Why I hate the term Bride-zilla

The vast majority of women picture what their weddings will be like when they are children watching Disney princess movies and picturing their own Prince Eric or Naveen. Some of them are even aware that they may have to kiss a few frogs to find that prince, but when they get him they'll never let him go.

Side note about me: I didn't grow up really that way because of my illnesses. I've always had self-esteem problems and thought I'd die too early to marry or that no one would want me and then ended up in abusive relationships with guys who wanted to marry me for sex. That's how many chronically ill and/or abused children grow up, often regardless of how supportive parents may be. I'm also incredibly eclectic so if I had planned my wedding in my head from childhood, it would be completely screwed up.

Men don't really go through the same things. Weddings don't carry the same emotional weight with them often as weddings might for women. So if your wondering why your fiance doesn't want to look at 80 different centerpiece ideas on pinterest, it isn't because he is getting cold feet - it's because the party aspect of the wedding often isn't as big of a deal. I know this because I'm living it right now. It is incredibly frustrating and I often feel like I'm planning things alone, but with the help of my girls I am figuring out how to integrate Theron into the ceremony through pointed questions and the like. I also seem to like a lot of different ideas than he does, so when he isn't as emotionally vested in things it makes it really hard for me to figure out what to do so that we don't have decor he hates on our big day.

I also just really, really hate making decisions especially when I'm not really the one forking over the money over this and he is.

No matter how much your fiance plays a role in things, getting married and having a wedding is stressful. There is a reason why wedding planners like David Tutera get paid the big bucks (David, come plan my wedding for free and I will make you all the tasty treats!!! I'd pay you, but I'm kind of in like $80k of debt between student loans and medical bills...). There is also a reason why being the maid of honor is a big fucking deal (I'm so sorry Katy).

For those of you who have been living under a rock, a bride-zilla is basically a woman who goes overboard with demands (and being demanding) with wedding details. Examples can include women getting 'uppity' over b-maid dresses, timing, pictures, hair, etc, etc, etc.

I'm going to throw a statistic at you compiled in my brain from all the damn wedding books and sites I've been looking at - the average wedding in the US costs between 25 and 30 THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS.

You read that right. Many many cost less and many cost more, but apparently that is the mean.

We aren't even close to being in the financial position to spend almost what the fiance makes in a year and more than I make in a year and a half on a party. But just ignore that for a minute...

For many, monogamy is still a big issue. I'm not one usually for religious ideals, but I am one for sentimentality. I love my fiance with all my heart. We both have come from very interesting family dynamics, with his parents having divorced when he was young and my single mama raising me and my sister living in the same house as her mother and brother. It is important to us, for ourselves and no one else, to find that person we can and will love until we each die. Theron is my penguin, and I am his. So us getting married and knowing that without a doubt this is the only wedding we each want to be in? That is a big deal. It is a lot of pressure, without planning the wedding entering the picture at all.

I also just think the term bride-zilla is terribly sexist, probably coming from people who do not understand the magnitude of the pressure and stress this event brings.

To recap:

• Many brides plan weddings with very little input from their grooms (I wonder how this works in a same sex situation. Hmmm.)
• Weddings cost a shit-load of money
• You are throwing a gigantic ass party for your nearest and dearest
• And, for some of us, it is the only wedding we will have

So forgive me if I do go a little bonkers, but as a bride I think maybe I might deserve that sometimes. That's just being a bride, not an odd bride-godzilla love child I promise.

Choosing a Venue

When you have the ability - or ants in the pants - to begin planning your wedding roughly 2 years in advance, you figure that the venue situation is one that won't need your attention right away, as the vast majority of to-do checklists are for just about one year. However, I can tell you right now that's wrong!!

Your venue is a HUGE part of what you will do on your wedding day (DUH). Bakers may want to incorporate parts of your venue into your cake(s). Caterers will want to know details about location and size of your event. And you can forget trying to talk to a photographer or a florist about plans when you don't know the size of your space or how easy it is to transport gear there.

