Wedding Weather

I admit that sometimes I can be weird. For instance, I will sometimes sit and watch the Weather Channel. All day. I just find it interesting, I guess, and I like to look at the maps and forecasts and think about all my many, scattered friends and what the weather is like in all the different places where they are. And then later I know and I mention it and they wonder if I've been stalking them. I haven't. I just like the weather channel.

A few days ago, I realized that I could actually go to weather.com and look up the 10-day forecast for the weather and actually see the forecast for my wedding day. Cue girly squealing and minor Impending Wedding Day freakout.

Then I actually checked.

Three days ago, the prediction was for 82 degrees and scattered thunderstorms with a fairly high chance of precipitation.

I was relatively (relatively) sanguine about this, though. After all, I told myself, in my secret heart of hearts I was expecting the probability of rain. It's Western Pennsylvainia. It's June. Of course it will probably rain. I knew that. And 82 degrees? Well, I mean, that's warmer than I wanted, of course. The same part of my heart that secretly admitted and planned for the possibility of rain also secretly hoped that the temperature would be at least in the 70's.

After all, Dave gets very, very cranky when it's hot, and he's wearing tweed on the wedding day, which is not exactly the coolest and lightest of materials.

But, weather can't be helped. I decided to just be peaceful about it and hope for the best.

And check weather.com obsessively, and pray for better weather, and ask other people to pray for better weather (specifically mid-70's during the day and not rainy, at least not until after the photos). After all, on my mom's wedding day it was raining in every single major city in Europe, except the one where she got married.

The next day, I checked. 81 degrees. Scattered thunderstorms. Sigh.

The next day, 80 degrees. Scattered thunderstorms. Oh well.

Today? A mere 77 degrees! And isolated thunderstorms! The chance of precipitation is down to only 30%!

I'm going to keep checking, and I'm going to keep praying. In my little wedding-day dreams it goes down to between 72-75, it will be a little overcast--not direct sun, but not gloomy--and there will be a breeze that will smell like rain. Late in the evening, when Dave and I are ready to get in the car, there might be some distant lightning and thunder, but the rain won't actually hit while we're driving, because he doesn't like driving in the rain at night. However, immediately after we get home, a thunderstorm will start, and we'll spend our first night at home listening to thunder, looking at lightning, and falling asleep to the sound of heavy rain on the bedroom windows, because that's one of the best sounds in the world.

One of the best... right after the sound of Dave's voice.

Shut up, I know it's sappy.

Wow..

I think somehow I secretly believed that we'd never get to the day where I could say "I'm getting married in a week," but we did. It's 3am on Saturday, which means I can officially say it.

Don't even ask why I'm up at 3am. It's a long story. All of this cross-country traveling has played merry hell with my circadian rhythm.

Now it's bedtime, but I had to exclaim first.

(Also, Dave is at LARP this weekend and has his phone turned off/out of signal range. He forgot to call and say goodbye before he left. Not talking to Dave on the phone before bed completely destroys my nighttime routine. I don't like it. We aren't getting married a day too soon.)

This gold and silver I give thee

A lot of things about our wedding have been chosen to be incredibly simple or straightforward. Our wedding rings... well... they definitely fall into that category, too.

I've never been much of a fan of yellow gold jewelry. My parents have white gold rings, which might part of the root from which that opinion grew. And of course, my engagement ring is made of silver, and I am really not into the look of mixed silver and gold jewelry.

We looked a number of places for rings, wanting something that was simple but also beautiful and worthy. We even checked out Amazon.com. No, really, we did. I'm not proud.

Ultimately we did end up ordering our rings from online, on a website called e-WeddingBands.com. Their prices were reasonable, their quality was good, they were recommended by the Better Business Bureau, and their customer service has been excellent, including calling Dave on the phone to double-check his shipping address. We were able to select from a wide variety of widths and sizes in 1/4 increments, which saved us time. Everyone else only did sizes and half-sizes, and Dave needed a 3/4-size. We thought we were going to have to order large and resize.

Anyway, I was really pleased with what we got. The rings are very, very simple. They're white gold. They match each other, they match my engagement ring very nicely, and they match us, I think. Nothing fancy, nothing trendy. Just a solid, simple bit of gold.

Our wedding is in fifteen days. Dave has the rings at home, waiting to be exchanged.

That's a good feeling.

For we are bound by symmetry

We're getting married in three weeks. Twenty-one days. Less than a month.

I wondered if by now I'd have had any second thoughts or felt nervous at all about the prospect of being married to Dave forever.

The answer is no.

