We are hoping it will be a good day.  I have heard that even if it rains that rain is supposed to be good luck.

We found a cake online.  I tried to post a picture here but it didn’t work.  This is the groom’s cake.

The groom’s cake is a tradition they have some places.  Not any of our friends have done it, but I read about it and thought it was a cool idea.

The groom’s cake can be in the usual boring shapes, or it can be something unique to the groom.  Like a tank for a tanker soldier, things like that.

The one we found was in the shape of a pistol which we thought would be cool given our hobbies

I am not sure if the wedding is day or night.

I am not sure if the wedding is where exactly on the scale between casual and formal.

So I am pretty much in the dark about wedding dresses, except I know what appeals to me and what does not.

But David’s Bridal had this ad about $99 wedding dresses, so that caught my attention.  $99 for sale dresses.  Oh my gosh. Pretty doggy.  On the $99 dresses.  Plus they were kind of scruffed and dirty because they had been stomped on and tried on so many times.

We looked at some dresses. And I tried on some.  The people are standing there saying yes, yes, it looks good and wanting you to pick one so they can get the next person in.  We made the mistake of going on a Saturday like every other bride.  Some people knew to have made an appointment, but other people didn’t so it was a little hectic, with each bride afraid that somebody else was going to grab the dress that was meant to be her wedding dress. Ha.

We looked at some bridesmaid dresses and some mother of the bride dresses.

After being through that pit today I am still thinking about wearing my grandma’s dress.  Or else I’ll just wear a plastic trash bag and let it go at that.  This whole big thing about spend, spend, spend is starting to annoy me, like it’s the way America wants to kick start the economy is by having all the brides spend money.

Again, this is another one of those decisions that is a ways down the road, but it’s good to start planning ahead.

Where is there good job opportunities?

We are thinking about combining households and where we might ultimately want to live long term.

This is a difficult decision since we come from different parts of the country, and we know that you all all do want us living near by.

We’d like it to be someplace with open spaces, and turkey shooting, or at least someplace close enough that we could drive to where someone has a trivate tract of land for hunting.

I am glad the military will be moving part of our stuff eventually. 

I heard that in Canada, it’s all way goofed up.  Like in Quebec, officially July 1 is moving day. Well, not officially, but functionally since because it’s then that it’s the ending of people’s 1 year leases, eh?  So over 200,000 people potentially moving on the same day. Oh my gosh. Can you imagine.  That’s when it is also Canada Day so people have the day off and can move.  Everyone with a apartment or condo all trying to get moved, all trying to get their friends to help them, and all trying to find friends with a truck, or some kind of SUV or moving vehicle. Arg!
And of course those renting a truck for moving no doubt find out that it costs a whole lot more than any other day of the year. 

The other thing, of course, about moving is where there will be jobs available by the time we move.  I heard that Michigan, South Carolina, and somewhere else are the places with the highest unemployment.  And we all know that people are getting laid off everywhere.

We’re thinking that if we can at least hunt for some of our food that this will help pay for itself. And it will help decrease our grocery bill by not having to buy so much meat.  I don’t much like feathering some fowl, but I guess I can do it if I have to.

Some people have said that they think the military thing is a little odd.

Mostly those are the people that are not used to being around military.

We are not the only ones who have the idea of rifles at the wedding.

It is a long-standing tradition of hundreds of years in other countries.

You might have seen some photos of this or heard about it like in Iraq and places.

In some other countries at weddings groups of men gather on the street, pretty much all the men and boys in town.  Most everyone who has one has a rifle on his  shoulder.

Then they walk down the road towards the wedding site.  Pretty exciting with men and weapons  headed to the proceeding.   I’m not sure America is ready for that tradition, but it sounds like fun.

Then after the ceremony it can happen that the rifles are fired into the air.  Now what happens to the bullets and shells from that, I would like to know.  Hopefully they do not hit anyone.  It would have to be done in an open area, not really in the city proper.

Really excited about this.

Everything we do for the wedding, we want to make it not just a production affair like those sweet 16 monster brat parties. 

We want things to be meaningful.

So, keep that in mind.  Some of the ideas may sound unique, but that is because we are unique.

We picked out our wedding presents to each other.  They are matching rifles and we will display the wedding rifles at the reception. 

It will take a good while until we can take delivery of the wedding ceremony rifles, which is why we ordered them now.  We ordered them from a craftsman that DF knows.

He let us pick out the wood for the stock.  It is positively, absolutely drop dead gorgeous.  We cannot wait.  

The stocks will match and he said it is possible to make the wedding date engraved, if there is room.

The whole company was invited. 

 It was just perfect, and it made me wish we had picked an earlier date for the wedding.

After the ceremony the chaplain released the couple and they walked through the cordon of rifles that was provided by guys in the company.

All the guys thought it was cool to participate in that marriage ceremony.

They stood all in cordon right down the main aisle at the entrance to the reception. The couple really seemed happy when they moved into the reception and were met with the cordon of rifles arched in salutation.

Both the bride and groom are in the military, so they didn’t do that little swat thing with the sword after the couple goes through the golden military archway.

Here is one thing I thought was cool and I am going to file this idea away:  They had made special wedding challenge coins and passed them out to everyone.  Commemorative coins are a military tradition, and I have seen the city make one on their 100th anniversary.  But for a wedding, how cool an idea is that.  Definitely have to look into that little gem of an idea.

Ok, for those of you who do not know, I am the skeet shooting bride. 

