A tribute to Dr. Seuss

Chocolate cake.
Pink cake,
Nut cake.
Pancake.
Bunt cake.
Blue cake.
Here comes fruit cake.

Cakes, cakes, cakes.
What other kinds of cakes do you make?

The train towards our wedding has moved a few stations forward since my last entry - we have now 14 days and one helluva long task list to tick off left. As I sit at the computer trying to decide between a roast duck with red cabbage and dumplings and tenderloin with baby carrots and grilled potatoes for our reception, I am growing increasingly weary of making decisions. Migeru says he hates capitalism: too many choices!! Tiramisu, ice-cream sundae, roses, tulips, red wine, white wine, stripy tie, flowery tie, no tie, bow tie, veil or tiara, violin or guitar, parchment or gloss, embossed or hand-written, flats or heels, modern or antique, cold cuts or soup, Thailand or Madeira ... What do you think, should I shoot or hang myself?

Suicidal mission I: The "busyness trip"
To prepare our wedding, I was given (or gave myself as I do not wish to be fired) a week. I repeat, A WEEK. One week. Five working days, Saturday and a blip of Sunday, to be more accurate. I set out for Krumlov armed with my task list and an unhealthy dose of optimism. I came back sleep-deprived, with an even longer list that I left with and a tick in my left eye. I even managed to miss my plane from Linz and had to travel with the ever-so-patient Jonathan to Salzburg and pay a hefty fee to the Nazi airline RyanAir. If a woman ever tells you she managed to pull off a wedding in a week and doesn't mean she eloped to Vegas, slap her. There is simply no way. It's a full-time job for months, even if you are not a bridezilla. Once you decide to do your wedding the more traditional way, you're stuck. No matter how much you don't really care, you still need to sit down and pick your bouquet, think about the color scheme and the frigging napkins, what the DJ will play and the party favors, the music you will be marching to and all the other millions of smaller or bigger choices that turn out to be incredibly time-consuming and pretty damn tiring. There is always the hope that all this effort will be worth it in the end, like labour. I sure pray it is.

The (clown) gown:
Our original wedding theme was Renaissance. Krumlov is an old town and has the best-preserved historic centre in the country. We thought it would be the perfect package: ceremony at the castle, reception at the monastery-turned-hotel, complete with a medieval banquet and instrumental music. My American friends especially were excited about the possibility to dress up for the occasion.

We went to the theatre to see the gowns in great anticipation. The first two minutes, however, dispelled any hopes of finding the right dress I might have had. The makers of the gowns adhered to the original models not only in the choice of materials, but also in the proportion. Being 5'10, I'm closer to an Amazon woman than a medieval-size (read midget with ridiculously short arms) woman. Unless I was willing to settle for a knight's tunic and a chain-link vest, there was only one dress that sort of fit me length-wise, but the padded shoulders made me look like an aspiring American football player instead of statuesque royalty. It was black, too. "We'll have one in white in a few months, so you can use that one", chirped the cloakroom lady. I shuddered. It's well known that black is a slimming color. White is not. If I looked like a footballer in the black one, what was I going to look like in the white version? A team of footballers?

Okay, so strike Barbara as the medieval princess. But what about the rest of the guests? They will be oh so disappointed if they cannot wear a medieval outfit as we promised them, I wailed. So we went to the Rose hotel, our selected venue for the banquet, to investigate the possibility of letting people rent outfits right there and then. A voluptuous lady was sitting at the reception, wearing a red velvet corset and fanning herself with a bundle of papers. "How do you feel in this outfit in August?" I asked her with a hopeful smile. "Is it comfortable?" She looked up at me. "You're kidding? We sweat like pigs," she sighed. Then she leaned towards us a bit closer. "I shouldn't really say that, but they don't wash them properly very often... you should smell it in the summer!" And that was that. There was no way I was going to ask our guests to take off their carefully selected and entirely appropriate clothing and force them to put on this smelly armour. This is the twenty-first century, after all.

I managed to find my perfect dress on the next day in a bridal rental shop in Ceske Budejovice. It was easier than I thought, and a lot more fun than putting on medieval costumes.  

Suicidal mission II: Barbara's snip & cut sweatshop factory
Certain housewives would rather have their leg cut off than offer their guests a store-bought dessert or, god forbid, a whole store-bought meal. I am the same way when it comes to producing paper goods for significant others. I hate buying cards. They are usually very expensive, corny, and I often think I could do better. There was a period in my life when I was very poor (by our Western standards), and my ability to make gifts came in very handy. My numerous beloved friends received elaborate birthday cards, Christmas ornaments made of salt dough, paintings, magnets, candleholders, necklaces etc. I even made my own wrapping paper. So, when it came to choosing our wedding invitation, I thought it would be a sacrilege to actually BUY them: of course I would make them! I, the craftiest of them all, could never possibly trust anyone with a task as important as my wedding invitation!!! Plus, how dull would it be to actually have wedding invitations that someone else already had before.

So, I produced thirty-three presentable invitations (certified originals), spent about £40.00 and 400 hours, called Migeru to help, called Migeru an array of unmentionable names and almost called off the wedding. To this day I've been picking up paper clippings and eraser lint from various corners of our bedroom. Mission accomplished.

Here is a little adaptation of what happened between B&M on one of the invitation-making days:

Over MSN Messenger, Migeru at work:
Barbara: I've been making these stupid invitations the entire day. (Sad face).
Migeru: Awww, you poor thing. Don't worry, I will help you. We will do them together. (Smiley face and a hug.)
Barbara: Okay. That would be great. (Kiss and a hug back.)

Later at home:
Barbara (tired after ten hours of making cards, yet peaceful): Okay honey, I will continue to cut out the hearts and you can go and print the text to put inside.
Miguel leaves for the office to print.
Ten minutes later:
Migeru: AAAAAARGHHHH!!! The fucking printer is fucking stuck! And the text is out of alignment!
Barbara (startled): Well, what happened? It worked fine before.
Migeru: I hate this fucking shit! Why do we have to do this? Why do you have to put us through all this? Printer squeaks frantically, chucking out crumpled, stained paper.
Barbara stares blankly.
Migeru: This is all so much fucking work! Is it worth it? Why do we need to even get married? I mean, aren't we as good as married anyway? We've been doing nothing but getting ready for the wedding!
Barbara (voice a bit shaky): I thought you wanted to get married...
Migeru: No! You wanted to get married! I was perfectly fine!
Barbara (feeling uncontrollable rage well up deep inside): You £$^&ing asshole! You are such a jerk! I'm such a £$^&ing idiot! Go £*$& yourself!
Door slams, curtain falls.

Following day, a therapy session with B's Bulgarian friend:

Barbara: I'm such an idiot. I should have never agreed to this wedding. I don't want to get married anymore.
Friend: Try to focus on the positive. Come on, tell me ten things about him that you like.
Barbara: Umm... (stares at the floor)
Friend: Come on. Ten things. There's gotta be ten things.
Barbara: Well... um... He's not here... Does that count?

As outlined in my previous diary, the true purpose of weddings is certainly Conflict Resolution. To have plenty of excuses for a monstrous fight about nothing (the dumber the reason the better), scream, sulk, cry, make up and say: "Man, that was stupid. Now, where were we?"