I don't really look good in white....

What's with the "every woman has been planning her wedding ever since she was a little girl" nonsense?

Is that true? It certainly isn't for me. Never in my life had I ever daydreamed about getting married. I'd always imagined myself getting married someday, but I never put much thought into the details. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to get married at my church...even though I'm not terribly religious. I never thought about flowers, the dress, the decor, or anything else.

Which is probably why I'm having a bit of difficulty planning my wedding, which will take place in December.

Planning a wedding is....kind of fun. Stressful. But...fun. Kind of.

Ok. To tell you the truth, I wanted a small wedding. And by small I mean 20 people or less attending, including immediate family. If I had it my way, we'd have a small little ceremony before heading off to this uber-expensive, fancy restaurant in Baltimore I've been dying to go to.

According to my mother-in-law(to be), this was completely unacceptable. My fiancé, to begin with, was right there with me. But the more and more he thought about it (and perhaps the more and more his mom insisted), he decided that he wanted a big wedding.

Sigh.

Isn't it usually the other way around?! It's usually girl wanting something extravagant and the guy wanting the complete opposite.

Here I am all for saving money, keeping things a bit more private and personal, happily refusing to spend hundreds...or thousands...of dollars on a ball gown I will wear only once in my life... and everyone starts acting as if I'm being utterly absurd.

Well excuse me for not being a Bridezilla!

I've managed to keep the guest list to 50 people total. We don't have the money to invite everyone we want (the guest list would have included about 300 people. Why invite mere acquaintances? I don't get it) and I refuse to go into debt for this. And I won't let my future in-laws do such a thing either. My parents aren't contributing much to this because I asked them not to.

My fiancé's parents are still paying off their other son's wedding...which was 2 years ago.

Here's something that kind of made me laugh: My fiancé's mom made a comment about how it's the bride's parents that should pay for the wedding, if not most of it. She started complaining about how much money she had to put into the other son's wedding and how she didn't have to and blah blah blah. So I told her, "Well don't worry about my wedding. I can pay for exactly what I want. I have money saved up for that. I don't have money for what YOU want. This is my wedding."
Yet she insisted on paying for the bulk of it. And continues complaining about the other wedding.

What?!?!

That's her problem, I guess.

Now don't get me wrong. My future in-laws and I get along really well. Better than most people that are brought together by marriage. We're all really close. But ever since this wedding planning junk has started I've been butting heads with mama there 'cause she's the typical "I want things my way" kinda lady.


Have I mentioned that I'm absolutely horrified by the idea of being the center of attention for 6 straight hours? Some people love it. I've heard many girls say, "It's the one day that everyone's eyes will be on me". They love the attention. They crave it.

I, however, do not.

I'm no attention whore. I don't like being in the spotlight. I'm perfectly happy in the shadows. I'm debating as to whether I should pop some Valium before the ceremony...or if I should just skip the pills and go straight for the booze at the reception?

I have time to figure that one out.