I'm Drinking Peppermint Iced Tea

(That has nothing to do with this post, it's just delightful tea and homemade. By me. In my home.)

So it's been getting closer and closer to the wedding and I'm going to be honest: when I asked Jeremy yesterday morning if we were getting married in a little over two weeks and he said yes, I swore. Which was not the reaction he anticipated but as a planner (ie, a person who plans) this realization sneaked up on me, and it was not the reaction I would've expected from myself either.

The trouble, I think, with a small wedding is that because there is so little to prepare for that you think you have all this time and you really don't. There are no invites for the ceremony itself because it's a handful of people and I'm wasting a stamp on them (I said it). The reception invites don't go out out until the 11th (a Monday) because they say when we were married and I don't want them going out early and confusing people. However, I still haven't finished the invites (although the one's I have finished look lovely and I'm quite proud of them).

My dress isn't finished yet either. This is very irritating to me. (More irritating because I'm going to have to hear from my brother how he told me I shouldn't have had my aunt make the dress, and I'm going to punch him in the face when he says it. Be forewarned Scooter.) Over a year ago she offered to make the dress for me, I didn't ask her. Between my mom and her they decided it would be really nice and inexpensive for her to make my dress and I agreed, cause I figured she would have a year to work on it and it wouldn't be a problem and I could set it aside happily waiting for the day when I could wear it. And then until March, nothing happened. And then until last month, even after we had the material and everything, she still hadn't taken measurements. (To be fair, I did want to lose some weight but I was pretty close to my goal back in May and she hadn't made any progress.)

So I'm both annoyed and eagerly waiting for my stupid dress to be finished. Back to the planner thing though, I have a back-up dress. On the (hopefully) slim chance that my dress isn't done, I've acquired a cheap thrift store dress (shut up Ashley) that is surprisingly lovely and it's even white. Although that doesn't really make a difference. When I bought it, about two years ago, I didn't realize that the jackass who owned it prior apparently couldn't think of a sensible way to get out of it and so they cut the neckline. (It's a halter, you can see how this is a problem.) I saw it, it looked cute, and I bought it without trying it on. Then I got home and saw the clever hidden safety pins holding the stupid thing together and never got around to fixing it. So yesterday I took it to an alterations place where they informed me there were two options of fixing it:

1. we charge a chump-change amount and it looks like crap, or worse, something you could've done yourself
2. we charge a reasonable amount, that is still much more than you paid for it originally, and it looks like we actually tried to be professional and not snotty about it

I went with option 2.

I'm also struggling to find gifts for people. Etiquette tells me that I should give a gift to my officiate, my photographer, my maid of honor, and my dress maker. Well personal etiquette at least, they're not charging me anything and it's an important day for me and that they've cleared their schedule for that means a lot to me. They're also friends of mine and I should give them something for their help. My maid of honor is taken care of, and I'm pretty sure I have a respectable gift for my aunt, but I have no idea what to get the other two. I thought about a uniform gift for everyone but then it seemed impersonal. So I thought about individual gifts for each but then that seemed to exhibit favoritism. So I settled on a small individual gift as well as a small uniform gift. Except my maid of honor is my brother (yes, back to him which Becca agrees is the kinder and more suitable choice. plus she'll still be there cause I decided I don't care who wants to bitch about non-family being there. it's my wedding.) so if I go with something uniform it has to be unisex in some way. And then I feel bad for not getting anyone else a gift, like his parents, my parents, or his friend who is our back-up photographer, and especially my brother and his wife. Of all the people I want to be saying thank you to they definitely come near the top. AND, the backyard is going to look like a redneck's haven. Yay.