wedding rules June 3, 2008

My WASP-y friend Lindsey is getting married this weekend. I was lucky to attend her bridal shower a few weeks ago and meet her mom and also Edgar’s. I hope their special day goes perfectly. Even if it doesn’t, I’m pretty sure that Lindsey has kept sight of what is important about 6/7/08: that she and Edgar will be joined together forever.

Just like when Jen got engaged, another woman’s nuptials brings out the know-it-all bossy boss in all of us married chicks. I present to you a list of wedding rules (not to be confused with the engagement rules) that I learned on my wedding day in July 2003 …which, come to think of it, probably would have been more useful to Lindsey before now. However, my 2-year-old had a 104 degree fever for four days this week, so suck it, Lindsey. Here’s my list: i.e. THINGS I REGRET ABOUT MY WEDDING AND WISH I COULD DO-OVER.

1 - Don’t give important people important wedding-day jobs. We decided to rent what was basically a hotel shuttle bus to get the bridal party from the church to the reception (across town). Since it had to go on someone’s insurance, my dad set it up in advance. That day he went to the dealership to pick up the van, and there was a problem with the air conditioning. They thought they could fix it quickly, but of course they couldn’t, and my dad wasted about three hours there when he could have been at the hotel with mom, me, and his out-of-town family that was arriving. After he was gone a couple of hours I finally thought to call him to see if he was okay. I just remember him apologizing for taking so long, and then I burst into tears when I got off the phone. He certainly hadn’t let me down, but he felt he had, I guess. That debacle was one of my biggest regrets about my wedding day.

On the bus with my sister-in-law, Ditto. My maid of honor Dr. P spent so much time helping everyone get ready that she couldn’t ride with us from the hotel, but she promised she’d make it to the church. Turns out I left my shoes at the hotel and she was able to charm the front desk into letting her into my parents’ room. Nobody else could have done it.

2 - Don’t leave the next day for the honeymoon (unless you are sure you want to). We didn’t get to bed until 3am after our reception (and our guests stayed up much later than that in the hotel basement) and we had to be up at 5am for the hour-long drive to the airport for our flight to catch our cruise. We were exhausted and barely made it onto the boat before we collapsed (and considered skipping the lifeboat drill). It really was day 3 of our (4-day) honeymoon before I felt like a human being again, and by then I couldn’t wait to get home to open all of those presents. The biggest reason I regret leaving Sunday is because there were a lot of relatives and friends (including my entire side of the guest list, and all of our college friends) who had traveled to Train’s hometown  for the wedding and we barely saw them. I would have enjoyed a day-after brunch and some causal time. Ditto and Roadrunner (Train’s sister and brother-in-law) didn’t leave for their honeymoon until three days after their wedding, taking a quick trip to the beach with their dog in between, and they were so relaxed. For some reason I thought it was romantic to leave right away, not to see the bride and groom after the reception until they returned from their honeymoon. Ah…youth.

Wow, don’t we look happy to be married?

On the way back home from the cruise. Are you two even old enough to be on vacation without your parents?

3 - Don’t be a bridezilla on the actual wedding day. I felt like I was in charge that day, and I should not have been, and did not need to be. I was the one keeping my bridesmaids on schedule, even snapping at them and hauling their bags into the hotel hallway to force them to GET A FREAKING MOVE ON ALREADY, while they were having a fabulous time together getting ready. I can’t even remember why I got an attitude with my mom at the church, but I remember her giving me the mom tone and basically telling me to straighten up and COOL IT, MISSY. Dr. P swears she doesn’t remember this behavior, but I do and it makes me cringe. Not bride-y at all. Neither Seagrass Girl, Supermodel, or Dr. P lost their cool on their respective wedding days and they were such fun brides to be around.

Serious MOB/bridesmaid conference in the church basement.

