Will and Kate and Happiness

Like the rest of the world, I was caught up in the big wedding this Friday. Working in a newsroom, where there are more TVs than people, it was like living inside a William and Kate Funhouse--you couldn't walk two feet without seeing constantly-streaming feeds or hearing another breathless report.

And why not? It was a great event. The dress! The kiss! The adorable curmudgeonly bridesmaid! I admit I kept one of those streams running on my desktop (also running? The Telegraph live blog, which had many gems throughout the day, my favorite being their takedown of how American television anchors had to keep explaining why Kate was not, unfortunately, a princess).

My favorite part of the whole wedding? Cartwheeling verger and 20-foot maple trees aside, I just loved those smiles. The smiles that say "We just got married, yaaaay!!!" The big, goofy, rosy-cheeked smiles that mean they are ridiculously happy, excited, thrilled, dazed.

I love those smiles. I see them on the faces of my sweet, wonderful, married friends, and they just make me grin. So it was wonderful to turn on the TV and not see nerves or discomfort or "WTF am I doing oh crap I hope this works out" (which, to be fair, is maybe how I would look if my nuptials were on display for 2 million+ people...), but the same joyful, time-of-our-lives smiles.

Can't wait for my own, big ole smile :)

How to Be the Perfect Girlfriend/Boyfriend

While Dave and I are vacationing in South Carolina this week, I'm going radio silent on wedding planning. It's wonderful. In the meantime, please be entertained by these two videos, which despite being humor videos, actually contain some good advice on how to maintain a healthy relationship. Happy Friday!

Dating Humor:
How To Be The Perfect Girlfriend



Dating Humor:
How To Be The Perfect Boyfriend


Also, aren't these two actors adorable?
I want to move to Wee Britain and have them be my zany friends.

5 Kitchen Registry Tips

There are few things I long for more than a well-stocked kitchen, and so building our registry was something akin to picking out the gates of Heaven (less heavenly? The four-hour schlep through Bed, Bath, & Beyond). I've pined for, researched, and finally decided on my ultimate kitchen dream list, and these are a few of the tips and tidbits I've picked up:

nooooo....

#1 Avoid sets

The pots and pans section can be confusing. Copper, anodized steel, non-stick, aluminum--not to mention sizes, weights, colors. It can be tempting to avoid the mess and go with a set. The problem with sets? All those different metals are good for different jobs and when you get a cookie-cutter set, you end up with big gaps in your cooking. Pick and choose what you feel most comfortable with, but in general you want a huge nonstick pan (upwards of 12"), a small nonstick pan (8"), and a medium cast iron pan (10"). Pots should be in a variety of sizes in a sturdy material like steel--non-stick is usually not necessary. You want at least 1 oven-to-stove pot (a Dutch oven), one very small pot (1qt), and one medium size pot (at least 4.5 qts).

Onion goggles, for all your onion-cutting, eye-protecting needs

#2 Get your gadgets to do double duty

Kitchen stores are full of gadgets that promise to save tomatoes, peel garlic, and cut your corners. What they really do is take up space in your drawer. Some gadgets will definitely be worthwhile, depending on how much you use them, but it can be hard to weed out the superfluous ones. The trick? If the item it's supposed to work on is part of its name (lemon zester, nutmeg mill), you can usually substitute something else (microplane grater will get both those jobs done). Unless you only eat lemons and nutmeg. Then have a ball, weirdo.

Liquidize your 401k in this copper-plated tea kettle!

#3 Most expensive does not equal best

With the resurgence of gourmet home cooking, it can be easy to drop a bundle on the most expensive tools and trappings on the market. For the most part, though, a lot of this expensive cookware isn't necessary and cheaper, just-as-good alternatives can be substituted. Which makes sense! Unless your kitchen feeds into Per Se, you're not going to need full professional sets of anything. Splurge on the few things you really want and plan to use regularly (my big-ticket item? A high quality ice cream maker), but otherwise you don't need Le Crueset cast iron cookware (there are cheaper alternatives from celebrity chef lines like Rachel Ray, Emeril Lagasse, and Martha Stewart) or Japanese sashimi knives (good German steel will get you through most situations).

