Ok, SO!

Alison here… with the first order of business: it’s Tuesday night, and yep that’s right, YOU’RE BACHELOR RECAP IS IN PROGRESS.  OH ALSO, DID I JUST WRITE *YOU’RE* IN THAT SENTENCE BACK THERE WHERE I TALKED ABOUT YOUR BACHELOR RECAP?  Because I could swear I’m smarter than that.

What in the F Word is happening to me.

I have a mind to think it’s this whole Chrisharrison situation that just happened to my face.  Chrisharrison had to pull me aside earlier to tell me some story that I was totally thinking was about my best friend dying or my dog dying or the apocalypse or that I’m pregnant with the child of Satan or that I have to marry Ben, because of the awkward way he made THE MOST MAGNIFICENT OF DEALS ABOUT IT when he came to grab me.  But it turns out he just had to tell me about some really awesome, awesome guy from my past who really loves to eff up my future, and how I now have to go home for no good reason, and then my face started crying for like, I think it was at least four commercial breaks.  It was rough.  But I’m sure Chrisharrison totally didn’t sum up my abrupt departure to my family and friends by saying “Alison had to go home because she was here for the wrong reasons,” or anything like that, I’m sure of it.  I trust Chrisharrison and his unwavering dedication to truth-telling.

NEW TOPIC, IT START NOW!

SORRY, ME LOW ON WELL-CRAFTED TRANSITIONS AT MOMENT; ALL RESOURCES ARE BELONG TO RECAP

We introduced a fun, upbeat, super-lighthearted new series recently, on the topic of totally awful, horrible in-law situations that completely sucked/were hard.  And given the way our last real life story went over with y’all, I’m psickity-psyched to bring you yet another harrowing tale of what happens when families that are not equally prepared to merge… like totally MERGE anyway.

…. aaaaand, GO!  Oh WAIT wait wait, first, the disclaimer of sorts:

I think we all know that there are lovely, kind, wonderful in-laws out there, as well as go-with-the-flow in-laws, and not-very-involved in-laws…. clearly, since in-laws are people, naturally they come in all shapes, sizes, and personalities.  And many make a bride’s transition from girlfriend to wife easy breezy beautiful – even delightful in many cases! – and for these types of in-laws we are beyond grateful.  They disprove the reigning stigma.  Trust me, great in-laws do exist!  

Unfortunately, they don’t exist in all cases.  Even more, they are hardly the exception to the rule.  

Now, without further adieu, I introduce you to Miss M, and her story.

Why hello there, TKB readers! It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintances, and if I could reach through my monitor, I would definitely give you each a hearty handshake, and then pull you into a hug. Because I am a major personal space invader like that.

I’m here today to talk about in-laws. I’m sure that the mere reading of that wordage right there might have just sent some of you into a full body spasm. And I get it. Oh believe me, I get it. I am married to an amazing man; he’s kind, funny, a great cook, and he’s quite the studmuffin, if I do say so myself. I get a high five for snagging him and making him all mine. And then we have…the family. A group of people who seem to dally back and forth between thinking I’m awesome and being very irked with me for forking the family tree. Pun entirely intended.

Let me first regale you with the sordid tale of what I affectionately refer to as The Great Phone Chain Incident. Shortly after we got engaged I made a casual joke about my Italian family. Something about generally being loud and gatherings vaguely resembling scenes from My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding…only Italian, so there’s trippa in lieu of lamb on a spit. Somehow, a couple of aunts got “mafia” from that. No really…I said, “some of my relatives like to eat fish guts”, and they heard, “tick us off and you might wake up with a horse head in your bed”. And they called a couple other aunts who called grandma and mom. Who called my sweetie and asked if he really knew what he was doing getting involved with something like that. Now, we’re without volume control, we talk with our hands incessantly, and eat like we’ve gathered at a trough, but taking hits on people is not something we do a lot of. Unless you count annoying someone to death. We do a lot of that.

