You're Kidding Me

Okay... Let me just begin with this: weddings that cost more than a luxury sedan or a down-payment on a house should be banned. There should be a law somewhere that forbids people from spending an extravagant amount of money on their weddings.

Why?

Because you can't always tell the difference.

My Boss has been planning her wedding alongside mine for the past 10 months. She got married this past weekend (mine's coming up - 11 days!!) and I must say, I was extremely disappointed.

All along, it has been very obvious that her wedding budget has been, um, significantly higher than mine. Not that I'm complaining - I think my wedding will be perfect and I know that I didn't scrimp on any part of the wedding itself.

But after hearing how much money they were spending on this wedding, I figured it would be the social event of the season in Memphis. Don't get me wrong - it was a beautiful wedding - I just don't have a clue where their money went.

She did wear a beautiful dress, they had a fun band, and the open bar was definitely a bonus. I'm just concerned because I know how much money she spent - and I don't know that she got her money out of it.

From the beginning, I was appalled at some of the figures that I was hearing coming from her end.

$4,000 on flowers!? Are you kidding?? Mine cost $850 and I guarantee you they'll be just a beautiful. After hearing that, I expected to walk in to the church and see a flower on every surface. Nope, just two big altar arrangements (I will have the same at mine). Nothing else. Boss and her bridesmaids had bouquets, obviously, but they weren't lavish by any stretch of the imagination. Pretty, but nothing special.

So I just figured that all the leftover flower money must have gone into the reception. Maybe there would be a centerpiece on every table and buckets of rose petals on the floor.

Nope.

Each table had a little vase of water with two roses floating in it. Two roses. And there couldn't have been more than 15 tables. There was greenery hanging from the lighting fixtures, an arrangement on the cake table, and another by the guest book - but nothing that indicated they should've cost a couple thousand bucks.

Seriously, folks - I was expecting a wedding event with the kind of money her family spent on her wedding. I wanted to walk in and be dazzled by the platinum-plated china set for the 5-course meal they were serving to their guests. And I wanted a sexy waiter to lay my napkin in my lap as he catered to my every need.

Nope again. We got chicken fingers.

I must say - with my modest wedding budget, I don't think there was a single item at their wedding / reception that I couldn't have found to fit my own figure.

Maybe they just got reemed by their vendors. If their florist charged $4,000, then she must be at Wolfchase Mall right now, maxing out her Macy's credit card - because the money she got paid certainly wasn't spent on Boss' wedding.

Or maybe they didn't care if they chose the most expensive vendors in Memphis. I mean, if I had a gazillion dollars to spend I guess I wouldn't care either.

But it makes you wonder how they didn't notice, somewhere along the way, that they weren't exactly getting what they paid for.

Hmmm...

Why don't people who have tens of thousands of dollars to spend on something like that put their money to better use? If my parents offered me the kind of money she had, I would really have to decline.

I think the guilt alone would eat me alive.

Or if I knew my parents would insist on contributing that much, I'd put it toward paying off debt or a down payment on a house or a new car or two.

I guess I just don't see the point in spending so much money on one day.

I know at the end of my wedding day, I will be the happiest woman on the earth. And not because my parents went into debt and delayed their retirement for 5 years so I could have the wedding of my dreams.

But because I will be marrying my soulmate, my best friend.

And I know it will be the wedding of my dreams anyway - no matter how many hours I had to spend making my own favors or whether my guests had to forgo the beef carving station.

Besides, there's always chicken fingers.

-JessAndWill

Wedding Bells

Okay... so I didn't quite keep up with this blogging thing as well as I'd hoped... but I'm going to try to be better. I can't promise I'll do it every day, but I will definitely try to make a more concerted effort.

However, there is a slight bump in the road in the horizon: I'm getting married in 18 days!

