What to wear? [it's a miracle]

For the past few months, as I've stared at my increasingly unruly students, listening to them scream at each other (and sometimes at me) and make a lot of noise, I've wished for summer and occasionally given in to daydreams about sitting on the sand, sipping some colorful cocktail while listening to the waves.

And hopefully I'm not too far off in my fantasy -- our honeymoon destination is Kauai, Hawaii! We can't wait. At this point, with wedding anxiety looming and the general stress of the last weeks of the school year, I can only think of the honeymoon in abstract terms. But I did think enough to order a new swimsuit!

Six years ago, I splurged on a swimsuit that has served me incredibly well. The black, wrap style V-neck Miraclesuit I purchased has been an incredible workhorse; it fits great and supports me in all the right places. But it's just now starting to fall apart, so I splurged again (hey, once every 6 years isn't too bad!) and purchased another. I got this little beauty from Lane Bryant:

It's called the "Garden of Delight" Oceanus Miraclesuit. I liked the idea of a neutral-ish, black floral suit. It fits great!  However, the actual pattern is completely different, and looks like this one from Cyberswim. Hmm. Good thing I like fluorescent pink.

I also bought this adorable cover-up to throw on. It isn't nearly as A-line as it looks in the picture, but it's still cute.  Plus, that little spot of pink matches perfectly with my surprise-pink patterned suit.

from (Lane Bryant)

If you're getting married this summer and you want to take advantage of the upcoming Memorial Day swimsuit sales, I thought I'd pass along a few other links to plus-size swimwear that I found. Besides, I am in the market for a second suit -- that deep V of my new suit is honeymoon perfect, but too revealing to wear at our day-after swim party.

If you want a Miraclesuit, Nordstrom has about two this season. Lane Bryant has a slightly better selection, but the best I found is at Cyberswim.

If you happen to be in the 24-26 size range, Land's End has a great selection of suits. Also the site Swimsuits For All looks good (up to 32W). But the most honeymoon-ready selection appears to be at AlwaysForMe.com. I personally prefer well-built, super supportive swimwear, but I can't resist all those cute, colorful, sexy suits in sizes up to 26.

This seems like the most choice I've had in swimsuits in a while! I can't wait to jump into the water!

If you're a plus size, where did you find your honeymoon outfits?

Love, American Style

Part of the reason I've been a little absent from the 'Bee is because this past week, I flew out of state to visit my grandmother. She is wonderfully recovered (although she has no recollection of her time in the hospital) and excited to come to the wedding! It was so nice to see her.

While I was there I was able to spend some time with my mom. I mentioned to her that I wanted to display some family pictures at the wedding, and we ended up going through some photo albums.

As a little girl, I considered it a magical thing to look through my mother's old albums. Mostly I liked seeing what she was like before I was born; it was always fascinating to me that she was a person, not just my mom. I felt like it made me know her better.

The wedding album was special because I didn't get to see it very often. She looked so beautiful and my dad looked so happy. I love the sense of history and seeing my family members all dressed up in their finest.  One of my favorites is this one of my grandfather helping Mom with her beautiful dress (purchased from JC Penney):

My mother's was one of the most formal weddings we've had in our family, and she was very involved in every detail. I think she planned it in four or five months. She was engaged longer than that, but she told my father he would have to wait until she finished her exams for college graduation. So, they got engaged in January of 197X (Mom doesn't want me to reveal the year!) and were married in September.

My mother vividly remembers all the details she spent so much time on. But here is the coolest -- she and her aunt (in green) made the bridesmaids dresses! They match her wedding gown a little bit. Check them out!

They are also showcasing the very latest in early 1970s hairstyles. I especially love the updos worn by my two aunts.

I hadn't seen this album since before I was planning a wedding, but now that I see it again I think the cake is fascinating. Mom says it was a "fountain cake." There was a fountain -- inside the cake! Apparently I really haven't been paying attention to cakes -- they still have these. Are any of you having one?

I know my fascination with this is not warranted -- I mean can you imagine our kids in 30 years? "Mom, why did all your cakes look like boxes stacked on top of each other?" Anyway, here it is:

They had a band, too, and Mom forgot to include them in the meal list for the caterers. She got a surprise bill after the wedding! Here's my parents' first dance:

The happy couple departs:

Now that I am going to have my own "wedding album," the photos take on a special significance. Of course, the sense of history is magnified now that several of the people in the photos, including my father, are no longer with us.

