Craft store:
-petals
-tulle
-vases
-flowers
-glasses for the tables

"Alex is thinking now that he doesn't want the lanterns up on the stage."
I silently facepalm as she continues.
"He's sick of the lanterns. And it's another $32. So I was thinking we could do something else--oh my goodness, look at these!" We're standing in front of huge zebra-striped, leopard-print, and snakeskin patterned fake flowers.
Her wedding flowers are classic red roses and white calla lilies. My inner designer wants to scream.
But she really likes them, so what do I say?
"That just looks like Alex all over," I laugh. It's hard to make it sound natural, but I succeed somehow.

"Do we need tulle? I mean, why do you think tulle is good?"
Excuse me? She's questioning the tulle now?
"It's just a traditional thing to have at weddings."
"Traditonal?" Any use of the word 'traditional' is an instant alarm for her. She wants her wedding to be 'modern.' But we've already planned all the decorating around the tulle. And we have THOROUGHLY discussed how hard it is going to be (her idea) to make a movie theater look (her words) "like a wedding." And, once again, the girl is getting married in 3 days.

"I really like that!" she has said with an incredible amount of enthusiasm, referring to the picture of the rose petal patterns on Pinterest. (See example here.)
So we're at the store. The rose petals are $10 a box and I think we need at least three to make a sparser rendition of her picture.
She says, "Do you think we could use some red? I mean, the carpet, you saw it, you said red wouldn't show up, but--" She leaves her sentences unfinished. She does that a lot.
I tell her the red would show up if we used it on top of the white.
So we get a box of red also.
"And do you think we could use rose petals for them to throw? I mean, would that look good in pictures? Alex really likes pictures. Would they show? I mean, the bubbles, would they show? What if it's raining? Will the bubbles--"
She sees bubbles in the aisle behind us. "Oh, I like those much better than the others we saw! And that's a great value, wow. That'd be better than roses, don't you think? I mean cheaper? But the pictures...What else do people throw at weddings? Alex wanted confetti, so it would show up in the pictures."
I keep my mouth shut as I think about what a gigantic mess to clean up confetti would be.
She leaves the aisle undecided about bubbles, rice, confetti, or rose petals and we're on to the next question--unity candle or unity sand?

At some point, when she is worrying again about the cost of everything, I add up everything in the cart for her and say, calm as anything, "So far you're up to $119."
She visibly changes color. And then proceeds to self-talk about whether or not she can afford all that.
Then she turns to me. "Do you think the rose petals for the aisle are necessary? I mean, won't it be pretty decorated with the lanterns and the rocks and the tulle and the bows?"
And we're off again.

Shortly after that conversation, she turns around in the aisle and sees the twinkle lights, which are probably overpriced like everything else in the wedding aisle. "Oh! They have lights! Wow, they have, like, everything you could possibly think of here. That makes it hard."
I hold back from shouting, "NO DUH!!!!" Instead, I give her a more intellectual sounding, "Yeah, the wedding industry is truly an industry. They aren't in this because they support you or want you to have a pretty wedding. They're in it to make money."

There was one time today, after forever in the craft store, when she changed her mind for the one hundred thousandth time about the zebra flowers, and I finally threw my hands up to my face in frustration and said, "How many times are you going to change your mind before you get married?!"

She looks at me, astonished. After a moment, she says, "Well, I know who I'm marrying!"

Dear God.

That is all.

-Stephanie

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