Scary Things!

On this day after Halloween I thought I'd muse about several unrelated topics that all qualify as "scary things."

Scary Thing #1 - My wedding dress
I went to the bridal shop yesterday and picked up my wedding dress. Remember when I said I was having the champagne colored satin dress trimmed in plum?? Well, believe you me - it's purple!! My first thought was "I LOVE IT!" but then the confidence was replaced by misgivings of "Jenn, are you seriously getting married with purple all over your ass end??" I think as I was surrounded by all of the white and ivory traditional concoctions around me, I was having some doubts about my own unique vision. Will my mom think it's hideous? Will BJ hate it?? As I tried it on, there were some people in the shop who clearly applauded how unique and personal it was. Betsy who sold it to me loved how it turned out and thought I looked adorable in it. Then there was the other shop worker who CLEARLY thought - hmm definitely a fashion don't. Of course I have to remember that when I started this whole wedding thing I wasn't even going to wear anything remotely traditional, I had wanted to get a red, green or purple dress and forgo the bridal look all together. Now I'm at least in a mostly white dress and planning on wearing a veil - so what if I have bright purple on my chest and my train?? Since when am I a cookie cutter kindof girl???

Scary Thing #2 - Wedding Vows
Luckily BJ and I both agree on having a civil ceremony. I'm NOT the religious type though I would have been willing to have a religious based ceremony IF it were really important to him. The folks who are marrying us are basically letting us design our own ceremony so I have spent the last week or so researching various ceremony details like vows, exchange of rings, readings etc.

We already decided that we would find pre-written vows to repeat from the justice of the peace in lieu of writing our own. I think the whole composing our own is a tenuous situation for what is already a nerve wracking moment, as beautifully illustrated by one of his good friends who vowed in front of all those in the church to never "sperm" his wife as opposed to "spurn" her.

While looking up vows on the internet here and here, there are some things that are absolutely vomit inducing, either because of the whole misogynistic overtone or the ridiculously sappy, and then the strangely Dr. Seussian. Our favorite find thus far was this Celtic vow, seriously we'd bring the house down with this one ...

"I pledge to you that yours will be the name I cry aloud in the night and
the eyes into which I smile in the morning
I pledge to you the first bite of my meat and the first drink from my cup
..."

Scary Thing #3 - Unity Candles
Interestingly enough when we discussed the actual wedding, my deal breaker was having anything overtly Christian, while his deal breaker was having a unity candle ceremony. I assumed his objection was to the whole cheesiness of the unity candle, but actually he is very opposed to what it represents as he has seen it performed in weddings ... the two separate candles used to light the center and then the separate ones blown out ... to him that symbolizes that the individual identity is extinguished. Now when I've seen the unity candle back north, the Moms of the bride and groom light the individual candles at the very beginning and then during the wedding, the couple takes those individual candles and lights the center. There are then three candles that remain lit, sortof symbolizing the joining of the two families. I always thought it was cheesy but sentimental at the same time.

For giggles and grins, I did some research on the unity candle (here, here and here) and it's meaning and found that it's used both the way BJ sees it and how I have described. Even after discussing this with him, he is still adamantly opposed and cannot get the "traditional" symbolism out of his mind because he finds it so distasteful, especially to the woman. Methinks he's been to too many Baptist type weddings here in the south where people still promise to obey :)

Scary Thing #4 - Haunted Houses
I'm not big in the Halloween scene and I hate scary movies and all things creepy in general. BJ though is a big fan of such things, so we decided to go to a haunted house last night. There are several options in the Little Rock area, but we chose the Haunted Hospital which had received the highest reviews on the Arkansas Times website. It was actually pretty good, they had lots of "actors" who came out to scare, and even touch the participants. I think BJ derived great enjoyment out of watching me steer clear of the creepy chainsaw guy who ran down the hall after us :)