I believe strongly in the universality of weddings, and even though there were some different expectations, some different dynamics and definitely some different styles (bouffants! ruffled shirts! fountain cakes!), there is so much that is the same. My mom and I, always so close, are now sharing a similar experience, which is what makes the wedding albums so interesting to look at again.

If you have grown up seeing your parents' or a previous generation's wedding, how has it affected your wedding planning? Are there any things you'd like to repeat? Things you vow not to do?

Hmm. It seems I now have an incredible craving for cake.

Champagne Wish [Sparkle & Swish]

Like most brides, I started looking at dress pictures as soon as I got engaged. I had no idea what our wedding would be like, but whenever I saw a dress I couldn't stop thinking about, I figured it meant that there was something about it that spoke to me, and I saved it.

Originally, I'd denied the excitement these dresses held for me, but after I got that self-image stuff out of the way, I decided to look at them again and see if any of them had jumped into my subconscious.

Alvina Valenta, 9914 What a romantic dress. Look at that color! And the lace! And the box pleats!

Amsale, "Ella" - The natural waist, tiny pleats, and lace bodice make this dress look so sweet.

Melissa Sweet, "Saffron" - I love the sexy sparkly-ness. Also, the veil.

Renella di Fina, "Lauren" - I love the deconstructed elegance of this. I just want to go running in a field with it. Also, the taffeta.

I love the glow of a beautiful hand-made dupioni gown, like this one by Lea Ann Belter.

Can you find the common elements in these dresses? When I went back to my original favorite dresses, I kept thinking about what I truly wanted. I realized that I wanted a lot of fabric to swish around in, and I wanted to sparkle. So here is my "sparkle & swish" dress.

It's a natural-waist, strapless very full A-line, with an inexact hem. It will have a sparkly bodice; the perfect showcase for the beaded lace my grandmother bought me. The sweetheart neckline will have the matching trim we picked out that day. The shape is a full a-line; the waist comes to a V in the back and the skirt will have box pleats. I have not yet decided what to do with the waistline (ruched? organza? a sash?) but we'll see.

In the sketch, the dress looks a bit plain. But there's one more surprise. Here's a shot of the dress fabric underneath the beaded lace:

I hadn't expected to find this, but came across it by accident. I initially chose the ivory silk satin for my dress, but, seeing as that was never what I truly wanted, I set about looking for the perfect dupioni and saw this one in the back of Richard Brooks fabrics. I couldn't stop staring at it -- and you know what that means. Depending on your monitor, the sunlight, or the lighting in the room, this shimmery shantung can appear off-white, gold, or pink (pink!). The fabric's official name is "Champagne."

Even though I loved the Alvina Valenta, I didn't plan on wearing a non-white/ivory dress. I can't deny, though, that my admiration for that dress got me comfortable with the idea. Plus, the contrast of the "champagne" with the ivory beads shows them off beautifully.

I hear many brides say they tried on something and "just knew," but I wonder how much of that is just an affirmation of an idea or thought we might have had a long time ago? Did any of your initial ideas from your earliest days of being engaged make it into your final choice?

"Isn't she a vision of bridal beauty?"

(part one)

At this point of crisis, I could have opted out and decided that I would not attach so much symbolism to this dress. I would have continued with the sub-par design, and it would have been pretty enough.

But to do so would have been to completely ignore that the dress did have some significance to me; to have ignored the fear that comes with making an irrevocable, once-in-a-lifetime decision; and would have skipped the hard work of finding out what that significance was and I would have passed on finding out what “beautiful” really meant to me.

A wedding is a unique opportunity to expose your own preferences to the world and have them validated, recorded and remembered for the rest of your life (no pressure!). It’s safe to say that, consciously or not, I focused too much on the “validation” part of this process and neglected some of my own ideas, for fear of taking some kind of risk.

The perfectly serviceable A-line dress I designed wasn’t what I truly wanted to wear. It’s what thought I could wear.

With nothing to go on except pages and pages of magazine ads showing dresses I could not try on, and no public examples of anyone who looks like me wearing anything I’d want to wear, and fashion rules that say things like, “hide,” “elongate,” “slim,” and “disguise,” and external definitions of beauty (which may say anything from “you should wear an A-line” to “you’d be prettier if you were [fill in the blank]” to “women like you don’t get married”), I’d designed myself into a corner, and almost ended up stuck there.

I believe that a bride is at her most beautiful when she is at peace with herself and happy. Everything else will fall into place. I got the most peace from finding the courage to throw out all the “fashion rules” and quit worrying about what anyone (except me) thought of the dress. Ironically, it’s only then that I felt free enough to come up with something uniquely “me” and more beautiful.

