The Bridal Show

It was as I feared - a David Lynch experience filled with 18 year old bridezillas, princess dresses, punch fountains, and midgets. OK well maybe not midgets.

It was PACKED, so much so that you had to stand in line to get in. As we stood there (me wearing a tacky yellow bride to be sticker which still haunts me) I knew that it was likely not worth the wait but felt compelled to stick it out. We squeezed into the cattle car of a show to shuffle around looking at booths with DJs, limos, rented equipment, dresses, florists, etc. I even entered for a few drawings which was likely a mistake that will fill my mailbox with unwanted crap for years to come.

But in general my thought throughout the whole experience was - who gives a crap? I mean seriously - do candles with "Frenchie & Alexis Forever" really speak to our relationship in any meaningful way? And the princess bridal dresses completely with Miss America tiaras, what the hell is going on with that? And am I the last person in America who still see Limos as something that harkens back to high school proms? Having some overly tan greaseball drive me around on my special day doesn't really say anything other than "unnecessary $500 expense." Hell my Dad has a nicer car and he doesn't smell funny - maybe I can get him to drive me around for free.

So far planning our wedding (and we don't really have much of a plan yet) has been more of a process of self-discovering. We are discovering that most of the traditional wedding trappings simply aren't us. We want to get wedding with great friends, great wine, and great food. Most everything else is just details. So we'll continue figuring out how this is all going to work. But I hope that it will be monogrammed unity candle free....

Veil of Darkness

Its 10:00 am and its dark out. Dark enough that I had to turn lights on to get dressed. Dark enough that I had to turn lights on to work. The sky is so grey that its literally blocking out the sun. Ugh.

So what have I learned about VT since I got here? Well lets see...

#1 - Only children play soccer. I did manage to get on 2 teams. One is all college students and the other all high school students. One girl told me she was a Sophomore - I thought, "please God let her mean a sophomore in COLLEGE" but she wasn't. Before meeting these teams I had offered to bring beer to the occasional game. Frenchie teased me, "You'll have to wait a few years until your team mates are legal."

#2 - Weddings here are expensive. I had hoped that since we now live in rural VT that they would actually be cheaper but not so much. How can it cost $85/person for dinner? I mean we're talking steak and shrimp here. So why $85? Because its a wedding and you end up paying a small fortune to celebrate your love with people you care about. And don't get me started on all the little fees they tack on to everything. You want to use the bathroom? Oh that's EXTRA.

#3 - There are too many women here wearing those Christmas sweaters that you laugh at in the store. The large red cardigan with sequined santas dancing around the collar and shiny strings of lights circling the sleeves. The ones that invariably are marked down 80% after Christmas because they are so horrifying they can barely give them away. Well now I know where they find homes - VT.

So there's the report for now. We're going to a Bridal Show on Sunday which I'm sure will be a fertile source of more comments so check back for more ;)