101 Things I learned from wedding planning...

1. No one cares about your wedding as much as you do. This is not to say that friends and family don't have any vested interest, they would just like to be able to hold a conversation with you that isn't centered on the 'Big Day'.

2. Don’t rush your engagement – take your time planning.

3. That being said, it is NEVER too early to start planning!

4. OCD and anal retentiveness (especially to details) pays off, but...

5. Don't be afraid to ask for help!

6. Much like your husband/wife, choose your wedding party carefully!!!

7. Even if you follow #6 to the best of your ability, be prepared for a rogue groomsman or a space-shot bridesmaid…

8. Assume that, inevitably, something will go wrong.

9. Be able to laugh at yourself.

10. REMAIN CALM - there are some things that you just can't foresee/control.

11. Remember that, regardless of what happens or doesn't happen, at the end of the day you will be married and that is what really matters.

12. Be frugal where you can, but spend $ on things that are worth it (photographer, honeymoon, hotels, etc.).

13. HAVE FUN!!!

14. If you are getting married in the Atlanta area (or are willing to hire an AMAZING photographer and fly him to you), hire this guy.

15. Communication with everyone – wedding party, wedding planner, vendors, etc. - is PARAMOUNT!

16. Be concise in your decisions and stick by them.

17. Compromise is key, but have some sticking points you are not willing to budge on.

18. BREATHE.

19. If you have a relative who you know to get a bit over the top, out of control, or generally obnoxious, warn everyone…

20. And when you think you have warned them enough…warn them again because, really, you can’t stress this enough…

21. And when said relative (for instance your aunt who, hypothetically of course, happens to be a cougar), hits on every living and breathing thing with a penis who gets within 10 feet of her, you can say, “I told you so”.

22. Wedding dress shopping is one of the most fun, stressful, aggravating and amazing experiences you will ever go through – enjoy every minute of it!

23. On the same note, take someone with you who you trust to be brutally honest with you.

24. Try your best to choose bridesmaid dresses that are flattering to all figures.

25. Try your best to choose bridesmaid dresses that they can wear again.

26. Keep weather, temperatures, and wind in mind when making decisions as to dates and times of ceremonies and receptions.

27. Be gracious.

28. At your reception spend as much time as you feel necessary schmoozing with your guests – they have traveled near and far to share in your joy…

29. And, if possible, try to spend a bit of extra time with your out-of-town guests.

30. EAT AT YOUR WEDDING!!! A good site will base the meal off of you anyway, but in the event that they don’t keep in mind that no one likes a bride or groom who passes out…

31. DRINK PLENTY OF H2O – see above for reason.

32. Take a moment to yourself to look around the day of – the day will fly by and become a blur.

33. Make a game plan/checklist/calendar of everything you need to do – it is the easiest way to make sure you don’t forget anything.

34. Have your wedding near a Macy’s – they have everything in stock that someone in the wedding party may forget…especially brown shoes and brown belts when a groomsman brings black.

35. Don’t share everything with everyone – surprises are good.

36. If a small detail doesn’t go as planned or is overlooked don’t fret – you’re probably the only one who knows it’s wrong/forgotten.

37. Don’t worry about taking your own photos – EVERYONE else will be taking them and send you copies/links.

38. SLEEP THE NIGHT BEFORE!!!

39. Have someone tape the ceremony/speeches (if you didn’t hire a videographer) – you will want this for yourself.

40. Understand one thing: YOU CANNOT CONTROL THE WEATHER!!!

41. Use key rings instead of real rings in the ring bearer’s pillow.

42. If your flower girl/ring bearer is under the age of 6 expect anything – we got lucky in that both of ours rocked (save for the ring bearer taking a slight detour down the aisle – but no crying, screaming, breaking down, etc.).

43. Something homemade adds a touch of character – as long as it doesn’t look cheap.

44. I do not know a single couple who consummated their marriage on their wedding night – every movie/TV show is a total cliché as you will be so ridiculously tired that the mere thought of making sweet sweet love will cause you to pass out (I personally fell asleep with the TV remote in hand watching the news)…and if I do know you and you are reading this and you did consummate your marriage the first night, I don’t want to know.

45. Which brings me to my next lesson learned – you will be totally out of touch with what is going on in the world for at least 3 days.

46. Being superstitious is ok – just don’t be neurotic about it.

47. You are going to have hundreds, if not thousands, of photos taken of you – don’t worry about the ones that are not flattering of you…

48. When choosing your meal(s) for dinner keep in mind that while this is your wedding and you should get dishes you enjoy, everyone has to eat them.

