Party on, Garth!

The party in Seattle is back on!!!! Whooo hoooo! After canceling it, I just felt awful. It just didn't feel right, so I texted Bradley that I wanted to make the party back on. He wrote back that he really, really, really didn't want it. I wrote back that I really, really, really did. That night we spoke on the phone. Things got a little heated in that I wanted to do the brunch at the venue with the catering, cupcakes and the whole nine. He wanted nothing at all. However, we reached a compromise - we almost always do - and this is why we are getting married.

His concern with the brunch was that it was going to be way out of our budget and was essentially a 2nd wedding. He felt it was too much to ask people to attend a cruise and a party. When I pointed out that the party would be for people who couldn't make the cruise, he asked me how many weddings I wanted to have to make sure everyone got to celebrate with us. He felt it was over-the-top.

My argument was that people who are important to me wouldn't be able to make the cruise. For instance, my step-sister is getting married in June, so she and her fiance won't be able to afford to join us. My former co-workers (who I love more every day) won't be able to join us and I would like them to be able to celebrate. Besides, having the wedding on a cruise means that I don't get to do the really fun stuff, like decorate a venue or have cute place-settings or anything like that.

What won out was that we had already told people that we were going to throw a party. In our Save-The-Dates, which went out in August, we told people to save a date for a party in Seattle. We have committed ourselves. However, Bradley is right - the brunch is way out of our budget. Hilariously, my maid of honor made an off-hand comment about having a BBQ at a park near our home. I made the same off-hand remark and it is now exactly what we are doing. Congratulations, Jen, on making this decision for us! :) It's a great compromise and I'm super excited about it!

The contract debacle

I have always been a "drink the cool-aid" type of employee. I got excited at Gap rallies (yes, in 1998, I attended at Gap rally and actually had a good time. Don't judge me), I participate in team building events and I - until recently - have believed that my employer usually acted with my best interests in mind (even if that best interest meant me having to take a two week furlough so the whole company didn't go under - better to go two weeks unpaid than have no employment at all). Unfortunately, this meant that I was very often taken advantage of at my previous job. Eventually I got tired of being treated poorly and left, vowing to never be treated that way again.

Very recently, I was offered a new position at a new ballet company in Portland and they basically offered me exactly the job I told them I wanted. We agreed on a salary and sent me a contract. When I eventually got my work weeks (there are very few 52-week a year jobs in the arts. Most of the positions have a few lay-off weeks built in), I was at my current job, so I just printed it out and put it in my bag. When I got home, I pulled out my weeks and was stunned to see so many lay-off weeks. I called Bradley in a panic; I only had three full months of employment, two months of partial employment and I would have a four month gap between contracts. We looked and tried to figure out how to make it all work - Bradley even suggested his getting a second job, but in the end we figured out that we could save more money if I took a job as a legal assistant in Seattle for $15/hr than if I accepted this job the way it was. So I wrote my new bosses and told them I could not afford to take the job with as many lay-off weeks as there were.

I was equal parts terrified and proud of myself. It was the first timeI had really stood up to an employer, really made sure that I was taking care of myself rather than being a martyr for my job. For the following week, we talked on the phone several times - they seemed shocked at my reaction. They appeared to have meeting after meeting all about me. I stuck to my guns. Either I got fewer lay-off weeks or it wasn't going to work.

I'll skip to the punch line - I was looking at the wrong schedule. I had been looking at the dancers' schedule, not my own. It turned out that when I printed the attachment, the column that had been highlighted in yellow so I would surely see it, didn't print. When the new company called to tell me that they couldn't afford me, we realized my mistake. Even though this happened 5 days ago, I am still mortified. I think about how much of everyone's time I wasted, how much stress they had because of me and I am completely embarrassed and wish I could take it all back. Why is it that the first time I decide to stick up for myself, I am completely and totally wrong?!?! *sigh*

Party in Seattle

Last night Bradley and I had a very, very long talk. This talk was about the wedding budget. You see, Bradley and I set a budget the day after we got married. We decided that if we went over X amount, we would talk about it. About two months after we got engaged, I told Bradley that we would be going over X, but would stay under Y. He nodded and continued playing spaceships online. Several weeks later, I told him I wanted a $1,500 wedding band, which was outside of the Y budget and he said OK. It appeared that Bradley was cool with whatever money I wanted to spend, so I figured we would both be super into piling money into our savings. I'm sure you see where this is going. When our savings account began to sputter and stop growing, I got super anxious and Bradley couldn't figure out why.