And for those of you who have ever planned (and coordinated and designed) your own wedding, you know that it's next to impossible to squeeze any extra time into the planning process once you get down to the last month. I'm finding that I have turned into "one of those brides" - the one that can't seem to focus on much else. At least I haven't turned into my Boss, a.k.a. "Bridezilla" (who you met in the previous post) - but I digress. That's quite another topic for another blog.

I was so proud of myself in the beginning! My fiance, Lance, and I got engaged last December 24th. After choosing November 5th as The Big Day, we knew we'd have plenty of time to get everything completed - we envisioned finalizing everything by summer so we could cruise into fall with nothing left to do.

Yeah right!

We did manage to get all the important decisions (church, reception site, florist, photographer) chosen by the end of February. I thought that would be the hard part.

Boy, was I wrong.

After the intial overwhelming sense that there really were a lot more decisions to make than I ever realized, I really thought I was doing well. By the beginning of summer, things were coming together: we had paid deposits to all the vendors; signed contracts; chosen flowers, bridesmaid dresses and the menu, etc.

All I kept thinking was that all of the "little things" would have to wait til the end - but how much trouble could those really be??

Uhh... try mind-blowingly time-consuming.

*sigh*

If, God forbid, something happens and I ever have to plan myself another wedding, I will take my Dad's advice and elope.

Now don't get me wrong: I'm looking forward to my wedding day more than any other day of my life. I think it will be beautiful and wonderful and I can't wait to be Mrs. Willis.

But I've realized that there's a lot more to a wedding than showing up in a pretty dress and smiling for pictures.

Having to go to work for 9 hours a day, plus trying to squeeze in "planning sessions" once I leave the office, really has been a chore. And we're not talking about big, wedding-changing decisions here. We're talking about things like who's going to be in charge of making sure all the gifts at the reception find their way to our house? Who gets to carry around my powder and lipstick so I will always be picture-ready during the reception? What type of goblets do we want to drink out of for our First Toast - crystal or silver?

Do you understand now?

Someone has to make all of those decisions. And unfortunately, that person is usually me.

Have you seen the show "Bridezillas"? If you haven't, you should. Seriously. Especially if you're a bride-to-be like myself. It really puts things into perspective for you.

Watching those women yell and scream at everyone within their BridezillaRadar is a scary sight. Their poor fiances. But it makes you wonder what kind of people they would be were they not planning a wedding for 900 of their "closest friends" and trying to decide between ivory and ekru napkins. Because at that moment, it looks as though it is the most important decision they have ever had to make - and that it's their fiance's fault that it's not already decided.

It makes my "bad days" seem not so bad. Truly, stressing out about what flavor cake we're going to choose for our cake topper (which, I will remind you, we won't even eat until our first anniversary) should not send me into hysterics the way it seems to be doing.

Once the Big Day is finally here, I know all of this stress will have been well worth it. I've heard that everything will go by in such a hurry, none of these little decisions will even matter. I just can't wait to finally marry my best friend.

Still... all of these little things do seem to make somewhat of a difference. Maybe I won't notice them, but I guarantee our guests will.

So I guess all I really want to know now is: do you think we should go with black or purple ink for our wedding programs?

-JessAndWill

The Finer Points of Lying

Okay, I'm not saying I'm a completely honest and truthful person every second of every day.

But at least I know how to lie correctly.

One of my biggest pet peeves (and believe me, if I keep up with this blogging thing, you'll find I have many) is when someone can't keep up with their lies well enough. They forget who they've told what to, and before they know it, they start sounding absolutely ridiculous.

My Boss is someone who, how can I put it delicately, will be about two hours late for her own funeral. The woman absolutely cannot make it anywhere on time. This is completely horrifying to someone like myself, who is always at least 20 minutes early everywhere. I will never know what it feels like to be the last person at any function whatsoever. I'm sure it all stems from some traumatic moment in my childhood, but I digress. I'll save that for another day.

