I had my final fitting a day or so ago, and I’ve learned something from the whole dress selection process. I’ve learned that eight gajillion layers of French taffeta and various sorts of netting come together to form a very heavy end product. If I can wear my wedding dress for a day without succumbing to muscle fatigue, I’ll be a happy bride indeed.

Where I to do it all over again, I might very well choose something like this fresh and airy Gunne Sax number:

Okay, maybe I’d choose something a little more mature than that. But not way more mature…I’m still young, dang it! And I also wouldn’t stand with my pelvis permanently thrust out like this poor deformed model.

You heard me right…The 2007 Cheap Chic Weddings Toilet Paper Wedding Contest has begun. From now until June 15, you can TP and duct tape yourself into the chance to win a cool 500 bucks. Not getting married? No problem. Not a bride? Still not a problem. All you need to be is someone wearing a homemade TP wedding dress. For inspiration, see last year’s winners here. Good luck!

The foibles that turn a bride-to-be into a raging, foaming-at-the-mouth bridezilla are just part of what makes planning a wedding so much fun. Cross my heart. The best things in life are seldom free, and many young ladies and gents find that they pay in spades for the privilege of having a “perfect” wedding. What could go wrong? How about everything under the sun…

The well-wishes that come in the form of cards, phone calls, e-mails and letters after you announce your engagement may or may not sweeten the sting of hearing things like, “It’s about time,” and “So, he’s finally decided to make an honest woman of you!” The loved ones that swore up and down that they would be there for you during your engagement will be replaced by androids programmed to make constant quips about shotguns, living in sin, wedding night terrors, edible underpants, and garter removal. The help you expected to receive during these first weeks and months of planning? Don’t look for it here unless you’re planning to serve up a heaping helping of resentment along with your chicken, fish, and vegetarian plates.

Your wedding dress is lovely. Your wedding dress makes you look like the woman you’ve always wanted to be. Unfortunately, the wedding dress you chose and the wedding dress the salon ordered for you are not the same dress. You will be told by a perky yet grandmotherly woman that they can order the correct dress, provided you don’t mind receiving it the day before your wedding. Or the right dress will come in a size that will either force you to hold your breath for the duration of your wedding or require so many alterations to scale down that your seamstress will decide to enlist the help of an experienced structural engineer. You will then enjoy a lengthy period of nail biting while you wait to find out whether you will actually be able to wear the dress of your dreams.

Think you’re having a small wedding? Think again. Once you and your honey have perfected the perfect 15-person guest list, the voices of dissent will start rolling in. Dear old Aunt Eddie will insist that she won’t come unless her three catty, bratty daughters also receive invitations. Grandma, in an effort to be helpful, will send you a spreadsheet of the names and addresses of every relative who ever emigrated from the old country…with the understanding that you’ll be inviting them all. Mom will secretly invite the whole of her bridge club and will wait to tell you this until the last possible moment, i.e. after Suzy, Cyndi, Martha, Billy-Jean, and Samantha have already bought the perfect frocks for the occasion. Soon you will find yourself locked in a dangerous game in which inviting so-and-so means you can’t avoid giving such-and-such a courtesy invitation. Before you know it, you’re looking at a 100+ large guest list.

And speaking of guests, the fine art of the RSVP has gone right out the window, much to Miss Manners’ dismay. Even in a day and age where invitees are required to do little more than write their names on a postage-paid postcard and drop it in the mail, one third of the family, friends, acquaintances, and bridge club members invited to your wedding will remain mum on the ever-so-important issue of whether or not they plan to attend. You will be left using complex equations that a math major would be proud of to figure out how many white folding chairs you need to place on reserve, just to be safe.

Finally, everything will be peachy — until the last possible second, that is. A week before the wedding, your photographer will call to let you know he’s going to be in the hospital on your wedding day. Oh well, at least he’s got someone else all lined up for you, right? The tent and table outlet will lose your order because the dimwit you first talked to didn’t believe you when you told him that your last name is spelled with two t’s instead of just one. You will find out that your dress may not be pressed in time…and that French taffeta (a.k.a. polyester) doesn’t respond well to ironing. After countless dance lessons, your fiancé will forget how to do “the pretzel.” And, as you endeavor to cope with all of this without losing your cool because, as everyone knows, stress causes wrinkles, every well-intentioned busybody in your life will be trying to convince you that your wedding day will be beautiful.

