For someone who grew up Catholic, I’ve been to surprisingly few Catholic weddings. And by few, I mean two. One was my uncle’s wedding when I was a senior in high school, and one was Nicole’s wedding in August. I don’t remember a ton about the first ceremony, so I was surprised this summer when I saw the order of the wedding Mass.

Apparently, this is the traditional order for a nuptial Mass:

ENTRANCE RITE

Processional
Gathering Song
Opening Prayer

LITURGY OF THE WORD

First Reading
Responsorial Psalm
Second Reading
Gospel Acclamation
Gospel Reading
Homily

RITE OF MARRIAGE

Exchange of Vows
Blessing and Exchange of Rings
Prayer of the Faithful
The Lord’s Prayer
Sign of Peace

LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST

Preparation of Gifts
Offertory Song
Eucharistic Prayer
Nuptial Blessing and Dismissal
Closing Song/Recessional

Besides the fact that it looks really long when it’s spelled out like that, what seems odd about this arrangement? The actual marriage part, with the exchange of vows and all that good stuff, is right smack in the middle of the Mass before Communion. I’m not a fan of this plan. It seems awkward and disjointed, like we’re just randomly sticking a wedding where it doesn’t belong. I’m used to the flow of Mass, and messing with it will make me go all Rainman on you.

I also think it’s kind of anti-climactic to say “I do” and exchange rings… then have the “Our Father,” the sign of peace, the preparation of gifts, Communion… It just takes all the fun and excitement out of “I now pronounce you husband and wife”! Haven’t you seen the movies? When the priest says that, we’re supposed to kiss and process triumphantly out of the church to trumpet fanfare and swelling violins. And perhaps there would be some sort of dove release. Fireworks would work as well. I like a good plot line, and this doesn’t cut it!

Has anyone ever changed this order, or is it set in stone? And am I just being overly picky?

There are a lot of traditionally girly things I’m just not good at– doing hair and make-up, wearing heels, sewing, being seen and not heard. Luckily, I have friends who are good at these things (except for that last one), which is how I made it through Homecomings, proms, girls’ nights out and anything else that required a curling iron or a thong.

My college roommate Kaila is the ultimate champion of the girly arts. She was the one who did my eyeliner when we went dancing freshman year and the one who helped me throw together last-minute costumes for pirate parties, toga parties, jungle parties, Father’s Day parties. Kaila is very crafty, and I am happy to take advantage of her mad skills.

Early in college, I told Kaila that she would have to make my wedding dress someday… you know, when get old and crazy enough to get married. I had seen her construct a beautiful Queen Elizabeth-esque dress, corset and all, from scratch for the Renaissance Festival, so I was pretty confident she could make me an amazing wedding dress (though of course I continued to mock her for going to the Ren Fest every year– huzzah!). 

So Kai is making my wedding dress, and it’s going to be freaking beautiful. We went to a few godawful nightmare bridal boutiques in Metairie back in January to get some ideas for what I wanted, and it was a little traumatic (bossy Yat ladies telling me what I want and poking and prodding me is not my idea of fun). After seeing a lot of really ugly dresses and a few beautiful ones, I decided what I wanted: 

1. Ivory, not white, with red accents  
2. Not pouffy or anything that could be described as “princessy” (tulle is created by the devil himself)
3.  Elegant but still fun


Kai sketched out a design that I liked and then started working her magic. Check it out so far… 

 
See, the bodice is going to be ivory lace with silk chiffon straps (red satin underneath), and there will be more satin ruching under the bust…

And the red satin underskirt is going to be covered by layers of silk chiffon so it won’t show in the front. But in the back… ay ay!
 
Ooooh, it’s gonna be perty. I’ll post more progress reports as she gets closer to being finished. Yay, I’m getting excited!

Some of you might remember the last time I was in France. I lived not far from Antibes in a quaint little Provençal town, where I taught adorable French children how to say “It is Thursday” and “I like to eat pizza.” I had a few problems when I lived in France, namely that the French people like to mess with my head and deprive me of things like heat, money and contact with the outside world.

