This just doesn't seem right

My dilemma du jour is dissatisfying in so many ways. I'm upset that I'm spending so much time thinking about it and that I haven't made a decision yet and that this is even something that I want to decide. But my tendency toward perfectionism tends to overrule my disinterest in mundane details, so the problem remains in front of me, unsolved.

Prepare to laugh at me.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the wedding favors/placecard holders have arrived, and now the "only" task that remains to be completed before this item can be checked off the list is the placecards themselves. And placecards are straightforward--paper and pen, right?

Wrong!

When you're in DIY-wedding/indie bride mode, everything--including, sadly, placecards--is customizable to fit your personality. Some of the burning questions keeping me up at night include:

• Round, rectangular, or square placecards?
• Mounted or not mounted?
• If mounted, how much of a border? Which color paper? Multiple colors?
• What color pen? What kind of pen? (Also under consideration--must supply the pen to the wedding coordinator in case of last-minute table or attendee changes.)
• What style writing?
• Include any stickers or other decoration? (Perhaps a use for the heretofore stumblebum-like glitter paint...?)

I am fearful that if I pursue this issue any further, my brain cells will unite with my wedding favors, stock card paper, and rubber cement to swallow me whole in a scene worthy of the Willy Wonka movie.

Photo sharing in the digital age

Before the digital camera became standard for casual point-and-shooters, disposable cameras were frequently found on tables at weddings, and guests were asked to share their perspectives of the wedding by taking pictures and leaving the cameras behind. I've heard mixed reviews about this tactic, but the overwhelming majority of people who were sucked in to the cardboard camera idea say that they end up with a large photo-development bill and lots of blurry pictures.

I suspect the photos from our guests will be fantastic--several family members and friends are very talented photogs--but our guests will be using their own cameras. We needed a way to share their photos.

Downloading pics to a computer at the reception seemed...impractical (not to mention annoying and kind of weird). We came up with a better idea.

At the reception, we'll be distributing self-addressed, postage-paid envelopes containing blank CDs to anyone who wants them, and we'll ask our guests to copy their pictures from the wedding to the CDs and then drop them in the mail to us. I hope that our guests will be willing to share their photos and willing to take the extra steps required to copy them to a CD and then mail them. If they are, I think we'll get some great pictures that we might not otherwise have.

I was unsure of how many envelopes to create--we don't want to have 20 extra self-addressed, stamped envelopes, but we don't want to run out. Since the CD spindle contained 25 CDs and the CD cases came in packages of 25 and the envelopes came in packages of 12, I decided that 24 was a good number.

Fantastic favors

Last week I realized that it's time to stop saying, "My wedding is the easiest thing I've ever planned!" and actually do something wedding-related to back up the statement (hence the flurry of wedding-related posts after a month and a half of thumb twiddling). One of the first orders of business was the ordering of the wedding favors, which will also serve as placecard holders.

I liked the idea of using placecard holders as favors because they have the element of practicality about them (without losing their fun factor!) and might possibly be used for something (other than a dust collector because the recipients feel guilty throwing them out). I found a few beach-related placecard holders but couldn't decide among them, so I decided to get a mix of all of them. I thought the table of favors would be fun and colorful and beachy-themed without being too uniform.

The favors arrived in the mail yesterday, and I'm concerned that we're going to have a jumble of placecard holders that look like we grabbed handfuls of favors at a store without concern for how the final collection would look. I'm going to have to do some trial setups on a table to make sure they don't look awful.

Unfortunately, a few favors arrived broken due to a flawed design, but I requested replacements from the company and am hopeful that I won't have to get pushy to get them.

Cake abuse

Disclaimer: The following post is likely to make you crave cake for the rest of the day. Read at your own risk!

We've all seen it happen at weddings. It's the dirty little secret of wedding planners and coordinators. It's cake abuse, and it's happening right now, just as it happens every day somewhere in the world.

