Top 5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Say, “Have You Lost Weight?”

1. The person might have lost weight as a result of depression or an eating disorder.  Not exactly something you want to discuss in mixed company.

2. If meant as a compliment, the statement implies that the person was overweight before.  Thanks A LOT for noticing.

3. If meant as concern, it implies that the person’s current weight is unhealthy or unnattractive.  Again, THANK YOU.

4. It means that you are noticing the other person’s body, which might make him/her UNCOMFORTABLE.  Please STOP LOOKING AT MY BODY.

5. Most importantly, it is NONE of YOUR BUSINESS.

Top 5 Things I’m Glad I Did

All right, we’ve been through the regrets already. Let’s get right on to the things I don’t regret for a second. I’m glad to say that the entire wedding weekend was a fabulous raucous party, and was overall a great success.  Here are my top five best decisions:

1) Having one wedding.  We didn’t realize until late in the game that we could have the county deputize our officiant to marry us.  We had planned to have a civil ceremony with our parents a few days before our wedding. I know many couples do this, and we were fine with the idea.  However giving our friend the power to marry us, and knowing the in the VERY MOMENT that we said our vows in front of our friends and family that we were now married… this was a powerful thing, and made for a poignant memory.

2) Not spending a small fortune on my dress.  I bought my dress on eBay.  It was an Amy Kuschel sample and with shipping it cost $500.  Still a lot more than I’ve ever spent on any item of clothing, but not exactly outrageous for a wedding dress.  I loved my dress, even though it showed off my side-boob/arm-gina/whatever you want to call it.  Even though the bustle came undone during our first dance and I had to hold the train with one hand.  Even though I changed into a comfortable party dress a few hours in to the reception, I’m very glad with the decisions I made surrounding The Dress.

3) Getting married close to home.  We’d looked at areas in the wine country, but decided to get married in Berkeley (we live in Oakland and my parents live in San Francisco).  Being able to make several quick and easy trips to the ceremony and reception sites in the months leading up to the wedding was invaluable. Plus, I generally hate long car trips and I didn’t want to make our guests drive a long way once they arrived at the airport.  Nearly everyone stayed either at the reception hotel or within a few blocks of it.

4) Having a central location.  One of the reasons we picked our reception site was that it was a beautiful Arts and Crafts style boutique hotel and could house 40-50 of our guests.  We had all our close friends stay there (the older generation stayed in hotels very close by).  It made for SUCH a fun party atmosphere.  We had both the rehearsal dinner and the reception in the gorgeous banquet hall.  The rehearsal dinner turned in to a regular hootenany — my dad and his best friend from college banged away at guitars, my husband’s aunt sang with them, and people mingled at dinner, on the rooftop and in their rooms.  At every corner I turned, another mini party was going on — with old and young generations, cousins, friends, my husband’s family, my family… It was more fun than I could ever ask for.

5) Putting on a ‘big’ wedding.  We invited about 170 guests and ended up with 120.  If my husband was more of an introvert like me, I’m sure we would’ve had a teeny wedding.  But I’m so glad we were surrounded by so many of our cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends and co-workers that day.  We were showered with an enormous amount of love.  Aunts from his and my family got out on the dance floor together.  There were romantic liasons between our cousins and our friends.  Guests contacted us weeks and months later to tell us that it was the most fun they’d had at any wedding.  Family members said it was the best family gathering ever.  

Whew!  It’s definitely more fun to relive the good memories than the regrets.  

Honorary #6: My husband, on our wedding night

Top 5 Wedding Regrets

So I already gave you my tips for staying present on the day of your wedding.  I think I did a pretty good job of following my own advice.  I had a fantastic day overall, but I have to admit, there are a few things that went awry that still nag at me a *teeny* bit.  I present you with my Top 5 Wedding Regrets (TM).   I know it’s not good to dwell, and honestly I’m pretty much over all of this.  But perhaps there is a lesson or two in the small things that went wrong on my day that a bride out there will find handy.

1) I rushed my friends.  I got anxious about the schedule when my bridesmaids and I were getting ready in our hotel room, and was a bit terse with them while trying to get everyone out the door.  I wish I had just taken a deep breath and asked one of my BMs to help collect everyone and get us to the formal portraits on time.  I don’t think this was a biggie overall, and no one was late to the photos.  I will have to remember to cut my friends some slack when they get married

2) Our wedding party was announced by the DJ.  I hadn’t been planning on this, and I really wasn’t in to it.  It made me feel nervous and silly, and it was a pain in the arse getting everyone together in the lobby before making our entrance.  While not traumatizing, I would certainly have been fine without it.

3) I didn’t circulate enough.  I spent most of the evening at my sweetheart table with my husband (I loved having our own table) and the rest of the time dancing with my friends.  I was so excited to see my friends from college that I neglected to check in with my grandparents during the reception.  I had spent time with them in the days leading up to the wedding, so I didn’t feel THAT terrible, but if I had to do it over again, I would’ve made sure to spend a little time with them.

4) The reception music wasn’t what I had planned.  We’d given our DJ cds with the songs we wanted him to play.  He played about two of them in the first two hours of the reception.  Music is important to me, as it really sets the mood and expresses who the bride and groom are.  Plus, I’d been looking forward to rocking out to certain songs with my friends (and not to YMCA and the other usual wedding stuff).  I ended up having my only cry of the evening over this (which made me feel extremely lame).  The good part is that my friends rallied around me and asked the DJ to play more of the music that I’d requested.  I really appreciated this, as I didn’t have it in me to duke it out with him at that point.

5) I didn’t make a speech.  I’m not a public speaker by ANY MEASURE.  I think the idea of planning a speech would probably have been too much for me on top of all the regular wedding nerves.  But I would’ve liked to have thanked my family publicly and acknowleged all the love that I was feeling that day.  I think I was able to do this to some degree with thank you cards.

Overall, there was nothing drastically regrettable.  Like I said, my memories of my wedding are pretty much all wonderful.  The only negative association that I have with my wedding is the night shortly after the event where I got plastered on leftover champagne and proceeded to make a fool out of myself in front of my new husband’s friends from England  Not my finest moment.  Anyhow, fret not — my top 5 ‘things I’m glad I did’ are coming up next!