4 - Remember whose wedding it is. I had been looking forward to the open-bar, DJ reception throwdown with my sorority sisters for months, as a reward for all of the wedding planning and, you know, the commitment shit. I hardly drank at all, mostly because it was impossible to cross the ballroom to the actual bar without getting stopped, but I spent an inordinate amount of time on the dance floor. I had a great time, but Train and I never made it around to greet all of our guests, and like I mentioned before, many of them had traveled great distances to be there on my big day. You can spend all night on the dance floor at everyone else’s wedding, so be a gracious hostess at your own. Plus, it’s too damn hot to dance in all that crinoline.

dancing…

still dancing (with Seagrass Girl and Supermodel)

go down low with Dr. P

and of course the Electric Slide

5 - Keep an Excel spreadsheet of all of your guests. We still have ours, and not only does it have everyone’s address and RSVP information, but whether or not they actually showed up at the wedding and what gift they gave. I know this sounds petty, but it really helps to see what other people gave you when it’s time to reciprocate. Everyone has different thresholds for wedding gifts, after all, and you don’t want to be totally off base. Plus, I remember there being like 25 place cards that weren’t picked up at the reception, and you better believe I can tell you whose meal was needlessly paid for that night.

Probably 5 hours before my wedding. What a walking advertisement for marriage.

6 - Make sure the mike works. My dad spent weeks on his toast, preparing for his big moment as host of his only child’s wedding. Dad is not a speaker or attention hog, but it was important to him and my mom to set the tone of the reception. I was so nervous for him. He did great, but the mike kept fading in and out as he spoke and it just made both of us anxious. Even now, I can’t watch Dad’s toast on the DVD because I get panicky, so I don’t remember anything he said. Damn that DJ.

Cheers, Lindsey and Edgar!

fake hair = romance March 31, 2008

As with (I imagine) most brides, what to do with my hair for my wedding was a huge issue. We (my mom and sometimes even my dad) started figuring it out around the same time we started shopping for a dress, which was immediately.

My hair has never been one to hold curl. The only updos I’ve liked on myself have been performed by my childhood hairstylist. We’re talking major hairspray and bobby pins. I didn’t want to be in the chair all day when I got married, or have to worry about my hairdo falling out before I even walked down the aisle. I’m also a short-hair kind of girl, and growing it out past my chin is a major, fugly CHORE.

So of course we enlisted an expert. My mom started getting her hair done by Starlyn when she moved to North Carolina in 1979. She did my hair until I went to college (and sometimes after that, too).

There was the first haircut ever:

The first perm:

and senior prom (photos courtesy of my engagement scrapbook):

There was one way to guarantee I was going to look good, and to look how I wanted on my wedding day. And that was if Starlyn did my hair.

Train and I got married in northern Virginia. Starlyn lived near my hometown near Raleigh, NC. My mom took a chance and asked her if she would come and do my hair. Starlyn was so touched, she said yes. (Bonus! She could do my mom’s hair too!)

A plan was formed. I didn’t have a set hairstyle in mind, but I knew I wanted it up. My hair was pretty short:

wedding dress shopping, June 2002

and I knew (grumble, grumble) that I would have to grow it out, and I better start now. Luckily, Starlyn knew how I felt about it (and was also realistic about the fact that my hair would only grow so much in a year), and suggested we try out some hairpieces.

So my dad cut off a few sample strands for color matching from hopefully inconspicuous places:

We put them in separate bunches:

And took them to Starlyn:

(Step 4 - eight months later when she is getting ready for your bridal portrait, give your stylist a heart attack when she discovers missing chunks of hair)

Starlyn sent my hair off for some hairpiece samples that would match the color. She wasn’t very thrilled with what she got back from the company. She suggested we hit the mall and go to the HairUWear kiosk and see what we could find.

Not only did I find a fancy looking styled hair clip to attach to a ponytail, I also found a fake-hair scrunchy to use on my ever-lengthening but still scraggly-looking ponytail for everyday. It was awesome, and Starlyn was thrilled.

Now I just had to sit back and let my hair grow:

February

at a gown fitting

March

with bridesmaid LittleSister and maid of honor Dr. P before I made them spend a Saturday night tying ribbons on favors

Starlyn loved the piece we had picked and gave me highlights so that my hair color would match the piece even more. That’s the only time I’ve ever colored my hair, and she used a cap (where they use a hook to dig strands of hair out through tiny holes in the cap) instead of foil, and holy crap that was torture.

