Hiccup the Fourth: Wedding Favours Redux

So, let's backtrack to September. I had received a set of crap-quality items that I would in no way want to give to guests as wedding favours and I lost the Paypal dispute that took place afterwards. In a rare moment of clarity, I realised that I could have much better quality items for a lower price if I went to the source - China! - and had my mum ship them across to me.

I was super excited about this idea because not only am I getting good stuff that's been received and vetted by my mother (who has a discerning eye for quality in general), they were also going to cost just over half of what the other disastrous order did, including shipping!

Typically, EMS International has been supremely reliable. I've never had to wait more than a month for my stuff to get here. My mum sent the package around the end of September.

We are now approaching the end of November, and I've yet to receive them. They were sent with limited tracking, so my calls to Australia Post could only confirm that they left China in early October and have not yet arrived in Australia. Our option is to launch an investigation into what happened, but ultimately it's not looking promising for my stuff to be in my hands before I actually need them.

I haven't exactly had a meltdown over this (yet); it'd be more accurately described as a slow, slow burn that's been hovering in the pit of my stomach since the end of October. My usual technique to calm myself - as long as we marry each other the day will be a success - has been working, but its effects have reached the point of diminishing marginal utility.

(That's mostly my way of acting like I still remember anything from my finance degree.)

Fortunately, I've been able to scribble down a number of backup plans and ideas. Problem-solving the problem has been pretty relaxing and calming for me, but this is the second time I've had to solve the same goddamn problem. Plus, if the original package my mum sent DOES eventually arrive, I have no idea what I'm going to do with all these extra somethings. eBay, I suppose.

Anyway, here's hoping that everything works out. It'd be ideal if the original package just got here, but at least I've got a couple of backup plans just in case.

One Month Out

We are now one month TODAY out from the wedding day.

HOLY SHIT. The excitement is building and it's palpable! There are still things that need doing but all the bare bones are sorted - we've had 3 meetings with 3 different suppliers in the past week and with each subsequent meeting the picture becomes clearer. SO EXCITING!

There have been a few hiccups over past weeks that I haven't posted about yet, mainly because I have been determined not to dwell on them too much. Hiccups are becoming more stressful the closer we get to the wedding, not because they're BIG IMPORTANT things going wrong, but because there's just less time in which to solve them. What I'm finding totally helps though is knowing that we have backup plans in place and that my A-Team is on-call and excellent.

After tonight's meeting with our celebrant, I fully expect to have things like the schedule and runsheet all finalised, with the few outstanding bits being sourcing music, a couple of outstanding RSVPs, and sorting out the wedding favours. It feels like I've had *something* to do for the wedding pretty much since day 1 and it's feels weird that the list is steadily growing shorter.

Which explains why I'm suddenly exercising more - not to lose weight, as I'm under strict instructions from my dressmakers not to lose anymore weight - but to burn off all the anxiety and excitement and energy. Whew.

GUYS. I'M GOING TO BE *MARRIED*. IN A MONTH! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Old, New, Borrowed, Blue

I'm a superstitious person. You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I totally am. I play volleyball with a #7 jersey whenever I got the chance. I do not ever set TV volumes or air-conditioning temperatures to a prime number higher than 11. If I can't set it to a multiple of 4 or 5, then a multiple of 9 will do. When coaching volleyball, I have my own weird set of rituals that take place before a game - mainly the order in which I list the players' names on the score sheet. I hate it when Blake says idiotic things like "there's no such thing as a j--x".

Thing is, apart from that last one, I don't tend to adhere to what you'd call "traditional" superstitions. Black cats, ladders, and broken mirrors don't fuss me in a luck sort of way (just an allergy, accident-prone, and who the fuck left all this glass lying around sort of way). Chinese superstitions don't bother me very much, either - I don't pay homage to the number 8 (unless the #7 or #77 jerseys aren't available), the number 4 doesn't bug me much, and I don't prevent red from being in certain areas of the house. Instead, I make my own luck.

