Honeymoon in London!

No, we didn't honeymoon. Yet. We had one perfect night (very tired, but pretty perfect) in the house alone, although we both had work to do and there was an animal scrabbling around under the stairs at the crack of dawn and I saw a rattlesnake and had a million dishes to do. But our time together was peaceful and sweet.

But it looks like London will be a good place for a belated honeymoon trip in the fall. We are not beachy people. I mean, we love sunshine and water and boats and oceans and being by the seaside, but we're not Hawaii/Bermuda/Arruba/Accapulco/Cayman Islands/Caribbean types. Bikinis and beach towels and sunscreen and scuba and sunning on the sand? Not so much either one of us, like, at all.

But Europe? Where the history comes from? London and the sites and the museums and the architecture and the history and the pubs and the theater and the walking and the global cosmopolitan sensation of it all? Yes, please.

We'll use our up-close-and-personal London Connection at Elegant Retreats International to review and book a self-catering holiday apartment in a great location near a tube stop (probably South Kensington? Maybe Chelsea or Knightsbridge? I have always been of the opinion that renting an apartment in London, or any city, really, is so much better than booking hotels for the fact that there's a kitchen, and living room, and autonomy, and the ability to pretend to be a local for the week or weeks we're there. In this case, we'll try to live like a Londoner, really, but without the extreme rent, ha ha.

Itinerary to be determined, but there's no shortage of great stuff to see and to do in London, so now to the fun of planning! All tips/hints/advice is welcome!

Happy travels, mon amies!

Wedding Shmedding Bedding Begetting Heading Sledding

So I realized that I never came back and updated any details about the event. Chances are, if you are reading this, you were there and I know you had a good time, right? Right. (Good answer). I've had a terrible time getting the photos together, mostly because I have to sit down with my Dad and sort through all the raw photos so he can then work on them tirelessly in photoshop and print them and what have you. It will happen. Eventually. In the meantime, a lovely little Renbird printed an amazing sepia-toned pic of me and the hubs that I love and that adorns our mantle like an old-fashioned portrait of yore. I love it so much.

Incredibly, we're approaching one year - it's gone by SO FAST - and there's lots of activity around here - new businesses and race cars and traveling and keeping up with work. But I will get to the photos. Perhaps I'll even write a bit of a recap of the event, since god knows my memory is beginning to fade, and I'm already filling in unreliable details into the alcohol and stress-induced gaps in the evenings activities. Whatever. In short: It was hot, it was delicious, it was magical, it was full of my most favorite people, and while there were a lot of shoulder-shrugging-ooops-I-forgot-tos in retrospect, it was pretty perfect anyway. In fact, it was exactly what I hoped it would be. Except with too many dishes to do the next day. Note to self: Next time ditch the port-o-potty and hire cleaners!

Weddings in Ireland!

There have been some recent changes in the laws relating to getting married in Ireland, essentially loosening up the restrictions and requirements for where and how a legitimate ceremony can be performed. Which is fantastic for all those brides who have dreamed of getting married in a castle or on a lovely manor estate in that perfect, friendly, and verdant country. Rates have fallen all the place as well, and with the Euro strong but not so out of control as in the past several years, it's actually quite realistic to think of planning a destination wedding in Ireland.

And to that end, I have a recommendation for renting castles, manor houses, estates, villas if

you will, in Ireland.

Elegant Retreats International, Inc.

Destination weddings are in some ways less stressful than regular weddings because there are certain wedding "musts" that you can just forget about when planning for far away events. The "special touches" you obsess about are sort of built in to the grandeur of being in a foreign place. Food, drinks, favors, what have you can all be related to the locale, shrinking the pool of possibility enormously, thereby limiting analysis paralysis over finding the very perfect choice in a sea of options. Plus, your guest list is often limited (those obligatory invitees probably won't throw down cash to travel to show up and avail themselves of your hospitality, food, booze, dancing-late-into-the-night, etc. as they might if the event were a few zip codes or even a few states away) and you have the opportunity to craft an event with only your nearest and dearest in attendance.

Having traveled extensively in Ireland, I highly recommend it as a unique destination for a great wedding. The Irish are incredibly kind and friendly people, and there's so much history and beauty and tradition that can be imbued into your celebration. Between the self-catering castle rentals, the serviced holiday Manors, mansions and estates, and even the sweet Irish farmhouse cottages, there is no shortage of options for hosting an amazing event.

We have lift off.

Pretty sure I intended that pun, but hopefully won't be made to suffer for it via a peep show at my wedding. Because ladies and gent, it has been decided that indeed kilts will be worn, along with the jackets and fancy bits to cover the other bits and some dangly stuff to be bitsy with some other bits and whatnot.

