A Très Chic Wedding: Comparison Weddings

I have a bunch of cousins. And by bunch, I mean about 16 on my mom's side and 13 on my dad's side.

I am the fifth to get married on my mom's side but the first on my dad's side.

My dad's family is thrilled and excited for us. They love the Mister and everyone is always offering to help without offering their opinion.

My mom's family is completely obsessed with the Mister! He won them over at my cousin's wedding when he busted out the entire Thriller dance. It was priceless!

As I said, I am the fifth to get married on my mom's side but I am only the second girl.

Duh-da-dum-dum! And the comparison weddings start.

My family is competitive over everything; birthday parties, holiday parties, vacations, weight loss, degrees obtained, babies made... just everything!

This competitive nature has crossed over to our weddings as well, especially my female cousin's wedding to mine. "Cousin did this, this, that and those," I am told immediately after announcing a plan.

Her wedding was beautiful! The flowers, the food, the white tent, the absolute most perfect weather- just beautiful!

Source: Both were taken by me.

But ours will be too. And it will be all ours! Cousin didn't have the theme, the projects or the personal touches ours will have.

Source: http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/ - http://www.brides.com/ - http://www.theknot.com/

Not bad, right?

I mean, obviously this is just the tip-of-the-DIY-ice burg but I am sure you can see where I am going with this.

Whether it is with family or friends, is anyone else experience the "comparison wedding" syndrome?

p.s.- the Cousin has been so supportive and reminds me to do what I want and not letting anyone in the family spoil this special time for us. THANKS COUSIN :)

A Très Chic Wedding: The Reaction

My Mister had asked me THE question and I said YES!  

We were so excited!  And like all couples who just got engaged, we started the phone tree; calling our family and texting our friends the good news.

Neither of us had anticipated the variety of reactions we would receive from MY family.  Let me make it clear that My Mister is completely and utterly loved my all of my family and friends.  He is genuine, funny, smart and sincere.  He became part of the family quickly... sometimes knowing the drama of my family better than me!  So the reactions below were all situational and a result of bad timing. 

With that - 

First I called my mom.  She is the most important person and the main parent in my life so naturally, she was the first to be called!  But, being a single parent, she was working at her second job. 

Bummer.

Next I called my older sister.  This was going to be a touchy one since she is: A. Older and B. Single.  The call went just how I should have figured.  A forced happy reaction that left me sad.  

Left sad, I knew I needed my cousins to lift me up and they TOTALLY delivered!  My two cousins and I are all a year apart and are best friends.  They gave me the ecstatic, screaming reaction that I had needed at this point. 

Next up; Dad.  My parents divorced when I was five.  He moved to Alabama and he called on holidays but we never had a real relationship with him.  So I took a deep breathe and called.  His initial reaction was great!  But 24-hours later, he wrote an email to me in attempts to clear the air and rekindle our relationship.  With the history we have, it takes more than an email to repair my heart and better timing would have been nice. 

Finally, my paternal Grandma.  I called her the following morning since we got engaged at 9:00 at night.  I thought I was going to get the Southern-Hoot-And-Holler she is known for.  Nope.  Not even close.  The conversation went like this -

Me - "Hi Grandma!  I have some good news.  My Mister and I got engaged last night!"

Grandma - "Well I am not jumping up and down but I am happy for you."

WHAT???!!!

My cousins were there for the Grandma call.  Their mom is Grandma's daughter so they called their mom to ask what is up with Grandma.  Well, I guess Grandma was having some major pain that day, which she did say after her reaction.  And Grandma is notorious for bringing the attention back to her.  So my aunt reminded me of all of this and calmed me down.  She even talked to My Mister to say "Welcome to the family.  Are you sure you can handle us?!"

I know the world doesn't revolve around our engagement and situations and timing are different for everyone.  So as hurt as I was, I realized it wasn't about lack of love and support for us - it was just bad timing.

Did anyone else get some mixed reactions that were a result of plain, old bad timing?

A Très Chic Wedding: The Proposal!

As I mentioned, we had been ring shopping for about 3 years.  There were several times when I thought "We Found It!" but a few months went by and we were looking again. 

So when we had found a place with the best deals on diamonds and settings, I was kind of jaded at this point and knew not to get my hopes up.   Don't get me wrong, I knew it would come someday!   It was just all in the timing and I knew he was worth the wait. 

A month went by since we had gone to the "best deals" place.   Once again, I figured there might be a better deal out there and, if there was, we would find it!

Then one Saturday night in March, My Mister said "what do you want to do for dinner?"  The conversation went something like this:

"Ugh, let's not go out and just make something at home," I said. 

First moment ruined by me. 

"What should we make?" he asked.   

"I don't know, how about turkey meatloaf?" I suggested. 

Second moment ALMOST ruined by me.

"Let's do chicken parm, we can recreate our first dinner date," he said.

RED FLAG!!!

"Yeah, that sounds great!"

So we go and get the things we needed to make dinner.  We pick up some flowers and wine to round out the meal.

We get home and we start cooking.  But this time was different.  I was frazzled but trying to make everything perfect.

He went and set the table, made a play list of French jazz (my weakness) and lit candles all over the room. 

I came out with our dinner and was floored by the romance of it all!