(That I picture Rachel Dawson saying "you make your own luck" to Harvey Dent shortly before she goes to her death in the Dark Knight is probably not a great sign.)

It stands to reason that the "something old/new/borrowed/blue" rhyme didn't mean much to me, either. In fact, I actually asked a bunch of brides what the significance of it was and their answer was basically "it's meant to be lucky". Now, maybe the media portrays brides unfairly, but I have some distinct reality-TV recollections of brides flipping their shit when one of those 4 items was missing. I'd actually thought it was a cultural thing. But, as it turns out, much like wearing white to the wedding, it's something completely optional that only a few brides spend a lot of time worrying about.

I know most ladies don't obsess about this, and maybe most of you couldn't have been fussed one way or the other! Much like I was. Until recently.

Without really meaning to, signs began popping up. A couple of weeks ago, Blake gave me an (blue) opal ring to wear as a placeholder, "practice" ring, which I've been wearing every day since I got it. My wedding jewelry includes a bracelet I've owned for ten years exactly - a gift from my dad when I turned 21.

In true nerd fashion, I kicked into research gear. What did these things really mean? Could something be both borrowed and old or did it have to be 2 separate things? What about my new, blue ring?

As it turns out, the rhyme originated from English folklore and actually goes:

“Something old,
something new,
something borrowed,
something blue,
and a silver sixpence in her shoe.”

These days the sixpence is usually dropped, presumably because that sounds horrendously uncomfortable. And rather than just being a cutesy rhyme, each item does apparently have meaning. Most of them have to do with warding off the "Evil Eye" which apparently renders women barren, which in them olden-time days was a Big Deal because it apparently meant you weren't worth marrying or something. How delightfully unevolved. For example, the "something borrowed" is usually a pair of underwear that belongs to a woman who has had lots of kids and has proven to be very fertile, which is meant to help you with your own fertility.

Uh, gross.

I certainly don't intend to complete the set, necessarily, but it seems like I might do it by accident. Eh, I'm not going to complain about having some "accidental" luck on the day. But rather than worrying about whether or not my opal ring counts as a 2-for-1, I'm more likely to be hoping to high heaven that the temperature on the Big Day will be 25, 28, or 30 degrees and none of the shitty numbers in between. (27 is okay but only at a stretch.) That's not insane or ridiculous, right?

Oh *THERE* You Are, Breaking Point!

I was wondering what had been keeping you! I'm super glad you've finally found your way into my brain, but only because I'd been wondering when exactly you were going to decide to turn up.

For much of the past few months, things have been relatively calm. All my hiccups thus far, as I've pointed out before, have been minor and easily remedied. That's not to say I've just encountered a big, day-ruining hiccup, though. It's just that the minor hiccups had been slowing rolling into each other, picking up speed as they barreled downhill and I was just sitting there, minding my own business, hanging out on the piedmont, when FOOMF! The avalanche hit.

It all started when we went on vacation to Melbourne to go to a gaming convention. That was fantastic, before you ask - we had a lot of fun checking out the newest AAA titles, indie games, and tabletop games. And while I'd brought my iPad with me, I didn't really get very much wedding planning done as I'd figured I needed a break from that, too.

Then, on the Sunday, I overheard Blake tell a mate of ours that our wedding was "next month".

HOLY SHIT, WHAT?

The gears frantically clicked into place and I realised that, indeed, it was now November. NOVEMBER. THE MONTH BEFORE DECEMBER.

Suddenly, I no longer had "all the time in the world" to solve any issues that popped up. Suddenly, anything I might need ordered in from overseas may not actually get here in time for the wedding! Suddenly, people will start saying "whoa, that's soon!" and "I'm sorry that your other supplier cancelled on you, but we're fully booked for the rest of the year!" Suddenly, time was running out.

It's not even about things actually going wrong - it's suddenly worrying about things that might go wrong because what if I can't solve them?!