From there, the process was easy. I think, however, that it's important to note that those "fashion rules" and external definitions, which are inescapable no matter how confident you are, were absolutely a factor in why I had trouble choosing a dress. The fact that I could not try on dresses and simply "find one" was also an enormous frustration. So while I ultimately did find my way to bridal-beauty happiness, it was a path considerably more fraught than it would have been had I been closer to a "mainstream" bride.

I know I'm not the only one who went through this. I've seen it many times on the boards as well, someone will say, "I'm getting the dress I love, no matter what anyone thinks, and that's final!" And invariably, they look beautiful and happiest in the dress that truly resonates with them.

How did you arrive at your vision of bridal beauty? Did you find your vision from an external cue, like advice from a friend or a magazine picture, or from some other place with yourself? Are you wearing something likely to elicit strong reactions from friends or family? How much do you care about what they think, anyway? And how fair is it that a bride's choices are routinely held up for scrutiny by others?

*The title is a quote from a wedding movie. Can you name it?

Finding my way through the dress panic

Everything was going fine with the progress of my wedding dress. I drew up a design (based loosely on the Alfred Angelo 830 that I tried on), and when it came time for the first muslin fitting, I realized that I hated the dress. Panic ensued.

Well, it wasn't really that bad. Well, maybe.

Every day on message boards, bridal resale outfits, wedding shows, etc., we see brides who simply cannot choose a dress. Some even purchase two or three. On television, a bride’s indecision is frequently edited to make her a spectacle to the audience, set up as another example of a “bridezilla” or to create some other ratings-friendly bridal drama. Sure, some of these brides are just indecisive, but I suspect that for some, the dress confusion is a symptom of some deeper, soul-stirring internal crisis, as it was for me.

When I imagined my wedding day, for a long time it was a blank spot in my mind. I could see getting married, I could see my fiancé at the altar, and even the happy faces of our guests surrounding us. But when I imagined looking in the mirror at myself, there was a big blank hole and nothing could fill it.

I also realized that I hadn't thought at all about what this dress would mean to me. There is a lot of discussion and critique on the symbolism of the wedding dress, but I hadn't yet found an answer that applied to me.

I never really saw myself as the "Cinderella princess" type of bride. A “princess” can absolutely be a symbol of something else (purity, femininity, etc.) but I think many of us associate a “princess” with (if not an actual, royal princess) a character, or something that isn’t real.

Putting myself in character (a character created for little girls, natch) on my wedding day seems like an excellent way to disassociate myself fully from the entirely non-fantasy, emotionally fraught, and decidedly grown-up experience of getting married. Surely I'm not the only one who feels this way? I wonder if many of the more sophisticated wedding dresses we’ve seen in the past few years have been direct responses to this narrative.

Some of these dresses are very “sexy.” I knew I did not want to look deliberately sexy on my wedding day. I believe sexiness comes from within, and as a large-busted person, I wanted at least one day where I looked beautiful but did not have any parts on prominent display. I did not see my wedding as a day to assert my womanhood in that particular way, although it should go without saying that I have nothing against those who feel differently about it than I do.

I have always liked the idea of the "timeless" looking, classic bride, since I'm not really into trendy things. But even knowing this wasn't enough to help me choose a dress.

The only idea that's ever truly resonated with me is the one that says that on my wedding day, I should be myself at my most beautiful. A bride's beauty has been used for hundreds of years as a metaphor or symbol of beauty at its most exuberant, joyful, and hopeful.

But here was my problem, and, for me, the only way out of this panic. Sure, I could have driven all over Texas in hopes of trying on a few more dresses. But it wouldn't have worked. That blank hole in my mind needed to be filled by my own definition of bridal beauty, and I had none.

So here I was, having a dress crisis, with a week left to finish the muslin before starting the dress. A week! How would I possibly pull this off? We'll see... part two will be up tomorrow.

Bridal Shower in the Pink [Memory Lane]

I'm having a bridal shower at work on Monday, and I was thinking about the last bridal shower I went to, which was for my dear friend who is now my maid of honor! (This is the friend who came to the impromptu bridal shopping trip a while back). I was her maid of honor back in 2007.

Oh, how young we looked just three years ago!

