The Final Countdown

I know, I know...my post title isn't original, but this song has been stuck in my head for the past few weeks, always while I'm super stressed.  And then I think of Gob and his "illusions," which causes me to laugh and stay sane.

via Joystiq.com

A lot has been happening and with one week to go with my planning, everything is now coming to a head.  Plans are finalized, and my grandiose vision is slowly turning into reality.  However, some stuff that I've previously blogged about just didn't work out.  Surprisingly enough, all of my DIY is coming together nicely despite my numerous rides on the DIY fail ship.

No, these issues happened due to my--albeit high--expectations.  I'll go through the list with you, and give you some solutions to help you all out who aren't currently on the wire time wise. 

Dilemma #1: My cake. 

     The beautiful idea I had just didn't work out.  Our baker cannot recreate the lace work I desire.  I was only able to pick from three bakers, and I chose the one that provided me with a cake made of edible products and didn't give me indigestion.  So, the cake will still look cool and taste great, it just isn't what I originally envisioned.


Solution: Martha Stewart Weddings may not be the place to look at cakes, especially if you have limited bakers to choose from.  Also, don't just assume that if you could teach yourself to do something (i.e. I do know how to elementary meshwork on cakes) that your baker can do something more extravagant.


Dilemma #2: Our beverage situation.
    
     Mr. Biscuit had a big mis-communication with the food and beverage vendor at our venue.  We only get one microbrew instead of 3.  So, we'll have Great Lakes Commodore Perry, Sam Adams, Corona, Yuengling, and Bud Light (*visible shudder*) served at the wedding (in addition to wine).  I'm incredibly disappointed about this one, and to be honest, I probably would have just had liquor if I knew this would happen.  Mr. Biscuit is still pretty firm on not wanting liquor--as are my parents--because he doesn't drink it.  I'm afraid we'll look cheap for not serving liquor, even though I am ecstatic that one of my favorite beers (that just happens to be from the same city I spent four years in during undergrad) will be served. 

Solution: Don't trust your FI to properly relay messages.  The end.  And don't care what other people think.  We are providing more than enough alcohol for everyone and paying pretty much the same amount of money as a liquor, beer, and wine bar.  If someone thinks we cheaped out, that's their own problem.

Dilemma #3: Our ten day forecast.

Solution: Have your wedding indoors (woo hoo!).  Oh, and make sure you give all of your relatives large metal poles to hold outside.  Tell them that it is a very important tribal ritual in your SO's family, and it is rude to question culture.


Dilemma #4: Keeping track of guests.

     We've been having some problems with my rather large Excel spreadsheet.  I haven't been saving it as much as I should have, and some people have been getting deleted.  Trouble ensues.


Solution: Save your damn spreadsheet.  On a MacBook, you simply press Command S.  Or File-->Save.  I don't think it could be easier.  Sigh.  Oh, and save all your RSVPs and double check everything.  This is really not a realistic problem.  I have never heard of anyone having any issues with this before.  Probably because everyone is much smarter than I am.

Dilemma #5: Our honeymoon

     We were supposed to do a whirlwind trip to Europe.  It didn't work out, because my parents talked to some of our family who are fairly high up in the military and suddenly equivocated traveling to Tuscany with taking a pleasure trip to the African Congo.

Solution: Don't care about appeasing your parents.  That's the only one I could come up with on this one.  We're still doing something, and it will still be fun, but it won't be Europe.  And I'm not telling you all yet.  It's a surprise!  We'll let you know once we're back (with a billion pictures, I promise!).

Dilemma #6: Having fewer than 250 guests, meaning I could have had my wedding at a different--read: more aesthetically pleasing room--at my venue.

Solution: Have a B list, instead of a billion people on your A list, and plan accordingly.  I knew the droves of 85 year olds I was inviting wouldn't be able to make it, but there was that thought in the back of my mind. 
     I'm also looking on the bright side.  We're still having around 230 guests, and we won't be cramped in a smaller room.  Also, our uplighting wouldn't have been as dramatic with windows, since it doesn't get dark until about an hour before our event ends.