Still good!

#4 But, at the same time, go for quality

There's a temptation, especially when other people are doing the buying, to edge towards the cheaper versions of things. Remember that this is your time to stock up on the items that will last you for the rest of your lives, and, unsurprisingly, that will cost more than what it took to fill your dorm room kitchen. Before you decide on anything, research it, read reviews, pay attention to the brand and history of a product. Avoid plastic and go instead for wood, metal, or ceramic. Take a look at your parents' kitchens and ask them what was on their registries that they still use--and stick with those brands.

Happy Wedding!

#5 Online shopping is a godsend, but check it out in person

I loooove me some online shopping. And online registry shopping is genius. You have more choices, less pressure, and the ability to look up consumer/professional reviews with the click of a Google. I spent weeks honing our registry list, but in the end I knew I was going to have to check everything out in person, so one snowy evening with Dave in tow, I trekked out to Bed, Bath, & Beyond where I spent the next several hours running down the list and Dave curled up in a corner with his iPod like an abandoned child (every half-hour or so I would pat his head while I walked by, and he seemed to enjoy that...). And as much as I loved the ease of the online registry, seeing things in person clarified a lot and helped me realize what was really quality, what was misshapen and poorly designed, and what everything actually looked like (like, don't buy shotglasses thinking they're drinking glasses...).

Special #6, for the wedding guests!

Remember that everything on your registry that your guests asked for, they want. I get it, you want to be the cool wedding guest who buys the mini deep-fryer (no, Dave made me take it off), but think about the things people will really need. I promise you, a full set of cookware will make more people happy than a cotton candy machine (no, again!), and if you come on the registry late and there's still some essential piece of cookware--a pot or pan or a knife--on the list, your to-be-wedded friends will love you for filling the gap.

Good luck, and happy registering!

Valentine

Love that guy.

Evie's Rules of Engagement

Not long after I got engaged, I somehow got invited to the New York City bridal expo. I heard about it before (mostly through Jezebel's "Oh God what are we doing here" reports, 1 and 2) and heard about my mom's experience at bridal expos (they only barely stopped short of giving her foot massages in the lavish attention they paid on her, the keeper of the checkbook). So I figured, what the hell? With the fiance out of town, I called on my best gal, Evie, to accompany me.

"Free cake!" I told her. "Free champagne! It'll be great!"

With high hopes and empty stomachs, we set off. I'm not really sure what my expectations were, but my first impressions, seeing easily 1000 brides-to-be, plus about a dozen unfortunate fiances or (oh lord) boyfriends, was more of a refuge camp than anything. As soon as I walked in the door I was slapped with a sticker that identified me as the bride to the fifty+ salespeople inside and made to fill out form after form with my personal information.

It took me about 15 minutes to realize this means Very Important Bride.

For some ungodly reason, I obediently filled out everything on the forms--address, email, telephone, Dave's contact info (later Evie said, "I was really surprised that you actually did that," and I had no response except some primordial form-filling instinct in me suddenly kicked in). All that earned me was a deluge of mail from every wedding business in the tri-state area. I STILL get magazines and emails. This actually may have been the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life.

The expo itself was a nightmare, with hundreds of women crowding around the two (two!) tables with free food. We were given goodie bags when we walked in and Evie forced me to take everything from every table. She also forced me to wait in line for the free photobooth-style photos:

You can see it really get to me on the bottom left.
Yes, we are hanging ourselves with free shell-lei necklaces.

Finally, Evie took pity on my crowd-induced panic attack and we left to go get burgers. Although I encouraged her to throw away the 3lb bag of magazines and ads she had accrued while at the expo, she said, very anthropologically, that she wanted to take them home to study them.