Last week Bradley sent me a spreadsheet with what he thought the budget would be. I laughed out loud when I saw it and directed him to the budget with which I have been working. He was shocked by how much it had increased. So last night we had a phone date wherein we went through every item on our wedding budget and cut what we could. Sadly, even after all of these cuts, we were still $10,000 over budget X (which is what we were trying to get to). So we had to make a horrible decision. We decided to cancel the Reception in Seattle, thereby cutting $6,000 from our budget, getting us under the budget Y number.

I am devistated by this. I was so excited about this party! The venue we chose is super cute, we were going to do a brunch and I was all set with decorations and ideas for favors and themes and the whole nine. It was going to be so cute! I know that cutting it is the right decision and that, one year from now, I will be happier when I'm not looking at this on my credit card statement. But right now I am so sad and so let down, I don't know what to do. I had horrible dreams last night about how great it would have been (because my subconscious hates me). I'm not sure how to make it better. I'm just sad. I feel like a 5-year-old who's birthday party has been canceled because she's sick. *sigh* Why can't it be a year from now already?

I'm ridiculous

I'll admit it freely: I'm crazy, impulsive, ridiculous and don't always think things all the way through. This is part of the reason Bradley and I get along so well, I come up with the crazy ideas and he either convinces me it's a bad plan (moving to Egypt) or does the work to make sure it happens (riding the Seattle to Portland last summer). However, this has been bad for our wedding plans, where Bradley has learned that I take "No" even worse than ususal. The most insane, thus far, as been our Save-the-Dates (sadly, I don't have a photo of a completed one...how did that happen?):



Unfortunately for Bradley's sake, our invitations are looking like they are going to be even more ridiculous.

I decided a long time ago to make our invitations like a passport. Initially I was going to have a page for each port where the cruise will stop in an attempt to stop people from thinking that they're going to just be sitting on a boat for 7 days. My initial attempt looked terrible and cheap, though, so I scrapped it and am going for a more authentic approach. This is proving difficult, though, since we're inviting people to two separate events. *sigh* This is what I worry about these days. :)

What Bradley doesn't know yet is that the passport-invitations are not the end of the craziness, however! We will also have envelope liners, for which I bought a kit earlier this week. Finally, today was an example of just how ridiculous I can be.

I love www.weddingbee.com. It's quite literally a blog for brides to talk to other brides and I love it. Imagine a ballroom filled with brides who were only discussing their weddings and now you get the idea of the blog. It's brilliant and I love it. On it today I saw that Ms. Giraffe (the bloggers all have cute names to protect their real identities) was trying to teach herself calligraphy for her invitation envelopes. Raise your hand if you immediately logged on to Amazon and bought the same book, then paid for expedited shipping so you know for sure that you will receive it before you return home, where your fiance will see it. *Jill raises her hand.*

I can't help myself! It would be so handy to be able to be able to write so fancy throughout my life! *sigh*

Bradley's here!

Last night, my most glorious fiance arrived in DC to visit for 10 days. It is wonderful to see him again; it's funny how different conversations and such are face to face rather than over a telephone or super-slow Skype connection. We have lots planned over the few days that he's here; tonight we are going to see "Cirque du Soleil" and I'm super stoked about it!

The thing for which I think I am the most stoked, however, is for a Halloween party held at a mansion not far from my hotel. It's a masquerade theme, so Bradley and I are simply dressing up and putting on masks. He actually found a place in Bellevue that had some great masks and he brought them to DC with him. I got to put mine on for the first time last night and I love it! It's absolutely beautiful! I wish I had more excuses to wear it again! Which, of course, brings me to the wedding. :)

I really want there to be a night or an event to which I can ask people to wear masks as if it were a masquerade. But our party at home will be on a Sunday afternoon and the cruise already has themed nights for each night aboard. I really can't ask guests to also pack a mask that they will wear for one night that might be damaged in transit. *sigh* Sadly, I think I'm going to have to let this dream go. Sad, but the way it must be, I suppose.

Bradley's coming to visit!!!

I have been in DC for a month now. I've made friends, visited sites and, just this weekend, began the hunt for my favorite brunch place. I've been to see "Les Ballets de Trockadero de Monte Carlo" and have slinked around in the wardrobe hallway while "Salome" performed in the Opera House. I have visited the Lincoln Memorial, one of the Smithsonian Museums, seen the Pandas in the National Zoo and wondered by the Vietnam Memorial. However, my favorite event will happen on Friday: Bradley will arrive!!!