Back then, I was single and lived in a little apartment with a cat and a teacher's salary (and maybe some maid-of-honor expenses?). But I still wanted to do right by my friend. So, here is the bridal shower I hosted for 8 people, for $100. I am very proud. :)

MOH's wedding color was pink, so we went with this for the theme. I had seen an old (2003) Martha Stewart Weddings magazine showing a beautiful pink bridal shower. Though ours wouldn't be nearly as swanky as that one, we thought it would be fun to keep the theme going if we could. We sent out a little pink invite via evite.com, asked guests to wear pink if they wanted, and even came up with some pink foods and drinks for the party.

One way I saved money was to cook nearly everything myself. Here's my kitchen, the morning of the shower:

I also ran to a party store to see what I could dig up. For about $30, I found a plain tablecloth on sale, some pink bridal paper plates and napkins (on sale, they were discontinued), some pink plastic flatware, and a cute little plastic pitcher. I know some consider balloons to be cheesy, but we needed them -- my apartment was hard to find, so I went out front and tied them to the car. I used the extras as decor.

For pink foods, we got some little pink candies, pink lemonade, and I made little salmon sandwiches:

We also had a delicious Whole Foods white and pink cake, but when we went to set it up, people gathered around and ate it so quickly that I never got any pictures of it. Still, the cake was so good that MOH and I have a tradition now of celebrating events with that same cake. We used her cake stand, which she reused a month later for her wedding (you can see it in the background of that shot up there).

A big hit was this game, Bridal Bingo. I saw it online and decided to make it myself. I made it in Microsoft Word and printed it on cardstock. For prizes, I bought a couple of little raspberry-chocolate bars -- the wrappers are pink!

And here are a bunch of pink ladies.

We do really love pink -- in addition to the other things we have in common, we met when we had a class together in graduate school, and both pulled out our pink phones at the same time. We decided to commemorate this. Can you name that show on TV in the background?

My cat wanted to wish her a happy wedding day, too.

Now that I'm planning my own wedding, I can't imagine planning someone's bridal shower at the same time... but I hear that some of you have to do it! Are any of you planning themed showers?

Invitation Send-Off

We decided that a pretty invitation deserves a nice presentation, so, since we came in under budget for the invites, we had them calligraphed.

When initial calligrapher recommendations were out of our budget, I took to the internet and found Nicole of The Left Handed Calligrapher. She's very nice and super personable, and does an amazing job. As it turns out, Nicole has been featured in SMP and D Weddings, but when I booked her I hadn't heard of her work yet.

Mr. Oyster-the-artist was excited about this. When we went and picked up the finished envelopes, he said, "They're like little pieces of art!" Very cute.

So, check them out! The "font" we chose was Copperplate. I actually liked Spencerian better, but I really wanted the envelopes to be "mailable." I took pictures of this particular set so that I could show them off without revealing where a family or friend lives. Do you know this person?

I think I underestimated the formality of these invitations. Now, with the letterpress and everything, they look very formal. I even had a brief freak-out and called my mother, worried that we had outclassed ourselves with the invitation! My mother said, no, we hadn't, and also pointed out helpfully that it's too late to worry about that now. Thanks, mom!

In between ordering the invitations and sending them, I built our wedding website. Later, I decided that I didn't want it hanging around for all the Internet to see, so I password protected it, creating custom logins for each guest. But with no website card, how would I tell them about it?

We came up with a label system. I bought clear computer labels, and formatted them with each invite's custom username and password. I initially planned to put these on the back of the invitations, so they'd be subtle, but my mom (there she goes again) pointed out that most people won't automatically turn the invitation over, and by the time they get to the computer and see "check your invitation for username/password" they might not have it with them, etc., etc....

So we put it on the outer flap of the inside envelope. When people open the inner envelope, the label will disappear from view and the invitation will still stand on its own. Very clever! (While we are happy with this solution, please tell me I'm not alone in saying that computer labels are a giant pain in the ass.)

Mr. Oyster decided that he wanted to perfectly line up the labels on the envelopes, and came up with a complicated measuring system. I would have just stuck them on there, but I didn't say that, instead thanking Mr. Oyster for making the invitations such a high priority.

This mysterious measuring system involved Post-its.

When he realized I was taking his picture and possibly going to show it to you all, he dissolved into what is perhaps the cutest fit of giggles I've seen in a grown man:

And then he got to work.

Okay, check it out:

It's a dark grey, which matches the back of our outer envelopes (and the invite text). We stuffed, sealed and stamped them, and were ready to go! Does anyone else love those USPS wedding stamps? They just happened to match our envelopes perfectly.

The whole time we were putting these together, we kept lamenting that we didn't have Nicole make us our own envelope set that we could keep. But sure enough, hidden in the bottom of the stack of envelopes, was a nice surprise.

