Author: MASadmin

We’re not doing STDs.

I wonder if I’m the only one that has a really hard time seeing STD, STDs, STD on wedding boards and blogs and not automatically go back to 10th grade health class. Do you remember your STD lecture? I remember my STD lecture. And the slides. Those lovely lovely slides. They were very vivid and disgusting. I had that class right after lunch. Good times good times.

My fiancee and I decided to not do save the dates as a way to save money and also as a way to avoid waste and over exposing our friends to our wedding. As much as we are now “one of those couples that talk about their wedding all the time”, we try to avoid being like that too much. Sure, it’s a big part of our life right now but it’s not the only thing. We also have our cats, dogs, my job, uh….stuff we read on the internet, stuff we read on the news, my love for two ply tissue…um… Ok. I’ll think of some more stuff to talk about then.

Plus, most of our friends and family are on the internet. After telling our close friends and family about our engagement, we announced it on facebook. Everyone we’re going to invite is on facebook or knows someone who is. And if we’re not in normal communication with these people regularly, we decided to not invite them to our wedding. What’s the point in inviting your cousins that you haven’t spoken to in a dozen years to your big day only to ignore them again for another dozen years? That isn’t my style.

I understand the point of Save the Dates. I tend to book my flights and vacations many months in advance but if you need an extravagantly designed of cardboard to remind you that I’m getting married, booking a flight 3 months ahead of my wedding probably isn’t your style. You’ll still get the invitation six to eight weeks ahead of time which will probably work out just fine. And if not, then why don’t you log into your facebook and look at your news feed every once in awhile? We’ve only been talking about this on our wall for a year!

And yes, I know, blaming them is not the polite or smart thing to do and is also something I, and everyone else, wouldn’t try to do in real life but this goes back to my understanding of who should get invited to weddings. People should not be invited “just because”; that’s the easiest way to go completely broke while planning your wedding. Guests should consist of the active people in your life. Active, of course, is subjective and consist of the people you see every day or the people you think about every day but don’t see for years at a time. But, where cutting Save the Dates are a good way to save money, keeping your guest list trimmed this way is even better. That’s how I looked at my guest list even though my fiancee will then bring up the fact that I want to invite the Pope, the Queen, and the Obamas but, come on, they might come. You never know where they’ll be on a Saturday in April 2010.

My fiancee forwarded me a link to show me that engagement rings are getting artified.

And, of course, by artified, I mean that someone did a google image search on god awfully ugly rings and tried to come up with a statement on what an average bloke could buy on two months salary. Lee Gainer’s attempt at showing the differences in what you could get. The problem, of course, is that the rings exhibit no taste or design aesthetic and that, in my mind, actually detracts from what the artist was trying to get across to the viewer. Plus, the fact that it’s hard to distinguish each ring on the page from other rings shows, to me at least, that artist doesn’t understand where the expense in a ring comes from. And the part in their statement about the 3/4 carat ring in NYC ignores that fact that, in NYC, the overall prevailing wisdom is that if you’re going to get a traditional ring, you should aim for 1.5 carats if you have the type of job that lets you live in a trendy spot in Manhattan. That, of course, doesn’t fly in other parts of the country but, again, this is NYC after all. We’re kind of special here.

So what is this piece saying? From the artist’s statement, (and the comments from sites like Jezebel), I’m guessing that the overall point is to try and show one problem with materialism which can lead to the fact that overall value is associated with a paycheck and wealth. The problem, of course, is there is nothing in this piece that, at first glance, shows that. Sure, the A list actor rings are suppose to be larger but the rings are ugly and there is nothing about those diamonds that actually show where the cost differential lies. The 4 c’s aren’t apparent and anyone who has shopped for a diamond knows that is where the price difference comes in. I’ve seen plenty of big ugly diamonds being used in earrings or used as bling for wannabe rap stars. But I don’t know anyone who looks at those ugly ass diamonds and go “oooo”. I know that’s the effect that people who buy these diamonds try to get but it’s a fool’s errand. In my opinion, a more effective presentation, and way, for the artist to get their point across would be to attack the concept of “eye clean” or “ideal” right on its head. Because, and I hate to break it to you, it’s not only size that matters; sparkle and pretty matter too. Critics of diamonds always seem to forget about that last bit.

