Officially a Mrs. Well, except for Facebook.

So it’s official. I’m married. 

And though I promised myself not to cry while we stood under the arbor and my brother-in-law recited the vows we would exchange, I did cry. So much so in fact, I had to ask if I could “skip” a line in the vows.

Just in case anyone else plans on asking if you could skip a line in vows while getting married, it apparently isn’t allowed. 

It was exactly as I thought it would be. 

My walk down the aisle with my parents ended up including William, who upon making eye contact with me was hell bent on ensuring he had 100 percent of my attention, so I tripped my way down the aisle. John ended up holding Sully throughout the ceremony as he became super jealous about Will’s special treatment, and all was as it should have been – John and I holding the loves our lives while we married the love of our life. 

It sounds nice, but I was sweating like a pig because Will weighs close to 30 pounds now, my heels were digging into the mud and to avoid tripping I was constantly shifting – shifting weight in heels in mud by the way, is also not something I recommend for a wedding day. Outdoor wedding = flats. 

John hasn’t accepted my married status on Facebook yet, so I don’t know if we’re legal in all 52 states, but he says he doesn’t want to ruin his image.  Love you too, Sweetie. 

All right, so the blogs on wedding planning will end, and tomorrow, I will begin telling you about my married life. It will start with me hitting a deer while wearing a dress on my way to our celebration dinner. What, you’re surprised?

Changing my name to Mayonnaise

One week from tomorrow, John and I are getting married. It's a bit strange, since we feel like the rings are a bit of an accessory to this life it feels like we've been leading a while, but maybe now when I say, "I'd really like ice cream," at 10:30 at night, he'll feel a little more obligated to deliver, and maybe when he says, "I really want to watch the game," I won't roll my eyes.

Okay, maybe not, but that three second thought was nice.

I'm a bit excited to have my name changed, and a bit sad. It's been with me a while. Sivadge. It has changed over the years, too.

In sports, I started out Sivadge.
In sports, because you're constantly yelling and have two seconds to react, I became, "SIV!"
In awkward telemarketer calls, I'm Ms. Savage. (Sometimes I pretend Fred Savage and I go way back, but other than that, it's not so cool), and Ms. Si-vadge-ee.


In college, when I first started having to make more adult phone calls and pay some bills, I also learned that my name is long.

"S as is Sam. I, V as in Victor. A. D as in Dog. G as in George. E."

It will be weird that I won't have to say that any more. A few months ago, when I got off the phone with someone who said, "B as in Boy? C as in Cat?" and I finally gave up and am pretty sure I agreed to the name, Sibacge, I told John:

"I can't wait to have your name."

"Don't get too excited," he said. "People mess my name up all the time."

"What? How? Maynes?"

"Yup. They say, "Mr. Mayonnaise" a lot.

Sigh. Well, at least I like mayonnaise.

This is what happens when ...

Saturday I was driving to Perry to try on my wedding dress for the first time. I was happy for a few reasons:

1) My dress was lost in the mail for three weeks and was now found. Truly, they were pretty worried about it. I was a little bit. My mom was FREAKING out (not that I can blame her, I just hadn't heard her freak out in a while, so it was slightly entertaining). Love you, Mom.

2) I was listening to NPR. I love NPR because a) I am a dork. b) They have awesome Sat. music from Java House in Iowa City where in college, I stimulated my caffeine addiction as an excuse for better studying habits 3) They still tell news stories instead of having reality TV stars for interviewees. P.S. I make up for this by watching E News a lot.

3) John had bought me 4 truffles from Godiva just before I left and I ate 3 of them on my ride up. It's impossible not to be happy when you're eating 3 truffles. I then sadly let the other one melt while I tried my dress on, but was not above licking the melted chocolate off the bag until my sister looked at me slightly disgusted and said, "You know we have cookies at my house, right?"

So, upon my sister and my arrival in the store we were ushered into a dressing room where my dress awaited. I slid into it up to my thighs and then all sense of sliding stopped. I propped it up around my chest (what's left of it) and said, "Okay. Zip."

And my sister said, "Ummmmm...."

I looked at her face in the mirror and it's one I'd seen plenty of times as a child. One day, I "stayed home sick" with my sister and my mom caught us in our unfinished basement playing soccer and made us go to Wednesday night church. When my sister saw my mom that day at the bottom of the stairs I saw that face.

"No umms!" I said eyebrows sky high. "Zip!"

"Ummmm.....," she said.

And then we shuffled the dress into 20 different positions and suddenly it zipped.

Suddenly, I was also incredibly aware of my diaphragm.

"Ummm," I wheezed.

And my sister started laughing. "My dress was this tight. Soon, you're going to feel like you're sternum's collapsing."

Awesome. Sounds pleasant.

The seamstress came over and said, "How does everything feel? It fits fabulously!"

And I said, "Yeah. Um. I can't really breathe."

"That's perfect!," she said, and I was a bit miffed at how excited she was about my lack of air.

And then I started sweating. In air conditioning. Without lifting 19-month-old boys on my hips or smiling for photos or dancing or sitting in the Iowa September sun and I thought, oh heck. I'm going to be a puddle of a bride about halfway down my walk down the aisle.

And then I thought, well, that's okay. John has seen me with the flu. And pregnant as a whale with twins. And delivering twins. And So who knows, right? Maybe sweaty and stuffed will be an improvement?!

Until tomorrow ...

On the wedding and other things that are giving me gray hair

I have gray hair. I found my first gray hair three years ago now. Pre-pregnancy and thus pre-children. Pre-insanity. Pre- sleep deprivation.

 You can imagine what it looks like now.

The thing is, I won’t go gray gracefully – I’d like to think I’d have that thick silver hair that people can really rock when they go all gray, but I’ll go gray like a skunk – a strip straight down the middle. I know this because in third grade there was a lunch lady I nicknamed “skunk” because her hair looked just like this – all black with one white strip down the middle - and that’s how karma works. Karma’s laughing at me right now. (In my defense, she was really mean to all of us and would make us take a second trip back to our seat if we didn’t eat our vegetables and such).

I never ate my vegetables and such.

I ate my pizza and such.

Okay, but on to the wedding. Here are things that gave me gray hair this week.

1)      Why in God’s name doesn’t someone rent shepherds hooks? What on earth do I need 24 shepherds hooks for AFTER the wedding?

That would be some very odd living room décor no doubt.

2)      I need someone to marry us. Yep – thinking that’s getting pretty important.

3)      I need someone to take everyone back to their hotels safely because knowing my friends, they won’t be sipping on apple juice all night. Cost for 1 hour of rental: $350. Cost for me showing maturity for the first time in 10 years and not screaming, “Must be nice to make a business off of absurd pricing and monopoly!”? Priceless.

4)      I don’t know if I told you about the lady who sold me my dress and looked at me over her glasses and pointed at my waist and said, “Now, this can’t change very much you know,” with an eyebrow raised, but I ignored her. I went home and ate two Bavarian crème donuts, and I think the excessive number of cookies I’ve since eaten might be trouble for me come my first fitting. I’m not getting gray hair about my weight gain, though. It’s more the fact that I’m going to have to wear a girdle and it’s going to be about 127 degrees out.

Okay, in case I’m giving you gray hair at this point, I’ll stop here for now, but trust me, there’s plenty where this came from.

I’m off to dye my hair.

Until tomorrow …