Our Wedding Website…

…is up!  Only took about 5 months to put the thing together, too.  Visit it!

More Bad Buzz

So, I’ve finally done a little bit of research into Google Buzz, which launched earlier this week.  I haven’t paid much attention to it because (1) I don’t use my Gmail account all that much to start with, and have relatively few contacts there anyway, and (2) I don’t really use other Google services for things I want kept particularly secret.  But I could see that it was probably going to have all kinds of privacy problems.

So, I did some reading up today on the various inevitable privacy issues.  Further research has indicated that, according to Google, “Your Google Reader shared items, Picasa Web public albums, and Google Chat status messages automatically appear as posts in Buzz.”  “Well,” I thought to myself, “I don’t really use any of those three, so I guess I personally don’t have anything to worry about.”  I don’t use Google Reader, the only stuff that goes into my Picasa Web albums are the photos that also go in my blog because Blogger automatically stores them there – and they don’t go up as public there anyway, and Google Chat has always been way overrated.

But then I thought to myself, wait!  I actually was using Picasa majorly, all week (starting last Saturday) to discuss wedding dress options with lots of people.  I used their public albums to upload hundreds of photos of me in various dresses and didn’t mention it to Nick, because he’s the last one to go poking around online when he’s bored, and, like I said, I hardly ever use Picasa.  (The albums are locked down now that I’ve finally chosen a dress.)

But it turns out that Nick is actually one of my few automatic followers on Buzz, and had I waited just a handful of days to upload all those wedding dress photos to Picasa, he would have gotten emails about all of them.  Which would have sucked; both he and Zeb have specifically requested that my dress be a surprise to Nick.

Some people complain that concerns about web privacy are overwrought (and sometimes they’re not wrong).  They think that if you need privacy online that means that you’re doing something bad.  But I don’t think that going over my wedding dress options was something bad, and I still would have been bummed if Nick had seen all the photos.

I have a dress!

Good news.  After subjecting many people to many emails, I have finally chosen a wedding dress.  It wasn't the one that both Hannah and Sage called "elegant" -- but it was the one that probably inspired the most conversation overall.  Zeb "put all [his] money on it," and also thought it was most likely to make me cry (because it will immobilize me, according to him).  Mombie concurs that I will be unable to move.  Sage calls it "the peacock," and considers me choosing it to be "doing things the hard way."  Krissy calls it "a lot of look."  Hannah and Rachel concur that while they certainly wouldn't do it themselves, it might be just about right for me.  I figure anything that gets that much attention is probably going to be fun.  So I'm doing it the hard way.  We'll see how it works out.  Stay tuned!

Heart of Stupid

This weekend was the Heart of Steel comp, which was pretty overpriced and crowded.  The consensus was that the organizers put a lot of effort into promoting the comp and not enough into setting/organization – all the subsequent problems (I can give you a complete list…) seemed to stem from that.

The finals were more tricksy than satisfying, but people seemed to like watching them.  I was trying to see if anyone was going to lose a finger or a head to the stupid power crystal.  Zeb climbed in a “prefinal superfinal,” which he lost by public opinion (everyone said “aww” when he fell off), but which he actually tied on by standard bouldering competition “control is what matters” rules.  Public opinion won and he didn’t climb in finals.

In other, unrelated news, the wedding invitations are now in sealed, addressed envelopes.  They just need dragging to the post office.  So, if you don’t get yours within the next week or two, quiz me because it might have gotten lost in the mail.

Wedding and Other Updates

So, good news:  After a slow search, Nick and I now have a wedding date and venue!  It’s going to be on Friday, August 13, 2010 (unsurprisingly, you get extra discounts for booking on Friday the 13th) at Harrington Farm.  Invitations are now under works and should hopefully be out in the next month or so.  I’m sure everyone who reads this blog is getting one so if you don’t get one in the next few months check in and make sure that it hasn’t gotten lost!  We’re also working on a website with wedding info, but that is obviously very much under construction.  Check back soon!

In other news, I’m starting work tomorrow at the law school library, doing copyright research and other related tasks.  In preparation, I did six loads of laundry today.  So my room is the main drying area right now.  It was one of my less successful laundry days; I lost two socks (one of mine and one of Nick’s) and broke a pair of flip flops.  Oh well.

More Wedding Planning

So, it turns out that wedding planning kind of sucks.  I’m just trying to find a venue, but every suggestion I come up with results in Nick saying “that is way too large, we don’t have enough people” and Mombie saying “that is way too expensive, we don’t have enough money.”  The effects of this are exaggerated when Nick interprets venue maximums as de facto minimums and Mombie comes up with arbitrary inflated figures (“Alcohol is going to cost $10,000 alone, you know”).  And I found a list on a caterer’s website of things I’m supposed to do for a wedding – I’m already hopelessly behind (am I really supposed to be ordering a wedding dress seven months in advance?), and I’d say that about 30-40% of the things on that list are things that I didn’t even know you were supposed to do.

But, the silver lining is that I’m also finding some fun stuff.  I was aware of Cake Wrecks long before the recent NYT article on it, but the article was a good excuse to go back to this page, and particularly enjoy this photo.  This is starting to confirm my suspicious that I’d rather have cupcakes and ice cream…

Oh, and I also found this website specializing in funny engagement photos.

In other news, I have a lot of other stories to blog on that I’ve been piling up – I may post more this weekend.

Facebook Could be my Wedding Planner

So, as predicted, the ads on Facebook have been very excited for me getting engaged.  Current ads include:

• Wedding Weightloss
• Engaged?  Get a free gift
• Planning your Wedding
• New England Brides
• Custom Wedding Stationery
• Boston Wedding Photo
• Pros Wedding Photography
• Save the Dates
• Free Wedding Photography
• Preparing for a Wedding?
• Cambridge Weddings
• Getting Hitched?

Etc.  Nick isn’t doing as well – he only has one “Getting Married?” one, and one for flowers.  He also has one for “Luxury Florida Villas” – so I’m not sure if the advertisers have as clear a grasp on him as they do on me.

In other good news, I have sent off the I-129F form, the form we have to file to get Nick a visa to move here and marry me.  So far the immigration office has indicated they’ve received it, but the next step of approving it could take up to five months.  Stay tuned!