At some point I decided to grow out my bangs. I finished college in December of 2002 and started working full-time in February of 2003. I think that had something to do with it, I must have thought I looked young or unprofessional with bangs, which I had had since…well, since birth, it seems like. Anyway, that just added a whole level of insanity to this process.

In April it was time for my bridal portrait session. My dad and I went to Starlyn’s shop to get my hair done that morning.

Then it was more waiting, and growing:

at my first bridal shower, May 2003

at my fourth bridal shower, June 2003

the week before the wedding, getting our marriage license

By now Project Anti-Bangs was almost complete.

And finally, it was time to get married.

Starlyn taking a break from the pool to adjust my headpiece

I loved my fake hair and I am so glad Starlyn was able to do it.

And almost as importantly, it was time to get home from the honeymoon and get my hair cut. I begged Starlyn or Dr. P’s sister Jackie to cut my hair that night after the reception, but neither one would agree. Which is why my drivers’ license photo looks like this, because I got it the day after returning from our cruise to reflect my new name:

“My colors are blush and bashful, Mama!” March 10, 2008

There are a few things you must do if you’re from the South and you’re getting married. I got married in Virginia, which I never considered to actually be Southern, since most restaurants don’t serve sweet tea. That is how it’s officially determined, right? But I was from North Carolina, raised in the heart of a good-ol-boy, proper-ladies, family-name-matters, right-side-of-the-tracks tiny Southern town. My parents may have been transplanted from Florida (and themselves had eloped), but twenty years of tea parties and pharmacy lunch counters were not wasted on us. If my wedding was going to be official, there were a few non-negotiables.

1 - Bridal portrait. I often tell people that where I grew up, if you didn’t have a bridal portrait, you weren’t really married. Having pictures taken of the “bride only” on the wedding day most certainly did not count. Most photographers offer engagement/bridal/wedding packages. Since my wedding and wedding photographer were in a different state from where my parents and I (and my groom, come to think of it) lived at the time, I had my bridal portraits taken by a photographer on Main Street, across from the tea room where my bridesmaids’ reception was hosted.

My session was three months and one day before my wedding. My mom had unexpectedly had to leave town to be with her sick mother and wasn’t going to be there for the session. So the night before, my dad and I went and bought a video camera so that he could tape the entire thing. My mom asked her best friend to go with us to assist, and one of my bridesmaids (Kay) came also.

Dad and I on our way to the photographer’s studio

The month before, I had picked up a silk bouquet from our Virginia florist that would be a replica of my wedding bouquet to be used in the bridal portraits. That morning, I had my hair done and veil attached. A quick sandwich in the car, and then it was off to the Mary Kay lady to have my makeup done. I arrived at the photographer at 11am for my three hour session (coincidentally, it was exactly three years before Sherman was born).

The session was pretty standard, and my dad videotaped the whole thing. Sitting, standing, with flowers, without, looking up, looking down, looking over the shoulder, gazing at my engagement ring, etc. Halfway through the session, the photographer’s assistant covered me with a sheet and sat me down for a snack of fruit and cookies and water.  The best picture was actually a candid one, when I had my back to the camera, and I had hesitantly peeked out from my veil (with one finger keeping it out of my lipstick), to see what was going on behind me, and the photographer snapped a photo.

A few weeks later, my mom and dad and I went back to the studio to see the results. We watched all of the portraits projected on the wall in the dark room. My mom’s favorite was a full-length of me looking clearly at the camera holding my bouquet and smiling. My favorite was a full-length of me looking down demurely with a soft focus. We each got our own 16 x 20″ canvas portrait (my mom hates mine because she thinks it makes me look “submissive” or unhappy; I hate hers because it’s so straight on and direct I feel like you can see every flaw - including the seam of my dress under my right arm). Then there were countless 5 x 7s and 8 x 10s that dot my parents’ house today.

our portrait

my mom’s portrait

proof

proof

proof

proof

Of course, these portraits weren’t just for our own use. Both of the framed canvases were displayed at the wedding reception, and a 3/4 length portrait was used in our wedding announcement in three local papers.

