Thinking about the wedding has me :( right now. We're getting more "can't attend" response cards than we estimated, and our current projection is only 56 guests. The space we have at the aquarium is huge (would comfortably fit 250 people), and I'm worried that it's going to feel empty and the dance floor will be empty. Not to mention the amount of money the whole wedding is costing...the per person cost is pretty ridiculous. It all has me feeling that the backyard barbeque should have been the reception itself.

Ryan's mom and little brother were down for the weekend. She bought all the alcohol ($300 worth!), paper goods, and non-perishable food for the Friday night house party and Sunday BBQ. Now, she always overbuys, but this time she really got out of line. There are over 300 paper/styrofoam plates. That's not including the 160 bowls and 160 small plates. That was the most ridiculous purchase, but there will also be enough food to feed a large army. There is really no persuading her to scale back. And to exacerbate the situation, what if only a few people show up to the house party and BBQ because of the small number of guests and travel plans? I know you're not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it's really unnecessary and I don't want to be wasteful. After all, we're going to be on the honeymoon all week, so all the perishable food will go bad. And most people have long drives or flights, so what are the chances that they're going to take 4 pounds of potato salad home? Not to mention that neither Ryan nor I likes potato salad. Or pasta salad. She ordered 5 pounds of each.

I only lost one pound last week, but that's actually a good thing because I totally went off my diet on Friday and Saturday. Saturday especially. Why? The stress of Ryan's mom and the ridiculous amount of food that she bought us just for the weekend. My diet is easiest to stick to when I don't have sweets in the house, but she brought home two cartons of ice cream, a cheesecake, two boxes of After Eight mints, a half pound of fudge, and a pound of saltwater taffy. Fortunately I don't eat cheesecake, but I had trouble resisting the rest. Don't worry, I didn't eat all of it and I got back on the wagon yesterday, but it's difficult knowing that it's around. I'm trying to fit little bits of it into my daily calorie budgets and encouraging Ryan to take generous portions. So if he looks a little pudgy at the wedding, that's why.

Another thing that we all did over the weekend was eat lunch at a possible rehearsal dinner restaurant. We decided that it was too casual of an atmosphere, but Ryan's mom decided that she'll host a dinner there for the people who will be in town on Thursday night. All 16 of us. The atmosphere was on the casual side, but it's still a fairly pricey restaurant because it's in center city Philly. She's paying for all of it, then also paying for the rehearsal dinner (25 guests!) on Friday. We went over to the Chart House after lunch and decided to have the rehearsal dinner there (we all ate dinner there once last year). So I guess I'm a little relieved to have that booked, since it was the last big thing that I'd been putting off. It's a little crazy that the people at the rehearsal dinner comprise nearly half the wedding guests. Another weird thing about not having many guests.

My garden is an oasis of serenity. I wish there were more weeds so I'd have more to do out there. It's therapeutic to pull out weeds. It makes me have a sense of control over something.