49. Getting drunk the night before the wedding is not recommended…

50. A night cap is.

51. COMFORTABLE SHOES ARE KEY!!! I wore flip-flops.

52. Having a friend do your makeup will save you a bundle of $$$...and it’s a bonus when she’s FANTASTIC at it.

53. If you can find someone willing to come to you to do your hair – take them up on the offer – its better then trying to get everyone to a salon where you will have that many more distractions.

54. Pack yourself an ‘emergency kit’ which you can keep on you (include the following: band-aids, Tylenol, Advil, breath mints, etc.).

55. Schedule post-wedding massages – you will need them!!!

56. You don’t have to do every tradition out there (there are literally hundreds), but it is nice to incorporate a few…

57. Especially the ‘Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue’ (which for me were: my grandmother’s pearls incorporated in the stems of my bouquet, my dress and the pearls I wore were new, I borrowed a dollar from my sister which I still have…so as of right now it is my ‘something stolen’, and my something blue was my garter belt…which a 21 year old kid who I used to coach caught…which is creepy).

58. As an addendum to #57, be creative and start a new tradition that you can pass along to your children and grandchildren.

59. When your mother says, “Well now that you’re married, you can start to give me grandchildren” glare at her…glare at her a lot…

60. Take a few moments after the ceremony to spend with your new husband/wife to catch your breath before the mayhem begins.

61. Be prepared for your cheeks to hurt from smiling – but you still won’t be able to stop.

62. Be willing to drop a bit of $ on a nice bottle of champagne to have for your toasts.

63. Two words that will be your undoing, but appreciated by all: OPEN BAR.

64. Be prompt in writing ‘Thank you’ notes.

65. If doing a chair dance, keep the following in mind:
• ceiling heights
• heights of the bride & groom
• heights and strength of the people hoisting you and holding you up
• chandeliers

66. BE ON TIME!!!

67. If you are getting ready on-site, pop out of the bridal suite once and a while to see how preparations are going – its fun to watch the progress.

68. Design your own cake.

69. Candy bars (as in a spread of candy, not a single bar of one kind of candy) are a great way to satiate everyone’s palate for treats.

70. Pick tasty hors d’oeuvres.

71. Make sure you have reserved seating for grandparents, close relatives, and close friends at the front of the ceremony.

72. Although it was easy for us, the seating chart can become the bane of your existence.

73. Excel spreadsheets (or Access if you can handle it) are the best way to keep a log of address, RSVP, gifts received, etc.

74. Go tanning – no one wants to be the same color as their dress.

75. On the same note, don't try to change your ethnicity for the 'Big Day' - you still want to look like you.

76. Be thoughtful in your thank you gifts and cards to your attendants and parents.

77. Read about other wedding day disasters – no matter what may have gone wrong at yours, they probably can’t hold a light to others…

78. When going in for your last fitting, see if the bridal shop is able to add a stain-retardant spray to your dress just in case…

79. If you do spill anything (and God forbid its red wine), make sure you have this stuff handy!!!

80. Taking dance lessons is great, but you can also learn pretty much anything and everything on YouTube…

81. Don’t be afraid to let loose on the dance floor – you will have worked long and hard and should enjoy every moment…

82. I found doing the chicken wing expressed how I was feeling at the time.

83. Have a few days between the wedding and the honeymoon – this will cut back on rushing to do everything and allow you to spend a bit more time with friends and family before you leave.

84. DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, HAVE A THEME WEDDING!!!

85. Welcome bags for out-of-town guests are a wonderfully thoughtful touch.

86. Pack everything that you are going to be taking with you to your wedding a few days in advance – this will avoid rushing around and potentially forgetting anything.

87. When packing for the wedding (other than your gown and the tux/suit) – pack pajamas – all you will want to do post-wedding is sleep…

88. …and eat – so pack some ‘fat pants’ too.

89. Although I was lucky and didn’t have this problem, don’t let others thoughts or opinions cloud your judgment on the ‘Big Day’…you will most likely be stressed enough as it is…

90. Keep up a good front of being calm, cool, and collected – I was all three for the most part all day and the small moments of stress weren’t so bad since I was already relaxed.

91. Find out if any bets are being placed as to who, if anyone, is going to cry first…get in on the bet and throw it in your favor.

92. Speaking of which, make sure the Best Man and/or Maid-of-Honor have tissues handy for the waterworks…

93. Make sure you spend some time with you significant other at the wedding – you’d be surprised how easy it is for the two of you to get separated when schmoozing.