…because it will be. The truth of the matter is that the top five things that will check your bliss as you plan what will likely amount to the biggest shindig you will ever throw will cease to matter when the organist/band/CD/Uncle Joe’s ukulele/string quartet starts playing the music that will usher you down that aisle.

(for Problogger’s Top 5 – Group Writing Project)

Kirk pointed me toward a collection of unusual rings created by designer and metalsmith Jana Brevick.

The above wedding ring set was created from sterling silver and serial plugs. See what they look like fitted together by clicking the pic!

And these were created using gold, sterling silver, and plugs with threaded sheaths. Again, see what they look like fitted together by clicking the pic.

Sure, they are a little bulky, as Kirk remarked, but they could make a sweet present for a technically-minded couple looking for something to set them apart.

And speaking of wedding rings, mine finally arrived today. It’s a good thing, too, as we were all set to cancel our order with our rather slow-going jewelrymaker. We even bought a set of plain gold bands so that we wouldn’t be left in a lurch if she didn’t come through. But here we are, scant days before the wedding, with a set of wonderful matte four-color, six-twist mokume gane bands. Yay!

Or, as I have been so fond of calling them, DIY buckets.

I sat down with a friend this past weekend and constructed my bouquets. While I did print out instructions, we never actually read them. Instead, we just laid out all of the materials at our disposal (which included some $150+ worth of silk flowers, florist’s wire, and florist’s tape) and experimented wildly with differing combinations of color, size, and greenery. I am actually amazed at how wonderfully our efforts turned out, as neither of us had ever created a bouquet. Observe:

Sorry about the pisspoor image quality — my camera is about a thousand years old and photography has never been my strong suit. The first one is the bridal bouquet and is actually quite a bit bigger (and heavier!) than the bottom one, of which there are two. At the last second, I put together a matching tosser in case I unexpectedly find myself facing a herd of rabid female relatives asking me when I’ll be throwing the bouquet. The Beard and I discussed tossing the actual bridal bouquet and then realized that we don’t need to start our lives together facing endless rounds of personal injury litigation.

I will say that the whole bouquet-making process is rather intuitive, as you end up having to use wire to keep your early efforts from falling apart while you look for more blooms and there is no better way to wrap up a mess of unruly stems than with tape that only sticks to itself. The ribbon-wrapping, which I did myself, was somewhat harder as I was using pins to secure the ribbon.

If you plan to follow in my footsteps, I suggest looking at lots of pictures of wedding flowers online and in books like To Have & To Hold: Magical Wedding Bouquets or Creative Wedding Florals You Can Make.

Now, if I can just keep the cats from gnawing on the aforementioned bouquets, everything will be peachy.

Best groomscake ever:

A friend of mine — let’s call him R. — took this photo of the utterly fantastic R2-D2 served at the Wedding wedding. Want to know what happens when your last name is Wedding and you just happen to be getting married? Printers call you believing that your surname is a typo. Vendors do double-takes when confirming your reservation. And outsiders (i.e. acquaintances) get just a little confused by the whole thing.

Today’s post is late-ish because I took a lunch-hour dance lesson. I’ll admit that I’m kind of a nut for fitness — most days I’m so busy that the time I spend climbing hills on the treadmill while reading a good book seem like my own little slice of heaven. But I understand that there are plenty of brides and even some grooms that aren’t usually fitness-minded, but want to lose some inches before the big day.

Enter the “boot camp” movement. Personally, the notion of getting up at 6 a.m. so that a drill sergeant can scream at me while I attempt to do a push-up scares the bejeezus out of me. Some people, however, call that motivation…and hey, more power to ‘em. The whole boot camp thing has really caught on, if packages like Billy Blanks Boot Camp Elite and Denise Austin: Boot Camp – Total Body Blast are any indication.

Videos and books aside, what is the deal with these bridal boot camps? You’ve got your Buff Brides, your tried and true boot camp, the John Spencer Ellis boot camp diet, Fit to be Wed, Fit to be Tied, Healthy Bride Boot Camp, and more. Programs vary in terms of how similar they are to actual boot camp, though few will ask you to competently field strip a rifle before allowing you to procure your marriage license.

The problem with boot camp fitness, as I see it, is that it’s a short term program. If you do lose whatever it is you were hoping to lose, it’ll likely come back once you stop boot campin’. Am I right?

Have any of you ladies or gents gone through the pre-wedding fitness boot camp process? If you have, please share your impressions!