La Meridionale Ballerina

I’m on a carbon diet.

Oh, I’m on a regular diet, too, which I just blew for the fourth time this week by finishing off a box of crackers.  But a carbon diet is an attempt to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide I produce by becoming more energy efficient - turning off lights, driving less, recycling, pulling a good old Jimmy Carter and wearing a sweater.

The Boy thinks it’s hilarious.  I’m always cold, so when he comes home to find me wrapped up in two blankets he says, "honey, you’re not saving the planet if you have to drive to the doctor when you get sick, right?"

Good point. 

But this energy efficiency, do-gooderness made me start thinking about how wasteful a wedding can be.  Confeiti, flowers full of pesticides shipped from far distances, more food than anyone could eat…

Which of course, ties into the idea that weddings have become excessive in the first place.  I’ve been asking my parents, The Boy’s parents, and my grandparents about their weddings, and each involved a simple ceremony followed by cold cuts in the church hall.

I wish I could emulate them.  But I can’t ask people to fly hundreds of miles and feed them cold cuts (right)?

Things are different nowadays.  I live several states away from my parents, who live several states away from their parents. 

There’s a fine line between accomodating guests and excess, and I definitely think people drift over into the "I’m doing this to show off" rhelm.  That’s why I want to make sure I ask myself before making decisions if I’m making them for the right reasons. 

It’s no longer good enough to send an invitation - we are so busy we need a pre-invitation 6 months in advance.  Guests cannot be left to fare with hotel mints on their pillows - they need a welcome basket.  Wedding cake is no longer enough of a dessert - after a cocktail hour and a five course dinner we still have plenty of room for a dessert bar, a fondue station, and a coffee bar. 

As our culture evolves, so must our etiquette.  So Save-the-Dates have become necessary to accomodate travel plans.  Our guest rooms are all converted offices now, so we no longer have room to accomodate our families - hence, the welcome baskets.  I see how these things have become necessary "niceities."  I also see how they’ve incorporated our buying culture.

It’s all about striking a balance, of course.  There are plenty of ways to make a wedding more "green."  Recycled paper is a start.  There’s organic food, organic flowers, eco-friendly tourism.  And there’s what I think is the biggest thing to keep in mind: being realistic.  I know my budget will help me keep the urge to overspend in check.

Now if only I could figure out a way to make my feet stay warm with the thermostat set to 60…

Ah, wedding venues.  Looking for them in DC is a total blast.  Especially since this scenerio is quite common:

*Start to browse website.*

"Hmm…seats up to 200, that’s great…lots of parking…wow, what a pretty ceiling….let’s check the prices…$10,000 for a site fee?!?!?"

*Shuts window in disgust and with irrational fear that I may be charged for looking at the website.  Instinctively moves Visa as far away from keyboard as possible…just in case.*

Thankfully, there are a few slightly more reasonable sites, if you’re still willing to pay a hefty site fee.  We scoped the following out on our second trip:

Inn at Brookville Farms:

Only it’s not an inn; it’s a restaurant. 

My mom loved the place.  It was also the first reception site she scoped out, so she would have loved anything.  All the pictures she took are blurry because she was so nervous.  It certainly didn’t blow my socks off, that’s for sure.  I can’t put my finger on just why. 

The plus: It is an all-inclusive package (no site fee; just pay for dinner and alcohol). 

The minus: That the alcohol is about $30 a person and I just don’t think everyone will drink $30 worth of liquor in 4 hours.  Perhaps I’m naive.

On to our next option: Woodend Sanctuary:

Isn’t it pretty?

Here’s the problem: There’s a $5,600 site fee for the date we’re looking at and the reception site is…less than desireable.  For that price I expect everything but what we got: bad lighting, a plastic tent, dirty bathrooms, and a room full of stuffed birds.  That, well, smell.

The view of the lawn in person:

Hmm…

The pluses: It looks quite pretty in pictures.  And the little bird nest with blue jelly beans favors I’m in love with would be quite appropriate.

The minuses: It doesn’t look quite so pretty in person and is nearly impossible to get to (we drove down a street, made a left to take the detour to go right, drove through a muddy construction site, came back to the original street, turned around…can you imagine writing those directions in an invitation?). Oh, and the smell.