2 - Wedding announcements. I’m not sure what wedding announcements are like elsewhere, but in my hometown they usually took up half a page each and included every detail of the wedding gown, the bridesmaids’ dresses, and each shower, party, reception, or tea thrown in honor of the couple, including a reprint of the couple’s education, Greek, and employment information from the engagement announcement. And the photo is of the bride, not the couple. It appears in the paper the day after the wedding, so how could it have an actual wedding photo?

my announcement photo

Incidentally, since my husband was not a local boy, and he has two middle names, my hometown paper got confused about what my new last name was and misprinted it, so the whole thing went in again, corrected, the next week. I’m sure my high school classmates were wondering why I got two announcements.

3 - Formal china. Even if you don’t want formal china, even if you will never use it or take it out of the box, you must register for formal china. If not, the older ladies will call your mother and harass her until she gives them a pattern name. Belk holds seminars to educate brides-to-be on how many place settings, which serving pieces, coordinating holiday dishes, and suitable flatware and stemware to register for. One of my friends got married right after we graduated from high school, and she and her husband collected all of the fine china gifts from her grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s friends (at her 10 bridal showers), and hauled all of it to Belk after the wedding to return it and buy a full set of their everyday dishes (and then some). You can’t fight it. We received our first place setting as a Christmas gift from my parents the year before we got married.

4 - Groom’s cake. Wasn’t this immortalized in Steel Magnolias? Train’s cake was actually served at the rehearsal dinner, and it was a motorcycle. I think.

5 - Gift tables. Mothers-of-the bride display their daughter’s engagement and shower gifts in their home so that visitors can survey the loot before the wedding. My mom arranged our gifts on several tables as they arrived at her house, plus framed engagement portraits, wedding favors, and copies of shower and tea invitations.

Even though we only got married 5 years ago, times have really changed. Back then the wedding “industry” was just getting started in utilizing the web and theknot.com to increase all the ways you could customize your ceremony and reception. Our reception was pretty standard based on all of the weddings I had been to as an adolescent in the early 90s: our cake had a champagne fountain; we had matchbooks as favors; I had a cascade bouquet and not one of those fancy schmancy gathered ones. My point is, I imagine as years go by brides pay less and less attention to these old-school “rules,” but it really added something special to my engagement and the planning of our wedding.

it’s not an omen…right? February 26, 2008

Thanks for your input on my dilemma last week. I was leaning towards #2 (have Sherman stay with my friend who has a son his age) with #4 as a backup (stay with mom’s friend and have her keep Sherman) but you have convinced me to give #7 a shot (see if Train’s sister will go with us). We’ll see what she says.

So is Gmail chat a jinx for anyone else? After a couple of conversations with Britt about ear infections, runny noses, and sleeping through the night, I totally hosed myself and we had two weeks of runny nose and intermittent night wakings. I obviously didn’t learn my lesson, because after drooling over Jen’s new ring, I mentioned how I used to get my own engagement ring cleaned or tightened or something every 6 months at the friendly family jeweler where Train purchased my ring. I had a little certificate and the jeweler would make a notation each time I brought it in (every March and September!). I’m not sure if I was doing this for warranty purposes, or insurance, or what. But I stopped doing it after Sherman was born (I may have done it once since then). The jeweler is in Train’s hometown, about 45 minutes away, and I don’t want to leave my ring for more than a day so it’s hard to time it right.

My ring is gold, while the setting that holds the diamond is platinum. There are two “prongs” of the ring that don’t touch the actual setting. I remember waking up the first morning after our engagement and noticing that and having a minor freakout, thinking I had somehow broken my ring. HA HA.

Early last week, one night while I was giving Sherman a bath, I noticed my engagement ring looked funny. The two upper prongs didn’t touch the setting, which was fine, but one of the sides of the ring, WHERE IT ATTACHES TO THE PLATINUM SETTING, wasn’t touching either! Holy crap. My diamond was hanging on by a gold thread.

