It is way better to be me than to be someone who has to deal with me.
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Actual recap of the wedding day to come after I haven’t spent so many hours wrestling with wedding pictures that I swear to pete I will PERSONALLY invent a way to beam memories directly from brain to Facebook, so help me God.
You guys. I will tell you all about it, with all kinds of pictures, but we’ve only just now gotten back from Pennsylvania, and I have two dogs who need me to hug them until they’re as sick of me as I surely will be of them by tomorrow.
For now, though, I will say this – nothing went wrong. Seriously. Things happened on time, everything looked like it was supposed to look, and I don’t know if people were blowing smoke up my ass because I was the one in the twenty pounds of white dress, but it seems a universally good time was had by all.
I don’t have any professional pictures yet, and I’m sure it will be a while before I do, but here is one tiny picture, Internet, so that you will know that I am totally not playing a joke on you and did indeed get married.
Bouquet in one hand, diet soda in the other.
ALSO? THIS HAPPENED:
Spectacular.
Ok. Ok, you guys. My MacBook is fixed! So that means no barely-relevant picture with some random placeholder text for you today.
Or for the last four days.
My bad. But I’ve been up to things. My dress is in for it’s final alterations and we pick it up on Friday, and they call the last appointment “Bustle Bootcamp” because it’s when they teach the bridesmaids or mothers or whoever how to do up the bustle on the dress. HOW STINKING CUTE IS THAT?
Also, I convinced my mom to buy sparkly jewelry to go with her dress. This is a big deal, just FYI. I did not get her to get a necklace as big as I had hoped I’d be able to, but it’s still quite flashy for her and she got a bracelet, so I’ve been spending some time patting me on the back and playing dumb flash games in reward.
ALSO? Remember a while ago, when I asked you what flavors I should change the cake filling to? I HAVEN’T CALLED YET. I’ll do it as soon as I hang up this post, I swear.
And another thing? We had decided against favors because, eh, meh, you know, but we were out and my mom keeps getting hung up on tiny favor boxes and bags, even though we have nothing to put in them. She stumbles across these particular tiny boxes that said “Hugs & Kisses from the Mr. & Mrs.” and she was just smitten with them. Especially once I told her that people probably filled them with Hershey’s Hugs & Kisses. But we left them, as we had decided no favors. Well, a short few moments later, at another store, she is looking at these sheets of small labels and wonders what they’re for. For the bottoms of Hershey Kisses, I tell her.
Yeah, guess who spent a few hours sticking “Kelly & Phil” stickers to the bottom of 400 Hershey Kisses?
Ok, but none of this is the point. The point is, generic products.
I think we’ve talked about this before – which products we (the general we – not the me and Phil we, but the you and me we) don’t mind buying generic and which products we must always have a specific name brand.
I think it’s a pretty clear cut choice for most people. Like, as far as I’m concerned, a person need only have generic ketchup one time to know that it should never, ever happen again.
And you only really need to look at super generic toilet papers to know that it would only take a few days of use for your delicate areas to be sanded smooth.
What I’m saying is, with certain products, you just know not to buy generic, that nothing good will come of it.
Well, I have this one particular product that I continually buy generic whenever I see a new generic brand pop up. Pink Daisy razors.
Already, the wise and time- and razor-tested among you are shaking your heads at me, but anyway.
Pink Daisy razors. I love them. I have tried everything else out there – Bics, the Venus, the one with soap around the blades, electric razors, depilatories, men’s razors – everything. I am fiercely loyal to the Pink Daisy razor. I’m sure you use a great razor, too, but I’m unswayable on this point. Pink Daisys for me.
The thing is, though, whenever we are at CVS or Walgreens or even the grocery store, and I see a pink colored knock off for a lower price – a shmazor, if you will – I am compelled to try it.
And every time, without fail, I am completely disappointed. Just because it is pink does not make it a pink Daisy razor. Just because it says, “COMPARE TO DAISY RAZORS!” does not mean it will compare favorably. Because it never does. And it is always a spectacular failure.
A pink Daisy razor can hang out in my shower for weeks at a time without issue, always ready to perform. While that is half testament to the quality of the razor and half testament to the frequency with which I actually shave, it’s not like I’m trying to shave any more frequently with a shmazor.
No, just once in a while, just enough shaving to still technically qualify as someone who prefers to shave the standard lady areas of shavery. And not matter what generic shmazor I try, the results are also disheartening and often bloody.
So, when I was packing for this trip, we were picking up a few last things in Target, including some pink Dasiy razors, when what should I see? Up & Up brand (Target’s new-ish generic line) pink razors. I immediately laser in on them and snatch them up, informing Phil, as usual, that they are significantly cheaper than the pink Daisy razors.
