Heels kicking up!

My workplace is mostly female, but once upon a time we had one amiable boy among us, and when he got engaged and his wedding date drew near we thought it would be HILARIOUS if all us girls took him to Hooters for his "bachelorette" party. And we did, and it was awesomely fun, and spawned a tradition whereby whenever any of us got a new job or had a wedding date approaching we'd take her (like I said, there was only one boy) to Hooters for some wings and $2.50 Bud Lights.

Last night was my turn, and this morning I've got the headache (and the balloons) to prove it.

And in what is extending into an entire bachelorette weekend, tonight I am off to the Midwest for a college girl reunion, complete with makeup trial, Mall of America shopping, and ... other things I don't know about since apparently all of the email planning exchanges have deliberately excluded me. I can't WAIT!

Scallops.

The perfect beach wedding dress, don't you think? Click the photo for detailing. Via Erin Ever After.

Still three and a half weeks to go. Time is moving so slowly!

Glass slippers.

These are the shoes I first saw in a magazine that made me want pale blue shoes for my wedding.

Ten months and many shoe shopping sites later, I gave up on that idea. I couldn't find shoes in a blue that pleased me, and this specific pair are Christian Louboutins (which is translated in English as "way out of my price range").

Instead I bought silver ones from Macy's in a sinfully exact knockoff style. The heel is much shorter and there's a strap across the ankle and they are, as I said, silver and not blue, but the toe design is ridiculously, probably illegally, similar. I love them so much I don't mind that they poke out slightly from under my dress.

Three and a half weeks!

Photo via Elizabeth Anne Designs.

Somewhere, my teenage self just fainted.

When I was a young teenager...I forget how old...maybe 12 to 14 or 13 to 15 or so...anyway, there was a period in my adolescence where, don't laugh, but I loved Robert Redford. I watched almost every single one of his movies, and if you name one of his movies right now I can tell you what year it's from without looking it up. I know what his three kids are named, what high school he went to, what college he dropped out of, etc...I was ridiculous. I laugh to think about it, amused by the fact that had I been born 20 years earlier, all the other '70s girls around me would have shared my starry eyes.

Six days before our wedding, Chris and I are running in the Race for the Cure in the morning (see my earlier post). That afternoon the Brooklyn Academy of Music, to which I got Chris a membership for Christmas, is sponsoring four screenings: Out of Africa, The Natural, The Electric Horseman, and The Way We Were. With post-screening interviews attended by the Sundance Kid himself.

Chris just got us tickets to The Electric Horseman (our guess as to the least crowded, although knowing Brooklyn...I mean, the All the President's Men screening on Saturday, our first choice, sold out in a matter of minutes).

I am so totally marrying the perfect man. What a cool way to kick off our wedding week.

MELT.

I can't type captions because I'm too choked up! My grandparents with their first great-grandchild, Lucia Marie.

Important.

In the time since I wrote my earlier lighthearted posts, I've gotten some sad news. Someone in my extended family-by-marriage has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, someone with three young children.

I've been more than fortunate in my life not to have had anyone directly related to me diagnosed with cancer. But I've seen it hit lives all around me. My fiance's dear father passed away of a brain tumor. My former roommate's mother lost her battle with breast cancer last summer. My stepdad's beloved first wife also died of cancer. A work friend quit her job this summer to move closer to her mother, also suffering from cancer...and a close college friend saw her mother through chemo and mastectomies for breast cancer while meanwhile debating her own options, having been told she too has the gene. She's not yet 30.

What an evil, horrifying plague that is darkening the lives of so many.

I was already signed up for my second year of the Race for the Cure, but I had set my fundraising goal rather low, feeling worried about asking people for money in a year in which I am also asking them to travel to my wedding. I no longer feel sheepish.

Please donate to the cause of curing cancer. I will be running on Sept. 13 in honor of all of the people mentioned above. Your support, even if it is only $1, will hopefully help in defeating this terrible curse. If you are debating between a wedding gift and this, I would rather have this! It's got to be stopped.

Ring a ding ding!

Also,

we got our rings last night! For some reason Chris's ring in particular makes me super giddy. I think it's the same thing that happened to my friend Traci, where she said seeing her fiance try on rings was really incredible.

This is really happening!

(That's what my dad said last night when I told him we had rented a port-a-potty for the site. "Can't back out now!" :-p)