Fashion progress

Just before heading to the airport on Monday afternoon for my flight back to Chicago, I ran into the fabulous Campbell (of Vera Wang) in Midtown. He was rushing to pick up buttons in the garment district. I was rushing to get out of the rain and into Starbucks. We chit-chatted about life and the wedding and then, as we parted ways, he said something that simply made my heart melt: “We’ll be calling you soon about your fitting.” Ah!! A fitting!

In my brief trip to New York last weekend I covered an insane amount of wedding territory. Saturday was all about the mother of the bride. My father and I accompanied my mom to her second of many dress fittings to come at Saks. When she bought this dress a few weeks ago, she described every last detail to me over the phone. She looked even more exquisite than I’d imagined. To quote Campbell again, she “went for fabulous.” In typical mother/daughter fashion we bickered over little details – I like the sleeves on the shoulder, she likes them off; she wants to wear bangles, I said no. It wouldn’t be normal if not for a little difference of opinion. After Saks we moved on to Stuart Weitzman, then Bergdorfs, and even Easy Spirit in an effort to find her “comfortable” wedding shoes. If anyone knows if such a thing exists, please let me know.

Sunday was father of the bride day. Just me and Dad. A rare but wonderful occasion. We began at Barneys where he treated me to a little spree at the Nars counter (I am still Daddy’s little girl afterall) before we headed to the eighth floor, men’s tuxes. My dad has an impeccable sense of style. He originally wanted to wear a white jacket to the wedding, to be a little different. Nice thought but not happening. A black peaked lapel Armani caught his eye and never left his sight. He made me feel the fabric about 100 times. It’s a winner.

I also spent a few hours on Sunday looking through thousands of old pictures for our rehearsal dinner video. And I can tell you this: I was one really cute baby, I had the prettiest bat mitzvah dress, I spent much of my childhood in pink soccer uniforms, I went through a terrible awkward stage and I wore my hair in some ridiculous up-do to my high school prom.

The Registry Challenge

With football season over and March madness quickly approaching, that leaves me a small window of opportunity to have Matt’s full attention for one very important wedding task: registering.

February is the perfect month to register. It’s an indoor activity a time when there’s not too much else to do. As soon as March hits, the weekends will be busy again with trips and events, so for now, during this winter lull, we’re finding joy in spending other people’s money. If you’ve checked our registry over the past couple of weeks you’ll notice it has more than doubled in size.

Most stores provide registrants with a clicker, which looks eerily like a gun, to add items to their list. It’s often hard not to get a little trigger happy, especially at the end of the day. I believe it was Matt who added a blue and gray, handheld zebra mirror that I luckily caught and deleted from the list. Sometimes the slightly less sane couples, such as Matt and me, also use the registry gun to play man hunt in the bedding section of Bloomingdales Home. It’s all in good fun.

Our registry trip yesterday made me feel like I was in an episode of Supermarket Sweep. Michigan Avenue was slammed which made parking a nightmare. After circling the streets for way too long we gave up and parked in the Bloomingdales lot. Luckily Bloomingdales will validate for up to three hours. But at 3:00:01 you’re dropping serious cash for your spot. I had an ambitious plan for the day—fine china, luggage, towels and chatchkies—and three hours to accomplish my mission. Bring it on, Bloomingdales.

Nothing could stop this bride. I pointed and clicked my way through every ounce of the store. I got it all done, and returned my gun to the registry department with time to spare.

Now I can sit and stare at my registry and slowly wait for the “still needed” column to dwindle down. The exciting news is that as of this morning someone had purchased my 10 piece All Clad dish set. The frightening news is that now I’m going to have to learn how to use this stuff. I’m also left to ponder whether I will ever really need place settings for 16. I think I might have been trigger happy…

Cyberlove

Question of the day: Do people really propose with an e-card? Hallmark’s website is full of “Marry Me” e-cards and I guess they exist for a reason. Who are those people that propose, in all seriousness, over email? I’d like to ask them a few questions (i.e. did that really fly with your girlfriend/boyfriend?).