May I present to you the ensemble of the groomsmen:


Voila! It's more formal than I had been aiming for, but it sure beats the barefoot/barechested look that Groom has been threatening me with lately. I'm sure the jackets will be on for all of ten minutes, but won't those be a dapper few sixths of an hour?

Now my only problems in wedding life related to this are: gussying up the bridal party with fancy accoutrements like jewelry and feather hair gewgaws, and making sure my Great Aunt doesn't make good on her threat to walk around dropping change next to the groomsmen, a la John Candy in Splash* in order that she might take a gander up at the goods under there. Perhaps I should save her the trouble and just have the guys where really shiny shoes...


*rumors of a remake had tales of Heidi effing Montag vying for the mermaid. Really? It's come to this? And by the way, that movie came out 25 years ago. I. AM. OLD.

Shoegeoisie

My dress was so cheap (even after I made the budget-busting move of changing the ribbon color from royal to midnight blue, gasp!) that I had thought to spend some ducats on a sweet pair of shoes, something fancypants that I would be able to wear more than once and continue to admire from afar (not unlike the Fluevogs I got in Ashland during Doctor Jones' wedding festivities, for example) again and again in all the long years to come. Would I dare go so far as a Choo or a Blahnik? You know me, so the answer is: Obviously not. However, I wouldn't turn away a good pair of Chanel or Weitzman or similar finery on the sale rack at Nordstrom or maybe even Saks (maybe).

One small problem with my shoe-fetishistic plan of going shopping for an expensive bargain: I have no time. Well, two problems: One, I have no time, and two, I have this fucked up toe that needs fixing and needs even more to not to be busted out in the light of day until after such fixery (which will happen this week and which will apparently be costing upwards of seven times the pricetag for fixing the same damn toe in an Urgent Care in Ventura five years ago - of course it never quite looked right after that and clearly needs to be done again, so maybe you get what you pay for? whatever, anyway...). So public shoe shopping spree not really on the docket for your favorite bride up here in Stumptown. Add to the complications: I've been advised to go with creamy/ivory/similar-to-my-dress-color tones, rather than easy-to-find pewter/silvery stuff. (In part, I've been informed, because my dress is a more buttery/creamy shade of warm off-white, not the blueish/cool bent of a more eggshell or ivory white, and therefor might not mesh as well with silver as with golden tones, etc etc etc. Gold doesn't work for my thematic goings one, really, so that's off the table anyway). After hearing this, I admit I fretted for longer than necessary about what kind/color/shape/height/color/color/color shoe I would or wouldn't be able to find, and how would I make this happen in the few weeks we have left, etc.

But then lovely Ren-bird turned me on to Endless.com and voila, a shoe-shopper was (re)born. On their way to me now are the following:


Love t-straps, but don't love pointy and could do without the rhinestones.

And these babies, which I adore, and pray to the wedding gods of Easy Peasy Lemon & Squeezey that they will work as perfectly as I imagine them to in my mind:I love them beyond all reason. And ps they are only like $50 bux. And they have them in a lovely mauve and a gorgeous blue (hint hint). Check em out if you have a chance. In the meantime, I'll let you know how this works out. They should arrive tomorrow, in time for my final dress fitting (which reminds me to tell you to remind me to tell you of the horrible strapless bra hunt shopping experience I suffered through on Saturday. blurgh).

So that's that for the moment. Long live Imelda in our hearts and closets.

omigodomigodohmigod

This wedding is ABSURD. Ridic. Out of control.

But check the Maiden dresses, y'all. (((shiver of glory shudders through my body)))

Seriously? Look at 'em close up:

Probably more fifties than anything, but look at the glorious, rich colors all together! Blue, green, teal, purpley! Yes! Love love love super love with all kinds of lovins on top.

I would also commit a very serious crime or two for that GD bridal gown, Jesus H. Wowza.

Breathtaking

Every single dress in this collection is perfectly amazing. Takes my breath away. WANT.

A taste of the beauty:

Possibly difficult to pull off, but so what? Slap on a few industrial-strength pairs of Spanx and good to go, right?

Actually, it's good that these styles are impractical. It is the unlikelyhood of rocking such satiny material with a full set of curves that I will cling to in order to renew my love for the dress I actually did purchase, which as yet I've not laid eyes on in fully functioning form and so have no idea how it will realistically manifest, but in the ideation is nothing at all like any of these Thirties inspirations. Well, maybe a little Thirties in the frayed edges department...

Anyhoooooo. Click that link up there. Look at the whole collection. It's a feast for the design senses.