Looking Like Carrie

You know, I’ve watched most of Sex and the City. My fiancee has the entire series and loves it. She watches it all the time. I, of course, watch along because I can’t read when there’s something on tv (or on a computer). I never saw the movie, however, but I understand the appeal of wanting to be like Carrie. I’ve seen plenty of documentaries where women claim that they’re the real Carrie Bradshaw. And when the movie came out, I saw dozens of women wearing “I’m Carrie” tshirts and tanktops. I almost want to stop them and go “You’re able to afford 500 dollar shoes, party every night, and have a job the requires you to not work?” but we all know that’s not the point of the show. It’s not suppose to be realistic. It fits perfectly with its target market which just happens to be the type of young women who move to NYC. However, I don’t see what’s the point in dropping 15k on a dress to look like Carrie because, unless you’re rail thin because of a coke problem, you’re not going to look the same. If you have boobs, you’ll look better. If you’re curvy, you’re going to look like a muffin top in that dress. And as much as weddings are suppose to be fantasy, it should be fantasy about looking your best NOT looking like someone else because, I’m sorry, if you’re not Sarah Jessica Parker, you’re not going to look like her. And I hope you don’t. She’s a clothes hanger, nothing more.

Mini Pies

Mini Pies have been trendy since at least 2001, if not earlier. Once mini french pastry exploded nation wide, everyone wanted mini pies. I’m a fan of mini key lime pie tarts. Anything I can shovel into my face three at a time is something worth investing in. My only problem, of course, is that it’s really easy to make a bad mini pie. And how? Poorly plated, poorly baked, and poor ingredients can make a mini pie a complete and utter failure. You can get buy with cutting corners on a larger slice because a lot of people don’t have taste and mistake large portions for deliciousness. But with a mini pie, you have one shot at perfection. And if you screw up the taste, that’s it, the experience is over. Mini pies shouldn’t be viewed as a cheaper, or cute, alternative to regular portioned food. They should be viewed as a statement of excellence and deliciousness and should be made at a much higher quality compared to normal pies.

I first saw Lauren Alane’s cake toppers a few days ago, thought I should post about it, and then was quickly distracted by something shiny and forgot where I saw it. Now I’ve discovered that everyone is talking about them now which just shows that bloggers are like viruses and we spread ideas like the plague.

Anyways, I’m man enough to call something adorable and, yes, these cake toppers are adorable. They remind me of elementary school when, as a craft project, us little ones were told to take googly eyes and glue them to walnuts. We’d make owls, birds, trees or, actually, we’d tried to make those but we would really just end up making a big pile of mess. Lauren Alane, of course, makes them a lot better and they do a good job being crafty, modern, and fit in well with the little bird meme that is popular when it comes to weddings. Her products sell out very very fast – within minutes of posting which means I will probably never be able to get one but the thought is nice. Who wouldn’t want a few birds at their wedding? As long as they don’t eat the cake before I do. If they try, I’m bringing my cat.

My wedding band arrived yesterday. My wedding is slightly more than a year away. Am I on top of things or what? And why is everything I do has to be an adventure?

We bought out bands from blue nile because they were having a 10% off sale. And with my belief that platinum will increase in price this year (like it did last year), I thought it would be a good idea to jump on buying it. Plus, with my job now in iffy territory (I was told yesterday to take a 20% cut in hours for April), I figured we should buy this little shiny things while we could afford it.

It was ridiculously easy to buy the band which is always a good thing. What wasn’t ridiculously easy was me buying the right band. My fiancee and I bought wanted thin bands (she went with the 2mm and I went with 3mm) so that wasn’t the problem. The problem is that my ring finger is very weird. In fact, I would claim it might be a little diabolical. And why?

Because it likes being a lot smaller than my right ring finger.