I came across a number of Marry Me cards today when I was searching around for Valentine emails to send to friends and family. Somewhere out there, someone today is going to get the romance bug and fire off a marriage proposal e-card to their beloved. On the list of 50 Most Romantic Ways to Pop the Question, sending an e-card doesn't even rank. Although I wonder if this is really any better: 49. Ask him/her to marry you by writing it on the bathroom mirror. Huh?

I’d assume if a couple becomes engaged over email, what’s to stop them from having a wedding entirely planned through cyberspace? The standard has been set. The invitations could be sent through Evite, the flowers could be ordered on 1800flowers.com, J.Crew sells wedding gowns online, you can even book a rabbi at rabbirentals.com. All of this cyber-everything is a little too scary and impersonal for me. The only site I expect people to visit in relation to my wedding is http://www.nytimes.com/pages/fashion/weddings/index.html to view my wedding announcement (and this blog of course).

I kicked off Valentine’s Day 2007 last night with front row seats at the Bulls game. I was sitting right behind the Luv-a-bulls in case you thought you caught a glimpse of me on tv. I was sitting right next to VC – we were the girls on the floor not shaking our poms poms. Tonight Matt and I are going for dinner at restaurant I’ve wanted to try called Marche. If nothing else, Valentine's Day is an excellent excuse to try a new restaurant on a weekday night that is otherwise spent at the gym and on the couch.

In wedding news, my mother got a dress! And Matthew’s bachelor party has been set for Miami. Luckily my younger (completely innocent and law-abiding) brother will be on the trip to make sure that everyone behaves…

Brrr...

The temperatures are below 0 today in Chicago. I’ve been at my desk for more than an hour now and my fingers and toes still haven’t completely thawed. I nuked my coffee for an extra minute in the microwave and ate oatmeal so hot that I burnt the top of my mouth, yet I still can’t escape that bitter chill. I’m pale as a ghost, my cheeks are red from windburn and my dedication to my bridal workouts has been crushed by my desire to hide under my fleece blanket and watch American Idol. In other words, I’m not looking so hot right now. However, I have not lost sight of my goal. Take my word, come June I will be ready to grace the pages of the Sunday Styles’ Wedding section.

Valentine’s Day is next week and for the first time ever I actually have a gift for Matt more than 24 hours in advance. I splurged a little this year, but he deserves it. It’s been a tough few weeks. I expect I’ll receive a package from my mom containing a card and a Cinderella or Snow White Pez dispenser. I get it every year. Human Resources in my office sent around a memo that there will be chocolate and apples for everyone in the lunchroom on Valentine’s Day. Such perks I get!

A couple of exciting (well, not really) wedding news briefs include:
Our invitations are in! Fingers crossed that they look ok. They were all handmade so they should be perfect. Soon they’ll be off to the calligrapher and in your mailbox before you know it.
*I changed the background on our weddingchannel.com page. (Who cares? I do!) It’s the perfect way to procrastinate.
*We still haven’t picked our wedding song.
*We still don’t have a ketubbah.

Lastly, I get bombarded with wedding-related spam but every once in a while I get an email with some super-cool item. Check out these heart-shaped Altoids. Not only will they make your breath smell lovely, but they might even put a little love in your heart…

How about these new “With Love and Kisses” stamps? Pretty cute, I’d say. The postal service put them out to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Hershey's beloved chocolate kisses.
Could be the perfect touch to those invitations that just arrived…

London

I'm back from my London holiday and I've got a few pictures to share. Even the g-d awful exchange rate (1 pound = 2 dollars) couldn't keep my mom and I from taking advantage of everything London has to offer. We shopped in Covent Garden, saw two plays: We Will Rock You (terrible) and Billy Elliot (fabulous), visited museums, went for high tea, ate Shepard's Pie, said hello to the Queen...I expected cold and rain but had four days of sunshine. I didn't catch a glimpse of Prince William, Posh Spice or Becks, but still had a great trip!






We never actually ate fish and chips, but we thought about it.








My mom made me take a picture with a Beefeater.








Had I not just eaten lunch, I would have gone down the slides at the Tate Modern.









My mom outside of We Will Rock You (don't see it!)













Mom and me in front of Big Ben.