Rebellin

Since I fired the woman I had planned to do my hair for the wedding, my old hair dresser (the one I’ve been going to for three years) requested that I find some pictures of hairstyles that I like so that she can get an idea of what style I want.

The hairdresser that I fired had done the cutest french braid that started at the nape of my neck. She braided from my neck up to the crown of my head, where she secured the braid and had the rest of the hair done in cascading curls.

I thought it looked great, plus she said it was guaranteed to stay put for the whole night.

The only photo I could find of a ‘reverse french braid’ is this picture of a Barbie’s hair. I kind of have an issue with having a Barbie hairstyle on my wedding day.

We’re supposed to have two pre-marital counseling sessions with the pastor before he will perform our ceremony. When the church sent us the paperwork saying this, I called to schedule our appointments.

“Could you call back at the end of August?” They asked.

Sure. No problem. I called back on August 25.

“Could you call back next week? The person that does the scheduling is on vacation.”

Rolling my eyes, I said yes.

I called back today.

“Um, you need to call the wedding coordinator so that she can verify which pastor will be performing your service. Once she’s done that, you’ll need to call us back to schedule your appointments.”

As further proof that nothing can be done in less than three phone calls in wedding land, I’m now up to FOUR phone calls about the counseling sessions, and I still have at least one more call to make.

Perhaps this is a version of Survivor, known as Wedding Survivor. Her’s the premise of the show: they try to make it really challenging for you to coordinate all aspects of the wedding and the reception, just to see if you can make it through all of the ‘challenges’. Then, your reward at the end is that you actually get to go through with the marriage.

*checking for a hidden camera in my office*

I’ll try typing this entry a second time. I’m seriously annoyed that my computer lost it the first time around, because I’m sure my writing was much more inspired and witty. Today, I’m likely to just sound annoyed. Forgive me if I do.

I went to New Mexico this past weekend for my bridal shower. I arrived in Albuquerque around 10:00 pm and went to go meet my parents by the security gates.

They weren’t there. My parents have NEVER been late to pick me up at the airport, so this struck me as a bit odd. I continued walking down to baggage claim, and they weren’t there either.

10 minutes passed. I called them at home and on their cell phone. No answer either place.

20 minutes passed. This is SO abnormal for them that I started having visions of bad things that could have happened to them, like them being crashed in their car on the freeway. Not a pleasant thought. I started to wonder at what point I should get a cab, or call the cops to see if there had been any accident reports.

After about 30 minutes, Mom came running in to the airport. Evidently, the freeway had been shut down due to construction, and they had been caught in traffic at 10:00 at night. In Albuquerque. Go figure.

We made it home by about 11:30 and cut into the raspberry tart that Mom had made in honor of my upcoming birthday. I discovered my love for raspberry tarts while in Paris with my Mom, as we managed to find one almost every afternoon we were there at the numerous patisseries that we frequented.

Back to this weekend, though, Saturday started with Mom and I going to a kick boxing class at her gym. Do I need to say how cool it is that my Mom can kick box? OK, it’s more like Tae Bo, but still, that’s awesome.

After our workout, Mom and I headed to the stores for a 5 hour marathon shopping day. If there is one thing you should know about my Mom, it’s that the woman can shop. I, on the other hand, didn’t inherit the shopping gene, but I managed to keep up with her on Saturday.

I got a make-over at the mall for my wedding day make-up. We went to the same woman that has done make-overs on my Mom for quite a while. Since the woman knew my Mom, she would put on a bit of make-up, then push my chin in my Mom’s direction saying, “Now doesn’t that look beautiful?” I found it rather humorous every time the woman pushed my face in my Mom’s direction. It was always show Mom first, then let Lynn3tt3 (numbers added to fool search engines) look in the mirror, when I would agree with her that it looked just beautiful. I walked away from the counter with make-up that was a bit too dramatic for our shopping excursion, and a bag full of wedding-day makeup supplies.

