I've Got the Fever

Wedding Fever. I've got it, and I've got it bad. At this very moment, I know four people who are on the verge of getting married. My friend Emily will go first, then the Wily Republican, then Anne, then Steph.

It doesn't take much to get me thinking about my wedding--what I want, what I can afford, what I want but will never afford--but lately I've been really caught up thinking about dresses and cakes and reception sites and photographers and what songs I'm going to force the DJ to play.

It's just that I really love weddings. I love going to weddings, love being in weddings, love watching weddings on television. I love weddings even after the Great College Friend Wedding Disaster of 2006, where the bride forbid me--her bridesmaid!--from bringing a date because I had not been dating someone longer than six months.

It's easy to get caught up in weddings and all the glitz and glamor, and I am a sucker for all of it. All of it. Which is why I've spent extra time dreaming up my own lately. Everybody else is getting to dream and plan and design, and I want to, too. And below is what I've come up with so far. Below is the answer to the question "If you were to get married today and money weren't an object, what would your wedding look like?"

I think I've got a pretty good answer to that.


First, the dress:

It's a Jim Hjelm dress, designed by Francesca Pitera.



Next, my husband's tux:


I'm sort of anti-bow tie. I want my to-be husband to wear a tie, but it doesn't have to be black.



Next, the bridesmaids can make the case for their favorite of these three dresses. Whoever makes the most compelling argument gets her dress as the chosen one (in dark purple):











And what about the ring? Well, it's big, it's bold, it's square--which is something I never thought I'd develop a thing for, but I so have:

And here's what my mother will wear so she doesn't look like a frumpy ninety year-old, which is often the temptation of some mothers-of-the-bride:




When my sweet tooth starts acting up, here's what I'll be slicing into, but picture the color scheme involving some kind of purple:



And where will this all happen? Well, considering that I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, it's got to happen at the source of all that beauty:

On the ocean. (This picture was taken here, in Boothbay Harbor.)


The first song that will play as the sun sets and the guests freshen up their champagne flutes will be this one:

It's the perfect first dance song. It's just the right tempo. You could easily slow dance to it, but it's not plodding and so long that your guests will start wondering how rude it is to get up to go to the bathroom while you're being filmed dancing your first dance as man and wife.

I've got other things planned, too. I've already imagined certain people taking care of certain things--for example, I hope Diana would do a reading. She also seems to be the right girl to be in charge of my The DJ Must Play These Songs List. I mean, who better to lay it on the line for the DJ, wag a finger in his face and tell him if he doesn't get his act together and play "Love Man" and "You Can Leave Your Hat On" and "Cecilia" and "Maggie May" and "What I Like About You," there's going to be a serious problem. I hope she would do that even if deep down she thinks some of those songs are sort of weird for a wedding.

So, all in all, I think it's shaped up to be a festive event, but it'll be a long time before I get to make any of that come to life, so I guess for the next few months I'll just sit back and enjoy all the other weddings around me and gather up even more ammunition I can use in those moments when I get so frustrated by a stack of papers in front of me that I raise my head, look out the window, and think about a white dress hanging on a door, just waiting for me to put it on.