Meltdown

I have had a stressful few days that resulted me in having a bit of a meltdown at an academic conference today (thankfully no one saw me). It was a culmination of many things (mostly non-wedding related) and I am trying to get over them and move on with my life. Before I discuss bad wedding stress, I rather talk about some fun wedding stuff.

I think we have figured out the wedding party. My maid of honor will be my sister, Mr. Nee's best man will be his best friend, the flower girl will be his best friend's daughter and the ring bearer will be my dissertation co-chair's son. I wanted to keep the wedding party small since we are not having a large wedding and I didn't want to hurt people's feelings. One of my closest and dearest friends, Miss Ro will be our officiant. I cannot think anyone else who could perform our ceremony. Since we might have the ceremony at Graveyard Park, I might ask my grandmother Dot to say a prayer for those interred at the park and have the each of the guests place a flower on the memorial. I would like to have more family members involved but I am not quite sure what I would ask them to do or if they would like to do anything beyond just being there to support us. Any ideas?

Now onto the bad wedding stress. I have to have some major work done to my car and its going to cost almost $1000. The day before I heard this I had decided on my wedding dress. A beautiful tea-length linen gown from an Australian designer who will incorporate my love for scouting (for those who don't know: I was a scout for many years, worked for the scouts and now conducting research on the scouts) into the dress. It's exactly what I want but with all this work that I have to get done on my car, I don't know if I can afford it and since I would have to get the dress custom-made and it would be coming from Australia it could take some time until I have a finished product.

On top of all this, I am contemplating going to my discipline's annual meeting in DC this year. Originally, I had not intended to but a friend, Mr. Z, roped me into playing a geography bowl game at the regional meeting and I did pretty well (or I think pretty well for someone who doesn't identify as a geographer). There is some travel money involved in participating and I have found round trip plane tickets (flying out of OC) for only $178. The conference registration fees would run me right now about $150 and hotels are probably about that much a night. I will get some money from my department and there is potential to get travel money from some of the speciality groups. I just don't know though. I could easily present on what I presented at the regional meeting but I am still unsure with my current financial situation.

All this is just too much right now, coupled with some family stuff going on and my increased workload at school. I think I need to get back into working out or at least doing yoga or nia.