Reality

I used to work for a man who told stories as his primary mode of both leadership and inspiration. And he called them vignettes. He’d take three (always three) seemingly unrelated stories that were unimportant in and of themselves and tie them all together with some fantastic moral about how the stories actually were important and interrelated and *ta-da* magically you felt inspired ( I have no idea what kind of voodoo this is…but it totally worked.)

Because I actually truly loved his story telling, I’ve taken to this whole “sharing of vignettes to make a point” type of speaking/ writing/ leading (interestingly, it turns out he was leading the organization right straight into the crapper because he spent all his time telling his stories, “inspiring” and hugging it out, and not so much time with the balancing of the books and the attention to the details…oops.)(Ooo, and now that I think of it, “vignette” should most assuredly take its place on my list of favorite words. What are we up to now, like 6 million favorite words? That’s a lot of favorites. My father scolds me for the overuse of superlatives. I have no idea why this is.)

And so, in the spirit of describing an overarching theme of my week, relaying a fairly intense emotion, and just telling a good story, darn it…I offer you the following three vignettes. Reality serves as the moral, and my former boss the cautionary tale.

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As I have mentioned before, I have a friend who owns a bridal shoppe (yes, it is in fact a shoppe, not a shop…which in my head is pronounced shop-y). There’s a long and incredibly cute story about how we met, and an even better story about how we became friends. But needless to say, when I found out I was getting hitched I was *of course* going to buy my dress from her. Now the story about how I found “THE dress” is for another time (though also quite good). But there it is, my dress, hanging in her shoppe waiting for my purchase. Sometimes, when I visit with her, I visit the dress, too. And so, because I am actually a girl (contrary to popular opinion) I do in fact try the dress on pretty much every time I go into the store.

For those of you who’ve played bridal store dress up, or have, you know, actually gotten married, it’s important for you to understand that my dress isn’t one of those dresses you can lace into or that has the massive expandable torture device of a bodice that allows any and all to try said dress. This one…they order one size, and from there you have to either fit into the dress or not.

Needless to say, when I first tried on the dress about three months ago, I fell into the latter category. This was depressing. I knew it was “THE dress”- that much was evident to me, even only half fitting into it. But you couldn’t really tell what it was gonna look like in the end. It felt like playing dress up in your grandma’s closet.

Yesterday while running errands, I needed to drop something off for my friend at the shoppe. I had my friend K with me, and she of course insisted that I put the dress on for her.

And it fit.

And it’s beautiful.

My friend K got teary eyed. My friend who runs the shoppe got teary eyed.

I just stood there in shock. And then the crazy ladies threw a veil on me. And suddenly, staring back at me as I looked into the mirror wasn’t me. It was a bride. And for me, that was the first time I had felt that way. And I had no idea what to do with that…but smile.

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A few weeks back, J called me and we had the rare opportunity for the extended phone call. We hit all the life mechanics, bills and work and health and future planning—had some good laughs; told some bad jokes. But as we were getting ready to hang up, the conversation went a little something like this.

“I called your parents today. I talked to your mom for awhile and then she put your dad on the phone and we talked for a bit as well.”

“My dad got on the phone and talked to you? He didn’t just yell hello from across the room?”

“No, we talked for like 5 minutes.”

Long pause.

“Dude, I think my parents think we’re really serious about this marriage thing.”

Longer pause.

“Crap. Does that mean I have to get rid of all my other boyfriends?”

“I think I’m close to telling you yes.”

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As I have already mentioned, I was in the wedding of two of my best friends this last weekend. Unlike her, I’m having a very small bridal party (just three girls…lest I have 14. It’s a seriously slippery slope for me after 3.) Anyway, the bride from this last weekend is one of my three girls, and so we have sort of been planning our weddings together. And by “planning together” I mean, I listened to her horror stories about high holy wedding drama and I took notes in the background as to what I should and should not do when I get around to mine (in a forthcoming and far more thoughtful post I will talk more about this weekend, which was in my estimation maybe the nicest wedding I’ve ever been to…so clearly, her every-other-day threat of scraping it all and eloping was unnecessary.)

But somewhere in my head, the phrase “I don’t need to plan my wedding yet. C’s wedding isn’t even here yet. I’ve got TONS of time!” just kept repeating over and over again. No worries! I’ve got FOREVER.

It was about halfway through the evening when the text-message-exchange-of-reality was sent.

J: Hi baybay. How’s the wedding going?

ME: Amazing. I miss you and wish you were here with me.

J: I miss you too. Just think, the next one of these we’ll be at will be our own.

Annnnnnd…I felt like throwing up. Heart suddenly racing, I seriously grabbed the wall to hold me steady. If there could have been a cartoon bubble over my head, it would have been filled with asterisks and pound signs and jumbled characters covering my not-appropriate-for-cartoon- sentiments. Right there in the middle of the reception. Our wedding is up next. The next time I see many of the people who were at the wedding this weekend will be at my wedding.

My wedding.

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So what’s the moral of the story? (What have you learned?) Well friends. It’s like this. It seems that I’m actually getting married. And that while long engagements are good, at some point, you gotta put on your planning hat and get to work (lest you drive your organization down the crapper with all stories and no details. See what I did there? I tied it all back to the original story.) This thing is real. And while I have been comfortable (and excited!) for awhile about marrying J and living happily ever after and all the rest of it, come to find out, this wedding business is gonna take a bit of planning and work (who knew?)

And so, while I swore it would not happen, that I wasn’t going to be *that* bride, I’m officially declaring that I *think* it’s time for a binder. Those who know me know what this means- it’s gonna get ugly (and by ugly, I mean alphabetized and color coded.) (An aside- Least favorable nickname ever bestowed upon me? The Binder Bitch. I suppose it was the most accurate though…) I’ll have to work at finding the sweet spot- somewhere just a notch or two down from Bridezilla must lay “organized and prepared.” And that, my friends, I shall be. Like a Boy Scout. Because surprisingly, without me realizing it was happening, this wedding business is on