Nicole very sweetly made us our own commemorative invitation envelopes, beautifully addressed to us, and we put an invite in it and decided to put it in our little "wedding keepsake" box. We even put a stamp on it. This way, our kids can look at it one day and say, "Ha, ha, Mom & Dad! It was only $0.61 to mail a 5x7 envelope? Ours cost $20 each!"

The Women

My favorite scene in just about any wedding movie, ever, starts at about 03:00:

For some, weddings call to mind many "father of the bride" type images, but in my family, it's the women that really hold it all together. We are very close knit. Here we are nearly 10 years ago, at my senior piano recital in college. There are four generations represented here. I am in the blue dress. Sadly, my great grandmother (on the far right) died a few years after this picture was taken.

My mother and grandmother visited me a few months ago, and I got a chance to take them to the wedding venue. We walked around, me showing them where things would be, and Mom and Grandmother suggesting things along the way. At the same time it was an almost out-of-body experience, as I listened to the three of us excitedly chattering, visualizing. Three generations of women, planning a wedding. One day, me and Mom and my daughter will do this. It is universal, and timeless, and it has been happening forever, and here it is, my turn. I think there is something magical about this.

I love that scene of the Greek Wedding movie because it speaks to that moment that is at once deeply personal and universal; that is at once the past and present; to the bonds we do or don't share with our mothers; to the idea that women have been going through this rite of passage forever; to what it means to be a wife and a woman and a mother.

Being a bride, in this society and in many others, means accentuating everything there is about femininity, womanhood, and application of past traditions into your own future role as "wife." There is usually some internal struggle involved, some confrontation, and hopefully some thought given to the women who have gone through the exact same thing one or two generations ago. I credit the women in my family for so much of who I am, and I think that on my wedding day, I will represent all of them when I stand at the altar.

This idea has been even more significant for me this week, as my grandmother was admitted to the hospital with some very serious health issues. While she is doing better, we aren't sure at all whether she'll be able to travel to the wedding.

I was looking for some pictures of her and I remembered this one from our engagement party. I call it "All My Moms." My mom is on the left, grandmother in the middle, and, as I am now proud to add another "mom" to my family, Mr. O's mother on the right. She had just finished telling an embarrassing story about him, and we were all laughing.

In the background are Mr. O and his father, standing around looking alike, no doubt talking about those laughing women on the other side of the room. Well, what do they expect? When we are not thinking about our timelessness or strengthening the bonds of womanhood, that is what we do! (ha!)

Becoming a wife means many things to many people. How are you sorting out what it means for yourself? How similar is your version of "wife" to those of the women you have grown up with? What was your "Greek Wedding woman" moment?

Mr. O, the fashion plate

A while back, Mr. Oyster and I set out to look for something for him to wear in the wedding. We visited a local tux shop, but all the tuxes there just reminded me of high school prom.

Part of the problem was that Mr. O just didn't know what he wanted to wear. Personally I imagined getting him a modern-cut stylish tux, or even a nice slim cut black suit. He is tall and thin and I thought it would look nice. We even tried on a few of these at Macy's. Since Mr. O doesn't currently own a suit, we were considering purchasing one.

But Mr. O had his own ideas. In a direct contrast to the dress drama I've endured, he looked over my shoulder at the computer one day, took a look at one photograph, and said, "That looks nice. I want to wear that." And then he was done. I mean, how easy is that?! Here's the picture he saw, from our our photographer.

Handsome, isn't he? A nice, classic, peak lapel tux, with no bowtie. So, with this in mind, we set out to find it.


Our planner recommended a local store (as opposed to one of the ubiquitous national chains, I'm talking to you, Mr. "We guarantee it"), and they had exactly what we needed. It is a very charming shop, very airy and light and comfortable. They even have a dog that stays with them at the store. Her name is Lucy:

We found the tux Mr. O was looking for, and the lady (I forgot her name, she was very nice) helped him try it on.

I have to admit, he looks very handsome! It was surreal seeing him in a tux, one because he doesn't wear suits, and also it was like, "Wow, he's going to marry me wearing this tux!" It was pretty cool. I think Mr. O thought so, too.

Our last stop of the day was to Mr. O's favorite shoe store to pick up some dress shoes. We're still working on this part.

And that's it! Can you believe how easy men's fashion is?

To rest our rings on

I've previously written about my attempt to make a beautiful, Martha Stewart ring pillow. At least, the flower part.

The flower still isn't finished, but I did finish the part of the project I totally understand: the pillow!

