Something Old, Something New...

For those of you not in the know, Boy and I became recently engaged.

As a twenty two year old who hasn't been to a wedding since her Aunt Stacey's, when I was two years old, its been an interesting experience preparing for a wedding that's a year and three months away.

For most, over a year means plenty of time.

For a control freak like moi, it means, never enough time.

As I scour the first thirty pages of Google after searching, "Affordable Nashville Wedding Venues", my mind and heart begins to race. I am ineviatebly sent to dozens of wedding blogs filled with... wedding porn. For those of you unaware of this phenomenon, as I was three months ago, let me enlighten you. Wedding porn means hoards and hoards of beautiful pictures of weddings that will never look like yours.

In the beautiful world of wedding porn, brides are never above a size five. (And they never have the armpit-fat that I'm terrified will plague my wedding pictures just as they plagued my prom pictures.) Sunshine is impeccably always over the horizon. The camera focuses on the bride, allowing everyone else to look fuzzy, making the bride look beautiful. There's hardly any crying, either out of emotion of the beautiful day or because Uncle Fred got drunk and fell on the cake. And there are alway pictures of random things showing that the bride easily got her bridal party to work their fingers to the bone wrapping Mason jars with pretty ribbons and dropping tealight candles inside, then hoisiting the Mason jars into trees.

Seriously.

What the hell?

Not only that, friends, but if I see another black and white photo with a single, in-color red rose, I'll scream. If I see a photo of the brides shoes with the wedding ring slipped onto the high heel against a solid white background, I'll scream. And those breeze, Thomas Kincaid-like photos of the bridal gown on a hanger, against a picture window where the sunlight streams in magnificently? I'll scream again. (Seriously, these photos make me wonder: Did the photographer wait for hours for the sun to get into the right position? Or was Walt Disney himself the wedding planner and did he command the sun to move and shift in the same way I'll undoubtably command my bridesmaids to move and shift both out of my way and to avoid harm [i.e, the afroemention drunk Uncle Fred scenario])?

The wedding porn is addictive, to say the least. With two male brides"men" and one female bridesmaid with a two year old, I find myself wondering: "Whose going to help me cut out paper butterflies, write poetic quotes on them, and string them up so high above the reception, no one will be able to read the quotes, much less see the magnificent detail I've put in each damn butterfly?"

The answer, my friends, is no one. Maybe my mother, but she'll just look at me like I'm crazy if I were to suggest such things.

It doesn't help that when I mention such things to the Fiancee, (like: "What if we gave out honey jars as the wedding favors? They would have our names on them and say 'Meant to Bee'. How cute?!") he begins to squint his eyes, sighs, and says, "How much will THAT cost us?" (This is coming from the guy who suggested a back yard barbeque wedding. Seriously. He wants me eating barbeque in a wedding dress. I can only imagine the stains and how vibrantly well they will show up in our photos.)

So, I sit, a year and some months away, freaking out to myself. And maybe that's okay. Maybe soon I'll adapt a more laissez-faire attitude and say, "What is the easiest way we can have a fun time, feed our friends and family, and look good for the pictures we'll show our grandkids?" And maybe I will soon stop trying to figure out a way to hire the Disney corporation as full time wedding planners on a Sam's-Club-Brand-Soda budget.

Or maybe I will figure out a way to hire them and all the stress will be off. Either way, it's going to be a hell of a ride.

The Change of Life

Well, I've been toying with an idea for months and I've been too nervous to tell friends and family, so here it is in the blogosphere. Maybe if I can articulate my feelings, I can make a final decision.

I'm thinking of dropping out of college.

Honestly, I haven't learned a damn thing in 3 years of post-high school education. It is very frustrating.

I am tired of waiting for my life to truly begin. There are things I want to do. I want to spend my energy writing a book and trying to get it published. I want to focus on my job and acquiring some form of financial security. I want to volunteer with charities and contribute to the world. I want days off so that I can stay at home and work on my relationship with my fiancee. I want to start my own business and watch it flourish or fail. I want to learn from crazy mistakes and be able to say: "Hey, I have experienced some crazy things."

Between working full time and going to school full time, I haven't been able to do any of those things in quite some time.

I'm also beginning to think I should change my major from theatre to public relations. I need time to think that through.

Also, I have a year to plan a wedding, and I want time to focus true creative energy into that so that I can have a true once-in-a-lifetime experience.

These are simply thoughts in my head. I haven't made a final decision. But I'm walking that fine line.

Now I simply need the nerve to tell my mother.