Cake abuse is a serious issue that not everyone wants to acknowledge. After all, who wants to admit that they don't like or want to eat wedding cake? No one! But it's the truth, and cake is thrown away at every wedding. B and I are going to do our best to prevent cake abuse at our wedding.

Our plan is to not pass cake at tables. Those who want cake will have easy access to it, but those who don't want cake won't have it placed in front of them. We'll work with our wedding coordinator to come up with a best guess number of how many people will want cake and order that amount.

When we went to cake tastings (one of the best parts of wedding planning, by far), we had the idea of ordering cupcakes instead of a wedding cake. Cupcakes are fun and provide much more flexibility than a regular cake--we can order as many flavors as we want and can mix and match the icing flavors. Plus cupcakes allow for some pretty cool decorating possibilities.

Now 2 questions remain--how many cupcakes to order, and in what combination of flavors? Below are our options (prepare to drool):

• Traditional Wedding White
• White Chocolate Butter
• Dark Chocolate Butter
• Milk Chocolate Butter
• Mocha Fudge
• Marble
• Red Velvet
• Apple Cinnamon
• Holiday Spice
• Carrot
• Banana Cream
• Strawberry
• Mandarin Orange
• Hazelnut
• Zesty Lemon
• Pistachio
• Almond
• Rum
• Traditional English Fruit Cake
• Coconut
• Maple Walnut

Our original plan was to get white chocolate, dark or milk chocolate, mocha fudge, red velvet, carrot cake, and some sort of fruit flavor (lemon, banana, or strawberry), but I am rethinking this decision. In nearly all aspects of life, the "less is more" theory tends to prevail. By providing many options, we increase the likelihood that we won't order flavors in the correct ratio, and we might end up with a dozen untouched red velvet cupcakes (B and I both like the idea of red velvet and considered ordering a groom's cake in red velvet but didn't want to go overboard on the cake budget). It might be best to simply order white chocolate and dark or milk chocolate and mix up the icings a bit--snow white buttercream, traditional buttercream, chocolate fudge buttercream, white chocolate buttercream, and cream cheese frosting provide lots of different options, both visually and from a taste perspective.

And if you're preparing to laugh over the idea of B and me cutting a cupcake for our big cake-cutting scene, I'm afraid we're going to have to disappoint. We considered doing it for the sake of humor but decided to order a small cake for the cake cutting instead. Topper/decorations TBD.

Glow-in-the-dark teeth

I like my teeth. A lot. They've provided me with 27+ years of cavity-free existence. They're reasonably straight and reasonably white, and they don't complain too much when I eat ice cream.

In short, my teeth are perfectly sufficient as-is for my day-to-day life, but my wedding is coming up, so I felt the need to super-size my teeth (metaphorically speaking) in some way. There isn't enough time for Invisalign, so teeth whitening seemed like the best option.

Conveniently, I had a coupon for a free teeth whitening kit, including trays and bleaching gel, if I joined a nearby dentist. It was a great deal, and I decided to go for it.

I asked the dentist about the 1-hour whitening compared to the whitening using trays and gels, which takes an hour a day for a couple weeks (a serious time commitment). She said that the insta-whitening can cause extreme tooth sensitivity, whereas the trays generally cause only minor tooth sensitivity that goes away when you stop using them. Though the inconvenience factor is high, you can't discount the "free" factor, so I decided to give it a try.

This isn't my first foray into tooth whitening. I tried the Crest White Strips in college, and had relatively good success, considering I quit after a week or so because I found the strips to be annoying and I wasn't sufficiently motivated to continue wearing them. I hope the impending nuptials will be the driving force in this situation.

I wore the trays for the first time yesterday evening, and the inconvenience factor is higher than I expected, much more so than the White Strips. First of all, I haven't figured out how to speak with the trays in (I could explain what happens when I do try to speak, but I suspect it falls into the "Too much information" category). I found myself counting the minutes until 30 had passed, but then had to rinse the trays and put them back in for another 30 minutes. (You are supposed to wear them for 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening, but my mornings are chaotic enough without introducing trying to fill a tray with a precise amount of whitening gel.)