Sure, I could have just bought a pillow somewhere, but I was at Jo-Ann fabrics with Mr. Oyster, when he mentioned the remnants section. Despite my owning a sewing machine and actually knowing how to sew, Mr. Oyster is the one that visits Jo-Ann quite a bit, usually for his art projects or for his students. How could I not have remembered the remnants?! And so, this is the story of how I made a ring pillow for about $5.

I found a 23" scrap of some cheap muslin, bought a little bag of fiberfill, and scraps of some beautiful mauve pin-tucked satin. And did I mention... the remnants were half off that day!

The pillow itself was the easiest part. I used a piece of printer paper folded in a square as a "pattern," and sewed this sucker together, turned it inside out, stuffed it with fiberfill, and basted. Et voila! A pillow. Here it is with a pair of fabric scissors on it so you can see the size; it's an 8 1/2" square (because that is the width of printer paper).

Now, on to the pillowcase. I didn't use a pattern for this, either; I just turned the satin inside out, put the pillow on it, and drew with a pencil. I used two pieces of fabric for the back, because I wanted the pillowcase to have a pocket. Also, having a removable pillowcase will make it easier when I attach the Martha Stewart flower.

So, I put the pillow in the case, and there you go! I tried valiantly to match the pintucks; I failed miserably but guess what -- no one will know. I love my $5 remnant pillow! (Sorry for the different colors; it's irridescent and a trick of the lighting.)

I am proud of this pillow, mostly because (a) I didn't plan on making it, but it turned out to be so unexpectedly easy and (b) I love a good deal.

Oh, how precious!

I know, I know-- how many times do we need to hear "precious" when it comes to something wedding-related? But hear me out.

Look at these little cakes:

I found them via The Kitchn blog, and they are super adorable. They're made easily via these little pans from Williams Sonoma:

 

Unfortunately, I never experienced the whole, "all-my-friends-are-getting-married-at-the-same-time" phenomenon that seems to happen to everyone in their mid/late 20s, but if I did, this would be my signature bridal-shower item.

However, I can imagine other uses for it: that time you're asked to bring something to a work wedding shower (being an elementary school teacher, this happens all the time), my own bridal shower, little girls' birthday parties. Says one commenter: "I've got a 5yo little princess, and I'm telling you we would use it ALL THE TIME. For birthdays, for tea parties, or for special-occasion dinners... I'm actually considering buying one to use for her next birthday party. They are just so cute." I think she says it all!

*Images credit: Williams Sonoma

Things I'll Learn from Wedding Planning

For better or worse, I'm putting a lot of my heart and soul into this wedding, and now that our engagement is starting to wind down (or wind up, as the case may be), I'm thinking more about what I'll take away from this engagement process. Here are some that immediately come to mind:

Self Image. I'll be writing another post on this later, but the fact that I'll be seen by many (and for many years to come) in my wedding dress has forced me to confront some truths about the way I see myself, and it hasn't always been an easy process.

I've re-discovered sewing and even purchased my first sewing machine. The process of having my dress made required me to think a lot about fabric, fashion, and how things are constructed, and I actually like that stuff! Go figure. I finally know what my mother was doing when she'd see a dress in the department store, look closely at the seams, and head to Hancock.

Organization. I've always considered myself organized, but my army of spreadsheets, charts, graphs, and folders have shown me that I really can organize a huge event and simultaneously deal with the merging of household finances. It helps that Mr. Oyster is constantly telling me how impressed he is. ;-)

After the wedding, I'm planning on working more with my photography business. I was always a little scared of starting a business on my own, but I have more confidence now that I could organize something as complicated as a business, if I wanted to.

Family drama. My family's relatively healthy, but there are always those family members that... well, you know what I mean, you've probably got some too. At this point, I really feel that (a) I can predict pretty well who will be dramatic and how they will act out, (b) I am too old and have been through too much to worry about what they think of me and (c) I'm too focused on my own life to care.  I find that having this attitude actually encourages people to respect me more. In fact, I anticipated drama where there wasn't much at all. Another "go, figure!" here.

Domesticity. I hope it was merely coincidence that, on the same day I told the D.J. I'd like us to be introduced as "Mr. and Mrs. [Fiance's Name], I went out and bought the sewing machine. I know there are some ways in which I'm thoroughly modern (hello, first marriage at the age of 30!) and others where I'm just like my great-grandmother. I still feel a little conflicted about it.

Really?

There are so many more things I could list. I think this post will require a sequel!

Anyone else? Is all this time/energy spent planning your wedding going to help you later in your life?