Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours

(Note: I have tried really hard not to blog too much about my upcoming wedding, but sadly, said wedding has turned my brain to mush and all it’s all I can think about at the moment. So be prepared for some really dull posts in the days to come.)

Today, I picked up the marriage license. It’s all very official looking (more so than I would have expected from DC, but this is the new DC*). And now I guess there is no turning back. Actually, the no turning back point would really be when my mother handed over a very large check to the hotel. After that point, it just became cheaper to go through with it and get a divorce later.

Please pardon my cynicism. It’s not that I don’t want to marry Lord Kissington—I do and that’s why I’ll be saying “I do.”. It’s just that all the many steps of this process have caused me great anxiety. The 18 bazillion choices I have had to make as to dress, shoes, tiara (I have to admit that I enjoyed that one), flowers, entrees, hors d’oeuvres, table placement, chair covers, bouquets, invitations, etc. have been difficult for me since I’m, well, rather indecisive. Even today, when I had to meet with the hotel and the florist, I spent most of the meetings shrugging my shoulders and saying “whatever you think is best.” When you add in such things as syph tests and dealing with the DC government, I just get a little anxious.

This anxiety is contributing to my recurring insomnia, which gives me further anxiety because I am worried that I will look tired and haggard at my wedding. It’s a vicious cycle.

*I remember the old DC, where my official ID looked like something I made in my friend’s parents’ garage. My name was backwards, the ID went through the lamination machine crooked, and the laminating job looked, mmh, unofficial at best. Now, I have a brand spanking new ID that actually looks like it comes from a real state. Oh, how times have changed.

Lucidity

*Someone got here by searching for “first dance emo wedding.” That’s so cool. However, I am concerned that Lord Kissington will not react so well when I tell him that we’re having an emo wedding, being that he has never understood my love for emo. (For some reason, the search page asked “Did you mean to search ‘first dance elmo wedding’?” WTF?)

*On Saturday, my in-town bridesmaids took me to Andre Chreky for a massage, manicure, and pedicure. That evening, we had a six-course dinner with wine pairings at Equinox. It was amazing and I drank too much wine. But it was nice to have a wedding-related event that didn’t involve nayyyykkkked layyydeeees and shots of jager. Baby, June, and MaryAnn are the best.

*I had another lucid dream. In this one, a friend I have some ongoing issues with was behaving very strangely and being pretty awful to me. I had a moment in the dream where I said to myself, this is totally out of character and she wouldn’t be doing this. Then I drifted right back into the dream and the whole thing happened again. Déjà vu all over again. It was very frustrating and weird.

Here Comes the Bride

I’m getting married in 12 days. Until recently, the gravity of this hadn’t really hit me. I’ve been living with Lord Kissington for about 3 years; it just seemed like we were putting a legal structure to something that already exists. And I’ve had rather ambivalent feelings about getting married, because I find it fundamentally unjust that only heterosexual couples can get married. But we decided to do it, and I got caught up in the whole planning juggernaut and completely lost sight of the fact that I am marrying an actual person.

Last week, I received a memo at work asking us to update our contact info for HR. I had to put down an emergency contact, so I wrote down Lord Kissington’s info. The last line asked you to identify the contact’s relationship to you, so I wrote “husband as of 3/11.” And then it hit me. I’m going to have a husband. I don’t really feel old enough to have a husband, although technically, I am well within the age range at which most people take a husband (far past it, if you listen to some of my relatives). When I was younger, I thought that married people all lived in the suburbs, ate dinner at 6 p.m., and lived extremely dull lives. And I just don’t see myself doing this. I still feel like a kid so much of the time. When I had my nails done on Saturday, I went with the cool, totally work-inappropriate blood red instead of a sensible pale pink or peach. I still drink too much on the weekends (and, ummh, weekdays). I cling to my fading punk rock cred.

Yet, I can’t ignore the fact that I am getting older. My friends are having babies and being audited (the latter is firm proof that we’re not getting any younger: a teenager can have a baby, but I’ve never heard of a teenager being audited). Now I’m getting married. And I haven’t been a rock show in at least six months. What’s next? Stretch waist pants? A move to some far away suburb because you can get more house for your dollar out there? Buying a minivan? I just can’t fathom it.

Putting Things Into Perspective

Today is my one-year blogiversary. I am actually pretty impressed with myself that I have made it this long, given my ADD-level attention span. (Oh look, a new bright shiny object.) But here I am. This will be my 130^th post. They haven’t all been winners (very few of them actually), but I’m still cranking them out.

I am pretty sure that I have the bird flu after this morning’s unfortunate incident. Luckily, I was wearing a hat, so the bird flu germs didn’t hit me directly, but I’m going to have to burn the hat, which is a real shame because I like that hat.

I have a great big red blemish on my nose. It was sort of a pimple, but it seems to have moved into generic blemish territory. It’s now been there for a week and shows no signs of going away. It’s also resistant to all forms of concealer. I look like Bozo the Clown. Much like the broken toe, I hope this is cleared up before the wedding.

I’m going to see a out of town friend tonight who has experienced some recent tragedies that make my rambling whinging sound particularly stupid and self-centered. So I’ll just shut up now.