There have been a few other stressors rearing their ugly heads - mostly stuff to do with work and my physical health. I'm leaving that deliberately vague because this isn't the place to go into detail on either of these things, but I will say that I'm starting to get overwhelmed by things that don't normally overwhelm (or even whelm) me.

As an example, this evening I was poking around the internet looking for a bridal clutch purse. I then remembered that my grandmother gave me a small clutch years ago that was always a bit too shiny for my tastes so I never used it, but it'd be perfect for the wedding! I poked around in the house for a bit and couldn't find it and immediately became worried that I might have thrown it out or donated it in the last Great Wardrobe Purge. I promptly burst into tears, even as Blake helped me look.

The good news is, I did end up finding the clutch. It was one of those moments where the ever-sentimental past-Vivienne was looking out for future-Vivienne, even though present-Vivienne keeps telling herself she needs to get rid of anything she doesn't use!

The relief I felt when I found the clutch was intense, and it made me realise that the breaking point cometh. It was the smallest damned thing - I won't even have it on me until after the Ceremony! - and I was in tears over it?! I don't think the phrase "bridal clutch" was even in my vernacular when I first started planning the wedding!

Anyway, what prompted me to make this post was an admission that I need to maintain perspective. I've been really good at reminding myself that all I really need is for Blake to say yes and for the celebrant to do her legal bit, and the day will be a success! Everything else is extra. I repeat it like a mantra. But sometimes I think I say it so often that it loses meaning somehow, and these days the reminder only slows me down when I accompany it with a deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep breath.

Choosing a Theme

Though I've managed thus far to not buy, pick up, open, or even glance at a bridal magazine since getting engaged, I have of course been all over the internet. Pinterest, once a confusing and overwhelming place full of pictures of stuff, suddenly made sense to me as a human being. In my internet investigations, I came across words that leap out repeatedly on blog posts, articles, advice pages, and photo captions. "Vintage". "Romantic". "Glam". "Hollywood". "Beach". "Bohemian". "Retro". "Garden". To name a few.

I know what those words mean, but not what their implications are in the planning of a wedding. In wedding-world, these words aren't just styles or locations; they're themes, meant to unite the various elements of your wedding so that it's all consistent and makes sense. And I guess I found the concept confusing because I was really struggling to nail down a "theme" for our wedding. Many of the decisions made thus far were based on cost/price, with no theme in mind.

It's only recently that I've begun wondering - does the style of my dress match the style of the this and the that that will also be in the wedding?  I'm generally a person who likes things to match, who thinks in themes and patterns; what if the rapid decision-making in the early stages of the wedding planning means that I end up something that looks like an amateurish mess?

The Batgirl-Nightwing themed wedding that was all over social media a while back was, in two words, fucking incredible. The nerd in me was deeply awed by how perfectly everything seemed to fit together (including the couple themselves), and also deeply envious that they had a very clear, shared interest that was big enough to roll into a wedding theme.

I'm not implying that Batgirl-Nightwing were in any way a mono-faceted couple at all. I'm sure they also had myriad interests and they chose this particular interest as a theme because it was what brought them together. That's awesome.

So I've been trying to identify any single, thematic thing that defines our relationship, or that is even a cornerstone of our relationship. Anything important enough to both of us that could be highlighted and on display at the wedding. I'm weirdly proud to say that I came up short.

Blake and I are what you may call Jacks-of-all-trades. We pride ourselves in being impossible to stereotype. Our joint interests are scattered: we are sporty but super geeky. Into boardgames but also into the outdoors. We love Pixar and Die Hard. We also have passions that we don't share but that also make each of us a person the other loves.

The theme of our wedding will basically just be us and shit we like. Our wedding wouldn't be considered "thematically consistent" by any bridal, fashion, or pop culture magazine in the universe, and that's fine. Despite what they may claim otherwise, there is no actual rule around how a wedding MUST or MUST NOT be styled. Sure, I can see how it all might drive our photographer a bit nuts, but everything will be thematically consistent to us, because it all represents the things - and people - we love.