Bradley and I quickly realized that his coming with me on tour or on these out-of-town engagements were a great way to get in a bit of a vacation. First off, my hotel room is always paid for, so we have a free place to stay. Secondly, I am always paid some sort of per diem and my airfare is always covered. Therefore, for simply the cost of Bradley's airfare, we get in a nice vacation! It's a little odd sometimes, when I have to get up and go to work while he snores (loudly) in bed, but it's a great nonetheless. This is how we went to New York, where we had a lovely time!



This time, he's coming to visit me here and I couldn't be more excited about it! Not only does it break up our separation almost exactly in half, but it allows us plenty of time to hang out and see DC together! I already have more events planned for us than any working-vacation could actually handle, but that hasn't stopped me at all. I'm just so excited to see him!!!

What a roller coaster

This is going to be a long story and won't be entirely wedding-related, but here it goes: In June, PNB did a production of "Coppelia." It had new costumes and new sets, but the choreography was George Balanchine's. They kept trying to bill it as a "new work," but Balanchine died in 1983, so it would be surprising if he created a new work in 2010. I'm not sure even he is that talented. At that point, it was obvious that Rico was back on the sauce and my Sandy-fuse was ridiculously short. The day before we moved into the theater I had third break-down in relation to my job and Bradley told me to quit PNB. Not do Coppelia, to just quit right then. I didn't and Coppelia went fine. My mood turned up again.

At the end of July, the company toured to Vail, Colorado to partake in the Vail International Dance Festival for the third time. It was not very well-planned and there was one day where I and my crew worked from 4:00am to midnight. Well, my guys worked from 3:30am to midnight, but I digress. The day after that super long day, I was getting ready for my 6:30 call time for the show that night and I started receiving phone calls from my friends who were all camping together back in Seattle. They got ahold of me at 6:15 and informed me that a friend had passed away that day. I had no understudy, I couldn't call in sick, I had to call the show that night after grieving for my friend for all of 15 minutes. When I returned home from Vail, I had another break-down about how much my job ran my life. It even dictated for how long I could grieve for my dead friend.

In the middle of August I found out that the Development Department had hired someone for a position for which I had applied. I had applied only after discussing the position with the Director of Development, but at no point was I even contacted for a courtesy interview. When I found out that someone had been hired, I felt certain that I would never be able to advance within PNB. That was the final straw and I decided it was time to leave.

The events that took place in the three weeks between when I turned in my resignation and my final day are best summed up in the wise words of my wonderful fiance: "PNB is like a bad boyfriend; they're going to try to screw you as many times as they can before you go." The individual events don't need to be recorded. My final day was a glorious day; Peter asked everyone on staff to come into Studio C for a final "round of applause." Unfortunately, I was quite sick (I had a fever), but it made for a good excuse as to why my speech was so short - in reality it's because I was going to burst into tears. I didn't want to leave, but was so unhappy that I couldn't stay.

The morning after my final day at PNB - Sept 10 - I was offered the Production Stage Manager position with The Suzanne Farrell Ballet in Washington DC. I accepted it and arrived in DC 9 days later. I will be here until Thanksgiving. The people with whom I work are amazing. They are a myriad of personalities, but I truly enjoy them all. I have am now in my third week and we have our second show tomorrow evening. Suzanne Farrell is amazing and I am enjoying working with her and the dancers she has selected. The Kennedy Center is huge and fantastic; while I write this the chorus for "Salome," which the Washington National Opera opens either tonight or tomorrow, has been rehearsing at the end of the hall near my office. It's amazing music to write by. :) Today I saw on Facebook photos from the first rep of PNB's 2010-2011 season. I didn't realize how badly I missed them until I saw them onstage and realized I didn't know the roles they were dancing, who was the understudy and what else they learned. It's a painful, but it's OK. It's a loss and this time I have more than 15 minutes to grieve.

Tied up with red tape

My wedding has been a long time coming. Not only did it seem to take me forever to convince Bradley to propose, since we got engaged 4 months ago, very little progress has been made at very little fault of any one person. However, I am starting to become very frustrated with this lack of progress!!!

Bradley and I decided that we wanted to get married on a Caribbean cruise in August, 2011 by the captain while at sea. I did my research and found that only two cruise lines, Princess and Celebrity, are legally able to perform ceremonies at sea. So I picked the Princess in March 2010, before their summer 2011 schedule was out. When I called the booking agents, they told me that the schedule would probably come out in May. Starting May 1, I began checking the Princess website at least once a day. On June 5th, they put out their Caribbean schedule for the entirety of 2011. The one month they aren't going to the Caribbean? August. After a wee bit of panicking, Bradley and I decided to go with a different cruise line. I researched again. Carnival was our final answer.