The next project of the day was wedding shoes. I’ve already hit four stores on my own trying to find the perfect pair, and have walked away empty handed four times.

If you are a shoe salesman, I warn you to turn and run when my mother and I come in to try on shoes. We’ll usually buy a pair, but the amount of shoes we find to try on is always impressive. I think I tried on about ten pairs of shoes when I settled on a pair of white satin sandals with 3 inch heels. I guarantee you I’ll be limping around by the end of the night, but I was so sick of looking for these darn shoes that will most likely only be seen during the garter toss that I just gave in and bought them. Do you think anyone will notice if I change into my running shoes after the garter toss? I don’t, and it’s a really tempting thought.

We then headed to the pantyhose department, where I picked up my wedding day stockings, with the help of a grumpy old saleslady that kept sarcastically calling me Dear. I was rather tempted to say, “Dear, if I’m such a bother, I’ll get my stockings elsewhere,” but that would have meant taking the effort to go to another store, so I sucked it up and bought them from her.

Much more happened on our shopping excursion, but I’ll get to the stuff you really want to hear about… The Bachelorette Party. The culprits involved were Amber, my matron of honor, and Sami, a bridesmaid.

Before the girls showed up, Dad got a sullen look on his face, and said that he didn’t understand why an engaged woman and a married woman (Amber) would go out to a bar without their mates. He said that he thought it was inappropriate. I countered with the fact that many men had strippers at their Bachelor parties, and that us going to a bar together would be completely innocent.

“But are you going to dance with men?” He asked.

“Yes, Dad, I may two-step with a few people.” He shook his head. Evidence of a large generation gap.

Amber came over and outfitted me with a veil and a tiara, and buttons that said things such as “Bad Girl” and “Vamp”. It was pretty funny. She and Sami both donned buttons of their own and some Mardi Gras beads, so as to associate themselves with the Bachelorette Party.

I had forgotten how people seem to flock to Bachelorette Parties at the bar. And having never been the actual Bachelorette, it was a real treat. In fact, at times, I would forget about the veil on my head, and would catch people turning to look at me. That’s when I would remember that I really stuck out at the bar with the veil and tiara.

Countless people came up to me and asked me, “Are you getting married?”

I am a firm believer that a really stupid question at times deserves a really stupid answer, so I would look each one of them in the face and give them a confused look as I said, “Noooooooooo…..”

Their reactions were pretty funny. Especially the girl that came back up to me about five minutes later and said, “Really, are you getting married?” And, of course, I again told her no, enjoying the confusion on her face.

Come on people, isn’t it obvious?!

We ran into a few people I knew from high school and college. Damon, a guy I knew in college came up to me and we chatted for about 5 minutes about what he’s been doing with his life. Then he turned to me and said, “So, what’s new with you?”

Do you not see the giant tiara and veil on my head?!

Anyway, the night flew by way too fast, and we all had a ball. I two-stepped with three guys, each of which were perfect gentlemen that congratulated on my pending nuptials, and were very patient as I stumbled on the dance floor in my three inch platform sling back shoes.

Now, on to Sunday, the day of the shower. The shower was thrown by my Mom’s friend, who also happens to be Sami’s mother. Sami and her Mom did an incredible job, and I was amazed with the attention to detail. There were red streamers and red roses (red and red roses being part of my theme) and they were playing Italian music in the background since JB and I will be honeymooning in Italy. The shower was in the back yard, which has amazing landscaping and a cute little fountain. They had brought out the fancy table linens and the fine china, and I felt like a princess.

Amber was in charge of games, and she did a great job. No toilet paper bride games at my shower! She wrote up a game that was a quiz to see who knows the bride the best. I think the readers of this site would probably do pretty well on that quiz. Here are some of the questions:

• What place out of 1000 did Lynn3tt3 get in the Alcatraz Shark Fest Swim?
• What is the name of Lynn3tt3’s dog?
• Lynn3tt3 has two cars, what is the fun one?
• What are the names of Lynn3tt3’s brothers?
• What were Lynn3tt3 and JB in the middle of when they took a break and he proposed?

