Guest Blog from Maid of Honor/Youngest Sister, Mary Chris

Hello followers of my fellow sister’s blog. I’m Mary, Stacy’s youngest sister (note that I am taller) and 2nd in line maid of honor. She asked me to make a guest appearance…so here I am.

Also, an FYI: I am fluent in sarcasm.

Here’s my guide to being the best maid of honor:

1. Just smile and agree. Face it, if it’s not the bride’s way, then it’s the highway
2. Order your dress RIGHT when the bride asks or prepare for havoc
3. Give everything a chance. I didn’t like the idea of fabric flowers, but hey, they turned out to be gorgeous!
4. Make sure you help with the most important task: wedding cake tasting
5. Prepare for the reception by playing “Just Dance” for the Wii.
6. Know how to make a TP dress just in case the actual dress rips…and for bridal parties
7. Force the bride to pee before putting on the dress. Stacy, I will NOT hold a bucket for you to pee in day of.
8. Be there to listen. Most of the time, if you just say, “Yes, of course, etc,” while she’s on a rant, then it will all simmer down. She didn’t want your opinion, just someone to explode on.
9. Make sure that MC Hammer is on the DJ’s playlist
10. Write the toast more than 2 weeks prior…trust me, bad idea.

Yes, I know Allison would have completely different guidelines, but hey, I am the better maid of honor J.

Thanks Mary! You rock my face off!

On Tanning

Yes, I am tanning for the wedding. I know how horrendous it is for you. I am tanning for the 3 weeks prior to my wedding for maybe 10 minutes at a time, and it is the last time I ever plan on getting into a tanning bad.

Now that we've got that out of the way....so I'm tanning for the wedding because I am super pasty. Ryan, being part Italian, has this lovely olive skin that turns this bronzed golden brown after maybe 30 seconds in the sun. All the while my veins are showing very clearly through my skin. One of Ryan's favorite games is to show me his tanlines, or hold his golden arm up to my pasty one and say "Look how PASTY you are! You're so WHITE."

It's super fun for him.

Needless to say, I am slightly....bored with this game. And I knew I was going to tan for the wedding anyway. I haven't seen Ryan since the 4th, so I wanted to show up in St Louis this weekend crazy tan and be like "WHAT'S UP, who's pasty NOW." Last night Alli and I are on our way to Target and she's all "um, you know how you told me I need to tell you when to stop tanning? Yeah well that's right now, you need to stop tanning." And I was bummed, because I want to WIN (win what, I know, but I've just got that moment where I show up on Friday all tanned and golden goddessy looking and prove something, not sure what in my head, I can't let it go). Then Alli told me that 11 days before my wedding is the worst possible time for a tanning contest.

I think she's right...but I just can't get rid of this stupid sports bra tan line! I think I'll go maybe twice more and lay off.

Did you do something beauty wise that you normally never do before your wedding?

Wedding Night Hotel

Just booked the wedding night hotel.

Here are some fun snippets from the conversation:

"Hi! My name is Stacy and I'm getting married July 24th, I needed to book a hotel room for my husband and I."

Reservation blah blah blah credit card number blah blah blah

"So how many people will be staying in that room with you?"

"Um...2? It's our wedding night? Other people would be super creepy."

"You know, you're right, it would. I have to ask though. Stupid questions."

Reservation blah blah blah

"So is this going to be your first time?"

"My first time...what? My first time what?"

"You know, your first wedding."

"Whew. Yes, my first wedding!"

Heheehehehehe.

Booze and 15

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Even though our caterer really has nothing to do with the booze, she was still nice enough to do some research and help us figure out how much alcohol we need.

Side note: Everything we're doing is separate. The hall provides nothing, so we're bringing everything in ourselves, which is great because we know that we're getting the best possible price, but it increases the complication factor. So we can't just tell the hall how many people we need to serve alcohol to, we have to figure it out ourselves and bring it all in. Which is completely fine, its what we signed on for, but...lots to figure out.