We ate dinner, sipped wine and chatted about life.  I tried to make meaningful conversation but an hour later, dinner was done and I felt like a fool.  

So I picked up our plates and took them into the kitchen.  I paused for a second to laugh at myself for thinking this was the night.  I went back into the dinning room to clear the table and there it was: My Mister on one knee with a box in his hand.

"I have a question to ask you," he said. 

I smiled/cried/laughed/squeaked.

"Will you marry me?" he asked.

I said "Yes!" about forty times! 

A Très Chic Consultant

I have been unemployed for just over a month now and I am starting to go stir crazy.  I have thrown myself into wedding planning and into getting to know My Mister's family (we are living with is sister and brother-in-law). Why aren't I throwing myself into job hunting you ask?  Well I have TRIED but there is nothing out there right now.  I have applied for everything and anything the maybe, kind of aligns with my skill sets.  Even though I have opened up my search to include the  long-shots, there is still not much out there to apply for. 

So to prevent large gaps in my resume and to keep my sanity, I have started a consulting business. 

Here is the back story.

My cousin/bridesmaid/bff is opening her own spa.  It will be a small spa but it will be all her's!  But she is in a bit of a time crunch.  She found the space two days ago, signed the lease today and will open the week after labor day.  This will give her 3 weeks to plan, organize, develop, design, execute and advertise. 

Enter moi!  My background is in advertising, marketing, public relations and event planning. And since my cousin knows my skills and my eye for design, she has asked me to help.  Actually, take over all the marketing elements while she organizes all the equipment and product needs. 

I was in!  There were two condition for me to come on board:  She would write me a letter of recommendation and I would like my friend, Mrs. Brown, to help. 

Cousin agreed and I was off to work. 

First, I told my friend, Mrs. Brown, about this opportunity and she flipped with excitement and got on board the spa-train!

We are developing inspiration boards, preparing a calendar and organizing the marketing plan.

I will post our inspiration boards soon! 

 

A Très Chic Wedding: Ring Shopping

About 6 months into our relationship, My Mister and I knew we were in this relationship for the long haul.  So maybe we weren't 100% positive that we would get married but we were sure that NOT being together was NOT an option.

Around our year and a half anniversary, we started ring shopping!  I do have to admit, my immaturity and shallowness made this process difficult.  I had placed all these restriction on where he could shop, the size, color, clarity and cut of the diamond and even how he was to pay for it (I had heard that it is bad to finance a ring without paying it off because it is bad luck to bring debt into a marriage). 

Yes, I made the process almost impossible for My Mister.  But a year and a half after starting ring shopping I had dropped all store restriction, I didn't care about how perfect the diamond was and it didn't matter how he paid for it.  

I just wanted to be his wife and start our life as Mr. and Mrs.. 

Luckily, we did agree that we shouldn't be financing the ring.  But it wasn't about bad luck but just being fiscally responsible. He had been saving and we had been comparison shopping.  Then we found our ring!  I say "our ring" because it was a team effort and he deserves credit for putting up with me.

We had found a place with the best deals on diamonds and a variety of settings I liked.  I had picked out a few settings and tried not to let on to which setting I REALLY loved.  

My Mister played it cool, took note of the rings I liked and closed the deal a few days later without me. 

A Très Chic Wedding: The Early Days

Did I mention I am getting married?  Yes, I did but I just had to say it again.  I am getting married!  

My Mister proposed in March, just 3 years, 5 months and 21 days after we confessed our "liking" for one another.  Yes our anniversary is the day we said "I like you" to each other. Some people make it their first date, others define it with their first kiss but for us, it was an exchange on AIM one Halloween night.  

He was dressed as Brick from "The Anchor Man" (last guy on the right) and I was a cowgirl (with the hat and red eyes!).   We tried so hard to meet up that night for the Halloween Bar Hop in our city.  However, with all of the parties and people, we didn't get to meet up.  So at 2:30 in the morning he IMed me, "I really wanted to see you tonight," and left the away message "There was only one place I wanted to be tonight and only one person I want to be with now.  I'm sorry my cowgirl."  

With that, I was hooked!  

My promise - #1

To those who might might stumble on this page and read my first entry, I want to make you a promise: I will vent/complain as little as possible about my current career situation.  I will offer updates but I will not gripe over the job hunting process. 

You will notice this is promise #1.  I have a feeling I will make several promises over the course of this blog life... haha!

Gainfully Unemployed

So here I am, unemployed and trying to figure out where I can cut back to make end meet, how to plan a wedding that is 9 months away and most importantly, WHAT do I want to do now?

I have to admit, this isn't my first go around with unemployment.  This is my second layoff in the 5 short years I have been in the work force.  Yes, it was only 5 years ago when I graduated from college with my degree in Communications, thinking I would get into a advertising firm and take it by storm.  Little did I know, I would get into the advertising firm and 9 months later I would be laid off.  This time, I was with a marketing firm and after almost 4 years I was laid off. 

So now what?  Do I stay in this field that had broken my spirit and my heart?  Do I take my skill set to another field and out of my comfort zone?  Or do I chuck it all out the window and do something so crazy and so risky, that would make me so happy and so complete and would put me in the position to lose it all?  

We are in a recession.  And what is the chicest thing to do in a recession?  LOSE IT ALL.