This made me pretty disappointed.  If the place with the large site fee wasn’t what I was looking for, how would I find something that fit my budget?

And all this searching led me to wonder - how do you know what place is best for you?  Do you just walk into a place and know?  Or is that idea absurd?

Thankfully, I have lots of time to figure it out.  But I’m moving my Visa card away from the computer just in case.

I read somewhere that brides who choose pink as a wedding color are stuck trying to emulate Julia Robert’s character in Steel Magnolias, who chose "blush" and "bashful" to be her wedding colors.

In other words, "that sanctuary looks like it’s been hosed down with Pepto-Bismol."  Not the best look.

(I somehow missed that line in the movie, probably because I was bawling my eyes out).

(Incidently, this movie also permanently turned me off from groom’s cakes, proving I’m both no fun and a Northern girl at heart).

So now I feel a little guity for admitting that I love pink.  Love, love, love pink.  And I definitely want pink in my wedding.

Case in point: I’m now wearing a workout outfit that consists of a black shirt with pink trim, a pink sports bra, black shorts with pink trim, white socks with pink trim, and a pink sweatshirt.  Not usually this color-coordinated, but hey, yesterday was laundry day.

I realize a lot of brides now are mixing pink with dark neutrals, like chocolate or black.  This to me seems like it gives pink a preppy, playful edge.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Cute, yes.  But I don’t think I want to do that.  I think that’s a little too cute prepster for me and I want something a little more…romantic, I suppose.  I suppose this means my wedding will perpetuate the fact that I am not, nor will I ever be, hip.

I also love french blue - a deep blue, almost navy but with a touch of tourquise (now that’s a girly description). 

Like this:

I’d like to do something with a pale, pale pink and this deep blue.  I imagine my bouquet, for example, would be the palest pink roses with tiny drops of bluebells, or something.  And if the pink had a hint of peach to it, it would artistically work because the colors would be nearly complimentary.  Which is what good design is all about, right?

Like this color:

(Say it with me now - aww.)

Is this combination too sickeningly sweet?  Am I edging into blush and bashville territory?  With this color combination make every male participant groan?

You know what, I’m tempted to say I don’t care.   

Since we can’t afford real estate, let’s apply the principle to what we can (?) afford: a wedding!

I’m indecisive; always have been, always will be.  Mom used to say I would agonize about what candy bar to choose in the checkout line.  While this may be true ("3 Muskateers has fewer calories, but I love the caramel in Milky Ways…hmmm…."), it is a useful atribute in some situations.  Like, I don’t know, playing chess.

Wedding planning is not one of those situations.

We’ve done three major scouting trips to find our venue site.  The original plan was to have the ceremony at the University of Maryland chapel, where we met.  It’s sentimental and sweet and we’d get our rainproof church wedding.

(Stealth picture taken from the car so as not to interrupt the wedding taking place inside.)

Sounds great, right?  Except there are a few issues.  It costs $800 (yes, even for two alumni), no throwing of anything allowed (no rice, no birdseed, no flower petals when the flower girl walks down the aisle, nothing), no candles (none), and you must be in and out within your time slot or they’ll kick you out (i.e., no receiving line and don’t you dare be late).

As for the reception site, first we looked at something that made logical sense: a venue on campus.

Here are our options:

Massive ballroom that would dwarf our guest list of 120.

Dark green ballroom that makes me sad (and certainly doesn’t scream "June wedding").

The ballroom of the alumni center (granted, it looks a little better dressed up.).  Includes the most hideous chairs I’ve ever seen - red plastic tailgating ones.

Here’s the kicker: sure, these places are affordable, but they certainly don’t say "wedding" to me.  They say corporate workshop on synergy.  Not exactly the look I’m going for. 

I want people to be able to wander around the reception and step outside and smell the beautiful spring air and admire flowers in the surrounding garden before they refill their glass of mint iced tea. 

So at least with this first trip I realized something: I wanted something more fun, more original, more "pretty," more "me" than a ballroom that would be converted into seating for a lecture on globalization come Monday morning. 

Hey, deciding what you don’t want is half the battle, right?  After all, I always end up deciding I don’t want a Milky Way.

(Sidenote: I also decided the alumni center is absolutely out of the question when we exited and found it sits right next to the football stadium.  While this is a major highlight for my fiance, I think my body language in this picture says everything about my opinion of that feature:

(Can’t you just hear me saying "over my dead body!?")   

