Remember when I promised I was done talking about weddings? I lied.

We had a wedding photographer. Obviously. Dave is a wedding photographer, but I drew the line at him buying one of those remote control thingys and a tripod so he could take his own wedding photos. I will say "yes" to the Bengals socks. No to the remote control and tripod idea. Sorry.

But, even as I told Dave to leave his ginormous camera bag at home, I brought my tiny digital "flash on or off, these are your choices, lady" camera. Because, you know, our photographer could be off shooting pictures of the cake, and I would want a photo instead of my sister tearing apart her plate because she is 10 and "GOSH do you guys have any other food?"

Exactly. So a digital camera was a necessity.

And, if you're lucky, you only get married once. So I used up pretty much all the space on my teeny little memory card taking pictures of a groomsman with a garter around his head like Rambo, yelling "WE'RE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES" (Tigers fan), and my sister, you know, eating Styrofoam because "GOSH it's better than eating THAT." It's cute. I promise.

And, as a reward for writing all my thank-you notes like a good bride, I let myself get multiple copies of prints this weekend.

Who would've thought it would cost me almost $70? Surely not the woman behind the one-hour photo desk who was screaming for mercy as my order just. Kept. Printing.

Then you throw in the photo albums because you can't put gorgeous wedding photos in a crappy album and call it a life. No. You have to get red. Because that is our color. And ooh, that black one. Because that is Dave's color. And it says "Photos" on it so if it's ever laying on the coffee table you can be assured you know what you are getting. So ... pretty photos, fabulous album ... Happy? No.

It's all just a front.

You see, my wedding photos, the real ones, the ones taken not by me in a giddy whirl of excitement, are sitting at Mom's. Probably on her laundry room counter, right next to the Hootie and the Blowfish cassettes and the LTD catalogue. Or they will be sitting there soon. They're sitting there, all nice and DONE in OHIO and I am here, hello, in Wisconsin.

And will we trust the United States Postal Service to deliver our wedding photos on time, guaranteed? No. We have bad luck. And you can't mess with wedding photos.

Alas, I don't get to see them until Thanksgiving when my mom and stepdad bring them up in a locked, armored vehicle. Then all will be right with the world. Or at least my peace of mind.

I am so impatient.

This post includes a bit of paranoia. As if you'd expect anything less.

Dave and I have been spending our glamorous married life writing thank-you cards for our wedding gifts -- and it's just like we expected it to be. Troublesome.

We've got some problems ... A few we don't have addresses for. Simple enough. It's the reason Man created Google. A few we don't have last names for. Might be tricky, but we'll call our parents and ask "Hey, do you know a Bob and Diane? No? Oh ..."

We have one family (a husband and wife and their two married children) who gave us one card from the husband and wife, one the husband and wife and their two children, and the two children and their husbands also each gave us a card. We're pretty sure we don't have to send four cards back, but I wonder if they even realized they did that. Or if it was just a "I wonder if Luke picked up the card? He wouldn't have ... I better pick one up just in case."

But two other issues in particular are proving to be quite the problems.

We have one gift we don't know who gave it to us.

We have one family we don't know what they gave us.

Seems like we just solved our problem right there, doesn't it? But what if we didn't? They didn't come from the same pile, and therefore there's a good chance the gift in question didn't come from the party in question.

What would Emily Post do, Ms. Etiquette herself? She'd probably smack me first, then tell me I'm screwed and I'm better off just writing something generic like "Thanks for the generous gift." Or jump off a bridge. Whichever.

But then, we run into another issue: My Lifetime Fear. Lifetime not being the TV network, but my actual Lifetime Fear.

I have this paranoia that people get the thank-you card I write and stand it up on their counter because -- aw, it's got an apple on it and it's so fall-like and pretty -- and someone else, who also got a card from me, comes over to their house to visit and SEES the other card, reads it, and says "Hey, that sounds pretty dang similar."

Because then they'll know: We are totally generic when it comes to thank-you card writing.

So we try to be creative; we'll switch out adjectives. "Nice" becomes "great" or "beautiful" or "fabulous." It's like a polite Mad Libs sheet.

I'll let you know how it goes. I've got more writer's cramp to create. SWEET.

Boo

Weekend is here, and it's full of spookiness. The main story's about throwing a Halloween bash, but there's much more than that.

We've also got a calendar full of haunted houses from today through Tuesday. Woot woot.

Sign of stability for a practical, frugal person

A small observation: When in college, toilet paper, milk and other shared items were bought in small packages: the four-pack, the half-gallon. You bought one, your roommate got the next one, and so on.

While dating, it was kind of "get whatever's cheaper."

Now that we're married, we gravitate toward the bulk.

"I'm not going anywhere. Just get it," Dave'll say.