This last trip to France, however, was much more smooth… probably because I wasn’t there long enough to incite riots or train strikes. Kathleen and I both caught a vicious Gallic cold as we were leaving this fine country (totally unrelated to us staying out too late drinking wine and dancing), which is one of my excuses for not posting in so long.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here are a few highlights from our trip, as told through ridiculous snapshots (also check out Kathleen’s hilarious and more detailed account of our voyage):

Absinthe bar, complete with funny hats and drunken Belgians

Kathleen always has a song in her heart and a dance in her step

On the Isle of Ste. Marguerite, Esther indulges in two essential French food groups: chocolate and beer

We make a very entertaining Scottish friend at a five-hour happy hour in Cannes

Kathleen and I discover a fabulous club in Antibes and find our dance cards are always full

At Le Refuge des Fondues in Montmartre, Paris (yes, that is red wine served in baby bottles– to avoid the tax on stemmed glasses, apparently)

Before… but why is the wine gone?

After… yayyyyy!

Fin

(OK, now I am back to the real world and will be posting again on the wedding planning I swear I’m doing. Two and a half months until the wedding… holy crapshit.)

Sorry I haven’t written in a couple weeks. You see, I was just so busy preparing for my trip to the French Riviera, I couldn’t be bothered to write or even do any wedding-related items. It’s very stressful traveling to the Côte d’Azur– making sure I have the right clothes for the famously temperate climate and enough memory cards to capture the Mediterranean’s beauty effectively, not to mention brushing up on essential French phrases like “Je voudrais un autre pichet de vin rouge” and “Ne me touche pas– tu me fais chier!” Life is so hard sometimes.

The obligatory Mediterranean resort photo

Fine, I’ll stop being completely obnoxious, but I seriously got a chance to go to the French Riviera. For free! I think that merits a little insufferable gloating. I’m on a two-week trip in Antibes Juan-les-Pins (between Cannes and Nice) with a program through the French Consulate optimistically called “Jeunes Talents.” There are eight of us young talents going to four different French cities– Antibes, Lyon, Montpellier and Biarritz– to take photographs for an exhibition and some brochures. For some reason, Loyola is one of the schools sending recent grads and, thank the baby Jesus, I take pictures and speak French. It’s been awhile since I’ve been shooting on a regular basis, though, so I’m hoping it’s like riding a bike…

Esther, another Loyola grad who majored in visual arts, is in Antibes as well so I have a partner in crime to help me eat and drink my way through the city. And in an awesome turn of events, my love Kathleen decided to take a spontaneous vacation to France! She found a cheap fare to Paris and is taking the train to Antibes to meet me on Wednesday. We’ll hang out here for a few days, soak up the sun and stuff ourselves with mussels and escargot, then spend our last two days in Paris. Our conversations about the trip mostly consist of us going, “Eeeeee!” over and over and sometimes jumping up and down.

I had wanted to keep up a Flickr account with all my pictures while I’m traveling, but sadly, I don’t think it’s possible this time around. The gallery in L.A. where we’re having the exhibition in March doesn’t want us to publish our images on the Web until after the opening. Understandable, but a bummer nonetheless. I think I’ll be able to send around a Picasa album or two, so let me know if you’re interested in getting in on that action. I’ll also post a few photos to the blog that I don’t plan to submit. In other words, you can see my photographic rejects here! Who’s excited? I already paid for a pro Flickr account, though, so you can be damn sure I’ll use it for something– take a gander every now and then.

I’ll write more later, but here are a few pictures from my first days here… Gros bisous!

Restaurant in Old Antibes

My neverending quest for the perfect pétanque picture (a.k.a. me stalking old men)

Street in Old Antibes

Soccer game with an unexpected player

You have no idea how hard it’s been not to make incessant save-the-date/STD references. Really. Maturity is not my strongest suit. But I think I get one freebie: Brian and I are officially free of STDs! Yay! OK, I’m done now.

