Wedding Woes

No, not "woe is me, I shall never marry" but more "woe is me, I wanted to elope, and instead I have to plan all this and I'm cheap." I looked at the budget today. First off, budget implies that we a) have a set amount of money we're willing to spend and b) have a plan. Technically speaking, we do have a set amount of money we can spend--when we run out of money in our combined savings accounts. That's a whole lot more than we will spend (no, don't ask how much money we have or how much we've spend, because it's not your business). As for a plan...well...

I think what really frustrates/terrifies me is that I look at what has been spent so far, and I don't see much on that list. Admittedly, the hotel and airfare for the honeymoon are included in that (yes, we're even taking a proper honeymoon, leaving the day we get actually for real married!). What terrifies me, though--besides the fact that food and wine/beer and rings and my visas and table/chair/linen/whatever else rentals aren't on that list--is that everything we've gotten so far has been insanely cheap. Terrifyingly cheap, really.

My dress was at the upper end of what I was willing to spend, but then I was hoping to out-cheap Luther's $20 wedding dress (note: it was gorgeous and perfect for her and didn't look cheap). I was also hoping to not buy mine at David's Bridal, but I couldn't find anything I liked anywhere else. Sadly the cost may rise more, for I think I'll have to get it altered down a bit (yay, but more money). As long as that doesn't affect the pockets--yes, it has pockets!--I don't mind too much. For those who wish to see the dress, it's here, and it's red. I will be peeved if guests wear red themselves (white and black, the traditional no-nos, totally awesome in my book).

The venue is shockingly cheap. Being wine club members knocked a bit off the price, but still, it's insane how little Alan charges to rent out his winery, especially when it's a Saturday and he has to close it down to the public (hmm, I think he's doing that). Plus, Lisa is totally awesome and will do a great job tending bar and helping us out when she can. BIIIIG tip (and even with that, still dirt cheap).

The invites were cheap enough, though we got shafted on postage. VistaPrint's stuff isn't the highest quality, the nicest looking, or traditional (big whoop), but given how much traditional invites cost (as low as $1 per invite--if you assemble it all yourself!), I was gonna be damned before I spent that much. And these are plenty nice, and fairly appropriate for the "come to our reception, we're getting married two days after that, and you're not invited" invite. Hey, at least I'm nice enough to put postage on everyone's RSVP cards. True, if you live in the US, they're postcards, but at least we're paying the postage. Initially, RSVP was going to be email only.

The single best part of money that we've spent so far is on our honeymoon. The afternoon we get married (I don't have a judge yet...still working on that one), Adam and I will board a plane in our finery with carry-on luggage only (again, I'm cheap--it's also faster when you arrive), and jet down to San Francisco. We'll have a rental car waiting for us (not a convertible, sadly, since December in the Bay Area is, uh...yeah), and we'll wend our way north, leaving S.F. behind us and putting all of Napa (and Sonoma) at our feet for 4 days. We've got a great room in what looks to be a wonderful B&B in downtown Napa, with 25 restaurants and 19 tasting rooms within walking distance. We'll hire a driver for our rental car one day to take us around a bunch of vineyards, and really, I don't know what we'll do with the rest of our time. Well, I do know, but I don't like to think about that many hangovers this far in advance. We might go back into S.F. one day and go to the zoo, or show Adam around, but I've managed to never drive in Cali, and I don't like driving in any major cities, since I have no patience and no GPS. Well, I guess I did drive in Death Valley, but if I saw 100 cars on the road in DEVA in 5 weeks, I'd be shocked.

There is one other rather bright spot in all this wedding planning. Well, besides actually getting married, of course. After vast amounts of research, struggle, frustration, and nearly spending a crap-ton of money on a lawyer, we finally discovered that if Adam only wants to come to the states to get married, but will be leaving shortly thereafter, he does not need a special visa. At least that's what the US Embassy in London says on their website (they, like the British embassies and consulates, don't answer email or phone queries, but instead direct you to non-govermental businesses who charge money to be not very helpful). I found enough info on that to make me confident that I'm correct. This saves us a lot of money for the moment, as visa are not even remotely cheap for those who wish to immigrate. However, I still need to go through the visa process. I'm hoping I only need 2 different visas over the next couple of years, not 3 (since we're getting married here in the States, not in the UK), but I'm not holding my breath.

Right, hopefully that at least partially satisfies those who have been frustrated by my long silence. That is, after all, what I've been spending most of my time on. But I can promise, when I write my next review, it will be of the (really awful, very truly horrid) book Twilight. So quite frankly, if you think Stephanie Myer knows how to write, I wouldn't read that post. Because she sucks.

Sunday Review Postponement

I've got way too much crap going on over the next few weeks to do reviews. If I get chances, I'll throw some up, but the only really solid thing I have in my head right now is Gran Torino, and that'll proably slip out of my head if I don't get to it soon. More news later on, but now it's bedtime. I'd still like to exercise, but when the house is 80F/27C at 11:40pm, that's not gonna happen. It's raining in Linthwaite...wish I were there to run up and shut the skylights and stand on the balcony in the rain. Wish it were raining here. Blargh. I hate this heat--after Death Valley, anything over 2% humidity (hell, 1%) is too damn high.