So the ring is back in its little white box, waiting for our next trip to see Fred. It’s funny how many people have noticed I’m not wearing my engagement ring. Train and I both have plain gold bands (mine has a notch cut out so the engagement ring can sit right up against it) and I’m obviously still wearing mine, in fact, very rarely do either of us take them off. But a lot of people have made a comment about why I wasn’t wearing my “wedding ring” - definitely a cause for alarm.

hem and haw February 21, 2008

Speaking of weddings, I have a wedding-related dilemma. One of my bridesmaids is getting married in my hometown in North Carolina. I haven’t been to visit there since I got married myself almost 5 years ago, because my parents moved to Florida shortly after my wedding. I am super geeked about going down to see how much the area has changed and to visit with a few girlfriends that I keep in touch with.

Kay is having a small wedding at a historical house in Raleigh and then a reception at a fancy restaurant downtown. The wedding is at noon.

I want this to be a family trip. Kay was an excellent bridesmaid to us (not to mention a friend of mine since third grade). I feel that if I just went down by myself, I would be sending a signal that her wedding is not important enough to bring my husband and son, and that just isn’t the case. Plus, none of the other 3 friends I plan on visiting have met Sherman so I would definitely be disappointed if I couldn’t show him off. Missing the wedding is not an option…I have a priceless photo of a fourth-grade Kay dressed as a basket of dirty laundry at my family’s annual Halloween garage party (her mom actually made makeup out of laundry detergent and put it on her cheeks) that must be shared with her soon-to-be husband (whom I have not met). Not to mention I am honored to be invited.

However, noon is Sherman’s naptime. I am by no means being a mommy nazi here (”he cannot miss his nap!!”), but I think it would also be disrespectful if my kid disrupted the ceremony (which, let’s be honest, in all likelihood he could do even WITH a nap - I mean, we don’t even take him to Taco Bell if we can help it). I have RSVP’d to the wedding for two adults, with a note that we hadn’t yet figured out what Sherman will be doing for the wedding.

My original assumption (when I wasn’t sure exactly what the plans for the wedding day were going to be) is that we would drive down Friday (a 5 hour drive), stay in a hotel Friday night, go to the wedding Saturday, stay in a hotel Saturday night, and come home sometime Sunday.

My best friend from high school, Ringlet, is the most (relatively) unattached of my friends and would probably meet us Friday night to hang out for a while. Ringlet has also offered to keep Sherman while we go to the wedding; her house is further away from everything else but I think she would come to the hotel if I asked.

Another friend of mine, Raggie (whose twin sons were the ring bearers in my wedding), wants to have us over for lunch or dinner at some point during the weekend, and a mutual friend of ours, Hop, was going to join us with her toddler son, who is just a couple of months older than Sherman.

Hop has also offered to keep Sherman at her mother’s house while we go to the wedding (Hop lives in Georgia where her husband is in the Coast Guard; she’ll be home visiting while we’re in town).

I have a couple of options here.

(1) Drive down Saturday morning with Train, go to the wedding, and drive home Saturday night, leaving Sherman with my mother-in-law or his sister at our house. Pros: don’t have to leave Sherman with a stranger in a strange place. Cons: don’t get to visit with any other friends, don’t get to bring Sherman with us.

(2) Drive down Saturday morning and go straight to Hop’s house, let Sherman get used to Hop, her son, and her Mom’s house, then go to the wedding and reception with Train, leaving Sherman with Hop. Pros: Sherman will have someone else to play with, and will be with someone who is used to caring for a boy his age. Cons: Sherman has never met these people, and will be left alone with them after a night in a strange place (which may or may not have been restful); I’m also not sure how many toys/distractions Hop’s mom has at her house.

(3) Drive down Friday night, stay in a hotel Friday night, have Ringlet watch Sherman at the hotel on Saturday while Train and I go to the wedding and reception. Pros: Hopefully Sherman will be comfortable in the hotel by then. Cons: While he would be in excellent hands, I don’t think Ringlet has been around any almost-2-year-olds lately.

