32 days and wedding presents

Last evening, I kept Twinkie awake by "encouraging" her to help me spend some time on our online wedding planning program (thank you Martha Stewart). We prepared and sent out our final few invites and recorded the latest responses that we have received.

We have 32 days to go til the big day, and only 50% of people have RSVP'd! Some of those are friends and we know they are coming - but we will still have to hound them to make that all-important decision - Fowl, Cow or Fish! Some people just haven't responded. Twinkie finds that surprising - but truth be told, I am usually the person who receives an invite, commits to it internally, then promptly loses the paper. I am always shocked when someone calls to invite me to an event that I clearly want to attend, and have already passively responded to, in my own mind, and yet they seem oblivious.

I don't know about most people, but I think long and hard about wedding gifts. I'm not wealthy, so I can't give people the things I want to give them, like a cottage, a plane, a pot-belly pig or a farm. So I try to think hard, and that is where I get into trouble. I'm much better and less creative when there is a registry.

Every time I leave my house with my clothes on and my hair dry and presentable, I thank the gods. It is a miracle. So leaving the house, clean and dry, with a wedding present in my arms, is an even bigger miracle. In fact, such a big miracle that it doesn't often happen.

For one wedding, I received a thank you card and the inside said "Thank you for attending our wedding". It was then I realized that the the wedding gift card with the wedding gift I had meant to mail was still sitting on the buffet at home. Oops. I'd like to say that this doesn't happen often. But I would be lying. Currently, upstairs, in a box, is the wedding present that just arrived for my brother and his wife. They were married four months ago. It is a pretty neat gift, but still ...

However, now we are on the other end of wedding gifts. It is an odd place to be. People keep asking us what we want and we just don't know what to say. But people want to give us something. People want us to know. People want a registry.

And it won't matter to us if someone forgets their card or gift at home. Won't matter to us if it comes four months later or not at all. Sweet, though, that people want to give us something to mark the start of our life together. So ... after the 6th person asked about a registry, we are going to set one up. Apparently, you get to use the scanning gun to do it. How tremendously exciting and cool. Deep breaths and gratitude and holy sh** in one month we will be married!!!!!!

With presents and presence and AHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Yours in matrimony
Cupcake