with, and still feel uneasy about, not adding BM Kelly as a co-MOH. She is an amazing friend, but at the time I feared offending everyone else by having 2 MOHs (“Oh look, two made the cut but the rest of you still didn’t. Sorry!”). 

And it works both ways- my MOH and BM Kelly are both engaged, and I will not be maid of honor to either of them, which makes me feel (surprise!) bad. Rationally I know it’s stupid, possibly crazy, but I can’t help but feel kind of hurt, as if the two people who are my most important ladies, don’t have reciprocal attitudes about me.

  

But I know when it’s my turn, I am thrilled to be a bridesmaid for my friends. The spending doesn't bother me,  and I’m genuinely pumped to be part of the planning, shopping, and events. So I wonder why I waste my time feeling guilty and assuming my girls don’t feel the same way?

Can anyone identify with my weird mix of bridesmaid guilt and happiness at sharing my wedding with friends?

Living Together

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Right now, Mr. B and I don’t live together. We grew up in the same town, and we’re still at home with our parents.

I’m still here for a lot of reasons: my job is local, I love where I live, I hate change, and I’m not big on New York either. Plus, I’m kind of old fashioned. So I stayed put. And Mr. B stayed put too, and that’s how things have been for the past three years since we graduated college.

I always planned to wait until marriage to live together. I thought it attached a lot of symbolism to our wedding, as only after it will we get to begin our lives together. I liked the idea of having a genuine honeymoon period, rather than experiencing our first few happy months together before we’re married, only to come back from the wedding and feel like nothing was different.

Plus, I didn’t have complaints about living at home. It’s been great for our finances and nice to spend time with our families. I felt pretty content with everything.

But it turned out I had to wrestle with the decision earlier than planned. My job was transferred to Maryland recently, and I was lucky enough to get a transfer to an office in North Jersey. It's too far to commute from where I live currently so...we’ve decided to begin looking for apartments together!

Given my stubbornness about not living together, I did struggle with this decision a lot. I was afraid it might take away the meaningfulness of our wedding. I worried that it wasn’t traditional or respectable to move in together. Plus, I wasn’t sure if it was hypocritical: I have some friends with a ‘boyfriend-won’t-propose/will moving in make that happen faster’ situations going on. I always advised them not to move in, and I wonder if my moving in earlier sent some kind of bad message. (I’ve decided no, we're engaged with major wedding plans underway, it is not the same thing as settling for living together because he refuses to propose. Besides they’re grownups and I doubt they care what I do!)

I’m really excited about this new development, and I’m surprised by how right it feels. As our relationship and engagement progresses, I am feeling the pain of not living together more often than I used to. I’m tired of waking up at 2 am from hanging out at his house and driving home. I miss him when he isn’t there. I’m sick of going to his house to see him and having to spend an hour chatting with the fam, petting the dog, etc. Our lives are beginning to change, and we can’t hold those off just because the party is 11 and a half months away. As much as I don’t mind being home, I am really ready to be on my own (I mean, come on, I am kind of old for it at this point!) I look forward to all of the little things that come along with us taking this step, and while it is not at the timing I had always planned or expected, I am really, really excited and hope that soon I have some concrete job and apartment news!

Did anyone else obsess about moving in together or is everyone else normal and just went with it? Anyone have any advice? I feel like Monica on Friends- "I have to live with a boy!"

Questionable Advice

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Getting engaged compels people to share lots of unsolicited marriage advice.  Sometimes, it can be really helpful, but in my case, it’s mostly been sort of odd. I figured I’d share some with you:

From Linda, the woman who owns the salon where I get haircuts:

“Wait, you’re engaged? But you’re so young! Are you old enough to drink? Look, I tell all the girls marriage is big- make sure you guys have more going on than the bedroom- his junk’s not going to work one day. You know that right? Be careful!”

I don’t know what about me made Linda think I was a barely legal slut marrying for sex, (the fact that I barely talk at haircuts? The professional outfits I show up in that clearly state I am a working professional?) but I rolled my eyes at that one. 

From my grandma, married around 50 years, although the marriage was of questionable quality, according to my dad:

“Fight him on everything!”

I think we can all agree this is the worst advice ever.

From Bob, my sort of morbid 72 year old cube mate at work. Bob advises me, unasked, on almost a daily basis:

“Get a prenup.”

“You should have a friendship first. That’s the most important.”

 “Figure out that religion thing NOW. In case you need to call off the wedding.”

“Don’t spend a lot on your dress. I got my daughter's for $100.”

 “You want to move to New York? That’s a waste of money. Don’t live there. Terrible idea.”

“Don’t have a TV in your bedroom- has an adverse impact on a marriage.”

“You clean the inside of the house, and he should take care of the outside. But you might have to change jobs sometimes.”

“Have you started saving for retirement? Start saving! I bet gas goes up to $11 soon.”

Bob definitely means well, and some of his advice is solid, it is just all so full of a glass-half-empty angle of it.

From Jess, a close friend at work who got married two years ago:

“Keep things a surprise still. If you’re getting ready to go somewhere together, get completely ready in the bathroom. Don’t let him see you with your hair half done, running around trying to scramble an outfit together.”