The result of this study? Evie's Rules of Engagement, culled from the advice of a dozen terrible wedding magazines. She made me a poster. You all wish you had a maid-of-honor like this.


Here they are, in order:

Check! This is the only part of the rules that makes sense from a logical human perspective.


My favorite is the one comparing your boyfriend to a gas-guzzling SUV (and you to an energy-efficient hybrid).


I like this rule, but it would have gotten you a black eye at the wedding expo. Ever seen two hundred hungry, sweaty women fight over a mini red velvet cupcake? Now I see it every night...in my nightmares...


Touche, Evie. Touche.


The aforementioned shot, with the aforementioned noose.


which leads naturally to...


True story: Dave's dad is impossible to buy a Christmas present for, so, jokingly, I suggested the only thing we could give him that he couldn't get himself was another grandkid. Dave laughed, agreed that that was true, conversation over. A few weeks later at our annual Christmas party, Dave, his mom, and my mom were all chatting. His mom asked what Dave and I got his dad. I was in the dining room, setting the table, when I heard this and thought don't say it, don't say it--"A grandchild!" Dave cheers.

Let me describe the scene that followed, when I ran into the kitchen. There's Dave, a big smile on his face, waiting for laughter that would never come. There's his mom, eyebrows halfway up her forehead, eyes wide. And then there's my mom, mouth open, completely frozen, with a facial expression that says something like "How quickly can I dismember the idiot who impregnated my unmarried daughter?"

"In three years!" I say. "A grandkid in three years! Not pregnant!"

The room collectively breathes a sigh of relief and my mom says, "Good, because there was no way you were going to fit into your dress."


Last but not least. I hope Sandals Jamaica got a nice boost in reservations from this.

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a happy, wonderful New Year!
Dave and I rang it in with pizza and Benjamin Button
(although we paused long enough to watch some fireworks and kiss)

2011 will be a big year for us:
marriage, new home, new roommate, new life.

I can't wait to see what the year will bring!

Very Merry

Merry Christmas blog-o-sphere!

Remember, the best way to spread Christmas cheer, is to sing very loud for all to hear.

Bling Bling

Comes with free pen/carrying case

I noticed something today that got me thinking...

A coworker recently got engaged, and after I congratulated her and shared post-engagement stories, I asked to see her ring. She seemed a little embarassed as she held it out--it was pretty, and huge--and right away she said she had to get it made smaller because "it looked like costume jewelry." I don't know if she meant the ring band or the diamond, and I didn't ask, but I thought it was a little strange. The diamond in my own engagement ring is smaller, and I got the sense that she was worried that she was showing off or embarrassing me because hers is so much bigger.

It's bizarre, but it's not the first time it's happened (another was a friend of a friend who got engaged a week or two before me. We made the mistake of holding out our hands at the same time, she blushed, said something about the size, and pulled her hand away). And every time it does happen, I feel weird. I love my ring, L-O-V-E it. There is absolutely nothing I would change about it, including the diamond size--it is so exactly what I want that I keep trying to pressure Dave into picking out the wedding band, too.

So why all the weird feelings about comparing ring sizes? I don't really know where it comes from, and I'm not the best at making anti-Tiffany's rants or raging about the consumer-driven mindset that's led people to equate size of diamond with amount of love and happiness afforded to a couple.* Still, it bothers me, and I don't like feeling like I have to defend my beautiful ring every time someone pulls out something bigger (which I don't do, because that would only add to the weirdness, but the feeling's still there).

I think engagement rings, unlike almost any other kind of jewelry, are so universal and so expected and so tied up with feelings of love that they naturally lend towards comparisons. And I don't think this is necessarily bad, and I enjoy seeing different styles and shapes and settings, but feeling any kind of embarrassment about rings--yours or someone else's--is pretty silly.


*You know who is awesome at this? Meg, from A Practical Wedding. Along with oversized engagement rings, her blog should be required for all brides- and grooms-to-be.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Christmastime is almost here!

