A Red Hot Bride

I don't know if it's a Texas thing or what, but usually the second question I get about my wedding (following the big dress question) is "What are your colors?" My response usually goes along the line of "Erm, well, uh, we're not really having colors." Most people are polite enough to not outright say that I'm crazy, but I can usually read a "WHAAAT?" in their faces.

If we were having a bridal party, monogrammed napkins, table runners and programs, then I could understand the need for a unifying color scheme. But really the only color I've ever seen when I've imagined my wedding is the color of candlelight. The candle jars and the twinkle lights can handle that for me, so I haven't really thought much about any other colors.

Well, that's not quite true. Ever since we got engaged, I hopped on the brightly colored bridal shoe bandwagon of 2009 and decided to wear some spiffy red BCBG peeptoes that The Backyard Groom gave me for my last birthday. Check these babies out:

If you're thinking, "Wow, The Backyard Groom has fabulous taste in shoes," I should probably say that I picked them out. So now you can say, "Wow, The Backyard Bride has fabulous taste in shoes." Thank you.

After deciding on the red shoes (which saved money since I already owned them), I decided that maybe a red bouquet was the way to go. So I practiced with some red carnations. It didn't come out perfectly, but I'm ready to try and try again. Here's a photo of my creation that manages to hide most of its terribleness:

But other than these two things, I doubt there will be any other flashes of red in our wedding, unless they come from a tube of lipstick. So I'm having some color without having "colors."

Anyone else decide not to pick official colors?

Those are strings, Pinocchio

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Before we started planning The Backyard Wedding, I always assumed wedding planning had little to do with preparing for the actual marriage. I think now that I was wrong. Wedding planning is rife with lessons that must help your marriage, from treating people with respect even when you disagree with their opinions to handling people's feelings carefully in heightened emotional circumstances to standing up for yourself to learning to compromise. In a way, planning a wedding, especially a small one like ours, sometimes feels a bit like navigating a minefield of manners and expectations. I just hope I make it to the other side as a person who is both kinder and stronger.

Here's one example of a tricky issue I'm hoping won't blow up in my face.

Because our budget is so incredibly miniscule, we are, in turn, so incredibly grateful to have many talented close friends and family members who are willing to do double duty as our vendors. In modern wedding parlance, these people are more commonly known as friendors, and we are SERIOUSLY lucky to have them as friends, vendors and wedding guests.

On the other hand, we know some talented people who we aren't particularly close to and definitely wouldn't count among the nearest and dearest we're limiting our guest list to. Several of these people have offered to help in any way possible with the understanding that they won't be invited, and for that, we are also incredibly grateful. Believe me, we are both aware and appreciative that these people are making generous offers and expecting nothing in return. They are awesome.

Well, all of them except for one. Without giving away particulars, one individual has already insisted on contributing their particular talents. Because this person tends to only make offers with strings attached (hence the title of this post), we haven't committed to accepting this offer, even though these talents would be helpful. Let me state also that this person has a history of saying particularly cutting things to me and making me feel less than stellar, which isn't something I want to be dealing with on my wedding day.

Yesterday, I found out that this person has been telling a certain group of my acquaintance that (a) this person is the only one invited to the wedding out of this certain group, and (b) this person is planning the entire wedding. Both (a) and (b) are major falsehoods. The Backyard Groom and I had decided that in order to keep The Backyard from overflowing that we wouldn't invite anyone from this group. We also decided that we didn't want or need a wedding planner.

Now I've got members of this group of acquaintance upset with me, and I've got to figure out some classy way to disabuse this person of these two wrong notions. How do you salvage a situation like that?

Like I said, wedding planning is full of life lessons. I'm approaching this like an exam I hope to pass.

Have you had to deal with difficult people?

Love, Hollywood Style

Last night The Backyard Groom and I went to see "(500) Days of Summer" (and loved it!). As a bride highly attuned to all wedding references, I really loved the look of the wedding Tom and Summer attended in the movie. I couldn't find a good photo online from it (this is going to be the theme of this post, unfortunately), but you can watch a clip from it here (courtesy imdb.com) and see all the pretty lights.

