I was still hung up on the look and feel of that place, Etu Moana, in the Cook Islands. Every couple gets their own villa, which is decorated in a Zen, minimalist sort of way, with bamboo floors and Asian-inspired decor. I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t a single resort like this in all of the Caribbean. I spent hours searching for one, then I gave up. I told Paul to just pick a place. Nothing was going to make me happy, so I didn’t care where we went.

Then I found it.

Hermitage Bay in Antigua is the same basic concept as Etu Moana: there are just 25 villas and everyone gets their own. Plus, honeymooners get a free upgrade to villas on a hill with sublime views of the ocean (well, it’s a bay, but it’s a sandy beach with turquoise water) and private plunge pools. There’s only one restaurant at the all-inclusive resort, but the food is rated as top-notch and served in an open-air dining room. Water sports, not that Paul and I are so water sporty, are included, too. And they will even pack you a picnic lunch and bring you to a private beach.

And despite its seclusion and minimalistic-ness, the villas have air conditioning, flat-screen TVs, and DVD players. Some of my friends said, “You’re on your honeymoon! You don’t need a TV!” but we do! As much as we love each other, and love talking to each other, being in a TV-less room together for a week is not our idea of a vacation. And hey, if prisoners in jail get to watch TV, why is it such a crime for honeymooners to?

The resort setting is reminiscent of French Polynesia, but Antigua’s actually in the Caribbean, just like the rest of those islands in the Beach Boys’ song, Kokomo. A couple people I told didn’t even realize it was in the Caribbean. As silly as it is, I like it that way. I want the people who read my wedding announcement to see my honeymoon destination and think, ooh, exotic. Not, oh, predictable.

Paul was sold on Hermitage Bay, too. We didn’t want to overanalyze, so we decided to book. I delegated the duty of reserving our villa to Paul, who called Antigua from his cell phone.

“You need Wendy. She’s the only one who can take reservations,” the man on the phone told him. “She only works Monday - Friday, 9 - 5. Call back then.”

But we both work those hours, and hadn’t been taking lunch breaks because we were so busy, so we had to wait til one of us was off from work to book. I got sick and was home for four days, so that job fell on me. One $11.82 phone call later, we had a honeymoon. We booked our flights online that night, and were all set!

Except now the TripAdvisor reviews, which were 100% glowing, are full of complaints about rampant mosquitoes. Fabulous. Hopefully the beauty and tranquility of the place will overshadow the itchy bites.

Photo courtesy of The Hermitage.

Countdown to the wedding: 201 days

Aaron and I are in Boston enjoying the last leg of our Thanksgiving vacation. Spending the holiday with Megan and Quentin was fabulous—they were such gracious hosts and it was so great to catch up with them. We spent all of Friday shopping and the rest of the weekend . . . well, shopping. All in all, the vacation was a much-needed break from the insanity we’ve experienced over the past couple of weeks.

This Thanksgiving was special because it was the first Thanksgiving that Aaron and I spent together. It was also my second Thanksgiving away from home—I did the first one when I was studying abroad in Oxford in 2004. I admit that I got a little homesick about midway through our holiday, but then I talked to Aaron about it and he said that he was a little homesick too. I felt better talking to him about it, and I realized that soon Aaron and I will create our own holiday traditions, and that made me really happy.

One holiday tradition that we will inevitably fight over is the Thanksgiving Jell-o. I first realized the emotionally charged nature of this subject when we went to visit Megan and Quentin during my birthday trip to Boston. Megan asked me if there were any special family dishes I wanted to include on our Thanksgiving menu, and I told her that my family makes red Jell-o with bananas and serves it as a side dish during the main meal. Aaron overheard our conversation and mentioned that his family also serves Jell-o at the dinner table, except the Jello-is green and contains cottage cheese, pecans, and pineapples. I told him that that sounded disgusting, and he said that mine didn’t sound much better.

This weekend Megan provided the materials for both of us to make our respective Jell-o dishes, and I am pleased to announce that my red Jell-o masterpiece was roundly applauded as the more delicious and turkey-friendly Jell-o dish. Aaron has yet to come to the same conclusion.

During some down time I started researching more honeymoon ideas, and generally got frustrated with the whole situation. Las Vegas was our best idea yet, but the more I think about it, the more something feels “off” about that location. I can imagine going on a rollicking trip to Vegas with my girlfriends, but somehow a honeymoon in Vegas just isn’t jiving with me. Part of that is due to the fact that I went back to our original brainstorm about the subject, and our top priorities are relaxation and a romantic location. Las Vegas can offer both of those things to some degree, but I don’t want to feel bad if I end up relaxing in the hotel for most of the trip instead of experiencing all that the city has to offer.

