Husband

Whereas "I love you" and "fiancé" were words that were difficult to try on, "husband" felt like the most natural word to slip from my lips.

The first time I said it, I was standing at a Delta gate, trying to upgrade our flight to Mexico to first class.

"We only have 1 seat left," the gate agent informed me.

"No thanks. I'd like to sit with my husband," I spun on my heels and flipped my hair at him.

So much for honeymoon perks.

Things I learned while planning a wedding:

• Whitepages.com is my new best friend and single-handedly the website I used the most. Partial address? Whitepages.com ! Don't know whether Great Uncle Al is an Alan, Albert, or Alfonso? Whitepages.com ! Whitepages.com for everything!
• I had really good experiences with the following websites: orientaltrading.com, vistaprint.com, weddingpaperdivas.com, envelopes.com, and nicepricefavors.com.
• I would not use mixbook.com again. I made a last-minute decision and switched our wedding invitations to Mixbook because it was a $200 difference. The invitations were okay, but they printed their company logo on the back of all of the invitations and response cards. That is not the time or place to advertise. I eventually felt so much remorse over the invitations that I went back to the original website (weddingpaperdivas.com) and bought a handful of the original invitations I had chosen. No logos were on the back.

I think my biggest mistake was caring too much about what other people thought. Abe's ex-roommate planned her entire wedding within a week and didn't ask for anybody's opinion, including her fiance's. Meanwhile I didn't make a single choice without running it by three people, and Abraham was unexpectedly opinionated. It was helpful when I was just starting out and had no idea how what kind of wedding we could have, but by the time the wedding was planned and people were still telling me what to do--that got really frustrating really quickly.

I've had anxiety nightmares every night. Never about the man, only about the wedding. Sometimes things go horribly wrong: no kiddush cups to drink the wine, someone bought red wine instead of white (what if it stains my dress?). Sometimes I get up to the alter and I realize I'm standing next to an ex-boyfriend, and I tell my dad, I'm sorry, but I'm canceling this $25,000 party.

Things I have cried about in the last month

• The inner envelopes of the wedding invitations looked awful in certain lighting
• The guest list (too large)
• Seemingly having to make every appointment twice (or three times) instead of once to accomodate everyone's schedules
• The cost of hair on the wedding day ($240!!)
• My mom calling me a bridezilla when I said I wanted to pay for alterations rather than having her cut up my wedding gown
• The guest list (not enough people I know)
• Someone needing the wedding program the day after I finished addressing the invitations
• Talking about finances with family members
• Learning what hospitality bags are
• When are all of the appointments going to take place?
• Traffic (being 10 minutes late to life)
• The possibility of having the wedding outside
• Getting really sick an hour after the bridal shower
• Pneumonia!
• The decision of whether parents are going to stand under the chuppah (all of the tears)
• The guest list (why has only half responded?)
• The Finklesteins
• Keeping children from attending the wedding
• Feeling like a bad friend for turning down friend invites so I could sit alone in the dark

Abraham: As long as that list is, I think you missed a few things. 

Boom! Engaged.

The holidays were a busy time!

• Abe's previous roommate. Boom! Engaged. 
• Sleepy Katie. Boom! Engaged. 
• Mel. Boom! Engaged. 

Government Mule is in a bit of trouble because everyone around him has gotten engaged, however he and Jenna have been together the longest. So he told her that she could start planning a wedding. 

Harvey is dying. She's my matron of honor and there are already four more weddings on the books for 2014. I heard she is openly asking for people to not get married anymore. 

It's crazy. I spent my twenties drinking with these people and will spend my thirties attending their weddings. Mel and I were just talking how we never thought it would be us. We would never be the happy ones. And not only are we the happy ones, but we're the happy ones at the same time. 

I am so excited for my friends. I am so excited to be a bridesmaid when the time comes. People tell me that this feeling wanes when you've been a bridesmaid a number of times, but I am genuinely elated for them. Besides, I'll be the one relaxed when they are all stressing out this fall. 

37 days. 

Food for Thought

Sarah: Why do Jews say "a-mein" instead of "amen"?

Abraham: Because we really like Chinese food.

Haunted

I went to my book club last week. (We read Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, which was okay. I loved the characters, but hated the execution of the plot.) Katie and I were seated at a table for six in the corner of Café Intermezzo, a charming café that serves every possible variety of coffee, tea, and wine. On any given day, there is a choice of at least 30 fresh cakes of which you can get a giant slice for $7.95. 

The rest of the girls took their seats. The waiter came by and placed napkins in front of us. 

"Hello," he greeted us. He did a double-take when he saw me. "Oh! It's you! Hello! I know you've been here before!"

The rest of the table gave me the side eye. Why does this man know you so well, Sarah?

"I, um," [cough] "This was my go-to place when I was online dating," I rushed. During the height of my dating, I was here 2 - 3 times a week. 

The rest of the girls squealed in delight. I was a little embarrassed sitting there, haunted from ghosts of dating's past. 

"I'll have the hot chocolate with whiskey and Nutella." 

You know, the usual. 

Wedding Dating

During the very first Intro to Judaism class, the rabbi addressed conversion, making it very clear that this was not a conversion class and we would not be Jews in five months when the class was over. That was up to our converting rabbi, who was not him.

"How many of you have converting rabbis?" he asked.

The entire class raised their hands but me. This was why I had tried scheduling the meeting months ago. The woman stood me up, and the rabbi had seemed very nonchalant when I had asked him, choosing instead to give me a brief overview over email.

Conversion takes a year, he had written me.

I'm not waiting another year from August, I had told Abraham.

"And I don't convert by wedding dates," he told the class. "It's too hard to plan a wedding and convert at the same time. Some of you may take the class and choose not to covert, and that's okay too. Just get married and finish converting when the time is right. You'll have to have a second ceremony to be officially wedded in the Jewish faith."

Abraham and I headed his advice, mainly because we were at his mercy, and removed conversion from our wedding date factors. There were plenty of remaining factors:

• Finding a rabbi who will perform an interfaith wedding. Our rabbi made it very clear he would not.
• Finding a Saturday during Daylight Savings Time when the sun sets early and thereby ending the Sabbath at a reasonable hour. Rabbis do not work or travel on the Sabbath. This alone eliminated 6 months out of the year, including spring and summer, when the sun would set close to 9:00 p.m.
• Abraham was not getting married during football season, eliminating autumn.

Our other options were getting married on a Friday or a Sunday, but Abraham hated Friday weddings and didn't want to make people take off work. We tried Sunday of Memorial Day, but venues were already booked by people who had planned ahead. Sunday of Labor Day was too far away for me and too close to football season for Abraham.

That left us with January and February, the two cheapest months of the year to get married. The sun would set 6:00ish, so we could have a Saturday night wedding.

The ceremony would be Jewish, but I needed some of my culture reflected in the wedding too. I didn't want everything dictated by Jewish law. So I found the biggest, whitest antebellum home I could afford. It was built in 1870 and has 2-story white columns and a porch. It's everything I wanted, down to the green velvet curtains and working fireplace. It is so very southern. My heart was set.

It's booked for February 22nd.