« April 2006 | Main | June 2006 »
The word(s) of the day is Tussy Mussy.
What's, the heck indeed, is a Tussy Mussy?
It's a bouquet holder.
And, it turns out, it's absolutely essential for the mother of the bride.
For the mother of my bride, anyway, and that's all I need to know.
From the May 14, 2006 Vicksburg Post:
Reid, Gerdes to exchange vows July 29 in Chicago
David and Patricia Reid of Vicksburg announce the engagement of their daughter, Erica Noelle, to Fuzzy Gerdes of Chicago, Ill. Mr. Gerdes is the son of Donald and Rach[a]el Gerdes of Austin, Texas.
Miss Reid is the granddaughter of the Juanita Bane and the late George Bane and Norma Reid and the late George Reid, all of Vicksburg.
Mr. Gerdes is the grandson of the late John and Tina Ahlrichs of Rockwell City, Iowa, and the late Ed and Bertha Gerdes of Forest City, Iowa.
The bride-elect is a graduate of Warren Central High School. She receive[d] an associate's degree in theater from Hinds Community College.
Miss Reid is an actress, comedian and choreographer.
The prospective groom is a graduate of Pembroke High School in Adelaide, Australia. He received his bachelor's degree in computer science from Purdue University.
Mr. Gerdes is a network analyst with Playboy Enterprises.
The wedding will be July 29, 2006, at 3036 N. Lincoln Ave., in Chicago. All relatives and friends are invited to attend.
We spent the weekend, and by "the weekend" I mean less than 48 hours total, down in Mississippi. On Saturday afternoon we went to Erica's friend Barbara's wedding out in Eagle Lake, with a reception afterwards at Tara Wildlife. Hummingbirds!
On Saturday evening Erica's aunt hosted a wedding shower for us. It was very odd for both of us to be the center of attention like that -- just sitting there opening presents. Thanks to everyone who came out that night and to everyone who dropped off presents. We're overwhelmed already, and that was just Mississippi folks.
I'm not sure how to segue to this, but I'll note that Erica's parent's next-door-neighbor has a website.
Sunday we spent the day cooking out, visiting with callers, and playing with the new kittens.
Well, Invitation Day stretched into Invitation Long Weekend, but this morning I mailed out 250ish invitations. The same thing applies as to the Save The Date card -- if you think you're invited, you're invited, so if you don't get your invite in a week or so, let me know -- it's likely lost in the mail. It's not because we didn't invite you. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
(Lordy -- 250 invites! Just between you and me, I'm sure I have forgotten to invite some dear, close friend of mine. Just because it's too many names to think of all at once.)
Today is invitation day! We're making the big push to get the invitations printed and addressed and collated and mailed. Erica's in the dining room addressing envelopes. By hand! She's up to the Ses. When you get your invite, please admire her lovely penpersonship.
I'm in the office sheparding 270 invites through the printer. (And getting caught up on the show with zefranks.) I've printed all the fronts and now I'm sending them all back through the printer, which is going pretty well except for the occasional paper jam because the card stock got curved a little going through the printer the first time. Then it's just information sheets and RSVP notes. Hmm... we might be up late.
The invitation features an awesome illustration by the awesome Kate O'Leary. If you want to be surprised when you get the invite, don't follow the "read more" link...
It's us as cat-people, not us as cats -- don't get it twisted!
If you live in Vicksburg, Mississippi (and who doesn't?) you can pick up a copy of today's Vicksburg Post and see our beaming faces smiling at you to announce our engagement and wedding to all of Vicksburg society.
We originally sent them our "eyes peeking over the edge" engagement photo, which got Erica a phone call from the V'burg Post staff telling her that they can't print "non-traditional photos" because then everyone would want to have non-traditional photos. Great, say I, welcome to the 21st Century. But they were not swayed by any of Erica's arguments, so we ended up sending them a more normal picture.
Erica tells me that in Mississippi people often don't send out wedding invitations, they just print their announcement in the paper and say "all welcome". So, if anybody from Vicksburg wants to just show up, well, the more the merrier.
Thanks to Steve for helping me with the JavaScript so that when you "regretfully decline" you can't enter a number of people who are not coming.
That little form below is part of the mad rush to get the invitations out. I'm including a URL in some of the invitations, and so the form had to be up before people got the invitation and tried to go to it.