Don't forget that there are people who have 5 year long engagements either, so you know they've already nailed down venue stuff leaving less room for you and your desired date! Places just book up very fast, especially for Saturday weddings in the summer.

From just after the time we got engaged, I've pictured a church-y wedding. I'm not religious at all, but having majored in religions I just think that churches are incredibly beautiful and sacred regardless of belief. They're an example of our values, the things we hold most dear, and our fears for the future.The fact that we allow ourselves to be vulnerable enough to show which things have importance and really emphasize them is, in this day and age, growing more and more rare and in its own way sacred.

Picking my dress, I wanted something worthy of a church wedding. I wanted something gorgeous and breath taking, but not enough to distract from my beauty or the details in my surroundings. I wanted a fun dress, but one that was appropriate for a special place. I still can't believe we're spending as much money on it as we are, holy crap.

I had a specific location here in Madison, Wisconsin, picked out. It was a synagogue at one point and was moved, to save it from demolition, to a city park. It is just gorgeous itself and on a sunny day it just lights up something fierce outside. The only problem is that, being a city park structure, we wouldn't be able to reserve it until November of 2013 for our August 2014 wedding. We also would have to decorate Saturday morning (WHAT?) and have everything out by a certain time. City structures and nature parks have an appeal because of their pricing, but clearly some downsides.

There also was no way to set up a reception in the unfinished basement used for storage that not only contained the only bathrooms in the building as well but was not ADA accessible. As a spoonie inviting other spoonies (and secretly worried about my condition that day - helloooo stress!), I couldn't do it. So we began investigating other sites.

Some had the appeal of the outdoors, like a private park not too far out of town run by a family. But then we have no bathroom and need a porta potty trailer. I'm not even kidding, these things exist. Ew. Plus in August, an indoor venue is a better idea if not only for the cakes' sake.

We visited a gorgeous former church last week and as I walked in I knew right away this was where we were getting married. I'm sure it didn't help that the boys had it decorated with flowers along the aisle and music though. And it has everything we want.

The priest rooms to either side of the stage at the front of the church have been turned into the bride's and groom's ready rooms (with the latter having only one entrance and exit bwahahaha). The seats are pews, which will be great for the spoonies I invite and give room for any children to kind of have their own creative space for coloring if they get bored. There is also an elevator. The floor is also kind of squishy so standing however long in any shoes will be easier. And there is a basement complete with a bar and a dance floor, ready to go for the reception. The guys who run this place live on the grounds and will be there to help throughout our time. And we get it for Friday night, all day Saturday and until noon on Sunday. It's really a steal for the price!

DIY for the Fibro Bride: Save-the-Dates

Note: Hi, everyone! I'm so excited to be contributing to this blog! I'm doing a DIY wedding blog series right now on ChickOpinion.com/FibroTips4Chicks and thought I'd throw a few of my posts over to this one because it's the perfect venue. I will, however, definitely write a few specifically for "A Very Spoonie Wedding" in the near future. xoxo Kinsey

Congratulations! You're engaged! Once you've figured out when and where you're getting married, the first thing you need to do is get save-the-dates. I assume that the reason you're reading this is because you want to make them! A lot of fibromyalgia patients have part-time jobs or are unemployed, so this is an easy way that you can get great looking save-the-date postcards without spending a lot of money or having too much stress put on you.

The front of my Save-the-Date postcard.