So it looks like we're going to have about 225 people there, and Ryan has 15ish co-workers arriving after dinner for party time. So that puts our number of drinkers at about 240. We're serving 2 kinds of wine (chardonnay and cabernet), 2 kinds of beer (Budweiser and Budselect...we had 3 whopping options, but no big), and a signature drink that will consist of cranberry juice, pineapple juice and rum. Oh yes.

We'll be ordering:

80 bottles of wine, 30 red and 50 white

2 half barrels (known as kegs) of beer, 1 of Budweiser and 1 of Budselect

6 1.5 liter bottles of rum, 7 gallons of pineapple juice and 7 gallons of cranberry juice

I feel like such an alcoholic ordering all of this! I feel this urge to be like, "So I need to order 80 bottles of wine but I'M GETTING MARRIED AND ITS FOR MY WEDDING I SWEAR I'M NOT GOING TO DRINK IT ALL MYSELF."

We're ordering the kegs from the reception hall even though they're just a bit more expensive, simply because my brain hurts from all of these logistics and I don't want to try to figure out how to get them to the hall and then back to the beer place they came from. The rum we'll be getting from Costco ($17.99/1.5 liter!) and the wine is from Trader Joe's, at $2.99/bottle. I've done a taste test, and it is delicious.

So while I'm really glad we're handling everything separately, because I know we're saving a ton of $$$, but I do see why people pay 1 price to have all of this in one place for them. And we are very lucky in that Ryan's family and friends in St. Louis are being beyond helpful. Get this-his mom's neighbor, who I've met ONCE, is driving a car down to the reception sight mere hours before the wedding to help set up our entire reception for us, including the centerpieces.

Also speaking of lucky....my friend and bridesmaid Melissa is coming to Cape tonight and staying until Sunday morning, just to help me with last minute wedding stuff. Wine will be involved. I can't even tell you how excited I am to see her!

15 Days out my friends! I haven't lost my mind yet, but we've still got plenty of time for that to happen.

Wedding Day Salutations

RYAN GO AWAY.

Sorry to ask you to scroll lovelies....but its in the interest of secrecy.

So I really want to get Ryan a funny/sweet card to open the morning of the wedding. Here are the contenders:

Up first, one that references Ryan's love for aging video games.

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This next one will probably offend someone, so if you are a Conservative Christian you might want to skip this.

I just think it's hysterical, but I think this might be more of a I like it deal than anything else.

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I think this one might be it. Because let's just say that he feels very liberated...so liberated that he has held me down and farted on me before. Yes, I am still marrying him after that.

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Are you getting your hubs a funny card for the day of the wedding?

Almost

So...we're getting married in 18 days.

And it's getting so real. We have a marriage license and everything.

To top this off, we're waiting on some absolutely monumental job stuff with Ryan. Dream come true kind of job stuff.

Lots of waiting is going on. And we're kind of drowning in a sea of details right now (I didn't see this coming...I'm really in to working ahead, but the amount of details we're trying to wade through and sort out is just a touch overwhelming). We aren't just paying a per-head cost, we have a venue, a caterer, a photographer...it's all separate, so all of the coordinating comes down to us. Which is fine, but...a lot right now. But I'm going to get a huge chunk done this week, and then we're going to be in really good shape. Plus I'll be in St Louis the weekend right before the wedding, and I know I can get some odds and ends taken care of then. I don't want the weekend of the wedding to be super stressful.

Did 100000000000 details surprise you close to your wedding?

On Crying and Weddings

Definitely just got teared up watching the preview of Bethenny walking down the aisle in Bethenny's Getting Married.

We're 19 days out, and the thought of walking down that aisle towards Ryan is absolutely cry inducing.

But I'm wearing fake-*ss lashes, this isn't going to work!

Ryan and I are seeing each other before hand, we're taking a ton of pictures, we're doing a receiving line before the ceremony...I hope to goodness I can get as many tears out then as possible, because I don't want to lose it when I see him standing at the altar.

I'm really not that much of a crier (though Ryan would disagree).

So married ladies, fill me in: Did you cry? Did it surprise you that you cried? How much did you cry?