The whole experience has thus far been inconvenient and unpleasant, and it's only been a day, but to adopt a glass-half-full attitude, let's just say that I am already 1/14 of the way there. Unfortunately, the only results I see aren't promising--the too-white spot on one of my front teeth now stands out more than ever (part of the motivation for the whitening was to make the white spot no longer noticeable). Let's hope the rest of the tooth whitens enough over the next month to make up for the overachieving spot.

The booklet that came with the trays says that after I finish treatment, my teeth will be especially white for about 2 weeks, and then they will assume their "final" color. You know what that means--my teeth will be glowing in the dark for 2 weeks. I haven't decided if I want that look for the wedding--it might look fine in pictures, or it might look like I have fluorescent lighting in my mouth.

Painted sticks in vases, part II

The pursuit of centerpieces has been fraught with difficulty, culminating in this weekend's spraypainting of a bunch of sticks.

Several weeks ago, we bought the cheapest silver spraypaint that we could find (best to invest as little as possible when you're not sure how the outcome will be), and we used it to paint 1/3 of our sticks with it. Lo and behold, they didn't look awful, so we set out to buy more paint. Of course, the Home Depot near my parents' house didn't have the same color, and the closest option was twice the price--a necessary expense if we were going to complete the centerpieces.

Then the A.C. Moore was all out of silver glitter spraypaint (B pointed out that wedding season is upon us and that it must be in high demand from similarly crafty brides). Luckily, the fabric store down the street had it in stock. This goose chase turned out to be somewhat unnecessary because you can't really see the glitter in the finished product (maybe if you look closely, but no one really looks at centerpieces, except perhaps to inquire, "Do you suppose they spraypainted those sticks themselves??").

The new silver paint turned out to be worth the investment, as it produced a shinier product (and really, what more does one want at a wedding than shiny sticks). Naturally, the previously painted sticks had to be repainted to match, and then painted again with the outrageously-priced-considering-it's-undetectable glitter spray.

We created a prototype to show off but bundled the rest of the sticks for easier transport to the venue. We envision ourselves assembling the centerpieces the day before and are considering making it a rehearsal activity. "Now we walk down the aisle...now we pour sand in the stick-filled vase..."

Just a few acquisitions...

A few items made it past the spending moratorium in recent weeks.

First of all, we got new dishes--and they're great. I've always owned light-colored dishes, so it never occurred to me that food might appear more attractive on darker dishes--but it does! Our new dishes have a dark blue, almost navy, interior, and when you have a mix of other bright colors on the plate, the food pops (figuratively speaking, of course). New dishes were a sound purchase.

Second, we bought new luggage. The set consists of three rolling suitcases (which nest inside each other for convenient storage) and a smallish bag that can be used as a carry-on or for cosmetic-type items within a larger bag. The set is forest green with taupe accents--not very exciting, but B will be able to use the set for work travel, and it will stand out more than every other black suitcase.

Finally, we bought new shoes for our honeymoon. I suspect "shoes" does not top the list of honeymoon must-buys for most people, but they were a necessary purchase (that's my story, anyway). Here's why: We don't want to look like Americans in Europe.

Granted, this situation will be unavoidable due to our height, teeth, and language skills, but we don't want to be identifiable in a crowd, and shoes and clothing are a good place to start if you want to fit in. We bought sporty shoes that are sneaker-like in their comfort but are a bit dressier looking--I wouldn't wear mine to a fine restaurant, but I feel a little dressier than I do in my Nikes. And I think they'll blend better than glowing white sneakers.

Oh, and it was necessary for me to get 2 pairs of the same shoe, one in brown and one in black. After all, you want to be prepared for every situation.

I'm trying to put the brakes on any other purchases--from here on out, only wedding-oriented buying! But these acquisitions were such good ideas that it's hard to hold back.

So you think you can dance?

In fitting with the Extreme Wedding culture in which we are now living, every aspect of the wedding and wedding day must be supersized in order to show how much you love each other. And now announcing the bride and groom's first dance as a married couple.