I wear a posey ring that my fiancee bought for me last Valentine’s Day. It says “My Babby” on it. When she asked me to figure out my size, I went to a few jewelers and discovered that, depending on the jeweler, my finger was a different size. It was either a 7 or a 7.5 or an 8. I averaged it out and it was something like 7.47. My fiancee ordered me an 8. It’s loose but I like it that way because I like to remove it when I do the dishes, shower, and do anything where the risk of it falling down a drain is rather high. That is, sadly, one of my fears. I grew up always afraid of the garbage disposal at my parents house. It’s like a monster, lying in wait, just hoping you to put your delicious fingers anywhere near it. Maybe my brother played a cruel joke on me when I was little and turned it on when I was near it, who knows. But rings, my fingers, and drains, just don’t get along.

Now, I knew my left ring finger was smaller than my right. I’m right handed and slightly off balance and, being rather thin overall, I don’t have much meat on my bones. So I figured I’d order a 7.5 ring from Blue Nile and it’ll be loose enough but snug enough to not just vanish all the time. The rings came and I tried mine on while at the office. And it basically slipped off. It was nice and snug on my right hand but totally worthless on my left hand. It confirmed something I had suspected for quite some time.

I am a freak.

Okay, that’s a little harsh but it’s weird when your hands, which I use every day, are completely different sizes. So I called up Blue Nile and went through the hassle to return it. So I had to go to the Post Office, wait in line to ask for a priority mail box, then pack everything, and then wait in line again to mail it. That is one thing I hate about NYC – waiting in line for priority mail boxes. Everywhere else in the country, they’re just lying around the Post Office but NYC hoards them like they’re precious gold. I expect that there is a Golem located in the back of every Post Office holding each priority mail box and going “Precccisssouuuuussssss”. And when you take one, he curses you, your children, your children’s children, and your 2nd grade teacher.

Besides the mailing, the return was painless. I reordered a size 7 ring. It arrived yesterday. I tried it on. It’s as loose as I want it but, honestly, I probably could even pull off a size 6 ring. 1.5 ring difference between my hands. Ugh. Maybe I need to get my left hand to do finger pushups.

Anyways, the bands are IN. I have a few other milestones to write about too. There’s going to be about ten months where I’m going to have nothing to do but complain about other people’s taste. Luckily, I enjoy doing that.

I don’t think I realized, before I got engaged, what engagement rings mean in the social circle of women.

When I thought about and looked at the engagement ring, I focused on two things: the concept of it and the cost and not in that order. I’m pretty paranoid when it comes to money. I don’t mind spending it, what I do mind is not being able to save it. And with my freelance job, sometimes I go by with months where saving isn’t an option. And all that does is increase my stomach discomfort, makes me slightly irritable, and I view everything in terms of dollars and cost. It’s not something I’m proud of but, well, I’m working on it.

But an engagement ring is also a sign of commitment. It’s when I put my money into an external and physical symbolic piece of metal that says “I want to spend the rest of my life with you” and that I want to pledge that devotion to God, my family, my friends and my cat. That last one is very important. So, when I wanted to marry my fiancee, and we went ring shopping, I cared quite a bit that she got the ring she wanted. I wanted her to always admire how it sparkles no matter where she is and if she tried to hypnotize me sometimes with it, telling me to go that I’m getting sleepy and that I need to make her a sandwich, that’s good too. The actual material of the ring didn’t matter – it’s her loving it that mattered.

But, WHOA, was I not expecting how women tend to react to my fiancee’s engagement ring. I don’t mean in a bad way, I mean that when women talk about engagement rings together, they unleash all these hidden social cues and meanings that I never picked up on before. I joked with my fiancee that all I really care about is her making other women jealous but I didn’t think that would actually be true. When you live in New York City, it’s not hard to see HUGE DIAMOND RINGS or to see rings on young women’s hands that could probably be used to create optical traps to help give humanity cold fusion. In fact, I’m usually amazed that the women are able to hold up their hands at all but they probably get use to it. When you have the diamond district and the prevailing wisdom that diamonds are required to be .5 carats bigger in NYC than anywhere else, huge is in. Sure, the hipsters in Brooklyn might claim that’s not true but lets be honest, it is. NYC is BIG and values BIG and that impacts everything in our lives.

