Why does every damn thing about a wedding have to be meaningful? We have to find The Dress. Not a pretty dress that looks nice, but The Dress. As if The Dress defines us to our very core. We don’t just need invitations, we need Invitations with Meaning that Defines Who We Are As A Couple. A Signature Drink. Music that will make our guests nod with understanding and exclaim, “Yes! That’s totally them!”
WIC tells me that every element of the entire day — from where we wake up to where we get ready (and the slippers I wear while getting ready), the food we serve, the music we listen to, the words we speak, right down to the hat on my head (or not) and the shoes on my feet — must represent some special something about who I am and who we are.
To borrow one of Becca’s favorite phrases, Eff that.
I know that the wedding day is important. It’s a special day that marks a special moment in our lives, where the commitment we have already made to one another becomes official, and it becomes very very expensive and painful to undo the commitment. I get it. I really, really do. But jeebus. Does every last little bit of this day have to have some everlasting wink or nod to “who we are.” Can’t it just be, I don’t know, a napkin that is capable of wiping hands and noses and spills? Trust me, when you have two kids and a messy mommy in the house, a roll of paper towels has a special importance.
In case you’re wondering, I’ve been thinking about napkins. What kind, what color, how many, should they say anything, or should they just be napkins, meant to be used and then washed or thrown away. It pisses me off that I am worrying about napkins. When I throw a party at our house, I do not care one fig about the napkins. I buy a pack of 1000 napkins from Costco, and then we’re done with the napkins. But, for some inexplicable reason, when I start to think, “we will need napkins for the reception,” they suddenly become important in a way that grates on me down to my soul because I am not the kind of person who cares about every last little detail. At least, I am not that person for any other day or any other party.
Yet, here I am wondering how to get napkins with a little cable car or Golden Gate bridge and our wedding date printed on them and how to do that within our budget for napkins, which is like $15. Then I start thinking about matching matchbooks because I have Mad Men on the brain (Mmm. Jon Hamm). I realize this is entirely ridiculous. Nobody wants my effing cutesy cable car napkins. Nobody I know smokes, and matchbooks are probably a Really Bad Idea for a kid-centric reception. Balloons, yes. Matchbooks, no.
So then my brain says, “Oooh. Balloons. I wonder if I could get balloons with a cable car printed on them?”
Wedding Brain. It turns me into an idiot.
Oh wedding brain… I hate you.
My wedding brain tried to convince me that Josh had to wear a bow-tie because our guests needed to see how hip and indie we are. Haha… oh wedding brain, I loathe you.
I found a vintage San Francisco bbq apron. I’m mighty tempted to get that for Tony for the rehearsal picnic.
OMG. jeallllooouuusssss.
you guys should fly out for Otakon and have Maryland style chicken wings with me and Josh. our treat! the wings, not the flight. Sorry
Now that I know what Otakon is, I understand your reference to “that” tent. Ha!
I would love to make it out to Maryland some time for wings with you guys.
The first event I ever planned was our office summer client party. I insisted on monogrammed napkins with our company logo (the partners didn’t know anything about branding and I was pushing it HARD).
Yeah. No one used the napkins. Big waste of money. Go with Costco and balloons. Wait – I meant go with Costco (how did the dang balloons sneak in there?)
The balloons keep sneaking back in. I may pick up a helium tank and 100 balloons kit from Party City for our birthday party. I mean, our wedding.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
I hate when I do this kind of thing. It’s easy to slip into, though, because I care. I care about my wedding, and that’s good. I just don’t know why sorting out the unimportant from the important has to be so difficult sometimes. I mean, I can logically say that napkins and favors and decorations don’t matter, because they don’t. But that doesn’t stop me from being all like OOOOOH WHAT IF. And/or feeling anxious because I’m NOT putting a lot of thought into certain things, and oh my god, it’s not going to reflect ME because of that reason. It’s a double-edged sword, for sure.
Here’s the thing — if you are not a super detail oriented matchy coordination person, and you DO have wedding napkins with cutesy hand-drawn profiles of your heads floating over the golden gate bridge on them, your guest will not be impressed by how “totally you” the napkins are.
they will wonder what the f*ck happened to their laid-back, big picture friend, and who this indie-martha-bride is.
(at least, that is my excuse for not thinking about napkins. i feel you though, really. every wedding decision hits me like this, and i have to remind myself that more “personalized details” does not necessarily make the wedding more “me,” and certainly won’t make it more fun for my guests.)
Crap. I’m supposed to have profiles of our heads, too?!
I kid. I kid.
oh god! i have had this exact same mad affliction. i spent hours.. HOURS online trying to figure out how i could get custom made napkins printed with a tandem bicycle and the date of our wedding. i’m embarrassed.
Right. It’s ridiculous that this is even on my radar.
ha ha ha I know just what you mean! I actually bought matchbooks for the smores favors and was like ‘well what kind of fancy paper should i wrap them with? I can’t possibly leave them as is! or whn i bought disposable cameras and thought i would cover those with pretty paper
eff it all
that being said, balloons are neat! just don’t feel like you HAVE to fancy them up. They are fun as is!
LOL. I love the fancy paper affliction. The napkin thing just drives me nuts. It’s meant to be used and thrown away. Why should I care whether there is a graphic on it?
what’s funny is i found that when we just picked things we liked, and didn’t stress over whether or not they were THE tablecovers that represented our love… well. it represented us. ya know?
i don’t stress over my outfit everyday, wondering if it will appropriately represent me to the world. and yet, everyday i walk out of the house looking like liz.
this wedding crap. it really does eff up your brain, doesnt it?
Exactly. I put on a dress this morning. It’s a cute dress that I bought in about 10 minutes because it looks good and it’s comfortable. Obviously, if it wasn’t “me,” I wouldn’t have picked it. Yet, wedding stuff makes me fret.
Thank you, thank you.
I am in the middle of drafting a 10 commandments for weddings post and I think I might have to include this!
Though, I bought THE DRESS and I have to say, it was worth every freaking penny because I felt like a movie star and how many times do I get to feel like that? Oh um. Zero.