So then I started researching hotels. I came across the St. Regis in Aspen, which looks like a very nice resort, although I read some so-so reviews on TripAdvisor.com. Then we came up with another idea: spend a night or two at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay, and then move on to an awesome hotel in Napa like the Auberge du Soleil. The locations are close enough so that we can drive there from Los Gatos, which means that we can use the money we would have spent on airfare to get an even cooler set of hotel rooms.

Who knows if this idea will actually work out, but I do know that I’ve spent a lot of time planning the honeymoon that I think I should have as opposed to the one I actually want. The bottom line is that wherever we go is going to be awesome—as long as they aren’t serving green Jell-o.

Unlike most other aspects of the wedding, Paul had lots of opinions on the honeymoon. My ideal vacation would have been renting a house in Tuscany or Provence. “No Europe,” Paul stipulated. He wanted to be by the beach.

I found this amazing place in the Cook Islands called Etu Moana, but it would take three planes to get there. “No long trips,” Paul said. I guess I agreed with him. Even with my TV in front of me on my Jet Blue flight to Oregon, I was stir-crazy by the fourth hour of the ride. How would I last during a 13-hour trip?

So I looked into resorts in the Riviera Maya. “No Mexico,” Paul said. “But it’s close and by the beach!” I insisted. “I just don’t want to go to Mexico,” he explained. Paul’s sister and her boyfriend loved the place they went to in Cabo, but her boyfriend got food poisoning toward the end of the trip. That’s the last thing I’d want on my honeymoon. Mexico was out.

We didn’t do it on purpose, but we then considered honeymoon options straight from the song “Kokomo,” by the Beach Boys.

Aruba: Paul’s parents raved about it after they vacationed there, and his aunt and uncle went there on their honeymoon. It was certainly affordable, but I just couldn’t find a hotel that felt luxurious enough to warrant honeymooning there. And each hotel in the main drag seemed to be crawling with kids, which neither of us wanted.

Jamaica: My friend got engaged there and said the place was beautiful, but my mom knew someone who got killed on vacation there, and that was enough for me to remove it from my list.

Ooh, I wanna take ya, to…

Bermuda: Pink sand, cool architecture–sign me up! But Paul took a cruise there with his family a few years ago. “I want to go somewhere new,” he told me.

Bahama[s]: Paul’s cousins raved about their honeymoon to Sandals in St. Lucia, which was brand new when they went. They suggested we go to the Sandals in the Bahamas because it was even newer. But the rooms didn’t look so spectacular online, and I hate their commercials, so I felt I shouldn’t go on principle.

Come on pretty mama…

Since Kokomo’s not real (or, rather, it is real, but it’s in Indiana), we ventured away from the lyrics. We considered the CuisinArt resort in Anguilla (looks amazing, but gets mixed reviews, and the rooms are vaguely school cafeteria-like), Parrot Cay in Turks and Caicos (a big celebrity hangout, they raised their regular people prices to rich and famous levels for 08), and splitting our time between a 3-star hotel in St. Martin/St. Maarten and a swanky St. Barths one (but we decided we’d rather stay put and relax in one spot).

I scoured TripAdvisor for ideas and I found one that had just about everything we wanted. I’ll tell you more about it next week.

Countdown to the wedding: 209 days

One step forward, two steps back. That’s how Aaron’s mom used to describe Aaron’s progress toward good behavior back in the days when he was a little hellion, although these days it’s also an apt description of our progress toward having the perfect wedding and honeymoon. Although I’m no longer in the “Argh!” state encapsulated by my previous post, we’re still dealing with the following issues:

The Honeymoon
Remember how everything was fine and dandy when we decided to go to Paris for our honeymoon? Well, Aaron looked into airline reservations for the ever-popular week of our wedding, and we’d be spending about $3,000 between the two of us just to get there and back. I really want to go to Paris with him at some point in our lives, but it would be a bummer to spend all this money and not get to stay in a particularly nice hotel or do everything we wanted to do just because we were flying out during one of the most popular weeks of the year. The new plan is to brainstorm places in the continental United States that are fun and romantic. A few ideas: staying at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay, going down to the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, and . . . Viva La Vegas, baby! I was a little skeptical of that last idea at first, but now it’s kind of growing on me.

