so i've done my fair share of surfing on theknot.
the most amusing aspect of this experience is that the letters "STD" are no longer something you try to avoid from sketchy lovers, but "Save the Date"
umm.. you think someone would have thought twice about that substitution.
it's just odd seeing "I need STD ideas" on a posting.
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
it's really nothing short of a miracle
i passed the bar exam.
i'm not entirely sure that it's real... but paul assures me that it said "congratulations" and not "we're sorry."
i'm packing up my bar/bri books!
i'm not entirely sure that it's real... but paul assures me that it said "congratulations" and not "we're sorry."
i'm packing up my bar/bri books!
Monday, November 08, 2004
money makes the world go 'round...
before i start my rant, congrats to sandy and scott. they just got married on saturday. heard it was a beautiful affair.
now onto the post:
the one thing that wedding planning has taught me is that there is never enough money.
i mean... i'm always aware of money. i guess that comes with the territory of never having any. money, that is. but with wedding planning, you realize even a lot of money is sometimes not enough. it's ungodly what people charge as soon as they hear the first syllable "wed--" ... you don't even have to finish the word. my mother has a philosophy about weddings though. she thinks it is the one occasion where money shows. i tend to agree with her. you can glance around a wedding and quickly see where the money went (and how much of it). not that i'm saying a good wedding is an expensive one. i'm pretty confident that i can throw together a pretty good wedding without going overboard on the budget. well... not too overboard anyway.
i've been getting a lot of good advice from previous brides, internet forums, magazines, etc. but i have to say, putting together YOUR wedding is a very personal experience. no one can really figure out what's going on inside your head, and what's driving you to make those decisions. it's harder because i'm finding that what i thought i'd always wanted at my wedding isn't necessarily what i'm finding that i want NOW. i'm sidetracked easily. too many options. too many opportunities to "woo" and "aah". i am glad that the holidays are coming up. i'm hoping that with the panic of having to put together christmas presents, etc. i'll stop thinking about this wedding. it's hard though... especially when you know how much your parents make in a year and how much you know you'll need in cash to pull certain things off. its' harder because i have ZERO income coming in so my contribution will be very very low. poor parents. i mean... they save up money to raise you. they save up money to send you to school. they save up money to make sure you get to a doctor when you're sick. that you get piano lessons, cheerleading uniforms, acupuncture for that time you badly sprained your ankle... bail you out of a couple of parking tickets. buy those awful fundraiser boxes full of candy since no one else will buy them from you. and now, they have to pay to get rid of you. it's a harsh world.
some wedding facts i've found out in the last few weeks (pay attention future brides):
1. the wedding industry has the BEST service personnelle in the world. talk about timely phone calls. bands call me every monday to see if i've "thought about the band a little bit more." now if you're a do-it-yourself-er, then this is endlessly annoying.
2. putting on makeup when you're NOT a bride costs half as much as putting on the same makeup as a bride. but when you're only pretending to be a bride and testing your make up, it's still more than putting on makeup as a not-a-bride.
3. in pa, you have to get your marriage license no more than 60 days but no less than 4 days from your wedding. neither of us have to be pa residents.
4. apparently, not changing my name somehow puts my willingness to commit into question. if i change my name, i'm told that i'm abandoning my roots. so if i keep my name, i'm prone to leave my husband. and if i change it, i'll somehow turn white??? in short, people need to mind their fucking business.
5. there's a thing called "day-of-the-event" wedding coordinator! i had no idea. someone to come in on your wedding day and boss people around for you while you sit pretty for pictures. and only $500! (yeah right - with my ocd?)
6. you can register for a honeymoon. there's an actual site for it.
more fun wedding facts to be continued...
now onto the post:
the one thing that wedding planning has taught me is that there is never enough money.
i mean... i'm always aware of money. i guess that comes with the territory of never having any. money, that is. but with wedding planning, you realize even a lot of money is sometimes not enough. it's ungodly what people charge as soon as they hear the first syllable "wed--" ... you don't even have to finish the word. my mother has a philosophy about weddings though. she thinks it is the one occasion where money shows. i tend to agree with her. you can glance around a wedding and quickly see where the money went (and how much of it). not that i'm saying a good wedding is an expensive one. i'm pretty confident that i can throw together a pretty good wedding without going overboard on the budget. well... not too overboard anyway.
i've been getting a lot of good advice from previous brides, internet forums, magazines, etc. but i have to say, putting together YOUR wedding is a very personal experience. no one can really figure out what's going on inside your head, and what's driving you to make those decisions. it's harder because i'm finding that what i thought i'd always wanted at my wedding isn't necessarily what i'm finding that i want NOW. i'm sidetracked easily. too many options. too many opportunities to "woo" and "aah". i am glad that the holidays are coming up. i'm hoping that with the panic of having to put together christmas presents, etc. i'll stop thinking about this wedding. it's hard though... especially when you know how much your parents make in a year and how much you know you'll need in cash to pull certain things off. its' harder because i have ZERO income coming in so my contribution will be very very low. poor parents. i mean... they save up money to raise you. they save up money to send you to school. they save up money to make sure you get to a doctor when you're sick. that you get piano lessons, cheerleading uniforms, acupuncture for that time you badly sprained your ankle... bail you out of a couple of parking tickets. buy those awful fundraiser boxes full of candy since no one else will buy them from you. and now, they have to pay to get rid of you. it's a harsh world.
some wedding facts i've found out in the last few weeks (pay attention future brides):
1. the wedding industry has the BEST service personnelle in the world. talk about timely phone calls. bands call me every monday to see if i've "thought about the band a little bit more." now if you're a do-it-yourself-er, then this is endlessly annoying.
