Are there always this many weddings?

So...for anyone else out there reading this who is engaged...have you noticed that now that you're getting married, it seems that EVERYONE else is, too? Not that I mind - it's kind of exciting to check out Facebook and see that a whole bunch of people I know are engaged. This mostly happens when I randomly stop by the profile of someone I haven't talked to in 2-10 years.

The only thing that gets me down about this fact is that far too many of these newly-engaged people don't seem to have discovered the wonderful, offbeat wedding websites and blogs out there. I routinely see girls who are fighting with relatives, tearing their hair out over the insane amount of rules some venues have, or staring in shock at the price of what their wedding is "supposed" to look like. Now granted, some of these girls might be totally happy underneath, but I really just feel like they just haven't made it past mainstream wedding media yet. They haven't seen all the awesome, totally authentic (and when I say that, I mean authentic to the bride and groom) "wedding graduate" posts over at A Practical Wedding. I know, I know, this is the second post in a row that I've lauded Meg's creation. But I kind of want to get all my engaged acquaintences together in a big group say, "Listen. This place doesn't have ALL the answers, but it sure can help keep you sane and remind you to stand your ground on stuff that matters."

Speaking of standing ground...I'm gearing up to defend our venue choice to my future mother-in-law. Who, for the record, is an amazingly wonderful woman, and I'm really excited to be her new daughter. What's kind of funny is...she's kind of stepped into the stereotypical "mother-of-the-bride" role when it comes to opinions about the wedding, whereas my mom has pretty much said "It's your wedding, do what you want!" while still chipping in her two cents when it comes to questions of "how will this particular thing work?". Anyhoo. Not sure how keen my new mama is gonna be on us getting married in an amphitheatre, but I'm pretty sure she'll understand. In fact, I know she'll understand...it's just that I'm also expecting a few months of, "But you know, you could get married in our church!" I love God. I just feel closer to God when I'm outside, and I've always felt compelled to get married outside. As for rain location...well, we're talking about reserving the place I work just in case. I'm a little worried about fire code there, and I'm tempted to say "Screw it, we'll get married in the rain!" but maybe we WOULD be safer with a backup plan. And considering it's where I work...my boss might let me reserve the space for a small fee, and I'd pay her extra if we ended up actually using it? I dunno.

In unrelated news...today is my future father-in-law's birthday. I called him while Scott and I were watching Garden State to wish him a happy birthday, called him "daddy" because I love him and I feel weird calling him Steve, and talked about the weather for about two minutes. I got off the phone and Scott told me I'd probably just made his dad's day, because a) no one ever talks to him on the phone that long because he's such a quiet man and b) he always wanted a daughter. So, I'm happy that I probably made him happy.