To finish off our string of amazing guest bloggers, it is my pleasure to introduce darling Anna of Anna and the Ring: an infinitely sweet and caring woman whose compassion for others brightens things.

When Mouse asked me to write a guest post my first reaction was oh yes, oh yes! It was only a few days later it dawned upon me I would have to try and write something. Something that Mouse would be happy to publish. Oy vey! How do I express words for someone I barely know but paradoxically have come to adore.

So as I sat trying to think of something appropriate to write I heard Fields of Gold (from when Sting sung on Studio 60*) play in the background. It struck me that I should of course write about love. Mouse exudes love. Yet how to write about love? I know only love from how I feel love. That would not do. So I felt I needed to search for the words which describe love most beautifully. Obviously in times of trouble one should turn to Pablo Neruda. I believe his poetry is wondrous. Whilst his words are simple (and mostly in translation) they ooze love in ways in which I am unable to express.

So as the lute (and occasional applause) plays in the background I want you to read the next few words. True love was never more true.

I have named you queen.
There are taller ones than you. taller.
There are purer ones than you. purer.
There are lovelier than you. lovelier.
But you are the queen.
When you go through the streets
no one recognizes you.
No one sees your crystal gown, no one looks
at the carpet of red gold
that you tread as you pass.
the nonexistent carpet.
And when you appear
all the rivers sound
in my body, bells
shake the sky,
and a hymn fills the world.
Only you and I,
only you and I, my love,
listen to it.

Pablo Neruda

For me, the perfect, beautiful reading with words to take into one's heart and hold onto forever. That is love. To understand that whilst you may never see yourself as a queen you are in the eyes of at least one person, their queen. A hard lesson for me and I am sure many others reading this to learn.

*I miss you Mr Bing.

Big congrats to Vibrational, who has won the Orange Kisses Pom Pom Giveaway! She wrote:

I would use the poms to decorate the pews at my church... I'm SO over regular old flowers or boring bows. We're getting married in late June, with a bright blue and pink color scheme. I think the poms would add a cool, fun touch to a traditional church wedding. I'm also toying around with the idea of little poms at each place setting to bring everything together. Too many poms? I think not.

Pah, I say, no such thing as too many poms!

Vibrational, email me your information to claim your prize!

Everyone else: I have the COOLEST EFFING GIVEAWAY next week. Stay tuned. It may or may not involve mustaches.

Here's our dear Giovanna from Swoon, recently wed and with advice to share. I'm so curious about the other side, aren't you?

I’m not one for dispensing advice. I don’t have a problem taking advice from others. I just kind of hate telling people what to do.

So when Mouse asked me to do a guest post, I was totally flattered, because, obviously, she’s awesome, but I was also a little worried about coming across as preachy.

Let’s be honest - weddings do that to people. I sort of get it. As soon as you become engaged, you enter this bizarre world where everything, like it or not, revolves around The Wedding. The only people who seem to understand this temporary time-suck are the ones also trapped on, let’s call it...Crazy Engaged People Planet. But to make things even more complicated, there are thousands of societies on said planet with vastly differing ideologies and you have to figure out where you fit in.

On one end of the spectrum are the Wed-bots, who tell you things HAVE to be this way and you HAVE to spend this much, and on the other, are those Do-It-Yourself goddesses who scoff at the Wed-bots and tell you that you can do it all by hand.

While I love the DIY girls, both camps can be a bit overwhelming.

So I guess if I can offer any advice at all, here are the three tenants I tried to stick to:

*Be yourself. Don't compare yourself to others, or at least, try very hard not to do that. It’s perfectly OK to want to look pretty and have a stylish wedding, despite your budget, but don't do anything that doesn't feel right to you. And remember that your wedding is not a show. Repeat that as much as necessary.

*Understand that things will go wrong. My photographer shot a wedding once where the couple’s beloved Samoyed ran off during the ceremony and got hit by a car. A friend of a friend’s venue burned down the day of the wedding. If this doesn’t happen to you, be thankful. You can manage all the little things.

I got my period the morning of my wedding. I was pale and doubled over in pain. I said, “It figures” and popped some Advil. There was no sense in freaking out. My makeup/hair lady showed up super late. I didn’t yell at her or cry about it. Two of my cousins who were not in the bridal party whipped out their eyeliners and blow-dryers and got to work. The caterers put all of the vegetarian options inside during cocktail hour without telling anyone, so the dozens of vegetarians went without food until dinner. (We got some money back for that one.) I can think of at least three more mishaps, but I can still look you dead in the eye and tell you my wedding was kickass.

