As I've mentioned, our wedding venue comes with a very awesome and indomitable Wedding Lady, who is there to guide us through the planning and then deal with any sh*t that should arise on the wedding day. I, I am excited to report, will be holed up with my bridesmaids and Mama Mouse somewhere drinking champagne. So if the flowers don't come, or if the arch falls over, or if the groomsmen don't have cufflinks, I DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT IT OR EVEN KNOW ABOUT IT until after we're married. Woohoo! For a person like me--a brooder, a worrier, a planner--this is an immense relief. If the venue didn't come with the Wedding Lady, I would figure out how to hire one. It would be worth it in lack of ulcers.

Anyway, Wedding Lady generally knows her stuff backwards and forwards, but occasionally we have differences of opinion.* This time, it's about photography. Our intrepid photographer and general badass chick Kelly Rashka** came to a venue visit with us awhile ago. The Wedding Lady has a way she does stuff: ceremony, margarita, sign the wedding license, be whisked off in a van for photos. I messed up the Wedding Lady's plan anyway, since we won't be doing the wedding license stuff that day. And then Kelly pointed out that the pond (above, ain't it cute?), which is where we'll start photos, is only a five minute WALK from the ceremony, and that there are photogenic cacti that whole way. Wedding Lady deferred, but pointed out that I might not be up for walking over there on the dirt road. "BAH!" I said. "I'm wearing flats! And I'm planning on dancing all night! I'm not afraid of the walk to the pond!"

And then, much later, The Artist*** points out to me that I will be hot and sweaty. Urgh. I hate being hot and sweaty. How did I end up planning a Tucson wedding in September? What do you think? To walk or not to walk? I'm leaning towards driving to the pond and then walking back, holding hands in a picturesque fashion.

While we're at it, OH MY GOD. What are you guys doing about the posed photos? I, personally, do not like posed photos.**** This is half because certain people in my family always close their eyes when they smile (I'm looking at you, Dad) and half because He-Mouse's de facto posed photo face is a scowl. "Nice picture," he'll say, looking over my shoulder at the computer a week after we leave some gorgeous place to which we may never return. "Why was I so mad?"

Anyway, part of what I love about Kelly is that she used to be a photojournalist, and therefore rocks the socks off of the candid photos. They're my favorite part. So my goal is to get through the posed photos as quickly as possible given the large divorced families who will want pictures. How many of these do we actually need to stage? I'm thinking:

1. Before the ceremony: me and my family and He-Mouse and his family in various combinations, plus bridal party photos.
2. After the ceremony:
a) Bridal party
b) Bridal party doing something funny
c) Me, He-Mouse, and my mom
d) Us and my dad
e) Us and his mom
f) Us and his dad
g) Us and his grandparents, part one
h) Us and his grandparents, the sequel

And then I'm thinking all the friends and extended family can just effing wait and get candids taken of them during the reception. We'll be fighting sunset, and we need to get through the effing posed photos so we can get a few pics of the two of us with the cacti. What do you think?

* For instance: I'm sorry, but I'm not a frou-frou drinks person. When I say "margarita," the flavors I expect are lime, tequila and salt. Not mango or apple or prickly pear. Thanks anyway. Those things are fun if you like them, but they're not my cup of tequila.
** Arizona brides: may I recommend Kelly to you? You will be SO HAPPY.
*** Welp, it stuck.
**** My opinion only.

Congratulations to Nicole & Brian, who have won our giveaway of 100 paper dahlias from October Hill! Nicole chose Sunshine paper flowers, because she's planning her wedding in black and white with splashes of yellow (cute!). Nicole, e-mail me for details!

And a bonus discount for everyone who loved this idea: Heidi is offering Souris Mariage readers 10% off of orders of 25 or more blooms at October Hill through the month of March. Convo her on Etsy to claim your discount!

(Photo by Alfonso Lepe.)

After reading Anna and The Ring's thoughts on beauty and some tweets from Cupcake Wedding about the crash diets on which her bridesmaids embarking, I thought it might be an opportune moment to think about what we mean by beautiful when planning our weddings. Because I was thinking about this, and for me, it has much less to do with "aesthetically pleasing" or "industry standard" and much more to do with "fun, special, memorable, personal, meaningful." I also can't think of a wedding I've attended that didn't overwhelm me with its beauty. Weddings are like that, with or without the trimmings.

I've been reading a lot of wedding blogs lately (as have you, obv), and you know what stands out among all those gorgeous, washed-out, lit photos? It isn't the shrugs or the cuff bracelets.* It isn't whether the bridesmaids or groomsmen happen to look and dress like fashion models (or hipsters, depending on the blog). The thing I look for is that raw happiness that radiates from the photos. I look for the groom doing a backflip, or the bride holding hands with her mother. I look for the bridesmaids who are laughing with their mouths waaaay open and the grannys getting down on the dance floor. THAT is wedding beauty, my dear micies, and it has nothing at all to do with the size of your dress or any of your body parts.**

In that spirit, here is an open letter to my bridesmaids:

My dearest darlings:

I am deeply honored that you will be in my wedding. I could not possibly get married without you standing beside me, and I am grateful that you will be a guardian of our marriage in the years to come. I believe that you are beautiful, precious, smart, ballsy, and wonderful.

I vow to find a dress that makes you feel both comfortable and pretty. I pledge not to inflict a hair and makeup scheme that makes you look like someone else. You stand among the most important women in my life, and I want you to be happy on my wedding day. I want you to look like yourself in the photographs, because I love you just the way you are.

xo,
Mouse

Would you like to meet my bridesmaids, by the way?

