I’d like think one of the main reasons why so many women continue to be attached to Sex and the City is because the general plotlines are all immediately identifiable, much as those of us hate to be identified with the ladies bopping around the city on the SATCbus tour. As fun as the fluffy, consumerist angle of the show was, the heart of it lay with the friendship of the four women, and the life experiences we watched them go through week in and week out. All six seasons reside happily in my media library, albeit a little battered (those cheap cases are all broken…durr).
And though the whole Aidan-Big-Carrie triangle makes Season 3 tough to watch, Charlotte planning her wedding adds a serious amount of comic relief:
(from “Running with Scissors”–specifically the first four minutes):
I love Mario Cantone. I wish Anthony Marantino was here helping me plan this wedding.
After placing my order on the big red phone in-store (getting reduced express shipping since ground is free when you order in-store), it was merely a matter of time before my dress was to arrive.
It came to my office in the tiniest box a wedding dress ever came in. I think I still have it at my parents’ house in PA–if I can find it, I’ll amend this post and add in a picture. Suffice it to say, it was your pretty standard J.Crew box.
So I promised I’d reveal our actual honeymoon destination, but to be honest, I was petrified of doing so until we bought our tickets a few days ago. There’s one direct flight in and out of Newark on Continental that wasn’t crazy expensive (provided you’re OK flying on Sundays) to our destination, and of course I panicked about not being able to get seats for us in time, and we’d be forced to fly out of somewhere else or on a different carrier.
Needless to say, my fears were groundless (heehee, silly pun) and we have booked two seats each way to fly to…
I’m currently not the biggest fan of weather.com–for the last two weekends, they have predicted torrential downpours for both New Haven and NYC when they couldn’t have been more wrong. Given that the RG and I were planning on spending a lazy Saturday browsing the MoMA and then wandering Midtown as I took pictures of signs and such two weeks ago, having our plans thwarted needlessly made us determined to try again this past weekend–there were two exhibits at the MoMA that we both were dying to see, and given that they are only on view until May 12th added to our sense of urgency to try again.
The reality that this thing isn’t all that far away has led the RG and I to get a little stressed out. Couple this with some friend issues–mostly concern/annoyance at how others are reacting to things–and sometimes, you just gotta vent.
The RG was not in the best of moods when I made my nightly “I’m on the train” call, and it would be a lie to say I wasn’t feeling misanthropic myself. Popping in a newish Charles Mingus CD my brother copied for me as I drove from the garage to the apartment, I made a resolution: No television tonight. Instead, we were going to drink wine, listen to jazz and write (we’re both enthusiastic writers) until the new Top Chef came on.
Image from amazon.com. This is an a-maaaay-zing album, by the way.
This happens to be from the 60’s-era Scribner Library Classics series and is my primary influence when it comes to designing our favors and our programs.
You see, I have a thing for vintage paperbacks due to their tendency to have strong, minimal graphics (but I also just happen to love old books in general). I used to drag the RG to my favorite used bookstore in Paoli, PA armed with a $20 bill, and usually would come out a little sneezy (due to the mold and dust) and with a pile of books. Sadly, the Paoli Book X-change has since closed (the last time I passed by it the building was completely gutted, to my horror), but it will live on in the spirit of the party as…
One of the biggest challenges in planning a wedding from a long distance is getting a feel for who might be reliable vendors. With the plethora of options available to a girl in a major metropolitan area, how on earth does one go about narrowing down the options?
A Google search for “wedding djs philadelphia” gives you over 1.8 million results in…0.28 seconds. If only if going through all of them to determine a good one took as little time.
That’s when it really helps to work with an established reception site–a good one will give you a list of vendors that they tend to work with the most. We’ve snagged our photographer, “limo” and DJ from that list, and the excited claims of “Oh! I’ve worked with (X vendor) at X weddings at the Mendenhall–X is/are great!” are probably the nicest reassurances we’ve gotten during this whole process. Even so, the most confident call I made on choosing a vendor came from talking with our DJ (Tom Barrett)–I was sold when he said that they had done “at least a dozen weddings at the Mendenhall…when the actual DJ was a no-show.”
Having made what I thought was my final decision, I decided to take advantage of the J.Crew within walking distance of my apartment and made my way over there, along with my local bridesmaid (with the promise of lunch after purchase).
I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I adore this location–the whole staff is wonderful and friendly, and I’ve probably spent way too much there in the time I’ve lived here on account of that alone. Moving on…
For a variety of reasons–not a lot of vacation time, many obligations bogarting said vacation time, plus not wanting to ask my grad-student FI to shell out a ton of money–this reluctant bride and groom don’t get to take real vacations much. It gets to be a bummer at times, of course, especially in March when pictures start going up from friends going on cruises and the like over spring break (which, in of itself, is something that I haven’t recognized since college). But we manage where we can–day trips to New York on the Metro North and jaunts to the local beach have gone a long way in adding some (relatlively cheap) fun to our springs and summers past and will be something we rely on heavily this year as well.
That said, we will be on a plane come October 5th, flying out to go on our honeymoon. Where to, you may ask? I’ll tell you…….later (I know, I’m a tease!) but for those looking for ideas on someplace different (but not too different) to go, allow me to make the humble suggestion of:
Having now read a number of serious wedding blogs out there, I have nothing but respect for the brides running with any sort of overarching theme, especially recreating a particular era down to the smallest details, like the twenties or fifties. That is no small undertaking.
And while it should come as no surprise that this reluctant bride does not have any such theme, I can’t say that I’ve been completely devoid of inspiration as I put this together–reluctant though I may be, the opportunity to place my and my FI’s mark on the celebration is one way we’re deriving enjoyment out of planning all of this. The main difference is…well…we’re not the kind of folks who can just stick with one aesthetic.