Materials

• Card stock
• Printer
• Computer
• Powerpoint (or something like it)
• Scissors or paper-cutter
• Postcard stamps
• Pen
• Time

Instructions

• Go to WeddingChicks.com and find their "DIY Printable Wedding Template" section (the previous link is direct to this section).
• Choose a template you like. This can take a long time! I liked most of them and messed around with a lot of them.
• Input your information and your colors to the template.
• Play around with them! Don't print anything without being 100% sure it's exactly what you want. You can be as picky as you want--it's your wedding!
• "Create" your print.
• Download it.
• Save it. Save your work. lol
• Open Powerpoint.
• Review the USPS rules for postcards here to make sure you have the right size. If you don't have the legal size, they won't mail it and you won't be able to reuse it.
• Review the main points of your Save-the-Date. I used mine as an announcement, too, so I told people that we're getting married, I told them the date, what city it would be in, my email address, and that an invitation would follow. There isn't anything else that needs to be on there. There's also not much room for anything else on a postcard.

The back of my Save-the-Date postcard.

• Start with a rectangle that is the size of your postcard. You'll hide this later, but it's important to contain your objects.
• I made the back of the postcard monochromatic (the red lines are from the screenshot, letting me know that our names are misspelled!) because I didn't want to completely deplete my ink supply. Obviously, you'll need to choose your colors according to what you want.
• Try to match the font that you use on the back of your postcard with the one the template uses on the front. 
• You can play with what is in the foreground and background to make any "watermark"-type situations you want. You can also do this by messing around with the transparency of an object.
• Make sure you have your return address on your postcard. Mine is under the grey rectangle--don't need everybody knowing where I live! :-)
• Once the back is exactly how you like it, group it together.
• Save it.
• Copy it and paste the copy next to the original so that you have two postcard backs next do each other.
• Save.
• Get yourself a new slide in the same "presentation."
• Insert your previously downloaded front of the Save-the-Date on the new slide.
• Copy and paste it so you have two postcard fronts next to each other (see below).

Screen shot of the two slides.

• Make sure that they have the same margins, so when you print them they'll end up matching. This part can be tedious and very irritating. Be patient.
• Save. :-)
• Load your printer with card stock.
• Print only one of the slides first. Eg. 30 copies of the front of the postcard.
• Figure out how your printer works: do you need to flip the pages over or around or backwards to get the other side of the postcard to print where it needs to?
• Print the other side.
• Cut them out!
• Get your postcard stamps out and start stamping! Make sure you use postcard stamps and not regular ones; you'll save about 50% of your stamp money!
• Address them.
• Mail them! :-)

You're done! I received a fantastic response to mine--people loved them! They look so professional and, while they do take a few hours to make yourself, it's completely worth it.

When you DIY, Destiny Is Yours! 

Dress Try-outs: Shopping Around

As someone who just purchased her wedding dress from a local boutique after visiting David's Bridal, I really really encourage you to visit multiple bridal boutiques.

First off, David's Bridal on a busy day feels like a dairy farm. We felt as though we were being herded through pens like cattle. And there constantly seems to be something that goes wrong, whether it is a forgotten appointment or a consultant doing double duty or teenagers shopping for their prom dresses.

All three happened Saturday morning. Seriously.

The consultant we had was much ruder than the other two times I have been to DB. I brought a list with me of dresses and she kept bringing out shit not on the list. I brought a list with me for a reason and I finally had to have my MOH look up the one dress on the list I wanted to show to my bridal party and my momma so we could demand it. It took forever, and then because she was doing double duty I ended up in dresses for sometimes 15-20 minutes. Are you kidding me?

I was not treated like one of a kind and made a come back appointment against my will. But it's not like I'll be keeping it anyway!

For the second stop, I had made an appointment at a local boutique that I have heard amazing things about and I was so very glad to have a spot after a mishap with another boutique that shall remain nameless.

Vera's House of Bridal is located maybe 5 minutes from my apartment and practically next door to the movie theater the fiance and I frequent. Unlike many local places, you can view the collections they have dresses from on their website, and even save a favorites list to take in with you. And perhaps the best thing - Vera, who began the business in 1964, is in her 80s and still comes to work every single day and manages the boutique very well.

Another thing I loved about their place is that there are actual rooms where you can try on your dresses with abundant seating, a special mirror to see the back of your dress - and they have plenty of bottles of water, which is great with my Sjogren's acting up lately.

