The secret life of...

Following Penguin's example, I thought I'd share my own secret. (Not that it is much of a secret, if you've noticed my absence of posts.)

I'm completely, totally, 100% over weddings- planning, recapping, blogging. Don't get me wrong- our wedding turned out great, it was one of the most fun days of my life- but being married is so much better.

Writing picture-filled posts recapping the wedding takes time, and since I started working, time has been a precious commodity. And the recap posts that I have done have generated only a small amount of interest, which doesn't help my minimal motivation to post.

So there you have it- my not-so-secret secret. Please let me know if you are interested in seeing more wedding pics; if there is enough interest, I'll continue the recap.

The recap will recommence

As soon as we're done moving!

Image found here.

That's right, next week Calvin and I are moving to NYC! It's been quite a whirlwind since he received the job offer on Friday, but I promise once we have relocated to the east coast, I will post about our reception as well as the surprises we had in store for our guests.

In the meantime, anyone have any tips for surviving an inter-state move?

We're back!

The obligatory wedding self-portrait.

And very happily married!

The pro pictures are supposed to arrive next week, but until then, I'd like to find out what you, dear readers, are most eager to hear about. Your options:

A. Honeymoon details, with post titles in including "Visiting the Monkey Forest, or Watch a Monkey Climb on Calvin's Head" and "Learning to Catch a Wave, or Calvin Totally Schools Meg When It Comes To Surfing"
B. Remaining DIY details, with post titles including "The Programs are Done, or How Not to Get a Paper Cut When You Fold 600 pieces of Paper" and "Making Bouquets Is Really Easy, or It's Damn Near Impossible to Make Flowers Look Bad"
C. All of the above
D. None of the above

I'm so happy to be back, and can hardly wait to share everything with you!

Miss Dahlia, signing off

Things get a little bit crazy just before a wedding. (I was actually surprised by this- I guess I thought all of the "things will be so busy" wouldn't happen to me. Well, it did. Things get busy.)

So with the wedding tomorrow, this is Miss Dahlia signing off. Thank you so much for all of your support throughout this wedding process, and when I return from Bali, I'll give the full wedding recap. Now, though, it's time to by the flowers for my bouquet.

Crazy dreams

Taking the advice of many in yesterday's post, I decided to head to bed early last night. I'm not sure whether it was the exhaustion, the cold or the cold medicine, but I had a crazy dream last night.

It was a Sunday morning, which in my dream was the morning of our wedding. Only I didn't realize this immediately. I went to church, was chatting with people and what not, and started driving to my parents' house around 11:30am. Driving over there, I realized that I had totally and completely missed my hair and makeup appointments, and started freaking out because I was supposed to be at the hotel getting ready so that we could leave at 1pm for the church. I called the hair salon, but the person I spoke to said that they had wondered what happened to me, and that since they closed at 12pm, there was nothing they could do to help. I started panicking, but no one seemed to quite understand why I was so stressed out.

Then the dream ended. And I realized that there was no way that I was going to forget my hair appointment the morning of the wedding.

What crazy wedding dreams have you had?

The next big thing

Although our wedding is looming ever closer, Calvin and I have found that instead of being preoccupied with the remaining details (like finalizing the song for the soloist, or putting together the program, or anyone of a number of things left to be taken care of), we are focusing on life after the wedding. And not just the honeymoon- although I do find myself daydreaming about it quite a bit.

No, it's the rest of life after the wedding, when we don't have to spend our evenings calling vendors and running wedding errands. Life that might include a house with a yard, and a dog (which Calvin really wants. Me, I'm ambivalent about it- except I don't want a dog that sheds much. Nor one that is too big. Anyone want to suggest a favorite breed?) And walks after dinner, perhaps to get ice cream.

Basically, as cliched as it is, both of us are looking forward to settling down a bit.

What are you looking forward to after the wedding?

Big news!

This weekend, Calvin and I took a surprise trip to St. Louis. Well, the trip wasn't a surprise to us, or my parents, or my brothers. Nope, it was a surprise for someone very special:

My now future sister in law, seated next to my brother/her future husband!