I was cleaning out some old files and came across a whole host of photos taken between early 2002 and mid 2004, almost all of me, all at college. I used to have a lot more, but they were stored online and lost as I either forgot passwords or websites stopped providing hosting services. I wish I'd been better about keeping track with them. It's strange to look back at all those photos (I took a lot) and remember everything associated with them.. who I was dating at the time, what color I'd dyed my hair, what classes I was taking, what my favorite clothes were.

I miss college (the first attempt) a lot. I miss all the potential, and having not made as many stupid mistakes, and the friends who were never more than a five minute walk away.

But in three weeks I'm going to be marrying the most wonderful man I've ever met, and I'm going to spend the rest of my life with him, and there's nothing in the world that I would trade for him.

I heard a song tonight by the Decemberists, one of my favorite bands. One of the things I like about them is their unbelievably beautiful lyrics. So, I'm including the song, for your listening pleasure, because it's got some lines that are so sweet they make me want to cry.

Three more weeks, and I can hardly wait.

This is the story of your red right ankle
And how it came to meet your leg
And how the muscle, bone, and sinews tangled
And how the skin was softly shed

And how it whispered “Oh, adhere to me
For we are bound by symmetry
And whatever differences our lives have been
We together make a limb.”

Home Sweet House

Big news for the soon-to-be-newlyweds!

I am on the phone with my beloved even as we speak, and he is on his way home from signing the lease for our very first apartment.

It's in University Heights, a neighborhood that Dave is very excited to live in. Walking distance (albeit a long walk) from the Cedar Lee theater. An independent movie theater that also serves beer? Um, yes. Props to our new neighborhood. I'm excited to see that over the summer, the Cedar Lee is going to be showing HD films of opera performances from Europe. I can definitely handle that.

Also conveniently close by are our favorite breakfast place, Dave's current place of employment, Little Italy, and a bunch of other pleasant places.

Have I mentioned the hardwood floors, cute residential neighborhood, and (blocked-up, but with a gas hookup) fireplace? No? Well, let me mention those now.

We can take occupancy as soon as the current tenant moves out, which will be June 1 at the latest. Today is a good day.

Yikes

Well, it's been ten days since I last wrote anything here. That isn't because there aren't weddingy things going on, or because I don't like blogging (there are tons of weddingy things going on, and I adore blogging).

But you see, dear friends and family, this past week has been The Busiest Week Ever, at least as far as college is concerned. That's right... it was finals week, and not just any finals week, but my last finals week as an undergrad! So I had to temporarily put blogging and other wedding things on semi-hold while I crammed for killer exams, finished a 40-page paper, and did a presentation in font of the whole English department.

I'm back now to announce that I am officially done with college, and graduation ceremonies will be on Saturday at 10am.

David is coming out tomorrow and getting a hotel room. We've got to pack up my dorm room (how is it possible to accumulate so much stuff over a single year? Oy gevalt), pick up our marriage license at the Mercer County Courthouse, and finish the last bits of our wedding registry. Yeah, I know, it's five weeks before the wedding and the registry still isn't finished. I'd feel guiltier if more people had bought us presents, but they haven't yet, so I don't (well, I do feel guilty, but only a little).

I met with the caterer this week, did a little shopping in town for some small wedding doo-dads, and have been brainstorming about fun things like flowers and neckties and shoes. More to come on that in a day or two. My super awesome future mother and sister in law are throwing me a shower on Sunday, and I'll be blogging about that, as well.

For now, I'm going to crack open a Diet Coke, stretch out in bed, watch the newest episode of House, and enjoy being finished.

A few things

So, I've slacked off a little bit with the journal writing. There are a few reasons for this, mainly that I was busy getting wedding invitations addressed and mailed out. There will be a post on that soon, with pictures of them in progress, etcetera.

In the meantime, while I study for finals, I suggest you amuse yourselves with two of my favorite wedding-related humor blogs. I warn you, you may spend a huge number of hours looking at these, aghast.

They make me feel good about myself. I'm not entirely proud of it.

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com - The most awful cakes you will ever see

http://tackyweddings.com - Like Cake Wrecks, but for all the other awful things that can happen at weddings

Other things coming up:

1. Finals start on Friday. I'm almost done with college!

2. We are now officially able to say that we're getting married next month. Woah.

3. Next time Dave is in Pennsylvania, we're picking up our marriage license. That's right. The wedding is close enough for things like that now. (blog post to follow)

4. We picked out wedding rings (blog post to follow)

5. Meeting this week with the catering people (blog post to follow)

6. Photography - not formally officially decided, but we might be changing photographers. A month and a half before the wedding! Am I crazy? You'll have to wait and judge for yourself.