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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.

Thematically speaking...

Thematically speaking, the wedding narrative will be delicately crafted by blending a modern contextualized old-timey Depression Era sensibility with something of a Scottish-backwoods-Ozarks-bluegrass-country-in-a-farmyard aesthetic. Oh wait, did I say delicately crafted? No no, scratch that. I meant extremely heavy-handedly tossed and spit stuck together with twigs and chewing gum. That's more realistic.

So old timey. Thirties. Dust bowl (no, not really) (well, maybe a little). And Scottish (cause of the kilts, maybe some thistles and bag pipes?) and Scottish settlers-ish (Bluegrass, babies, Bluegrass!). There will be some Jewish-y stuff in there too, and probably some nods to our new hometown, to vegetarianism, gardening and maybe travel? Or cars? Or technology and beer? No no, I jest. But who knows, it could all end up in there, I'm telling, cause I am essentially going kitchen-sink on this mofo. The groom, by the way, is not amused. But I say poppycock to his reservations - clearly he has no vision (if he's having trouble "seeing it in his mind's eye," I'm sure I could find him a photo somewhere on the porny porny wedding blog net - there is nothing you can conceive of for a wedding theme that hasn't already been cobbled together and graphically represented in a magazine-worthy photojournalism essay out there somewhere - it's dazzling).

Speaking of, since I have already stumbled upon photos of exactly what was beginning to take shape in my mixed-nuts brainpan, I will try to dig those up and post them for your imaginings happiness. Stay tuned.

Also? If you have any thoughts or additions to strange bits that could be thrown into the thematic mix, I totally welcome them. If you think I am a crazy person and my so-called themes are clashy clashy weird or retarded (mom!)? I don't want to hear it. YOU try mixing kilts into an otherwise casual wedding and see how far YOU get, mmmkay?*


*I'm actually kind of excited about the kilts, though they really do make everything else a crap pile more complicated to incorporate. And are tres spendy. And not so easy to come by. And seem to require the same conversation about whether or not he, or he, or that guy, or the other guy will wear undies. every. single. time. It occurs to me that I should start taking bets on that one - hell, I could probably get this whole shindig paid for with enough anticipatory flame fanning and basic gambling savvy.

So yeah, about that whole wedding thing...

The last of you lovely ladies to get hitched did so over three years ago. It was a fabulous, gorgeous, wonderful, pretty damn perfect good time. I loved it. I loved being the Maid of Honor, I loved all the hustle and bustle and flurry of activity ahead of time, I loved how totally and completely beautiful everyone looked, loved the details, the food, the dancing, the ambiance, the everything. It was like something out of a magazine. Or, rather, it was like something out of a wedding blog.

Which brings to me to my first point, both of this post and this entire new blog-e-lement: Oh. My. God. Have you visited the Wedding Porn blogosphere of late? It. Is. IN. SANE. Insane, girls, I'm not kidding. Like crackity crack crack crack crazy insane: make your eyes roll in pleasure and rot your teeth out of your head nutso.

Don't believe me? Let me introduce you to just one such needle in the arm of a jonesing bride: Once Wed. This ain't your mama's Martha Stewart Weddings, my friends. And it's not your older sibs' The Knot.com, fluffy poufta ballgown and a hundred giant centerpieces to return before hopping on the plane to the Bahamas either. This is all kinds of vintagey, DIY, homegrown, unique, unusual, interesting, and (most importantly) photojournalistically chronicled wedding shenanigans. And it's fucking crazy.

That's just one of about a hundred similar sites wildfire-speed spreading out in the net verse, by the way (don't worry, I'll link to a few more for your I-should-be-working-right-now-shit! time wasting pleasure). There are all kinds of angles being covered out there: Do-it-yourself, backyard weddings, weddings under "X" thousand bucks, Offbeat weddings for kookoo alternative types from Seattle with tattoos and dyed hair and a fondness for hula hoops (secretly love it, love it all). Intimate weddings, destination weddings, big glamorous Old Hollywood themed weddings, Circus-themed weddings (LOVE. IT.), loft weddings, art gallery weddings, Farm/Barn weddings (pay attention, loves), old-timey depression era weddings (ditto)... it's like someone fed the Wedding Gremlin after midnight and now the multiplying is beyond the control of mortal man.

Now, the one of you that got married the second most recently was all the way back in 2005, which is practically infant baby gaga time in the realm of wedding planning. That was like, notebooks and pencils and pages torn out of Brides magazine and Martha Stewart Weddings. And yet, you managed to have a totally beautiful, serene, intimate, sweet, gorgeous, touching, connected wedding all the same. Of course I do realize that it was practically a full time job to plan and execute the whole affair...

Which brings me to my next point, and thus the truest reason for this blog-a-rena: It is a fucking full time job to plan even a simple, homey, just-like-a-party-but-a-little-bigger-and-with-slightly-more-stuff-to-do-while-eating-and-drinking-and-shmoozing wedding. It appears to be a shit-ton of work, cost an unbelievable amount of money, and require WAY too many decisions be evaluated and considered and finalized along the way. Amby does not approve, I just want to go on record as having said that.

And that having been said, I need your help. Not, like, a ton of help, just a little bit of feedback, from you, my lovely crew of attendants and friends, as the planning begins in earnest. It's a new year (the one in which I will apparently be wed, or so I am told, if all goes according to plan, or plans as yet to come into conceptual being let alone be fruitionified) and June will be here before I know it, and, well, I guess I have some decisions to make. So unless we act on the recent fantasies about saying fuck it all to an actual wedding and running off to Scotland (where have you heard that before? and how many years ago? no matter, cause it still lives on mighty strong in the hearts and minds that reside in the Sanders/Mills household, I gotta tell you), it would appear that there are quite a few details to sort and settle on, some of which will directly involve you (dresses!) and some which will be peripheral (why can't the recessional song be Mena Mena, as done by the Muppets?) and others which will only matter to me, the crazed-eyed Bride (OH. MY. FUCKINGGODI'MABRIDEWHATTHEHELL?) and possibly the deer-in-headlights man who will playing the part of the Groom in this little orchestration.

Ready? Two-four-seven-13-24-HIKE! Er... Let's GO!