Last Friday, Boss and I had to get a few work-related projects coordinated for the upcoming week. Boss would be traveling Monday thru Wednesday, so I was taking over while she was away. We went over the "who/want/when"s of the week, and seemed to have things wrapped up.

After our conversation was over, her sister called (she calls about every 4 seconds) and Boss proceeded to talk about her upcoming trip, how she didn't like the office folks she would be travling with, blah blah blah, but I overheard her say that her flight was arriving back in Memphis at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, and that her fiance was picking her up and they already had dinner reservations. Thought nothing of it. Back to work for me.

(Now let me just throw in a side note here - our office that the two of us share is about the size of my queen bed. I can't cough without making her jump. It's that cozy. So any phone conversations will be heard by the other person. I try not to make a habit out of listening to them - I do admit if there's something juicy going on I do pry a bit - but I will overhear her and she will overhear me. Just no way around it.)

At the end of the day, Boss and I did the whole "Have a great weekend, see you next week, etc." and I threw in "Well, I hope you have a great trip, don't worry about things around here - and I'll see you next Thursday!"

Her answer: "Well, yes, but I probably won't be in first thing."

My first thought: "Well what else is new?"

Then the shocker: "My flight back to Memphis doesn't land til almost midnight Wednesday, so you might not see me until Thursday afternoon. I'll be pretty tired."

I had just heard her tell someone on the phone - the phone that is literally 5 feet from my desk - that she was arriving back home at 5:30 p.m.

But what can I do, I'm just her little underling.

So I smiled like I understood, and left.

Does anyone else find these kinds of lies absolutely frustrating?? I've never understood how people cannot lie properly. I'm the kind of liar that likes to calculate.

If an acquaintance asks me to do something socially, but I have no interest at all - either I want to have a "night off" or the event itself doesn't sound like fun or I don't feel like spending time with this person - I always feel the need to make up an excuse. I hate telling people that I choose not to spend time with them - I must make it sound like it's beyond my control. But it's okay, because I can always think of something good.

If I'm calling in sick to work - because I need to get my oil changed or had too many glasses of wine the night before - I will go over my story in my head and rehearse it til it sounds believable. And I tend to start actually believing my own lies (I seem to delete all memories of said actual excuse, and I seriously get a vision of myself lying in bed with a migraine, even if I'm sitting on the couch watching reruns of A Baby Story).

But I cannot understand not being a good liar. Maybe it's not something I should admit, but I'm good at it. Really good at it.

If it was an Olympic sport, I would've swept Gold, Silver and Bronze.

If only we creative liars could share our skills with those less fortunate.

But then again - why would we want to take away all the fun? I do admit I enjoy watching people get tongue-tied and try to cover themselves when caught in a lie. Or even better - watching someone who has absolutely no idea that they can't lie properly. I like to keep tally of how many versions of the lie are floating around out there.

I never do that, because I am always utterly convinced of my lie. And I have a memory like an elephant when it comes to remembering who knows what.

(My fiance laughs at me each time I tell him about one of my instances of trickery. He thinks this habit of mine is quite funny - in his own words, he "gets a kick out of it." I think it's because he knows I don't lie to him. Not about anything of substance, anyway.)

Oh well... I guess I should be thankful for the way God made me: a person who can lie at the drop of a hat.

Hey, it's better than getting caught.

Until next time...
-JessAndWill

Where It All Began

Wow... Never thought I'd be a blogger. I've heard about 'em and read a few myself, but never thought my life could be blog-worthy.

But then I decided: "What makes my life any less interesting than anybody else's? There are plenty of (now-fellow) bloggers out there who seem to drone on and on about things only they think are mildly entertaining.

Ahh... I could do that."

And that, my friends, is how this all began.

So I shall try - and try my darndest - to leave you with some sort of substance that will not leave you sighing and wondering: "Darn, why didn't I go with the blog about mountain climbers in Ukbekistan??"

But don't say I didn't warn you.

Until I post again...
-JessAndWill