I won’t bore you with any more questions, but since Amber couldn’t play (she wrote the quiz) and we disqualified my Mom because she’d know all the answers anyways, Sami walked away the winner. Yeah, Sami!

While at the shower, several of my Mom’s friends mentioned that they had been to my site, and a few were even recommending to the others that they should go check it out. So, welcome aboard to all of Mom’s friends. I hope you enjoy the ride!

After being showered with wonderful presents, I packed everything up and headed to the airport. I was back at home in JB’s arms by 11:30 Sunday night. *sigh*

So thank you to everyone that made this past weekend very special and memorable.

I had a dream about the wedding reception last night. It all centered around the band. The band played for a while, everyone was dancing, and then they went on break.

The band was on break for forty five minutes, in which time, most of the people had decided to leave the reception. After a while, I went to search out the lead singer, and went up to her screaming, “Where the *bleep!* have you been? It has been 45 minutes and all of our guests are leaving!”

She was rather nonchalant, and I tried to calm down, telling her to put on a CD of our Frank song so that we could do our first dance.

She put on a CD of the wrong Frank song. The box step didn’t work well with it, and all of our cheography was worthless. After about a minute of stumbling around on the dance floor, I stopped, and went up to the lead singer and told her it was the WRONG Frank song, and she said that the band could play our song.

So the band started to play, and once again, it was the wrong song. JB and I were fumbling around on the dance floor, but this time, I decided we had to run with it. We started to do the swing, and next thing I knew, I had fallen onto my back. JB then asked what I wanted him to do.

“Help me up!” Was my angry response.

We then started doing the tango. Strange, I know.

After our dance, I requested a certain song for my dance with my Dad, and the band managed to screw that up, too. By that point there were about 10 people left at the reception.

And then I woke up, thinking that I need to call the band and review the play list with them.

The good news? Our band doesn’t have a female lead singer, so this all couldn’t be an omen…. Could it?

Honeymooning in Italia per undici giorni! In other words, we will be honeymooning in Italy for 11 days!

That’s right, we have booked the honeymoon. Too bad I won’t have a handy dandy website translater with me on the trip! We’re planning on spending 3 days in Capri, a few days in Florence, perhaps a day trip to Cinque Terre and a few days in Venice. The rest of the time, I think we’re going to decide at our liesure in Italy.

Going along with the theme of Nothing is Easy In Wedding Town, this is what our day was like on Saturday:

• Saturday morning, I decided to book the airfare for our trip. I called Orbitz, since I wasn’t how to book a flight that was arriving at one point in Italy and departing from another. The woman quoted me a price for the tickets, but then said she’d just show me how to book it online myself. Not a problem. So I went through, selected the flights, selected our seats for EVERY LEG OF THE TRIP, entered all of the billing information and frequent flier information, and clicked on Book It. After cranking for about 5 minutes, I got an error saying that the flight was no longer available. What?! So I went back into the system, searched for flights, and found the same flight listed there. So I went through the same process, and got the same error again. I then called Orbitz, and the girl went through getting all of the above listed information, and then when she tried to book it, she got the same error. After waiting on hold for about 20 minutes, she came back and said there wasn’t enough time between my International Flights, so the airline was blocking the booking. Lovely. That fiasco took about 1.5 hours. I had to take a break, and later that afternoon, I came back and booked another flight with a much less attractive departure time and hellaciously long lay-overs (4 hours in Dallas Fort-Worth — blek!). But we’re going to Italy, so it’s all good, right?