*Make sure to drink (unless you have an alcohol problem), eat and dance in abundance. That’s the good thing about being surrounded by eight bridesmaids. They won’t leave you on the dance floor trying to get down to Salt-N-Pepa (hell yeah, we played that) by yourself and you’ll always have a full glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

In the best of circumstances, you are brave enough to sift through the madness and carve out a wedding of your own - one that defines you and your partner and doesn’t make you feel icky. In the worst of circumstances, you fall in line with whatever your mother, grandmother, cousin and the big, bad, money-grubbing industry expect of you, and call it a day.

I tried to do the former, but it’s really all relative.

For much of my extended family, my wedding, which took place on an overcast afternoon on a grassy hilltop in the Hudson Valley, was totally different than anything in which they were accustomed. There was no church, no limousine, no ballroom with crystal chandeliers, no bouquet or garter toss, no tuxedos, no long, buffet table during cocktail hour overflowing with shellfish and pasta and meats and cheeses (did I mention I’m Italian?), and no grand introductions.

We quoted Nietzsche and Tom Robbins, we wrote our own vows - which included a reference to pancakes - and then we wandered into the tent and danced to Neil Young.

Let me tell you, in those circles, I’m like some kind of a radical, which, I realize, is hilarious.
But I fear the DIY fairies, many of whom have become my friends during the last year, will judge me when the photos come out. They’ll think I was too traditional with my 150-person guest list and my huge bridal party, all of whom are wearing the same color (gasp!) JCrew dresses.
I didn’t have a million chickens* to spend and I didn’t want a typical, cookie-cutter wedding, but I also suck at crafts, I like real flowers, and I wanted to make dress shopping as easy as possible for my busy bridesmaids. I wanted a DJ because I’m lazy and I’d rather spend the next few months paying off my credit card than monitoring the Ipod on my wedding day, as odd as that sounds. Also, I splurged on a pretty dress and sexy heels and I don’t want to feel guilty about it.
There were some things I did even though I didn’t want to. I didn’t picture myself wearing a veil, but my Nonna had a huge problem with that, and you know what? She’d been waiting for this day for a hell of a lot longer than I had, and when I told her it wouldn’t be in a church, she gave me a disapproving look, but managed to bite her lip and say nothing. If you knew this opinionated, yet well-meaning chatterbox, you would have been so proud at that moment. So I wore the stupid veil for our 15-minute ceremony and tore it out of my hair as soon as it was over.
I didn’t want to over-think every aspect of my wedding, because it can get a little egotistical, for lack of a better word.

I didn’t need all eyes on me during the first dance and the cake-cutting. We made sure guests joined us on the dance floor (after about a minute of Harvest Moon, at our DJ’s insistence) and that the jams kept going while I threw some butter cream goodness in my new husband’s face.
He ran around trying to find a container for my friend’s breast milk and set up a pillow and blanket on the grass outside for his friend with a back problem. He didn’t say, “I’m the groom. I shouldn’t be doing these things.” He wanted to help.

That groom does a good job of keeping me grounded. He’s not one of those, “You should have everything you want on your wedding day, baby” types. He’s more like, “Um, there are people that are starving and we’re worrying about chairs. Let’s get a grip.”

In the end, all we wanted was a fun party that felt like “us,” but we didn’t feel the need to shove “us” down all the guests throats. If they danced and caught up on each other’s lives and laughed over a few glasses of wine, that, for us, was the ultimate way to honor our union.

Your wedding will go by so quickly. On that morning, just take a deep breath and try to soak in how incredibly lucky you are that all these people - whether it’s 25 or 250 - showed up to celebrate the fact that you have chosen to commit yourself to someone else - for life. That’s a big deal. And mostly, remember that all this madness will soon be over, and the two of you can lounge on the couch eating takeout and watching Futurama and laughing at how adorable your cat is when he’s curled up on the chair with his paws covering his face. That’s marital bliss.

*I figure I'm on Mouse's blog, so I can use Mouse's lingo.

Hi, nice mice. This is darling Becca, from A Los Angeles Love, here to share some sanity and awesomeness with us. Her topic? TAKING A VACATION FROM WEDDING PLANNING. Oh, yeah. I am SO in.

