A visit to Gardeniere

I am not sure if I told you folks that I was going for a florist consultation. Well, I just made a visit to Gardeniere in South Orange this past Tuesday. Gardeniere is a suggestion made from Terry, one of my bridesmaid and a lover of flowers and plants. I thought that since it is close to Seton Hall Chapel why not give it a chance.

I was actually nervous about seeing the florist. The night before I printed up pictures of bouquets and centerpieces from the internet. I ripped up bridal magazines with other pictures. I even downloaded articles regarding floral design and what to ask the florist. I stayed up until 1 am doing this stuff. I guess I was just so excited about putting Vin's and my personal stamp on the design. I really love flowers myself and I knew this is one of the areas of the wedding where we can make it unique and our own. I was just so excited that I would be helping out with this creative process.

Well, I went with my mother and Terry to visit the florist named Max. When we went to the shop, a woman with a Scottish accent opened the door. I informed her that we had an appointment with Max. To my shock, she was Max. I thought that I would be meeting up with a gay gentleman (yes, I know I am stereotyping and I apologize to all my gay and lesbian friends I might have offended).

Well, when I went to her shop I wasn't really impressed with her style. She had a lot of frou frou style. Roman columns, baskets, gilded vases. Not my style. I like sleek contemporary styles. So, I wasn't sure it was going to go well.

Yet, the consultation was amazing. She was very easy to talk to you and you can tell she has a passion for her work. I told her some of the things I wanted and she was able to design it on the spot. She drew her work out on a pad of paper. I had a hard time figuring out how it would look since I wasn't familiar with the flowers that she mentioned. Thank God, Terry was there because she asked if she would provide samples and she stated that she would.

Another amazing thing about Max is that she remembered Terry. She told Terry that she looked familiar and Terry told her that she was there for her sister's consultation which was 5 years ago or more. Terry was so surprised that she had such a good memory.

I really liked Max and what she had to say but I decided that I will make one more appointment with another florist, Flowers by Ai Chai. They have an Asian influenced designs which I am going for. Let's see what they have to offer. I had to set up the appointment 3 weeks from now because my fellow interviewees are not available.

This is fun. Sitting with Max and imagining what the flowers are going to look like has really stirred my creativity. I suggested to Terry after the wedding I might want to take floral design classes with her if I have the time with Sumisibol and stuff. This floral stuff should be fun!!!

oh, goody

so, we've signed up for the pre-cana (or is it pre-canaan? i think it's pre-canaan only because i like words with double a's in them) all ready? well, good for us then. can't wait.

Pre-Cana here we come

I got to do some wedding stuff during the last blog. I finally got a hold of my priest. He was away in Italy for vacation. I thought that he would stay an extra week because of the Pope's death but fortunately for me, he came back to work. I had to take some time off from work to meet up with him at my old job. I came to his office around 10:30 am but because he was seeing patients. I had to waiting in the reception area until 11:30 am. He had to make up for lost time and see all the patients that he didn't see while he was away. He signed the papers but since he is only a Diocesan priest (which means that he doesn't have a parish), he asked me to inquire about the paperwork needed such as the pre-nuptial investigation (I am not sure what they are investigating - maybe if Vin has been married before ; ) ) and witness questionnaires. So, I called up SEton Hall and they will be sending me the forms. I need to follow up on this stuff because knowing Fr. Cincotta he will never follow through on the forms. He is a good man but a very busy and at times forgetful man.

Well, I inquired at Seton Hall about Pre-Cana and they said that the next classes they have are in September which is cutting it too close to the wedding. (Just in case, we have severe problems in the relationship we will need time to fix it or at least, get a better chance to get our deposit back. JJ) They suggested that I sign up at the Diocese. Vin would rather delay it to never but we signed up for a six hour class on July 24. It is a Sunday and unfortunately, for Vin his only day off during the week. I know that he doesn't want to spend his day off in Pre-Cana classes. Oh the sacrifices we make for love ; )

whoa whoa whoa

first off, i never said i would lie at pre-canaan to 'facilitate' it. i said i would lie to help us get through it without problems from the priest. as for the questions...

cheryl can ask any question to me that she wants, whenever she wants. i will not, however, go along with wedding 'advice' that apppears to be nothing but an excuse to increase circulation or visitor hits.

marketing and advise should not go hand in hand, but even though they do, and i will not bow down to the man.

oh, and before i forget, sarcasm noted, abreu.

