If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy

Yes, I am the newest "mother" on the block in my family, however this is a blog where I'm (finally) not talking about myself! Instead, this is about my mother.

I absolutely love her dearly. I really do. We've had quite the life together that I never thought could yield the wonderful relationship that we've got now. But this wedding business is taking things to new levels that I really don't feel are necessary.

To be fair, she has waited my whole life (and I guess hers too) to be the "mother of the bride." (She's also been waiting to be the "mother of the girl having the baby" because I have two older brothers but that's a whole other posting for a whole other blog. She IS getting that too though.)

Anyway, my dad has always known how I feel about weddings and about how I envisioned my wedding to be - that being something VERY understated and otherwise untraditional. My mom, on the other hand, has visions of all things "commercial" and traditional wedding. Though she has said from the beginning that she supports everything and anything that I want, it's kind of just talk for her.

With the major downsizing of this wedding, a whole lot has been cut out of the planning. We're no longer having out-of-town gifts for the guests or a wedding party. We aren't having a "getaway" car or a rehearsal dinner (why? when you're not even having a bridal party) Now, to be fair, some reductions have been a result of energy and effort I don't have because I'm now pregnant (i.e. making a whole human being) but it's also a result of the fact that for as long as I can remember, I've not wanted to plan a wedding to begin with.

My mother has been a good sport about it though and recently I've gotten to the point where I'm willing to say "yes" to just about anything to get her off my back. And by just about anything I mean the following:

• Reception place - Our 1st pick CANCELED (the one I posted most recently about and I will not even discuss this whole debacle further because it only burns me up) but my mother was able to secure the second choice (her 1st choice) within a half hour later
• Invitations -I don't see the point because I would just as well do the "tasteless" thing like send an Evite as my wonderful dad said because how easy is that - nevermind the tasteless thing. But my mom insists that we do these even though there are less than 20 invitations that we have to send out and we already know who is coming because the date was deliberately picked to accommodate all of the schedules. And we're also sending the invitations from "Loveville" - a little town nearby my parents because my mom has loved that idea since hearing about it.
• Flower girl dresses - My two nieces (her granddaughters that she waited and waited so patiently for) were our flower girls and my sister-in-law was buying "any dress" (in my words) that she thought would be cool. Then they were just guests because we canceled the whole wedding party. Now they are back to being flower girls with Real Flower girl Dresses (from David's Bridal no less). My mother insisted that having them as the flower girls is just about the best thing of the wedding. I love them so much that I could hardly not agree.
• Guest Favors - I had this great idea to do a charitable donation for all of the guests. The operative word is Had. This is because mom wants to have something tangible and "wedding-y" to give people that will all serve as decorations for the table. From the beginning she's wanted to give people personalized chopsticks. I'm okay with doing chopsticks but I don't see the necessity of making them personalized. In any case, they are getting chopsticks (the decorative kind) and also a little thing filled with other things to eat (I will post a whole separate thing on this in coming weeks).
  
• Cake - Husband2be and I are not fans of cake unless it's Angel Food cake. When we were planning big wedding from before, we went back and forth between a wedding cake and a dessert bar and found that the kind of dessert bar we want to do is more than a wedding cake so we decided on the cake instead. After we scaled down we thought, "Who needs cake?" Apparently my mom. And everyone else too (well, according to her). Whatever. If she wants cake, she can have it. BUT(!) I'm going to be making it. I know how crazy this sounds but I'm taking time off to do wedding stuff before the wedding and all of my best girlfriends will be in town and we're just making a "cutting cake" and I'm buying a whole decorations kit online from Wendy Kromer. All I'm going to have to do is make sure that the cake part and then throw some icing on it. (Sure I'm sounding more like "The Crazy Pregnant Lady" by the second but I can live with that.) I see this particular detail as the makings of a lovely "memory" for me and my best girls and I'm actually pretty excited about it.

Those are the main things. The last one that didn't make the list is something that (according to husband2be and me) is just getting to be a little bit much. My dad forgot to contact the DJ he arranged and just received word that the guy is booked for the new date. My thought? Verbatim - "Who cares." However, my mother is all "We saw this 'cute little' Christian worship band at this coffee house near our house and we could get a few of the band members - how about that?" *cringes* For the record, I enjoy some good Christian music but I'm pretty selective and if my mother MUST. HAVE. this? I'm sorry. But this is just not something that I'm going to be so keen on. *shrugs* And I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that it does not happen. ;)