Friday, June 19, 2009

Cats and Dogs

With any wedding in the works, an important weekend arrives. A weekend where the strength of bonds are tested, friends and family gather round, and events are planned to truly celebrate the happy couple. The bachelor and bachelorette parties.

Now, while I’m not a huge fan of penis-wear and lewd comments, I do love a good bachelorette party, and mine last weekend was no exception. We had a wedding movie, wine and nail painting night in, a boat cruise with cheesy dance music, bar golf, showers of wildly inappropriate things that my mother (yes, you read that right) watched me open, and a recovery picnic at the lake. I’ll forever be grateful to my bridesmaids, who started planning back in March or April, and had an entire weekend jam packed with fun things. They cooked, opened their apartments to lots of drunk girls, and made sure all I had to do was sit back and have fun. Apparently, they sent out surveys, emails and had planning sessions. They were fabulous, and it made me even more grateful than I already was to have them in my lives.

While I may have had the jazziest, danciest, and all around plaidest weekend of mayhem on record, I can’t help but notice how different my party planning process was from the boys. Kevin announced he wanted to go to his family’s house on Lake Geneva the same weekend I was having my events, and a week before the party was to start, one of the groomsmen sent out an email telling people to let him know what kind of booze they were bringing to the lake “to avoid duplicates.” The boys showed up, cruised on the boat, played wiffleball drank cases of beer and ate cases of meat. Kevin also had an amazing weekend, and they guys were equally enthusiastic but it makes me laugh to think of the difference between boys and girls when it comes to event planning. Girls seem to need a big series of events to make it a celebration, while the boys are content to just chill with an extremely large quantity of beverage. At least now I know all I need to make a perfect night for Kevin is a cube of Busch Light and an outdoor spot to drink it in. 15 days til the wedding!

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Rings & License (1 out of 2 ain't terrible)

So last Saturday Colie and I head downtown to our (my) jeweler to pick out our wedding bands.

The door opens on the 4th floor of the Pittsfield Building, and we take a step out of the elevator and see a sign that says, "We'll be closed this weekend...blah, blah, blah." Son of a...

Side Story
On Friday Colie and I spent a good 20 minutes walking around the Lake County Courthouse looking for the ONE door that was open past 5:00 PM. Even the officers in the Jailhouse Visitors Area couldn't help us. Silly us, we've lived in the city for a year now, and expect the numbers of buildings to go in some sort of order. How is 8 N right across the street for 201 N?!?!

I was (naturally) starting to freak out because we couldn't find the Courthouse, and Colie said that she had called to double check that the website was correct, and Friday was the one night the Courthouse stayed open late. This was impressive because 1) this is something I would do and 2) this is NOT something Colie would do. So we did find it, and we're now one pen stroke away from being legally bound...holy crap!
SIDE STORY END

So back to Saturday and the ring. Here's the thing...I CALLED THE JEWELER SATURDAY MORNING AND GOT THE MESSAGE THAT THEY WERE OPEN!!! Now, she didn't say it, but I know she was thinking it, "I remembered to call and double-check, but did you? Nope. Moron." Karma was a cruel misstress this weekend.

I just got off the phone with the jeweler himself, and they're open on Saturday for us.

He better be...