I become Bridezilla

This morning my daily email from the nagging fishwife at the wedding website informed me there are 50 days left to go. As soon as I finished screaming and put on clean underwear, I collected my wits about me and made a list of things I have yet to nail down:

1. Food
2. Drink
3. Music
4. Marriage License
5. A bunch of other stuff

You'd think I'd be something of an expert in getting married but apparently I've gotten a little rusty in the 25 years since I last did this.

I was thinking all we had to do was pick a date, say "y'all come" to our favorite people, then I'd go shopping for a nice dress. As it turns out, there's more to it than that and everything is complicated. For example:

Wedding Dress: From Day One I had a vision of the perfect dress--feminine and classy, not too dressy yet not too casual, flowing and a little unique, in a style that revealed just a teeny amount of cleavage that was slightly sexy yet very modest and utterly appropriate to the occasion. And it would make me look like a size 4. And 24 years old.

I searched the world over and on the internet found exactly the dress I'd envisioned. It came yesterday. It shows more boob than a mammogram. With 50 days to go I still need a dress.

Most brides would be freaking out in this situation but not me. Oh, no. This is where my considerable prior experience comes in play. I remind you of the night before my wedding 25 years ago when I went to the mall to pick up my dress after its final alteration and discovered a terrible mistake had been made--the seamstress had shortened my dress many inches too many. As in, my dress was a foot or more too short. Less than 18 hours before my wedding I ran through the mall like Wilma Rudolph on speed to find a replacement dress that required no alterations whatsoever. Luckily (because I am just that lucky) I found a dress that fit me perfectly which I liked even better than the botched original, and I was able to buy it for a song off the clearance rack at the most expensive store in town. (Don't you love a happy ending?). So with that experience under my belt you can see why it doesn't scare me that I have 50 days to find a wedding dress that's somewhat less revealing than a surgical gown.

Well, maybe it scares me a little bit.

Minister: Our first choice was the guy at the non-profit we work with in Nicaragua but it turns out he isn't licensed in the USA. I tried to talk him into getting ordained as a minister before September 6th but he wouldn't go for it--something about him needing to hear a call from a higher power and not just me begging him to do my wedding. Or some such nonsense.

A close second choice was the former head pastor at my church. He recently resigned out of the blue during a Sunday morning sermon and left our church the same day. He was hard to track down but I eventually got in touch with him only to learn he isn't a licensed minister anymore--obviously mistakes of some sort had been made. I don't know all the details and really don't care to know, and I still think he's the best minister I've ever had. Besides, if I talked about his mistakes it would only be fair to talk about mine and we don't have time to go into all my mistakes right now. There are only 50 days until the wedding and I'm kinda busy.

I haven't bonded much with the new minister who took his place so we moved on and found one who seems likeable and easy to work with plus he's available. I just hope he gets our names right at the ceremony ("Do you Sue take this man Marley...").

I have to go now because there are other pressing matters that demand my attention. For example, I have recently become aware that I was mistaken in my earlier assumption that food mysteriously materializes at wedding receptions. Apparently this is not true. I am told that I am supposed to actually meet with a caterer before the wedding to discuss food. There may be some expectation on their part for money to change hands as well.

If this trend keeps up the next thing you know somebody's going to tell me the courthouse doesn't deliver marriage licenses via FedEx or musicians don't happen to be driving by weddings just when you happen to need one to play at your reception.