Dressing Up the Boys

I'm totally tuxedo-challenged. We went to men's wearhouse, and it wasn't that hard once we figured out a few things. We didn't want tails - it's a daytime wedding - so then the biggest thing was to choose between one-button, two-button, and three-button. The main difference is how much of the vest will be showing (if you're going with vests). We ended up going with the two button style (I think) and then just picked what kind of lapel we wanted. They'll have pictures of the two types (notch or shawl) Notch lapels look more like suits - that's the one we chose.
I would suggest you bring swatches of your bridesmaids dress if you have them. . . it makes it a lot easier to pick out colors for the groomsmen's ties and vests. They have swatches of those for you to look at, and if you don't have the bridesmaids dresses picked out already, I believe you can make changes until just a few weeks before the wedding.
Then they'll have you pick out pocket squares, cufflinks, shoes, shirts, etc. but it's not as hard as it seems once you get in there and see the options.
We had to put down a $40 deposit (which will be applied to the cost of FI's tux) for the wedding party. They "opened a ticket" on our wedding party with everyone's names, the style tux each guy would be wearing, color of vest & tie, cufflinks, shoes, everything.
If you sign up for their email list, you get $20 off the price of your tux rental & a coupon for $25 off your next purchase. We used the coupon that day to buy the pocket squares for each of the groomsmen & Jakob.
Mens Wearhouse also has a program where if you rent four tuxes, the groom's is free. We opted to give our free rental to our ringbearer for a couple of reasons. . . I think it's outrageous that a tux for a 2 1/2 year old is the same price as one for a grown man. Also, his mom is one of my bridesmaids, so it cuts her some slack since she's already paying for a dress.

Casper Goes to Hawaii?

Jakob works for a major airline that recognizes your "registered domestic partner" (or RDP) and extends flight benefits to this person. In our case, I get to fly (nearly) for free. If we were a same sex couple, not only would I get flight benefits, I'd also be eligible for his health benefits.
Another major perk is the occasional deals employees get offered. Take this for a great example. . . yesterday, Jakob came home with an memo offering all employees of said airline access to the company's vacation packages at a wholesale rate. If we choose to take advantage of it, we will save over $3500 on the package. Wanna hear the details? It's six days, five nights in Cancun, Mexico. We would have a year to use our package. Included in package is: all meals & drinks included 24 hours a day, free oceanfront resort upgrade, and unlimited non-motor watersports. Did I mention it would only cost us $148 per person (and if we were bringing kids, they'd stay & eat for FREE) ???
Yeah, it's a great deal, and would totally solve our dilemma of where to go on our honeymoon (and more importantly, how to afford it). Jakob's grandmother had a condo in Cancun, so his family has been down there several times. I've never been out of the country - even to Mexico.
So what do you think? Should we spend our honeymoon sipping margaritas and trying to get some color to my "friendly ghost" legs? Or should we wait til we can afford a really kick-a$$ honeymoon to somewhere like Fiji or Thailand? Or should we do both since the Cancun trip is so freaking cheap?

DIY Invitations

We finally settled on an invitation suite. I told you about the ones I loved but couldn't justify the price. I thought about designing them from scratch, actually was pretty set on that. But in the end, we decided to buy invitation kits from Michaels. Yeah, that's right. . . the arts & crafts place. They're not really what I had in mind from the start, but I like them - a lot. They're simple & elegant and, let's face it - at the end of their journey from box to printer to envelope to guest, they'll probably be tossed in the trash. (Shh, don't tell them that!)
"So what do they look like?"
This:

I didn't bother blurring out names or any other information since this is just a photo of the example invite that comes with the kit.
Of course, they come completely disassembled. I'll post step-by-step instructions as we assemble them along with tips on how you can customize or create a similar design from scratch.

To Bee or Not to Bee

I said I was going to take the weekend to decide whether or not I will apply to be a Bee on Weddingbee again, but I've made up my mind. I will not apply again. The more I think about it, the more I realize my beliefs and my friendships are more important than my wish to become a bee. I was going to call and ask my Carey (yeah, I call him "my Carey" - it's a long story) how he felt about it, since he's probably the most outspoken of my friends on the issue of legalizing gay marriage. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I couldn't put him in that position. "Hey, there's this thing that I really really want to do, but it will make money for a company that isn't very gay friendly - is it okay with you if I do it anyway?"
I mean, really. . . how selfish would that be? And how would he answer? "No, I'm really not okay with that." That answer may cause some uncomfortable moments. "Yeah, cool... go for it." But I'd always wonder if he was just saying that because he wanted me to be happy. Typically, Carey's a brutally honest person, but there'd always be this nagging voice in my head telling me I really hurt his feelings and he's just too good a friend to say anything.

Edit 10/15/08
The real test was this: I decided after posting this entry that I would blog as if I were reapplying for weddingbee for a couple of weeks. That was 11 days ago, and I wrote exactly ONE entry - I had to really make myself write that one. So I know I made the right decision. . . I'll blog because I want to and I'll feel good about it because I'm not making money for anyone whose business practices appall me.

Second Guessing

"I'll take that one. . . . no, no wait - that one. Maybe this one is better. What do you think?"

