As it turns out, Barnes & Noble is a pretty hopping place on a Saturday night. According to a friend who works at the cafe there, B&N is really The Place To Be – which makes me feel a pretty good about admitting that our Saturday night date was at a bookstore. Not only are we true to ourselves and owning our nerdiness (yay bookstores!), we’re also the cool kids (I think this is a yay… hm.).
Anyway, I’m not writing to tell you about how awesome we are (pretty awesome). I’m writing to tell you what was supposed to be a story about how I got enraged at the bookstore, but I think that’ll be a post for tomorrow. Today? Good wedding deeds:
We had our cocoa at the tables in the cafe, read through some magazines. Had to get through some trashy ones to learn about Katie’s Holmes’ apparent drug problem and bratty daughter (but Suri is oh so cute) and then continue on my quest to find a magazine that 1. doesn’t make my brain rot (Katie Holmes already did that; thanks, Katie); 2. Is interesting (sorry Runner magazine, you’ll just never be mine); 3. and doesn’t make me hate everyone (hello, every women’s fitness magazine ever). The quest was largely unsuccessful.
As we got up to leave, we noticed that the girl at the table behind us had a wedding magazine on her table. And next to that, a stack of about 15 wedding magazines. And, you guys, she looked a little stressed out. “Turtle,” I hissed, “should I tell her it’s going to be okay?”
approximate size of *one* of her stacks of magazines. poor girl.
Turtle gave me a look that said, I married you and I bring you out in public and yet I’m still surprised when you ask me these things – why? I should know better by now. You can tell we’re married because I can get all of that from just one look. But she answered, “See if she has a ring – you can only say something if she’s actually engaged.”
So I leaned over to pick up something that I, ahem, dropped (um, a piece of trash on the floor? A cup from someone who’d been sitting there before? You know, something I would have otherwise ignored), and confirmed: a ring! So what did I have to lose? I took a deep breath, leaned over, and said, “Excuse me, I just noticed all of your wedding magazines. If you’re looking for some sanity, you should check out A Practical Wedding. It really is wedding sanity.”
And she looked at me with sort of crazed eyes (I mean, I think? I don’t really know her, so maybe her eyes are always like that. But she did look a little panicked.) and said, “Oh my goodness, thank you so much. I definitely could use some sanity.”
I feel like I’m a happy little wedding fairy. Why aren’t more people telling people it’s going to be okay? Instead it’s “YOU NEED THINGS. YOU NEED MORE THINGS! THEY. MUST. MATCH.”
If I weren’t as shy as I feel and I knew her a little better, or if she’d said, “tell me more!” I then would have listed off every website ever that has the sanity (hi all you readers who also write!). But I am kind of shy and I didn’t know her and mostly I felt awkward.
What would you do?
Coming soon, the story of my bookstore experience: The Enraged Version.
Roughing It 
You’re pretty awesome.
Haha, thanks! Sometimes I wish someone had come up to me and said, “Here’s a good site to check out”… luckily (for me) I was already addicted before I got engaged.
my best friend is currently planning a wedding and i am going to ask my partner to marry me probably this week(!) and i would love to hear some more of your reading recommendations! i found a practical wedding, probably through you, and i love it.
That’s my main recommendation, haha! But I also like Weddingbee if you’re looking for ideas about how to do things yourself. Other than that, the best sites I found were by clicking through the comments on APW – so many other smart women planning their weddings and marriages! I think I have a wedding section under “good reads” at the top – check some of those out, too!
That is so awesome you did that! Just knowing you got it probably helped.
Sometimes, just hearing the words “it is going to be okay” does wonders. I would love it if someone would tell me that. These days, it is something I don’t hear enough. Perhaps I should start spreading the calm – it may help me get over a bit of my shyness. Thanks for the inspiration.
I know, I need constant reminders that it’s going to be okay. Lucky for me, my awesome wife seems to have a sixth sense about when I need to hear it, and she’s there to say it 🙂
I have been doing this all over Facebook when status updates of stressed out engaged acquaintances pop up. I always tell them to head over to APW.
I’ve never done it in person, but if I saw a lady like the one you saw, I’d probably do exactly what you did. Good job!
Me too! ALL over facebook… sometimes I wonder if I should stop? But it can’t hurt, right?
I just want to reach out and hug every newly engaged person out there, and then take the magazines out of their hands, gently shake their shoulders, and say “IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS.”
Everyone needs to hear that. I’m glad for your wedding fairy-ness.
exACTly! Hi, nice to meet you, IT’S GOING TO BE OKAY.
I found your site through APW and I love that you felt bold enough to tell her about it! I would’ve done the same. I often feel your urge to start pouring out information, but I am working on resisting that urge (as it can be as overwhelming as the madness in the magazines) and allowing one thing to be focused upon at a time, let alone resolved. So I might have asked her what was stressing her out most, then offered a few words of encouragement or advice on that. There’s getting to be as big an arsenal of tools for practical brides as there is a pile of crap for the crazies, small doses are our friends either way! Three cheers for courage to talk to strangers 🙂
Aw, welcome, thanks for commenting!
Ahh! I LOVE that you did this! I too feel pretty empowered to talk about weddings with complete strangers, and think it’s kinda awesome! 🙂
I know, I feel like I finally have things to say (with authority, even), but I also worry about being another one of those people asking too many questions and making too many suggestions… it’s a fine line and I’m not sure I trust myself to know where it is!
I’m glad you liked my “Sanity Pills” image. I made it for a friend who was having a hectic time at work and home and wrote me “Send me the sanity pills!”, so I made the image and sent it back an hour later….
But for Wedding Sanity, you might need more pills. 🙂
Haha, you would definitely need more pills. Thanks for the image, and for stopping by over here! Please let me know if you need/want me to credit you (more) for the image – right now it links back to the site I found it from.