Hi micies! I’m so excited that Mouse invited me to join you here at Souris Mariage while she’s away. And, since I’m the teensiest bit jealous that she’s off traveling and traversing, I thought I’d talk about how we all deserve a vacation too. Specifically, how we deserve a vacation from wedding planning. Now. Right this instant.* Start planning your wedding planning vacation tonight because the guest list and napkin colors will still be there next week, I promise.

Turning off weddingbrain is a lot easier said than done. Personally, mine’s been racing around at meltdown speed until I had the awful realization that every conversation with my partner seems to begin with the words “so for the wedding, I was thinking about...” Well Boo to that cr*p. My weddingbrain hasn’t been shutting off lately and I need to do something about it. And so, Operation Vacation from Wedding Cr*p was born.

How do we get weddingbrain to turn off? How do we actually take that weekend for ourselves without suddenly remembering that we can’t seat Aunt Kathy anywhere nearby Uncle James? It’s not easy, because those thoughts are definitely all running around in your head, trying to save you from forgetting the one single item that will entirely ruin your wedding. Yeah, well, it won’t be ruined if I can’t figure out how to match our centrepieces to the ugly black chairs that come with our rental hall. So Step One in Operation Vacation From Wedding Cr*p: reminding yourself that it’s going to be okay. Really. Your pre-wedding self would have laughed at you and your post-wedding self won’t give a fig anymore about centerpieces. So start by reminding yourself of this basic truth.

For me, it’s a lot easier to take a vacation from wedding planning thoughts if I’m not stuck in the same post-work routine of cooking dinner together and sitting down on the sofas with our computers and various side projects. For us, that’s where my “so for the wedding...” moments usually happen. For us, that’s usually when we tackle guest list hell or begin drafting our wedding website wording. So for us, that’s the moment we need to shake up and change around. And like that, I’ve conquered Step Two in Operation Vacation From Wedding Cr*p: identify your weddingbrain’s most intrusive moments so you can plan accordingly.

Ok, so now you’ve identified where wedding brain is most likely to attack, although we all know it can strike anywhere and everywhere. Oh! I wonder how much the hotel on that corner would cost for a room block! Oh! Did you see her dress? That would be great for my ‘maids! Oh! I like that color combination! Oh...OH NO. You can’t stop inspiration from striking, but you can learn how to bite your wedding tongue. Every time you have a lightbulb idea... write it down. Seriously. Get it out of your head, where it’s buzzing around and irritating you with its logic and poor timing, and into a place where you can deal with it later, at a more appropriate time. Write it in your phone. Start carrying around a teeny notebook and write it there. Keep that notebook permanently attached to your hand during the intrusive moments you identified during Step Two. I personally love Google Docs, which I can access from any computer and phone and can share with Jason, and have begun saving all my wedding moment ideas in various brainstorm lists online (friend task list, bring on the day-of list, day-of logistics/timing list, guest list... and so on.) These lists hold scores of ideas with real benefit, but the best benefit is getting them out of my head, away from conversation, and into a place where I can organize them later. Writing about weddings (in bullet-point.quick note form) is allowed during Operation Vacation because it’s a sanity saving tool that actually enables Step Three in Operation Vacation from Wedding Cr*p: NO TALKING ABOUT YOUR FREAKING WEDDING ANYMORE.
Now, when I say vacation from wedding planning, I mean precisely that: a vacation. Not an “I promise to not talk anymore about weddings tonight pledge” Because that’s a pledge. That’s a step in creating a real non-wedding space for ourselves, but it isn’t the only step. Because really, this wedding thing is stressing me out. And I’m not getting a real vacation this year because I’m saving my time off for the wedding. And I’m not getting time off in general because my schedule looks something like: work, write, plan wedding, visit friends, plan wedding, try to exercise, do errands, plan wedding, go to show, plan wedding... and so on. (You probably don’t see sleep on that list, because there isn’t much of it.) So. I think we all need a real vacation. It doesn’t need to be a week-long break or even a weekend off, but we all need something different, something fun in the middle of this stress. Of course, there’s the worry about chickens and how the wedding budget is eating them all. So here are some ideas, ranging from super-frugal to (comparative) splurges to help you with Step Four in Operation Vacation From Wedding Cr*p: plan your vacation fun.