“Yeah, but don’t you always regret it when you buy the generic razors?”
“Well… usually, yeah. But I haven’t tried this brand, and I’ve liked a lot of the other Up & Up products, so, you know, they’re probably fine.”
THEY WEREN’T.
THEY WERE NOT FINE.
SHMAZORS OF THE HIGHEST DEGREE.
I had my first experience during a kind of jetlagged shower, attempting to shave my armpits underarms before a dress fitting. I made a few halfhearted swipes at the general area, not really needing too much of a shave and not really caring so much. Even with that minimal effort, however, I ended up making a mental note to grab another razor for my next attempt, as the first one out of the package seemed a bit shmazory, but I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt before conceding to Phil’s correctness, the WORST THING EVER to have to do.
So, the next time I was preparing a shower and shave, I grabbed a fresh razor – or at least, what I thought was a razor.
YOU GUYS.
That shmazor quit after one pit.
Solo el armpit-o.
I had to GET OUT OF THE SHOWER, mid-pit, and get ANOTHER SHMAZOR to tackle the second one.
And it’s not like I just gave up on it due to my obviously deeply held shmazor prejudices. No. I SWIPED and I SWIPED and I SWIPED. Nothing. I mean, seriously, nary a hair was being felled. I was doing that thing where you push your eyes all the way to the side to stare into your own armpit until they actually start to glaze over and get those sparkly things floating around in your vision and everything.
Nothing. I had to EXIT THE SHOWER for yet a third shmazor to even myself out. Never have I had a shmazor quit mid-pit on its first day out.
You guys, as with the rest of this blog, let this be a horrible lesson to you.
Do not compromise your armpits with shmazors.
For the last few days, I’ve felt like I’m coming down with the flu or something equally awful, but it is stubbornly refusing to actually arrive, leaving me shuffling around the house in misery with no actual justification for said misery. I have to get on a plane on Sunday, so obviously this is the perfect time to smite me with some kind of orifice-leaking disease.
But no, instead I just drag my blanket from my bed out to the couch and hunch up there in a ball because one dog or the other has claimed the bottom end of the couch, and when I am forced to get up, I get irrationally annoyed at things.
Like, for example? No matter how many times I tell him, Phil keeps putting the lid of the toilet down. Those of you with kids and cats and a tendency to fling things into the open toilet bowl may be wondering why putting the lid down is such a bad thing, and you know what, I’m going to tell you.
You know how you have a water heater attached to your house? Everyone does. But I don’t think anyone has a water colder attached to their house. In Arizona, water comes out of the pipes quite warm. Hot, even, sometimes. You have to wash all of your laundry in warm, if not hot water, and forget about getting a glass of water from the sink, we keep a Brita pitcher in the fridge.
Well, this also applies to the water in the toilet. It’s kind of disconcerting to sit down and feel heat radiating up towards your butt. But what’s even worse is when someone has shut the toilet lid.
Remember how our toilet seat got mysteriously broken? Well, they came and replaced it with a crappy one, not up to Phil’s standards. It was on a little bit crooked, but other than that, it didn’t bother me, until I realized the Lid Down Problem.
Since our house is quite cool, and the water in the toilet is quite warm, when you put the lid down, condensation forms on it, which also drips onto the seat. So when someone puts the lid down (Phil) and someone else (me) comes in to go, that someone else (me) gets to sit down in a SWEATY TOILET EMBRACE.
It’s seriously awful.
Anyway, let me show you what I’ve bought recently.
A friend!
No, I am just fooling you!
With the help of Miss Grace, who saw my flailing of indecision and actually stepped in and made the choice for me, I bought a veil. According to her specifications, I bought a fingertip length, pencil edge veil. I knew I wanted to wear a veil, but kept putting off buying it. You know what is weird about veils? When you talk about how you’re having a tough time choosing one, there is a HUGE number of people who will quite adamantly tell you that you shouldn’t or don’t need to wear a veil. I mean, people feel really strongly about it!
Anyway, it doesn’t have a blusher, which is the part that goes over the face, so I think I’m safe from any oppression by the patriarchy, and I won’t wear it after the ceremony and pictures, because can you imagine the whiplash I’d get from my head being jerked back every time someone hugged me?
Since I wasn’t going to wear it for very long, I didn’t spend much money at all on it. For me, it is one of those details that is really a one time thing, you know? I’d rather wear an inexpensive veil and have a few pictures in it than not wear one at all and possibly regret missing my one lifetime chance to wear a veil.