Next, we have The Birdseed Incident. (sidebar: I like using the word “incident”.) After being a bridesmaid in a friend’s wedding, I learned the hard way that I was not a big fan of birdseed for exits. It sticks to everything and has a strange tendency to wedge itself in weird places. So when the time came for me to get married, I went an alternate route for our exit, and specifically said that I didn’t want birdseed. According to my MIL, you’re not really married if you don’t have birdseed. So she brought her own. Even though I point blank said I didn’t want any there. And then she distributed it to her friends. We were nearly to our car when I took an overhand throw to the face. My eyes were open, and so was my mouth. Our photographer, hoping to capture a sweet shot of us kissing, waving, etc… instead got a shot of my new husband trying help me get the seeds out of my eyes as I spat more seeds into the floor of the car. Sexy and romantic, no?

So now that we’re married, and throwing stuff at me isn’t a viable option, my MIL now likes to exercise her right to do whatever she pleases by calling her son an average of 14 times a day. More if her spidey sense kicks in and she thinks we’re on a date. It’s usually pretty life altering stuff, such as, “I saw on the news that a blue car was in a wreck, and I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t you”. Never mind that the blue car in a wreck was in another state. And I know that phone calls aren’t particularly invasive, but if he doesn’t answer, she’ll just hang up and call right back, until he finally answers. And if he still doesn’t answer? Well, then she’ll just come on over…because she’s “worried that something must be wrong because [insert name of my studly hubby] didn’t answer his phone”. And then there was the time that she nearly leg swept me to get back to the recovery room after my hubby had surgery before I could see him. Seriously, I have witnesses. There was sprinting and “oh no she di-in”’s involved. And Heaven forbid we leave her presence without her getting her hugs. We’ve pulled over into random parking lots to meet her for hugs more times than I care to count. I knew I’d made it when we had to turn around and go back to a restaurant because I got into the car before making my hug quota. At least I’m getting included.

Listen, I’m not trying to say that my husband has exactly walked into the most benign of situations. For 2 years running, my family has managed to spend a disconcerting amount of time discussing farting, naked people, and the word “nipple’ pretty much every time we’re all together. My 80 year old grandmother offered to jump out of a cake at his bachelor party, and I don’t really think she was kidding. My grandfather is prone to saying things so politically incorrect that I’m honestly embarrassed to type it out. We also consider no holds barred Jeopardy watching, with lots of yelling in the general direction of the TV, a majorly good time. We’re not exactly teeming with normalcy ourselves over here.

Strangely enough, we all really get along most of the time, and my husband and I rarely argue about familial issues. I’m not saying never… I think that comes with good communication sometimes. We can even intermingle the mob bosses with the chronic smotherers and it’s mostly pretty docile. So how in the world do we do that? Honestly, there’s not one great formula. If there was, I would have already written that book and would be relaxing on my private island in the Bahamas. We handle everything on case by case basis, and the solutions range from simply letting things go, to setting new boundaries, to a good friend who can totally relate and responds promptly to the “omg, I’m about to lose my s@!$ text, to things our families like to pretend we don’t do that we actually do all. The. Time. IfyaknowwhatImean.

So, what about you guys? I’m eager to hear what stories you have. Trust me… a good cyber-rant session is some of the best therapy money can’t buy. ;-)

xoxo  - Miss M

Happy late Tuesday evening, faces.  I truly believe we’ll see eye to eye on this.

Ok, so here’s the thing.  I’m hard at work on the ol’ recap of last night’s balls to the wall episode of The Bachelor right now (o.O) and I’ve gotta say… it’s getting to me.  It’s getting to me in a new way, in addition to all the ways it has gotten to me.  It’s getting to me how very misguided so many of these young ladies are this season.  Misguided about love; what it means, and how to know you’re there.  Misguided about finding “The One” and what that means, and how doing death-defying stunts together does not a lifelong connection forge.  Misguided about getting married, and what it means.  Misguided about life, in general.  About how to treat people.  About the fact that trying to edge out a new contestant is useless, because you can’t *win* this.  You can’t *win* hearts.  You can’t *beat* the other girls.  A bunch of ladies on this show – and in the world – think this is possible.

And I see that and I’m like, What?  WHAT?  Really?  If a man feels a connection with a woman, a man feels a connection with a woman.  It’s not about winning.  It CAN’T be.  And if it is?  If you can *win* a competition for his heart by down-talking your competitor, or bringing her self-esteem down?  If that somehow changes his mind about that girl?  Guess what.  He hasn’t figured out what he’s doing on this earth yet.  He’s probably at the same point in the process of self-discovery as you are.  He is not ready for love, for a relationship, for anything other than self-discovery.