The Registry
I suddenly realized last night that we had been duped by our wedding registry. Macy’s automatically calculates how many gifts you should register for based on the size of your guest list—I said that we’d be inviting about 250 people (which turned out to be a conservative estimate), so Macy’s said we should register for about 350 gifts. But what I remembered in the middle of the night last night is that even though we may be inviting close to 300 people, we’re extending about 180 invitations because many of those guests are part of the same family. So now I am regretting adding the Amazon registry in addition to our Macy’s registry, because we have to pare down both in order to provide our guests with an appropriate number of gift options.

The Dress
I sent off the bridesmaid dress info packets to my bridesmaids along with a little makeup bag from Victoria’s Secret as an early thank you, so that’s all squared away. But what about my dress? It’s hanging up in my room in Los Gatos, but I have to figure out how I’m going to get it fitted on the few occasions that I will be back in town before the wedding. I’ll be in the Bay Area over the holidays, but what’s the point of tailoring the dress to my eggnog-bloated body six months before the event? I want to get in shape, but I don’t want my dress to hang off of me by the time the event rolls around.

Thank goodness next week is Thanksgiving. We’re going up to Boston to celebrate the holiday with Quentin and Megan, and I absolutely cannot wait to get there. I’m trying to cram in all my work this weekend so I can relax up until we get back to New York. Time to get crackin’!

A few months ago, I had my first wedding nightmare: I forgot to buy shoes, so, with ten minutes before my ceremony, I went shopping, and bought the only pair of white shoes the store had in my size. They were clunky patent leather Mary Janes with fat heels. I ran out of the store, and a heel came off before I got to the ceremony. I woke up in a cold sweat.

A couple of weeks ago, I dreamt that it was the morning of my wedding. I was all dressed and made up, but I didn’t have shoes. I was searching through my closet in my parents’ house for my prom shoes (which, at one point, were going to be my something old, until I saw how yellowed they’ve become) but it was taking hours. Cold sweat. Again.

I realized that until I bought shoes, I’d keep having these dreams, so I set out to find a pair. I searched Macy’s in Manhattan. Nothing. Same with Lord and Taylor. For my birthday, I met my two best friends from college, Melissa and Emily, in Boston. We agreed that getting me wedding shoes for my birthday would be a great gift. We searched Nordstrom. Nothing. Then we went to this wedding shoe store, Shoes to Dye For. I was SURE I’d find the perfect pair there. I tried on a few, but one had no cushioning, so it was like wearing wood, one made my already wide feet look even fatter, and the other’s heel was so high, I could barely walk.

When I got back to New York, I obsessively searched online. I decided to look for silver shoes, since it was so hard to find white ones I could dye to be off-white. Plus, silver would pick up the sparkle in my dress, and I could probably wear them as a bridesmaid in my other friend Emily’s wedding the October after mine. When I told someone about my color choice, she said, “Silver shoes? I’ve never heard of a bride wearing that.” Annoying, but whatever.

I sent a few options I had found to my friends and narrowed it down to a couple. I went to try them on in a store, but they didn’t have the shoes in my huge size 9. So I blindly ordered one from piperlime.com because they offer free return shipping, and I was sure I’d need to return them.

Yesterday, I stayed home from work because I had (and still have!) a nasty cold. When the doorbell rang in the middle of the afternoon, I knew my shoes had arrived. I ripped open the box, and tried them on right away. I was quite the sight: sick girl in pajamas and high heels watching the Golden Girls. I walked around a bit. They’re not super comfortable, but they’re not painful. So they’re a definite…um…maybe.
I’d love to find equally gorgeous shoes with a lower heel (these are three inches), but for now, at least these’ll stave off my nightmares.

Countdown to the wedding: 214 days

I’ve never considered myself a particularly frivolous person, but it’s absolutely incredible how silly wedding details can take on a life of their own, and even the most inconsequential situations can seem like the end of the world.

Take the registry, for example. We happily filled our Macy’s registry with every gravy boat, candy dish, and crock pot we could possibly want, only to realize that with a guest list quickly approaching 300 (not to mention dozens of RSVPs in response to our Save the Dates) that we need to register for nearly 150 more gifts in order to give our guests plenty of options. I know, I know—how sad that I have to find more things for people to buy me! But considering the fact that our registration experience at Macy’s nearly killed us, the thought of having to go through that process at another store made me want to cry.

