Poor wee things.

The idea of desiccated seahorses as wedding decor makes me sad. And a little queasy. Lookit the little one on the upper left. All curled up into itself. Oy. Are these the kinds of people that pour salt on snails to get the party started?

Laura, one totally honorable maiden

Given that I met my future husband at a demolition derby, it seems only appropriate that I met my best friend and maid of honor Laura Konrad in the front row of a heavy metal concert. Well, it was Henry Rollins during his spoken-word phase, which may or may not count as heavy metal. Being sprinkled by a heavily tattooed rock star’s sweat and spittle was a formative bonding experience. We immediately developed a liking for each other, despite the fact that I was wearing a bandana that day!

Laura experienced the entire breadth of my relationship with Nick, from the tender beginnings of him as the “really cute American guy with the cool car” to ”the love of my life, whom I’m marrying in 75 days.” And Laura taught Nick his first German phrases! Imagine my surprise when he busted out “Jana ist das schoenste und kluegste Maedchen der Welt”* on the way back from KC one night. Very. Impressed.

Today, through some miraculous twist of fate, we live only seven blocks apart on the same street in Brooklyn. But we’re no longer the sarcastic, sometimes macabre, chain-smoking, artsy, book-devouring German girls we were back then. We both quit smoking.

* “Jana is the most beautiful and intelligent girl in the world.”

Request a song

Originally, our plan had been to include a line on the RSVP card that would allow you, our most beloved guests, to suggest a song (or songs) we might play at the wedding reception. However, post office regulations intervened; we had to sacrifice that space to leave room for markings the US Postal Service likes to smear on the bottom half of postcards.

So here, now, is your opportunity to request a song. We will try to make it happen. I suppose I don't need to mention that the macarena is off limits. And Nick requested the right to veto anything by Barry Manilow, Lionel Richie, KISS, and Mastodon. I'm not sure if it makes me cool or a loser that I've never even heard of Mastodon.

Regardless. Feel free to leave your request in the comments section of this entry.

Heady Mixtures

The RSVP cards have begun rolling in, reminding me how wonderful it is to find actual mail stuffed in next to my Fake Native American Goods and Discount Bedding catalogs. First prize (maybe a warm handshake, maybe a hug, I haven't decided yet) goes to Nick and Maria, whose RSVP card trundled in three days ago all by its lonesome. They do live two blocks away, however, and thus might have an unfair advantage.

Lots of you have been remarking about how much you like the invites. It must be said, at this point, that while I sat in the cushy art director's chair, most of the heavy lifting on these invites was done by genius and Canadian (those traits appear to go hand-in-hand) illustrator Tavis Coburn and his infinitely patient and lovely assistant, Patrick Gray. I first worked with Tavis at Outside magazine a few years ago, and his illustrations have appeared in pretty much every magazine cluttering newsstands today. At the rate he's going, Patrick won't be far behind. Check out both of their web sites: taviscoburn.com and grayillustration.com.

Last but definitely not least I have to thank the guys at V+V Sofortdruck GmbH in Germany. Whew. Try saying that three times fast. Anyway. They printed AND trimmed the invites for free, saving me hours of tears, sweat and colorful nervous breakdowns. No doubt my invites would've clogged the printers at the office in some disastrous and impossible-to-extract manner. And it's not like I could do what people usually do in those situations. Walk away, whistling a jaunty tune, later exclaiming: "WHAT?! Somebody broke the printer? Well...I haven't printed anything to that printer in three weeks!" 'Cause the invites got my name on 'em. So finding the culprit is a no-brainer. I've thought this through, as you can tell. But I--as usual--digress. It's unlikely that the folks at Sofortdruck will ever read this blog but I am nevertheless publicly thanking them. Herewith.

I would like to close by saying that as the wedding draws nearer, I am beset by a heady mixture of joy and anxiety. Last night brought the wedding nightmare tally up to three, and they are getting increasingly stuh-range:
1) Dreamt that I was an hour and a half late for the ceremony. But, thankfully, Nick had anticipated my being late and lied to me about the start of the festivities. Thus, I was only half an hour late. Hmmm. Highly unlikely. But on the weirdness scale, I give it a 1 out of 10.
2) Dreamt that my purple strapless dress (as if) fell down during the ceremony, thus causing me to expose myself to the entire assembled crowd. In addition, my hair had turned to straw. I give that one a 3.5.
3) In what a think was a 9 on this scale, I encountered some kind of slug-like deep-sea creature that had washed ashore. Naturally it washed ashore on land with no water in sight. In the Swiss alps, to be exact. Equally naturally I hugged it, as one does, and quickly developed a terrible rash that covered both my arms, causing them to swell up grotesquely and quite possibly leading to death. And in the dream I clearly remember myself saying to Nick not "My dearest, rush me to the nearest hospital!" but "God, I hope this clears up before the wedding."

Love Flute

This morning, I spent too much time frantically doing last-minute hair research. Yeah. Really. I put these things off. I'm having my second and hopefully last hair consultation (which makes it sound so official, like I'm thinking of having my hair replaced with bigger, faster, shinier hair) this evening. The beautiful Megan Miller recommended the salon, so I'm sure they'll blow that other lady (see cartoon from a few weeks ago) out of the water.

Because all Internet roads lead to depressing wedding blogs, I clicked through a few (hundred) pages worth of "Once Wed." There, I came across the image above, which amused me greatly. The wedding in question had a Frida Kahlo theme. Ehm. Hello-ooo? Couldn't think of a more tumultuous wedding to conceptualize? And did someone bust out this "love flute" and noodle a romantic tune during the ceremony? Or is that suggestion just gross and inappropriate? Chad? Laura? Claire? Any interest?

And, on a somewhat separate note, why are flutes always "lilting"? And how can kisses be guided by lilting? Guided where? To the flute? Gross.

This will be my last pointless snarky entry. Promise.

Keep an eye out for a garish 9x6 envelope in your mailbox.

I sat on a full sheet of stamps, suffered a tongue-papercut while sealing envelopes (glue none to tasty, I'd like to report), and came thiiiis close to tossing my Epson out the window, but I'm pleased to announce that the wedding invites are in the mail. Well, most of them. I ran out of stamps. Just a few more to go tonight and this party is officially on.

PS: The carrier pigeon above is not in the mail delivery business. Instead he appears to be of the camera-toting variety. Not content-related but funny. I would imagine that camera is pretty heavy; seems like the pigeon would end up having to walk everywhere, which probl defeats the purpose. Sorry. Too much coffee this morning.