Whatever.  The point is, I’ve been needing a reality check.  A break from recapping this EPIC episode of EPIC EPICNESS.  I needed to look at, and to feel within, something that was real.  Something that was born of a lifetime of love, togetherness, soulfulness and real connection.

Something that spoke to me, and delivered me from the depths of the emotionally immature.

Anyway so cool news: I totally f**king fouuuund that s**t!  Vic Pellicier Photography submitted it, and I’m sharing it with you right now as somewhat of a palate cleanser before I deliver this insaneballs Bachelor recap that’s been humping my brain all day.

I got chills.  They multiplyin’.

Now to bring you back to level-headedness today, there is also this:

Dancing and crying – two of my favorite things it turns out!

What gives you chills?  What are your favorite moments, wedding-wise or  life-wise?  Have you found love?  What makes you know it?  I’d love to hear what’s important to you.

For those of you who care: the Knotty Bachelor recap is in progress, friendlies.  I thank you for your patience.  This one was…… special.  It was a special episode.  Very, very special.

xoxo!  - Alison

Photography: Vic Pellicier Photography

Happy Thursday afternoon, lovahs!  Alison here.  I’ve been pretty stoked about introducing this new series for a while now, and to see it all coming together is nothing short of a dream come true.  I hear EVERY DAY from brides with in-law questions and issues, and this series was an inevitability.  

Now, I think we all know that there are lovely, kind, wonderful in-laws out there, as well as go-with-the-flow in-laws, and not-very-involved in-laws…. clearly, since in-laws are people, naturally they come in all shapes, sizes, and personalities.  And many make a bride’s transition from girlfriend to wife easy breezy beautiful – even delightful in many cases! – and for these types of in-laws we are beyond grateful.  They disprove the reigning stigma.  Trust me, great in-laws do exist!  

Unfortunately, they don’t exist in all cases.  Even more, they are hardly the exception to the rule.  

Now, without further adieu, I introduce you to Miss S, and her story…

Who am I?

I’m a hard working, chocolate-loving gal who met the love of her life in grad school. I never was the type of girl who daydreamed about her wedding – BUT I saw enough TV shows and heard enough stories to fear having a mean, evil mother-in-law. I promised myself at an early age that I would never, ever let myself marry a guy who had an evil mom…

Fast forward 15 years and here I am with, who I believe to be, the most manipulative mother-in-law on earth.  So much for sticking to my promises.

The problem is I didn’t realize how evil she was until after I got engaged.  I was happily engaged for exactly 7 days before my world crashed around me in ways I had never thought possible.

My mission is to share my story with the hope of helping my fellow ladies out there who are experiencing similar problems. It can be a depressing and heartbreaking time, but remember you are not alone and you can get through this. If I did, so can you!

And a little more about me - Things I love: chocolate, cabernet sauvignon, salsa dancing, eating good food with good company, traveling with my fiancé, the color whiteThings I hate: Obviously, Mean In-Laws

When MIL = Manipulator-in-Law

I used to describe my future mother-in-law as “controlling” and “overbearing.”  Then my fiancé and I met with a therapist who made me realize that she was more than that – she was a manipulator.  And thus, what I call a Manipulator-in-Law (“MIL”).

The art of manipulation is mysterious to those more simple-minded folks like me who would never even dream about purposely hurting others for selfish goals.  However, dealing with my MIL has helped me see what manipulation looks like in real life and how to wrangle yourself out of it, no matter how painful that process might be. A MIL not only makes you feel personally miserable, but can also ruin the relationship you have with your significant other. Trust me when I say it is important for the survival of your relationship and marriage to deal with the MIL before it is too late.

So you may ask, what does a Manipulator-in-law look like?