We decided to do an additional registry at Amazon.com, which works out well because there’s no physical store to deal with. It’s also nice because we can register for fun things like DVDs and books. I realize that those aren’t traditional wedding gifts, but honestly, how many spatulas does a girl really need? I have a feeling that our younger friends may choose to buy things off of the Amazon list, whereas the older guests can use the Macy’s registry to get the things we’ll have forever—like china, crystal, etc.

We’ve received a lot of great feedback about the Save the Dates, but I was frustrated on my mom’s behalf because Aaron and I did not receive the magnets she sent to us. Not a big deal in the long run, but it was an extremely stressful situation at the time because we started worrying about how all the registry gifts would get to us if two medium envelopes got lost in the mail. Plus, my mom put a lot of work into those silly Save the Dates, and I felt terrible that I didn’t get to see them in a timely fashion and thank her accordingly.

We solved part of the mystery last week, when my mom received my Save the Date with the apartment number crossed out and the word “Ask?” on it. The label I had sent her to affix to my magnet was addressed to Aaron’s apartment, so the mail carrier probably saw that the last names didn’t match and sent it back. But that doesn’t explain why Aaron’s letter never arrived. In any case, my mom sent us another set—this time, one to my apartment and one to his—and they arrived in under four days.

I can feel my stress level rising as we get progressively closer to crunch time, and suddenly little things that don’t bother me are amplified beyond explanation. Not helping the matter is the fact that New York is now enjoying some early winter weather, which is festive and wonderful except when you have to schlep your things back and forth between two apartments and neither of them feel like home. I don’t like to complain, but I can’t help but feel a little grouchy right now and homesick for California and my family.

This is the part where I go to the Container Store to alleviate my stress. They have a lovely little organizer there for all of your problems. Talk to you soon!

Before we got engaged, I imagined keeping our engagement a secret from most people until we sent out our save-the-dates–which we would do right away, because we would have a short engagement (how wrong I was). I imagined announcing our impending nuptials in holiday cards. They would say, “Happy holidays–We’re engaged!” and would feature a photo of us in fuzzy sweaters in front of Paul’s parents’ fireplace. The cards would be navy with glittery snowflakes, and as soon as our friends and relatives received them, the congratulations calls would come pouring in.

After my holiday card plan was foiled (Paul thought it was “way too corny,” among other reasons), I figured we could pay homage to our storied past in our save-the-dates. So we decided to use that photo of us from our 8th grade banquet and juxtapose it with a recent photo, one of the few engagement photos we liked.

I looked into getting them printed up, but soon learned that when you add photos to personalized cards, the price skyrockets. We wanted to keep the cards under $1 each, but, unfortunately, the under $1 options were limited…and nasty-looking. I’m talking hunter green rectangles and cards that looked like they were tree bark. I sent the few decent ones to my friend Anastasia, a graphic designer, to get her opinion on which was the least heinous.

“Why don’t you just let me make you a save-the-date?” she asked.

I hadn’t thought of that. I didn’t want to impose on her, so I offered to pay her, but she wouldn’t take it.

A couple of weeks later, I had this great save-the-date design! Anastasia recreated the stylized flowers from our invitations and made our two photos look like they were hanging up. She added my cheesy text, and it was ready. We just needed to figure out how to print these up.

Paul had just assumed we’d treat the file as a photo, and use Snapfish.com, a photo sharing and printing site, to make copies. It was a good call–even at 5×7 size, the cards were just 40 cents each.

I then became obsessed with finding pretty envelopes. I thought 5×7 envelopes would be easy to track down because that’s the size of greeting card envelopes. Sadly, the lady in Hallmark let me know that I couldn’t purchase “just the envelopes.” I looked online and found cool, metallic ones, but they cost more than the actual cards. Tired of searching, I bought this pastel envelope set from Staples. They were 6×8-size, a little bigger than I needed, but it became clear that I’d never find pretty, inexpensive 5×7 ones.
The prints came in. So cute! I had addressed most of the envelopes when we found out we’d need to switch venues. So frustrating. I didn’t want to bug Anastasia to make us a new one, so we changed the text ourselves, which was hard to do since we didn’t have the exact font Anastasia used. But Paul scoured the internet and found a font that was close enough. I readdressed envelopes (because, foolishly, I had sealed all of the save-the-dates), and we sent them out.

I thought we’d get calls from everybody when they received them, but just a couple of people called to let us know that they thought they were cute. Oh well. They just better send back the response cards when the invites go out!