I’m pretty high maintenance so this works for me! It’s not a bad idea I think to have a little mystery, and this is one way to accomplish it.

Anyway, I don’t mind hearing advice from people, although sometimes I wish it was more useful!

Have any good (or really bad) pearls of wisdom been dropped on you guys?

Required Reading: Marriage

Recently, I found myself in the midst of a minor freakout about getting married. I started to realize that there were some life aspects we hadn’t solidly figured out- like our future kids’ religion, where we’d live when I found a new job, how long we planned to stay and where we’d go next. We had ideas about these, but no definitive plans.

So being the complete geek book junkie that I am, I bought a book to help structure our little chats: 1001 Question to Ask Before You Get Married, by Monica Mendez Leahy.  The book includes exhaustive lists of questions on tons of topics, including children, relationship to parents/in-laws, childhood, career, unemployment, money, situational questions, even specifics like defining what you both consider cheating.  

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Mr. B and I decided to go through the book. 1001 questions is a lot, and sometimes it only takes one question to spark a long discussion, so it’s not exactly something you do in a day. But we have covered some topics I never thought to discuss, like how our childhoods affect us today, our individual relationships with our parents, and what we wanted to copy or avoid from our parents’ marriages. The discussions were eye opening and interesting, plus helped us verbally solidify things that were maybe instinctive, but not previously discussed. It’s possibly a cheesy thing to do, but we are entering into an institution with a pretty high fail rate, so I figured anything that might give us an advantage going in is good to me!

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I also loved the realistic and adorable Project Everlasting, by Mat Boggs and Jason Miller. The two bachelor authors travel the country, interviewing couples still in love after 40+ years, as they attempt to discover what makes marriage work.  The stories range from couples who knew from the first second they met, to challenges couples had faced over the years and how they overcame them. Almost every couple went through a crappy period that could have led to divorce, but they worked through it to become stronger than ever, and their tips and stories are things I hope to put into work in my own marriage if need be.

The authors also have a website, and here is a recent story from the site that totally made me a little teary at work today. It’s pretty similar to the type of stuff in the book:

Trapani Love Story

Okay fine, one more because I am a total sap for these stories!

Nancy and Bill 

Has anyone read either of these books, or something similar they’d recommend?



FOCCUS Recap

Last night, Mr. B and I met with our deacon to take the FOCCUS test, which is a compatibility inventory the Catholic church makes you take before you get married. Its goal is simply to help couples figure out what topics they need to discuss more; it doesn’t indicate future marital success or failure. Since it seems to be something that a lot of people are nervous or confused by, I thought I’d discuss our experience.

The test was straightforward. We answered a battery of 164 questions (took about 20 minutes) on various aspects of marriage, including children, money management, our relationship, attitudes, sex, and for us, a special section on interfaith couples (he's Jewish, I'm Catholic). You fill out a Scantron form, agreeing, disagreeing, or claiming uncertainty on the statement. Some sample statements include:

·         We are in agreement about the roles of husband and wife in our marriage relationship

·         I am concerned that in-laws may interfere in our marriage

·         My future spouse and I agree that our marriage commitment means we intend to pledge love under all circumstances.

·         We are open to having children

·         I want a strong sexual relationship (my super mature response to that question was to text Mr. B during the test saying, “Eeek a sex question!”)

·         I am concerned about my partner’s gambling/drug/drinking habits

The test basically looks like this:

 

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It gets scored by the FOCCUS people and returned to our deacon, who calls us if there's anything he wants us to discuss, or leaves us alone if he thinks we did fine.

My parents were horrified at the whole idea of the FOCCUS, calling it an “invasion of privacy” and “none of the church’s business.” Honestly, I feel exactly the opposite- I think the church is simply recognizing how many failed marriages there are, and is just trying to give us as as good of a start as they can. I thought it was a good idea, and Mr. B, ever the good sport, agreed, even calling it "fun."

Afterward, we did discuss some of our interfaith issues with the deacon, who I really, really like. He’s an old Jersey City cop with a booming voice, and I find him to be extremely respectful, helpful, and fair to both our religions. He gave us a lot of advice on our situation, underscoring it all with the idea that a happy and working marriage was the paramount concern, and that religion should bring us together, not apart. He told us we should make sure our kids learn about and celebrate the holidays of both, but gave us no pressure on which one to choose. 

Anyway, our interfaith situation has made me obsessed with learning more about our religions. In keeping with today's Catholic theme, here's some marriage prep sites I've found, which at the very least might be some food for thought during a slow workday!

• Catholic Wedding Help: Rules, planning help, answers to questions, and wedding resources such as vows, music, and programs.
• For Your Marriage: Catholic marriage website with resources, discussions, and articles for engaged and  married couples, and couples with kids.
• FOCCUS: the test's website

Anyone else take the FOCCUS yet? Did you like or hate that it was a requirement?

Waiting...

