Hey, jewelery lady! You're way out of line!

Today I finally checked something off of my wedding to-do list that has been on there for at least a month now and has recently been nagging at me. Boy, it felt good to check that item off. It felt good if you don't count the fact that in the 3 minutes that it took me to accomplish this little task, our jeweler managed to insult me twice.

The task at hand was for me to call the jeweler where we purchased our wedding bands and let them know what I wanted inscribed on the inside of Kenny's ring. I was deciding between several inscriptions, one of which was too long, so it got scrapped. The other two were "Cindy to Kenny, 12-17-06" and if that was too long "CCL to KMG 12-17-06". So I got the jeweler on the phone and laid out the first option. She says, after a few seconds of silence, "Really? That's what you want? Don't you think that sounds, I don't know...awkward?" After a couple of seconds of silence on my end, she adds, "No offense." No offense?!?!?! You tell me that the inscription that I want to put inside the wedding band of my husband-to-be sounds "awkward" and you don't expect me to be offended? Wow. My blood pressure instantly rose, and I took a couple of deep breaths. I'm calm now, thinking calm thoughts, trying not to be angry at this chick and the insult she just lobbed my way. She says, "Why don't you just put "Love, Cindy." My blood pressure spikes again. Why not? Maybe because I'd like the inscription to be from me, the bride, and not from you, the jeweler. That's why. Some people just don't have that little mechanism that the rest of us have that lets us know when we've gone too far, said too much. I tell her, again, that this inscription sounds fine to me. Thinking that maybe I was crazy, I ran it by a few other people, including co-workers, my maid of honor, and even Kenny. Everyone else thought it sounded fine. Either that, or they just fear my wrath.

After I recovered from that little insult, she sent another one my way. She is mailing the ring to me so that I won't have to pay NY state sales tax, so we were discussing this. She asks me if I'm coming back to NY before the wedding, and I told her I would be up for Thanksgiving. She pauses, and then suggests that I bring the ring back at Thanksgiving for her to keep until the wedding. I told her that wouldn't be necessary, and that I'd keep the ring and bring it up when I come up for the wedding. Then she says she's worried that I'll forget the ring. Who does this lady think she is? And why does she think I'll forget the ring? I kind of wanted to say something about the fact that I've already got two moms on my case about everything under the sun related to the wedding, and I don't need it coming from other sources as well. I told her that if there was anything I remembered to bring to the wedding, it would be the ring. She kept pushing it, and I finally had to get tough with her, let her know who's boss. I don't think I was rude, but I think I got the message across to her that I wasn't going to listen to her lack of confidence in me. It's none of her business anyway. She's just wrong on so many levels.

I've only met this woman three or four times. She doesn't know me well enough to nag me or to know whether or not I'm a dingbat and would do something like forget a wedding ring at my own wedding. I'm not sure whether I can chalk this up to her being a New Yorker, or just rude. In her defense, it's likely that most brides she deals with are younger than me by about 6 or 8 years, are totally sheltered by their parents, and have never had to do anything for themselves for most of their lives. I'd like to think that fact that I'm older, have been out on my own for some time now, and am a working professional would lend me some credibility in terms of my ability to remember to bring a wedding ring to my wedding. Whatever.

The Marriage License: Overrated and Inconvenient

Marriage licenses...Pffft! Who needs 'em? Just when I was starting to feel like this last three month stretch before the wedding would be easy, the point was made that perhaps Kenny and I shouldn't wait until the last week-day before the wedding to go get our marriage license. Apparently, there are many, many things that could happen in the 24-hour window of time between our flight from Austin to NY on the Thursday before the wedding, and 5pm on Friday when the town clerk's office closes, that would prohibit us from getting the marriage license in time for the ceremony Sunday. For example, we could have a freak blizzard in Austin that shuts down the airport and prevents us from getting on the plane Thursday night. This freak blizzard could extend into Friday morning and prevent us from getting on that flight as well, thus missing the clerk's office by 20 minutes (assuming the blizzard cleared in time for us to catch the 11:40am flight). Those damn Texas blizzards! Or, a flock of angry seagulls could descend upon all of the New York City airports in a display of revenge for the one Kenny tried to blow up with Alkaseltzer when he was in the 6th grade. This would in turn prevent all inbound air traffic from landing, thus preventing us from getting our marriage license. Or, Nathan could suddenly develop the capacity for speech, and hypnotize Kenny and I using his newly found skills. This would also cause us to miss our plane, because Nathan would probably spend all of Thursday night and most of Friday commanding us to cook steaks for him. Or, more likely than any of these scenarios, my head could explode.
So we've now decided to forgo Thanksgiving with my parents in Dallas (short drive North at a reasonable hour of the day) in exchange for Thanksgiving in New York with Kenny's family (long flight north arriving at an ungodly hour of the night) and a shot at getting our marriage license in a timely fashion. Of course, it just would have been too easy for the New York lawmakers to allow us to get it when we were up just three weeks ago. You see, you only have a certain window of time in which you can obtain a marriage license- sometime between the 60th day before the ceremony up until 24 hours before. But you also have to go to the town clerk's office bearing a gift: a Shrubbery! A nice one, but not too nice. NI! And let's not even get into the difficulty in determining which clerk's office to go to. The municipal organization of the townships, cities, villages, tribal clusters and whatever of Long Island make the reorganization of former Soviet Bloc nations look like a first grade geography lesson.
Anyway, now that we changed our Thanksgiving plans to get this silly piece of paper, it got me wondering why we need it anyway. What's the point? There's nothing to stop us from getting married some other way. We were going to get married before the end of 2006 if it killed me because there's something psychological about waiting until 2007 when you got engaged in 2005. Also, Kenny has these great educational tax credits that will just go to waste on him if he files his taxes as a single person. I was determined that we would file jointly so I could get my hands on his tax deductions! Just kidding. Or am I? If the process did kill me, I think there's a tax deduction in there somewhere as well. Ok, so point being, license or no license, we would get married at the wedding.
The question that remained was whether Rabbi Hain would be thrown in jail for performing a marriage without a license? Jail seems extreme, but you never know with those crazy New York laws. I never got the answer to this question. I left a message for Rabbi Hain with a "question about the wedding." But he never called me back. I would have asked him, "Rabbi, will you remember to pack your toothbrush on Sunday, December 17th? Because Kenny and I might not have our marriage license." Don't worry, I'd have posted bail.

