New Summer Blockbuster: Wedding Crashers Meets the Perfect Storm

I may have mentioned this before but the year I got married, my husband and I attended TEN weddings (ours being the 10th). My world revolved around the never-ending flow of ivory invitations. That was almost four years ago. And you’d think the wave would be over. How could we possibly know more people?

Um, we do.

We were invited to five weddings between last August and now. Three were held on the same day—seriously—of which we attended two (drove from Philly to Princeton and back again). My husband was asked to be a groomsman in one and the best man in the other. Between now and October, we have another five weddings. Of which I am a bridesmaid in one. Three are destination weddings.

In the last three months, I’ve gone to two baby showers, and I was invited to three bridal showers and a bat mitzvah. My husband just attended a bachelor party last weekend, and I have a bachelorette party coming up.

It is The Perfect Storm.

All those friends and relatives who got married the year I did are now having babies, so their showers and first birthday parties are clashing with the new crop of brides who are having their own showers and receptions. Then toss in the fact that we’re all also turning 30, and thus hosting numerous surprise parties (including my own), and you’ve got yourself a heaping stack of RSVP cards (plus an uncanny ability to navigate an online registry).

We put Luke Wilson and Vince Vaughn to shame. And we can party like them too. Because despite our rapidly filling calendars, we love our friends and we love a good a wedding band. Come on, open bars are awesome!

So, just to add to the madness, I’ve decided to plan my book launch party right in the middle of the chaos. In a three-week span in September, I’ll attend two weddings (one of which I’m in) and host my book party.

And I have to say, preparing for this does kinda take me back to my wedding planning days. I’ve gotten to check out different venues, meet with caterers, negotiate prices, plan a guest list and talk to vendors. I even have a meeting planner who’s offering her advice. And I’ve got a theme!

Now if I could only wear my wedding dress….do you think a tiara would be too much?



Us at our last wedding. Can you tell its the end of the night?

POP-CULTURE RANT: So You Think You Can Dance

So, I understand it’s hard to disagree with your boss. And I get that Nigel Lythgoe is the executive producer of the show, but you’d think occasionally these judges sitting beside him might express a difference of opinion. It’s like they all sit there waiting for their great leader to give the thumbs up or down before they dare speak their minds. If Nigel’s “on the fence,” then they all are; if he then says “yes,” then they all suddenly say yes. I don’t think I’ve seen a judge disagree with him yet. Come on, people, even Paula disagrees with Simon sometimes. Show some backbone!

If at first you don’t succeed… Hope you do the second time. Or maybe the third…

I watch a lot of Oprah. I have a long history with the woman that stretches back to me and my grandma when I was a tiny chica in grade school. I now DVR the show every day. I own Oprah’s 20th anniversary DVDs and the book she released at Christmas. My husband thinks I’m crazy.

However, some of the philosophies that Miss O touts really do make sense. For example, one popular refrain is that if you don’t learn a lesson the first time, you will continue to be faced with that same lesson your whole life until you finally get it through your thick skull. However, she phrases it much more elegantly. Something like, “God speaks in a whisper, and if you don’t get it, he tosses a pebble, then a stone, then brick, until the whole house falls on you.”

I’m in the throws of several life lessons at the moment. And I’m really hoping that I get them this time, and that I don’t end up with my house in a pile of bricks (and this is Philly, so it would be brick…and shutters).

I’m currently going through the copy edits for my second book. Now, when I had received the copy edits for Amor, it was the first time I was faced with the “secret code” of copy editors—all those red squiggly lines and hieroglyphics that make up the corrections to my prose. It took about two weeks to decipher them, read them, add in my changes and mail them back.

I didn’t make a copy.

You can probably guess where this is going. A couple of weeks ago, I received the proofs for Amor and many of my changes had been accidentally overlooked by typesetters, or printers, or somebody. I had to recreate them all from scratch. My wonderful mother-in-law even volunteered to read the book (two times! How great is she!) in one panicked week to help me look for additional errors. And all the while, my poor agent was saying, “You really should’ve made a copy.”

This time, I will.

And while that may be an easy lesson to learn, I find that those lessons dealing with your personal life are much harder to recognize. I’m blessed that in my 30 years, I’ve formed a lot of close friendships. My husband and I joke that we’re the real-life “wedding crashers,” only we’re always invited (10 weddings the year that we got married, and another 10 this current year). I know all the words to “Shout!,” I can also recite First Corinthians and chant a mean “Baruch Atah Adonai…”

But I also know that with friends, family and festive functions, comes drama. I’ve had to deal with people who were afraid to walk up steps at a reception (we’re talking, like, five steps), people who have relieved themselves in areas that were not bathrooms, and people who have blown the surprise for the bridal shower. But whether the problems result from big things, like scheduling conflicts, or little things, like car bombs (the alcoholic kind, not the dangerous kind…though I guess they’re both kinda dangerous), something always comes up. Always.

Now, the question is, have I learned enough from dealing with my past experiences to apply those lessons to this next crop of weddings? Or will I wait until I need to learn a lesson so big that it’s on national television (like that diva from the Big Give who Oprah reprimanded in the after show…ouch. Watch it here: http://www.oprah.com/about/oprahsbiggive/episodes/106/episodes_114.jhtml)?

I’m hoping I figure it out before I end up on national TV. But if I don’t, then I hope it’s Oprah I end up on and not Jerry Springer. I’m not good at throwing chairs.

POP-CULTURE RANT: Elections

So…..now that the PA primaries are over, Hillary and Barack don’t call anymore? It’s just over? No, goodbye. I was receiving a good four messages a day from Hil. Another two from Barack. And another two from John Dougherty (State Senate, but man did that guy have a ton of cash for a promotional campaign. He called me as much as Michelle Obama). I mean, Barack’s people offered to drive me to the polls! Hillary’s people invited me to rallies! We were close. I was important. Real-life, non-computer generated people even called me. And now, poof! It’s just over. Barack was in Indiana before the primary numbers were even in. And CNN’s already forgotten about us. I feel so used…