If I knew how to knit well-enough, I would be making these for me and my kiddo:



They are called Smittens and they're for couples to hold hands as they walk. I know, right?

For all you knitters, here's the pattern

Married Life

Right now I'm in Chicago, taking the day off,
and in between making spaghetti with friends
and wandering around the neighborhood apartment-gazing,
I have been happily imagining my life with my husband-to-be.

If things turn out half as nice for us as they did for Carl and Ellie
(minus, you know, that whole not able to have kids thing...),
I will consider our marriage a success.

In other words,
here's a happy video full of love
to start you off on your week.

My Lovely Ladies

yes. they are very pretty. even steve

These are the wonderful, beautiful, kind, funny women who will be my bridesmaids. Clockwise from top left they are Marisa, Dave's sister; Danielle, my archery/camp/Boston buddy; Jenna (on the left), Dave's sister-in-law; and Evie, my maid-of-honor and dear college friend. They are pretty awesome, if I do say so myself, and I couldn't ask for a better bunch of women/friends/family.

Marisa - my future lil sis! And my partner in crime for keeping Dave in line. I think I fell in love with her right from the beginning (she made me a smoothie and told Dave to stop biting me! True story) and I am looking forward to years of raiding her stylish wardrobe and warding off skeezy old men at bars who try to get her to dance with them.

Danielle - who has never failed to crack a pun every single day since I've met her, who is already planning my bachelorette party. Former archery teammate and co-camp-counselor, Danielle is probably the most positive, upbeat, cheerful person I've ever met in my entire life, someone who reminds me constantly to enjoy life, love, friends, and family.

Jenna - my future big sis! Every since Dave and I met Jenna, Dave's brother's girlfriend-->fiancee-->wife, I've been saying "You know, I really like Jenna." And I really do! Dave is thinking about moving next door to Steve and Jenna when we're all grown up and when he told me my reaction was "And I'll get to see Jenna every day and hang out and watch terrible MTV dating shows with her yaaaaay!!!!"

Evie - oh Evie. What more can I say? Evie who was there when Dave and I met, who was there when we (very, very temporarily) broke up, who called Dave's proposal fully six months in advance, whose response to hearing we were getting married and she was going to be maid-of-honor was "Pleasepleaseplease don't get married June or July of 2011 because I'm taking the bar!", who puts up with my relationship talk and wedding complaints and starry-eyed gushing, who else could have filled her (low-heeled, sensible) shoes so well?

I am thrilled and excited that these are the people who will be standing next to me when Dave and I get married. I know every one of them will support me, make me laugh, get me tissues, and ensure I'm fed, rested, and relaxed. Plus they will all look smashing in whatever pink poofy monstrosity I pick for them, right ladies? Honestly, though, I feel incredibly lucky for each of them--I keep reading all these articles about "Bridesmaids Gone Wild!" "What To Do When Your Bridesmaid Steals the Show!" "How to Make Your Bridesmaid Your Slaaaaave!" and wondering, who are these people? My bridesmaids to-dos are simple: show up, smile, make sure I have flowers/ring/husband. Success!

Also, this post has made me realize I need more pictures of these important ladies. I seriously have no non-preggars photos of Jenna? Why is Marisa so fuzzy? And that picture of Danielle is circa 2004! Of course, I have more recent ones of Evie, I just think drunk-Evie is the cutest :)

An Update on the Realness

Focus on the baby deer.
Let the warm fuzzy feelings wash over you.
This is how I feel all the time now.

While my post from earlier this week accurately reflected my excitement and dread for wedding planning, upon rereading it, I realized I left out the most surreal and wonderful feelings I experienced: relief and happiness.

As I've written before, it wasn't easy to be engaged and not have any kind of wedding to plan, because I didn't even know when Dave and I would be in the same place again. It's something we've really struggled with but had come to accept for the time being. I took my mom's advice to heart ("You will have many, many years of happiness together! Don't worry about these few!") and tried to focus on the journey-of-a-thousand-steps mentality that has given me the strength to get through this long distance relationship for two years and counting.