After about 2 hours there, I walked back to the car having paid for half of a dress that will end up being probably two and a half times more than I was expecting to pay... but I'm also shopping local and getting amazing service, including free storage so I don't have to worry about wrecking my dress trying it on every day haha.

And now everything seems so much more real. I have a year and a half to go until the big day, and part of me feels like it isn't enough time - but another big part of me is ready to get this done and be Mrs. Schultz.

My precioussssss

Happy Valentine's Day

Cake Tasting

Mmmmm cake.

Cake shopping when you're gluten free can be quite a hassle. Going to wedding expos and shows is pretty fun, but the large majority of cake places (and a lot of catering places in general) unfortunately aren't equipped for gluten or allergen free events.

We found two locally here that can do more than one flavor that seem really really nice, so this post will be about tasting at the front runner, Bloom Bake Shop.

We live in a really progressive area and we like to support local businesses when we can, so Bloom is a natural choice. They're local, sustainable, organic, fair-trade - and have an AMAZING gluten free selection every day of the week... except for Sundays and Mondays but that's only because they're closed! They have a lot of gluten free things that are vegan too, which is important to me as I really do try to limit my dairy.

They also love to do cupcake weddings! They even have a tiny cake made to be the top of a cupcake tier. And their prices are not too shabby, especially considering we aren't planning on splurging horribly for anything.

When we got there tonight, we weren't sure just how it was going to go. Essentially what happened though is they brought us 2 plates of 4 cupcakes each, mine were all gluten free and his weren't, and we got to taste and talk to each other about it. In the end, I think we'll end up going all gluten free so I can eat allll the cakes!

We definitely need to try other places, but I really enjoyed getting to brainstorm a little with their main person and eating free cake. She was open to a lot of questions so I wish I had prepared some! But I've done a fair amount of research on them as well so maybe that was okay.

So here are some tips regarding cake testing!

• Ask questions - especially if you have an interesting theme or anything special you want to do with your cake
• If local and organic things are your preference, do your homework. Most bigger cities have at least one bakery willing to go the distance there
• And definitely do your homework when it comes to allergen issues and cakes. Bloom is not a GF specific bakery and so there is possible risk of contamination. However, they really do a great job to protect from that.

Next weekend, I head off to try on dresses with my nearest and dearest ladies!

Wedding Dress Tryouts and Expos

My last two weekends have been filled with wedding things, to the point where I'm getting overwhelmed honestly. On the 5th, my maid of honor and I went and tried on wedding & bridesmaid dresses and to a wedding expo over in Milwaukee. This past weekend, I dragged my fiance to the expo here in Madison.

Through it all I've ended up with a gigantic binder full of crap and a lot of stuff to take down to the recycling bin. It's been a bit of a headache really. But out of it I have some great tips!

First off, the best tip I have for the first few times trying on dresses is to take your maid of honor or sister or whatever - but that one person who you're close to who shares your style... even if it's your fiance. I know it's "against the rules" but I've been asking his opinion though he won't see me in the dress until the day I think. Superstitions seem silly when you've been through so much with a chronic illness progressing and this man (or woman) in your life. Then again, so do normal "for better or worse, in sickness and health" vows but that's an issue for another day.

I took my MOH Katy these first two times trying on dresses and it has significantly reduced my crazy dress issues. And she can try on bridesmaid dresses and help with colors as well as styles!

Also, she's there to look fabulous!

Second, take pictures! You're never going to see the dress from all the angles someone else would.

Empire waist

I found out I hate the front of this dress

Oh, but I love the back of it so!

Third? Make sure you're not wearing zebra print panties when you try dresses on. White would be a really good idea.

Oops.

Look online for inspiration and bring in pictures. Also learn wedding dress terminology like mermaid, sheath, sweetheart neckline, etc. For big chain stores or ones that carry certain designers you can definitely (AND SHOULD) look at styles online and go in with a style number or picture that you'd like to try. I have a HUGE list right now - gulp!

