Can the MOB Spank the Bride?

I have heard that brides can be temperamental but I didn’t expect it to happen so early into the planning!

Ky, Stretch and I all made it through choosing the ceremony and reception center without a harsh word. We were all on the same page. Ky’s biggest concern is that the chairs are blue. Stretch's biggest concern is that he won’t have a decorated get-away car. Both can easily be fixed. Chaircovers.com will make everything match. No one needs to know that their get-away car is only going to drive from one lodge to the next! There will still be Oreos, window paint and a few blown up condoms on the antennae. Mike gets his traditional groomsman prank and Ky gets everything matchy matchy just like she likes it. A win win!

Next milestone, I caved, let Spermy pay half of the initial down payment for Snowbird. I didn’t want to be the one to cause the first scene. No matter how badly I wanted to handle it on my own! A 50/50 start.

Save the Date photos . . . Stretch wore red!!! And changed into different outfits. He is a good sport. He toted his backpack up and down the mountain with his cowboy boots so that he would match from head to toe. No complaints. He kissed and smiled for almost two hours.

Things are going smoothly.

I suggested a desk calendar for Save the Dates, a little less trendy than a magnet and more personal than today’s email notification. But Ky liked it!

The big calendar vote:

1: Utah Scenery
2: Famous Couples
3: Movie Couples

The winner by vote was Utah scenery, but we vetoed and decided on famous couples. Weddings are not really a democracy. We all know the bride makes the final decisions no matter the outcome of a vote.

Next step, the criteria to get a month:

1: You have an anniversary in that month
2: The photo is on their wedding day in wedding dress and tux
4: and it photo must be unique

Ky is busy. She is a full time nanny and a college student trying to plan a wedding. I have free time at night; I can find the couples and pictures. It took hours of Googling to find the perfect couples with an anniversary for each month. Elvis for Ky and Johnny and June for Stretch, the musical icons. Those were must haves. Princess Di, Jackie and JFK and The Obamas filled the class category. Nostalgia met with Marilyn Monroe and Lucy. And what is a wedding calendar without Elizabeth Taylor?

Then the trouble started.

I saw every Adam Sandler movie ever made because he was Ky’s favorite actor from a very early age. Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison are classics. The Wedding Singer felt like I was back in High School. Plus how can a movie with Billy Idol be bad? Then there were the real winners. Waterboy! A rere with a Cajun accent driving a lawnmower. Mr. Deeds and Little Nikki, need I say more? But Adam redeemed himself with 50 First Dates and Click. He kind of grew up. He was the guy I loved from Saturday Night Live again. He deserved and earned June! Bonus, his picture is funny.

The MTV generation needs Speidi in April! If we lived through all of their fake weddings we should get to celebrate the actual legal union. Plus her fake boobies with the bleached hair matched with his curly blond lockes and blinding pearly whites are worth looking at for thirty days.

I showed props to Prop 8, Ellen and Portia get August!

Ozzy and Sharon, music icons of today. Their picture is great; Ozzy is actually biting her, like a vamp. How Twilight of them!

I found the picture perfect couples for every month. Ran each one past Ky and got them ready to send to the designer.

I brought them home for the final bridal sign off. BIG MISTAKE!

Suddenly she started enforcing the dictatorship of a wedding. Vetoing many of my pictures and hours of hard work! The bride wanted all the couples to be classic. Meaning their original wedding photos should have been black and white without a click of a photo editing button. Adam, Ozzy, Ellen, and Speidi were all put into the recycle bin! But Will Smith survived the cut? I didn’t understand!

The first glimpse of my very own Bridezilla was showing. She insisted I start over on half of the year!

Doesn’t she understand how many hours I have worked on this?

Doesn’t she know how hard it was to find a famous couple for every month?

Then it happened. She said the words . . . THIS IS MY WEDDING. NOT YOURS.

I was arguing with the irrational two years old that wanted to run past her boundaries. With the sixth grader that wanted to wear flip flops during a blizzard. And with the Junior who thought a fellow male student could room with the girls on a High School field trip.

Would there be foot stomping? Crying? A full blown temper tantrum?

I have never spanked Ky. I grounded her once and regretted all thirty minutes of it. But today I seriously considered both. Can I throw her over my knee and inflict any pain? Can I steal her car keys and hold her hostage in the house?