94. Take into consideration those people who tell you to just elope to Vegas…they may be on to something…

95. Make sure you immediately deposit all checks and cash you receive - it’s easy to lose them in the melee...

96. Go to the bathroom before you put on your gown!!!

97. If any of the wedding party is getting ready off-site, make sure that they take at least two to three cars in the event one breaks down.

98. When hiring a DJ, make sure that they have an array of music for all ages and tastes.

99. Don’t forget to have the marriage license signed...speaking from personal experience here...

100. Don’t forget to spell everything correctly on the license...also from personal experience.

101. Forget all of this advice and just hire me as your wedding planner…

it almost makes me want to vote for her...

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

???s

so i find that i am more bored than normal at work...hard to believe, i know.

so, if you have a question (or questions) for me, ask away...i will try to answer them as candidly and wittily as possible...

she must not be 'psychologically normal'

a couple of hilarious voicemails (above) from a mega-douche named dimitri are currently making the internet rounds. it all started when d-bag dimitri met the "elegant" olga outside of a bar in san francisco. elegant olga made the mistake of giving him her business card...



what did we learn kids??? if you're in s.f. and a greek guy named dimitri approaches you RUN FOR THE HILLS!!!

wedding facts 101

if the throngs of crazed customers clutching registry printouts at the crate & barrel are any indication, wedding season is once again upon us.

before you head off to the next joyous union on your jam-packed calendar, why not take a moment to reflect on rich history of marriage celebrations and revel in the realization that weddings are, at their core, incredibly bizarre.

the white wedding dress
technically, today's wedding gowns aren't white. they are "candlelight," "warm ivory," "ecru" or "frost." but there was a time when a bride's wedding attire was simply the best thing in her closet (talk about "off the rack"), and could be any color, even black.

to convince her groom that she came from a wealthy family, brides would also pile on layers of fur, silk and velvet, as apparently grooms didn't care if his wife-to-be reeked of sweaty b.o. as long as she was loaded.

it was dear ol' queen victoria (whose reign lasted from 1837-1901) who made white fashionable. she wore a pale gown trimmed in orange blossoms for her 1840 wedding to her first cousin, prince albert.
hordes of royal-crazed plebeians immediately began to copy her, which is an astonishing feat considering that "people magazine" wasn't around to publish the super exclusive wedding photos, or instruct readers on how to steal vicki's hot wedding style.

giving away the bride
remember that women's studies class you considered taking in college? allow us to summarize what you would have learned: all of our society's gender issues stem from the fact that fathers once used their daughters as currency to a) pay off a debt to a wealthier land owner, b) symbolize a sacrificial, monetary peace offering to an opposing tribe or c) buy their way into a higher social strata.

so next time you tear up watching a beaming father walk his little girl down the aisle, remember that it's just a tiny, barbaric little hold over from the days when daughters were nothing but dollar signs to daddy dearest.

and that veil she's wearing? yeah, that was so the groom wouldn't know if he was stuck with an uggo until it was time to kiss the bride and too late to back out on the transaction. (there is also some superstitious b.s. about warding off evil spirits, but we think you'll agree that hiding a busted grill from the husband-to-be is a more practical purpose.)

the wedding party
talk about your runaway brides -- the original duty of a "best man" was to serve as armed backup for the groom in case he had to resort to kidnapping his intended bride away from disapproving parents. the "best" part of that title refers to his skill with a sword, should the need arise. (you wouldn't want to take the "just okay" member of your weapon-wielding posse with you to steal yourself a wife, would you?)

the best man stands guard next to the groom right up through the exchange of vows (and later, outside the newlyweds' bedroom door), just in case anyone should attack or if a non-acquiescent bride should try to make a run for it.

it's said that feisty groups like the huns, goths and visigoths took so many brides by force that they kept a cache of weapons stored beneath the floorboards of churches for convenience. modern-day best men are more likely to store an emergency six-pack at the ceremony for convenience, but the title remains an apt one.

ladies -- believe it or not -- the concept of the bridesmaid's gown was not invented to inflict painful dowdiness upon the bride's friends and female relatives thus making the bride look hotter by comparison.

historically, that dress you'll never wear again was actually selected with the purpose of tricking the eye of evil spirits and jealous ex-lovers (spicy!). brides' faithful attendants were instructed to wear a dress similar to that of the bride so that during their group stroll to the church it would be hard for any ill-willed spirits or former boy-toys to spot the bride and curse/kidnap/throw rocks at her. (ditto for the boys in matching penguin suits, saving the groom from a similar fate.)

garter and bouquet toss
this pair of rituals has long been the scourge of the modern wedding guest. what could possibly be more humiliating than being forced out to the center of a parquet dance floor and being expected to demonstrate your desperation by diving for flying flowers?