• We went to get JB’s ring. Of course, the first jeweler we went to didn’t have any plain gold wedding bands. Excuse me?! What kind of jeweler doesn’t carry plain gold wedding bands for men? So we perused a catalog, found what he wanted and ordered it. I then suggested we go to another jeweler so that he could try rings on, considering the man has never worn a ring in his life. We found an identical ring for much less money, but for a reason I won’t say here, JB didn’t want it. So we know exactly what kind of ring he wants, but still no ring in hand.
• On to the tuxes. We decided to go to a tux shop in Carson City, as it would make things easier on JB and the groomsmen the week of the wedding. There aren’t any national tux shop chains in Carson City. The first one we went to, we walked in, and the shop didn’t have anything on display. A woman walked out from the back of the shop and said, “May I help you?” And after we told her we were looking for some tuxes, she said that they were now out of business. (So how could you have “helped us” anyway?) We then went to a second shop, that was out of business. (Mental note: don’t open a tux shop in Carson City) The third shop had tuxes, but no air conditioning. So after sweating it through our selection process, we have some tuxes, people!
• The man at the tux shop mentioned that we could go get our marriage license that day, and that it was right down the street. Yippee — one less chore to do another day! We went to the wedding license place, and they had closed 2 minutes earlier. We went back on Sunday, though, so that is crossed off the list.
• Finally, we went to get JB’s passport photo. We stopped by Kinko’s. There were no other customers in the store, so a logical person would think that we’d be in and out in a jiffy. Oh, no, people. We were there at least 40 minutes, as the first three sets of photos didn’t develop well. Thankfully, the fourth set did develop, and we were out of there!

So, many wedding tasks crossed off the list, but I have yet another entry to prove that nothing is easy in Wedding Land.

I discovered eBay this week.

OK, I always knew it was there, and had poked around on it before, but I had never actually signed up and attempted to purchase anything.

Until yesterday.

eBay is a bride’s best friend.

Or her worst enemy, if you look at it from the bank account’s perspective.

But seriously, within minutes, I had located and purchased: ring bearer pillow, flowergirl basket, throw garter with blue ribbon (for my something blue), bubble containers in the shape of champagne glasses (too cute!), and my bridesmaid gifts.

This could be dangerous. Must…Resist…Urge…To…Continue…Bidding…..

One year ago, I was as low as a girl can go. I was in the process of picking up the pieces of a life torn apart by The Man Now Known as The Ex. It had been a 3.75 year relationship based on friendship and trust that came shattering to an end in his lies and unfaithfulness.

But I’m a survivor. I didn’t let him jade me. I didn’t let him ruin my trust in men. I wrote him off, told him to get the heck out of my life, and I started over.

Starting over is a very hard thing to do. When I was ready, I decided to jump back into the dating pool.

I was dreading returning to the dating pool. Up until the afore mentioned relationship, I didn’t have many long term relationships. Instead, I dated, and I dated a lot. I figured that the more I dated, the more I would know what I was looking for. Which is true, but I got so sick of dating. Actually, I think it was the Dating Game that I was sick of.

If I was interested, I would have to wonder if he was going to call, if he would ask me out again, was I letting on too early that I was interested… What should I wear, what should I say?

If I wasn’t interested, many times I would go ahead and accept invitations for second and third dates, thinking I should give the guy a chance. That never ended well.

So back to the story. As you can see, even though I hadn’t been on the dating scene for a while, I knew what I was getting back into, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.

It was with a lot of trepidation that I set up a profile on Match.com.

I was relatively new to the Reno area, and didn’t have any single friends. I don’t run across single available men in my job, so I knew that the most effective way to jump back into the dating pool was online dating.

And it scared me to death. I had visions of countless of horrible dates. Of men that lied in their profiles. Of scary men showing up to meet me. Of stalkers.

But I also had visions of meeting Mr. Right. And I was up to the challenge, hoping that if I could find my Mr. Right eventually. It was time to take matters into my own hands.

I attacked the online dating scene like I would any business problem. I defined my target market, and decided how best to target to that market.

Goofy, I know. But marketing is what I do for a living.

I gathered some digital photos, wrote up my profile, and signed up for a three month account on Match.com. I was in for the long haul.

