Two Months and counting...

I'm alternately excited and stressed out by the wedding. We're days away from the two month mark. That's great in some ways - in less than three months, it will be over. Hurrah.

The part that is a hassle is a trillion little decisions and details. I mean, I still haven't decided what the wedding cake will look like. Do these decisions really matter?? No, of course not. And yet I'm interested enough to have an opinion. I've left the flowers entirely in my mother's hands, because she has good taste and I'm certain whatever she decides will be beautiful. I have claimed not to care what the flowers look like. But, as someone pointed out the other day, if the flowers are yellow carnations and red roses, yes, I think I would hate that. After all, my dress is pink champagne - yellow will clash.

I don't really expect yellow carnations from my mother. However, I'm learning my expectations are sometimes wrong. I had expected...well, for her to be excited, and happy about the wedding, but I have yet to feel that. There's a big part of my mother that spends time pressing me - as in, to keep me from being irrepressible, she presses. She hushes and shushes and generally tries to tone me down. I think she wants to make sure I don't think I'm too big for my britches. I should probably tell her the constant shushing has convinced me no one cares what I have to say, but she'd probably just criticize my negativity.

A good example that she believes her own shushing - she and my Dad bought a BMW a while back, because they were retiring and my Dad wanted a car that would last ten years. My mother decided they shouldn't drive it to visit her family, as her family would view it as her rubbing it in that they make more money. She didn't want her success to make anyone feel bad.

Now, this is nonsense, of course, and she eventually relaxed this rule as it became impratical. (Now they drive the BMW everywhere and she apologizes for it.) But I feel like the wedding is being treated the same way - this big, potentially fun event has to be hidden away and kept quiet so that no one feels bad and so that Elizabeth doesn't get too obnoxious.

My fiance is worried that no one is making enough of a fuss of me. His buddies are talking about a weekend in Vegas for him, and he frets constantly that I'm not having a shower or a bachelorette party, or various other things. I don't mind about the parties - his relatives very sweetly want me to go north to throw me a shower, but I'm not a huge shower fan, and now there's just no time to get up there before I have to be in SC. I might organize a bachelorette party, but since both my bridesmaids are very far away, they can't come, so that's kind of a bummer. And who really wants to throw a party for yourself?

What is hard is that everyone, my parents included, has so much going on right now that I feel guilty asking for attention. My friends are dealing with their own crises, my brother's family just redid their carpets (NOT a ephemism) and have two small children, my Dad just lost his mother, my mother's got 40 years worth of stuff to clean and is trying to keep her own mother happy. There are other weddings, brand new babies, sick family members, breakups, job upheaval, and aging parents. EVERYONE has stuff. I want to be respectful of all the stuff. I want to hear about it, to commiserate, to advise, to listen.

But there is a part of me that just wants to find an open space and scream:

THIS IS THE ONLY WEDDING I AM PLANNING TO HAVE AND WOULD YOU SHUT UP FOR JUST ONE SECOND AND ASK ME ABOUT IT??????

Now, before you get all huffy and write me a nasty post, know this: both my bridesmaids are wonderful, and I talked to both of them last week. They listened, they asked questions - they had both called me, even. They both said all the right things, and I am thrilled they'll be with me when the wedding rolls around.

I never expected everyone's life to stop just because I was getting married. Heck, I'm just happy some of my friends can come to the wedding.

I don't need a party or to go off to Vegas (that would be fun, but we're all too broke right now). But I think I need my mother to be excited. To pay attention. To be concerned with what might make me happy.

And I don't think she will be.

Christmas

I'd like a do-over of Christmas, please. I have told too many people too much of this story, and I can't quite face putting it all down in type, so let's do a swift bullet list of highlights and then we'll move on to happier topics, shall we?

• If you spend the holiday with people who are lacking any Christmas excitement, it's best to bring it with you (in a box purchased at the Dollar Store if necessary) and shove it down their throats. I did not do this, and should have. You have to make the Christmas you want - I should have worked harder.
• Devon Avenue as a Christmas dinner option is a great idea - so good many other people have had it. When it takes over half an hour to find parking, nothing good will come from the evening.
• Similarly, if it is a frustrating headache to rewire the VCR, you will probably not enjoy whatever you end up watching on it.
• If you turn your head sharply and your companion happens to be sitting very close to you, your skulls will crash together. It will be painful. If you are the type that under periods of great stress and exhaustion collapses into tears, it will happen along with this pain. It may cause a breakdown that includes the sobbed phrase: "I can't make you happy...."
• If you are banking on visiting your own family to bring the joy of the holiday season back to your life, don't.
• No really, they're busy people, and they've already done Christmas without you.
• If you rush to your hometown in order to FINALLY get wedding invitations ordered, all the shops will be closed.
• When they open, all of the people who could get your invitations ordered will be absent.
• Your mother, would could have avoided all this by calling beforehand and making an appointment, will be busy babysitting her grandchildren.
• Her grandchildren, who are adorable, could have been somewhere else, leaving her free to help with these very time-sensitive wedding plans.
• Oh, wait, that's right, the grandchildren, who will hopefully be with us for many years to come, are more important than getting this once-in-a-lifetime event off the ground. I mean, it's just her daughter's wedding, nothing as cute and fun as grandchildren.
• Your mother, by the way, will have changed her mind about where she wants the invitations ordered, but not bothered to tell you that.
• All of this "helpful" behavior will enrage your fiance. Have fun smoothing those feathers.
• When you get back, having dutifully written out mentally, "Even though I am the one getting married, what I want is of no consequence" a LEAST one hundred times, you will need at least two weeks for any part of your life to feel like yours.
• Merry Christmas.