And don't be afraid to revisit a dress that you loved instantly but dumped because it didn't have lace (satin, rouching, beads, etc). I put on this dress right away and fell in love but have since dumped it because it isn't lacy. However,  I'm not entirely pleased with the two above and I'm convinced this may end up being THE dress.

Definitely don't limit yourself to one big chain of wedding stores. So far that's all I've tried (you know the one) but I have appointments at some local boutiques set up and am definitely looking into booking a few more with all those coupons I got at those wedding expos!

(Nice segue, right?)

Zoinks

Okay, it's overwhelming and it'll be like walking past all the kiosk people in the mall but you've practiced the ignoring skills there right? Truth be told you may not want to employ those ignoring skills at expos (unless you don't want to rent - and I'm serious - a Bucky Badger fancy trailer bathroom).

First tip here - if you eat before, only eat a little. There WILL be cake.

Mmmmmmmmm cake

That said, if you end up at an expo where they make you do crazy things for prizes, walk out immediately.

My dignity has to be somewhere in here.

The truth is there will be lots of ways at classy expos for you to win free stuff - some of which you may even get there! I got free fake lashes put on and ended up looking AMAZING.

My Still's rash was cooperating YAY

Visit all the booths you want to and if a booth is too busy come back. One I wanted to visit was too busy to talk to someone every time we walked past but I grabbed their handout stuff anyway. Also make sure you ask questions for any accommodations you may need. There were really only two bakers between both expos that have multiple gluten free options so I'm definitely glad I asked before thinking about booking a tasting!

Make sure you sign up for free shit but remember these people will actually follow up. It would be good to have a separate email address for wedding things or at least a folder in your inbox dedicated to the big day. This may also be the time to remove the crazy ringtone from your phone and explore how to set it on silent.

I found this tip from Pinterest I think and it has REALLY helped me at both expos - get address labels (or create your own) so you don't have to fill out as much on forms. It was a godsend, especially with fibro phoebe and Arthur-itis being active lately.

It would also be good to at least have a rough idea of what you want for decorations and such, as well as (at the bare minimum) the month and year of your big day.

Oh, and definitely make sure to hit up the fashion shows! There are usually two per day - typically noon and three for an expo running from 10am to 5pm.

I do my little turn on the catwalk. On the catwalk, yea!

Afterwards, go through all the take homes and recycle (please!) the things you decide not to look further into and compile the keep things into a binder. I keep my things separated with those divider tabs I bought in college and never used.

Now I do have another tip to share right now while we're on the subject:

Enter every damn contest and get all the free things you can girl! Many of the expo booths will have freebees and contests but then the expos themselves many times have a contest to win things donated by the different companies and such. There are also a few good websites out there, like Wedding Vibe, with getaways and giveaways done like every damn day. And many places will allow you to get samples for free. One great place I found was Exclusively Weddings, where you can get free invitation samples. If you have to pay to enter a contest, just shut down the page and throw that junk mail away.

Speaking of contests...

Please forgive me, but from the 17th-30th of January I'll be using the blog and the facebook page to pimp myself out. No, I haven't magically turned into a car, but I am trying to win a David's Bridal contest worth $2500 towards my wedding - which I desperately need! I would very much appreciate it if you'd come vote for me and share the link with your friends!

Beth :) 2.0

I finally felt good enough this weekend to drive "dress in a box" over to David's Bridal, with my sisters/bridesmaids in tow for a day of dress trying on and picking out and all that good stuff. I'll admit it was an interesting experience for a group of tomboys like ourselves. My sisters burped, farted, cursed, and basically did everything you shouldn't do in a bridal boutique. Gotta love them no matter what. But, end result is THE DRESS IS OFFICIAL and fits. However if i end up on another unexpected round of Prednisone in the next nine months it might not fit so good anymore.. Now im home from school/work on a sick day, i guess it all caught up with me.