• Romantic picnic dinner. It’s summertime, for goodness sake, making this the perfect time of year to get outside with delicious food and a delicious partner. Find the closest park or check with your City or County for cultural festivals (many of which are free.) Even just mix it up and have a picnic on the apartment floor. Honestly, the most romantic anniversary we ever had was when I got a horrible migraine and we had to reschedule our hotel getaway plans. Instead, we ordered in sushi, set a blanket, candles and flowers on the floor, and I swooned a bit over how we made romance happen anyhow.

• Hiking. If you’re not hiking people, substitute “hiking” for “walk around the lake” or “walk around a new neighborhood with multi-million dollar mansions.” Really, this is just an excuse to get some exercise (endorphins! yay!) while surrounded by pretty in a new place you haven’t been before.

• Camping. My vacation dollars are nearly non-existent this year (hello wedding). So we’ve become huge fans of cartrips and camping for a weekend away. Get out in nature, snuggle tightly under the sleeping bag covers, and roast marshmallows together while drinking beer and looking at the stars. Perfection. Really. With a velvet sparkle night sky you won’t be thinking about weddings.

• Vacation Rentals: Not a camper? I understand, but you can still get the benefit of that velvet night sky andinexpensive-ish weekend away if you’re creative. Look for people renting their homes. You can get really affordable places with kitchens and washing machines in central (or remote) locations. We personally like Vacation Rentals By Owner.

• Last Minute Travel Savings: Are you at the end of your wedding rope and need a vacation NOW? Not too picky about your exact hotel? See what the deal sites give back, because they help hotels sell their last unsold rooms at a discount. Visit Priceline and ask for a 4 star hotel for $80 somewhere nearby-ish, and see if anything is available. If it is and the four star hotel accepts your $80 bid, you get a frugal happy dance. If there’s nothing available, you haven’t risked a penny. Alternately, I’ve found Last Minute and Travelocity often provide excellent last minute travel deals (hotels and entire packages) for a long weekend away.

• Be a Tourist in Your Own City. I grew up in Los Angeles. As a local, I never really think about doing touristy things unless friends come to visit. I don’t generally hike up to the Hollywood Sign or visit the Getty Villa or do any of the things listed at this tourist guide here on a normal basis. But why not? These things are on the tourist guides for a reason! Every so often I shake myself and rediscover all the great things about Los Angeles from a different, non-work, non-errand, non-everyday life perspective. So take an architecture walking tour. Go to the local museum. Visit the places recommended by the Tourism Board or Chamber of Commerce. Play like it’s your vacation. As a side, note, the find-a-cheap-4-star-hotel tactic is also useful for turning these tourist days into a full-blown vacation-in-your-own-city. I love vacations-in-your-own-city. You don’t need to travel far, but you get a whole new perspective on the city (and romance, hint hint) from a hotel room vantage point.

• Act Like a Kid: When’s the last time you went to a carnival or played mini golf? We should all act like kids more often. So go play mini golf. Take a trip to an amusement park, if there’s one nearby. Plan a co-ed touch football game (or water gun wars, or whatever) in the park with a bunch of your friends.

• Have a Fancy Dinner Out. Just treat yourself. Get out of frugal wedding mode and do something yummy and delicious and special tonight, not just your favorite Mexican joint. Cut down the cost by checking Groupon or Restaurant.com for deals. Decide to just go for appetizers and drinks. I don’t care. Just do something different. Tonight.

• Plan a Dinner Party. Technically, this sounds like it could be a lot of work. But it doesn’t need to be! You can either do a potluck (yay cheap!) or make curry/salad/grill food/whatever for a table of 10. Honestly, the effort of planning a dinner party will distract you from the effort of planning your wedding.

There you go, a simple four-step path to success with Operation Vacation From Wedding Cr*p. Remind yourself it’s going to be okay, identify your weddingbrain weaknesses and plan accordingly, write down your renegade thoughts to get them out of your brain, find something fun to shake up the routine, and finally get back to reminding yourself why you fell in love in the first place.

Of course, this is hardly an exhaustive list of tactics or options for fun. I’m open to suggestions. I would love your help. In fact, I may desperately need your help for those times when weddingbrain becomes particularly intrusive. Like now. And yesterday. And tomorrow. But not next weekend. Because next weekend, I’m planning on a little wedding vacation.

* Unless you’re a month or so away from your own wedding. In which case, please carry on with your planning and use visions of your own nearly-here honeymoon to keep you sane in this home stretch.

And now, a missive from Robin, at Hitchdied, about an event you could not pay me to attend (I am down with sales, but not with crowds or running) that turned out to generate many humorous lessons anyway.

