Steve and I are married and safely arrived in Scotland. Our wedding was a fairly simple affair (at least from our perspective--the people traveling to see us and helping with arrangements might disagree), and my only major regret is that I didn't take a bag of cookies with me from the reception. I was longing for a pecan tassie in the airport.

My friend Marcene took our photographs.
My mom made my dress.

Our friend Sue Anne made our wedding cake (she even made the flowers out of sugar paste). Red velvet delightfulness.


This is not such a great picture (kindly disregard my hair) except that it shows the yarn and construction paper necklace M(5) fashioned for me to wear at the reception. Also, please note M(5) herself in the lower, right-hand corner of the photo. She spent a good portion of the day either attached to my hand/waist or trailing close by.

Not pictured: Steve's fruitcake groom's cake, a piece of which Steve took to Fred, his rental car agent, for being so nice to him when Steve flew into Salt Lake and the airline lost his luggage.

Not pictured: Tuey hopping about in the hat my brother brought him from southeast Asia.

Not pictured: Marmot Babe enamored with Steve's 4-month-old niece. At one point, my sister had both babies on her lap. Marmot Babe was very pleased, repeating, "Hold it, hold it!"

Not pictured: MBC falling ill and keeping her parents up with her hacking coughs the night before the wedding.

Not pictured: MBC and Steve's tasty pre-wedding breakfast. We wandered into a little bakery/cafe the morning of the wedding and when we asked for a menu, we were informed that there was no menu, but that they'd be happy to fix anything we'd like. Yes, please.

Speaking of food, the crumpets in the kitchen are calling to me.

Hey, look, we got married.

Not Because Rebekah Told Me To

Steve and I are getting married in the morning. Steve has now met all of my immediate family. Tuey is very taken with Steve's bald head and likes to think about it and talk about it with an occasional, "I love Uncle Steve!" thrown in after his Uncle Steve hair comments. M(5) is our most enthusiastic wedding helper. When we set up for the reception this afternoon, she lugged around folding chairs that weigh more than she does and followed close on my heels everywhere I went. She's spent this entire week making me valentines (including a FANTASTIC book I will blog later) and secretly sneaking them into my bag. All three of the older marmots helped ("helped" in some cases) make reception cookies, and I've overheard several play sessions that involve pony weddings.

Thirteen and a half hours . . .

We Didn't Buy One

Yesterday the marmots, Mom, my sister, and I took a trip to DI (with me squeezed into the special spot in the van, all the way in the back between E(7)'s booster seat and M(5)'s car seat). Mom made my wedding dress and she did a great job and the fabric is lovely, but we're still not entirely in love with it. DI has a whole rack of wedding dresses with sleeves, so we thought I might as well try them on while we were already there facilitating the little girls' dinosaur/pony addiction.

Three of the kids joined me in my tiny, thrift store fitting room. Tuey manned the door (with his sisters yelling, "Tuey, no! Don't open the door until Aunt is wearing clothes!"), and the girls took turns zipping and unzipping dresses and fluffing up trains and oohing over the fanciness of it all. I should always take marmots when I go clothes shopping. They're real little ego-boosters.

In the Future, I May Not Want To Hear It

My parents have very nice elderly neighbors who live across the street. Mom and I stopped and chatted with them today and told them about the upcoming wedding. They congratulated me and said that if I need any marriage advice, I should stop on by and "Auntie Lee" would give it to me. Well, I might just take Auntie Lee up on that, because, remarkably, I've received almost no advice at all (unless you count repeated recommendations that we move to Tennessee, which I don't). This lack of advice is astonishing, since, before I was engaged, complete strangers in the grocery store and the relatives of my friends and the girls who cut my hair at the beauty school all felt free to offer me unsolicited advice about my life all the time. Advice I did not need, because I'm simply smashing at being single.

I know far, far less about marriage.

So, if you have any good marriage advice (from personal experience or just that you've encountered somewhere), I'd be happy to hear it at this time. Or if you're privy to really terrible marriage advice, that would be interesting to me as well.

Why You Gotta Be That Way?