So there you have it.  The five plans I had that were dashed.  Are they that important in the grand scheme of things?  No way!  Are they disappointing?  Of course.  I'm glad most of these issues occurred in the last few weeks, when I didn't really have time to dwell on it.  Going to school full time and trying to finalize wedding plans doesn't leave much time to do anything else with my brain.

What were some of things that just didn't work out for you during planning?  How did you deal with your disappointment?

Bride Brain

Over the course of wedding planning, I have found that I become completely scatterbrained during the more high stress times.  Well, more scatterbrained than usual.  I call this phenomenon "Bride Brain." 

Bride Brain likes to manifest at inopportune times.  Like in the Cleveland airport.  Last weekend, Mr. Biscuit and I were on the way to Menomonie, WI (say that three times fast!) for a wedding.  In order to get to Menomonie, we needed to fly into Minneapolis via Cleveland and we had only a 40 minute layover to get dinner, a beer, and reading material for the flight.  Yes, all of these things were necessary.

Mr. B and I branched out at the Hudson News.  He bought a cycling magazine and a music magazine.  I bought Self and Cosmo.  I chose to read the Self on the plane first, but got through it pretty quickly.  So, I decided I'd move on to the Cosmo, even though I wanted to save it for the ride home.  Well, I looked at the cover and what did I see?

Yes, I'm a genius.  I bought a Cosmo in Spanish.  And being the stubborn person I had, I refused to feel like an idiot for doing so.  I used my rudimentary knowledge of the Spanish language (hey, I took four years of Spanish...10 years ago) to read that magazine.  The sad thing is, I'm pretty sure I got out of the Latin Cosmo what I would out of one in English even though I read Spanish at a six year old's level.  Context clues are clutch.

Oh, and Mr. Biscuit still almost wet himself from laughing so hard even though I tried to play this blunder off.

What has bride brain done to you? 

Awesome People Still Exist

Hive, I've been having some trouble finding vintage china tea cups and milk glass in my town.  We have a few thrift stores in the area, each of which are pretty slim pickings. 

So I was pretty excited when I took my monthly swing by one of the thrift stores and saw a woman holding a beautiful gold rimmed, floral tea cup.  I thought about my options for a moment, then I realized that I had no common decency so I went right up to her and asked her where she found it and if she had any more. 

She told me where she found the gorgeous cup, but then let me know it was the only one they had.  My face fell and I proceeded to tell her that it was a shame as I was collecting cups for my wedding and was having issues finding them.  She just kind of shrugged and I went on my way.

Sadness

I interrupt my scheduled decor posts with an outpouring of emotion.

Today, as I was browsing through my favorite indie dress website, I found this dress:

source

Then I repeatedly hit my head on the coffee table while wishing I had seen this dress before I had found my BM's dresses.

An Issue With STDs...

No, I don't have a venereal disease.  This is an issue with Save The Dates, which I suppose is a better issue to have.  This post could also be titled, how I came up with my crazy wedding theme.

Before I delve into this story, I'd like to say, great minds think alike...my little (in my sorority) and I came up with the same theme independently.  In the beginning when I had first solidified my theme, it was Mad Hatter and hers is Alice in Wonderland.  Sigh.  Her wedding is 2 months before mine, so I have been a bit apprehensive that we'll have the exact same elements.

The good news is that she is getting married in her backyard, so her wedding will have a much different feel than mine.  I decided to forge on with my theme, and hope that our different tastes would prevail, and that our weddings would still be different.

But yesterday, her STD came in the mail.  First, I'll show you the file that I had originally designed for my STD:

Yes, I am marrying someone and yes, there's a reason for the awkward spaces.   Mr. Biscuit's name and our website have been blocked out :).

Wedding Roadblocks

A few months ago, I hit a major wedding block.  Basically, my wedding inspiration had been looking like this:

source

Why?  Well, I think it all stemmed (pardon the pun!) from a meeting with my florist.  Why is she my florist?  My grandmother has known her for years.  What is adjacent to her flower shop?  A cemetery.