Unleashing My Inner Bridezilla!

I am not one to draw copious amounts of attention to myself.  I guess you'd call me more of a wall flower.  I don't need the spotlight to feel special or important.  If that were true, I'd be a stand-up comedian and not a teacher. Although, the jobs do have similarities.  Making thirty kids laugh and enjoy a lesson so that they hardly even realize they're learning can make you feel pretty special and important.  But, I digress.

I had been taking this same wall flower approach to my upcoming wedding.  You may have heard mention of it over at It's My Mynd! from Wily Guy.  I was trying to be a well-behaved bride.  When the engagement photos took over a month to be delivered by the photographer, I remained calm.  When the engagement announcement took almost two months to appear in the local newspaper,  I was cool as a cucumber.  When a bridesmaid had to drop out for personal reasons, I put on my best impression of a stiff upper lip and soldiered on with the business of planning my wedding.  I was not letting anything ruffles my feathers too much.  But, I've found the straws that broke the camel's back.  Enough of this $#!%.  I am unleashing my inner bridezilla!

Everybody has an opinion about my wedding.  Some opinions I have to listen to, some I don't.  I have to listen to my mother's opinion because she's the one paying for all my wedding wonderfulness.  If she wants to send out one hundred twenty invitations to two hundred twenty two possible guests, then I'm going to let her do that because she's the one who has to foot the bill for all those hungry guests.  Other opinions, though... not so much.  In the last two weeks, I've had to handle a bridesmaid revolt and a sibling trying to make my big day about him, not me.  

Bridesmaids Behaving Badly

Another eclectic bridal posse

The bridesmaids attacked first.  My maid of honor (or MoH) is an incredibly organized, type-A kind of gal.  She arranged for a bridesmaid meeting after the holidays for the girls to get together and start talking bridal showers, bachelorette party, and other wedding details.  This was necessary because I went a little eclectic with my choice of bridesmaids, much to my MoH's dismay.  I had chosen my BFF, whom I've known since my first job fifteen years ago, my college roommate (different friend circle), and a co-worker with whom I've become close.  Unfortunately, none of them really know each other too well.  I was invited to come up at the end of their meeting to hear their decisions and answer any outstanding questions.

Apparently, one of my bridesmaids was being uncooperative with the others.  She was poo-pooing everybody's ideas for the bridal shower, but had no ideas of her own to offer.  She's the only bridesmaid I have whose house was big enough for one big bridal shower with friends, family, and co-workers.  She wasn't willing to let the girls use her house.

She was fine with the dress I chose for them when we were all together trying on dresses in December.  At least, she was until she heard that my maid of honor got to pick her own dress in January.  Then she started lobbying for all the bridesmaids to be allowed to pick their own dresses and claiming that she wanted to find a used dress on E-bay to save money.  The other bridesmaids might have appreciated her financial concerns, if during the bridal shower discussions she hadn't insulted them by saying that she was in a better financial position than either of them to afford to pay to have the bridal showers at a restaurant or community center.  God love my other girls!  They didn't call her out on her bull$!#%, cuss her out, or even slap her upside her head, which would have been my first response.

My MoH tried to use the dress thing as leverage to get the house for the bridal shower, so she proposed the different dresses idea to me.  Doing my "I don't want to upset anybody" thing,  I cringed and almost went along with it.  Luckily, after the wild card bridesmaid left, my other bridesmaids filled me in on the rest of their afternoon in argumentativeness.  Is that a word or did I make it up?  Either way, it seems to apply.  My MoH called the wild card later to talk bridal shower locations and the wild card reneged on the offer of her house, so I revoked the different dress resolution.

"Identical dresses for everybody!" said Bridezilla.

Sibling Rivalry

All siblings have rivalries, right?  There's always some friction when a family has more than one child.  There's jockeying for position, favoritism, and a lot of hurt feelings over trivial matters that took place in the distant past.  My own family is no different.  My brother and I are a classic case of sibling rivalry.

This looks like a cozy family photo, but I'm sitting on his feet.

My brother is the baby of the family.  He's spoiled, thoughtless to the consequences of his actions, and inconsiderate to the feelings of others.  He's also having a difficult time with married life right now as his wife is a passive-aggressive psycho.  I am the oldest child, which makes me the responsible one, the one left cleaning up his messes, and the one who has to suck up her feelings so the baby can have his way.  My brother recently tried to apply this family dynamic to my wedding.

I want my nephew, Squirt, to be the ring bearer at the wedding.  Who wouldn't want an adorable red-headed ring bearer?  My brother's wife, who recently caused a rift between my brother and the rest of the family, doesn't like the idea.  Squirt had some trouble being ring bearer at her friend's wedding when he had just turned four.  But, he's five now.  Some maturing has occurred, plus all of my honey's nieces and nephews are going to be in the wedding.  I didn't want to leave Squirt out.  He's my little man!