There are some wedding traditions that are awesome and really speak to us about our upcoming celebration of our commitment. Rings, for example, and the exchanging thereof, are great. There are other traditions that are right out. "Who gives this woman away?" Boo. I'm not trading Erica's dad three cows and a chicken for her hand in marriage.
But then there are a whole mess of traditions and expectations that we have no strong feelings about one way or the other. Cake? Eh. We love dessert, but I'm not sure either of feels any great need to have a giant wedding cake. (I, for one, really don't like most cake.)
Now any time you mess with traditions (and ignoring the whole notion that tradition was invented in the 19th century) there will be some people who are offended. If you're offended by any change, I'm not sure I can help you. But we do recognize that people differ and what for us is an Eh-tradition, might be a Really Important-tradition for someone else. If that's the case, and we diddle with something at our wedding that you think is just too much, please be kind and realize that we never mean to offend -- we're just trying to make our wedding day special for us, while balancing the needs and expectations of our friends and family.
All of that is prompted by the RSVP -- we're doing something for our wedding that I think some people might think is a breech of etiquette, but we're willing to take the risk and push the envelope. Most people will NOT be getting a return envelope for the RSVP in their invite. Instead, they'll be getting a slip of paper that asks them to reply via email to rsvp@ericaandfuzzy.com or to visit http://ericaandfuzzy.com/rsvp/ and RSVP electronically.
We know that not everyone has a computer, so we went through our entire invite spreadsheet and divided it into Hi-tech and Low-tech (if you're reading this, you're most likely in the Hi-tech group). Low-tech people get a reply envelope. Hi-tech people get pointed here. And we'll take what would have been all those 39¢ stamps and turn them into cake (or other desserts. For me.)
Thanks,
Erica and Fuzzy
This is exactly and precisely what I'm going to look like in my new Calvin Klein 2-button tuxedo.
Actually, we fit Men's Wearhouse into our Sunday errands outing, so I was trying on tuxes in an I Am Ten Ninjas t-shirt and a Lucky Charms baseball cap. Oh, and two days unshaven. Classy.
We decided that buying made sense over renting because, hey, tuxedo. I've already gotten so much use out of my $10 tuxedo, that having an actual, fancy one makes a lot of sense.
The rest of our Sunday errands were concerned, primarily, with ever-larger-spiraling organizational systems for our home office. We're going to print the wedding invitations ourselves, so it made perfect sense to buy a color laser printer (an HP LaserJet 2600N since you asked). But then we couldn't just set it up in the office until we'd cleaned off my desk. And if we're going to clean off my desk, we might as well coil and velcro all of the loose cables in the office. And buy all new bins to replace the moving boxes everything is sitting in. And get a label-maker to label all those bins. And... you get the picture.
(Oh, and... make blog posts instead of finishing that project.)
This whole registering thing is a blast. For those of you who live in the Southeast--well, Mississippi-- we have registered for our dishes at Belk (formerly McRaes, may it rest in peace).
Belk
Registry ID 101458647
Since there are a few Erica Reids getting married this year, I find it is easier to search under Fuzzy's name. Cause there is no one like him.
In Japan it has become common, I guess, to throw teddy bears instead of bouquets at weddings. Sure, why not. And if anyone ever throws something, someone else will figure out a way to shoot it out of a gun. Makes sense. So... the teddy bear gun. It fires a teddy bear with parachute. Kapow! Whee!
(Via Cute Overload and Kristen)
On Saturday we went over to Target to replicate our Bed Bath & Beyond registry for friends who might only have a Target in their area. And it's hard to turn down a visit to Target (Choxie!).
When you hand back in the scanner gun, it's supposed to take less than 10 minutes for your selections to show up in your online registry. When ours hadn't shown up 3 hours later, I sent an email to customer service through the Target website. I was rather impressed when I received a reply just 20 minutes later from what seemed to be a real person. Of course, that person said they'd have to hand my problem off to a registry specialist, and it took until today for that registry specialist to get back to me. But today, thanks to the efforts of Target researcher Peggy, our registry items are back under our name (they were on someone else's registry -- I'm surprised they didn't notice the sudden appearance of 117 new items, including two monkey lamps and a bug vacuum).
So... Target Club Wedd, search for Erica Reid, Illinois.