Wedding Program: Clarification

It's 7pm and I'm standing in the office of one of the partners I work for when my phone rings. I see it's Kati, my maid of honor, calling me. I let it go to voicemail, and decide to listen to the message on my way home from the office. I nearly had a wreck. The message went something like this: "Hi Cindy? I just read your blog. Umm...are you pregnant?!? If you are, congratulations! If you're not, give me a call anyway." Whaaaat? It took me a few seconds to figure out exactly what had given her this impression, and then I remembered the first sentence of Kenny's post below regarding his fake version of our wedding program. Something about us dispensing with the pleasantries after we get married and get straight to making babies. Let's get something straight here- there are no potential babies now, and we will not be dispensing with any pleasantries anytime soon.

The program was a joke!!!! Just a joke!!! Kenny is fired from posting to this blog from today on.

Wedding Program: First Draft

Dear Family and Friends,

It's been a wild ride, but now it's time to settle down and have some babies. Many people wait a few years to have kids once their married, but this February will mark 10 years since we started dating, so we'll dispense with the pleasantries. We encourage y'all to practice the same, so we'll be providing an open bar all night following the ceremony.

At this point it's customary to say something nice about all the people who have helped make us who we are. Since we've already thanked those of you reading this, we're now talking about people who aren't here. We like to thank absolutely everyone, and we want you to know it.

To end, we thank our parents who have provided us with the cliched 'unconditional love and support'. They have, so let's not make too much fun - though we can certainly share with all those who have been married how our mothers were OCD in their own ways. So let's thank the Dads for really being the foundations of sanity during this past year.

And now, we invite you to watch as nearly every person we've ever known walks down the aisle, and we finally wed. Don't forget to marvel at our 120 piece orchestra, or to dance when they play the handpicked playlist provided by ballroom dance champion mother of the bride. And most importantly, don't forget to enjoy the sparkles on the fur!

Love, Cindy and Kenny

My Second (and third) Wedding Anxiety Dreams!!

Wow, these were doozies. Unfortunately I can only remember one right now, so I'll tell you that one. So here's the back story: I am basically at the mercy of my law firm in terms of my professional life. Don't get me wrong, they're a great bunch of folks, but when they say "Jump!" I have to jump. So we had this new tax law passed a few months ago..yeah, yeah, I can already see your eyes glazing over. I was told to go figure out what this law said, and determine exactly how badly our clients would be taking it up the you-know-what from the Texas taxing authority. So I learned about this tax. Now I have become the firm's bitch when it comes to helping with our marketing efforts in regard to showing the world exactly how expert we are when it comes to Texas taxes. And let me tell you, we are experts! So the basic rundown is this: a member of some group of business owners calls our offices and asks if we have anyone who can come speak to their members about the new tax. The person taking the call says, "Sure! We have an associate here who would be happy to speak to your group." Then someone comes and unlocks my cage, leads me out, takes the ball-gag out of my mouth and sends me on my way with my laptop and PowerPoint slides. No, I'm not to the dream part yet.
So you can imagine that I'm kind of sick of this tax law by now. Here's the dream part:
It's December 17, and I'm getting ready for the wedding. My hair is done and my makeup is finished. It's 7pm. Considering our wedding is set to begin at 4:30, I appear to be late as it is. Am I sitting in the bridal room at Temple Beth-El? No. I'm in a conference room at a hotel in Austin, waiting to take the stage to speak to a large group of people, not sure who they were or what group they were with, but the group did include about 20 Jai Alai players. I don't even know that Jai Alai is, but they were there with giant exercise balls and lacrosse nets. This guy at the podium is droning on and on about Texas history, and I have to wait for him to finish before I can start my talk. I'm really worried now that I'm going to miss the wedding. Finally, I decide that I can run and get married, then come back and give my talk. Afterall, this guy is only up to Santa Ana's invasion of Texas, so he's got a ways to go. If he's a real Texan, it'll take him another day or so. So I get married, only I didn't actually dream about the wedding. The next thing I know, I'm walking up to the podium in my wedding gown, with my PowerPoint in hand. The last thing I remember thinking before I woke up was, "Man, I bet I look like an ass."
So there you have it. I'd like to think that at least while I sleep I can get a break from the margin tax and from the constant voice in my head nagging me that there's something I need to be doing for the wedding RIGHT NOW!! Apparently I would be wrong. And I think that voice might not be in my head--I think it might be my mom.