So last night, at my fiancee’s friend’s birthday party, my fiancee and I struck up a conversation with a newly wed. She heard we were recently engaged, asked us all sorts of details about the wedding, and then wanted to see the ring. She oowed, awwwwed, and loved it in all sorts of ways that my fiancee and I tend not to see from our social circles. In fact, she seemed a tad jealous. She loved how it was set and was jealous when she compared her ring to my fiancee’s even though my fiancee’s diamond looked smaller. They both had cushions, they both loved simple bands, but her husband got her a thick band while I let my fiancee pick the ring out herself.

Hint to all the dudes out there; let her pick it out herself.

The newlywed mentioned that her now husband spent a lot of time picking out a ring that really mattered to him. The style of the band was important, he wanted to own it, and it was a big deal for him to give his now wife that ring. Of course, she said she’d reset it in ten years for a simple band, but my fiancee and I both wondered later about why the newlywed’s husband really needed to pick the band. In fact, why do a lot of guys focus so much on getting a ring they like rather than a ring their fiancee will like? Is this our version of when women go dress shopping with their friends where everyone dresses themselves rather than the bride to be? Or is is something more subtle than that.

I, of course, automatically assumed that it was a control thing. He wanted to control the decision because he’s controlling the decision to propose. He’s focused on the fantasy in his head, what he wants his future wife to wear, and, although he does truly want to marry this one young woman, he can’t let go of his desire to feel a sense of ownership with the decision. I related it to when people make mixtapes for their new found crushes. People tend to pick songs and music that speaks to THEM without realizing that their new crushes might dislike small Brooklyn dance hall bands and really like Top 40 stuff. The idea is, again, one of ownership. It takes time, and effort, to be like the guy in High Fidelity and learn to put songs on the disc that she would like and would make her happy. Using other people’s poetry to describe what you are feeling doesn’t mean that only the feelings you feel are the most important. Conveying the message and getting the similar reaction in a totally different person is the big deal and that, sadly, is something a lot of people don’t learn.

Some say that’s because people are inherently selfish. I just say that it’s hard to live outside of your own head.

And as much as I’d like to play armchair psychologist with the newlywed’s husband, I realized later that I wasn’t talking about him – I was talking about me. I was talking about the phase in my past, and current, life where I struggle to live outside of myself and look at what brings my fiancee joy. And looking back at my past relationships, I realized that this was always always a problem and even if I try to view myself as some unselfish sensitive wonderful guy who was just misunderstood, it really turned out that I was merely just living in my own head and failing, miserably, to look outside it. And I finally did learn, mostly, how to get past that. I stopped making mix tapes and I started giving my fiancee coupons for Combos and Cheezits.

Many women do enjoy looking at engagement rings. I have one friend who likes wearing my fiancee’s ring. I have another friend who mentioned to her husband that my fiancee’s ring was a lot bigger. I have friends who are annoyed with me at how much that ring cost. And as much as I originally wanted this post to be about what I see when women look at engagement rings, I really don’t know much about it. I’m a groomzilla after all – I see the world of weddings through the social conditionings of a United States that gives definitions to what is, and what isn’t, socially acceptable for guys depending on your class, your money, your looks, and your skin color. But I do realize that most weddings really aren’t about living outside yourself and, as much as the indie/DIY/whatever movement likes to claim, even trying to make weddings personal or unique or whatever fails to really address the fact that we all struggle living outside our own heads. If you make your wedding “unique”, you’re falling into the trap where you wedding is limited to merely what’s inside your head and that’s like buying a thick band for a woman who likes thin. In the overall scheme of things, it might not matter; she’ll love you just the same. But why get the ring set again in 10 years when, with a little effort, you could get it right the first time? What’s wrong with that?