Hopefully I'll get my act together enough to post some news in a few days. Got to get sorted though, first.

Stateside

Just a quick note. I have made it safely back to Eugene. My luggage even arrived today (I arrived yesterday). I really hate Delta. They're incompetent. I hate having to go to Atlanta to get anywhere else. And there are other issues with them, but I've mostly talked about those before. I think I'll be contacting them and complaining.

Also, they drastically overbooked the flights I was on, and so were offering compensation to be bumped. I did not do so--though I should have from Atlanta to Portland--but the compensation from ATL to PDX was only 200 Delta Dollars (or points, or whatever). Definitely not much. Though if I had know I wasn't on the last flight of the night to PDX (thought I was) I would have possibly done that. I need to fund other trips, though $200 on a crap airline really isn't enough (to their credit, internationally you can still check 2 bags--50 lbs--for free).

How do I know that there was another flight from ATL to PDX after mine? Because my luggage had to come in on that flight. I'd tell you why, but no one at Delta seemed to know. Morons. So I made them deliver it to Eugene. At least I had underwear this time.... To make it better, they tried to blame me for it not making my flight (they were still going to deliver it, though). Their argument fell apart when the other guy whose luggage didn't make it pointed out that he didn't come through customs (he orginated in ATL) and he checked in 2.5 hours early. I repeat: Morons.

No Review this Week

Due to the necessity of packing, cleaning the house, baking bread for the boy, and--if I'm extra lucky--getting to sit on my ass doing nothing for a few hours since it is my birthday--I won't get a review up this week. I didn't get one done over the weekend since we went out Saturday and over to the in-laws' on Sunday, and I've now got too much to do before Wednesday.

When I get a chance, however, I will regale you with stories from Saturday. I think I drank a smoked ham hock at one point. I didn't mind it, but everyone else thought it was foul. Apparently I'm the only person who doesn't totally mind when my beer and bar snacks have been combined into one...

Suicide is painless...

And it would bring on many changes, such as my not having to fly with Delta in a week. But I can take or leave it as I please.

Delta makes it look all nice and happy on their website. Too bad I've flown with them before and know what it's REALLY like. I will get a free meal from Manchester to Atlanta (which is good, because I've never boosted an airline galley before, but for the amount of money they charged for my tickets, they'll damn well feed me or I'll steal food). I'm debating if I want to be a pain a register for a special meal. Muslim, in this case. The Hindu option I got on Air Canada a few years ago was tasty (parsnip curry), minus that my snack was a dry nut-butter (cashew?) sandwich. No jelly. It was ok, but the normal meals had really fantastic smelling pasties for snacks. Mmm...oh well. I don't want Kosher, and I figure they're gonna be curious about me regardless, so I might as well ratchet that up with a "terrorist" meal. I assume it will be vegetarian, possibly bland, possibly very spicy, but it will be a pain for them. Which, admittedly, is unfair to the airline crew, who are rarely at fault for all the douchebaggy things that seem to happen with airlines. And I'll probably lose out on the snacks, which are, as everyone knows, the best part of an airline meal (can you say bizarrely textured brownie?).

I also looked at my in-flight entertainment options. I might possibly have internet access on my Atlanta-Portland flight, but that's not worth the $10 it would cost me. All the movies look like they suck. Plus, they claim to have on-demand, so I should have access to ALL the movies, but on the other hand, it lists them by region/date, so I don't know. Again. I have a distinct feeling I'll be doing a lot of reading, and hopefully a fair bit of writing. And a lot of yoga in the galley, which may irritate the flight crew as well. Too bad on that though; they get space to move around.

IF no one else moves their seat/books tickets for the flight, I can get a whole row to myself. I moved my seat today for that possibility. Additionally, there's currently no one in the seat behind me, so I don't have to suffer through some jackass continually kicking my seat. I rather doubt I'll be lucky on either of those two options, though. And that's only for the MAN-ATL leg. ATL-PDX is booked solid. Ugh. Sweaty masses, no food. Good thing I've got aisle seats. When you fly as much as I seem to, the window is only good for leaning against to sleep. Since I rarely sleep on planes (I do if I get 3 seats to myself, though, so here's hoping), someone else gets the window, and I get to get up without acrobatics.

Garh. I have so much I need to do for the few weeks I'm in the states, not enough time to do it in, and I have to suffer through long flights to do it all. I'm trying to limit my time in the states since I can't come back to the UK for as long as I hoped--I'm needed to dog-sit after I undergo the terrifying introduction of Adam's parents and mine. Hell, after 3.5 years, we can't really put it off anymore, since my folks are coming over to see Adam's and my place anyway. They're in the area, so we'll take them all to a pub. Then we'll drop them at a table, and Adam and I will go get quietly drunk in a corner.