I drive him crazy (ooh, ooh)

Can you guess where the title of the blog came from? It was a bit revised to make it more personal. It is part of 80's trivia. You keep thinking and I will reveal the answer at the end of the blog.

I did drive Vin crazy this weekend. Yes, with the registry for one thing but this past Sunday, he had to suffer from my analysis of our upcoming nuptials. For those who don't' know me, I am analytic by nature and a counselor by trade. I love to analyze behavior, my own as well as everyone else's. I also am a bit insecure. Put that all together and you get the title of the blog.

I was looking on the wedding website the wedding channel and I read an article about conversations to have before your wedding. Well, I decided to ask Vin some of these questions on our ride down to our friends, Penny and Ira. Questions like "how would you handle it if our child was gay" and " why do you want to get married?" Vin had a headache and he was again rolling his eyes. He humored me with these questions but he only let me have those two and there were many more questions to be asked.

I personally can't wait to go to Pre-Canaan. Vin who is not quite a man who enjoys private or public reflection is not looking forward to the event. He already told me that he would lie to the priest facilitating the event just to get through it. I told him that this could be beneficial to our relationship because we get to know each other better. He stated that he already knows me and knows that we are compatible otherwise he wouldn't ask me to marry him. I know that too. Yet, I know that no relationship is perfect and I am under no delusion that I am perfect. I want to be proactive and see where the problems might pool up. It is just the therapist in me who wants to make sure we can communicate our disagreements and be supportive of each other and know what we expect from each other in marriage.

I decided to give it a rest. I won't ask him any of those questions. I will just wait to Pre-Canaan classes. I will try not to drive him crazy until then (but I can't promise that I won't drive him crazy with some other nonsense).

Did you get the title? It's from Fine Young Cannibals' (one of Vin's favorite bands), She drives me crazy.

Wedding Registry Fun Part 3

Yes, the registry fun continues and you really can't beat the fun we had this time. Let me put some context to this event. I had Friday off because I work for Catholic Charities and my office was closed due to the Pope's funeral. So, I had an unexpected three day weekend. Vin and I decided to make that day off productive. We decided to visit Wesley Inn in Clifton to see if it is appropriate accommodations for our out of town guests and to finish off our registry.

So, I met Vin after work. He gets out at 1 pm. Well, when I met him at his house, he wasn't a happy camper. If anyone knows Vin, he is a moody guy. You would think he is hormonal if you met him because he can be crabby one moment and silly the next. We are not a good match when I am PMSing and he is moody. Yet, we have survived and tolerated our mood swings and so it doesn't get better than this.

Well, with his moodiness, I wasn't sure if this was going to be an enjoyable experience. Wow, was I wrong? Yet, back to that later. We went to Wesley Inn and checked it out. It was nice enough but we are still checking out some other hotels in the area.

Off we went to the Garden State Plaza. Well, after a bite to eat at the food court, we headed off to Macy's. Vin got a hold of the gun to keep him occupied. We decided to look at the bed linens first. Well, we had a hard time agreeing which one we wanted. If I liked one, Vin didn't like it. We went around about 3 times circling the bedding section to look at linens. This didn't make Vin any happier. There really wasn't one that striked our fancy but we were able to settle on 3. Vin started gunning them down. We had a hard time figuring out what is a sham so we decided to get some anyway and a sham stuffer, a euro sham stuffer as a matter of fact.

Then we went to get the towels. The colors and style that I wanted they didn't have. So, we settled for black and grey towels. We then went to get the luggage that Vin loves. Vin picked red luggage which is quite a change for Vin since he is basically a black, grey, and white type of guy.