I have not been shy about my admiration for a Nashville ballerina, Jennifer McNamara.  I’ll remind you that she was my pilates teacher for a semester and was, simply, the nicest teacher ever.  Nice, fun, humble, and patient.  On top of that, she’s an incredible dancer.  Flexible, technically precise, yet with great emotion and makes it look effortless.  She definitely stands out from the corps, no question.  She’s a ton of fun to watch.

So you can imagine how excited I was to see she’s got the lead in the fall ballet series – an interpretation of the Lizzie Borden story.  I was completely all set to go (had my outfit picked out, had my tickets priced, had resigned to go without the Fiancé since he was working) until I read this article. 

That’s right.  The murder scene is completely nude.

Speaking of not being shy, I understand the whole "nudity as part of art," "I’ll only do it if it’s artistic" bit.  I get it. 

But I’ve seen naked dance before.  I took a history of dance class in college and we had to watch a performance that - and I was not prepared for this - had male nudity.  Like full frontal male nudity.  Male nudity + dancing (specifically petit allegro (read: jumping)) = unpleasantries. 

*Shudder.*

Besides, she’s my ballet hero.  She’s my teacher.  I can’t just go there and watch her dance around naked.  That’s crazy talk!  Isn’t it?

Post Script: I decided to go.  The Fiancé had his old roomate over for a visit this weekend, so I needed to go do some girl stuff.  How to describe this old roomate?  Three facts. 

1.  I have never seen him while he was not watching football or soccer on television (excuse the grammar).

2.  I have never seen him eat a vegetable other than pizza sauce.

3.  I have never, not once, known him to clean his bathroom in the three years he and the Fiancé lived together. 

So I made the attempt to invite him ("hey, wanna go see some naked chick dance around?"), but they opted for (you guessed it) watching football on television. 

The ballet was fantastic.  Absolutely fantastic.  Deliciously creepy, too.  And no, the nudity wasn’t bad - they did lots of lighting and she turned to the side.  I saw a sliver of my ballet’s hero’s derriere.  Even though I secretly really wanted to see her abs, which I imagine are fabulous. 

Not that I’ll tell her that.

More awesome wedding theme ideas!

I’ve recently taken up golf.  More like The Fiancé is teaching me to golf as I’m trying to pick sand out of my shoes and fantasize about what cute golf outfits I would buy (like pink and white golf shoes with a white skirt and a cashmere pink and blue argyle sweater vest over a blue polo).  While this is great time spent together, I find nothing romantic about getting on the green in three strokes and then cursing as you miss six putts in a row.  Or, when asked what you shot on a hole, you can only reply with a sigh and, "whatever twice par is."  Or trying to hit a ball out of a sand trap and up a hill only to have it ricochet back and hit you full force in the shin.

I’m not very good.

The Fiancé has mentioned that he thinks golf tees are a great wedding favor (customized golf tees if we want to splurge).  Wonderful though golf tees are, they would be considered as useful as oversized toothpicks to everyone at our wedding except me, The Fiancé, and the best man (Putt Putt World Champion, 1994). 

What we haven’t discussed is the possibility of having a golf theme:

GOLF

For avid golfers, a reception centered on the theme of golf can add a little light-hearted fun to the wedding. For table numbers, use flagpoles like the ones found on a course to designate the number hole. Each table could have it’s own "hazard". A centerpiece of large, shallow vases filled with water and some floating blossoms can be a water hazard. And a sand trap can be created with a few oblong-shaped trays filled with sand. Provide guests with a scorecard and a golf scoring pencil, and invite them to share their thoughts on the wedding, and write a personal note to the newlyweds. The cards can take the place of the traditional guest book sign-in. For favors, give something everyone can use, like a golfer’s key chain. As the couple leaves the reception, send them off with a saber arch like they do in military weddings, but instead of swords, make an arch of golf clubs.

While we’re at it, we could have the groomsmen wear plaid knickers.  Bridesmaids could wear those knit berets with yarn pom poms in lieu of carrying flowers.  The vows could involve spouts of random cursing for authenticity (tantrums that end in the throwing of golf clubs option).  Guests could be transported to the reception via golf carts that come precariously close to tipping over as they try and avoid shots from the driving range.  Bawdy references could be made by vodka and tonic-laden guests about our honeymoon plans (at Pebble Beach, of course) and "getting a hole in one" (har har!).  And, of course, all printed materials, from Save-The-Dates to invitations to programs to escort cards can let everyone know we plan for this marriage to last "Fore-ever!"