I had been online less than a week when I received the fateful e-mail from JB, then known as Stretch12.

He sounded perfect. In fact, he sounded too good to be true. And when he mentioned that his band would be playing about 10 minutes from my house on August 14th, I decided that I would go scope him out.

I was very nervous, but I enjoyed the fact that I hadn’t told him that I would show up. Hence, he wasn’t expecting me, and I could leave if he looked scary.

My first online date. Yeah, it was scary.

It took me a while to find the stage where his band was playing, and when I did find it, I stood behind a tree, making sure he couldn’t see me as I checked him out.

Pretty cute.

Nope, the man was HOT. And, wow, could he play the drums.

The band stopped playing, and I watched from afar as he started to pack his drums up. After what seemed like forever, he finally stood aside from the band… Alone.

My hands were sweaty, and my hands and knees were shaking. I mustered up all my courage up and went up to him. I remember clutching the water bottle in my hand so that it wouldn’t be obvious that my hands were shaking.

“Are you JB?”

“Yes.” He said, seemingly unaffected.

“Hi, I’m Anne.” Of course, I was operating under a fake name to protect my privacy.

It wasn’t until I said my name that a flicker of recognition crossed his face. His eyes got big, and he smiled, and we began talking. I don’t remember what we talked about, but I remember trying to stop my lips from shaking when I smiled. My lips always seem to shake when I’m really nervous.

That night had been his first performance with the band, and he had been nervous because of that, especially since there was a very large crowd. He had been so caught up in the gig that I think he had forgotten that he had told me about where he’d be playing.

JB eventually invited me to go into a nearby brewery to have a beer with him. We talked for two hours. Straight. No awkward pauses. Things went really smoothly, and by the end of the date, I was relatively relaxed. I felt comfortable enough to have him walk me to my car, since it was dark.

At my car, I told him my real name, and gave him my phone number. We hugged goodnight, and I remember how GOOD it felt.

I got in my car, and as I drove away, I called Amber on my cell phone. Of course, she was waiting to hear that I was safe and hadn’t been abducted by some strange online stalker man.

All I remember from that conversation is the first thing I told her, “Oh My God, he is HOT!” I think I then gushed about how perfect he was… That he was smart, had good relations with his family, had two dogs, was athletic… Just like what I had been looking for.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I’m writing to let you know that one year ago tomorrow, my life changed forever. I met my future husband, and I am happier than I’ve ever been. I am the ultimate Match.com success story. I was online for less than a week, and on my first date, I met my Mr. Right.

Meeting JB was like coming home after a long, hard journey. Being with him feels comfortable, safe… and it just feels right. More right than anything I’ve ever known. After being in a long relationship that never felt that way, I knew that the Old Man Upstairs had been looking out for me, and led me to the man that was my fate. I pray each night that God will keep him safe, healthy, and happy so that we can live many years together.

*wiping a happy tear from my eye*

And for those of you out there that are still looking for your Mr. or Mrs. Right, I’m here to tell you to keep the faith, and to not give up. That person is out there if you just look hard enough and keep your heart open.

Well, we’ve booked a band. Yeah! And, they know a bunch of Frank Sinatra songs, which is a major plus.

One more item crossed off my to-do list. Never mind that it was on JULY’S to-do list!

As the date gets closer, I just have to remind myself that no matter what goes wrong, it can’t be as bad as this.

Well, I fired the new hair dresser, even before she had a chance to do my hair. Enough was enough. It took me two weeks to get a hold of her initially, and after three cancelled appointments, I decided that she was a bit too hair brained for me.

Every phone call to her seemed to include screaming kids in the background (she has four), and she has a big problem returning phone calls. I had bad visions of her either forgetting to show up on my wedding day, canceling at the last minute, or showing up with all four kids, causing me to have a coronary on my big day.

She doesn’t even know she has been fired. She hasn’t bothered to return my phone call from last Friday. Otherwise, she would know.

