In which I bore you with wedding details.

So, I got an email from our wedding site on Sunday saying that people are starting to show interest in November 2008 dates and therefore we need to sign a contract and pay a deposit, stat. This set off a whole chain of events that, in a nutshell, means that the wedding planning is officially Back On. Because, oh my god, I can no longer sit around being like, "Eh, the wedding is over a year away! PLENTY of time!" Because it seems that most people plan their weddings for about a year after they get engaged, so lots of people are now starting to be interested in our date, which means that if I want to get specific vendors at good prices, now is the time. Or really, last month was the time. Whoops.

So the first thing in the chain of events is the caterer. Since the caterer is exclusive to the venue, I want to sign the contracts for the two of them at the same time, so that we don't somehow get screwed out of one or the other and then wind up totally stuck. So I emailed our contact at the caterer, who has been ever-so-responsive and also doubles as our day-of coordinator, to say that I'd like to sign the contract with her and also to give her our dessert and pasta selection, finally (we went with the pumpkin), since that will slightly change the price that will be reflected in the contract.

I figured she'd be happy that we wanted to sign a contract and hand over a check, but no response. Given how responsive she usually is, I found that strange--so yesterday I called her, and (you might see this one coming) a strange woman answered the phone and informed me that our DOC no longer works for the caterer, as of three weeks ago.

Ha ha ha ha ha HA. Was no one going to mention this to us? Could they not set up some sort of auto-reply to her email address informing people that she's no longer with the company? Somebody? Anybody? Bueller?

Anyway, I nicely refrained from pitching a fit because a) I'm not a Bridezilla, b) it wasn't this poor woman's fault, and c) I was at work. Instead, I told her who I was, she called up our file, and we spent the next half hour or so rehashing everything I'd already been through with the other woman. Including, let's see, the most important aspects--the menu and the price. Basically, the other woman had our "file," but that only meant that she had the original quote that we'd been given, which was a good $1,000 higher than the final price we'd negotiated and did not include the open bar. Luckily, I had a whole email trail of the back-and-forth, including the revised proposal with the correct price and the open bar included, so I just forwarded all that on to her and she seemed fine with it. Let's just hope that this woman is as good as she sounds and that the contract she sends reflects everything we specified at the correct price. Until that happens, my personal jury is still out. But being able to deal with this unexpected issue actually made me feel really organized, which was a first for me on this whole wedding planning thing.

Though I wasn't so organized on the menu--I had taken notes on what we'd selected during our tasting, but unfortunately I had assumed that our DOC had everything noted and thus gave the menu with our notes to Torsten's parents when they were visiting, because they asked if they could have it. Not irretrievable, but still, rather than having him try to call them and ask them to find it again, I just went to the menu options and tried to recreate the menu from memory. I'm almost positive that I got it right, and if not--well, hey, what I did pick sounded good too.

Speaking of Torsten's parents, this is the other thing that this email from the site set into motion. Since signing contracts means paying deposits, both Torsten and I sent emails to our respective sets of parents, more or less asking for money. Now, my parents have already agreed to pay for the wedding, within reason, less whatever Torsten's parents agree to spend. As you may remember, Torsten's parents already agreed to contribute, but how much was left up in the air. Torsten thought it would be half of the cost, but we weren't sure because they actually laughed when we showed them our projected budget. And his mom made comments like, "You could rent a site like that for $80 in Germany," and "I have a friend who could do the flower arrangements from her own garden for free."

Anyway, my mother, who is amazing--AMAZING--wrote back to my e-mail within 12 hours and simply said that a check in the amount of the combined deposits for the caterer, site, and photographer was in the mail. Because did I mention that she is amazing? And then Torsten's parents called and said that they will contribute an amount that is equivalent to approximately one-fifth of the total cost of the wedding.

There isn't really anything to do in that situation, besides just say thank you and accept their generosity for what it is. I mean, we asked them to contribute whatever amount they wanted, and we know that they feel somewhat alienated from the whole wedding planning process, and that the idea of the cost of a wedding in a big American city is totally outside of their realm of understanding. But we also know that they make about the same annual income as my parents and don't have any debt, even a mortgage. And Torsten truly believed that his parents would do what he would have done in that situation, which is to unreservedly pay for half.

Apparently his parents asked if that amount was okay, and it is, of course it is, because it's still a sizable chunk of money and we told them to give whatever they wanted to give. So Torsten said yes, of course, and when he told me about it later I told him to just write them an email saying thank you for the generous contribution. And it is generous, and I do appreciate it, and at least my parents won't have to pay for the entire thing themselves.

But it does rankle a little bit that Torsten's mom made a justification comment along the lines of, "We're sure that Jess's parents have so much more money than we do." Because that is patently not the case, and it's not really a fair assumption on their part, and it makes me a little upset that my parents are going to shell out the vast majority of the wedding cost even though it's not exactly easy for them to hand over that amount of money, and then their names will be listed together on the invitation as though both sets of parents had contributed equally. Even though I feel really petty thinking about the invitation thing.

Sorry, I just needed to vent briefly. Really, I am grateful that his parents are contributing at all, and I know it was a shock for them to find out how much the wedding will cost, and that it's hard for them to conceive of their son marrying someone that they've only met once, and it's tough for them to come to terms with the fact that their son is going to permanently settle in a country a whole ocean away. And we weren't planning to milk them for money and then go crazy with some lavish wedding--we've been working within a pretty strict budget this whole time anyway. And I already called my mom and told her the news, and she took it pretty well and reiterated what she's said all along, which is that we should have the wedding we want and that we shouldn't worry about cutting corners to save a couple hundred dollars here and there. Because--and I'm pretty sure this bears repeating--she is AMAZING.

But still. It seems unfair, and I feel bad for my parents. And also violently grateful to them, for being so generous, and for not asking us to pay. And I also feel bad for Torsten, who feels especially guilty about putting the majority of the cost burden onto my parents.

But now that I've moved into pay-deposits-sign-contracts-nail-down-details mode, I'm on a roll. I've looked into florists and bakeries, and I've called two DJs, with whom I will make appointments soon, and I have a list of potential officiants for a secular ceremony. Things are Happening, is the point here, and I feel so much better knowing I'm getting things done.

And also, yesterday Torsten got his American license. This means he can now legally drive in the US again. I can be a passenger! I can relax! I can look out the window! We can rent a car without paying the extortionate fees for an under-25 driver! It's like a whole new perspective on life. I cannot even begin to describe the extent of my excitement.