Rebellin

The wedding is so close that we can now watch the ,weather forecasts for it:

October 9 Saturday
Partly Cloudy Hi: 68° Low: 42°

Am I really getting married one week from Saturday?! By golly, I am, and I can’t believe how close it is getting! JB and I are remarkably calm so far. We’ll see how the next two weeks go.

We had our first pre-marital counseling appointment with the pastor yesterday. We showed up right on time, just to discover that the pastor had thought our appointment was at 1:00 and not at noon. Once again, another example how nothing can be easy while you’re in the process of planning a wedding.

So, we walked around Downtown Reno, and checked out the interesting folk at Street Vibrations, the sixth largest Harley event in the country.

The counseling appointment went well. The pastor focused on our personal histories, our history as a couple, and our family relations. He also asked a bit about how we interact.

I think my favorite questions were the following:

“Do either of you have a disease that the other person doesn’t know about?”

“Do either of you have an unfinished relationship that the other person doesn’t know about?”

We had to chuckle at those questions afterwards, because really, if you had deceived your significant other up to the point of getting engaged and going to premarital counseling, is someone really going to come clean in front of a pastor? I doubt it. Over lunch afterwards, we both came up with answers to those questions that would have really thrown the pastor for a loop. But we were good children during the session, I promise.

We both really liked the pastor. I was relieved when he didn’t interrogate us on why we hadn’t been going to church on a regular basis, didn’t chastise us for living together prior to marriage, and said that the vows in the Methodist church are about equality, not a woman being subservient to her husband.

Very nice. We go back for our second and final counseling session this next Sunday. That should be interesting, because the pastor mentioned a few times that he’s going to talk to us about sex.

Now, ladies and gents, I’m off on a business trip to San Diego. I’m hoping for a bit of beach time over the next few days!

My nephew, Jack, is getting very excited to be in the wedding. In fact, I guess he has been calling himself a Tie Man. He’s very excited to wear his red tie, which I think is adorable. Jane says she thinks he’s just as excited about the wedding as I am.

We’re refraining from calling him a ring bearer to his face after hearing a story of a young ring bearer growling his way up the aisle because he thought he was a ‘ring bear’.

Isn’t he cute?

While I was on an unvoluntary blog strike, I decided to try out a spray-on tan from a tan shop. Tan-A-Rama, in fact. I love the name.

Because of my extreme paranoia of skin cancer, you’d never catch me dead in a tanning booth. Or alive. But the idea of a perfect golden spray-on tan for my wedding — one that wouldn’t damage my skin — was attractive.

Here’s the catch with the spray on tan… Someone has to spray it on you. And it can ruin any clothes that you wear, so in essence, a complete stranger sprays your entire body while you’re completely and utterly NAKED.

Yes, this was a bit strange, but having experience with massages at a few spas, it wasn’t completely new to me.

Luckily, the girl that applied my tan was very chatty and made me as comfortable as I could be as she sprayed everything. Yes, everything, people. I was tan in places that people don’t normally get tanned.

So after you get sprayed down, you have to stand in front of a fan (still naked) for 10 minutes. It gets pretty boring standing in a booth in front of a fan, so I ended up singing and dancing to myself. I managed to keep myself mildly entertained.

After I dried off, I put on my clothes (I had brought some clothes I didn’t mind ruining if the tanner wore off on them), and drove home.

When JB saw me, he said, ‘You got some sun today!’ And I, of course, just started giggling. I eventually fessed up that it was a fake tan that I was trying for the wedding, and the man thought I had completely fallen off my rocker.

In fact, my face was getting so tan that I decided to go inside and wash it, which thankfully took off the majority of the tan on my face.

The thing they don’t tell you about the fake tan is that it rubs off. You should see my poor pillow case. It turned orange. I stained the sheets, and even JB’s clothing fell victem.

And all I could think was that I’ll be damned if I’ll wear a white dress while I have fake tanner that could leave orange stains all over it.

I had circles of pale on the top of my feet where my tennis shoes tied. The insides of my elbows were REALLY tan. And though I liked how my arms, chest, and shoulders looked, it really didn’t look like me.

I’m the girl that was told by one of my brother’s friends at age 12 that I’d never find a boyfriend because I was so pale.

I’m the girl that bathes in 45 SPF before venturing out into the sun — summer or winter. I’m not the girl that has a tan.

OK, I used to be tan during my days as a lifeguard, but that tan was a result of hours in the sun wearing 45 SPF.

So, I decided that I’m going eau natural for the wedding. You may not be able to tell where my pale skin stops and the white fabric of my dress starts, but I’ll look like ME. Not a South Beach version of me.

Thankfully, I discovered this about a month before the wedding, instead of a few days before the big day!

That’s right, folks. We’re down to three weeks and counting until the Big Day.

Today, I’m sitting in my pajamas with my hair in a lovely stage of bed head, fooling around with this darn site after sleeping in until about 10:30. It’s quite a contrast to what my day will be like three weeks from today.

I’ll be flanked by people, probably rushing to finish off last minute details, stuffing myself into a humongous white dress and donning a veil. I’m also sure I’ll be nervous as hell.

I’m really trying to enjoy this time leading up to the wedding and NOT become the infamous Bridezilla. I think I’m hanging in there OK. Besides a few centerpieces being broken in the mail, the band not returning my e-mails, and the possibility that the chocolate favors may melt in transit, I’m really not fretting over a thing. OK, maybe a few things. But not too bad, really.

The girls in my office held a lovely shower for me this week. They cooked up a dinner of pecan crusted salmon, a salad with strawberries, cranraisins, walnuts and vinagrette, a creamy fettuccine with asparagus, and a mud pie for dessert.

We ate dinner outside by my boss’s pool as we sipped wine, and then they showered me with presents. I got all kinds of cooking and baking accessories, so when I get back from the honeymoon, I think I’ll be the official office chef (even though I’ll no longer be a Cook – ha!).

The presents are starting to roll in. It’s a strange, but wonderful experience. I think the strangest part is receiving gifts from people we don’t or hardly know. But heck, I’ll take them! JB is worried we won’t have room for all of the presents, especially since almost all of them so far have been for the kitchen, but I’m confident I can find room!

The RSVPs are also flooding in. And when I say flood, I mean flood. Like Ivan. Relatives are coming out of the woodwork. People I haven’t seen for ten years are making the trek to Reno for the wedding. So far, we have people coming from New York, Illinois, Ohio, New Mexico, Texas, California, Missouri and Virginia. I’m sure there are a few more states in there, but I can’t remember them all at this time. It amazes me that people would go so out of their way to celebrate with us, and I can’t wait to see everyone. It will be one big party, people! I’m leaving singlehood with one big bash!