Maybe I’m just unappreciative of the romance in all of this.   

(I especially love the "arch of golf clubs."  I just….I mean…what is that?)

I present to you the unlikely results of a search for bridal accessories on Ebay:

Never have I seen, nor expected to see, the words "sexy" and "tube socks" in the same sentence.

I suppose…if your feet get cold at night…these would be good for a honeymoon? 

Nah.  Not even that explains it.

(Bonus: check out this trés sexy "how to wear it":

So hot.)

Bebe.  Remember when it was cool?  Remember when that one member of the cheerleading team showed up with a sparkly shirt that said Bebe on it and everyone wanted to buy clothes from there, but then didn’t because they went to the store and realized all their shirts cost $60 and up and that was way more than high school allowance?

Well, I decided to go shopping last night and somehow found myself in Bebe.  This was after a failed attempt at finding wearable clothing anywhere else.

(All I want is a cute shirt to go on dates in, people.  That’s all I want.  Just a nice, cute shirt.)

First off: all their shirts look exactly the same.  Exactly the same.  Poufy sleeves, button-down.  Variations include satin poufy sleeve button-downs, long poufy sleeve button-downs, poufy sleeve buttondown dresses, and poufy sleeve button-downs with a sweater vest attached.

As they would say on Project Runway (love it!), "Bebe, we’ve seen this shirt before.  Where’s the innovation?" 

Not that there’s anything wrong with this shirt style, per se.  It’s just that, as much as I love retro-inspired looks, I don’t actually want to look the Girl from the Wrong Side of the Tracks Who Flirts with All the Boys Even if They’re Going Steady at the Soda Shop.  Also, this look might require red lipstick, which looks awful on me.

So I say, fine, I don’t want to buy a shirt even though that’s what I came to the mall to look for.  I’ll look for something else.

Like this oh-so-practical number:

This is from their Glamour Satin Suiting collection.  That’s right - suiting.  This particular number is the Glamour Satin Bustier dress.  You know, for the corporate hooker.

(Seriously, where on earth would you wear that?  With the blazer and the gloves?)

Sheesh.  What a joke.  And this stuff still costs more than my allowance.

R.I.P., Steve Irwin

This really has me so upset.  Talk about job hazards. 

We now return to Carissa’s Working from Home Adventures.

In our last episode, Carissa was almost attacked by a crazed Canada goose on her way to the library to do research.  Luckily, our heroine survived.  She is working quietly, adorned in her favorite running shorts and waiting for her incredibly slow computer to download something when there is a knock at the door.

She bypasses her better judgment and opens the door.  It’s her neighbor, whose name she cannot remember, but finds irritating since he always tried to talk to her, especially on days when she is feeling antisocial.  This is most days.  Strange neighbor guy, who lives in the apartment above, speaks.

"Hi.  Sorry for jiggling your door last night."

"Umm…that’s fine.  I didn’t notice."

"It was around midnight.  I was on the phone with my friend and got distracted and tried to open your door instead of going up to my apartment."

Our heroine is wary, especially considering Strange Neighbor Guy Who Lives in the Apartment Above keeps looking toward the floor.  This bugs our heroine since, hello, I’m up here and yes, I am wearing dirty socks.  I was just cooking something and it spilled.  What?

"Well…I didn’t notice."

"Yeah.  So, what are you doing?"

"I’m working.  I work from home.  Yeah, gotta get back to work."

"Oh, really?  I work from home, too.  I’m an engineer.  What do you do?"

"I’m, uh, a legislative research assistant.  I read laws all day.  Anyway, gotta get back."

Our heroine almost escapes, but SNGWLITAA stalls a few more minutes.  Similar conversation continues until Carissa is finally able to go back for her "2:30 meeting."

Yeah, I get it.  Trying to start up conversations with complete strangers is hard.  So is meeting new people.  But here’s a tip if you don’t want them to think you’re creepy: Don’t tell them you tried to break into their apartment around midnight! 

I’m going back to find that goose.