The day Miss Ruby Slippers went crazy

I was going to blog about my shower today, but then i figured I should wait for photos, so I can do a whole photo story thingy. Suffice it to say, it was F-U-N, and my girls know exactly what I like! And I got some cute gifts too. My almost-sister-in-law got me some black lacy underwear...props to her; I don't know if I could buy something like that without visualising my brother ripping it off with his teeth...:-)

But today sucked. And it started off so well! It's not even that big a deal....I just really need to learn not to let wedding stress affect my daily life. Riiiiight. Tell that to any Bride and she'll laugh in your face.

So we had a meeting at the venue this morning. Aside from the fact that I forgot to bring the numbers of place-settings for each table, it went fine. First we did a soundcheck in the chapel, and I practised walking up the aisle to see how long it took. I cried. Then we went through all the little details with the venue organiser, like the table layout, where we want the cake served, what time stuff is happening at, etc etc. Then she showed us where Mr Ruby Slippers would be getting ready, and where the girls and I would (the honeymoon suite! Which, by the way, is gorgeous). I was already planning spots for hanging dress shots and mirror shots. It's such a nice suite, it's almost a shame we only get a few hours in it. I'd like at least two days! But, sadly, we have to clear out by 10am for the next day's bride.

After the meeting we'd arranged to meet Mr Slippers' parents and show them around the venue, which they hadn't seen yet. They arrive, we start walking around, and FMIL RS drops the bombshell: Mr RS' aunt and two uncles have just decided not to come to the wedding. Yup, twelve days before the day, uncle #1 says he has an out-of-town conference, his wife decides to go with him, and uncle #2, who was coming from Botswana, is now without a lift so decides not to come too. Three people. Twelve days before the wedding, when they've already been PAID for, their seating layouts organised, everything. I was so incredibly angry that I dealt with it in the only way I know how to deal with any emotion right now: I burst into tears. I think I might have been pretty rude, or at least, impolite, to the future in-laws, because I kept saying things like, "Fuck 'em. We didn't want them there anyway." (I've never actually met these people, but Father-in-law RS hates his sister, so I've picked up on that...) and "You'd better tell them they owe us R750" (It's R250 a head) and "That is incredibly rude and I never want to meet them". Yeah...not my finest hour. But man, I was pissed off. If they'd cancelled two weeks ago we could have invited some more B-list guests to bring the numbers up. We were at 69, which is only one short of our minimum. Now we're back to 66. Assholes.

So then The FILs went on their way, no doubt terrified that their son was marrying some kind of evil crying monster, and we stopped somewhere for lunch, since we had an hour and a half to kill before we needed to pick up my dress from alterations. This did not go well. Mr Slippers and I each ordered a smoothie. Oh...they were out of stock of that kind of smoothie. They only have the freezy non-dairy kind. Or something. So we each ordered one from that part of the menu, and our food as well. Ten minutes later Mr RS' smoothie arrives, and the waitress goes, "We're out of bananas for the other smoothie."

Not-so-dormant weepy monster rears its head and throws a weepy hissy fit, which went something like this:
Me:"I don't want to eat here anymore, then."
Mr RS (to waitress): "Um, can you cancel our food and bring us the bill for this drink?"
Me (laying head in hands and starting to cry openly): "I'm so huuuungry.........."

At which point Mr RS takes the drink back to the kitchen and takes me by the hand and takes me back to the car. Somewhat pissed off but worried about my bizarre behaviour. Um, as was I.

So we drive round the corner and go to another restaurant. Order drinks (which came!) and food. Which came...WRONG. Yup, they brought me the wrong meal. I fought off the urge to start crying again, and had the waiter take it back. Five to ten minutes later he returns with a burger...all covered in onions.
Me: "This is still wrong. I ordered a mushroom burger."
Waiter: "No, it's right. The mushroom sauce comes separately." (produces bowl of sauce to prove this)
Me: "But this has onions on."
Waiter: "Yes, it comes with caramelized onions."
Me: "But it doesn't say that on the menu. I don't eat onions." (I do, really, but only a few and only if I really feel like them. Which I didn't.)
Mr RS: (through grated teeth) "It's fine. Just scrape them off."
Me: "FINE."

I chuck them at a side plate, they mess on the table, Mr RS gets annoyed and I get weepy. Fun was had by all. By the time this was over it was three minutes before my dress appointment. We got the bill, I splashed water on my face, and we drove around the corner to the bridal store, where Mr RS proceeded to wait in the car for me. (well, he could hardly see my dress after all this time, could he?)

What more could go wrong, you ask? Well, it took them fifteen minutes to locate my dress. Fifteen minutes, which doesn't sound that long in the scheme of things, but it was fifteen minutes of me fighting back tears, convinced that they'd lost my dress, or, at best, that it wasn't ready and I'd have to drive all that way back again next weekend. And it's not a short drive. So by the time they produced the dress I was a nervous wreck. I tried it on, and the length was fine (thank goodness), but the button for the bustle was far too low down, making the bustled-up train drag on the floor. I resisted the urge to snap, "What the hell is the use of a bustle if it's still a train???" and asked her nicely to move the button. Which she went off to do. Meanwhile Mr RS was sitting outside in the car getting very hot and bored and irritable, which led to much snappishness on the way home. We DON'T snap at each other, so this was quite upsetting for both of us.