It may not sound like much, but getting those darn things off in the mail was a major accomplishment. I actually sobbed like Chris Crocker over envelopes last week. Twice.

All right, it wasn’t just over envelopes (I had a generally rough week), but still. Here’s a little timeline of the crazy.

Monday: I talk to the gentleman in charge at Sir Speedy downtown and determined we were go for launch. He has the design files, the Excel doc and font files for the mail merge on the envelopes and promises me a proof by the end of the day.

Wednesday: No proof yet. I’m now working with two new sales people, and somewhere in the transition the design files are deleted from the FTP. I let them know that Brian, my fiance who is fighting terror in Iraq has the design files and won’t be able to send them until later that night. I politely express my displeasure. Brian resends the files.

Thursday: There’s a problem with the Excel doc, and I end up having to make two separate spreadsheets. I have to approve a proof in person, so I drive downtown and spend 20 minutes cursing at businessmen and parallel parking like a mofo. I get back to work and see the envelope design file open on my screen. There’s a typo in the return address and I flip out like Jessica Stein. I call the printer and have them stop printing the envelopes (luckily they had only done 20). I have a breakdown on the phone with Brian… something along the lines of “Now they’re not going to finish the project by tomorrow and they won’t be done until next week and I’m terrible at wedding planning and I’m falling behind at work and I’m being a total bitch to everyone around me and I haven’t seen you in five months and I am failing at liiiiiiife.”

Friday: The project is done on time and turns out beautifully. I realize we left off our parents and my sister from the guest list and there are no extra envelopes, but I mostly shrug it off. I stop for gas on the way home and am verbally harassed by a charming young man who tells me, “Girl, you a white girl and you look like that? You got more booty than any black girl I know! My friend here’s a rapper. Wanna be in his video?” I try to make daggers literally come out of my eyes without success. I go home and spend 10 minutes examining my ass in the mirror. Later, I go to FedEx to ship the save-the-dates to Bri in Iraq (our plan was to have him send them out because he gets free shipping). I find out that sending the box to him will cost $156, twice as much as just mailing them from here. I have another sobfest on the phone with Brian, the most patient man in the world, this time mainly about the cost of postage and my fast-developing eating disorder. Poor Chuck makes the mistake of jokingly pointing out I got our own address wrong on his envelope. I don’t laugh.

Saturday: I mail the save-the-dates, go for a swim, get a pedicure and drink some wine. Someone please save me from myself.

I have been recently inducted into the magical, addictive world of Etsy– “your place to buy and sell all things handmade.” Why, yes, it is my place, thank you! Nicole introduced me to it while she was planning her wedding, and it’s apparently the new hotspot for hip (and hipster) brides to find creative, fabulous wedding accessories, decorations, invitations and pretty much anything else that can be stitched, beaded or tie-dyed. It’s awesome! It makes me want to buy an old loft with Brian and fix it up with silkscreened prints and refurbished furniture like these people.

Nicole found this awesome guestbook from Etsy artist lmoss that would be perfect with our carnival theme (”Carnies. Circus Folk. Nomads, you know. Smell like cabbage. Small hands.”):

Oooh, pretty.  This one is small (5.5 x 4.25) with inner pages made of colorful index cards, but the great thing about an independent artisan is that she can make one customized to our specifications. I’m thinking an 8×10 horizontal book with ivory linen pages. I’m also thinking our guests should write all messages in the form of haikus or limericks (or perhaps caricatures for those good draw-ers). Whatchya think?

I spend all day on the Internet. I work for a Web site, and I’m addicted to Facebook, Google Talk and any number of other time-suckage devices, so you could call me a Web junkie (better than “Web crack whore,” I suppose). And let me tell you, the Internet is really excited that I’m getting married. It tells me so all the time! It gives me recommendations on what wedding stationary to use, where to go on my honeymoon and even how to lose those pesky extra pounds (which I apparently have put on, according to the Internet).