(4) Ask my mom’s best friend if we can stay with her at her house, and ask her to keep Sherman while we go to the wedding and reception. Pros: We do better when we can spread out in take over a house, especially if Sherman can sleep in his own room. Hopefully by the time we leave, he’ll be comfortable with the house and we can take some a lot a ton of his own toys/DVDs. Cons: I still want to get out and see my friends in the non-wedding time of the weekend, and I don’t want my mom’s friend to be hurt/offended/put out if we just use her house as a hotel and babysitting service, basically.

(5) Get our most favorite babysitter ever, Dr. P, to ditch her best friend’s long-awaited bridal shower (which she is co-hosting) and come the short way to Raleigh to keep Sherman at the hotel for a few hours.

(6) Shut the eff up already and take Sherman to the damn wedding with you if you are going to be THIS FREAKING ANAL ABOUT IT. MY GOD.

So this is what I’m struggling with lately. The wedding is in about 5 weeks, so I figure I have two more weeks to obsess before I need to start making reservations or asking if we can invade someone’s home.

Just for shits and giggles, what would you do?

UPDATED TO ADD: Option (7) Have Train’s sister go with us and keep Sherman at the hotel while we go to the wedding. Pros: He knows her and she knows him. Cons: CROWDED!

all I want to do is give the best of me to you February 15, 2008

There’s no former bride (or formerly pregnant woman) who can resist giving advice and telling their own stories when given the slightest provocation. Planning my wedding took place during the busiest, most exciting 15 months of my life - my last semester of college, graduation, starting a new job, moving to Washington, living on my own. When I got the email about the Virtual Engagement Party for Jen, it was hard to decide what to write about. Every time a friend gets engaged you are taken back to your own special day and everything that happened afterwards to bring you to where you are now.

I met Jen and Joel at our September “DC Blogher” and had a great time. I really enjoy her blog (especially the parts about sneaking into the gym without a membership, and her scroogeyness) and Gmail chatting with her when we are supposed to be working. I can’t believe how thrilled I was when I read that they had gotten engaged in Barcelona. Since I read her blog, I’m an expert on their relationship, and I’m certain they will be very happy together (as they already are).

I decided I wanted to tell my own engagement story, and thank god for my engagement scrapbook because there were a lot more details in there than my brain could remember (which was ”Night time. Question. Ring. WEDDING PLANNING!!!!!!!!”). But I did learn a few things from my wedding that I have to pass along in the spirit of sisterhood. I guess I’ll save them for another post, because as I was going through the scrapbook, I found a ton of blog material that probably isn’t interesting to anyone but myself, but…score!!

So, here is the story of my big day.

On Saturday, March 30, 2002, Train and I were at his parents’ house for the Easter weekend. It was the beginning of Train’s spring break from student teaching. On Good Friday we had dropped Triathlete off near Richmond and picked up his uncle’s old motorcycle for Train. On Saturday morning we made an unexpected trip to pick up Triathlete and his dog. That afternoon, we decided to take Triathlete’s dog and Train’s dog (Heeler) up to Skyline Drive.

In college, Train and I would visit the park at least once each time we visited his family for the weekend. The first time I went was the morning after we arrived in his hometown for my first visit in the fall of 1999, and for some reason we decided to watch sunrise from up on the mountain, and it was gorgeous. It was just something we continued to do to take a small break from his family and the chaos of his parents’ house (overwhelming, back then, for an only child like me). So when we took the dogs up that day, Train bought an annual pass and I thought nothing of it. Only two visits a year made the pass worth its cost, and we would often visit after dark and it was easier to have a pass instead of dealing with the honor-system pay machines.

When we got back to his parents’ house, we got ready to go out to eat with Train’s family, including his parents, his younger sister Nanny, his older sister Ditto, and her then-boyfriend Roadrunner. They had been dating about six months. We were celebrating Train’s father’s birthday. I remember Ditto and I joking about how, if Train and I were to get married, our names would be the same. (No seriously, the exact same. And they still are. Tonight when I get my haircut, they will - like they do every time - say, “oh, we have you in our system twice!” and I’ll say, “Nope, that’s my sister-in-law” and they’ll say, “oh, well let’s put your middle initial in” and I’ll say “well, we have the same middle initial” and ha ha we will all have a good laugh. Lather, rinse, repeat.)