Lights, as I've mentioned before, are big with me. In fact, pretty white twinkly lights and glowing candles are my biggest inspirations as far as decorations go. I've never really come around to the whole inspiration board idea that so many brides create. I could understand the need for it if we were having a big wedding, but since there will be very few flowers, no wedding party dresses to coordinate and a complete lack of paper goods aside from our invites (which I will be blogging about soon), it seems unnecessary for us.

Since The Backyard Groom and I are big movie and television fans, it seems natural for me to draw our inspiration more from that arena. (I apologize in advance for how inconsistently sized these images are. I got a new computer and am sadly without Photoshop for the time being.)

One cinematic wedding I really dug (after Non-Bridesmaid R said it reminded her of our style and I gave the movie another look) was the one from the end of "In Her Shoes" with its casual outdoor feel and dancing under the lights and trees. The only screen cap I could find was from the ceremony, but you can see some of the lights in the background and the chuppah, which is similar to our pergola. I also really like her simple bouquet.

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I haven't seen many lighted pergolas (used for weddings or otherwise), but gazebos strung with twinkle lights are pretty common in movies and television. My favorite will probably always be the gazebo in the center of Stars Hollow from "Gilmore Girls." With all the wacky festivals that town had at the gazebo (including a Rennaissance Faire-themed wedding, no less), I should have been able to find a good pictures to serve as an example, but this is the best I could do. See the twinkly lights in the background? Pretty, pretty.

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Here is one cinematic gazebo I didn't have a problem finding a photo of, which shouldn't really be a surprise.

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The Backyard Groom would probably roll his eyes to know I was associating "Twilight", the silliest pop culture juggernaut of our time, with our wedding in any way, but I think even he would have to admit that the gazebo above is lit beautifully.

One source of inspiration I know he wouldn't object to would be from one of our favorite movies of 2008, "WALL-E."

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I love all the strands of Christmas lights WALL-E decorates his little home with. He's such a romantic little robot.

Did any movies inspire your wedding?

Best. Wedding. Ever.

This has been all over the Internet and morning shows today, but just in case you haven't seen it yet, check out this video of the best wedding ever. Does it give you any ideas?

Finger Lickin' Good

I've been blogging for a few months now, but I realized I haven't mentioned anything about the barbecue that sits in the header of this blog. There will be barbecue at The Backyard Wedding. This has been the understanding from day one.

You see in Texas, 99.3% of weddings include a dinner of either fajitas or barbecue. In fact, at the rare wedding where you end up in front of a carving station instead of some chafing dishes full of smoked meat, you see people get confused and ask where the potato salad or the salsa is. Fajitas and barbecue are just a way of life here.

We won't be bucking that tradition. Originally, The Backyard Groom, who stares longingly at the television while watching "Barbecue University", planned to do the barbecuing himself. As longtime apartment dwellers, we don't get the chance to cook out as much as we would like, so getting the chance to grill a bunch of meat for our friends and family sounded pretty awesome to him. As our guest list grew to 20, we realized it would probably be better to leave the smoking and charring to the professionals and spend our reception relaxing. Plus I don't think any amount of dry cleaning could ever remove that smell from my dress.

So instead of grilling up the meal ourselves, we plan on ordering from the one and only Salt Lick BBQ, practically royalty in Austin. Yuuuuuuuum.

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You East and West Coasters can have your celebrity chefs and their fancy restaurants. We'll gladly keep our long picnic tables, slow-smoked meat and liberal BYOB policy.

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The one downside about The Salt Lick is that their catering prices aren't cheap, and when you mention the magic word "wedding" more than a few extra dollars are tacked on. So we're cheating a bit. The Backyard Groom's mom's house, home of The Backyard, is within a certain mileage range of The Salt Lick, so the delivery fee isn't too steep. And since our wedding will only have 20 guests, we're planning on ordering the food for a "party" without any mention of anyone wearing white or saying vows or exchanging rings. And it's not technically a lie, because we are planning on having a rocking party, right?