Mom and I went wedding dress shopping today. We visited a major player in the wedding dress chain store business, erroneously thinking that since the store serves so many brides, the company would cater to many tastes. Not so. I told my special bridal friend (I believe she's called a "consultant" and I know this because I watch Say Yes to the Dress) what I wanted and she told me that they do not carry ANY wedding dresses with sleeves. None. They have little bolero jackets to put over any of their 5 kabillion strapless gowns, but they have zero dresses with any kind of sleeve. I tried a few dresses on anyway, but standing in a giant, mirrored room with borrowed underwear under a gown I do not want to purchase with a special bridal friend does not please me.

False Advertising

Steve and I picked up our wedding announcements today. In the photograph of the two of us, it looks like I'm only 4-5 inches shorter than Steve. This is entirely due to the three phone books I am standing on in the picture.

Wedding Preparations

This may come back to bite me, but I have to say that I find wedding planning very easy. All these years I've heard nothing but complaints about the trials and stresses of planning a wedding, but in my vast 4 days worth of experience with it, it's a piece of cake. (Now planning 4 months abroad with a rotating roster of traveling companions, THAT'S a challenge.) I'll admit, though, that our wedding may be easier than normal to plan, for the following reasons:

1. Steve and I don't really care that much about any of the details as long as we end up married at the end of the day, so conversations go like this:

Mom: Do you want a bouquet?
MBC: No.
Mom: Do you want napkins with your names on them?
MBC: No.

MBC: Steve, do you care where we have the reception?
Steve: No.
MBC: Okay, then we're just going to use a church.
Steve: Okay.

2. We're not registering, which eliminates one more task, because we're living in Scotland so anything we receive has to be shipped abroad. I had just a tiny moment of sadness about this the other day when Steve and I were in Target and I considered the fun I would have with a little scanner, picking out waffle irons that make breakfast foods in the shape of farm animals.

3. I'm unemployed and Steve is here away from all of his responsibilities, so we both have a lot of time to get things done for the wedding. We don't have to spend all day at work or school and then try to take care of wedding details in our spare time.

So, engaged for less than a week and the following are well in hand: wedding cake, groom's cake, ceremony, reception, photography, engagement parties. Now let's just hope I haven't jinxed us.

MBC is Getting Married FAQ

As requested, here are the pertinent facts of MBC and Steve.

Q: How did you meet?
A: When I was traveling in Scotland, I visited Sue Anne, who was also a grad student in Bloomington. Steve and Sue Anne are friends and when we arrived at Sue Anne's house, Steve was there hanging out. He went out with all of us that night and at one point, I heard him say something about building with straw bale insulation, which, naturally caught me up short and made me think, "Wait. Who are you? And why are you talking about something I care about that no other man I have ever known has taken an interest in?" I spent that night and the next day having lots of really interesting conversations with Steve, and he came down to visit me in Edinburgh one night before I left for Greece a few days later. I then proceeded to be the worst travel companion in history, because I was always more interested in my next email from Steve than I was in ancient Greek ruins or Turkish food (I know!) or anything in Europe. I went back to Scotland to visit him at the end of my trip and then Skype became our best friend when I returned to the States.

Q: Is Steve Scottish?
A: No, he's Canadian but he's been living in Scotland for the last several years.

Q: What does Steve do?
A: Everything. Currently, he's working on a PhD. Before moving to Scotland, he worked as an engineer.

Q: Do you have a ring?
A: No. I told Steve I didn't want one. That's the way I roll. I'd rather spend that money on, say, a pair of wellies and a trip to the Orkneys or Italy.

Q: Where are you going to live?
A: Scotland for the foreseeable future.

Q: When did you know he was a keeper?
A: He sent me an email explaining functional clarity through the example of a chocolate croissant (its function, according to Steve, is tastiness). Oh, and maybe too when he sent me terrible McGonagall poetry. But I already thought he was fantastic because of many things, including: he's so smart and he keeps up with (or ahead) of me in conversations, he's interested in everything and he can do everything, he's so, so nice and thoughtful, he tells great stories (when I wake up and hear Mom laughing in the kitchen, I know that Steve is already up and talking to her). I could go on, but I don't want to make anyone gag any more than they already are. He did demonstrate another skill tonight, though, which I consider essential in a spouse--he can kill cave crickets. And you know how I feel about those.

Everybody satisfied? Any more questions?