My Favorite and My Best

This took me too long to get back to, but let's meet another bridesmaid! Esther is getting married this upcoming August in Salem, Massachusetts (how cool is that?), which will make me the last of the LeakyCon crew to tie the knot. Which is a touch funny because I'm pretty sure I'm the oldest. But once our youngest went down the aisle first, all bets were off (love you, Jena!)  If I had to say what Esther's wheelhouse is in our group, I would quickly point out that she is the fandom lady. No one I know is as enthusiastic about fan theories and cosplay as Esther is. Dressed as another ginger who totally slays. Meanwhile I can barely sew a straight line without help! I also expect her to be the one who will go the hardest on the dance floor. At LeakyCon one year, she went right up and danced with a well-known Snape cosplayer. No fear. One thing I really appreciate about Esther is that she doesn't see the point in doing things halfway. Why just them...

Okay, I just need to make a fairly innocuous post and clear my head so I can get back on this. Like I said in the previous post, there's a lot I haven't been able to make decisions about, due to lack of a locked down date. But I did decide one thing. I have shoes now. Specifically, I found another cost-cutting measure by searching shoes on the secondhand clothing shop thredUP . I started looking a while back and set up a search to email me whenever stuff matched the criteria I was going for. For a while, I absolutely thought these were going to be my shoes: JustFab Gabby in Turquois They were priced at just $12 and beautiful. I was nervous to move ahead with the purchase, so I stalled. And inevitably someone else bought them. All the other pairs I could find on eBay and the like were size tens. I wear a six. It wasn't going to happen. I couldn't fathom why all of them were tens. I even posted on the Weddingbee Boards  to find another pair. No dice. So I resi...

For a while, our planning was pretty much at a standstill until we knew the when and the where. Because of this, I only had small things to talk about during most of that time, so I just didn't because I felt down about it. It's been hard to make progress and then almost none at all for a while. That being said, I did want to get back to this eventually, and as of this last (Easter) weekend, I finally felt like I could convince my brain to do it. One of the problems that causes me the most hardship is akin to executive dysfunction . What this means in my case is that I can be fully aware of exactly what I need to do to accomplish something, including being able to break it down into steps, but some feeling inside prevents me from getting started. Flashback to multiple weekends where I couldn't talk myself out of bed until sometimes up to an hour or two after I woke up hungry. I don't know. It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it. A common...

I know, I know. I've been slacking on blog posts when I said I was going to do them. Sometimes you just don't feel like it and I'm not sure there's much I can do about that. Anyway, let's meet Canada! Just like California, Canada was one of Ms. Washington's roommates at Infinitus. As her name says, yes, she lives in Canada. I've never gotten off my duff to go visit her there, but I really should. I do have a passport. But that's probably why I have fewer pictures with her than with California. Also because I'm bad at remembering to take pictures. 4/5 waiting to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Yeah, I used to have a lot of hair. In the past few years especially, Canada has become a bit of a style badass. I really admire the way she tries new styles and experiments with color. I'm definitely not as much of a risk-taker. If I had to categorize her, Canada is like your cool cousin who you only see once in a while but wh...

So, the trip to the dress shop this last weekend turned out to be a fruitful one. Ahead are going to be some pictures of me in wedding dresses, including the one I put money on, so if you want to keep that a surprise to yourself, abandon ship now.

Last weekend, Wolfman and I went to our first real planning event, the Illinois Bridal and Wedding Expo at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. We got there a little before 11 and Wolfman ended up running back out to the parking garage to ditch our coats so we wouldn't have to carry them around. It was a typical cold Illinois day in the single digits Fahrenheit. Going to an expo was a pretty overwhelming experience. I wished I was wearing a shirt that said, "We're getting married April 2019," so people would stop asking me. They kept trying to get us to sign up for something or commit to something up front. I'm not good at not making eye contact with people in these sorts of situations, but there was definitely stuff we didn't need, like real estate information. We're just not there at the moment. Wolfman is much better than me at escaping and moving forward. I'm not a good blogger, so I didn't really take pictures. At...

