Questions.

When you get engaged, be ready for these questions:

When did you get engaged? (This one pops up for at least a month, maybe longer. I'll let you know when I stop getting it. It's the ring that tips them off. It's still kind of fun every time.)

How did he propose?

Did you know he was going to propose?

Do you have a date?

Where are you getting married?

Have you found a dress?

And this is just the beginning. Imagine how it's going to be when you really start planning stuff. And imagine all the questions you're going to ask yourself.

Blood tests.

After a relatively uneventful and not-fully-productive weekend (favors were started, the apartment was cleaned, but no exercise happened), I'm back in weekday wedding mode.

Today I thought I'd talk about blood tests briefly. Some states require them before you get married. I think it's one of those surviving old fashioned rules that was put in place to make sure you didn't pass the plague around. Let me google that to confirm... okay, it seems to be a concern about syphilis and only couple of states still require it. I suppose it was a bit more effective in time periods where premarital sex wasn't common and you wouldn't have passed it on to your future spouse yet. (It's your responsibility to get tested now, before you have sex.)

To find out if your state requires a test, you can look in local wedding magazines or just google it. Ours does not, thank goodness.

The reason this is on my mind is because I had blood drawn last week and there is a giant bruise on my arm. It's barely faded after a week. I can just imagine how great this would look next to a white wedding dress. And especially in the photos. So I have to recommend to brides that have to get blood testing - do it a month or more in advance.

In the meantime - anybody know how to get rid of a bruise?

Weekend wedding goals.

My fiance is off to visit one of his friends this weekend so I'll have the whole run of the place tomorrow and most of Sunday. Besides sleeping up to twelve hours and working out a tiny bit and maybe (but probably not) cleaning the apartment, I plan to get a few wedding things done:

-Start working on favors, specifically work on colors and prototypes and set up some kind of assembly structure.

-Keep researching photographers at my leisure.

- Start researching DJs (and open that floodgate of website nightmares.)

-Consult the wedding planning book and see what else is missing.

-Answer any outstanding emails/organize an email folder for wedding stuff.

Also, I am proud to say that today I finally reserved hotel room blocks and got that settled. I'm ahead of the game in that respect. Ahead of the home football game, to be both punny and literal.

Mail time, mail time, MAIL TIME!

I'm always super excited to get stuff in the mail and wedding planning provides lots of opportunities for that. Yesterday, I received two packages (which I shipped to myself - just let me have my moment) and an invite to a friend's wedding. It was exciting.

In package one, I got my new exercise ball and ankle weights. Let me just tell you it is a B to blow up an exercise ball. It came with a cheap pump and it took forever. The valve kept falling out, spewing air everywhere. The pump made this high-pitched whistling noise too, which the cats hated. And the instructions have all these warnings about over-inflating or under-inflating the ball. Apparently that could kill you or maim you or something. The ankle weights were easier to assemble (since they were already assembled in the box.) They're a little big on my ankles but I'll live.

In package two, wedding favors! I'm not going to say what they are because I don't want to give it away in case a guest reads this site, but needless to say, there are over 100 items stashed in our very limited storage space. I'm excited about this. It's going to be a project for me, which is why I'm starting so early, but it should be fun.

The wedding invite from a friend was great to receive too. I mean, we already knew we were going and when it was and the details because my fiance is in the wedding party. But I was actually excited to see the invitation itself to see what they did. It was a tri-fold brochure style invite, glossy, with a design that matched their site and save the date postcards. They have a Texas theme going and are actually serving tacos at the reception. It was a really cute, friendly invite.

There were a few interesting things to note. They didn't do a reply card, opting to have people email or call with their RSVP instead. It's a great way to save money and will probably work for them, but I feel like my mother would prefer the traditional way to organize responses. Plus, a lot of our family isn't that internet-savvy. I also really liked the way they did the return address labels. They made a sticker with this logo they created and used on everything that had their address on it. It was really cute. I'm planning on getting my parents a calligraphy stamp with their address on it for this purpose. It'll be a gift they can use in the future. They sell them on Etsy.

So real mail is fun. On the other hand, I get tons of wedding emails now that are so frequent that it's gotten seriously annoying. The Knot is one of the biggest offenders on the list. I may have to cut them off completely if it doesn't stop. I also get plenty of emails from David's Bridal and Macy's, where we decided to register. Stay tuned for a registry post coming soon.

Music.

I don't have much on my mind today. Well, that's not true. I'm trying to get the hotel room block situation straightened out now that we have the football conflict. And I'm thinking about photographers and registries and makeup and favors. But I thought I'd talk for just a moment about music.

We're thinking that we'll probably have a DJ for the reception. A band is great, but we're worried they couldn't cover quite as much ground. Plus, they're more expensive. We need to book this person by January, maybe even earlier. We'll be looking at lots of sites, I assume. I'm not looking forward to sifting through all that.

We'll have to think of something for cocktail hour since it's in a different location. I guess we should find out if they have speakers and just make a playlist of jazz or motown or maybe stuff from Wes Anderson's movie soundtracks. The acoustic stuff - though that might set a weird tone. And we have a plan for the ceremony, but I can't share it quite yet.

I think the most interesting part for us will be picking an appropriate playlist for the event. Something that works for the older and the younger crowds. Slow songs and fast songs. We're basically planning a prom. That made me shudder just a bit.

