Flotsam

I chickened out and rescheduled my meeting with the venue’s wedding coordinator. The Actually couldn’t be there, and I couldn’t face an hour of rapid-fire questions about the ceremony, the music, the flowers, each one followed by me murmuring that we hadn’t quite gotten around to that yet. It has been rescheduled for Saturday the 17th, St. Patrick’s day. As our venue is located right in the middle of downtown St. Paul, this means that the Actually and I may have to wade through a sea of green beer to reach it. But at least I won’t have to face Our Lady of Wedding Planning on my own. Of course, the Actually will probably be silent during the meeting, as is his wont, but he will be lending me moral support. The wordless kind.

The invitations are almost finalized, despite a squabble about what sort of bird we wanted them to feature. The Actually, still smarting from his bear-and-robot defeat (“Not even just a bear?”), wanted it to be a dodo. I did not make the obvious argument, which is that a dodo is a ridiculous thing to have on a wedding invitation, but instead reminded him (truthfully) that dodos make me sad. I have a bit of a thing for the dodo, and a cross feeling towards the Portugese on their behalf. When we listened to The Ancestor’s Tale on a road trip last summer (yes, we are that nerdy), I teared up during the section on the dodo. It just breaks my heart to think of a sweet, sociable dodo wandering up to greet a newly-landed sailor and WHOMP!
Now I am getting all verklempt.
Anyway, I nixed the dodo idea, and we managed to reach an agreement, and now we are on the second round of proofs with the designer. Hopefully the finished product will be lovely enough to make the Actually forget all about bears and robots.

To follow up on last week’s topics, I received my NuBra Featherlite (sic), and it is really quite an amazing contraption. Comfortable, too. I think it will do its job admirably. I also decided on these shoes.

Still no luck on the music front. We want a jazz trio or quartet to play standards, but one that does not make me want to stomp up to them and slap their faces for ruining perfectly lovely songs with their pretentious phrasing. For this reason I prefer quartets with trumpets rather than saxophones, because I find many saxophone players to be gratingly smarmy. I actually played the saxophone as a youth, as one of the only girls in the section. All of the boys were of the sort who blared the Night Court theme song before practice and seemed absolutely certain that their choice of instrument was going to result in them being laid often and vigorously.
Our chosen ensemble will need to know who Mose Allison is. Not because they will be expected to play Mose Allison songs, but because I feel it is important. They should also agree that modern jazz vocalists are almost universally dreadful, with a few notable exceptions. It would help if there were no members of their band with greasy, unkempt ponytails. Also they should work for free, and possibly one of them could massage my feet if they get sore during the reception.
Personally, I don’t think this is an unreasonable list of qualifications, but I have had precious little success so far. But the Actually is quite set on live music, so I suppose I will just have to try harder to be accommodating.

Here is some advice for those of you who have yet to plan a wedding: never, ever look at a wedding checklist of the sort they have on popular wedding websites. What they do is have you type in the date of your wedding, according to which a list is generated, a list of things you probably have not done yet. If they are things that the editors of said site, in their infinite wisdom, feel that you should have done, they will be displayed in RED and followed by EXCLAMATION POINTS!!! This will cause you to dribble coffee down your front in a panicked stream as all the air is forced from your lungs. Just a little tip, from me to you!