We went back to his parents’ house, and I put my pajamas on because I wasn’t feeling too great. We all started to dye Easter eggs to hide for Train’s cousin. Each of us got three eggs, and I kept dropping mine until they were all cracked. It pissed me off and I went into the living room to watch tv. Blah. Train came in and asked me if I wanted to go to the park. I almost said no, because I just wanted to chill out, but I recognized that he was making an effort to spend time alone with me so I said I would go.

Normally we would have taken Train’s truck, but the motorcycle was still in the back so we took my Nissan. We drove to our favorite overlook where you could see the lights of the whole town. We sat on the edge of the steep hill in the grass (usually we’d sit on the tailgate). I sat picking out the high school, the church, the steeple of the military academy, and other landmarks like I always did.

All week I had teased Train how he would probably forget to get me an Easter card (ah, constant need for affirmation, how I don’t miss thee), so after we sat for a few minutes in silence and he asked me if I wanted my Easter card, I was pleasantly surprised! He handed me a piece of paper and said “I wrote it out.” I looked down and the sheet had the lyrics to a country song (I have to keep some things sacred, right?). I thought it was sweet, a typical thoughtful thing Train would do. Then he handed me another piece of paper and I was a little confused. When I read “What happened two years ago today?” I was even more confused. I began to think, and at the exact second I realized that on March 30, 2000 Train had given me a promise ring, he handed me a third sheet: “Erika Middle Maidename, will you marry me?”

I very, VERY slowly began to comprehend what was happening and turned to look at him while avoiding rolling down the hill. He was holding a little white box that contained the most beautiful ring I had ever seen. I started to cry because I couldn’t believe that the gorgeous thing he was holding might belong to me!! I couldn’t really talk, so he finally said, “Do you want to see if it fits?” and I nodded my head and he put it on my left hand. It fit perfectly. I eventually got my composure back and I hugged him and said “Yes!” to answer his first question.

We sat there for a while longer and talked about the day and how we were going to tell our parents, and who else knew about the ring and his plans. The longer we sat there, the more I realized just what was ahead of us, beyond the engagement and wedding plans; that we had just decided to spend the rest of our lives together, and I couldn’t have been happier. Starting then and for the next week, I hardly ate or slept because I was either too excited or too nervous.

that night

The next morning, we went to the early Easter service at Train’s church (where his parents were married, where we would get married, and where Ditto and Roadrunner would marry about a year after us). When we got home, I called my parents and we gave them the news. A few weeks before, my mom had booked a flight for me to come to visit them while they spent a few weeks in Key West that June. Inexplicably, my mom’s immediate reaction was, “YOU’RE STILL COMING TO KEY WEST!” (Years later she would be equally flaky when we told her she was going to be a grandmother for the first AND second time.) They were very excited and happy for us, and went out to dinner to celebrate and toast our engagement.

Triathlete and I left Monday to go back to school since Train was on spring break. I hadn’t signed on to Instant Messenger all weekend because I knew I would be able to resist telling my sorority sisters and I really wanted to tell them in person. Luckily, when I got back into town, Dr. P, Seagrass Girl, and the Rev were going to dinner so I was able to get them all together. I had to wait for the Rev to get back in town before I could even go over to their dorm because I knew I would bust (I lived off campus). Finally I went to campus and I saw Dr. P in the parking lot and blurted out the news and in the same breath asked her to be our maid of honor. She was so surprised and shocked, and stood there open-mouthed and laughed and smiled and told me how happy she was for us. The Rev was coming out of the dorm to go to her car and saw the commotion and came over to see what was going on. She grabbed my arm like it wasn’t attached to my body and hauled me into the dorm screaming straight to Seagrass Girl. After her four-hour drive back to campus, SG thought the screaming meant there was a rat or a snake in the dorm and was ticked off until she saw the Rev and my hand. And then me. We all screamed and hugged and then went and had a fun dinner (at Arby’s, I think?).

So that was the beginning. I hope to do some more posts about what I learned during the wedding planning and some of the details of our wedding. For now I’ll conclude by wishing Joel and Jen the VERY BEST, and I hope you have a terrific Fake Engagement Party.