Alright here comes the hard part. The china. Alright we don't know the difference from casual china, formal china, and everyday plates. We decided to get these rectangular plates (black and khaki colored) for everyday. Then we saw a boxed set of army green that would match our plates and we decided to add that as well. Don't know why but we did (and if you asked Vin, I am the one who made him do it). We also needed a creamer and sugar bowl because the everyday plates didn't have that. They had the small plates and the mugs and the bowls but not a creamer and sugar bowl. Well, Vin saw one that was a blue grey and gunned it. I didn't think it matched so I looked at another one and said that this matched better. He agreed but then we couldn't figure out how to delete the previous one on the gun. Trust me, the gun looked like a scientific calculator you would use for pre-cal class. It had a function button and everything else but a cosine and sine button. We finally got the handle of it and deleted the bluish-grey sugar bowl and creamer.

We were relieved to think that we were finally finished. We sat in front of the bridal consultant to get our final print. It must have been a slow night because we had two chatty bridal consultants pick and pull our list apart. These ladies were a couple of characters and they were able to get Vin out of his bad mood by pointing out the husband's duties in supporting the wife as she picks out the registry. They couldn't quite figure out some of our choices like a King size duvet when we picked out queen size sheets. Vin told them how I liked to hog the covers at night. Other bad choices were pointed out and Vin shifted the blamd on me stating that he was only responsible for the gun and I was the one who instructed to shoot at which items. Well, they schooled us on what we needed and they edited it accordingly. During this whole scene, we got invited to their staff ice cream party (as long as we wear their badges and blue or pink clothes); Vin got compared to one of the bridal consultant's silly 16 year old sister; and another bridal consultant told us her mini man doll story (one of those stories that you had to be there to understand). Vin went along with the bridal consultants' antics and instructed other grooms sitting around to escape their mad antics if they had a chance. It was a productive and fun evening at that.

And that evening might not be the last of the Registry Fun, either. The bridal consultants informed me that we might need to update our registry around September because our linens are seasonal. I bet you can see Vin's eyes roll when he heard that much. Also, I still might want one of the linens from Crate and barrel so I might delete the ones we picked. I haven't told Vin that, yet. Trust me, his eyes might not be able to roll back for the wedding. If you see him at the wedding with shades, you'll know why.

Am I that old?

Okay, this is not directly about the wedding but I thought that it was a great ancedote that I thought I should share it with you.

Some of my family came over to our house because relatives from the Philippines were visiting. My mother, of course, cooked a great meal as always. I have younger cousins age 19 and 9 who had nothing to do but watch TV while the older folks talk and reminsce. I hang out with these cousins since I don't speak Taglog, the Filipino language.

Well, the 9 year old is our ring-bearer. When I had asked him earlier to be our ring-bearer, this is his response: " AGAIN?" He has already been in a few weddings for his young years and he will be in the wedding of his sister later in the year but earlier than ours (Labor Day Weekend). Well, he agreed to do it anyway. Thank you, Gilbert.

Anyway, I was discussing about the music we would be playing at our wedding to the 19 year-old (Heidee) and the 9 year old. Vin is not a big R&B nor rap fan so, I forewarned them that there probably won't be any music of that. Gilbert stated that he liked "Punk and Rap". I asked, "What type of Punk: Old punk like the Clash or New punk like Green Day. " He whispered to his sister, "How does she know about Green Day?" Just the other day, a woman at my gym was surprised to hear that I am 36 ( She thought I was 26). Now, I am suddenly off that high. In the eyes of the young, I am just another old fogey. Well, at least this old fogey knows about Green Day. I am just going to have to keep watching MTV to keep up with the youth culture.

Happy April Fool's Day

Happy April Fool's Day!!! Yes, I know when some of you read the last blog you were probably shocked and saddened to hear the news that the perfect couple ( no, I don't mean Brad and Jen but us) had broken up. You can breathe again because it is only our tomfoolery (or more like vinfoolery). We are still happily and anxiously planning our wedding.

For those who knew it was a prank, good for you. We will try to get you next year ; )

Talk to you at our next blog.

the wedding has been cancelled

it's true. cheryl and i have had a few problems come up and we believe that it would be better to hold off indefinitely then to plow ahead and have these grew into even bigger problems.

sorry to have to tell you this, but it's better now than later.

you may go to our website for further details....