The industry looked me over

I'm fairly certain that I've already warned all brides, past and present, who are close to me that they can't read my blog as insulting in any way over the next several months.

But for those of you who haven't already heard it, I'm going to apologize right now. Because when Adam and I decided we'd like to get hitched, a provision of that was that we weren't at all ready to plan a wedding.

The thing is, when you tell people you made the decision to get married, their first reaction is, "Oh my God, you got MARRIED?," when, really, I only phrased it that way because "engaged" sounds too fancy for what's going on in my life. And the decision we made was to marry each other, not to throw a wedding...which, obviously, we're now doing.

I've been to some really beautiful weddings, planned by people who always knew they wanted to get married and thus had lots of time to think about it, and I've been to some purely awesome weddings, mostly thrown by people who are super-creative and got really into it.

And while I have strong opinions on why I have and have not had fun at particular weddings, the idea of planning my own is a little overwhelming. And while Adam and I have the sort of relationship that makes it easy to split responsibilities 50/50--and, of course, he's the creative one here--it makes more sense that I put in more wedding-planning time for now, while I'm not getting paid to work full-time.

But, again, we had DECIDED WE WEREN'T READY TO PLAN A WEDDING. But, I've discovered, nor am I prepared to think about wedding plans indefinitely. I'm exhausted. I know people who have been engaged for up to two years, but that's because they had other things distracting them, like law school. And I've heard it's popular to drag out your engagement so you can save up money for the wedding, or have multiple bridal showers, or to accommodate bridesmaids' schedules. But that's why God invented credit cards, I don't want a single bridal shower, and we're not going to have a wedding party. In my mind, there's no reason we can't just throw this party next week. Except I haven't a thing to wear.

And the ante got upped early this week, when a bride I know, who is getting married in the same city as Adam and I, and may even have an overlapping guest list, started telling me what sorts of tricks she has up her sleeve for her own wedding. This is a woman who has actually been employed as a costume designer. And she and her fiance live in this incredibly classy apartment and she throws dinner parties. I'll bet she harvests her own honey. I don't think I should reveal what it is she's planning for their wedding, but I'll tell you this: It's going to blow ours out of the water.

And part of me doesn't care, because she's having so much fun with it and I, frankly, wouldn't. But the other part of me feels the same way I feel about Halloween costumes: If you don't stand a chance of having the absolute best one, why even bother showing up to the party?