Facebook is the worst– constantly bombarding me with annoying ads about “revolutionary” diets and “romantic” photography packages (side note: if I see another soft-focus shot, I’m gonna hurt someone).

And I don’t even know what to say about this one:

But it’s not just Facebook; my buddy Google has done me wrong, too, scouring my e-mails for wedding keywords and harassing me within my own e-mail. Gmail is supposed to be my happy place!

I’d just like to note that the words “baby registry” keep coming up, and I don’t know why. Nowhere in my e-mails do I use the words “shotgun” or “pitter-patter of little feet.” There are some things we don’t joke about, Google. I can always change my relationship status to “It’s Complicated” on Facebook (though then I might get break-up self-help books), but I have no idea what to do about the all-knowing Google besides writing my e-mails in code. Any ideas?

That’s it. We’re getting married on the front porch (Chuck has already graciously offered to get one of those online certificates so he can perform the ceremony) and having the reception at Ms. Mae’s. We’ll even offer to pick up the tab for everyone’s $1 drinks. I can’t see any other way this is gonna work.

Both Ide and Melia have blogged recently about feeling crazy and overwhelmed, and I’d like to join that party… especially if that party has wine. I realized today that we’re getting married in four months. Four freaking months! Lately, I’ve been working until the wee hours of the morning and drinking coffee like it’s going out of style. I don’t really have the energy to feed myself (thank you, Reginelli’s delivery man)

or unpack my evacuation suitcase, let alone research florists or learn about sin in our pre-cana class.

So instead, I make to-do lists. Lots and lots of to-do lists. I have Google docs, Excel spreadsheets, ta-da lists, scraps of paper stuffed in my purse. I’m the crazy cat lady of to-do lists.

Just a few items:

• Find a damn printer by next week
• Reserve the Yat cake lady we love so much
• Register for the “set it and forget it.” And maybe a few other things.
• Research remaining vendors: DJ, florist, transportation, people to make us prettier than we already are
• Write “our story” for the Web site in a non-gross way
• Get an extension on pre-cana class (play the deployment card)
• Call Archdiocese re: importing a priest from out of state
• Go swimming enough to make up for my week in Jackson and Chicago (read: spending time with my favorite bad influences)
• Watch late-night TNT while making more to-do lists I won’t complete

I make Sarah Palin look sane. Actually, now that I think about it, all this organizational experience might qualify me for vice president.

I was going to write a couple blogs last week, but life has been a little nutty with:

1. Hurricane Gustav- WTF, dude? Thanks for not hitting New Orleans directly, but it’s still awfully inconvenient to evacuate. My house still doesn’t have power (sorry you’re going through this alone, Chuck… I promise I’ll replenish our whiskey supply when I get home) and I’m praying Ike defies his abusive name and goes elsewhere.

2. Traveling- See #1. I spent a few evacuation days in Jackson, Mississippi and now I’m in Chicago invading the Ide-Crank household until Sunday. We managed to get a huge New Orleans posse up here this week, which can only mean trouble. Chicago didn’t know what it was in for.

3. Work- The only bad thing about working from home for a California-based company is that work doesn’t stop during mandatory evacuations in Louisiana. So I’ve been that loser college friend who sits on Ide’s futon all day and doesn’t shower till 6 p.m. (at least I’m working on my laptop and not watching “Tyra” and drinking a six-pack of High Life).

Anyway, those are my excuses. I’ll try to do better next week… if there is power in New Orleans by the time I get back. You may have already seen this on Brian’s blog, but… drumroll please… here are our save-the-dates! We still need to write final copy (I’m totally calling that guy at Gem Printing for some pointers), but the design is finished. What do you think? Isn’t Brian fantastically talented (in addition to being ridiculously good looking)?