Yes, on Friday, my brother proposed to his long-time girlfriend, and had all of the family come to St. Louis to surprise her after the proposal. We went to this wonderful restaurant, where my brother had told her he had made reservations to celebrate their engagement. When they arrived, we were all seated with champagne waiting.

It was absolutely amazing.

I had to check out the ring- my brother did a good job.

My now engaged brother asking our other brother to be his best man.

The families

I'm so happy for both of them! Congratulations, you guys!

Help!

With six weeks to go, things were looking pretty good. We'd sent the invitations, were working on the last details with the florist, sent our rings to be engraved- in short, we'd taken care of a lot of things. Same with 5 weeks to go- we ordered our guestbook, finalized some of the gifts for the bridal party, wrote shower thank you notes- and life seemed manageable. There were quite a lot of things left to do, but since classes have ended for the term, once my students' exams are graded next week, I'll be on summer break, giving me plenty of time to take care of the last things.

Cue yesterday.

For reasons completely unrelated to the wedding, the 4 weeks of summer break that I thought I would get has vanished, as things somewhat outside of my control have now inundated me with a ton of work to do. (Basically, my second comprehensive exam for my PhD is a paper defense. I thought I had the paper in good shape, but it turns out it needs a ton of work. Basically, I need to rework my entire paper in a different framework. I need to take the exam before the wedding, which gives me 2.5 weeks to redo the paper.)

Totally manageable, especially since classes have ended for the term, except that I am getting married in a month. Enter panic.

What have you done to keep things under control?

Shower Surprise!

No, I didn't have a surprise shower- living in Michigan with a wedding in Cleveland, it would not have been possible for the shower planners to make it a surprise shower.

Instead, my mom (and Calvin) conspired to bring a shower surprise. I drove into town on Friday for a dress fitting, with a hair and makeup trial and shower on Saturday. I was up late chatting with my parents, but decided around midnight that it was time to head to bed since the next day was going to be busy.

I call Calvin (as I typically do) as I crawl into bed, and he is Mr. Chatty that night- I assume that he was highly caffeinated and was up late playing video games, which he does from time to time when I'm out of town and he's home by himself.

And then my mom calls me to come downstairs. It's 1:15am. I'm exhausted, cold and in my pajamas. And who is there waiting for me?

Calvin, who'd driven in from Michigan to pick up my best friend (and maid of honor) in the whole wide world at the airport. She, who lives in Boston and told me that she wouldn't be able to make it into town that weekend. She, with whom I had been playing phone tag for over a month, and from whom on Thursday I received a voicemail saying that she'd try and talk with me on Saturday.

I was shocked. And speechless.

How have you been surprised in regards to your wedding?

A little thing that will change

I was talking with my dad on Saturday, and he called me "Miss Meg." It's something that he has called me as long as I can remember.

And I thought about it, and mentioned to him, that I will no longer be "Miss Meg" come May. (Not that I'll be a Mrs., since I'm not changing my name. But I definitely will not be a Miss.)

It's one of those little things that I never really thought about that will change when I get married.

What little thing have you noticed that will change after you're married?

Weekly update?

You may have noticed that I haven't given a weekly update. Well, it's been cold outside. And I've been out of town a lot. And I've been fighting off a cold.

I haven't really exercised much lately. But that's about to change.

You see, Calvin called me this morning to let me know he'd been able to track down this:

Image found here.

This is a BIG deal. We've spent the last 6 weeks trying to track one down, getting up early on Sunday mornings only to be told that we missed our opportunity by 18 minutes. And now, I'll be able to exercise from the comfort of my own home.

Only trick is, I've never actually owned a video game system before (my old school Gameboy is not quite the same), and I'm really bad at video games. I know that Miss Bubblegum, Miss Hummingbird and Mrs. Snow Pea have already blogged about the Wii.

For those of you out there with Wii experience, do you have any tips for me? Anyone want to share their favorite Wii workouts?

"Holy Tuxedo, Batman!"* (and a weekly update)

Image found here

We're getting married!