I wanna put on my-my-my-my-my boogie shoes

Just to boogie with you :)

We're planning on having an iPod reception in The Backyard with one of The Backyard Groom's friends acting as our DJ/MC. Our dance floor will be a flagstone patio, not the smoothest surface for dancing but hopefully our smooth operators will be able to make do.

The best part about rocking out to an iPod instead of an actual DJ or band (besides the fact that it's FREE) is that we get to handpick every song. But as Spiderman knows, with great power comes great responsibility. If our playlist fails to inspire happy guests and at least a little dancing, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.

Of course, I'll be so blissfully happy to become Mrs. Backyard Groom that I'll be able to dance to anything. But the rest of our guests may need a little encouragement. We've got an interesting mix of our families and people our age so we want some songs that will appeal to both groups.

At the same time, we don't want a boring old playlist. For example, The Backyard Groom and I have been to a lot of weddings and events recently and are pretty tired of "Shout," "YMCA" and "Celebrate." But, as you can tell by my header, I'd like it to include "Boogie Shoes."

Any iPod brides out there care to share how they picked out their playlist?

Motivation found!

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Adventures in Man Jewelry: Episode II

Well, the rings did look as nice as the photos, but unfortunately they were all three a bit too big on The Backyard Groom. This was also the first time we had both inspected titanium close up, and it really is a strange metal. It is so light that I can understand why some people think it feels flimsy or fake. In reality, it's so durable that it can't even be melted down and resized.

Because of that, we sent all three rings back. He ultimately decided that the first two pictured in the previous post looked too shiny and flashy. I would have been curious to see how the middle one would have held up. It was super shiny and looked like it was begging to be scratched. The white gold part of my engagement ring is also really shiny like that, and it's suffered a little bit of scratching. (High fives to The Backyard Groom for getting the extended service plan with my ring so I can get it rhodium plated back to its bright and shiny original state every year!)

We both liked the ring in the bottom photo best, especially the brushed detail. It looked more like The Backyard Groom, and hopefully the new size we ordered it in will fit.

Any other brides have luck with ordering wedding bands online?

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

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Does anyone else remember that show from the original Snick line-up on Nickelodeon, alongside "Clarissa Explains it All" and "Roundhouse"? Just thinking about those shows makes me feel old.

Anyway, to answer the show's titular question, yes, embarrassingly enough, I'm afraid of the dark. (In fact, I'm kind of a scaredy cat in general as you know if you read my fear of flying post.)

I haven't always been though. There were a few years when I lived by myself and didn't get scared at all after the sun went down. But after spending the last couple of years shacking up with The Backyard Groom, I get a little apprehensive whenever I'm alone overnight in our apartment. Luckily for me, his job doesn't require a lot of travel, but every so often he does have to go out of town.

So what has changed to spark the fear? Absolutely nothing. I guess I just got used to having someone else around at night, and now when I'm alone, the apartment feels so empty. (Especially now that my cat is no longer here.) It's all just another example of how different life is when you reach this stage of permanent coupledom versus when you were a singleton.

But there's a flip side to having the apartment to myself, and that's what I try to focus on whenever the nighttime nerves nag. When The Backyard Groom is gone, I'm free to engage in my secret single behavior, a phrase coined by none other than Ms. Carrie Bradshaw (who has contributed so much to the cultural lexicon that we should be forever in her debt). Carrie's SSB was eating saltines while standing up in the kitchen reading fashion magazines. Mine is eating cereal for dinner and rewatching cheesy chick flicks in my sweats.

What's your secret single behavior? And do you get scared at night when your Mr. is gone?

Let's Get Physical

With less than four months to go until The Backyard Wedding, I've realized that if I'm going to try to tone up and slim down a little, I've got to do it now. November felt so far away for so long, but the four month-mark was a big wake-up call.

Ideally on my wedding day in my wedding dress, I'd prefer my middle to look less like this:

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And more like this:

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Honestly, I am a bit too lazy and too content to change my current eating habits (which include the occasional drink and dessert, sometimes even at the same meal). I've done diets in the past (including one from an infomercial that The Backyard Groom and I suffered through together for six excruciating days) but I could never really make them stick. And I don't really want the run up to our wedding day full of margarita-abstaining torture.