I know a lot of you didn’t wear veils and I know you didn’t miss it and I know your wedding wasn’t ruined by lack of veil and I know you think I’m only wearing one because THE MAN IS KEEPING ME DOWN, and I totally respect that about you, but I am wearing the goddamn veil, so, moving on.
Earrings! (from BridalBeads on etsy)
A bracelet! (from littlewhitechapel on etsy)
I will definitely wear the earrings, but I bought the bracelet kind of knowing I likely won’t wear it. It’s 7″, which is standard, but my wrists are freakishly small, and I get really kind of irrationally upset at the feeling of a bracelet sliding around on my wrist. I didn’t want to bother with having something custom made, since I so rarely wear bracelets, but I wanted to have the option just in case. If I do wear it, it probably won’t be for too long, and I’ll set it down somewhere and lose it and some stranger will end up with a souvenir of my wedding.
Lastly, I bought some super adorable cootie catchers from KatsKrafts on etsy, and we plan to put them on the tables as decoration during the cocktail hour. They are definitely just part of the Spend Money Wedding Machine, in that they are completely unnecessary and people who feel that they are above weddings and wedding details will try to make you feel really shitty for buying them, but they’re adorable and I’m really sick of those people. If I have learned one thing from planning this wedding, I have learned that if someone is talking to me about some detail of their wedding, I will never, ever say something like, “You know, you don’t need a _______.”
Before I have to soothe individual hurt feelings, I’m not talking about any single person. I have heard it over and over, about every detail of the wedding, from people who were being well meaning, and from people who were being snarky. From relatives and friends and random people on the Internet. Not only have I heard it, I’ve seen women dishing that line out as “advice” to other brides on message boards, often in a bitchy way, like, “You know, your wedding is still valid without ________.”
I’m a grown woman, I know I don’t need a ________ for my wedding to be considered valid. Don’t say that to people who are planning weddings. They know that all they need is two people and an officiant. Don’t make them feel bad for wanting what they want for their wedding. It’s kind of a jerk move.
Anyway, seriously, look how cute:
For the last couple of days, I have found everything – literally everything – to be absolutely and totally irritating. My eyes have rolled so much over the past 72 hours that I’m surprised they’re still tethered into my head.
Now, I admit that there are times when my irritation might be a bit irrational, like when I am bellowing at Phil, “STOP SAYING WORDS!,” but I am pretty convinced that while the level of annoyance I have felt over the past few days may be a bit amplified for reasons that have yet to reveal themselves, everything that I was irritated (and continue to be irritated) by has been absolutely, 100% irritation-worthy.
1. I randomly decided I wanted to play WoW again and won’t play on the laptop, so I’ve been playing on Phil’s computer, and that alone could spawn a forty item list of irritations, but I’ll leave it as this one, overarching irritation.
2. Sheldon keeps licking my shirt and leaving LICK SPOTS.
3. Flies keep landing on me. Instant scream rage.
4. People on Twitter who decided that for one day, they’re just going to tweet inspirational quotes or some shit. I don’t get this or the motivation behind it. It feels preachy to me. Don’t preach on Twitter. That’s irritating.
5. This message board I used to read, they like to use the word “wise” for anyone and everyone. Like “so and so is wise.” And not just about one post, but in general. Like “so and so is a wise person.” I don’t think they know what that word actually means.
6. Same message board launched a “post secret” style site, in which people could create “postcards” online and send in their secrets. Which lead to a “post secret” style site dedicated to call outs – where you could send in a “secret” that was actually anonymous insults to another poster. Apparently, someone sent something in that said that one poster’s husband, who has been battling cancer, was better off dead than with her. Note that I said “message board I used to read,” because hot christ.
7. Phil keeps trying to hug me when I am VERY CLEARLY giving off “do not approach” vibes.
8. VERY CLEARLY.
9. We have one diet soda left, which means I have to choose whether to just drink it now or ration it, which is irritating because I shouldn’t have to make such decisions and our poor soda planning skills need work.
10. Air conditioning.
11. I keep putting on weight like I don’t have a very specific dress waiting for me to fit into it in a month and a half.
12. Brinkley keeps licking my pants and leaving LICK MARKS.
13. I hate this stupid computer.
14. We have new eggs and old eggs in the fridge and I can never tell which is which.
15. No one has thrown out the old eggs.
16. I have an itch under the callous on my foot. UNDER it.
17. The shower head REFUSES to line up so that it hits me in the direct center of my back without me having to come in contact with the wall or the shower curtain. This is unacceptable.
18. Weddings are stupid.
19. When I rolled over in the night last night, Phil was laying in such a manner that we were face to face, as if he didn’t bother to anticipate the fact that I might roll over and then we’d be breathing on each other.
