Lest @exitrowiron and @runs4donuts think that I’m a spoiled brat who expects people to shell out thousands of dollars to attend her wedding I want to clear some things up related to the wedding.

Location, location, location

I’m from southeast Nebraska, south of Lincoln. My fiance is from Buffalo, New York. Either way we do this, it’s a destination wedding for one group of people. We initially were going to have it in his parent’s backyard for “free”. The costs began mounting; tent rental, chairs, tables, dance floor, BATHROOM rental, DJ, food, drinks, photography, decorations/flowers, parking issues, shuttles, etc. It became an expensive nightmare.

I have always dreamt of having a destination wedding and getting married on the beach. I didn’t figure this would EVER be able to happen due to expense for those involved so I left it as a daydream and figured that was that.

Dolla, Dolla, Bills, y’all

We went back and forth on where to have the wedding; Buffalo or Lincoln, or maybe Mexico or Jamacia? What would ACTUALLY be cheaper? The average cost of a wedding now days is something astronomical like $26,000 to $45,000 and I am NOT about going into debt for one day. My parents like many others do NOT have some sort of magical fund out there just waiting for me to use when I get married. (Instead, they financed most of my undergrad education, so I can’t and won’t complain, I managed to graduate with only about $16k in debt that I had to pay. That money was MUCH better spent on my degree than a wedding, in my opinion).

But I digress.

I did a lot of research and found that we could pay for this wedding ourselves by each saving about $5k in a year. And honestly? It won’t even cost that much. For the two of us to go to Mexico to an all-inclusive resort for 10 days it is $2975 TOTAL for flight and hotel. That’s $150 per day each for EVERYTHING, including getting there. The wedding that the resort gives us, which is on the beach, includes decorations, flowers, and a reception with food and drink is $2750. The photos will be around $1900 (basically the same everywhere!). So we will pay about $7500 for a vacation and a wedding. I think that’s win-win.

SO. What upsets me most about ALL of this is that my besties told me, when I first broached the subject of a destination wedding to them and asked if they thought they could go and be a part of it, they both said. “Melissa, we’ve known since FOREVER that you’ve wanted a destination wedding and we have PLANNED for it. Don’t worry, we’ll be there.”

Tit for tat?

Is it fair to expect your best friends to do the same that you did for them? I threw and attended showers for both of them, I bought my dresses and paid for travel and hotel rooms for both of their weddings as well. In fact, for one of them, I had to buy a plane ticket, rent a car, and pay for lodging and food for 5 nights for her wedding because she got married on Memorial Day and the rehearsal was the Friday prior. In Denver. That wedding ended up costing me about $2000 for that weekend alone and I NEVER complained about it once. Right now, they don’t even appear to want to do a shower for me with the help of another friend. So you can see why I feel so hurt.

What is all comes down to is this: I feel like I’m in a bad spot because I planned on having them as my matrons of honor and now it appears that they are going back on their promise. If they would have said in the beginning that they couldn’t make it happen I would have understood.

The Real Cost

ALSO, it would not cost them $2000 each. They only have to be there for 3 days (resort rules) and the prices vary from $800-$1150 for the entire package.

So, the tl;dr is this: This wedding will be a destination for at least one group of people and honestly, I didn’t want to get married in Buffalo. If they couldn’t do it I wish they would have told me that from the beginning because false hope really hurts.

An Apathetic Bride

Warning, this post is all about my upcoming destination wedding and my extreme disappointment with some of those closest to me.

I don’t think my big brother is going to come to my wedding. He’s my only sibling and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t seriously hurt by it. He said it is too expensive and he would have rather that I had the wedding in Buffalo (where we were first going to have it) because he could swing that trip with the whole family. But this is too expensive. I found out from my mom that he has enough money to buy himself a new SUV though! (He already has a truck for himself and another SUV for his wife). I was seething. But what can you do?

My two bff’s (who are my matron’s of honor) haven’t booked their wedding trips yet either. One cites money concerns–even though she only has to put down $200 with the travel agent, and the other is trying to get pregnant and isn’t sure if she can even come now. They’ve been trying to get pregnant for YEARS with no luck–they’ve only been able to do so once and lost the baby before 3 months. They are trying IUI this month and have enough funds to do it for another two months. Because the wedding is 6.5 months away, she won’t even buy a dress. (Which they are discontinuing the style she likes in the color I want, sigh). I understand that this is more important to her, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

We had a come-to-Jesus about the fact that I feel like both besties (who I’ve been bff’s with since we were 5 and 8 years old) are making me feel like my wedding doesn’t matter to them and that I am asking too much of them. The one who is trying to get pregnant said she’s sorry that I feel that way. I HATE that phrase–it is a cop-out for actually apologizing. She’s not sorry for making me feel like they don’t care, just that I feel that way.