A MIL can take many different forms. Mine used the following two methods to manipulate my fiancé (1) money and (2) threats to hate me if my fiancé didn’t do as my MIL insisted. The most telling example of her manipulation is the story of my engagement ring. My fiancé used the money he had saved up throughout the years and sold some of his stock investments to buy me a beautiful engagement ring.  He spent months and months looking for the perfect rock for me.  Because his bank statements were being sent to my MIL’s home, my MIL found out how much he had spent on my rock… and was absolutely furious at how much he had spent. It is true that he spent way more than the typical rule of spending two or three-months of your annual salary because he based it on his future salary, not his current. Regardless, the point is that my fiancé spent his own money, not his parents so it shouldn’t matter.  However, my MIL insisted that the money in my fiancé’s bank account and stock investments were NOT his money for reasons that require an entirely separate blog post on how they used finances to control him.  My MIL told my fiancé that she would hate me more and more every time she saw me with that ring. Quite strange that she would hate ME, even though it was my fiancé who picked out the ring, but my MIL knew that my fiancé wanted her to like me so this was her way to manipulate him. She also threatened to not approve the engagement if my fiancé proposed with that ring.

My MIL told my fiancé that the only way she would approve the engagement would be under the following conditions: (1) my fiancé buys a SECOND less expensive ring at a price that my MIL sets, (2) my fiancé proposes to me with this second less expensive ring and (3) my fiancé hands over the FIRST nicer ring to my MIL.  My MIL said she would put the first nicer ring in a safe deposit box until she decided that my fiancé was making enough money to afford that ring, and at such time she would return the ring to my fiancé.  Crazy huh? Her plan especially makes no sense considering that the main reason she got mad in the first place was because my fiancé had spent a lot of money on the first ring! If she didn’t like how much money he spent, why in the world would she make my fiancé spend even MORE money to buy a second ring?  It doesn’t make any sense. My analysis is that it was more than about the money – she wanted to be in control of the entire proposal, and she could not stand the thought of my fiancé giving me such a nice ring and giving so much love to another woman. I joke that my fiancé is probably the only guy who had to buy two engagement rings to propose to one girl.

As crazy at this all sounds, my fiancé, a victim of her manipulation throughout the years, yielded to her demands in an effort to make sure she approved our engagement and continued to like me.  But he went along with the plan with an important twist – my fiancé gave me the first ring and gave my MIL the second one.  He was able to pull this off by buying a second ring that was on the large side but of lesser quality (and thus able to fit into the budget my MIL had set).  I’m surprised my MIL hasn’t gotten the ring she received appraised yet.  I can’t wait to see her flip out when she finds out that her little plan didn’t work.

And here’s the worst part – after my fiancé proposed, we called our respective parents to share the happy news.  My MIL asks me on the phone, and I quote, “Do you like the ring? My son spent so much time looking for it.” It makes me sick to my stomach that she would ask that question to my face after trying to manipulate the whole situation behind my back.

Looking back, it really amazes me that both my fiancé and I did not realize how manipulative my MIL was until I talked to my therapist.  We never thought about using that word “manipulator” to even describe her; we always just described her as overbearing.  I guess we were naïve about the whole situation.

So ladies, ask yourself, is your MIL simply overbearing or, in fact, manipulating you and your significant other? Remember, the first step to winning this battle is to recognize that you are in fact being manipulated.  And there’s no shame in admitting that you have been the victim of manipulation.  It’s not your fault that your MIL is so crazy.

So I’d love to hear from you all.  Have you had less than positive experiences with your in-laws?  … what has been your experience?

Thanks everyone, it’s so nice to share my story with all of you!

xoxo  - Miss S

This is happening.

Happy Thursday evening, friends.  I want to start by saying this is a long, deeply personal post.  For your face.  And while I like the LOLs at the end of it a lot, it’s the story that’s the point.  Ok, here we go.  We’re gonna start out light.  Ease into it.

Ok, SO listen.  I think there are still some people out there who don’t think I have the berries, OR the balls to make the lead image on TKB a puppyface.  Like, solely face, directly inside of the face.  But as you can see I just wrote the word ‘balls’ on a wedding blog so this whole “I bet she doesn’t have the balls” thing should be a non-issue.  Also, I feel like I’ve done this before.  But just in case the remaining few who don’t believe in my utter strength to be this weird on paper are indeed reading today, well there it is.  And for everyone else who sees the giant puppy face and thinks, “business as usual on TKB today,” well see?  I am who you think I am.

Moving on – yesterday, I was up late finishing up some stuff for a magazine thing coming out next year (did you see what I did there?  that was the zenith of braggy sounding back there) and when I looked it over, I couldn’t help but be reminded of what this blog is about, for me.  Yes, it’s a wedding blog, at its core.  I mean, obviously.  No one’s- is anyone disputing that?  Pretty sure no one’s arguing that point.  But I feel like it’s so much more than that, for me personally, as the editor.  It’s everything I’ve always imagined it should be, when I first started it way back when.  Which boils down to it being that thing you call a dream come true.