And that's why we now have 24 rolls of toilet paper under the sink. I've never owned this much toilet paper in my life.

Now that's permanence. Ha, ha.

The wedding, the honeymoon and more

The justification: A wedding happens once in a lifetime, and This is Life is about my life. Hence, you get the biggest day of my life, in photos.

6:45 a.m.: Erin gets her hair done by her soon-to-be sister-in-law.
**What you don't see: Erin eats three giant maple rolls, tries to hide the fact that in two hours she plans on eating half a box of macaroni and cheese. Later, succeeds.


8 a.m.: Step-father isn't impressed. Continues to read paper.
**What you don't see: Four women in a tiny bathroom doing hair. No wonder he's not outta the chair.

10:45 a.m.: Erin gets dressed in the church basement, poses for first of 673 photos with maid of honor.
**What you don't see: Erin freaking out when she hears Dave's voice upstairs: "Is that Dave?? Dave? How is he? What's he doing?" You also don't see Dave's brother telling me Dave's throwing up. Which he wasn't.


12:45 p.m.: Part of bridal party waits for the 1 p.m. show.

**What you don't see: The ceremony, as I was kind of busy getting married to take photos. Sorry.

3 p.m.: Post-ceremony, post-pro photos, Dave and Erin ride to barhop, which is an Ohio thing ... You don't get drunk; you just go to a few bars and be loud and married and play "Sweet Home Alabama" on the jukebox.
**What you don't see: Me, taking 15 minutes to figure out how to fit a round dress in a square car seat.

3:17 p.m.: Erin and Dave sing to "Sweet Home Alabama" on the jukebox.
**What you don't hear: Our horrible singing.

5:56 p.m.: Erin and Dave cut the cake. Crowd goes wild for chocolate.
**What you don't see: Us throwing cake on each other. I told him I'd divorce him if he got chocolate on my dress. He listens well.

7:59 p.m.: Even in tux, Dave can't really dance. But it's forgiveable.
**What you don't see: Me, also with no dancing skills.

9:02 p.m.: About as crazy as it gets: Moms and groomsman dance to Meatloaf.
**What you don't see: My grandparents dancing to Justin Timberlake. It happened. I swear. It was awesome.

Sunday, 2:55 p.m.: Dave and Erin wait for the plane in Detroit.
**What you don't see: Erin freaking out, convinced she will die in a horrible plane crash.

Monday, 4 p.m.: Dave takes photos in Quebec City.
**What you don't see: Me, going "Are you done yet?"

4:15 p.m.: Quebec rocks.
**As you can see.

4:16 p.m.: Arret in the name of love, baby.
**Yeah, we took the touristy photo. "Look, ya'll, it's FRENCH."

5 p.m.: See, I was there, too.
**What I don't see: Much of anything, as I left my glasses in Ohio. Oops. You also don't see the rest of the honeymoon, as a woman's gotta keep some things to herself. That, and it rained, cutting down the photo opps.

Saturday, 10 p.m.: The wedding gift that keeps on barkin': Mr. Big.
**What you don't see: How cute he is all curled up on his pillow.

There. I shall from this day forth no longer speak of my wedding day at such length. But I'm only doing this wedding thing once, so I'm getting my money's worth of talking about it.

So there. On with This is Life. Married life.

Here's one to whet your appetite.

It's pilfered from a fabulous bridesmaid's Web site. Yes, it really is me. This is what I call "Dave's not really all that used to opening champagne," or "Hi, we've been married about four hours."

Troubles in Paradise

The cord that transfers my photos from my camera to my computer is MIA. Either it was confiscated because of its obvious resemblance to a bomb by the TSA* during our flight from Detroit to Quebec City, along with my menacing face wash, or else it's in The Scary Basement, which I cannot get to without stepping over that mountain of laundry in my way.

Therefore, I will sit here at this table instead of blogging and convince the Social Security Administration that I do indeed qualify for a new card with my new name. You, on the other hand, get to wait another day for a couple wedding photos.

I apologize, and I hope you're able to sleep tonight.

*I really did have my purple bag (all the terrorists are using purple bags nowadays) broken open by the Transportation Safety Administration sometime after checking my bag at the counter in the sparkling metropolis of Detroit and getting it from the conveyor belt in Quebec. I went to unlock the bag at our hotel when I noticed I didn't have to ... the lock was gone. Inside, on top of my now-unfolded clothes, was a pamphlet, apologizing for the trouble. I was randomly selected for a baggage inspection in the interest of national security. Mr. Bush thanks me for my cooperation.

It should also be noted that I may have left my face wash in a hotel in Lima after the wedding, but that's not as entertaining as thinking a bunch of airport guys with bad complexions took it.