In the wake of Nicole’s wedding, after seeing how much work these shenanigans really take, I resolved to get crackalackin’ on all the to-do list I’ve been avoiding. Well, I still can’t quite make time to sit down and do the first pre-cana lesson, but that time will come. Let’s not get too crazy.

Lately, everyone has been expecting me to know the answers to pesky questions like, “Where should I stay when I come in town?” and “When are you sending out save-the-dates so I can book my flight?” Jesus, people, you ask so much of me! Crawling into a fetal position and rocking back and forth in the corner didn’t seem to deter anyone, so Brian and I decided we should send out our save-the-dates soon. Those will list the date and the wedding Web site address (featuring hotel information and other useful tidbits), thus buying a little time before we have to send out the actual invitations.

Bri has been trying to stalk New Orleans printers for the last few weeks, but they apparently don’t respond well to this newfangled “e-mail” thing. I put it off for as long as possible, then grudgingly stopped by one business yesterday after work. It’s called Gem Printing and is located in Metairie, what I consider the armpit of the New Orleans metro area. I tried to overcome this by imagining the store staffed by the cast of Jem:

Sadly, this was not the case. The gentleman who waited on me has obviously been in the wedding invitation business a long time (which I’m sure will take a toll on a person), and he was dead set on telling me what I want and what I should and shouldn’t do. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: My fiance is designing our save-the-dates and invitations. Since he’s a graphic designer, he wants to have all the fonts consistent throughout all pieces. Would you be able to print addresses on the envelopes if we give you an Excel or Word doc with all of them?

Gem Guy: We print return addresses on all the envelopes.

Me: No, I mean if we wanted to print the addresses we’re sending invitations to in a certain typeface, would you be able to do that?

GG: Oh, you don’t want to do that. You never want to do that.

Me: See, but I do want to do that. Can you print addresses on the envelopes? How much would that cost? (trying to emphasize that it’s not that I don’t know the rules; I’m just choosing to ignore them)

GG: You should never print addresses. You should always handwrite them. Trust me, you don’t want to print them.

Me: Can you. Or. Can. You. Not. Print. Addresses.

GG: No, we can’t. It’s not possible the way our equipment is set up.

Me: OK. That was my question. Now about the paper sizes…

GG: And before you bring in your final design, you’re gonna want to bring in a draft so I can edit it.

Me: Exsqueeze me? (translation: “Don’t you know who I AM?”)

GG: So I can edit it. You guys will probably make a lot of little mistakes on how you word wedding invitations. It’s just a lot different than how you write other things. Trust me. I’ve been doing this a long time. I can fix it for you.

Me: That won’t be necessary. It will be correct and the way we want it when (IF) I bring it in. We’re not using traditional standards for a lot of our phrasing (translation: I think it’s freaking ridonkulous to write out “two thousand and nine” when I would never do that under any other circumstances), so I’ll just save you the time.

GG: Yeah, just bring it in and I’ll take a look at it.

Me: Anyway, can we get larger cards the same size as the save-the-dates for our maps and directions? Can you print double-sided?

GG: Oh no, you shouldn’t use something that big. You should use the 3×5 cards we use for RSVPs. You don’t have to include every little street on the map. If you use the big card for the directions, it’ll compete with your invitation. See, you want to build all the other pieces around the invitation…

Me: We want the larger card. Can. You. Print. On. Both. Sides.

GG: Yes.

Me: OK then. What kind of digital file do you want for the design? Illustrator? PDF? JPEG? TIFF?

GG: A JPEG or TIFF will work. But you need to make sure you bring in the text so I can edit it before you bring in the final file. (Speaking slowly now, so I can understand) You see, once it’s in JPEG or TIFF format, I can resize it, but I can’t edit the words.

Me: (blink blink)

And that’s around the time I wanted to do something like this:

The problem is, this place comes recommended, it’s pretty cheap and most of the other NOLA printers specialize in commercial work. On the other hand, I probably don’t want to feel murderous rage every time I look at my wedding invitations. Advice? Words of wisdom? Sedatives?