It occurred to us, well, yesterday, that this is January. We're getting married in May. February, March, April...May. 4 months.

Weren't we just at six months last week? Where did that time go? How the crap are we going to get all of this stuff done in the next couple of months? I'm not talking just about optional things. No, it's things like addressing invitations, booking hair and makeup, and Calvin getting his attire together. Yikes.

I could use some help here (or at least the knowledge that there are others who are feeling totally and completely overwhelmed.) Suggestions? Tips? Anyone else feeling inundated with the number of things that need to be taken care of?

(On the "lose a bit of weight to fit into the dress so it doesn't need alterations" front, this past week was a success and a failure. "Success" because I lost some weight- even if it was due to a stomach bug that I got just before leaving for Mexico. Failure, because I didn't exercise at all due to said stomach bug.)

*quote from here

Weekly check in

It is Wednesday, which means that it's time for an exercise update. (After last week's post, there was some interest in a weekly check in, so here goes.)

I successfully ran two miles on Thursday (and by successfully, I mean I ran everywhere the sidewalks/roads were plowed;' there was maybe a quarter mile where I walked because it's just too hard to run in 8 inches of snow.)

Friday was some at home strength training, and I did more of the same on Monday.

Not to shabby considering the sadness/craziness of the past few days.

More on that will come. (Perhaps a compare/contrast of weddings and funerals, since the same people attend both? Or why everyone at a funeral wants to talk about wedding planning? Or how cute the ring bearer and flower girl will be at the wedding of "Aunt Fun", the nickname I was given after we made pillow forts together in the basement of the funeral home?)

How else has everyone fared in their exercise plans for this week?

We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Things have been very busy over here for the holidays. We're taking off tomorrow, but thought that we'd share with you some of the new tradition or two we have started this year. It is, after all, our first year living together, our first (and only!) Christmas being engaged, and the first time we have been around our home for the holidays. (Last year we were moving in December, and the previous years we were still in student mode.)

One of the first things that we did was cut down our Christmas tree.

The tree farm.

Calvin hard at work.

Enjoying the sunlight- it was cold that day!

Ready to go in the living room.

We have a Christmas tree!

I made Christmas stockings for us- we each picked out the fabric that we wanted.

Hoping that the pattern I made works out as I'm all set to cut the fabric.

Stitching it up. The sewing machine was my grandmother's (she was phenomenal seamstress), and the drawer in it still smells like her.

Hanging off the bookcase, since we have no fireplace.

We are headed back to Cleveland tonight to celebrate Christmas with our families, so earlier today we celebrated our own Christmas here, complete with waking up at 5:30 in the morning (just like we were kids!) to unwrap gifts.

Since we are leaving town, I probably won't be blogging much. But have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love,
Meg (and Calvin)

P.S. I would love to hear about any holiday traditions that you have started this year!

shoes humor

Note: I've got a slightly sarcastic (and definitely quirky) sense of humor. This post is not intended to offend at all.

I'm amazed at the amount of things that I'm supposed to care about for the wedding. Food, makes sense to care about it. Entertainment and locale as well. Even the invitations to some extent.

The latest issue to surface: bridesmaid shoes. I just don't care about it. They're not my feet, they're not my shoes, and they'll only appear in a small number of pictures. So I sent an email to my (3) bridesmaids. My maid of honor thought it was hilarious, and I thought it was pretty funny too, so I thought I'd share it with all of you.

"I've now gotten questions from two of you regarding what shoes to wear for the wedding in May, and I thought it would be a good idea to make sure that everyone is on the same page. There's also some things towards the bottom that you should know; I know that I've mentioned some of it to some of you, but I don't remember who knows what.

So shoes.

Given that the dress is burgundy, hot fuschia shoes, like these,

(from here.)

are probably not a good idea. Holographic Doc Martens are also probably not a good idea. And I'm not really feeling the Chuck Taylors.

(image found here.)

Additionally, I hate to be a bitch, but Ugg boots are just not really appropriate when there isn't snow on the ground.

(image found here.)

If we were getting married outside in February, fine. As the wedding is in May, that pretty much rules them out.

