Unrelated to Planning, But Fun Nonetheless

Unrelated note #1: I had to take my engagement ring to get sized yesterday. McMullen Jewelry rocks and Mrs. McMullen totally remembered me and was very excited by how much I love my inexpensive ring. They're re-sizing it for free, which is nice. However, I'm SOOOOO sad without it!! I'm wearing a filler ring in its absence just because I was feeling such a void in that tiny space on my left ring finger. It's amazing to me how much I love everything the ring symbolizes and how upset I was to have to leave it behind.

Unrelated note #2: I was in Watermark Books (which is also in Lincoln Heights Village at Douglas & Oliver) to buy a gift for a friend when I was stopped in my tracks by the following book:

Of course, the title had me at hello. I bought it straight away. I've only read two chapters but I can fully recommend it already. I haven't laughed that hard while reading a book in a very long time. This woman writes with the kind of comedic timing reserved for only the greatest actors of our time -- but she does so in her writing! And her perspective is classic. There is a real bond between "ethnic" Mennonites who have defected and people like me who came to the Mennonite faith as an adult: Objectivity. Mennonites think they're objective and don't take themselves too seriously and can make jokes at their own peculiarities. But no one can appreciate the ridiculousness of Menno entrenchment like outsiders, and I feel akin to the author in our shared outsider'ness.

And given the title of this blog and the post about the "little black dress," it was too perfect not to mention.

More actual wedding planning details to come. For now I leave you with an excerpt from Ms Janzen...

"My father, once the head of the North American Mennonite Conference for Canada and the United States, is the Mennonite equivalent of the pope, but in plaid shorts and black dress socks pulled up snugly along the calf. In the complex moral universe that is Mennonite adulthood, a Mennonite can be good-looking and still have no sartorial taste whatsoever. My father may actually be unaware that he is good-looking. He is a theologian who believes in a loving God, a servant heart, and a senior discount. Would God be pleased if we spent an unnecessary thirty-one cents at McDonald's? I think not."

Classic.