So, I’m back to the hair dresser I’ve been going to for almost three years. Despite the fact that two important people in my life have recently said they aren’t impressed with her work (i.e. my hair), that’s who will be doing it. She’s dependable, and I know exactly what I’ll be getting from her.

So there. Don’t mess with the bride.

Last night, after a dinner of shrimp stir fry and a few glasses of wine, I declared that we should dance.

Every Sunday night, we listen to the Frank Sinatra and Friends show on NPR. This has lead to several Sunday nights where we dance to Frank in the living room.

For a few weeks now, I’ve been hinting to JB (OK, blatently telling him) that he should give me dance lessons for my upcoming birthday. His response is always, “Why do we need dance lessons?”

Our first dance together at the wedding rehearsal will be a Frank song. So last night, I ran out to the car and retrieved my CD of Frank’s Greatest Hits, and popped it in.

“Why don’t we try the box step?” JB said.

“You know the box step?!” I asked. JB has been known to yank my chain in the past, so I thought he was just blowin’ smoke, if you know what I mean.

“Yeah.” He said, and we assumed the dancing position, and good golly, we were doing the box step.

And he’s really good at it. REALLY GOOD. So good, that I was very curious as to where he picked this trick up, and who taught him. Especially since he had never pulled the box step out of his hat any of the other nights we danced to Frank.

And all he would say is that he picked it up from Fred Astaire.

“I don’t believe you.” I said.

“OK, I learned it from Ginger Rogers.”

And no matter how many times I asked (which was many that night), Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was his answer. Even when I said, “don’t say Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers.”

So there we were in the living room doing the box step to Our Song, and next thing I knew, we were both actively choreographing our dance together. It was a blast. He kept going back to the CD player so that we could rewind the song and practice certain parts.

We’re going to rock the reception, y’all. You just wait and see. I guess JB was right — we don’t need dance lessons.

And need I say how absolutely thrilled I was by this discovery, and by how well our dance is coming together?! I have always dreamed of ballroom dancing with my Mr. Right, and there I was doing it, and I will be doing it in front of all my friends and family.

Seriously, I was the girl that watched Dirty Dancing and longed to be like Baby, dancing on my tip toes with Patrick Swayze. I used to waltz around my bedroom at night… I’m truly a sucker for a good dancer.

My groom is a damn good dancer. Life is good.

We also managed to get registered this weekend. Between a “bridal consultant” that barely spoke English and a scanner gun that was very testy, it was quite a challenge. The registries are posted on the wedding page. Enjoy!

My wedding dress is in, and I went down to the shop on my lunch hour to check in on it.

“Oh, yes, your dress is here!” The saleswoman exclaimed.

Mind you that it is THREE WEEKS early. I find it ironic how much pressure I got because I was looking at SUCH A TIGHT TIME TABLE to order the dress (i.e. 4 months), and that I just had to order immediately, or risk not getting my dress in time.

They then made me frazzled, saying that they don’t assume any responsibility if the dress can’t be delivered in time, and if that is the case, they’ll try to find me an off-the-rack replacement dress. (I was thinking — please DON’T make me go through dress shopping again!)

But no, the dress is here — two months and seven days before I need it. Phew!

“Do you want to try it on?” The saleswoman asked me. Remarkably, there weren’t any other brides in there trying on dresses.

On a whim, I did try it on, and it fits great. It was so nice to have the dress lace up the back as it should, instead of fastening the back with clips and elastic straps.

I stood there looking at my reflection thinking, This is my wedding dress. This is MY wedding dress. This is my WEDDING DRESS!

Of course, I had left my digital camera in my office, and all of the other girls in the office were out to luch, too. Hence, no photographic evidence of MY dress.

Yet. As of October 9, there will be plenty of pictures of the gown.

Now if I could only find shoes. God, please send me some comfortable strappy heels. (Does such a thing truly exist?)