Lately, I've been second guessing every decision I've made in my wedding planning process. I told you about my wedding dress and how much I love, love, love it. For the past two weeks, I've been rethinking everything from the length of my wedding dress to the color palette. I've been driving myself crazy over whether the color & style of the bridesmaids dresses will look good on all three of them. I worried about the invitations, worrying about the seating charts, even wondering if we should have looked at more venues before deciding on one.

What about you? Are you as indecisive as I am?

Mrs. Bee's Big News

Yesterday, Mrs. Bee of WeddingBee made a big announcement: She has sold Weddingbee to eHarmony. This sale will make her life a lot less hectic and allow her to concentrate on the fun part of Weddingbee. She still retains full editorial control. While eHarmony "owns" the site, at this point it appears nothing will change as far as the content, selection process or diversity of brides (and grooms like Mr. Mango). Sadly, some of the Bees will be leaving the site due to their concerns about the partnership between WeddingBee and eHarmony. Mrs. Gingerbread, one of Weddingbee's bloggers, says it much more eloquently that I could, so it is, in her words:

I am concerned with eHarmony’s heavy involvement from 2000-2005 with Focus on the Family, an organization that promotes unscientific conversion therapies of LGBTQ people and homosexuality as a mental illness. I know that as both a member of the LGBTQ community and as a psychologist, that this rhetoric and these practices have and continue to cause a lot of harm to LGBTQ people. I am not sure that I can be involved with a company that in any way is associated with an organization that promotes this type of practice. Eharmony has distanced themselves from Focus on the Family for the past few years, but I worry that this is more of a business decision rather than an actual change of heart. I believe that their current company practices support my concerns.

The other reason for concern among many Bees is eHarmony's policy against same-sex matching. My previous post There's Nothing Wrong With Adam & Steve makes my views on same-sex marriage pretty obvious. To read views from Mrs. Bee, Mrs. Creampuff, Miss Sweet Tea, and a response from Stan Holt, VP of Publishing at eHarmony, check out this post on Weddingbee.
Someone from the audience says, "And how do you feel about this, Loralie?"
Well, that's a valid question, and I don't have an answer for it. I'm still very up in the air about the whole thing, and I have questions. . . like "Will eHarmony make money from my visiting the Weddingbee site?" and "If so, can I break myself of the addiction of visiting several times per day?"
About a month ago, I applied to be a blogger for Weddingbee. I wasn't chosen, but no hard feelings. The night I received the decision from the panel, I decided then and there I would apply again after the four week mandatory waiting period (much longer than that three day wait to buy a gun). So my four weeks are up but I'm going to keep my application to myself for a few more days so I can get some answers to my questions and make the best informed decision possible.

There's nothing wrong with Adam & Steve

Although it's pretty obvious this issue doesn't affect me in the most direct & personal way, the legalization of gay marriage is one very near & dear to my heart. Jakob and I both have quite a few friends who are LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer -or Questioning). I've seen real relationships between same sex partners, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that their love is as real as mine is for Jakob. So why do I get to marry the person I love when they're not allowed to do the same?

A very good friend of mine who lives in Florida recently told me about an amendment on the ballot November 4th called amendment 2. Basically the passing of this amendment would forever close the door to the legalization of gay marriage in that state. It makes me feel kinda dumb to admit this, but I just don't get it. I don't get why some people are so adamant about not allowing LGBTQ people to marry.

If you really want to protect the "sanctity of marriage", make divorce illegal. In my eyes, divorce is much more an affront to its sanctity than allowing Barry* & Bill* to tie the knot.

We don't choose who we fall in love with. . . if we did, you'd never hear about the high society heiress engaged to the plumber's assistant or a powerful attorney falling for the waitress at the local diner. I think we can all agree on this - so it's not that big a leap in reasoning to say my friend Tess* didn't choose to fall in love with Layla* - she just did. And there's nothing wrong with that. They make each other happy - in their hearts, they are married and they plan to have children at some point in the future. I've seen them together many times, and every single time, I see how much they love one another and how happy they are. I wish I knew more heterosexual couples who were that in love - I think the world would be a happier place.

I read the website of a group supporting the passage of Amendment 2, and while it made me angry, it also made me sad. It made me sad because I think it must be very dark inside such a closed mind. On their FAQ page, I read this:

Are you saying gays cannot be good parents?

Two men might each be a good father, but neither can be a mother. The ideal for children is the love and nurturing of both a mom and a dad. No same-sex couple can provide that. So the question becomes, which parent is not important for a child, a mom or a dad?

It is obvious to me that the person who wrote this does not have any personal experience with gay parents. And is there really a difference between a mother's love and a father's love for their child? Sometimes the father is the disciplinarian, sometimes it's the mother. Sometimes mom is the softie, sometimes it's dad. A good parent loves their children - period. Genitalia doesn't affect this fact.

According to this line of reasoning, a child who has a parent who dies cannot and will not receive the love and nurturing he/she needs & deserves. Perhaps we should pass a law requiring the widowed parent to remarry within a few months or assign the family a "replacement" parent of the appropriate (ie opposite) sex.

Someone from the audience says, "Oh, come on...... that's crazy!"

Yeah, it is crazy. What an insane idea. . . . and that's why, if you live in Florida, I encourage you to vote NO on Amendment 2

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of those I love*