Two years ago, I survived the Running of the Brides.

I have a t-shirt to prove it. And Carrie, my future sister-in-law, has a badass wedding dress:



For the uninitiated, select Filene's Basement locations hold an annual one-day sale of bridal gowns. For one day only, the store stocks over a thousand gowns with prices slashed to the $250-$700 range. The nickname "Running of the Brides" comes from the mad rush to grab gowns when the doors open. The racks are cleared within a minute, and then hours of negotiations and trades commence as brides tilt at discount designer windmills.

Here's how to survive:

Form a dream team: I think Carrie picked her Running of the Brides team based on who would be crazy enough to join her. There was Jen, the RoB veteran who'd encouraged Carrie to go in the first place. Jen was our general, the architect of our strategy. Sarah, also planning a wedding and hoping to find a reception dress, was our wheel greaser. People seem more willing to trade directly with brides than with "helpers," so if you've got another friend getting married, go together! I, Robin, rounded out the crowd, as "the talker." I did the tough talking to get dresses from one brides' stash into ours.

Many Running of the Brides teams wear matching clothes so they can find each other in the store. Our original plan was for Carrie to hold a giant T Rex helium balloon so the rest of the team could always locate her, but Rex escaped into the Cleveland dawn as soon as we opened the car doors. In the end our solution was to have Carrie and Sarah stay put so Jen and I could always find them after we'd traded for new dresses.

If you want to wear matching shirts for fun, I suggest avoiding hot pink. Everyone else will be wearing matching hot pink shirts, so if you actually rely on shirt color to recognize friends and family, you'll end up calling a bunch of strangers "Mom."

Eff the queue:We did a drive-by at 11:00PM the night before the sale, and sure enough we saw people camped out in front of the store. One group had literally pitched a tent. We came back at 7:00AM. The line was all the way to the end of the strip mall. But when the doors opened, I ran around the side of the crowd, making it much easier to overtake screaming brides. Perhaps not my most sportsmanlike moment. But I got in the store while there were dresses on the racks. I felt like Queen of the World. But pride comes before the fall. Which leads me to my next piece of advice:

DO NOT carry a purse. The official Filene's Basement instructions warn against purses. Our group decided to follow the letter but not the spirit of that law, and we put our stuff into one of those drawstring totes. I had it on my back as I ran into the store, and just as I started to grab dresses one of the strings got caught on a hanger being carried off by another bride. She fell. I fell. Eighty combined pounds of wedding dress fell on us. By time we were back on our feet, all the dresses we'd snagged had been hauled off by other ladies.

Take a page from the Cher Horowitz handbook. There's a lot of fuss over mirrors at the Running of the Brides. Some people carry in mirrors. Other people run not for the dresses, but for the prime real estate by the store's mirrors. Those people are living in the past. Who needs a mirror when you have a digital camera? Have one of your teammates snap a pic and judge the dress from that. If you start to think it might be the one, then you hunt down a mirror.

Come back in the afternoon. Being at the Running of the Brides when it first gets going is fun. There is chaos. There is hardball negotiation. The whole crowd cheers whenever someone says she's found her dress. The experience is worth it. But Carrie ended up finding her dress after our lunch break. The crowd thinned, the dresses were back on the racks, and we were able to take over the entire menswear department with potential dresses and work through them systematically. No one cried when Carrie put on The Dress, and the store didn't burst into cheers.* But if you look at her face you can tell she knew she'd found The Dress:

Only run if it is right for you. The ideal Running of the Brides shopper fits a sample size, has no idea what kind of dress she wants, has a good sense of humor, and will not worry about her wedding dress having been dragged around a discount department store by a bunch of frenzied women for a day. The dress you buy at the Running of the Brides will probably not fit and will need a heavy duty cleaning. [Note: the distribution of sizes probably varies from event to event, but at ours there were many more plus sized dresses than dresses below size 10.] There is a seamstress at the event who will help you guess if the dress you just fell in love with has any hopes of being altered to fit your body. Carrie ultimately matched the sale price of the gown in alteration and cleaning costs (which still put her at 40% of the original price of the gown, so she still saved a good number chickens, to adopt the parlance of the blog.)

Closing thoughts: Bring a bottle of champagne to drink in the parking lot. Something classy in an inappropriate location is the perfect capper to the Running of the Brides experience.

* Note from Mouse: Does this crying when you put the dress on REALLY EVER HAPPEN, or is it just something they invented for television?