That said, I'm thinking along the lines of something that meets this criteria:
1- some sort of dressier sandal/shoe. I don't care about color at all- black, silver, striped, leopard print- whatever color floats your boat, so long as it isn't hot pink patent leather. Heels or flats- your choice.
2- you should like them.
3- you should be able to wear them again for something else."

The email went on from there, but I've got a question for you. No, it's not what shoes recommendations you are giving to your attendants. It's better than that.

How are you keeping wedding planning humorous?

The Name Game

This New York Times article about name changes caught my eye, since it discusses the various combinations that individuals can do with their names. One couple interviewed for the article had an inter-family softball match to determine which last name! While I wouldn't want to leave such an important decision up to a ballgame, it is a pretty original way to resolve the (potential) issue.

Growing up, I always thought that I would assume the name of my (future) husband. While I liked my last name, it was one of those that are deceptively difficult to pronounce. One of my least favorite things in high school was the first day of school, where I would inevitably have at least 5 teachers mispronounce my name.

In college, however, things began to change. I became excited about my work, and presented some of my research at a professional conference. When Calvin and I started dating, it was a given that I would keep my last name. We tossed around the idea of somehow combining last names, or each taking the others' last as a second middle name (we still might do this, but for me it would be a second middle name, since my current middle name has a strong family history), but we knew that we would each be keeping our own names. For me, this doesn't so much hark back to the women as property days, but is a large part of who I am. I'm published under my own name. I've presented my work under my name. And I don't really want to change it.

The one thing that I am struggling with, however, is how to make sure that people know after we are married that I did not change my name. I'm not too concerned about my colleagues; in my department, it is far more unusual to change your name than it is to keep it. It's more the relatives and parents' friends that I am concerned about.

If you kept your name (or plan to), how did you let people know? Did you correct them, or just let it slide?

"I've got to get busy writing - busy, busy, busy!"

Image found here

Just like Professor Hinkle in Frosty the Snowman, I've got to get busy writing. We've got the final wording of our invitations to edit, as well Christmas cards to write and then address. I've got the added "benefit" of writing a final paper and grading as well. In addition, of course, to the non-writing tasks that lay before us, like shopping for presents, and taking care of miscellaneous wedding details, like ordering cardstock and envelopes. All in all it makes for a busy time for Calvin and I.

Now, my way of coping with all of these thins to do is to make endless lists of all of the tasks I need to do. I have post-it notes on my computer, a to-do list in my planner, and various notes to myself placed in strategic locations so I don't forget to do the things I need to do. The lists are for everything- the wedding things we need to take care of, the specifics of how much of what wedding related things we need, what assignments I have due and when I plan to work on them, what things around the house I need to take care of before this weekend, and what I need to pack in my suitcase when I leave in a couple of hours to go back to Cleveland. What can I say? I am a list maker.

Now, I know that not everyone makes lists for every.single.little.detail, so I'm really curious to hear about your organizational strategy. How are you staying organized with all of the responsibilities that are present at this time of year?

Weekend away

Things have been pretty hectic for Calvin and I over the past couple of weeks. Not only are the holidays quickly approaching, but so is the end of the semester- for me and my students. Which means that not only do I have papers to write, but I'm also spending quite a bit of time helping students with their papers, reading drafts and the like, before I find myself under a pile of papers to grade. Not to mention final exams.

Needless to say, between the school work, the impending holidays, and the busyness that is wedding planning (seriously, who knew that it would take so much time?), we haven't taken a whole lot of time for ourselves.

My parents suggested last week that we go up to their cottage on Lake Erie for the weekend. We could get away for a bit, and my parents could come up for Saturday afternoon for the game. (I may live in Michigan, but I bleed Scarlet and Gray. I always go back to my people for the game.)

My dad and I in Columbus last year for the game.

But the important thing was that Calvin and I really got a chance to spend some quality time together. Since the cottage lacks internet access, we didn't whittle away the time browsing the web, and instead talked, laughed, played games and explored the area. All the things that we really like to do, but haven't done recently because we have been so busy. We returned home yesterday afternoon feeling greatly revived, both individually and as a couple, and are ready to tackle all of the various things that need to be done between now and Christmas. Both of us agreed that we really needed this past weekend to reconnect and remember why we're getting married in the first place.