Because we will (hopefully) have people attending from all over the world (and because my step-mother is a travel agent), I decided that we would book the cruise through a travel agent. I would book and handle the wedding portion of the cruise and the travel agency would handle the cruise and airline portion. I have attempted to book my wedding three times now and, each time I try, I am told I need one more thing in order to book it. First, I was told that I needed payment in full. As I was unsure of the status of our Wedding Fund, I held off. When that was confirmed, I called again, ready to pay. I was told I needed a booking number. I contacted the travel agency and they got be a booking number. Just now I called with money and my booking number and I was told I needed my cabin number. WTF?!?! People, can you not just tell me everything I need the first time around?!?! So now I have to wait until tomorrow to book my wedding because the travel agency is not in my time zone and it's closed for the day.

I just want to book my wedding, people!!!!! Can we please clear all of the red tape so I can?!?!?!

First crisis: HANDLED!

Bradley and I have known that we were going to get married on a cruise WELL before he proposed. So the day after he proposed, I began researching cruise lines and wedding packages and destinations. After a few weeks, I decided that we were going to get married on a Princess Cruise to the Caribbean in August, 2011. I called Princess and they told me that their schedule for that time of year would be out in May. Therefore, starting May 1, I began checking their website every day to see if the schedule had been put out yet. By June 1, still no schedule. Patience is not a virtue I possess, so I called them. The woman assured me the schedule would be out soon and to just be patient. I hung up and tried to be patient.

The way that the Princess Cruise Line website works is that there are a list of destinations, a list of ships, a list of cruise-lengths and a list of departure ports. When you click on one, the Caribbean for example, the options still available to you turn blue and everything else remains white. I'm so used to clicking "Caribbean" and having everything after May, 2011, go white, it took me a moment yesterday to realize that there was MUCH more blue than usual!!!! In fact, it appeared they had put out their Caribbean schedule until March, 2012! The one month that was still white? August, 2011.

Nervous, I called the cruise line. After a very long time with a woman who was very kind, I finally got her to admit that Princess Cruise Lines would NOT be going to the Caribbean in August of 2011. I hung up the phone and proceeded to panic.

After several hours of e-mailing my friends, calling my family and forcing Bradley to drive up to my work during rush hour traffic to have dinner with me and "just talk this out," I finally came to terms with what I really wanted: I wanted to get married to Bradley on a cruise in the Caribbean with the greatest possible number of my friends and family around me. Initially we had decided that it was important for us to be married by the captain during a "day at sea," but that was going to have to go by the wayside (Princess and Celebrity - who also isn't going to the Caribbean in August - are the only cruise lines that can marry you at sea). We were also hoping to use a more elegant line, but that isn't going to be possible either.

In the end, we decided to go with Carnival Cruises. There are two possibilities, both during the same week of August, just with different destinations. So we've contacted our travel agent (my step-mother) and have asked her to talk to the cruise line about getting us booked on one of those two cruises.

I'm afraid to say more for fear of jinxing us, so I will simply close by saying that my first wedding crisis has officially happened and even Bradley said that I handled it well. I will admit to panicking for a few moments, but once the panic was over, I just tried to figure out what my options still were. Luckily I have a great support network around me who quickly started pointing out other options and ideas. And now I just play the waiting game...again... ;)

Easily Pleased

Though I ask a lot of the people in my life, I am very easily pleased. I ask my friends to attend celebrations and, yet, am delighted when they arrive. I ask Bradley for a date night and giggle unendingly when he makes it happen. And my happiness is always sincere; I am always touched when someone does something for me or with me in mind. This has not changed in regards to my wedding.

The first person to help me out was Jen Estroff, my maid of honor. The first month of Bradley and my engagement, she went through magazines with me, scouring for ideas and inspiration. More recently, she spent an afternoon helping make the paper flowers that will replace real ones throughout my wedding (the US Department of Agriculture doesn't allow transport of real flowers). I know that this is just the beginning of what I will ask Jen to do in the next 14 months, but I'm amazed that she has been so overwhelmingly willing to help!

Craig Big Eagle and Molly Beier have been instrumental in creating save-the-dates. Once Princess puts out their freaking schedule, we will be all set to go because of these two! Molly's ideas and photo manipulation have been extraordinary! I'm so lucky to have such a talented friend. Craig's patience has been fantastic, as well, tweaking tiny details until everything is just the way I want it! As the Queen of Everything Paper and a groomsman, I know that I will ask these two to do even more throughout the planning process, but I am touched every time one of them asks me how the Save-the-Dates are going or what else they can do for me.