So, when I got engaged and my brother wasn't speaking to any of us, I put the Squirt on my wedding website as the ring bearer.  His wife got upset that I didn't ask them and had my brother tell me to take the kid off the website.  I wasn't happy, but since I had to take a bridesmaid off the page before the save the dates went out with the wedding website information anyway, I did it.

Here comes the annoying as h-e-double hockey sticks part.  Friends who knew about the website before the save the dates had seen that Squirt was going to be the ring bearer.  They'd asked my brother and his wife about it and they confirmed he was going to be in the wedding!  Then, the friends visited the wedding website after the save the dates and saw that Squirt wasn't listed any more and asked my brother about it.  So, my brother calls me and asks why I took Squirt off the wedding website.  What?!

It seems he doesn't remember telling me to take Squirt out of the wedding.  He claims he told Mom his wife wasn't happy about the ring bearer deal, but that he never said my nephew couldn't do it.  Now he wants me to ask his wife to let the Squirt be in the wedding if I want him in or to say nothing about it ever again if I don't want him to participate.   And all of this in the name of making his life easier in his dealings with his difficult wife.

Stop trying to make my wedding about your marital problems!

He called me on the phone to ask me why Squirt wasn't on the website and to tell me to ask his wife's permission to include my nephew in the wedding.  What the heck does he want?  I don't get it.  You can't be mad I took the kid off the website (at your request) and then call me all mad because people are asking you why I took his name off the website.  So far, I haven't done anything.  I didn't change the website and I didn't ask his obnoxious wife for anything.  But, I have a feeling we'll be having a long talk soon.

Now Hear This!

LAINEY IS DONE PLAYING NICE WITH PEOPLE!

(who are trying to steal the happiness from her wedding day)

I WILL FIGHT TO PROTECT MY WEDDING!

 If you have a problem with that,

then go ahead and call me Bridezilla!

I'm linking this to the handsome gentlemen at Dude Write for their Dudette Write III competition, where I'm hoping to be nominated for one of their coveted (Wo)Man Card awards.  Hopefully, my days of "always a bridesmaid and never the bride" are over there, too.

 

When Manly Germs Attack!

We've reached another milestone over here at Lainey's Life Lessons.  This week, I got to nurse my honey through an illness for the first time.  After almost nine months of living together, his seemingly perpetual good health had a little hiccup.  No, he didn't get a vicious case of the hiccups.  Hiccups would have been easier to deal with than what he had.  My honey was laid low by a stomach virus.


My honey suffers from migraines from time to time.  I've seen him have to take the day off work and stay home for these a number of times since we started living together.  When he gets a migraine, he stays in bed all day and sleeps a lot.  So, I thought I knew what my honey would be like when he was sick. 
 I was wrong!  Very wrong.


We had gone over to my mother's house for Sunday dinner.  She had made her world famous pork barbecue and we had a great time having lunch, hanging out with my brother's family, and just generally relaxing.  Squirt, my nephew, was really hyper and dragged me off to play with him while my honey and brother watched the Ravens game on T.V.  Funnily enough, Squirt wanted to play football, which in his five year old mind means sack the quarterback.  He gives you the ball and then tackles you.  I was starting to feel like Joe Flacco after all the hits I took from a very energetic Squirt.

Eventually, I had to cry uncle and asked my nephew to play something different.  He chose to turn on the TV and watch some cartoons.  The whirling dervish FINALLY settled down.  I texted my honey from upstairs and asked how the game was going.  He relayed updates from the game and then asked if we were going to stay at my mom's or head home for the BIG GAME. Did I mention I'm a Redskins fan?  Since I had a sneaking suspicion my nephew wouldn't let me watch too much of the game at my mom's, I opted for an early departure from mom's house.

We were putting coats on and getting ready to go when my honey excused himself to the restroom.  He was in there for quite a while, but eventually emerged looking pale and unhappy.  He told me he had an upset stomach and I hustled him home to the comfort of his own bathroom.  He disappeared upstairs as soon as we got home, which was just as the game was about to start.

He was suffering from a manly tummy ache.

I'm not going to lie.  I was torn on where I should be for a few minutes.  The game was going on our big, beautiful HD television downstairs and my honey was feeling miserable upstairs.  After the first series and Redskins touchdown, I went up to check on my wounded warrior.


My poor sick honey!

He was watching the game on the teeny, tiny non-HD TV in our bedroom in between trips to the lavatory.  He was pale and sweaty, but wasn't running a fever.  I offered to make him some tea and he was good with that.  Then I settled in to watch the big game with my baby on the smallest TV in the house.

Side Note:  I hated the idea of my honey's big screen moving in when he did.  I didn't see any reason why we needed to take up a big chunk of a living room wall with some monstrously large TV.  BUT, now that I've gotten used to watching it all the time, the other TVs in the house just seem small and the picture doesn't seem as clear without the high definition.

Just don't tell him I said that.  Okay?

What I wanted the big game to be.

What the big game actually was.