Multiple of my out-of-town bridesmaids have the same first initial, so their monikers will come from where they live. Let's talk California. This is the beautiful California. This is a photo from her own courthouse wedding at San Francisco City hall. You know, the city hall route doesn't work for everyone, but I have to say that this is a really lovely building. Source: IQ Photo I mean, that is gorgeous. Probably prettier than a lot of "traditional" venues. Anyway, let's talk about California. I met her where I met all of my out-of-town girls, at Infinitus 2010 in Orlando. Actually, at the time I only knew BMaid Washington (who I'll get to as well), and the other three were her roommates at the hotel. But by the next year's conference I had made them mine too. I didn't mind sleeping on the floor in a room that held so many cool people. I'd seen her more since then, but the time I really got to know California well was when I visit...

I have been playing around with colors on an online bridal shop called Colors Bridesmaid . I had ordered some swatches from them ($2 each) to try to figure out what I want. I put together a guide of the swatches I got. These are their names for the colors. A couple of them are kind of wide contenders, but I wanted to see them anyway. Satin vs. chiffon? Gah, I'll probably have the bridesmaids vote on it or something. The price doesn't seem significantly different. I just made the Valkyries a Facebook Group. I need to come back and make a post for each of the out-of-town BMaids, because I asked all of them within a 24 hour period. Ultimately I don't know if it was a waste of time/money because we're not totally sure we're doing purple yet anyway.

After a lot of hemming and hawing and vague waves at plans, the two sets of parents came together over a table. Specifically, the table in our small apartment. We had never put the leaf in the table since it was moved into the dining nook (can't properly call it a room). Also, the night before one of our chairs broke right underneath a visitor while we were playing a board game. Luckily, the Wolves brought over a few chairs my Mr. had left in their basement when he moved out, so now we have a full six chairs for the first time ever. I think my Wolfman was far more nervous than I was. My parents can be nutty at times, but they're pretty predictable people. I guess his aren't as much. The night was like this, only with fewer white people and less awkwardness. ( x ) A couple of interesting stories came out that night. Dadatee does family tree stuff (extensively) and was asking Papa Wolf about his family. Apparently, his grandmother played tuba in a band that frequently...

Mr. Wolf, I'm going to be talking about wedding dresses in this post. Not any on me, but still preferences. This is your only warning to turn away.

My mother's family is more on the Celtic side of things. I figured I should see what they have going too! Although I did at one point try to be a red-head, most of my relatives have dark hair like me. Please ignore pubescent acne. My brother owns a kilt and plaid, but I think the only times he ever wears them are if he decides to hit up Ren Faire. I'm way better at archery than him, which makes exactly one sport I can say that about. But I digress. On with the traditions! The first one I read might also be my favorite. It's certainly made me laugh the most. Apparently in Donegal a man could go to the house of a girl he was interested in and throw his hat into the house. If she threw it back, she wasn't interested. I'm just picturing a tam or similar come frisbee-ing out the door. Another good one from the Ireland side is the mother in law breaking bread over the bride's head. It's supposed to signify that the bride is the new woman of...

Like I may have mentioned before, our budget is on the lower side. Just compared to the national average. One of the venues we're most interested in doesn't have any Saturdays available in April or May, our target months. So, what do we do about it? Well, I guess the title of this post gives it away. We're thinking about a wedding on a weekday. Probably a Monday. The difference in price between a Saturday and a weekday at this venue is $3,500. That's a lot of cheddar. I have to admit, the idea makes me a little nervous. Mostly because it means asking all of our guests to take potentially two days off work at least. We would have the weekend before off for traveling to arrive. When I voiced my worries to Mr. Wolf, he insisted that these people care about us and that they would mostly be able to do it. I guess I'm looking too hard from the perspective of finances, that a couple of days if we tell them well ahead of time isn't that much to ask. My anxiety doesn...

As I think I've mentioned before, I work for an ink company. So I have knowledge about how colors are made. Apparently that has nothing to do with making any kind of sound decision about colors and sticking with it. Mr. Wolf and I were talking about color schemes this weekend. If we get married in the Spring, do we have to do pastels? Is it a problem that I like a lot of jewel tones and Fall colors, but in April or May? I don't know yet. Another part of the puzzle is the venue, which we haven't yet picked. Since our budget is on the smaller side, will the venue we're able to work with influence our colors? I would think it would have to. Here's some more Springy themes Mr. Wolf liked: Source Source Source Have I ever mentioned how much Mr. Wolf likes lemons? Because it's kind of a lot. Like on fish and chicken and stuff. I don't get it. We were also playing around with some of the Pantone colors, which is one way my job organizes sh...