• The Artist Previously Known as ChiMaid,*** who is not afraid of anything, including maggots on deer carcasses and cheating bastard ex-boyfriends, and who is my constant light in dark times as we rescue each other over and over again

• Ya-Ya, whose compassion runneth over and who warms every room, and who understands the power of expletives and bourbon

• Country Mouse, who manages to do it all and raise two tiny people on basically zero chickens and never complains except to say "This is a little bit tricky"

• O., who reinvents herself constantly and devotes herself to every new chapter with passion, abandon, and total faith

• Em, the older sister I chose for myself, whose finely honed intuition guides her like a compass and who is most at home among outcasts of all kinds

Oh, mice. I wish so much that I could do more for these women. I'm not in financial shape to pay for dresses, hotels, airplanes. What I will clearly need to find are some beautiful bridesmaid gifts. Any ideas?

* Well, maybe sometimes the cuff bracelets.
** I'm a beanpole, actually, and I am ENVIOUS of those of you who fearlessly rock your curves. I would love to borrow some curves for my wedding. The Artist, O., and Ya-Ya have particularly enviable ones.
*** I don't want her to have a name with "maid" in it. "Maid" doesn't describe the person who repeatedly saves you all other sorts of evil sh*t like Spanx and mean people and really bad dating decisions. Petite Chablis had the right idea with the name Supermaid. Let's think of another one! Or else I'm just going with "The Artist" or a squiggly hieroglyphic thing.

By the way, stay tuned this afternoon for the October Hill giveaway winner!

Okay. After last week's disheartening revelations about the yellow shredded wheat clown shoes, I hightailed it to the mall in an attempt to stave off dejection.* The clown shoes taught me that I'm looking for either a softer version of one of our wedding colors** or a neutral. Otherwise, the bright color is too much at the bottom of the dress. "GIANT BLOCK OF COLOR," the flats shrieked, rather than whispering "oooh, cute yellow heels." The trouble is, I hate pastels. As in, they give me icky shivers. I like 'em fine for other people, but I hate them for me.

Anyway, this makes neutral shoes a challenge. I mean, black is fine and everything, but I own no shoes that are tan, taupe, neutral, ivory, or beige. (When I was in preschool, I'm told, I knew the words for a lot of important colors: magenta, mauve, cerulean, ochre. One day I came out of class and asked Mama Mouse: "What's beige?" She said, "Don't worry, sweetie, you don't need to know beige." This lesson stuck.)

So I was thinking about a subtle metallic as a neutral. What do you think? I love these Seychelles sandals (Get Outta Town in Pewter), which meet all of Jamie's sexy flats criteria (oooh, the curve of the braid, and plenty of toe). They're the best of sandals and the best of flats, with comfy foot beds. They will stay on for dancing. I'm taking them to meet the dress on Thursday and will report back next shoesday Tuesday. In the meantime, what do you think?

* We also did some brief He-Mouse gray suit shopping, and deduced that while we'd love one, Canali is off the table. Three times the value of my car, people. Too many chickens. We have big hopes for Joseph Abboud, though.
** Orange, yellow, teal. No pastels.

Well, there's nothing like wedding planning to make a Mouse search her thesaurus for synonyms for "quandary." Apparently, a wedding is the culmination of (frequently arbitrary) decisions that resolve hundreds of thousands of dilemmas, deadlocks, halts, impasses, standoffs, stalemates, pickles, problems, predicaments, fixes, and jams. My favorite quandary synonym? Knot. Gives a new and entirely appropriate meaning to TheKnot.com, right?

Anyway, I usually post real weddings on Mondays, but I'm putting that on hold because I have yet another quandary in need of speedy resolution.* Which is: ceremony decorations. I think this feels so urgent to me because I haven't spent much time yet thinking about the ceremony. He-Mouse and I have been focused on throwing an awesome party, and on making family and friends feel included, and all we've decided yet about the ceremony is that my Uncle Hank will officiate.

Okay, so. Our ceremony will be on that lovely patch of green green grass in the photo above, with those pretty white chairs. I so love the chairs, in fact, that I'm not feeling moved to decorate them with anything. I think we should just ride with the chairs and the green grass and the big ol' cottonwood trees. (You can't see it, but there's also a very charming corral full of horsies just to the right.)

Also in that photo, and in the heinously blurry photo here, are the arch and little fake tree (x 2) provided by the venue. We also get rose petals, in the color of our choice, as part of our site fee.
First of all, I think I hate those little fake trees.** If they were real trees, or if my wedding had any sort of European vibe, I might feel differently. The wedding lady REEAAALLY wants us to have them, because she says we need to frame the space. She seems concerned that, without the trees, the bridal party won't know where to stand and then everything will be off-center. I sort of think that if we put space-conscious people on the end of each row of bridesmaids/groomsmen, they can figure this out. What do you think?

Second, the arch itself. I don't particularly like this arch, although it's nicer when it's standing up and not blurry. But I do like the idea of a big splash of color behind me and He-Mouse and Uncle Hank. (For reference, there is also a beautiful, twisty old cottonwood tree behind that. We could also hang pom-poms from the tree.) Here are my two ideas:

1. Cover it (and I mean COVER EVERY INCH OF IT) with bright orange and a few yellow paper dahlias from OctoberHill. (You can win some of these dahlias here, until Wednesday!)
2. Hang tissue paper pom-poms from it, in varying lengths and sizes, in orange and mostly yellow.

What do you think? Other ideas? I think I'm going to use the rose petals to line the aisle on each side, up the rows of chairs...

* No big surprise here, right? Real weddings will be back next week. If you need a little inspiration to soften your Monday, you can click here and look at old ones.
** Which is just my personal opinion.