someone needs to wear this dress

Lela Rose | Metallic tweed dress | NET-A-PORTER.COM

$995

woohoo! I'm a princess!

I just ordered a TIARA! Yeah. Me. Wearing a tiara. It was 1/2 off because it's a sample. Oh darn. Someone wore my tiara to a photo shoot and it's not virgin jewelry, the shame! Pfff, it was on sale! Seriously. I wouldn't care if someone wore it to a funeral. You're talking to the girl who fell in love with sparkly shoes from the DSW clearance rack. If I could find a used dress I liked as much as the one in my head, I'd probably order it too.

Oh, and don't worry, it won't have any rhinestones at all. I'm not that southern, actually I'm not southern at all (take that you damned Red Socks groom [Yankee would sound better, but then I'd have to endure a tickle and/or sock war once he reads this]). I was born in The District and DC was the capitol of the Union, you know.

So, there you go. I now have everything I plan on wearing to our wedding but my dress and there won't be any rhinestones on that either. I'll have to make my short fluffy veil now so that I can play with the placement of the veil and my rhinestone free tiara. Good thing I've had the supplies sitting in the laundry closet for a few months now.

I still have trouble spelling my future MIL's name right the first time

"I before E except after C and in words like Weird, Neighbor and Weiner." But dont call your neighbors weiner weird, because that would be impolite.

via Maybe If You Just Relax.

why we want to have an awesome wedding bash

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." - maya angelou

via a $10,000 wedding.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="via http://tenthousandonly.blogspot.com/"][/caption]

Ben has clothes too!

He bought himself a tux off the Macy's clearance rack for $150 back in May (?), which will need to have some tailoring done to it before the wedding. Today, he bought a shirt at Men's Warehouse and paid less than $5 after using a rebate from purchasing himself a spiffy new suit (also back in May [?]). Now all he needs is an undershirt; he hates undershirts, but wants to wear a white shirt and that's just non-negotiable in my book. Oh, and he needs a tie (plain black satin), and shoes too. Actually, if he wants to wear shoes he already has, that's fine by me, but he wants to look for something a little spiffier and with less of a heel (so I can get away with wearing my sparkly flats).

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="260" caption="white/white stripes, but with normal buttons"][/caption]

PS- did you know that it is very difficult to find good fitted shirts in a 15 1/5 (34-35), most of them are too boxy looking, or cheap-y or not-so-great colors. Fitted is the key word, regular/unfitted shirts just look like he's borrowing someone else's clothes.

yey for cool people/vendors!

Ben and I took the bus into Denver on Saturday afternoon (yes, we broke the "no wedding talk on Shabbat" rule, again). For some reason we we kinda disgustingly snuggly all weekend, but managed to pry ourselves a few inches apart so that we didn't scare off Amanda and her mom Debi, the awesome photography team behind Kokoro Photography.

Oddly we've found that the standard of how we get along with vendors is: cakewrecks. Yes, a fail blog is used to measure how well we get along with someone. Does the vendor appreciate a blog that catalogs epic fail cakes? If not, then how can we ever get along?

Afterward we went to visit a friend who was working at the Christkindlmarket, drink some Glühwein, and do a bit of shopping at Ann Taylor Loft (40% anything that wasn't on sale on Saturday, how could I not!?), 'case ivory is in this winter! So, I of course had to go start looking for sweaters and other things to wear for our wedding weekend. I'm going to need lots of outfits, oh darn! Here's the list (so far) of activities:

• Wednesday: bachelorette party


• Thursday: pre-mikvah get together? (then I go to the mikvah)

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Boulder Mikvah"][/caption]

• Friday: Erev Shabbat service & dinner w/ family


• Saturday: Shabbat services/Auf Ruf


• Sunday: WEDDING


• Sunday: brunch?

Is it weird to be thinking about the whole week before the wedding as part of the wedding? I jut figure there's a lot of potential for photo taking and I'd like to look a bit better then my usual PJ/crappy work uniform potato-sack self.

PS- try adding 2 pumps of gingerbread to your chai at St@rbuck$, yummy!

registries

we have 2 actual (Bed Bath & Beyond and Crate & Barrel, we're into the ampersands) and one fantasy registry (Williams-Sonoma). I've been looking for nice stuff to register for, like vases and serving platters, but most of the things that appeal to Ben and I are more basic (and affordable) and don't fall into the cut leaded crystal category. Cut crystal can be beautiful, but there isn't any I like at any of the places we registered at. So, if you've found something outside of our registries that you think would fit our aesthetic, go for it. 'Cause I'm not hunting Fortunof's website to find the "perfect" accents to the curio chest we don't have. That's it, just buy us furniture! We can just admire all the pretty things that we already have. Think of how good my ducks will look in a nice china hutch!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="not my actual ducks, though I do have at least one of theses and want many others...."][/caption]

woohoo! phone call making averted

our fabulous coordinator is going to schedule meetings with us with the 3 photographers Ben and I agreed on. SWEET.