20. Sometimes it seems like some people only comment to give me a hard time.
21. This 800 number calls my cell phone EVERY SINGLE DAY and when I pick it up, there’s silence, and if I don’t pick it up, they leave a 2 second silent voice mail. EVERY DAY.
22. You know what else happened on Twitter a bunch of times recently? Someone will decided to make some kind of proclamation or lecture and it ends up being stretched across several Tweets. One, don’t preach on Twitter, because come on, you’re on Twitter. No one is taking you seriously. Two, if you need to say (cont.) or something like that – especially on a regular basis – you obviously do not fully grasp the concept of Twitter, and that is irritating.
23. People in their late teens or early 20s know absolutely everything there is to know and refuse to believe that they most certainly do not. Holy shit, is that irritating.
24. Sheldon fur.
25. I stopped biting my nails. So now what?
26. I was watching several episodes of a show on Hulu and accidentally closed the window with 5 minutes left to go in the season finale. I cannot be bothered to cue it back up.
27. A lot of people say “que” when they mean “cue,” and I think they mean to say “queue,” which means not only are they spelling it wrong, they’re using the completely wrong word. And you can’t say anything because then you’re that guy.
28. Also? “Weary” and “wary.” Two separate words.
29. Also? Using British spellings when you’re an American and claiming that they’re perfectly valid spellings? Not as cute as you think it is. I’m looking at you, Live Journal.
30. I hate this stupid keyboard.
31. My hair is too long.
32. My butt is too flat.
33. People keep leaving the “song” portion blank on the RSVPs.
34. Weddings are still stupid.
35. I hate having my picture taken, and I even MORE hate the people who think it’s fun or funny to sneak a picture or say, “Oh, just one,” and act like I’m a huge asshole when I again politely refuse. That’s not funny. Not at ALL. Especially the sneaking thing. So rude.
36. Also? ALSO? Super irritating? My name is Kelly. I prefer to be called Kelly, and I don’t care for Kel. Sometimes, when someone calls me Kel, I will VERY POLITELY say that I prefer Kelly. Said person either gets INCREDIBLY butt hurt and insulted, because OH MY GOD, why do I think it’s SUCH a big deal, or, from then on, they make a huge show of going, “Oh, hey, Kel —- LY!”
37. And people who know that a person doesn’t like to be crowded, but take great offense at someone stepping back for more room.
38. And grocery stores.
39. And parents who let their children flip around and harass the people in the next booth.
40. Phil lets his fingernails grow til they look like coke nails but won’t even let me paint one.
41. He also has long eyelashes, longer than any girl I know, and won’t let me put mascara on them, just to SEE.
42. I’m already pre-irritated at how many questions people are going to ask me leading up to the wedding.
43. I’m also pre-irritated at all of the people who will read this and feel an urge to comment about how negative I am, like they’ve never just been IRRITATED a goddamn day in their life, and trying to paint me as someone who complains constantly.
44. I want to repeat 43 right here because I’m still pre-irritated.
45. Do anyone’s glasses stay right on their nose? I am shoving them back up all day long. Could I be any more stereotypically nerd-like?
46. If you claim you’re never reading Dooce again, you really lose a lot of credence when you make the same proclamation again a couple of days later.
47. People who start helping to kill mobs that you have perfectly in hand drive me insane because I feel guilty or obligated to group.
48. I cannot get the little edge where the sink meets the counter clean. It looks grimy and awful and it’s making me insane.
49. Hair. Of all sorts and locations.
50. Phil likes to tuck the sheets when he makes the bed and then gets all upset when I untuck. NO ONE CAN SLEEP TUCKED.
So, what completely petty and fleeting things have crawled right under your skin lately?
I declare the comments section a complaint free for all, with no justifications needed and no judgment passed.
I’ve decided to rename our wedding. From, uh… wedding… to “Spendfest 2010.”
Instead of wedding planning updates, here are some “Shit I had to buy” updates.
At my mother’s insistence, we have secured a limo. We ended up going back and forth a bit between this limo:
with this interior:
And this OH MY GOD COMPLETELY DIFFERENT LIMO:
With this HOLY SHIT NOT THE SAME AT ALL interior:
… right.
So.
Anyway, we need a limo for about, oh, 45 seconds, total, making the seventeen skrillion dollar cost completely reasonable.
(Actually, we did get it for a completely and totally reasonable price, I’m just bitter because I didn’t even want a limo, which made the whole “choosing a limo” thing that much more hilarious, as my mother strained to listen for subtle changes in inflection and tone to determine which of the two COMPLETELY IDENTICAL limos I preferred over the other, and has proceeded to agonize over the choice, unsure if I’ve gotten exactly what I wanted, ever since.)
