Coming into Focus

I'm not a big fan of blog-as-confessional. Generally, I don't think baring your soul on the internet will lead to good things. Just ask that girl from Gawker. But bear with me as this post will be partially personal.

I don't like relinquishing control of anything, and right now, with my sister being sick, there's a major element of my life that I can't control. Both she and I are afraid and worried, and know that it's a possibility that she may not be able to attend the wedding at all, what with planes being major germ incubators. Heck, even a healthy person usually can't set foot on a plane without catching a cold. So needless to say, I'm having a hard time balancing the whole joy about getting married with the worry about my sister. Sometimes it causes me to freak out. So the first part of my blog-as-confessional is to say to anyone who may be or has already been subject to a wedding related freakout, I'm sorry. Just know that I'm trying to cope, and it's not always easy. So if I seem unusually worried about a particular detail, it's just because I'm trying to hold on to whatever it is that I can control.

My whole philosophy as a bride from day one of our engagement was to be the anti-bridezilla. To roll with the punches, not stress on the details, and encourage everyone to just have fun with the whole thing. So descending down this path of stress and worry, I ask myself everyday, "Am I turning into a bridezilla?" My biggest fear is becoming "that" bride, the one that everyone dreads. One of my friends recently shared her thoughts about the whole bridezilla moniker with me. She pointed out that every bride (and groom!), no matter how cool, no matter how grounded, will have moments that freak them out. Stress so bad that it seems to dwarf everything else. And that's OK. Having a momentary freakout is OK, so long as you don't yell at anyone, call them an idiot and make them cry. Which I haven't done, so I think I'm still safe.

Part two of my blog-as-confessional is to a plea to our friends and family that are attending: have a good time. Have a blast. Help me stay true to my original vision of the event. Remember that a wedding is, despite all the emphasis on how it is the "most important" day of our lives, a party. An expensive party, sure, but a party nonetheless. The important part, the marriage, lasts well beyond that day. So along those lines, if you are not able to attend for whatever reason -- you can't get time off work, can't get the kids out of school, it's too much of a financial burden -- that's OK. We understand. And to those of you that can attend and will, we are thrilled and hope to show you a really good time. And I hope that you'll also help remind me of this as well, when I start falling back into the state described above.

So, what will be a part of that really good time? I was hoping that it would include a photo booth. Rather than the traditional guest book, guests would step in front of one of our venues massive chalkboards, write a message to us, stand in front of it, and snap a picture. My initial idea was to have a user-friendly Polaroid 600 camera, so that guests could snap pictures of each other easily. But since the film has been discontinued, it's selling for a lot online, making it too cost prohibitive. My next idea is to use this old-school Laminex camera (pictured above) that I got for free with some Fuji instant film. This camera, however, is NOT user friendly. It's hard to pull the film out of the camera, and then you have to let it sit, peel it apart, and try not to get developer goo on your hands.

We first thought about assigning one of our friends to man the camera, but then didn't want to burden one of our guests by having them be tied to one spot all night instead of enjoying the party. So we're thinking of trying to find someone, a friend of a friend or a student or what have you, that we could bribe with a small sum and a free lunch to do the job. Know anyone that's interested?