So now I have a headache, I feel slightly nauseous, and I can barely see out of my eyes, they're so swollen from crying. And I just feel generally despondent. I'm so ready for the wedding; all I have to worry about is the details coming together on the day and remembering to take stuff to the venue! I'm not scared about marrying Mr Ruby Slippers at all; I know with all my heart it's what I want, so why am I getting so stressed about stupid little things like bananas? Even the people not coming - I don't care if they're there or not; in fact, they were going to be the only guests I'd never met (aside from one or two dates that are being brought by guests). I just feel incredibly insulted that they decided they all had something better to do than come to an expensive event where their presence has been confirmed and paid for, and then cancel via TEXT MESSAGE. Yeah, I forgot that little gem. It's basically a big slap in the face, and I don't like being slapped in the face. But I think if I wasn't so stressed I wouldn't have let it affect me this badly.

Man, I wish the wedding was this Friday instead of next.

What now?

For weeks I've had this annoying, listless, "I don't know what to do now" feeling about the wedding. In fact, I really wanted it to be closer so that I could the heck ON with it and do the last minute stuff! Now it's 23 days away and that's beginning to look a little...scary.

What I really want to do is organise the table lists so that I can print all the place cards and table name listings for our hanging crystal lists. But I can't DO that because apparently we didn't invite enough people to our wedding, and in order for us to keep to our minimum of 70 (we couldn't get the venue without paying for 70 people) we have to create a B-list. Which, frankly, I didn't think was necessary to begin with because everyone has been saying All Frikkin Year that they would definitely be there, and when it comes to crunch time suddenly they have to go visit their son in Ireland or go organise their Italian pension or stay behind because their daughter has an exam that day. Blah, blah, whatever, all I care about is that you're not coming. And not only am I disappointed that you're not coming, I'm flipping out because I now have to find a replacement for you who is not going to be offended that they weren't invited first time round.

So far it's not going well. Three couples on the B-List have declined; not, I think, because they were offended and all "You didn't invite me originally so now I'm not coming, nyeh nyeh!", but because they genuinely can't make it. Because, you know, it's in TWENTY-THREE days. So we have one more couple and one single who need to confirm, and then I have noooo idea who to fall back on. I might have to delve into my facebook friends list and invite arbitrary people from high school, or something. :-(

This really sucks. I know I have a small family, but the fact that none of them (aside from my parents and sister, and one Aunt who is actually my Mom's cousin) are coming is a little sad. But I'll be damned if I'm paying for dinner for someone who isn't even there! I might have to ask the singles to drum up dates...because no matter what, we're paying for seventy people, so they might as well be there to eat it, even if we've never met them.

Sigh. Who knew it was this hard to get people to share in your joy and eat a free meal and have a fun party?

Martha Stewart fabulousness

Martha Stewart isn't as big a deal here in South Africa as she is in the USA. Over there she seems to reign supreme, on high, as the Queen of Decor, Weddings, Entertaining, Crafts and Homemaking. And here we get one or two of her magazines and that's about it. Still, it seems that planning a wedding online (read as: stalking blogs and living on forums) I was bound to run into her sooner or later. And I did, a little while ago, when someone recommended her Wedding Planning Tools.


I had to check this out. I'd already been to two websites which promised easy-to-use guest list, RSVP and seating charts, but I was sorely disappointed with both of them. The one wouldn't let me drag my guests around to other tables, and the other didn't seem to want to let me add any more people than myself and Mr Ruby Slippers. Um, ok, NOT what I'm looking for in a gust list, thank you very much. That's more of an evening at home, not a wedding reception.


So I logged onto http://www.marthastewart.com/ and went to Weddings. And I must say I was very impressed! I'm not a technophobe, but clearly at least one of those other websites was too much for me to handle. Martha's wedding section is incredibly user friendly and fast. There are places to add your guests, divide them up into parties (families, couples etc), list who they're connected to (Bride's friends, groom's co-workers, etc), track RSVPs, and SEAT them! This was what I really wanted the website for. I needed something where I could adjust the size of the room, the number of people at each table, have varying sizes and shapes of tables, and move them around to see the layout I wanted. Martha doesn't disappoint. Here is a screenshot of my first attempt at seating my guests...most of whom have yet to RSVP, but that's another story.

This is just a rough guide of where people might sit if they actually come. Hence the big gaps. But I'm finding it an extremely useful tool! Actually, my biggest problem now is not what table to seat people at, it's where to place said tables! Not only "where do we have the dancefloor?" but "Who sits closest to the head table and who sits furthest away?" Because that's basically like grading people according to importance, which is so not cool.

Martha also lets you keep track of vendors, payments, checklists, budget and timeline.

I HAVE 69 DAYS LEFT. SIXTY-NINE. Oh. My. Gawd.