Kinda like that, but we'll have majestic mountains and possibly snow, instead of a gorgeous white sanded beach on Tybee Island, Georgia (which I went to with my mom and GS troop when I was 12).

hair idol

Carrie Underwood, yes, the country pop star from American Idol (which I've NEVER watched more than a few minutes of) is my hair idol. She probably has really f'n expensive extensions to have all that volume, but I want it for my wedding hair. Boo. Can bumpers and teasing it out with hairspray do that? I've got baby fine wavy hair = not a whole heck of a lot of volume.

PS- I wouldn't mind having her personal trainer, and wardrobe people either...

happy World AIDS Day, right? (my heart goes out to you, Jose and Alex)

Argentina Halts 1st Latin American Gay Marriage

by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina December 1, 2009, 02:15 am ET

They had planned a wedding day like Latin America has never seen.

But as Jose Maria Di Bello and Alex Freyre were being fitted for their tuxedos an Argentine judge issued an order late Monday blocking the continent's first gay marriage on Tuesday.

Di Bello and Freyre plan to show up anyway at the civil registry for the ceremony they scheduled after another court earlier authorized the wedding, said Maria Rachid, who headed the legal team handling the couple's lawsuit.

If they're stopped, the couple of nearly five years will lead a protest instead of throwing their two bouquets on the street that Buenos Aires officials already had agreed to cordon off for the media spectacle the wedding was expected to draw.

"They are shocked and saddened by the news, but still have hopes that the wedding will go forth as planned," said Rachid, president of the Argentine Federation for Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals.

National Judge Marta Gomez Alsina ordered the wedding blocked until the issue can be considered by the Supreme Court, according to the official court Web site. The ruling reversed a decision by city Judge Gabriela Seijas to allow the wedding to go forward.

Seijas ruled Nov. 20 that the couple had been unconstitutionally denied a marriage license, and Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri announced he would not appeal the judge's decision.

Di Bello and Freyre — both HIV positive — chose Tuesday for their wedding because it is World AIDS Day and they want to help raise awareness about the issue that brought them together. Di Bello, 41, an executive at the Argentine Red Cross, met Freyre, 39, executive director of the Buenos Aires AIDS Foundation, at an HIV awareness conference.

"We are in love and excited about getting married, but we can't really think about the wedding party, the wedding night, or the honeymoon," Freyre said. "We are activists, and how can we show our faces if we forget about the rights we are representing?"

The couple sued after being denied a marriage license last April. The court rulings apply to their case only, though dozens of other gay couples are now trying the same legal route to win permission to wed.

A bill that would legalize gay marriage was introduced in Congress in October but it has stalled without a vote.

"This wedding serves as justice," said Rep. Juliana Di Tullio of President Cristina Fernandez's Officialist party and co-author of the bill. "Eventually the issue will have to be dealt with."

Only seven countries in the world allow gay marriages: Canada, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. U.S. states that permit same-sex marriage are Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut and New Hampshire.

Argentina's capital established its gay-friendly reputation in 2002 by becoming the first Latin American city to legalize same-sex civil unions. Four other Argentine cities later did the same, and such unions also now are recognized in Mexico City and some Mexican and Brazilian states. Uruguay alone has legalized civil unions nationwide.

While Buenos Aires' civil-union law was celebrated as a huge victory for gay and lesbian rights, there are still many rights exclusive to married couples, such as the right to adopt children in the name of both parents, to enable a partner to gain citizenship and to inherit wealth or be included in insurance policies.

Many in Argentina are still opposed to gay marriage, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, which continues to be a strong influence in state affairs. Soon after Macri announced he would not appeal the city judge's decision to permit Di Bello and Freyre to wed, Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio released a statement expressing his disapproval.

Amid the controversy and media frenzy around their planned marriage, the couple is committed to each other and their cause. Among the camera lights and repeated questions during a prenuptial interview, the two turned to look at each other mid-sentence as if they where the only two people in the room.

"I see old couples walking down the street together and I want that to be us," Di Bello said. "I want to be able to turn to him when I'm old and wrinkly and call him my husband."

via Argentina Halts 1st Latin American Gay Marriage : NPR.