Eight Weeks and Two Days

I understand why people elope.

Planning a wedding is really a giant pain in the arse. There is nothing fun about it and any Martha Stewart wannabe who tells you differently has been inhaling too much craft glue.

Besides watching our wallet spontaneously combust, there are small, insidious issues that have jumped into our path recently and they just don't respect the fact that Dallas and I list towards procrastination, as a rule. Today marks eight weeks and two days until we say our vows. EIGHT WHOLE WEEKS!

Dallas and I were lying in bed the other night and he said, "Beth?" in a questioning voice. Immediately, the alarm bells began to shriek in my head because when he uses my given name instead of an endearment, I know there is likely to be trouble. In this particular instance, he asked if I thought it might be okay for his groomsmen to wear black pants and a white dress shirt instead of a tux. Leisa and Shane had elected to do this for their wedding in February and it made sense because they were married at the beach. The whole look of their wedding party was modern chic. I've got a horse drawn carriage delivering me to the chapel steps. Cinderella stuff. F-A-I-R-Y T-A-L-E material. But hey, I'm easy. If tuxes won't work, I'd be perfectly happy with tights and powdered wigs.

Dallas wasn't demanding that we do it this way. He was merely floating an idea. We had recently learned that he must send each of his groomsmen out to the tailor's rightthisverysecond to be measured for a tux because in JUST EIGHT WEEKS PEOPLE, we'll be walking down the aisle and apparently, time is needed to grow the cotton or shear the sheep! Dallas doesn't want to inconvenience anyone so of course, the path of least resistance was to have them pluck something from their own closet. I haven't given him any feedback on the idea yet. Lately, I can't make a decision between mustard or mayo let alone anything of any import.

Which brings me to the second issue. The honeymoon. Where do we go?

We first tossed the idea of chartering our own boat and sailing the Aegean Sea. We'd spend six blissful days island hopping. Too much work, though. And there was talk of pirates, matey. So then we thought we might like to fly to either Mikonos or Santorini and just laze on the beach with an Ouzo in hand. But that idea still didn't sit well with us. Of course being motorcycle enthusiasts, we thought we could rent a couple of Harleys and ride along the Mediterranean. We mapped a route that started in Italy, worked our way through France and finished in Spain. I loved the idea of seeing a bit of three countries this way until we had a look at the Euro versus the American dollar. Yeah, spank us! We quickly abandoned that idea.

So then, we decided to stay closer to home. We had people suggest domestic honeymoons.

No.

Mexico? Nice beaches and perfect weather but we had both been there.

Costa Rica? Hmm...we landed on that one for some time because the place is visually stunning but I just couldn't get past the $500+ a night price tag in Central America.

Now, we're contemplating the Caribbean. Actually, I am perusing the Caribbean. Dallas disengaged from the process a long time ago. He's a buyer, not a shopper and my indecision is causing him to gray at the temples. But have you seen the sheer number of islands in the Caribbean? And I feel the need to research every last one of them because I want the most bang for our buck. Tripadvisor.com has become the bane of my existence because it feeds my obsessive compulsive tendencies. At some point, I am likely to flip a coin. And apparently, it had better be soon because did you know: we're getting married in EIGHT WEEKS!!