I am especially thinking about that first dance. We don't really have a song. I mean, when we first started dating, we danced to MIA's Paper Planes, but I doubt gunshots and cash registers are really wedding appropriate. Now we're kind of stumped. Any song we use won't really be a song that means a lot to us. Though I guess afterwards it will. Is this how people get to the "our song" stage? Did they not have that song before the wedding? I mean, unless you marry someone from high school you probably haven't gone to many dances together. Appropriate dances, that is.

My fiance (hi) is also what you'd call a music snob (sorry) so I'm very interested to see how this goes. Perhaps we'll have to set up percentages of how many songs should be in each genre or targeted towards each age group or appropriate for slow dancing.

Or perhaps we'll just play Arcade Fire on loop and call it a day.

Snap. Click. Flash. Etc.

Photography is apparently a big deal in wedding planning. Something about having these photos for the rest of your life, blah blah, capturing this really expensive event, yada yada. Just kidding. I'm pretty picky about it too, working in a creative field and all.

So far, we have an engagement photographer coming in November who I found online. I just looked up engagement photo shoots in the area we're getting ours done in and emailed our favorites. The one with the most reasonable package combined with amazing talent was Chelsea Donoho.

Chelsea's photography reminds me of an Urban Outfitters or Anthropologie catalog - totally our style. I had a brief "what if this isn't our style ten years from now" meltdown, but I finally decided it didn't matter. These photos would be beautiful. Here is a sample of her work:

(Please keep in mind that two of these are screenshots from her flash site so the framing might be a little off. I'm not a photographer - even with my mouse.)

Unfortunately, Chelsea doesn't live in the state we're getting married in or the state we actually live in, so I've started researching other options. If her engagement photos turn out to be as lovely as I think they will, we might end up flying her out anyway. But I need to look into the economics of that and either way, that still won't take care of the bridal portrait session that my mother wants and I wouldn't mind having.

Which brings me to today. I've been sending out pricing inquiries to photographers in the state we're getting married in, figuring out how much they charge for bridal sessions and/or weddings. Some (not all) of it is insane. Crazy talk. Apparently, if you are good with a camera, wedding photography is a lucrative field for you.

Granted, I've been looking at photographers who get their stuff posted on Style Me Pretty, which probably means they are popular and have built-up reputations and careers. But do I really want to take a chance on an unproven photographer? How do you find those hidden gems who are just starting out, who have maybe twice as much talent as the career guys, but charge about half as much? I'll let you know if I find out. Meanwhile, I can't wait to have our engagement photos done.

The million things you didn't know you wanted to change about yourself.

Hope everyone had a good weekend. I actually put down the wedding stuff for the most part. I was too busy with allergies and cable TV to do anything else.

Today's entry is about perspective and how it changes a whole lot the moment you get engaged. AKA how you go from normal person to vain bride in a nanosecond. I think it's the promise of all those photos that you'll keep forever and everyone will see on your Facebook page. Suddenly, there were many things about myself that I wished I could change. Here are the main ones and my progress with each.

My teeth. I should have listened to my mother and worn my retainer because now I have crooked bottom teeth and one crooked top front tooth. It usually doesn't bother me but suddenly it started being all that I saw when I smiled in the mirror. This one is sadly too expensive to fix. I looked into Invisalign and I still surf deal sites like Lifebooker and Groupon to see if anything comes up, but it starts at 4-5k at least. And the deal ones are... sketchy. Sketchy at best. I'm just going to have to consider my snaggletooth a little quirk and move on.

My skin. I started having acne issues about a year and a half ago. Yay for adult acne! I was semi-working on it, but it became very important suddenly. Based on one friend's recommendation, I switched to Lush products and they really got the ball rolling. Here's my Lush regiment:

 Fresh Farmacy soap. This cleans your skin.

 Tea Tree Water toner. This takes off the residue from the soap and also has some antibiotic properties.

Vanishing Cream lotion. "Eats" the dead skin and moisturizes your face.
It was all working pretty well, but there was still this under layer of gross red splotchiness. So my other friend recommended this:

Murad Exfoliating Acne Treatment Gel.
I use it between the toner and the moisturizer. It exfoliates and really hits the acne. At first my skin got worse and more blemishes came out, but now it's clearing up and getting less red. It also stings less now. Most of the time. Fingers crossed that it keeps working. Otherwise I'm hitting the dermatologist in January. And I've never had great luck with dermatologists unless they give me antibiotics in which case it goes away and just comes right back.

My weight. I've discussed this before and while I am not fat, I wanted to get rid of some flab. As you know, I've been working out with my book. It's a six-month program. If I get to the end and I still need help, I'll have to get a personal trainer. I'm a wuss, so that wouldn't go well.

My hair. This category is two-fold. I had just gotten my bangs trimmed back up when we got engaged and now they must go. I'm growing them out very slowly. They're in this awkward stage now where it's impossible to do much with them. I've been searching for ways to get through the transition. Ever since I got bangs back a few years ago, I haven't made it past this frustration. I will this time. I have a reason.
Leg/arm/bikini hair is the other part of this category. Excuse this delicate topic please. I'd love to not have that armpit stubble in my wedding photos. And I'd love to not have to worry about any of that on the honeymoon. I'm looking into how much this would cost. Mainly I want to go somewhere reputable and there are so many places here, it's hard to find. I'm searching the deals sites for this too, but then it's even harder to find some place good. I'll keep you posted on this as it goes.

Ultimately, I'm going to look my best on my wedding day. That means the best I can do with the tools and dedication and resources I have at my disposal. And if all else fails, I just have to remember: nobody will notice this stuff but me. Oh, and I'm marrying the man I love. That definitely counts for something.