What are you doing to recuperate from wedding planning and all of the other stresses of life at this time of year?

Three years ago today...

Calvin and I watched Lost in Translation.

We had spent the previous year getting to know each other bit by bit. We found ourselves alone in a table in the dining hall when all of our mutual friends decided to get dessert simultaneously, and he let his friend (who was one of my housemates) and I stay in his dorm room when a tornado went through our college campus; later that year, he joined my Bible study. That summer, we stayed up late playing chess most every night, since both of us were working on campus. That, and a crazy weekend roadtrip with some friends to Arkansas to go to a drive-in movie theater. Early that fall, we had coordinated a birthday party for that same friend/housemate; we chased sunsets and discovered a "secret" lake located not to far away in the farm country that surrounded our college.

But three years ago tonight, we watched Lost in Translation. Calvin had broken up with his longtime on-again off-again lady friend, and my housemates were all off doing various things (i.e. they had a marching band commitment) . We watched the movie in my room (the single! No roommate for me that year!) in the house, and when the movie was over, he looked at me. And said "Meg, I have to tell you something. I'm not quite sure how to say this, but I'm really a big...fan of you."

And there you have it.

Us then:

At the drive-in in Arkansas.

Serving people at that friend's birthday party. (Yes, it was in a coffee shop- the one we worked at and I lived above in college. As an aside, about this time, that same friend of ours had a dream that the two of us were getting married.)

And now:

In DC a couple of weeks ago.

Right before hearing DJ Tiesto.

Happy anniversary, my love.

Hi from Miss Dahlia!

Hi everyone, I'm Meg, and am very excited to be part of the community at Weddingbee! I've been following the site since the beginning of the summer, and can't wait to share my thoughts and ideas on wedding planning and learn from experiences of everyone!

Why did I choose Miss Dahlia? I must confess that from the time I saw the flowers introduced, I knew that Miss Dahlia had my name all over it. First, it is red, and as you will quickly see, red is my favorite color and will play quite an important part in our wedding. Second, and more importantly, it has strong family connections.

My grandfather lived with my family in the last years of his life. Up until he had a stroke and passed away three years ago, one of the greatest joys in his life was gardening. Grandpa Dahlia's specialty was, in fact, growing dahlias. He was famous for them. Not just any dahlias, mind you, but dahlias the size of a dinner plate. Like this:

Image from here.
While dahlias are very much out of season in May (and I did contemplate half-seriously having the wedding in August so that dahlias would be in season) and we won't be having them at the wedding, I love that my name pays homage to my maternal grandfather.

Grandpa Dahlia in August 2004, less than 2 months before his stroke.

So now that you know why I chose to be Miss Dahlia, I thought I'd share a bit about the Dahlias. We started dating our senior year of college, when we were both involved in a non-profit coffee shop and worked as college radio DJs. We love to travel, are considered "foodies" by our families, and like to think of ourselves as connoisseurs of cheap wine (basically, anything less than $8/bottle. $10 or $11 is considered a splurge). And we have a high geek factor. In the month prior to us dating, we would caffeinate ourselves with the leftover coffee from said coffee shop to stay up late and program (or play chess). I was learning html (to build my own website! in notepad!) and Calvin had programming for his computer science classes. Since graduating from undergrad, I moved to Michigan to further my education and after a year of long-distance, Calvin moved up here to work (and spend some time with me!).

We are getting married in Cleveland, which is our hometown and where most of our families reside. While it is not the most exotic locale, it enables our living grandparents to be part of the wedding. Both of our families go back several generations in the city, so we will always be Clevelanders. Plus, we are excited to show off our hometown in as positive a light as possible! While Cleveland is the butt of a lot of jokes (yes, the river really did catch on fire in the 1970s), it has a lot of great things to offer. I can't wait to share my thoughts and ideas about wedding planning with all of you!