Countdown to the wedding: 222 days

Today, Aaron and I finally took the plunge: we registered at the legendary Herald Square Macy’s. The experience was exhausting, and we only hit two of the store’s nine floors! Not to mention the fact that we only registered for 45 items, when the store suggests that we register for 350 based on our guest list. Something tells me that there will be A LOT more registering ahead of us.

Our first stop was the official bridal registry department, where we met with a Macy’s representative who just so happened to be from Palo Alto. Even weirder, we found out after a few moments of conversation that she was present at a private a cappella concert Aaron’s college a cappella group gave his freshman year. She gave us several brochures, a checklist, an electronic scanner, and a complimentary tote bag in which to carry around our paperwork. She probably should have given us a margarita as well.

We got off to a rough start in the stemware department. Aaron is obsessed with Riedel wine glasses, so we got a few of those. After a few moments of discussion, we also registered for a bar set. And martini glasses. And not one, but TWO decanters. Also a cocktail shaker. After about forty minutes we had only two things checked off of our checklist and enough barware to open our own pub.

Now, I am more than willing to register for whatever our little hearts desire, but the truth is that Aaron and I aren’t huge drinkers beyond the occasional glass of wine or cocktail. Plus, we both agree that once we start a family we want to severely limit all alcohol consumption. I perhaps not-so-subtly brought up these points, and then began venting my frustration about the organization of the fine crystal. Aaron wisely decided that it was time for us to grab a snack.

After lunch, I decided that it was time to even out our registry with a trip to the kitchen appliances department. I sort of went a little crazy with that scanner thing. Toasters, food processors, irons, coffee makers . . . it’s all on our registry. Then I came across my dream gift: the pink KitchenAid mixer, which I have coveted since approximately September 23rd, 2005 at 3:33 PM. I know that that very statement just set back women’s rights about two decades, but I can’t help loving ol’ Pink. I beeped that mixer with my scanner thingy and immediately felt better about life.

Two hours, three fights, and one pastry later, we left Macy’s too exhausted to try to kill each other. Yay!

They say that when the wedding’s over, all guests remember are the food and the entertainment. But despite this, I decided to focus on flowers. In writing some magazine articles about reception decor, I fell in love (okay, became obsessed) with flowers. I clipped photos of bouquets from magazines and put them in a folder that’s now too heavy for me to lift.

When I saw this amazing, all-purple bouquet on a commercial for the short-lived series “The Wedding Bells,” I paused the commercial with my DVR so I could closely examine the bouquet and determine what type each bloom was. I’m modeling my bouquet after that one. It’s going to have purple anemones (they have dark centers like sunflowers), pinkish-lavender cymbidium orchids, pinkish-lavender peonies, lavender roses, and probably some white flowers to make it a bit more “bridal.”

My vision for my centerpieces, however, was as fuzzy as my bouquet vision was clear. We met with our florist, Flowers by Bernard in Staten Island, the only local florist that was both affordable and able to do modern arrangements–the type that are free of white lilies and baby’s breath.

I tried to explain what I wanted in my centerpieces.

“They should be purple. Maybe orchids? With branches. And tall. Ooh, and I want crystals. And candles! And I don’t want a plain vase with clear water.”

Our designer, Irving, feverishly took notes as I gave my stream-of-consciousness description. Then he drew up a price. These would be $100 each. Not so bad! But we could only afford to have these on half the tables. The rest would be low centerpieces. Oh, yeah, and we needed a chuppah, a Jewish bridal canopy.

“That’s $450.”

I didn’t anticipate that, considering that a chuppah is just a wall-less structure draped in fabric. To balance things out, we decided to reuse our six bridesmaids’ bouquets as centerpieces after the ceremony (shh…don’t tell anyone). This saved us about $400!

Irving said that we should come back to the shop to see a sample centerpiece he’d make just for us. On the way there a few weeks later, I was so nervous I was going to hate what he created. It took me three trials to like my hair and makeup, how could I possibly be satisfied with the first shot on the centerpiece?

I spotted my centerpiece in the back corner of the shop as soon as Paul and I walked through the door. I squealed with delight. I couldn’t get over how great it looked! It was all dendrobium orchids, curly willow branches, and some greenery to fill it out. There were orchids submerged in the vase, so it was purple from top to bottom. He scattered petals around the vase, and would do this on our tables, too. But my favorite, FAVORITE part were the hanging tealight candles. Teardrop-shaped crystals dripped from the wrought iron votives holding the candles. My only minor criticism was that the orchids were plum, instead of lavender or a true purple like I wanted, but plum is probably classier, anyway.

So, what do you think?