Instead I'm going to listen to Fergie and spend more time being up at the gym just working on my fitness. (And hopefully becoming The Backyard Bridealicious.)

At the gym, I stick to group classes because they're just about the only thing that can keep me motivated, but after a long workday, sometimes I just really want to go home, watch old episodes of "Buffy" and let her slayer training sessions with Giles count as both our workouts for the day.

But now with a wedding dress to fit into, that's simply not good enough. For the past few months, I've been a slacker of a gym goer so I'm hoping to increase my weekly trips to a minimum of four. That's a start.

So, does anybody have any motivation tips they want to share so The Backyard Bride can wed without worrying about The Backyard Belly?

Adventures in Man Jewelry: Episode I

Unlike many other bridal bloggers, I haven't really mentioned much about our budget. Why not? Well, we don't really have one. I don't mean that in a "money is no object, bring on the swans and ice sculptures" kind of way, but in the very real way that neither The Backyard Groom nor I have any real savings to devote to the wedding, so we're pretty much trying to pull off this backyard shindig as cheaply as possible and crossing our fingers that it doesn't look that cheap.

One of the many things that The Backyard Groom and I have really lucked out on financially has been our rings. As I posted before, the diamond in my engagement ring was from my mom's engagement ring, which she generously gave to us, and my wedding band belonged to The Backyard Groom's late grandmother, so I got it for the bargain basement price of free.

Now that both my rings have been taken care of, we've begun to look for one for The Backyard Groom, who I'm pretty sure has never worn any kind of jewelry in his entire life. I've never been a big fan of man jewelry aside from wedding rings and possibly class rings, and he feels the same. So where do we turn for this all-important purchase? Amazon, of course!

Actually, The Backyard Groom got his finger sized when I stopped by a jewelry store to get my engagement ring cleaned, but he never tried any rings. Armed with his size and some advice from a friend that novice male ring wearers should stick to "comfort fit" styles, we started browsing online. We both liked titanium for its look, durability and ridiculously cheap price. He narrowed down his choices to three, and since the most expensive checked in at $54.99, we decided to order all three and return the ones he doesn't like.

Here are the three he chose:

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In a way, it feels too easy to make such an important purchase online and at such a great price, no less. I feel like there's got to be a catch of some sort, so here's hoping the rings look as nice as they do in the photos and fit his finger to boot.

Facebook Face-off

In case anyone out there is still following this blog, I'm back, and I'll just give a brief explanation of my absence. The day after my last post, The Backyard Groom and I found out during a midnight trip to the emergency vet clinic that our cat had cancer. Nine days later, she died. I'm absolutely heartbroken, and I miss her every minute.

I haven't felt much like wedding planning or blogging since, but a recent Facebook notification has inspired a bit of a rant. Let me start off by saying that I'm not big on Facebook, especially now that I'm planning a small wedding. Sure, like everyone else, I have "reconnected" (I put that in quotes because in most cases the reconnection is purely virtual and devoid of actual interaction) with many old friends and acquaintances. But as a particularly private person (hence the anonymous blogging), I don't list many of my personal details or give status updates or anything of the sort. My profile is pretty bare aside from the requisite photo, work/school info, email address and relationship status. That last one? Therein lies the rub.

As soon as I changed my status from "in a relationship" to "engaged", people I haven't spoken to (virtually or otherwise) in years offered their congratulations (nice!) and demanded an invite (not so nice!). The guest list has already given me some guilt because we've limited it to our 20 nearest and dearest, but these Facebook invite requests are throwing me off my game. Even on Facebook, some level of etiquette still applies, right? And yet people have hunted me down and hounded me about letting them know the date ASAP.

On the flip side, I've seen dozens of photos from weddings I wasn't invited to. Honestly, it hasn't affected me at all, but I can see how it might hurt others who thought they were VIPs (or at least IPs) in the bride or groom's life. Pre-Facebook, you could get away with that guest list omission. Now you can't.

So what's the solution? Do you avoid Facebook entirely for fear of invite hounds? And keep wedding photos and updates off your profile to keep feelings from being hurt?