I would NEVER tell her not to try to get pregnant because I know they want children, but when you tell someone that you will be in their wedding and now you might not go and the bride has other friends who have already booked and were disappointed to NOT be in the wedding, it makes a girl just want to tell that friend to forget it and ask someone else.

I think I put too much faith in people not to disappoint me. Even our family and life-long friends will show their true colors when it comes down to it, I guess.

Think before you speak

I had dinner with a college friend last night. She’s a personal trainer at a local gym. I told her how lately I’ve been in a pretty rough head space; my weight is still up, I can’t seem to do anything right to make it go down, eating ANYTHING is suddenly very stressful to me (that’s another story for another post). Suffice it to say, I’m feeling pretty awful about myself right now.

She was asking me about my eating and workout habits. I told her what I eat and how I workout. Then she pushed me into crazytown with her next comment:

“You know Melissa, you’re a big girl. You just are. So you’ll always be bigger.”

I’m sorry, what?! Just because I’m 5’9" does NOT make me a “big” girl. Yes, I’m up about 10-15 pounds from where I’d like to be. But 5 of those are water weight (you can’t gain 5 pounds in 2 days. Even I know this). And I weigh 165 pounds. I wear anywhere from a size 6 to a size 10. Geez.

Talk about a good way to send someone into a tailspin. I’m already freaking out about my body; how it feels and looks, looking decent in a fitted bridesmaid dress in a month, and running a half marathon in 2 weeks. I don’t need someone to push me over the ledge when I’m quite capable of doing that myself, thankyouverymuch!

harmph.

Her advice? Up my protein, limit my fruit intake, lift weights, and write down what I eat again. Things I know to do. (although I really like fruit, so that kind of sucks.)

Lessons learned here? Think before you speak, you never know the impact your words can have on another person.

Thursday thoughts

Do you guys ever bargain with yourself before or during a run? You know what I mean: do you say, “I’m supposed to run 4 miles today, but I can run 3 instead and then make it up Saturday.” Or “I’m going to run x amount of miles today” but then when it comes time to actually doing it, you bargain yourself down in mileage…just to get it done?

I do it all the time! I actually did my 4 miles today, but I kept telling myself that 3 miles was ok too.

Um, no it wasn’t Melissa. Just do the miles and get it done. So I did. But I like to make deals with myself. Sigh. It’s a process.

In other news, a friend posted this on her facebook page today and it really resonated with me:

Whoa dude. There is so much truth in that statement. I have some pretty major issues from being so overweight for a good portion of my life. I started gaining weight in 5th grade and didn’t lose all the weight until I was 29 years old. But I think I will have lasting inner turmoil from that forever. Maybe I need therapy. Who knows. But I do know that as much as it sometimes sucks to run and lift and workout, it sucked a lot more to be 150 pounds heavier.

I just don’t understand

I told you before that a lot of my co-workers both current and former read my blog. I found out about it awhile ago and couldn’t decide what to do. I find it very strange that they want to read it. Do you all view this as my online diary that you are snooping through? Do you make fun of me behind my back with what I post? Do you get some strange joy from reading things that I ALREADY TELL YOU ANYWAY?! People don’t make sense to me. But the question for me is, what do I do about it?

Do I:

change my blog name, thus hiding my little corner of the internet from them? (and don’t tell anyone about the change?)
post less personal things because they are reading it?
censor myself
keep going as I have been–no matter who is reading this?

So far I’ve done a combo of the last 3. I’ve been guarded here lately. I don’t like feeling that way. I’ve asked some of them why they read it. They claim they don’t, they just know everything I post. Here’s the thing: I KNOW THEY DO! Liars!

Here’s what I think: It is my own fault for putting myself out there. This is true. But what started as a safe place for me to talk about running and my life has now turned into something I distrust. A place I feel judged. Where I can’t say what I want to say to my friends (you) without worrying that someone here will judge me for it.

So thanks a lot co-workers, both current and former. You have tried to ruin something I love. I don’t know why, and frankly, I don’t care. But either way, something has to change.

And you know what? It has NOTHING to do with any of you, my lovely Tumblr friends. I have made some of my dearest friends through this site. I am so very glad that I am here. Of all the people I’ve met through the internet (online dating included) you all are my favorites! If not for this place I never would have run a Full Marathon, I wouldn’t have gone to Fargo last year to run a Half with Brooke, Bailee and Johnna. I wouldn’t be going to Canada this summer to see Brooke. I wouldn’t get to meet Ginni this summer. I wouldn’t have met the guy with the coolest Mustache, David. And so many others.

So, what’s the answer? I honestly don’t know. I love my blog name. I don’t want to give it up. But maybe I’ll have to.

Jerks.