In the end, the decision to finally set a date, plan a wedding, and get started on this new chapter in our lives came incredibly simply: Dave and I started talking about the future. We decided together that we wanted to be married sooner rather than later and so we figured out a way to make it work. I was so nervous when we started to tell people--for some reason I kept expecting people to say we were crazy or rushing into things or acting selfish, but the response from friends and family, overwhelmingly positive (with lots of "It's about time"s), has helped me to realize this is actually happening.

For some reason, having set a date makes this whole marriage thing so real for me, much more than getting engaged. While I was thrilled to get engaged, I still knew that it would likely be years before I could start this wonderful future with the man I loved, and there was something inherently heart-breaking about that. I could plan, but I couldn't, I could think about it, but it could potentially make me very sad.

Now, though, I am over the moon with happiness, and so so so excited to finally (finally!) finish this crazy long-distance lifestyle Dave and I lead: No more airports, buses, trains, cars! No more $300 tickets, rain delays, missed transfers! No more saying good-bye on Sunday nights! No more nightly hour-long phone calls! No more counting the days until we see each other! As if I needed more reasons to be excited to get married....

Wow! I'm getting married! For reals! And Dave's going to be my husband! Some times life is crazy wonderful :)

Just Got Real

So. It finally happened. We have PICKED A DATE!!!! WOOOHOOO!!!!

Although the actual date is, for the moment, under wraps, we're finally ready to commit to a day (or, ok, right now we've got it narrowed down to a 3-week period...). This means that now every time I see a pretty dress or nice pair of shoes or hear some music, where before I might have thought "Oh, that could be lovely in a wedding," now I think "Oh, that could be--HOLY CRAP I ACTUALLY HAVE TO MAKE DECISIONS!!!" For the past 11 months I've been (semi) blissfully living the life of the engaged, but not the wedding-planning. It's been nice, but that's all over, folks.

Dress? Reception hall? Wedding bands (jewelry)? Wedding bands (music)? All decisions I've happily put off, now which are careening towards me. Oh I needa wedding planner (just kidding! I already have one, and her name is Mom, and if you think she hasn't sent me less than 11 emails today, you haven't been paying attention).

So, I'm excited, thrilled, nervous, overwhelmed. Right now I'm busy running over the (sparse, dreamy, naive) notes I made since we got engaged while I wait for Dave to finish his exams so we can then hit the ground running. The guy already made a spreadsheet! This is why I love him... In the mean time, I'm trying to enjoy my last few precious weeks before we get swallowed up by the wedding industrial complex. Today, already burned out, I sent Dave a pictorial representation of my feelings:

Sure is an adorable little soul-sucking monster...

Blast from the Past

While cleaning my room today I came across
this picture of my mom on her wedding day.
I've had this picture for years, and it's very strange to think
that I'm in the same position now that she was then.

Isn't she pretty?

Thoughts on Engagement

A really interesting post on A Practical Wedding, Engagements And Proposals, Part I. It raised a lot of questions for me: should proposals be a surprise? should they happen by a mutual decision between the couple? yay or nay on women proposing to men? what's the deal with proposals being some sort of cosmic test for men to pass to woo their women (right location, right ring, right timing)?

I'm still thinking about and writing about these questions, trying to sort through in my head, but I thought my non-wedding-blog-reading audience (hello family!) might appreciate reading Meg's post (and the 90+ comments from her army of thoughtful readers).

Perfect Day(s)

There's a lot out there in the wedding world about making your wedding "perfect." Every other day I get an email from the Knot (so I subscribed to them, so they fill my inbox with somewhat inane emails about hairdos, so what?) about potential wedding mishaps and wedding insurance and what to do if such and such a thing happens. And a lot of my wedding conversations with people include the advice, "You know, you really should do [blank], otherwise [blank] will happen."

But the thing is, I'm not really interested in having a perfect day. I mean, ok, I would obviously like our wedding day to go smoothly, but I sort of expect some things to fall apart or go a bit bumpy or be sort of awkward. And that's ok.