After the first half, he looked exhausted and ready to sleep and I was itching to get back downstairs to watch my team's quickly deteriorating game.  He encouraged me to go downstairs by saying he wasn't going to be any fun to hang out with for the rest of the evening and would probably just sleep.  So, reluctantly I went downstairs to watch the rest of the game.  Alright, so it wasn't reluctantly.  It was enthusiastically.  Cut a girl some slack!  It was the first time the Skins had made the playoffs in a long time!

Just call me the naughty nurse!

 Unfortunately, my honey didn't sleep.  He came trudging downstairs within thirty minutes to get himself a refill of his hot tea.  I instantly felt like the worst fiancee in the whole world.  He was upstairs in all kinds of gastric distress and I was downstairs, ignoring him, because I wanted to watch my game.  If he had pulled a stunt like that when I was sick I'd probably have had a fit.  Since my honey needed me (and the game was over before it was over, so to speak), I played nurse for a while and did a few laps up and down the stairs getting him tea and toast to soothe his aching belly.





I kept him stocked up on Pepto Bismal, hot tea with honey, and toast for the rest of the night and hoped he's be alright in the morning.  Alas, the next day, he was still hurting and didn't make it out of bed, much less to work.  I had to leave him home sick with a massive supply of tea bags, bread to make toast, and head off to work myself.  He looked a little better when I got home, but he cancelled our dinner plans with his parents.  My honey passing up an opportunity to eat his mom's home cooking is never a good sign.

My honey didn't want anything to eat for dinner and urged me to go over to my mom's for dinner.  I opted to call one of my bridesmaids, instead.  We were gone for about an hour and I stopped on my way back to get my honey some soup from Panera.  I returned home just in time for the BCS National Championship Game where my honey's Fighting Irish were preparing to take on Alabama's Crimson Tide.

Yes, he looked like an angry Coach Kelly.

Something funny happens to my honey when his team isn't doing well in a game.  He gets really angry and yells at the TV.  Well, apparently when his team isn't doing well and he's sick, he reaches an all-new level of bad behavior.  My honey got so mad during the game that he threw his phone across the room!  He later, much later, assured me that it was just the case for his phone that was thrown and not the actual phone.  After his rant, he was feeling tired and his stomach was hurting again, so he toddled off to bed. 


He stayed home again the next day as he didn't get any sleep that night because he said the soup I'd brought him upset his tummy again.  By this point, the nursemaid routine was getting a little old.  In two and a half days, my honey went through two bears full of honey, countless tea bags, and all the bread in the house.  He'd had a sports related temper tantrum and I was about ready to tell him to "man up".  Thankfully, by the time I got home Tuesday night, my honey was showered, dressed, and looking (and acting) almost human.  Hooray!  We survived our first bout of illness.

 Here are Lainey's tips for what to do when someone's sick:

 Here's my advice to my honey for the next time he gets sick:

The only thing that would make this meme more awesome would be if it's creator had been able to spell "awesome".

Seven Months to "I Do!" and Save The Dates, Too

The wedding planning continues...

The Save The Dates (a "supposed" must to send to out of town relatives so they can make travel arrangements) have been ordered, shipped, and are now in my hot little hands.  I found this great website called Wedding Paper Divas that allows you to create and preview professional looking Save The Date cards, magnets, postcards, etc.  You name it, they've got it.

After trying out a few different styles, playing around with using different pictures, and generally just having a lot of girly fun with it, I think the finished product turned out well.  But, you be the judge.  I had them make it into a magnet so that all our friends and relatives can think about us every time they open their refrigerators for the next seven months.  That's a lot of thoughts and well wishes that will be coming our way as soon as I mail these out.

Yes, I am marrying a ginger!
  This does not phase me because I come from a family of gingers myself.
 



Other than that, I don't have too much to report on the wedding front.  Although, I did get to have some fun earlier this month.  I got my girls (my merry maids, if you will) together for a marathon session of playing dress up at the bridal boutique.  I had them try on every dress I was considering for the bridesmaid dresses and then let them have some say in which dress they preferred.  It was like having three life-size Barbie dolls  and two Skippers (the junior bridesmaid and flower girl were along for the ride, too).  Don't know what I mean?  Check out the photos below.

 

The girls vetoed this dress for being too wide in the hips.



This dress was very modern, but too short.





This dress was nice, but one of my girls didn't like the bust.




This is the one we decided we all liked. 

The flower girl (right) and junior bridesmaid
had a lot of fun playing dress up and they decreed that this would be their dress.
Good thing the bride approved!

 

The smiley faces are clearly to protect the identity of those who would rather not be seen trying on dresses in public.  Some pictures may have already been removed by the time you read this to protect an innocent little blog writer for getting a bridesmaid-driven smack down.  I took all my girls out for lunch afterward and the groom joined us.  The fact that I took everybody to his favorite Mexican place may have encouraged his attendance some, I admit.  My momma didn't raise no dummies.  I wanted him there so I made him an offer he couldn't refuse. :P

 

 

More wedding fun to come, so stay tuned. 

 

Or if you don't enjoy my wedding related posts...

Only six and a half more months of fun, so keep hanging tough.