No. She is bigger and stronger than me. Getting her over my knee would probably end with me in the ER. Grounding her to the house would only be punishing me. I would have to endure the wrath of the bridal bitch for hours until I finally pleaded with her to leave or vanquished myself to the basement.

How do I win this battle of the Save the Date Calendars? How else? With the wallet! It may be her wedding, but mama is paying.

In the end, we compromised. I gave a few months and so did she.

I would like to say that this was my intent on giving her a lesson on compromising to make things work. But no, it was a fight. A my idea is better than hers girl fight.

Can’t wait for dress shopping :)

I Think I was a Tricycle in a Past Life

I just got invited to go to lunch with my friend and her old boyfriend. I regretfully declined with the response that I didn’t want to be the third wheel.

Now I’m thinking about it. I’m ALWAYS the third wheel. Why would this lunch, dinner, or vacation be any different from every other relationship in my life?

For years Kyky and I vacationed with my best friend, her husband and two kids. I got along better with him anyway so I was sort of a distraction to their bad marriage. I acted as the buffer. I made things more fun for the kids. I stopped the bickering. Of course we would get the typical looks every time someone would ask where we were from. The answer of Utah would always get us a snicker. Nik and I often wanted to don long braided wigs and Gunnie Sax dresses so we could fit the poly stereotype. Instead we bought Otis a Polygamy Porter T-Shirt to wear.

One time we switched it up. It was Mickey’s Pride Days. This time Nik and I got to be the couple and we referred to Otis as donor while we waited in lines filled with same sex couples. He was very uncomfortable and retired to the House of Blues for the majority of the weekend.

Nik and Otis’s marriage finally came to an end. The years of vacationing as polygamists ended. Nik has since remarried and we have only gone on one weekend vacation with her new hubby. Don’t see that happening again. Otis became my boyfriend. Vacationing with him and the kids as the solo girl was not nearly as fun. I am a much better third wheel than girlfriend.

Even in High School I was the token third wheel. All my close friends had boyfriends. Not me. I never wanted the serious boyfriend. Instead, I would usually end up being the extra safeguard that parents liked being on their kids’ dates. In Utah extra wheels are encouraged. Group dates are the thing to do. The other extra wheels and I never felt out of place. Little did we realize we were the church’s way of implementing birth control.

After I had Kyky, I brought the third wheel. We took her everywhere. Ky gave us reason to go to the zoo and to Disney movies. No one cared that we had to have a high chair or go to early movies. They all took turns holding her or pushing the stroller.

Nowadays I hang out with my best friend Kel and her hubby JD. They nicely invite me to their private dinner dates. Time they get together is precious because of their work schedules but they never let me feel like I’m intruding, though I know I am. They include me so much they joke that I’m in their wills; whoever dies first has to leave the other complete custody of me. They even told their kids they had to move out of the basement so I could move in. That is true friendship!

Last night my friend Les and her hubby had me over for drinks and dinner. After a very long day at work I arrived to a waiting martini and the aroma of a homemade dinner was filling the house. Todd cooked and kept the glasses filled while we chatted and giggled.

I wonder if Kyky and Stretch will let me continue my tradition. They say that as soon as they can afford it, they will build a house with a mother-in-law apartment. I think it’s just because they want a cook and a dog sitter.

Maybe it will be time for me to try a two-wheeler. I’ve never been really good at two person relationships though. I guess I have a balancing problem. I have a hard time choosing where to focus my time and energy. Work? Home? Kid? Family? Partner? It always seems the partner gets put last on my list of priorities. Then again it is probably just as much a commitment problem. Like a kid trying to get rid of the training wheels – I can’t quite give up my freedom or admit I might actually want to be dependant on someone else.

I’m thinking I’m going to have to give it a try. I don’t want to be a newlywed tricycle. Awkward! No way in hell can I manage as a unicycle. I would end up a hermit on Prozac without friends and companionship of some sort. And we all know that my other room mate – the GOB – doesn’t offer much in the way of companionship. Maybe now that Ky is older and moving out on her own I’ll break my rules and have guys over to my house. Actually let them think I want them to be a part of my life. Silly how that might make a difference in giving a relationship a go!

Of course, anyone that wants a third wheel, give me a call! I make for a good threesome.