I knew I never wanted to just straight feature weddings without also sharing commentary from my life and experiences.  My dream for the blog was basically taking two sort of disparate things and mixing them together in a way that wasn’t absolutely normal, or that had been proven effective… which amounts to it being rather daunting.  But more than that, it was exhilarating to move my life into that sort of project.  There’s a quote I know that I’m forgetting right now, but it’s something like, right when you leave your comfort zone, is when you start living.  Or something like that.  That quote rings true for me because I feel like I’ve lived a vastly fuller existence, and met more interesting, creative people, and more deeply explored the outer reaches of what it is to be a creative person and to run a business, than I think ever before.  All since starting TKB.  Which is pretty ironic given I’ve never spent more time sitting in front of a computer screen in my entire life.  But it is what it is.  You take the good with the bad, right? :)

ENGAGE PUG LOL BREAK…… PUG LOL BREAK ENGAGED:

BACK TO POST OF SERIOUSNESS:

Anyway the first ingredient of the plan was to feature killer weddings + crazy, stupid, love ;) + amazeballs imagery.  You know, the stuff that really inspires us.  The stuff we can’t remove our eyeballs from.  In that vein, I do want to give some advice.  I think it’s really important to set certain personal standards with regard to the content you feature, and to stick by them.  That can be hard, and rejection is never easy to give or to receive.  And in the beginning you worry about the frequency of submissions, and think you might need to feature something that (gasp!) doesn’t inspire you, personally.  But here’s the rub: sticking to your standards of quality, and learning to say no, those are two of the major tenets for success, if you ask me.  And blogging is no exception.

Ok, the second ingredient.  This is the part where I get to share my real life stories and just daily stuff with you guys.  Like, real stuff.  This part is really important to me.  Here let me tell you a little about myself so you see where I’m coming from and why this second ingredient is so meaningful to me.  My natural state of being is to love my alone time.  I could probably spend three full days, straight through, without human contact, and not be unhappy about it.  Just working on some project in hyperfocus, or even watching a string of great movies (though they’d have to be really amazeballs movies to keep me in for three days, I’m tellin’ ya).  I am someone who loves being on my own, and exploring my world.  Dancing erratically is a big part of that, as I’m sure you’ve picked up along the way.  Time alone is a good thing, I think, for all of us to grab onto if we can get it.  Even if it’s 20 minutes, and grandma takes the babies for a little bit into another room.  I’m not a mother yet so I don’t know that life, but I’ve certainly learned A LOT about it from other mothers I know.  Anyway so yeah, alone time is the s**t.  But an always alarming-at-first facet of my personality is that when I do go out for whatever event I have that night, or date night, or time with friends, or whatever, I’m the same person.  The same person who loves her alone time.  But the difference is that I’m hurtling that person onto whatever amount of people I’m chillin’ with.  And it’s the interaction that reminds me how much I live for connecting with other people.  Especially people who are open to connecting.  I love connecting with people like crazy.  And that’s where blogging comes in.  Blogging has been a ridonkulously great way to connect, for me.  There’s something inexplicably beautiful and emotionally satisfying to the act of sharing personal stuff with other like-minded people, and you guys, my readers, are totally exactly the kinds of people I live for connecting with.  Because you’re fun, cool and you don’t care that I just savagely violated the rules of grammar in that previous sentence.

Our back-and-forths, with each and every one of you who at whatever point decided to step out from lurking and actually converse with me, in the comments, on twitter, wherever – each of you have made me laugh out loud, or think, or reconsider a position, or feel reinforced… you’ve even helped me through difficult times.  We all know that the reality of life is that it ebbs and it flows, and you’ve been more helpful than you may ever know, when it’s ebbed.

So I just want to say thank you, even though saying thank you doesn’t seem like enough.  Please do come in for the hug.  (I wish you could come in for the real thing, but we do what we can with what we’re given.)