how about grasping in the air for a lacy piece of undergarment that until moments ago resided uncomfortably close to the crotch of your buddy's wife? at any other point in time, that would make you seem wildly creepy. so why is it acceptable at a wedding?

it used to be that after the bride and groom said, "i do," they were to go immediately into a nearby room and consummate the marriage. obviously, to really make it official, there would need to be witnesses, which basically led to hordes of wedding guests crowding around the bed, pushing and shoving to get a good view and hopefully to get their hands on a lucky piece of the bride's dress as it was ripped from her body.

sometimes the greedy guests helped get the process going by grabbing at the bride's dress as she walked by, hoping for a few threads of good fortune. in time, it seems, people realized that this was all a bit, well... creepy, and it was decided that for modesty's sake the bride could toss her bouquet as a diversion as she made her getaway and the groom could simply remove an item of the bride's undergarments and then toss it back outside to the waiting throngs to prove that he was about to, uh, seal the deal.

something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue (and a sixpence in my shoe?)
a common theme that you've no doubt noticed throughout this post: humans used to be a superstitious bunch. this rhyming phrase neatly lists a number of english customs dating back to the victorian age which, when worn in combination, should bring the bride oodles of fabulous good luck.
the something old was meant to tie the bride to her family and her past, while the something new represented her new life as the property of a new family. the item borrowed was supposed to be taken from someone who was already a successfully married wife, so as to pass on a bit of her good fortune to the new bride. the color blue stood for all sorts of super fun things like faithfulness, loyalty, and purity. the sixpence, of course, was meant to bring the bride and her new groom actual, cold, hard fortune.

just in case that wasn't enough, brides of yore also carried bunches of herbs (which most brides now replace with expensive, out-of-season peonies) to ward off evil spirits.

saving the wedding cake
why do couples eat freezer-burned wedding cake on their one-year anniversary? to answer this, we must look to the lyrics of a schoolyard classic: first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage! it used to be assumed that when there was a wedding, a christening would follow shortly. so, rather than bake two cakes for the occasions, they'd just bake one big one and save a part of it to be eaten at a later date when the squealing bundle of joy arrived.

eventually folks warmed to the idea of giving the poor kid his own, newly baked cake, but the custom of saving a portion of the wedding cake far longer than it should be saved and then eating it and deluding oneself to believe that it actually tastes good is one that persists to this day.

M.I.A.

helloooooooooooo world!!!

yes, i am alive...breathing, heart beating, eyes wide open...all of those wonderful things associated with being vital!!! so i cannot apologize enough for my disappearance...i do have some very legitimate reasons though: my brother finished law school and was admitted to the bar, i have been hitting the gym, i was working 3 jobs, i am getting married in 31 days...

whoa...what?!?!?!

yes, you read that correctly...in exactly one month and i will be off the market...FOREVER!!!

now that really isn't as scary as i make it out to be since i have been with my fiance, mike whom you all have met, since 2003 and have known him since 2001...not to mention that we have been living together since 2004. so, really nothing will change beyond my last name.

this brings up a few thoughts on my impending nuptials:

1. when a man proposes, he really shouldn't ask, 'will you marry me'? it should be more of a, 'will you go into debt up to your eyeballs with me'?
2. i have known mike for a really long time
3. somehow, he isn't sick of me yet and wants to sign a long-term deal
4. i am super organized and have had a list the length of my arm of the things i still need to do before 'the big day' which i have been crossing things off of for the past 6 weeks...and i still have SO MUCH TO DO!!!
5. do you know how much of a pain in the a** it is to change your last name?!?!?! first you have to visit your local social security office (which does not have hours other than the hours i work - and did i mention that i have NO vacation time since the wedding and honeymoon will be gobbling it all up?) with your marriage license (which will take a few weeks to arrive in the mail). then you have to go get a new license...which is another trip to the oh-so-friendly DMV during the same hours i work. then i have to go to HR and let them know it is changing (technically i jumped the gun on this one and they have already processed it changing as of the date of our wedding...oops). then you need to let all of your credit card companies, banks, doctors offices, etc. know. plus i have to get a new passport. then i have to get used to introducing myself as mrs. frank...writing it, signing it, etc. and to think, he gets off scott free...
6. maybe once my wedding is over and done with (don't mind me, i really am looking forward to it...but at this point i am very much looking forward to drinking fruity beverages of the alcoholic nature on a white sand beach out of the fruit of my choosing) i can focus on getting back to school and getting my career on track rather than wasting my days and life away sitting in front of my computer hating my life...

any advice for me on the upcoming day???

what we all missed today while slaving away at work: