fiancee w/ two e's

emily post, you've missed the mark again! why haven't you told me that when referring to the female part of the engagement duo (if hetero is your bag) it's fiancee, not fiance? i just looked like an utter fool writing to the caterer. this knowledge should be immediately ingrained in the minds of those newly engaged.

and fiancees are NOT allowed to censor the posts of their fiances!

top hats or cowboy boots?

so it seems to be tradition in my family for the groom and groomsmen to wear top hats and tails at the wedding. the first time i saw this was at my cousin gary's wedding. aside from learning to roll my hat down my arm and onto my head, i was most definitely not into it. but then a few years later, my cousin michael got married, and i had the chance to renew my acquaintance w/ my old friend the top hat. a little bit of age and developing personal taste began to inform me that perhaps top hats were not quite so bad after all. now that its time to start planning my own wedding, i embraced the top hat full force. its just so friggin cool! i was going to have all my groomsmen walk the aisle w/ white gloves and canes, although cindy didn't seem too keen on that. at the very least, they were to be called up for a toast at the reception to the tune of 'putting on the ritz'.

but then i started thinking - wait, i'm getting married in texas. shouldn't i be wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat? again, cindy was not too keen - at least on the hat part. i began weighing my options - classic top hat? or more appropriate cowboy boots? then we started talking about getting married on a ranch, maybe even southfork, and it all came together. leave the top hat in ny - cowboy boots are the way to go. groomsmen: prepare yourselves.

Supplement to "+ Guest Etiquette"...or, Emily Post's Guide to the Polite Tackle

In reference to his posting below, my fiance obviously hasn't read my book "Emily Post's Wedding Etiquette", recently acquired by who else but my Mother. It was part of the wedding reference library that was shoved on me as I walked in the door from Paris, ring on finger. No Belle should be without it. Of course, I had no idea who Emily Post is, and when I shared this information with my mother I really thought she was going to faint. Either faint, or smack me. But Emily Post probably looks down on smacking brides-to-be...it could create an undesireable skin discoloration that will totally ruin all subsequent photos and thus the entire wedding and probably my marriage. Fainting is definately the better option. It's much more becoming of a Southern woman.
I had no clue as to the depth of my ignorance regarding Emily Post until I had the following encounter in a bar in Austin last night:
I was celebrating with friends whom I had not yet seen since the trip to Paris, when I started chatting with the couple next to me at the bar. The girlfriend was all excited over my ring, while the boyfriend was rolling is eyes. They asked me how I was holding up, and I regaled them with my Emily Post story to illustrate the insanity that is my mother. The boyfriend is a really BIG African-American gentleman who looks like he could whup up on Cowboy's defensive line anytime. He looks at me like I have three heads, and says, "Girl, you don't know who Emily Post is?!"
I have truly discraced my Southern heritage. Me, who did Cotillian, where I had to wear white gloves, and attended Hockaday, an all girls school in Dallas that is so preppy it was featured as one of five "must attend" schools in a book I read that spoofed the prep lifestyle. I have made an effort never to live above the Mason Dixon, and I've always thought I was ahead of the game because I knew the difference between a salad fork and a dinner fork. I was upstaged by a man who is probably familiar with Emily Post's Football Etiquette, which explains that it is not polite to snap bare ass with a wet gym towel. I am evidently not the epitome of etiquette that I thought I was.

So I refer my fiance to page 95 of Emily Post's Wedding Etiquette: Awkward Questions Concerning Invitations.

As for me, I think I'll pop open a Bud and watch some NASCAR.

P.S. My mother said I should never tell anyone that I didn't know who Emily Post was, so ya'll don't say anything, ok?

Is that a mezuzah in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

When Kenny and I returned from Paris (where he proposed- a story to be told in a later posting), we stopped through Dallas to visit my parents before returning to Austin. We had a nice evening with them, which mostly consisted of my mother (Linda) asking us a never-ending series of detailed wedding-planning related questions. Being a Southener, I evidently was supposed have spent the last 27 years (and possibly even my 9 months in the womb) planning my fairytale wedding, so that when the big day arrived (the engagement, that is) I would be able to whip out a detailed PowerPoint presentation complete with fabric sample handouts, cake and caterer tastings, and all relevant guest lists, and present this to my mother along with tea and finger sandwiches served on little doilies. Since I've been planning a career instead of planning a wedding, I did not have the details my mother so desparately needed, because let's face it, 18 months just isn't long enough to plan when the bride has so disgracefully neglected her preengagement planning duties as I have.

But I digress...

So after dinner, we are standing in the driveway of my parents' house talking to their neighbors the Levis (names have been changed to protect the innocent), who I've known since I was 12. The Levis are probably the only Jewish family my parents know in Dallas, so when we announced the engagement to them, so ceremoniously there in the alley, my Mom informed Ron and Robin they were going to be her source for all things Jewish. I wouldn't be surprised if next time I return there's a For Sale sign in their yard.
Let me preface this story by saying that my parents recently purchased a very large plasma TV, and my dad had evidently asked Ron for help hanging it. He found someone else, so Ron was off the hook, but Ron didn't know this at the time of the meeting in the alley. Back to the story. After the hugs and Mazel Tovs, Ron says to my dad, "Dwight, did you ever find someone to help you hang that thing?", referring to the TV. Ron's teenage son Aaron looks at everyone, slightly confused as to what "thing" his dad was talking about, and says, "Oh, the mezuzah?" Everyone just died, and poor Aaron turned beet red. So much is lost in the retelling, but it was a fantastic moment. What makes it even funnier is that Kenny's sister later told me that my parents actually didn't understand what it was that Aaron said- the closest word they could conjure up was "mistletoe". We have some learning to do...

So for all the Jews out there, take the Lord's commandments and bind them as a sign upon your arm and let them be tefillin between your eyes. However, be sure you hang some mistletoe on the doorposts of your home.

+ guest etiquette

so do you allow all your single friends to invite guests, or is that reserved for friends that you know have significant others? and does this apply to engagement parties, or just the actual wedding? it's already so complicated...

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