(Only with a wedding could a person complain about people bending themselves in half to make sure that said person is perfectly pleased, even about details that OH MY GOD NO ONE CA—zzzzzzzz.)
I bought Phil’s wedding band from Amazon:
And then I bought my wedding band from Etsy:
Having realized on my last visit that our wedding is scheduled to take place right between some extremely handsome floor vents, we made arrangements to have them covered with tables, which lead to the necessity of purchasing things to go on said tables, which lead to the necessity of a trip to Ikea, which I suppose I can’t really complain about.
Because come on.
Ikea.
Two sets of these
and two sets of these
a whole shit load of these
a half a dozen of these
a bunch of these
(which I didn’t realize were reversible until just now)
and some of these, because I guess I went a little crazy at the end there.
So, due to Ikea’s weirdness about what you can order online and what you can’t, and their ridiculous shipping charges for the things you can order, and the fact that there’s no Ikea near my parents’ house, a whole bunch of candle-related crap will soon be shipping across the US in poorly packed flat rate boxes.
Additionally, due to my laziness and unwillingness to exert more than the base effort required, a lot of family members are going to be inheriting a lot of candle holders on October 24.
Happy early Christmas!
Anyway. Still to be done are centerpieces for the reception, and I’m wondering if I should have just purchased more of the exact same stuff, as I wanted candle centerpieces anyway.
You can just piled a bunch of that stuff on a table and call it “attractive,” right?
Or, at least, “attractive enough?”
I hope so, because that’s what I’m planning on doing with all of that business for the ceremony.
There is still so much I haven’t done, stuff I keep putting off until “later.”
Well, September is the day after tomorrow, which means the day after tomorrow is when people will start saying, “Are you excited that you’re getting married NEXT MONTH?,” so I don’t know exactly when I think this “later” is.
The dress shop called to schedule my fittings, but I haven’t called back, because I don’t even know when I plan to be in the state.
And fittings require shoes, which, don’t even get me started. It’s a long dress. No one is going to notice if I just paint my feet white, right?
I still have to get bow ties and stuff for the dogs, which, again, don’t ask, as they’re not even coming to the wedding, and this is a project you do not want to engage me about, as I may turn my desperate eyes upon you and rope you in.
I don’t have a veil, but I’m thinking that something from the “On the Go” line from this Etsy shop or this eBay shop is going to do just fine – any objections? I’ve encountered plenty of women who have had zero regrets about cutting corners on the veil (it’s just tulle), but if you have a point to make, make it now, or live in regret forever that my wedding was ruined and it was all your fault.
Oh, you know another thing that fittings require?
UNDERPANTS.
Do you know how much the whole underpants rig underneath a wedding gown involves?
Or how much it costs?
Because I do.
And you’d think I’d be the type to buck the whole Tyrannical Bridal Underpants System and say, “I will NOT spend $150 on underpants! I shall wear cotton underpants with penguins on them! STRIKE FORTH FOR UNDERPANTS-PENDANCE!”
Except, no.
I’ve had that dress on. I need some sort of scaffolding system.
I haven’t chosen any of the particular songs necessary for wedding stuff. Phil and I have not, overnight, developed dancing skills, as we originally planned. Am considering stuffing a chunk of something radioactive under the mattress and dealing with the crapshoot that is “what super power will we wake up with?” and hoping it’s “the super power of being able to not look like the uncoordinated nerds we are for one minute and 45 seconds of dancing.”
With my luck, it would probably end up being like, the ability to open bottle caps with my armpit. Convenient, but who is even going to want to drink that?
Anyway, Internet, I’m sorry to continue to bore you with THE FACT THAT I’M GETTING MARRIED, but I am not done buying shit yet.
Oh no, not nearly done.
Much more one-time-use items have yet to be purchased! I’m a one woman economy stimulation machine!
PS – On a lame note? You will not believe how many people are leaving the “I promise to dance if you play this song” line of the invitation blank! And Phil’s mother’s invitation got lost and never arrived! And my grandmother’s invitation showed up back in our mailbox again with the label completely shredded.
If I ever get married again – which I won’t, because even if Phil and I start to hate each other, we have a pact to stay together until the bitter, smelly end – I am going to spell out the invitation in rocks on a beach and fly all my relatives overhead in a helicopter, because in terms of cost (in money, effort and frustration) it would equal out to about the same.
I'm 30 years old and I live in Arizona with my husband and our two big dogs. I've been married for just over a year, and we have a 7 month old daughter named Penelope. You can do the math. It's okay. We don't mind.
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