My father's family is very German. Like, mostly German going back quite a ways into their family tree. My brother in front of Neuschwanstein Castle around age 10. Because of this, I thought it would be interesting to research some old German wedding traditions. Who knows? If I like one, I might think about incorporating it. Here's some of the ones I discovered. Apparently my parents were supposed to plant trees when I was born so that they could later be cut down and sold for my dowry. That's a pretty old one though. Why didn't I get trees? DAAAAAAD! The Hochzeitslader: A guy in fancy clothes sent around to invite each guest personally. He's covered in ribbons and if the guests accept, they take one of the ribbons and pin it to his hat. Then they invite him in for a drink. I'm trying to picture sending one individual to multiple states and countries to make this work. I mean, really. Picture this guy showing up at your door. The tradition...

We are engaged! Let me explain. Last night, Mr. Wolf asked if we could exchange Christmas presents early. Immediately I started getting anxious and my hands were visibly shaking. But I thought to myself You're prepared. Is there any reason you can't do it tonight? And of course the answer was no, so I decided we would do it. So, we exchanged. He absolutely loved his Super Nintendo and got excited reactions with every game he unwrapped. This is the photo he posted to Facebook: Then I told him I had learned a song for him. Before I could even bring it up, he asked if he could record it so he could always have it. He really is the best person. Seriously. We ended up both setting our phones to record in case one didn't turn out for some reason. I have to admit, I hit a couple of bum notes in the song. I was really, really nervous. But I remembered every single one of the words. Why not? I'd been singing them in my head for a month. I don't remember what I a...

Perhaps this is just shouting into the void, but I am so goddamned nervous. Last night, my anxiety made me triple check with Mr. Wolf that he's on board with the timeline we're pursuing. The last thing I want is for him to think I'm only proposing in order to rush him. I'm not. But I can see how someone could think that. I just want to give him that special moment. Why should only the woman have it? I know he has some kind of plan running, but I have no idea what or when it is. Maybe that's building my nerves? I don't know. I recently found out about some shortly-upcoming bridal expos. After I explained to Mr. Wolf what they are, he seemed interested in checking some out. Luckily where we live is very close to a lot of them. The closest one is the 6th. Which may also be recognized as roughly two weeks from today. Which is kind of soon. But I think the thing that causes me the most stress is the errant thought he might say no. I know that he's not going t...

I've been playing around with Canva's Color Palette Generator . I had a sudden idea today about an ombre of bridesmaids like a sunset. So I made some palettes to see how it looked. Will I use any of these? Who knows? Let me just quickly throw together what it could look like with seven bridesmaids. Is that interesting or crazy? I'm not sure.

I work in the office of a factory that makes ink. That means that I sometimes get it on my hands. Like this morning, for example. It's about equally red, yellow, and blue depending on what our customers are calling for, but I do think we have more shades of blue than any other color. When I get ink on my skin, I usually don't notice it until after it's happened and my finger makes marks on the inventory papers I got the ink from in the first place. I've also had it all up my forearm. I had better be careful any time I know I'm going to be photographed coming up. I don't think blue fingertips count as something blue.

I didn't realize when I was planning that Mr. Wolf would have shortened work hours all week and would be home every time I would normally practice my ukulele! Why, oh why wasn't I practicing every day when I had the chance? I sure hope I have it down, because the only other way I can think of would be to take my ukulele outside of the home, but then he might notice the case is missing, which I want to keep well under the radar. I've been putting it back in exactly the same place every time so he didn't even have a reason to notice it in the first place. I know all the words, though sometimes I still mess up how the chorus changes at the end of the song. I know all the chords in theory. I'm a little worried that my nervousness will drive them completely from my head. I've been trying to work muscle memory into my fingers without the instrument present. What if my ukulele goes out of tune in the middle of the song? It has happened before. I guess I stop to t...

I have to admit that I am not the greatest at budgeting. I don't really know what stuff should cost. If it's above a certain number, I will feel uncomfortable paying it, no matter what. For example, I bought my car when it was six years old and paid $7,000 as is. Was that a good deal? I really don't know. This is not a good trait. But I do want to talk about one method of earning money that even I probably can't confuse. I'm talking about a website called Swagbucks . This is what the home page looked like when I ori. Yes, some of it has to do with getting money back after shopping, but I haven't used that feature. What I use to make points is watching videos and taking surveys. Completely free. In the case of the videos, I don't even have to actually watch or listen to them. I usually have them running in a tab in my browser and I check on them occasionally. I can't remember exactly where and when I heard about it and started using it, but it...