The first time I heard the term "waiting" was when my engaged best friend referred to me as a "waiting girl" in an email. My fiance read it, and cracked up, laughing hysterically and saying, ”Only girls would have something like this.” And he’s right! Maybe we are crazy, but there does come a point when you know the ring is imminent, but it’s still not here. Waiting is one of the most exciting, but also agonizing, times, and it's nice to have a community of girls to share that with (Weddingbee, I'm looking at you). You’re dying to get engaged, you’ve allowed yourself to start looking at blogs, maybe sneaking a magazine or two, and you feel like it’s coming, yet it’s not here yet and you don’t know when it will be. My waiting period was maybe four months, only two of which really felt agonizingly long:

July

My best friend and her fiancé get engaged, which I think starts to subconsciously put the wheels in motion (Thanks Matt!)

August

For my 24^th birthday, he gave me a David Yurman diamond ring, and promised to propose within the year. He then took me ring shopping to try on the Tacori I’d been drooling over.  And it was as awesome in person as it looked in the magazines! But it still didn’t feel that real- I don’t think that he told his parents we had done that, and I knew that even if we were looking, an actual engagement was still very far off. Although I did take this month as an opportunity to present him with a businesslike bulleted 5 point plan on why he should propose by Christmas (it was funny, I swear!)

Always thought promise rings were corny till I got one...haha (Source)

September

Well, now his parents know. He tells me that they had some family friends over for dinner, who asked when he was moving to the city where he works. He told them he was going to wait until I moved out so he could move with me. His mother reminded him that she knew I didn’t want to live together before we were married. So he took that opportunity to say, “Well maybe we will be married soon.”

Soon after that, his mother starts saying little things about things we’ll need when we live together, and starts more sentences with, “When you two are married…”

October

Drunken confessions begin!! It takes little more than two Coronas for the words to slip out. First I hear he’s discussing diamonds with his coworkers. Then I hear he’s asked my best friend’s fiancé for jeweler information.

Only took two of these bad boys to get some choice info! Source

November

At this point, I am told it will be before Christmas. Unfortunately, I’m told this much too early (Christmas is still 8 weeks away, is my proposal 2 weeks away or 8 weeks?!) and I cannot stop bothering him. Since I know it’s coming, I’m not afraid of scaring him off, and I (annoyingly) press him for information. Constantly. Whoops. I kept thinking everything was a sign that it was about to happen- he left work early one random Wednesday? Well obviously  he was proposing (he wasn't). He had to "run errands" with his dad? Yeah right, he was obviously going to pick up my ring (again, wrong. Really just running errands). There may have been a temper tantrum or two. I’m not proud of it, but I’m aiming to be honest here. It sucks, and it’s hard to wait, especially when it feels so close.

December

The proposal! December 10, 2010! One of the most exciting days of my life, with a story to come soon!

Attitude Adjustment

My best friend got engaged six months before me, and while I was waiting for my ring, we’d spend our days emailing about how exciting it would be to plan our weddings together. We would visit florists together, go dress shopping, and share vendors. Planning together would be so much fun.

In reality, it is a little less collaborative than I expected, and I think this is because we have opposite approaches to wedding planning.

My friend, in life and consequently in her wedding planning, is laidback and unworried.  She set a long engagement, allowing her to take her time. She booked her venue quickly, but relaxed about the other elements of her wedding. Plus, she has always been the type of person to be satisfied. Whatever she finds and likes is good. She trusts her gut and does not nitpick. She does not need to comb through photographer after photographer to convince herself that she has found the best possible one. She finds what she likes, doesn't overthink it, and moves on. It's that simple.

I, on the other hand, have approached wedding planning in a chaotic “must-get-things-done!” frenzy. I nearly lost my shit when a snowstorm postponed my venue search (by a mere 3 days). When the first photographer and band I queried were both booked, I convinced myself that everything was booking right this second, despite hearing back from at least 10 more of each that were available on my date. My phone is constantly ringing with bands wanting to discuss their song list, email flooding with photographers setting up meetings, and florists are demanding to know if I had my dress picked out yet because obviously the bouquet needs to match. I’m scheduling appointment after appointment and feeling frustrated with constantly schlepping around the state, remaining unsatisfied, exhausting options, with contracts still unbooked. I’m panicky about gut feelings (they’re all telling me that everyone we’re looking into sucks and will ruin our wedding and I’m making terrible mistakes), when probably the panic is just a manifestation of anxiety, and not a legitimate feeling. While everyone keeps telling me, “You have time,” all I can think is that time or not, this stuff needs to get done, and I can’t relax until it does!

Source

I can’t, and wouldn’t want, to approach my wedding like my friend. It is not in my nature to go with the flow, and I am pickier about things, and more high maintenance.  But I could stand to calm down a little bit. I’ve let this stress me out to the point where it’s not enjoyable anymore, and maybe it is time to take a step back. There is a photographer out there. There is a band. We’ll probably book our florist this Saturday. It will all get done, and you know what else? It’s a five hour party. A month from now, I'll probably have this taken care of, and once it's done, the amount of stressing I did will seem really silly. I think I am falling into the trap of losing perspective, and right now, I'm setting a goal to calm down and approach this more rationally.