2. putting on makeup when you're NOT a bride costs half as much as putting on the same makeup as a bride. but when you're only pretending to be a bride and testing your make up, it's still more than putting on makeup as a not-a-bride.
3. in pa, you have to get your marriage license no more than 60 days but no less than 4 days from your wedding. neither of us have to be pa residents.
4. apparently, not changing my name somehow puts my willingness to commit into question. if i change my name, i'm told that i'm abandoning my roots. so if i keep my name, i'm prone to leave my husband. and if i change it, i'll somehow turn white??? in short, people need to mind their fucking business.
5. there's a thing called "day-of-the-event" wedding coordinator! i had no idea. someone to come in on your wedding day and boss people around for you while you sit pretty for pictures. and only $500! (yeah right - with my ocd?)
6. you can register for a honeymoon. there's an actual site for it.
more fun wedding facts to be continued...
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
band is booked!
disclaimer: i would normally rant about the election here, but i've decided to save it until i have some time to cool off and figure out what's going on. i had a good day, so i'm going to write about good things.
my first vendor is booked!
we found a band! i'm really excited. i was a little stressed for a while because 2 saturdays in june of 2006 were already booked as of this morning, so when we decided to contract with them by the end of the workday i felt a ton of weight lifting off my shoulders.
it was such a productive day. we started getting quotes for tents for the outside to get ballpark figures, discussed preliminary ideas about honeymoon, rediscussed budget projections. mom and dad keller are being incredibly generous with us and we want to make sure we're not taking advantage of that generosity. i want this wedding to be great, but i'm not sure how i'd stomach such a huge sum of money. the good thing is, paul and i are pretty practical when it comes to certain things which have given us the luxury of being able to have that band at the wedding. we're taking a lot of good budget cutting ideas, like doing our own flowers, making the favors ourselves, and hiring friends for some of the tasks, etc. i'm really glad we'd decided to take some time to plan the wedding. the luxury of time is saving us a bundle without sacrificing too much.
with the next couple of months paul and i've decided to work on the registry and figure out what kind of a honeymoon we may want (tropical? asia? europe? napa?). i know nothing about china and even less about crystal. do i need crystal? besides, i'm so picky i think it'll take some time for me to decide whether or not i really want certain patterns sitting in my cupboard for the next 30 years. we also have to narrow down some kind of a guest list. it's ballooning like crazy with so much family on both sides, so we have to figure out whether or not all our friends can bring a date (we're working on it).
also -- paul and i were in lansdale today so he could vote, so i got to spend some time with mom keller and my girlfriend serena. we made a game plan to go visit suky rosan (it's a dress shop outside of philly) sometime in the spring to scope out dresses i can't afford. we figured we can see all the really fancy dresses and try to find knockoffs elsewhere. or maybe we'll catch a break and find a good deal. who knows. anyway, we chatted about the wedding, about life, about goals and dreams... it was just really pleasant being around such a good girlfriend. i missed her. i'm so glad we're seeing each other more frequently now that i have a connection with philly.
okay. now with this hurdle over, i have to start concentrating on the holidays. gotta figure out gifts and whatnot. i also have to figure out a way to get rid of all the leftover candy from halloween. we only got a couple of trick or treaters at our complex, so i have a mountain of chocolate. (very bad!).
my first vendor is booked!
we found a band! i'm really excited. i was a little stressed for a while because 2 saturdays in june of 2006 were already booked as of this morning, so when we decided to contract with them by the end of the workday i felt a ton of weight lifting off my shoulders.
it was such a productive day. we started getting quotes for tents for the outside to get ballpark figures, discussed preliminary ideas about honeymoon, rediscussed budget projections. mom and dad keller are being incredibly generous with us and we want to make sure we're not taking advantage of that generosity. i want this wedding to be great, but i'm not sure how i'd stomach such a huge sum of money. the good thing is, paul and i are pretty practical when it comes to certain things which have given us the luxury of being able to have that band at the wedding. we're taking a lot of good budget cutting ideas, like doing our own flowers, making the favors ourselves, and hiring friends for some of the tasks, etc. i'm really glad we'd decided to take some time to plan the wedding. the luxury of time is saving us a bundle without sacrificing too much.
with the next couple of months paul and i've decided to work on the registry and figure out what kind of a honeymoon we may want (tropical? asia? europe? napa?). i know nothing about china and even less about crystal. do i need crystal? besides, i'm so picky i think it'll take some time for me to decide whether or not i really want certain patterns sitting in my cupboard for the next 30 years. we also have to narrow down some kind of a guest list. it's ballooning like crazy with so much family on both sides, so we have to figure out whether or not all our friends can bring a date (we're working on it).
also -- paul and i were in lansdale today so he could vote, so i got to spend some time with mom keller and my girlfriend serena. we made a game plan to go visit suky rosan (it's a dress shop outside of philly) sometime in the spring to scope out dresses i can't afford. we figured we can see all the really fancy dresses and try to find knockoffs elsewhere. or maybe we'll catch a break and find a good deal. who knows. anyway, we chatted about the wedding, about life, about goals and dreams... it was just really pleasant being around such a good girlfriend. i missed her. i'm so glad we're seeing each other more frequently now that i have a connection with philly.
okay. now with this hurdle over, i have to start concentrating on the holidays. gotta figure out gifts and whatnot. i also have to figure out a way to get rid of all the leftover candy from halloween. we only got a couple of trick or treaters at our complex, so i have a mountain of chocolate. (very bad!).
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