In Which I Discuss My Personality Flaws, My Future Mother-in-Law, My Lazy Fiance and the Gestation Period of Humans. Oh, And Also List Some Stuff I've Done Related to My Upcoming Nuptials.

Here's the thing about wedding planning: it requires, like, an overwhelming amount of work up front ... for something that takes place approximately light years later. Or, that's how it feels to me. I've actually gotten a lot of shit done in the past couple weeks - more on that later - but I'd be lying if I said that it was easy to motivate myself. My father could tell you that patience is not a virtue of mine - or rather he could tell you that *I* told *him* that it was not my virtue sometime during my toddler years. (Hey Daddy! Like the shout out?) I've always been very self aware - and I am more than aware of the fact that I prefer immediate gratification.

Weddings do not provide any sort of immediate gratification. In fact, the engaged to married process goes like this:
Fiance: "Hey, so wanna get married and stuff?"
Me: "Sounds good. Let's do it."
Fiance: "K, awesome. When?"
Me: "Um, how 'bout Fall? I like Fall."
Fiance: "Sweet. Now what?"
Me: "Well, The Knot says I already have 37 overdue items on my checklist and we just got engaged a second ago ... so there's probs lots of stuff to do. Immediately."
Fiance: "Oh, okay well you should like tell me stuff you want me to do and I'll do them."

... Great, so at this point you can see that, on at least one occasion, Fiance asked me to delegate things to him. Which I did, including but not limited to: please get the addresses for your mother's ginormous Catholic family, please get me the addresses for your friends with whom I am not Facebook friends and therefore cannot ask myself, please call hotels regarding hotel blocks for the wedding party and guests. Okay, actually the aforementioned list *was* limited - in that those were in fact the only things I asked Fiance to do.

Guess how many Fiance has done. Go ahead, guess ... Did you guess? You're probably wrong because he has actually only done like 3/4 of 1 of these things. He has gotten me a few of the addresses for his friends (note: a few. Not all. Therefore Fiance does not get the full point). He sent his mother an email in November regarding the addresses for her ginormous Catholic family - and I have heard him on one occasion ask her about the status of said addresses in a phone conversation (I'm not sure this gets a point at all. In fact I may deduct points because of my annoyance at Future Mother-in-Law to whom Fiance is related by blood. You can be fairly incessantly snotty to blood relatives. I lack that ability without looking like a raging bitch. It's decided. I deduct points). And finally, Fiance *has* actually blocked hotel rooms at multiple hotels but he doesn't get the full point because he did so under duress.

Here's how the hotel conversation went:
(after weeks of asking nicely and then nagging, I call Fiance during my break between shifts at work)
Me: "Hey, Fiance - any way you feel like calling some hotels? Because seriously I need you to do that. And it would seriously take like 4 minutes tops."
Fiance: "Mare, I have a job. How do you expect me to do these things during the week?! I have a real job. Is there something you could delegate that I can do on weekends?!"
Me: *head explodes with utter annoyance and deep seated resentment at having to plan this whole stupid affair for Fiance without any of his help or input*

So, obviously to prove a point, I called a hotel and set up a hotel block in approximately 3.5 minutes. Seriously, I'm not even exaggerating this time. I really like to be right - and in this case the warm fuzzy feelings of superiority and rightness made me stop wanting to punch Fiance in the throat. So, you can clearly see how Fiance has done like 3/4 of 1 thing on the list of THREE DAMN THINGS I have asked him to do for HIS damn wedding.

This brings me back to the fact that we have gotten stuff done! I ordered Save the Dates and stuff and I have addressed most of them (You can guess which ones aren't addressed - all of the ones that Fiance was supposed to get). We have blocked hotel rooms. We have finalized the guest list. Our honeymoon is booked. The ceremony and reception venues are good to go. I have a dress (fine, I don't *have* a dress yet - and I blame my mother for that - but that's another blog post entirely) but I totally tried on dresses with Lawyer Bridesmaid and that should count for something. What else? I'm pretty sure I've done other stuff but I can't remember it right now *because* I have seen no pay off from these things.

I've done all this stuff and I see no payout. In fact, I will not see any sort of benefit to all this stupid work until October. October is a billion years away. To those of you who are probably thinking "No, Mare, October is actually only about 8 months away. Eight months is clearly not equal to a billion years" I say this: Um, it's a long ass time. I could gestate a human! A HUMAN! I could grow a human inside my body in the 8.5 months til my wedding.**** So clearly, if that's enough time to make a person, it is more than enough time to make me feel irritated about all the work I'm doing without benefit. So you should all feel super proud of me for doing things and not procrastinating. And you should vocalize that pride because I thrive on praise. K, thanks!



****Knock on wood. Do it right now. Everyone knock on wood. There will be no pre-married gestation of humans. It was hard enough to get myself to try on normal dresses - can you imagine anyone convincing me to try on maternity dresses?! HA! No.