Guest Post: Here Comes the Bride

Groom 2 Be's Note: Have you ever noticed that when opportunity knocks there is often a lot more to do than simply opening the door? I have been busy and rather stressed this week. My Betrothed has offered to blog in my place. I am in her debt. Without further ado: Here Comes the Bride!

Hello loyal Impending Groom readers! I hope you don’t mind the quick fill-in, but I’ll be feeding you the funny this week. At least this is a better notice than those little pieces of paper you get in the playbills at plays when they bring in a pinch hitter. You know… I think this is how John (Jen’s husband) got his start on Cakewrecks. Is there a future coffee-table-book deal and US promotional trip in my future?

Sorry. Weddings. That’s what y’all are here for. And that’s what’s been missing, right? What’s all this about nephews and beer cozies? We weren’t even at the store to look for wedding stuff, those crazy things just called out to us! “Come see the Crazy!” It’s amazing how stores are designed specifically to draw me over to the crazy. But I digress. There is one good reason, and a million not so good ones, that Wedding is not getting closer. And that, my dear friends, is irrigation.

Now, the last time I started to tell this story I asked my companions if they knew what irrigation is. They nodded assent. They, in fact, did not understand the true omnipotence of irrigation in the Valley of the Sun. Irrigation, gentle reader, is the life blood of said valley. If I may wax loquacious and pedantic (hey—I studied for the GRE and I am darn well going to get use out of all that time and effort!!) on this topic, I will tell you of the past. There were prehistoric peoples living in that Valley, and they had irrigation canals which sustained agriculture. When Easterners got out here for the dry air to cure their ailments, they thought: ‘hey—some of those nice plants could really settle this desert-wasteland. Let’s bring some of those out here! Now we just need water…’ And so they co-opted and aggrandized those canals and put in grass. Lots and lots of grass. The location of my impending nuptials relies on irrigation for its lush setting. Relies. On. It. So dependent, in fact, that when one savvy soul suggested not signing up for the allotment of irrigation on the date I desire, my come-back was quick and painful: the overflow pipe is on same said lush setting. Even if we don’t take the flood of water that irrigation entails, we are thwarted. And if someone else on the block doesn’t? Doomed.

One little date is all I ask for, and one little date is all that’s been denied. But wait… dates? How does irrigation befuddle the choice of a wedding date you ask? The lovely people at SRP (and they are wonderful, I am *not* being sarcastic), don’t and can’t publish dates until right before that torrent of life giving liquid surges towards your subdivision. So, hopefully, you now understand why you do not have a save the date. And why two other couples who got engaged after us, are getting married before.

A parting thought for you, as I leave: imagine some very, very happy children. They are playing in muddy, probably vector infested water. They are making chocolate milk with the mud and later turn to mud pies. Oh! And there’s a fish that’s come up through the canal system. Their parents let them keep it as a pet. They have no idea the future vexation irrigation will cause.

Oversharing

If you celebrated Valentine's Day (or anti-Valentine's Day, or Arizona's Statehood Day) I hope you had an excellent February 14th. And if you live in the US, I hope you had a stupendous three-day President's Weekend. And if you don't do any of that, I hope you still had a great weekend last weekend.

I'm aware I've been a bit lax over the last couple of weeks. I want to tell you that this week is the week I get back up to standards here at Impending Groom. I want to tell you that, but...

I do actually have a few things to share with you all this week. I have a bad habit of oversharing with telemarketers, especially those canvasing for charity. This gets me into some funny situations and silly conversations. My guilt kicks in, and I never feel right simply telling someone "sorry, not today," especially if it's a cause that I support. A while back I got such a call, this one from Amnesty International. I felt compelled to tell him how, while I love the work Amnesty does, I was saving up for a wedding. I figured that everyone knows weddings tend to be expensive. I should have just kept my mouth shut. This guy understood about the costs... so he started giving me advice.

Apparently he'd gotten married a couple years ago himself. He proceeded to tell me all about the great deal he got on a catered venue in Las Vegas where, he assured me, he had a real wedding, complete with guests and reception and everything. He told me about his bride's family, and his family, and the music, and the food.

Everyone's a back-seat wedding planner! I thanked him for his advice. But I don't intend to suggest we move the wedding to Vegas.

One last story. I was going to hold this one back, just in case I was feeling uninspired next week. But recently one of my readers accused me of "going soft". So here's a brief installment in my ongoing critique of the WIC. My Betrothed and I spent part of this V-Day weekend shopping for wedding stuff at a big chain crafts store. There was all the usual stuff, most of which we neither wanted nor needed, and some of which we wanted but couldn't justify the expense of. And then there's stuff that just made us scratch our heads. Like this:


So...

Uh...

First off, these are wedding-themed beer cozies. Very, very classy, I'm sure.
But second, and perhaps more importantly, these were the only two they had. There was no "I'm the Groom, That's Why" or "I'm the Mother of the Bride, That's Why" or "I'm the Flower Girl, That's Why" cozies. Only the Bride gets a specific cozy. The Groom has to share one. Now, this is not to say that I don't think My Betrothed deserves her own cozy. If she desires a beverage in an aluminum can on the day of the ceremony, or at the reception, then I deem it proper that said beverage should be kept at a proper temperature by whatever means necessary, even if that means happens to be bright pink. My point is that I should get one, too. I realize that the stereotype is that the Bride is the one guzzling cheap beer out of a can in the middle of the ceremony, but... wait... that's not right.

Not pictured: White hat with rhinestones that reads "Bride." No black hat for the Groom.

~G2B

The trick is to get back on...

Before I get into anything else, I want to congratulate a reader and frequent commenter on this blog, Wrayvin. Last weekend her boyfriend of over a year and a half proposed! They've only just started planning, but Wrayvin tells me they've picked a date, which is one thing My Betrothed and I have not done. Congratulations, you two! Keep us updated!

Second order of business: Many have pointed out that I did not post last week. There was no sinister reason for this, no illness in the family, no lottery ticket, nothing big happened last Thursday night to prevent me from posting Friday morning. It just didn't happen. It's a break in my resolution, but I figure that as long as I can get an extra post in some time in February I'll be good. Obviously the Link Mondays experiment broke me. Or I just didn't have any creative juices flowing last week. Either way.

Okay with all that out of the way, I better make up some time with a big, long, gushing post about...

Crud.

~G2B

PS: Happy Valentine's Day, to those who practice.