Queue the music, and dim the lights.

The two of you are finally together (and somewhat alone) for perhaps the first time that day. It's the perfect time to reflect on the wedding ceremony and the fact that you made it to the I Dos unscathed--except you're both counting steps because you're trying to remember your carefully choreographed dance that was designed to prevent your first dance as a married couple from looking like it were straight out of a junior high dance.

It's making me wonder--are dance lessons for the couple, or are they for the guests?

I think it's a combination--both the couple and the guests benefit. In theory, if the couple feels comfortable and confidant, then they can provide an entertaining show for their guests. Plus there is always the show-off factor--hey, it's your big day--what better time to show off your moves? In addition, the guests enjoy the show and feed off the energy that the couple projects.

Taking dance lessons is obviously the way to go, assuming you have enough time to get to the "comfortable and confident" stage and aren't counting every step while on the dance floor.

B and I took dance lessons last summer (way before the engagement--just because we had a lot of weddings to go to, and we didn't want to look like donkeys on the dance floor), but aren't quite at the level we want to reach, and lack of practice has put us practically back to the starting line.

But the dance dance revolution will rise up again this weekend! We've booked our first dance lesson, and we're hoping the process won't be too difficult. After all, we just need to learn one dance for one song.

The only question that remains is, which song will it be...

Ring engravings

When we picked out our wedding rings, the woman helping us told us that we should think about what we wanted to have engraved in each other's rings, opening up a new can of decisions that needed to be made.

We always planned to get our wedding date engraved in our rings, a lesson learned from B's brother (no chance of forgetting your anniversary then!). But the idea that we needed meaningful words in addition to numbers added a new element of complexity and pressure. We decided to go online to see what the rest of the world has done.

The online community offered some...interesting options. "You wore me down" didn't capture the theme we were going for, and "Not for pawning" seemed too foreboding about our financial future. "The toys are LEGALLY mine" was just vindictive, and "wuv woo wots ~ sweeties" made me want to gag. Clearly, we were on our own for this one.

We each thought about it for a few weeks, and we talked about it a few days ago, and shockingly (or not shockingly--we are getting married, so perhaps we are starting to think alike), we had the same idea. So that's what we're going with. We're heading to the jeweler tomorrow to try on the rings we ordered and to tell them them what we want.

Another item to check off the list... :)

Nice day for a soft rock wedding

B and I have basic cable, which means we have the networks, 5 Spanish-language channels, 4 home-shopping channels, 3 local access channels, 2 public television stations, and VH1. I don't know why we get VH1, but I suspect it's because there is a cable god, and he recognizes how difficult life can be without cable. (And if you're wondering why we don't have cable, there are 2 reason: (a) we don't want to watch enough television to justify a $60 cable bill, and (b) we are cheap.)

Last night, when all other viewing options were exhausted, we turned to VH1 for some mindless entertainment in the form of a special about the top 40 soft rock hits of all time. From Toto to Chicago to Chris de Burgh and Rupert Holmes, I was ready to name-that-tune after hearing only a few notes of synthesizer magic.

As I was rocking out to Michael Bolton (anyone who thinks you can't rock out to Michael Bolton isn't trying hard enough), I realized that I knew--and loved!--every single song on the countdown. And it was then that I realized that my musical tastes tend toward the cheesy.

In the past, when people asked me what type of music I like, I usually replied, "I like everything!" and then qualified the response with a list of exceptions (the presence of foul language or implied violence or misogyny will land a song on the Unacceptable list). Now I know that the response has to be modified to, "I like anything that is played on the Delilah show best." (Delilah happens to be my radio show of choice for my evening showers and likely would be a top choice for my morning showers, if the show were played during the morning.)

Now I need to go through the list of songs we'd like the DJ to play at our wedding to make sure that all of my suggestions are not of the soft rock genre because I suspect not all of our guests are looking forward to rocking out to Mr. Bolton with me.