Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Part 8, The big day closes in.

The week finally arrived. All the vendors were in place, last minute details were being worked on and family and friends would be arriving soon. I wasn't the only one having dreams about the wedding, my best friend (Vargas Girl) had dreamed a nearly infamous dream now about my mom as an Amazon woman in a pink gingham dress. My mom is not an Amazon and she likely will never be seen in a pink gingham dress.

Let's not analyze this dream further.

Then there were minor issues of explaining the difference between a "bridal shower" and "bachelorette party" to my sister. Should you ever want to plan a bachelorette party, consult my sister, she proved herself quite adept at the task at hand. Vargas Girl stepped up and took the reigns on the shower which was two nights before the big day after everyone had arrived.

My mom was the first to arrive, thankfully. My mom is great at organizing and prioritizing. We went to dinner at Midtown in Reno and started lining things out.

She went and watched our dance lesson that night. AB and I had initially planned on learning how to waltz to "All I Ask of You" from the Phantom of the Opera using a video, "You Can Waltz in 30 Minutes" or something ridiculous like that. After the first night of 60 minutes of practice in the living room AB started voicing requirements for dance lessons. I resisted... another expense?

Then thoughts of my husband wobbling back and forth in front of our loved ones grabbed hold of reason and we forked out the dough for dance lessons two weeks before the big day. Which resulted in a change of song (you can't waltz to "All I Ask of You" evidently, replaced with the theme to How to Make an American Quilt, still a great song) and one frustrated dance instructor. We did overcome however!

The next day my in laws arrived. My mother in law - who isn't quite such a good prioritizer - was however, vital in getting hands on with the seating chart at Midtown that night for dinner. All seating issues were solved within 5 minutes and it was time to get down to business. A bottle of wine!

And because Midtown had a fantastic tomato basil soup that second night, we ventured back the third night for another assessment of the plans at hand.

And sorry, Midtown is now closed. Just because one can cook does not mean they can also manage a restaurant. Which was a horrible bummer since we loved the place so. Obviously.

Vargas Girl and her boyfriend (now ex) we will call him "Stick in the Mud" or SIM for short, arrived. She teamed up with my mom and things really got moving. Instead of skiing with most of the group, or going shopping at the mall with the rest of the group, she and SIM sat on my apartment floor and put cream cheese mints into favor boxes while my mom worked on creating the perfect bustle on my dress.

OH wait... I didn't tell about the dress.

Tangent time (which never happens here):

My dad and stepmom (now ex) we could call her "Looney Bin" or LB for short (sorry dad, but she was looney to let you go), came to Reno and we went dress shopping where I found a number of dresses I liked, though was floored by the prices. Instead of envisioning being a princess I kept saying, $750+ for a dress I will wear once? I couldn't take the plunge.

I ventured to Colorado that summer where I had lunch with my mom and Vargas Girl. We walked down to a bridal shop that was going out of business. There it happened... wonder of all wonders when we pulled a dress off the rack and it fit perfectly. Seriously. Not only did it FIT, but I loved it.

I wasn't so happy with some of the froo froo flowers, but we decided we could take them off easily enough.

$300 and 10 minutes later we walked out of the bridal shop with a dress in hand. A dress my mom planned to store in her very clean house for a few months and then, shortly before the wedding ship to my not so clean apartment.

She shipped it.

I stayed home that day to receive it.

I waited.

And waited.

At the end of the day no delivery. I was upset, I couldn't stay home another day. And where was my dress?

The next day my mom tracked the dress to find out it had been signed for by a name completely unknown to me.

Freaking out.

Completely.

I took the name up to the office and asked who this person was, what apartment they lived in. Because I was going to knock her door down with a vengeance. (This was one of those episodes of Bridezilla-ness you read about.)

The girl at the desk said that in fact, that person was someone in the office there. The dress had been delivered to the office and not my apartment.

I refused to smile at the UPS guy ever again. Making assumptions I wasn't home. Lazy butt.

Ok then, I said to the apartment manager. Where's my dress?

She looked at me blankly. They didn't have any packages sitting there. It obviously was not there.

I stormed back to the apartment with tears stinging my eyes. Four weeks to the wedding and my dress was gone. I hated UPS and I hated my apartment agency (which was not a new thing, but I don't need a tangent on a tangent... tangent squared?).

AB got home and took a copy of the delivery receipt off the internet showing the signature and very calmly walked up to the office while I had hysterics in the apartment. I envision he very calmy explained to the evil witch in the office that this shipment was a wedding dress and that they better find it immediately or they would not only be facing the wrath of his lunatic fiance but also buying the lunatic fiance a dress of her choice for the wedding in 4 weeks.

About five minutes later he returned with a box. My dress. That they claimed had been placed somewhere "safe".

Tangent over.

That day when my mom worked on the bustle (and nothing was going right with that), Vargas Girl and SIM stuffed boxes with mints, and everyone else went off playing was not a good day. But it was also the day of my bridal shower... err bachelorette party... err I mean bridal shower.

I was feeling the stress, the annoyance at how could everyone leave us with so much to do? And I was having a hard time letting go of it. I didn't know where my car (or my mother in law who had borrowed my car) was. I didn't know how we were going to get all these people to the funky little pizza joint across town, I was plain tired of interacting with people.

My aunt stepped up with transportation. She and my uncle had reserved a vehicle appropriate for driving into the mountains to ski with my two cousins during their visit. No more SUVs were available, so they were upgraded to a van.

A van that EASILY held 14 women that needed to get to a bridal shower! THAT was a van.

The pizza joint thought we were joking when we showed up declaring we all rode in the same vehicle. Safely too.

The bridal shower was a lot of fun. One of the funniest moments was when we were all supposed to be writing "advice" to the bride. Ok, I wasn't, I was eating pizza. But my cousin (who was probably 19?) starts squealing.

"Grandma! Stop copying! You always do that, you always cheat. Since the time we were little and would play Candy Land, you would cheat!"

The entire room busted up laughing. All of us knowing just exactly how correct Mandy was in her statements.

Afterwards most of us headed to the casinos for martinis where my sister started passing out her bachelorette party loot. We were soon joined by all the guys where I think SIM might have nearly had heart failure over seeing us all drinking martinis with penis shaped straws. I think he tuned us out while trying to figure out how to get the window on his Audi reversed as he was sure it was installed incorrectly. Vargas Girl could probably provide FAR more information about this since at some point I tuned out... though she might have successfully banished it from her brain and is sitting here wondering what in the world I am talking about.

Before I knew it, it was Friday early morning and time to forego the silliness and get some sleep for the rehearsal at the church the next day along with the rehearsal dinner.

To be continued...

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