Yes it is a traditionally male sport, in fact severely male dominated since few women have  taken an interest in skeet or gun sports in general.

There is actually nothing better than spending mornings out doing skeet.

People are normally so surprised to find out that I do this.  But I know girls (women) who fly helicopters, drive hobby racecars on the weekends. It is not that odd to me.

At first I truly was a bit nervous.  Yes, skeet is recreational, but it is also competitive, and I am competitive in all things, especially anything to do with  guns.  I guess that comes from growing up with brothers.

Shooting at clay objects, disks flying into the air, may seems stupid to some people, but that is only because you have not tried it.  The high speed alone is a challenge. 

For me I find it both entertaining and pleasurable.

When I first started I didn’t even know would I be strong enough to hold the gun up for the day.  Would it backfire.   I didn’t let on, but I was concerned.  Now I know that is no biggie.  The sport accepts you whoever you are. It is very forgiving, as the sport lets you learn gradually.

For me I find it a good way to relax.  If you are feeling aggressive, you can spend the day testing  your shooting by being tough on yourself, and pushing your skills.  Other days you can be more relaxed if you just want to take it easy.

You take 25 shots. Move in a semi circle. One clay flies from a high howser and one from a low. Talk about wild.

It does require perfection if you are to play at peak levels. The appeal of skeet is that skeet shooting is very much highly and particularly involved with a person’s emotional reactivity level, and how that impacts performance.   Even if you do not want it to and are trying to control your emotional reactivity to the event, skeet shooting can get the shooter’s darn adrenaline going. 

But I flow with it.  I practice til I feel like I’m perfect, or at least til I am tired. Haha.  You do have to truly concentrate, and focus on what you are doing. It involves the trinity of  concentration, shooting precision, and flexibility and  dexterity.

The other nice thing about skeet is that the skeet gun shooting stand is typically located in some idyllic wooded area, cleared just for the skeet event. So the environs are very pleasant, and the air is pure.

Depending where you live you can’t shoot all year, so it is something I look forward to around here from about June through August.  Skeet allows you to let go of the daily details, because you really have to focus on what you are doing.

We have thought about a skeet shooting honeymoon but don’t really know where we might do that.  Still looking in to it.

Some people are making the case for having it back home, and that may still happen.  It would simplify traveling for at least one family.

Then there’s the other idea of some kind of a destination wedding. Or an adventure wedding, if you will.  I dunno!!  :-(   

The guy who was my brother’s best man (Bill), his family has a 104 foot schooner.  We were thinking about maybe getting married there on that, but apparently thee is some kind of Coast Guard rules about weapons and terrorists or something, so we couldn’t have the rifle arch possibly.

The other problem is that it could get a little ugly with the older family members and seasickness, since there wouldn’t be a lot of chairs.

So, we are still thinking.

Another idea was to get married at Glacier National Park in that big lodge.  It is very beautiful, but that is not especially cheap or easy to travel too.  All the airline fares seems to have gone up.  And any place we try to take the rifles to we pretty much have to drive them to, it’s starting to seem like that anyway.  Can’t you just seen trying to send a rifle on an airplane, even if it was in your suitcase.  It may be even prohibited these days. Haven’t gotten that far.  So things are starting to get a little more complex and interesting.

On of my friends said just go to Las Vegas. And then you can have a Star Trek wedding. LOL!  Can’t you just see that. Or an Elvis wedding.  Now if Las Vegas had a pioneer wedding or a skeet shooting wedding, maybe.  I suppose we could have a zero gravity wedding there , but that would only be for a few in the bridal party at the prices they charge.

That woman who works for Martha Stewart (Darcy?), she had a New York City wedding, but I’m guessing that Martha must have paid for it as a business expense.  Everything is expensive in New York City to begin with, probably especially if you are talking weddings.

It all gives me a knot in the pit of my stomach. Too many choices. Too much wrong with the choices.  Too complicated. All of that.  Put that together with daily life and all we have to be doing anyway, and it is a big stress machine.  Hopefully it all gets worked out.  I just wish it would be soon.  I don’t mind thinking about this stuff –that is kind of fun—but I do not like how all the ideas are constantly swirling and nothing makes sense yet.  Hopefully that will come.

I will post where we are at and what we are thinking of so far.  Since the wedding is so far away, we have mostly so far just been being engaged, and haven’t gotten too far into wedding plans, tho we do have a few ideas.
It took us a long time looking for the wedding rings, first of all, but we did find some we are thinking about buying. No rush on that, however.  I am a little freaked out about bridesmaid dresses since all the girls are different sizes.  Oh, and then there is the wedding dress issue.  I’m thinking about wearing my grandmother’s wedding dress if I can fit into it.  It’s been in the family, and my mom wore it after my grandma.  Need a veil possibly, if the old one has stains on the netting.

We are thinking a military wedding, or some kind of wedding that would suit Airborne Rangers.  Having grown up around rifles and hunting, DF (dear fiancée) wanted something that was a wedding for manly men, not a girlie girl wedding.  Since I’m into clay pigeon shooting, this gave us all kinds of ideas for the wedding, for the ceremony, for the reception, and for activities around the wedding.  I don’t know that we’re going to do all of them, or any of them, but it will be fun to share with you what we are thinking about along the way, even if we don’t actually do it.

This whole wedding thing is kind of a journey.  Just a trip along the way. It doesn’t matter where we end up or where we actually get married, as long as you all are there as our friends and family. More and more I am seeing that that is the most important part, and that pretty soon we will be our own family too.

I hope it is okay now.