Wedding dress statistics
Days since picking up dress from bridal boutique – 4
Number of times dress has been tried on in those days – 3
Number of times dress has been tried on in order to show it to other people – 2
…(meaning that I’ve tried it on once, that I’m willing to admit, while alone in my apartment. And I’m not ashamed. I’ll do it again.)
It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? I’m guessing that my readership has probably dwindled from a hearty 10 people down to -3, but regardless I figured it was time for an update. It’s only been in recent days that my mind has cleared up enough that I’ve had space to think about what it is I would even write, so hopefully posts will grow more frequent over the next month…and then they’ll plummet back down to nothing come December 28.
Oh, by the way, that’s when I’m getting married.
The wedding itself hasn’t been that hard to plan, at least not if I think of it in terms of individual pieces. However, I’m also somewhat apathetic about many parts of it, in that yes, I want my flowers to be pretty, but aren’t flowers pretty in and of themselves, so whatever I end up with will be okay. In this case, that means that I’ll be ordering a bunch of roses from Sam’s Club and wrapping them myself, thus saving $400. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a very specific vision of what the wedding should be like, only to either a) spend every waking moment nailing down each minute detail of the ceremony, reception, and honeymoon, or b) have my hopes crushed when I learn, for hypothetical example, that my dream bridal gown only comes in bright white and not candlelight.
So it’s not that I’ve been stressed out, per se. It’s more that on top of my regular job, I now have the added jobs of planning a wedding from across the country, and being a full-time fiance. All of these things are doable, and I feel confident that I’m on the right track and everything is getting done. Gosh, though, my life has shifted drastically in the last 3 months.
And as I type that I realize it’s been exactly 3 months since Joel asked me to marry him…and exactly 48 days until I do just that.
As apathetic as I am about the ceremony itself, there is one thing that has stressed me out:
I was in Arkansas last week, and my mother asked me if I had checked on getting a marriage license. I had not, and realized this was probably a handy thing to have in case I wanted to actually get married as a result of the ceremony, so I called the county clerk’s office in Fayetteville to see what I needed. No waiting period, no blood tests, $35 cash, all I needed to do was show up with Joel, our birth certificates in hand, to their office before the ceremony to get the license. Great, I said, so you’ll be open the day after Christmas? Because that’s the only business day before the wedding that we’ll both be in town.
Nope, she says.
Momentary panic, but it’s ok, because she recommends I call the county clerk’s office in Eureka Springs, where the ceremony is actually being held. As I hang up the phone, I think this makes total sense, because Eureka has a Las Vegas kind of vibe when it comes to weddings. The elopement packages sold at most hotels are probably a sustaining factor in their economy, so I’m sure they’ll be open to accommodate all the weekend weddings.
I’m making these phone calls from the airplane headed back to Seattle, so at this point I have to hang up and wait for 4 hours to make the trip from DFW to Sea-Tac. My mom calls right after I land, and I tell her this funny story about how Joel and I might not be legally married after the ceremony. Isn’t this funny mom? She suggests that maybe Joel could fly up a day or two earlier. I say that’s not necessary, we can just take care of the legalities in Washington either before or after the wedding. I get the sense that this doesn’t fly with mom, mostly because she says “no” before I can fully articulate the sentence to her.
As soon as I hang up I realize this might be a bigger deal than I’m letting myself believe. I dial the number for the county clerk’s office, and get hold of someone after about 3 tries (Note: this is the day before the biggest presidential election in recent memory, which also falls under the county clerk’s jurisdiction. Of course I’m trying to figure this out on that day, of all days.). I repeat my situation, Joel will only be in town on the 26th, would you happen to be opened that day.
Nope, she says.
In fact, she states, there was a proclamation issued months ago stating that everyone in their office would have the day after Christmas off. She says it with such a tone that indicates that I should have checked the proclamation list before scheduling my wedding, and too bad for me for being so careless.
At this point I do begin to panic a tiny bit, and my brain starts jumping to problem solving mode. Maybe Joel can fly in early, maybe we can get legally married in Washington and then have the ceremony in Arkansas without telling anyone what happened. I manage to ask the woman if she has any other recommendations. Well, she says, with her sweet but commanding Arkansas accent, you can go to the county courthouse in Eureka on Saturday from 9am to 1pm and pick up a license there.
Really? That’s it? I say.
Yeah, that should work for you, she says.
She said it so simply that I knew she had no idea the state of panic she’d sent me into. So we go, in a period of seconds, from having no hope due to the vacation proclamation, to driving to the courthouseinstead of the county clerk to get the exact same license.
So that’s the only things that’s caused me to panic thus far: the idea that I might not actually be married when all this is over. As long as we’re legal when it’s all said and done, I’ll be just fine with inaccurate directions on the invitations and roses from Sam’s.
things that made me smile today 