A few years ago, I was down in Florida with my family for my grandpa's funeral. And my grandmother, a strong woman in her own right, was holding it together pretty well, but as we were driving to the cemetery, dark clouds started gathering overhead.

"I just really, really hope it doesn't rain," she said, looking out the window.

To be honest, I was hoping, too--there's nothing quite like a rainy day funeral. But instead I took her hand and said, "So what if it rains? What's going to happen? It's just rain, right? And we're all together." And she smiled at me and said, "Yeah, you're right."

And honestly? That's pretty much how I feel about the wedding day. Not to be flip about it, but if mishaps happen, mishaps happen, and if I'm with my friends and my family, and they're all healthy, happy, and surrounding me as I marry the man of my dreams, I'll be pretty ok if the appetizers are cold, you know what I mean?


*Image from the wonder that is Cake Wrecks. Because every disastrous cake has a silver lining. And that silver lining is being famous on a blog devoted to silly cakes.

Dreams vs Love vs Responsibility

I love the Office. And I am a full-fledged PB&J fan, followed their relationship through the ups and downs, reveled in their very boringness as a safe haven amongst the will-they-won't-they Rosses and Rachels of the TV world. I loved their story, because they were sweet and funny and seemed very normal and very real. Except, for one thing.

I was watching the episode where Pam is in New York for the summer studying art and she gets pulled aside by a friend who tells her that she has a gift and a passion and she should stay in New York and pursue her dreams.

"But...Jim is in Scranton," she says, as Jim listens on via the world's smallest bluetooth.

Despite her gifts, Pam actually ends up failing school, and when she has to choose between repeating her semester or going back to Scranton, and Jim, dreams unrealized, she chooses...Jim.

I am all for love and romance, but her choice always disappointed me. As I write this I'm in year two of my long distance relationship with Dave as we pursue our dreams/careers 700 miles away from each other.

When we were in college and starting to decide our post-graduation plans, we talked about finding jobs close to one another. I was very lucky in getting my current job, in New York--it was in the field I always wanted and now, a year later, I'm being given opportunities I thought I would have to wait a decade for. Dave applied to grad school a few months later and ended up in one of the best programs on the planet, in Chicago. So, the quandary: do we give up these amazing opportunities, the breaks that could make our careers, and get married? Or do we go through long distance, the hours-long flights and phone calls and mile-high texting bills, until our romantic lives and our practical lives align?

For now, we're sticking with the latter, for better or worse (see what I did there?).

But it wasn't an easy decision to make, and it's not really an easy decision to live with. Sunday afternoons flying home from seeing Dave for a weekend, it hits me every time that I've found the guy I want to be with forever--hooray!--so why am I constantly saying goodbye to him? We used to dream about all the amazing things we would do with our degrees and career experience, traveling around the world together, using our talents for bigger purposes, and now we dream about having a home together, somewhere, where we can bake cookies and watch 30 Rock and spend our Sunday nights snug in each other's arms.

Dave's lovely, awesome, fantastic sister-in-law, Jenna, and I were talking one time about this. She is married (to Dave's brother) with a baby (Adam--best baby EVER) and lives in an adorable little house a few miles away from her entire family. I was telling her about how often Dave and I think about her and Steve and Adam (although he was just a bump when we talked) and wish we had their lives. She laughed and said how often she and Steve envy us, traveling around the world, having amazing experiences, working cool (albeit stressful) jobs. Greener grass?

I know--truly and beyond a doubt--that I have talents and a personality and a point of view that can be used for a purpose that I very much believe in, and I have to give myself the best opportunity I can, and that means staying in my job for now, and that also means Dave needs to stay in Chicago, for now.

Anyway, so Pam gives up her dreams, moves in with Jim, gets married, gets preggars, and lives happily ever after. I don't think I would have made the same decision. But can't you have it all? Career and purpose and love and happiness? Maybe?