I Was Destined to Elope

I’m sure many gals claim this, but I never envisioned myself having a wedding—or, the typical wedding anyway. If I did picture it, which happened rarely, I imagined a tiny ceremony on a beach or maybe even a wild trip to Vegas where we would recite vows in front of an Elvis impersonator (after all, I had a massive crush on the King for years).

So, when my Peruvian fiancé proposed to me in the garden next to the National Cathedral (even though he claims not to be very religious), I began researching destination wedding venues, citing off prices for beachside ceremonies in Jamaica, Antigua, St. Lucia, and emailing him postcard-perfect photos of the azure waters and white-sand beaches of the Caribbean, partially obstructed by a beaming bride and groom. I told him that we could have a small wedding. Maybe 30 people, tops? He replied that he’d rather have the opportunity to celebrate our love and the giant step we are taking with our families and friends; however, he wasn’t completely against my idea.

“Why don’t you make a list of the 30 people you would invite?” He recommended, slyly.

I sat there with my laptop, typing names into Excel—parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, family friends, high school friends, college friends, post-college friends—scattered across the country from Los Angeles, California to Veazy, Maine. I tried cutting the list down. How could I not invite these people who had watched me grow from infant to early 30s, who had loved me even through my angry, depressed goth phase in high school? As the list teetered off around the 80s (just for my side) I decided he might be right.

So, here I am, the newest addition to DCNearlyweds.com, thrilled to be blogging about the ups and downs of planning a wedding. As you may have deduced from my pseudonym, I live in the Cathedral Heights neighborhood in D.C. Our wedding will take place in this area in September, but I need to leave some substance for my upcoming blogs! In the meantime, I’m just happy I decided not to elope.

dilemmas and resolutions

As we roll into 2010, I'm realizing that all those months of planning have set me ahead of the game in many respects, but we do still have some things to figure out. My two biggest wedding resolutions/to-dos for 2010 include:

1. seriously finalizing our guest list - I have about a week to finish this before our save the dates go out and there are a lot of emotions surrounding the guest list - who knew?!

2. figuring out what we're doing about our registry - our save the dates have the link to our wedding website (thus registry information) and I have already been fielding questions from inquiring relatives about our registry. Mr. UVA and I have been living together for several years now and our house is pretty well set up. The wishlist we have compiled for our house doesn't play very well with gift registries. Seriously, what do you do in this case? Why doesn't Anthropologie have a gift registry? Can you register for cash dolla dolla bills, a down payment on a house, tuition for a masters program? Can you register for big pieces of furniture or artwork? How do people do this and not end up with things you don't need or want? Registries are tough man!

Can't wait for another year with the future hubby though - he's pretty wonderful!

Happy New Year everyone!

Plus One

We didn't invite most guests with a plus one. We invited the ones who were in relationships, living together, married or whatever but many guests did not get a plus one status.

One friend did....despite my better judgement. He WAS dating a girl much younger, whom he had moved in with a few months ago so I figured if I invite most others with their significant other, then he should be too.

Apparently, she recently broke up with him.

The invite was not "Friend and Guest." It was "Friend and Girlfriend." Therefore, one would think that friend would not try to bring "and guest." Any guest.

Friend is now using facebook to find a date for my wedding because you see, friend and one of my bridesmaids dated back in college. They were both in my main posse back in college, he was roommates with my ex, her and I became close pals, along with her former roommate who became another good pal of mine and a bridesmaid.

So I'm a little peeved that friend is so worried about being uncomfortable around Bridesmaid and her boyfriend (that she began dating right after they broke up in 2005) that he's advertising a guest spot to my wedding on facebook.

I find this incredibly tacky, and rude. Emily Post would be rolling over in her grave if she only knew.

Granted, I told him the other night when he told me that his girlfriend left him that he could still bring someone - but not to bring a blind date (he was trying to get ex's former roommate bridesmaid to bring a pal of hers as she grew up in Baltimore) bring someone he'd have fun with but not to feel like he HAD to bring someone - mostly because he tends to get...a little emo when his heart is broken, don't we all, but I knew that telling him he couldn't bring someone so soon after being..dare I say...dumped might not go over well.

But, we're all adults no? I'm sure he can tolerate being around his ex for a few hours... they both went to a wedding of a mutual friend last year and survived.

Still though, I'm peeved. Advertising it on the facebook? Isn't that pushing the plus one limit??? I'm trying not to be super bitchy about this all, but I'm offended, especially by the fact that not everyone was invited with a guest as our policy was relationships only so should I tell him - hey I don't care if you bring someone but don't advertise it over the facebook? Or should I tell him he was invited with his girlfriend and while I'm so sorry that she broke his heart, he was invited with her not just "a guest."

What would you say? Am I over reacting??

Funny How Planning Your Wedding Leaves No Time to Blog About Planning Your Wedding

Yes, I've actually been working hard the last couple weeks to take care of (wedding) business.

I told you all about my new Google Wedding Calendar and Wedding Spreadsheet to track little projects, and I must report, it's really working. We've managed to tick quite a few items off our to-do list over the last three weeks, simply because I've got it all written down in an organized fashion. Oh, organization, how I love you.

I wanted to share one more document idea with you too. The Big Sister recently sent me her guest list spreadsheet since many of the same folks at her wedding will be at ours. Upon receipt and examination, I immediately scrapped my own excel guest list and started using the format she set up. It was actually really fun to fill everything in, and I could finally see all the information I wanted to see at a glance, like how many actual invitations I need to make, how many guests are attending, what I'll write on the inner and outer envelopes. There's also a column for guessing how many people will attend. When we get further down the road, there are spaces to record gifts, thank you notes, delivery of OOT bags. It's great!

I can't figure out how to load the doc so you can just have it, but if you're interested in having a copy, just e-mail me at [email protected], and I'm happy to share.