Oh, and by the way ...

While I was having someone post my blogs about mice, Christmas, Halloween and what was in the last two issues of Weekend, I got married and had a honeymoon.

(I planned ahead and had those done on Oct. 1. Writing those blogs kept me from counting down the hours to my wedding day, which I tried to do but failed miserably.)

See? You didn't even miss me, and now I am officially Mrs. Erin Wasinger. Ooh. Dang.

Weekend ... A few instruments away from being a small-town band. Without the musical talent. So I guess they're not really that similar.

It's Weekend time. As usual, don't miss this week's story: It's about small venues and small-city bands, and how one helps the other.

Check it out.

A Halloween not thought through

There was talk of a Halloween party among some people at work. I immediately panicked. I went to one Halloween party in college, and I wore wings. That's all. Just wings. No halo. No costume. Just wings. The other three Halloweens were spent with me going "No, I did dress up, I'm Becky (my roommate)" or "I'm supposed to be a woman, duh" or something equally as lame and cringe-worthy.

Obviously, this Halloween was going to be really pitiful if I didn't think of something cool -- fast, I thought.

But then I heard the rest of it: If there is a party, it's going to have rules. Ooh, I love rules. "Only half-thought-out costumes allowed."

Whoa.

This is the Halloween party of my dreams. You mean I can go and NOT get the awkwardness kicked outta me because I'm not dressed in some skimpy costume on a frigid Wisconsin night? Or suffocating in some smelly rubber mask because yeah, that's totally cool for my temperamental complexion. Right.

I'm thinking about replicating the angel routine. I think the wings are in some closet (or in a bag in Walgreens for $5, I bet). I'll wear them with a band T-shirt and my black jeans. Hot.

Five outfits that should be banned, because I've seen how they worked out and it wasn't very good:
1. Any man in a Hooters outfit. (I really did see this one in real life. I still have nightmares.)

2. Anything with feathers. (Too flammable.)

3. That "Scream" costume. Come on, everyone had that one. In 1997.

4. Dorothy from "Wizard of Oz." Come on, everyone's been doing that one since 1939.

5. Anything with those fake redneck teeth. Everyone I've witnessed with those things has to spit them out to talk, drink or eat so the slimy fake teeth with the bad tartar build-up sits in their hands all wet and sticky, and you know that person is inevitably going to hand you a cookie or something later that night and you're going to eat it before thinking, and then spend the next hour in the bathroom gagging.

Not that I've experienced that, but ...

Holly jolly October

I know it's sick. I know it's horrible of me. I know I should be dragged out to the street and forced to apologize to the world for admitting it:

But I love, love, love that holiday items are out already, and it's not even Halloween. Call it commercialism gone wild. Go ahead. Do it. Call it a marketing department's ploy to get me to buy. You're right. I buy.

I buy stockings, lights, shiny ornaments and foot-tall trees. I buy blown ornaments, little "Rudolph" figurines and holiday movies from the dollar bins. I buy tree skirts, holiday CDs, and scarves, hats and gloves.

It's a bit crazy, but this usually cheap, frugal woman can't help it. And I'm not one of the people who get tired of the holidays by January. No, that's usually when the depression sets in.

Not because it's all over ... But because everything I bought has to fit back in that closet upstairs. So ... heavy. Can't ... go ... on.

Sigh.

But for now, dang. How festive is my living room going to be when I've got all this set up? That's what I'm talkin' about.

I kind of regret not marrying an exterminator.

I'm terrified of mice. I'm not going to go into the whole embarrassing column I wrote in college about my encounter with the rat at Dave's college house, or even about that memory that's burned into my brain of Mom screaming because a vole ran over her foot in the garage. I won't even mention it.

Instead, I'll tell you about the mouse traps. The traps that are now so complicated I had to ask the mice how to set them (and now I bet I don't even catch any). Dave and I both played around with them (and have swollen fingers and thumbs to prove it), but we can't get the stupid things to latch.

Where did this mouse-eliminating technology come from? We can't keep up.

It's not a bad problem in our house, but I'm all about prevention. I need to stop any problem before it gets out of hand.

Like it did for my cousin Paul and his wife.

My aunt told my mom, who told me sitting around a campfire, speaking with a flashlight under her chin, that there were so many mice that they killed dozens a week. SNAP! the traps would go in the middle of the night, while they lay in bed listening. SNAP! in the kitchen, in the family room ... SNAP SNAP SNAP times 20.

I would've staying in that house for maybe two SNAPs before I would've packed a bag and checked into the nearest hotel.

So all I have to do is get these stupid traps to work. Dear god the directions don't help! And I hear them! I QUIT.

(Photo: doyourownpestcontrol.com -- If I ever need the one on the right, I will seriously quit.)