Ok now.  Here’s the last thing before I SHUT.  THEEFFUP.  A lot of people ask me for insight with regard to blogging and business ownership and making it profitable and this and that and the other.  I used to give detailed assessments of blogs and try to guide the blogger, but that was ages ago, when I had that elusive thing called *free time.*  And so I just figured I’d share it here on the blog real quick so it can reach more people than just those who reach out and ask.  Because I have like zero time these days to respond directly and personally to every person who asks.  I hate that, since I’m committed in maybe an unhealthy way to remain very personal in all of my correspondence, no matter what.  I don’t ever want to get to a point where I’m not reachable, like, on a human level.  Punch me through the face if that ever happens, k?  As a wake-up call.

Wait, am I making any sense right now?  Because I’m weirdly still sick in the face and the body.  I can’t get over this cold, it’s a bit disconcerting.  So- making sense?

Ok ANYWAY, as I was saying – here it is, my best insight: I knew, from the get-go, that the key to success…… ‘real’ success; the kind that’s not just monetary, but emotionally fulfilling as well…… was a) the awareness and effective use of what I recognized as my own inherent talents (we’re all born with our own, you just have to figure them out), and b) the willingness to work hard as F**K to make my dream of The Knotty Bride a reality.  Like, full immersion in the field.  Like, embedded in the infantry kind of immersion.  Like, you will not sleep for weeks, months even, and things will go wrong along the way, I guarantee it, but you must persevere, if this is truly what you want, what you’re good at, and you feel you have something to offer the world.  Because you do that with your dreams, right?  You work hard at them, you shed blood, sweat, tears, you bang a few suits to break through that glass ceiling, maybe some handjobs along the way, hooking helps – you know, the usual stuff people do to make things happen.  What’s that?  They don’t?  Wait, WHUUUUUUUUUUUT?

Now, a quick unrelated comment.  ”Wake up and smell the p***y” is not creative writing, Lil Wayne.  It’s not called “being an artist” anymore when there’s a line like that in your song.  I’d love to see you try a little bit harder in the new year, ok.  You have it in you.  I think?  Actually I guess you don’t, you don’t seem to have it in you.

Ok I’m wrapping it up here, now.  As you know it’s Thursday evening here and I’ve been listening to a Pandora station based entirely off of Rihanna for the entire day, which does something to your brain.  And your feets.  And I’m convinced at this point that I missed my calling as a Fly Girl after all this dancing today.  But when I wasn’t dancing I was searching for funnies for your faces, for this post.  What better stuff to blog about on the Thursday before the New Year?  AMIRITE?  Anyway so I’m coming off of five full (nonconsecutive) hours of looking at puppehs and kittehs on the world wide web, and I think I found the meaning of life somewhere in that time.  I feel transcendent, floating on a cloud of love and funny puppy kitty faces and this has to be what love and happiness is, right?  Unfortunately I think I used up an unfair share of the world’s ration of good times so I’m fully anticipating a disproportionately unfulfilling evening as appropriate punishment.

Anyway, here’s what I found.  Maybe because the lol searching was for the blog/your eyes, and therefore, entirely charitable in nature, I won’t have a shittay evening?  Here’s hoping.

K, enjoyificate!

By the way, I finally caught Bambino sniffing his own fart.  I’ve always wanted to capture hard proof of this, and I feel pretty validated right now.  Behold:

Ok last but not least…

Oh wait, THIS is the last but not least thing – a peek at the New Year’s Eve Party we’re going to drop onto the internet’s face around New Year’s time.

See?  I keep with my themes. ;)

Are you psyched for that party inspiration?  BECAUSE I AM.

Ok, friends.  I sincerely hope you enjoyed the random diarrhea that fell out of my mouth today.  ’cause holy mother.  Seriously WTF?

If you were worried, I’m blogging a wedding of amazingness tomizzle.  Ok it looks like “-izzle” doesn’t work in every scenario.  I meant ‘tomorrow’ by that.  I’m going to talk to Snoop about a proper-use manual.  But yeah, so I saved a perfect wedding for last.  Front and center tomorrow, my loves.  Apologies in advance if your face melts when you see it.

Tomorrow I’ll also be sharing some of the stuff I’m climaxing over for 2012.

Do let me know your thoughts, on any of this crazy s**t, will you?  I live for your feedback, however lengthy or brief.  But you already knew that.

xoxo!  - Alison

{Image credits} Frenchie at top: Perou / LOLs: i can has cheezburger / F**k Yeah Frenchies / F**k Yeah Pugs