Last week, however, the cake goes to Bradley. Bradley will take the LSATs tomorrow (it's technically Sunday right now, so tomorrow) and just received his last final two days ago to complete his undergraduate degree, so I've vowed to not bother him with wedding stuff until all of that is over. And I've been very good!!!! Imagine my surprise, then, when I open an e-mail from him on Wednesday tell me that he has found a wedding band for himself! This long before our wedding, he is asking for my opinion on one particular band. In my crazy brain, of course, I realized that this means that he has been looking for a band on his own! I happen to think that the band is perfect and, even more important, Bradley really likes it. So he bought it! He bought the band that will make him my husband!!!!!!!

This is certainly not the last thing I will ask him to do in the wedding process, but I'm so amazingly happy that he has done this!!!!!!!!!!!

The 100 push up challenge

I am, all things considered, generally pleased with my appearance. As I near 30, I am thinner than I was when I graduated high school, I eat better, I work out more often, and I drink more water. I buy better cosmetics that stay on longer and look more natural. And wow do I handle my hair better! I have more hair products that fit in my medicine cabinet and I use every single one of them. My body is toned; I have a single digit pant size. As I looked at wedding checklists (you knew it was coming back to the wedding, right?), I saw "get a personal trainer or join a gym" and thought to myself: 'Bah! I've got that covered already! ' And then I saw this:

Whoa Nellie!!!!! What is up with my arms?!?!?! All this time, I've been focused on making sure my abs have definition, keeping a dent in my thighs where my quads end and my hamstrings begin. What about my upper body? I have been totally letting my upper body slack!! Well, no more!! Today, at the suggestion of a blogger on www.weddingbee.com, I began the 100 push-up challenge.

I feel I should clarify, I don't think I have bad arms and I'm not fishing for compliments or anything like that. I would like everyone to keep in mind that I work for a ballet company. The arms I see the most are ballerina arms. I can't post any photos here because it's my job to keep things like that from happening, but just log on to www.pnb.org and see what I'm talking about. These are women with some ARMS! So, with them in mind, I have embarked on my newest challenge.

The challenge comes from www.hundredpushups.com. It's supposed to take you from doing no push-ups to 100 in six weeks. It works by having you do an initial test, doing push-ups until you just can't do anymore. Then you do 5 sets a day, 3 days a week on a regimented plan they lay out for you. For instance, during my initial test, I did 9 good push-ups. So for my Day 1, I did 6, then took a 60 second rest, then another 6 and another rest, then 4 and a rest, that again, then "max" which ended up being 7. I will now rest my poor arms until Wednesday, when I will follow a similar plan, but with higher numbers. And, in six weeks, I will do 100 push-ups! I am very excited for that day!

For now, however, my poor arms are shaky and just holding them out to type is difficult. I'd better go take a bath. :)

Well, here we go

Ever get the feeling that you're starting a really interesting time in your life? One in which a great many things will change? Well, I have that feeling. In less than a month, I will turn 30; a remarkable and rather life-altering time in and of itself. I am currently looking for new employment. I am planning on going back to school. Oh, yeah, and 2.5 months ago, I got engaged. So I feel I am rather justified in thinking that the next few months are going to be worth telling the world about.

I also think this will be a great way for me to keep talking about my wedding without destroying every friendship I have. :)

Well, let's start with why I'm really here: let's talk about my wedding. :)

Bradley and I have been together for nearly 3.5 years now. The story of how we met is best saved for another blog. As is the proposal 'cause it's a fun but not short story. For now, let's just start with a few facts about the wedding:

We're getting married on a Caribbean cruise in August of 2011. We think we're going to go with Princess Cruise lines, but they are taking FOREVER to put out their schedule for next summer and I'm getting super tired of waiting. They're killing me!!! We will then have a reception at our home in Seattle a few weeks after returning. However, because the cruise ship will basically plan everything for me and I love planning more than just about anything, I've decided to do as many things for myself as I can. First off, the US Department of Agriculture doesn't allow people to bring live flowers on cruise ships, so I'm going to MAKE flowers out of paper. Yes, my glue gun and I are becoming one as I will make every flower used in our wedding. I am also making (with the help of my dear friend, Molly) all of my own Save the Dates. Invitations will follow when the time comes. Let me simplify by phrasing it this way: Martha Stewart's Wedding website is now my homepage. :)

And now, I must call this a short entry. I received Martha Stewart Living's Summer 2010 Weddings magazine today and I have to go check it out!!!!!