Why, Bird, Why?

This morning, on my walk to work, a bird flew into my head. My first thought was, “Ummh, fly much?” My second thought was, “Clearly, this is a sign that I should just turn around and go straight back to bed.” I just hope the rest of the day gets better.

Licensed to Wed

Since I’m sure you were all dying to know, Lord Kissington and I do not have syphilis. In fact, we have been certified to be “syph-free” by the DC Department of Health Services. We totally high fived after that.

I made a brief appearance at the blogger happy hour last night, but I has a splitting headache and as soon as I arrived, I realized that I just had no energy left to even make conversation, so I said hello to a few people and didn’t stay long. It seemed like everyone was having a great time. I’m sorry I was too drained to contribute. I hate that all this wedding nonsense is sapping the life out of me.

I woke up in the middle of the night and realized that my headache had turned into a migraine. I totally hate it when that happens. The plan for this morning was to go apply for the marriage license, and since I didn’t want to take another morning off from work, we went even though I was in serious pain. I figured the whole thing would probably be pain-inducing anyway, so having a migraine might not be that big a deal. Actually, the whole thing was relatively painless. Yes, you have to walk past a bunch of offices that point out all the things that could go wrong in your marriage (divorce court, the department of child abuse and neglect, the dept. of mental retardation, the dept. of child support and deadbeat parents, and the division of juvenile affairs), but applying for the license didn’t take too long, and as of Monday, we will be licensed to wed. When we went down to the finance office to pay, I was dismayed to see a long line, but then I noticed there were two windows, the criminal fines payment window, with the long line, and the family division fee window, with no line at all. I felt bad for everyone in the long line.

I Am Not So Cool

1. This weekend was pretty boring. I’ll spare you the blow-by-mind-numbingly-dull-blow description.

2. I spent Saturday afternoon with my mother doing wedding things. My dress is being altered and my cake has been ordered. My mother spent most of the day harassing me for being such a loser bride and not have everything done already. I didn’t really need to hear any of this since, ummh, I know I’m the lamest bride ever. Since Lord Kissington was going to be out at his bachelor party the whole day and night, she suggested that I spend the night at her house, because “you won’t want to deal with drunk people coming into your apartment and waking you up.” Please, I’ll take drunk guys over an evening of belittlement anytime.

3. I went into work for several hours on Sunday. See, I told you it was a boring weekend. Having to work (I am trying to get everything done before I leave for three weeks for the wedding and honeymoon) on the weekend totally blows. I’m still bitter about it, particularly because I was sick all weekend and really just wanted to lie on the couch and not brave the insanely cold weather.

4. Yesterday, we had our blood tests for syphilis. We find out the results tomorrow, and hopefully, by the end of the week, we will have successfully applied for a license (which we then have to wait several days for). Here’s to a syphilis-free 2006!

5. I am so god-damned sick of wearing sneakers. It’s killing me. And because I am wearing sneakers, I’ve been wearing jeans to work for a week now (I will not wear sneakers with a skirt), which isn’t making me feel my most professional. I want my pretty shoes back. And the toe better be in shape—I’ve only got 18 days left.

6. The weekend’s most exciting moment was Saturday night, when I watched Norway’s Kjetil Andre Aamodt defend his 2002 Olympic Gold medal in the Super G (yes, I know, that’s sad). Some girls like Tom Brady or Johnny Damon. Not me. I go for obscure Norwegians every time. (And he is way hotter than he looks in that picture. The wind burn doesn’t really work on anyone.) Aamodt is competing in his fifth Olympics. He has won 8 medals (4 of them gold), which makes him the most decorated Alpine skier ever. He won his first medals at the 1992 Albertville games, when he was just 20. He’s now 34 and apparently still going strong. Yes, I’m a dork. But you knew that already, didn’t you?

7. The ice dancing competition was totally insane. Back in my figure skating days, I used to be a big fan of ice dancing. Yes, I know that it barely qualifies as a sport to most people watching the Olympics, but it’s so fun. Or at least it used to be. Watching the other figure skating events is always nerve-wracking because of the potential for falls, but ice dancing was always the safe event. No one ever fell. That’s changed. The skaters were falling left and right on Sunday night. Yet, even with all the falls, all I could think about was the utter hideousness of the costumes. Several competitors were wearing headbands around their foreheads in the style of a Loverboy video. Really, this is a look that should have remained in 1984.

8. I have come to the realization that I am not going to do any reading before the wedding. I haven’t finished a book in over a month. I’ve barely even started any. My brain has lately turned to much, and all I can manage is US Weekly. I’ll be bringing a stack of books with me to Spain. Yes, Lord Kissington has a hot honeymoon to look forward to.

9. Is everybody coming to the blogger happy hour tomorrow night?

Syph Is the New Clap

To get married in DC, you need to get a license. And to get the license, you have to get a syphilis test. I imagine this law has been on the books forever, but it’s not such a bad idea because according to the DC Department of Health Web site, “Syphilis is Back!” And that’s the Department’s exclamation point, not mine. Apparently, infectious syphilis cases roses 55% from 2000 to 2002.

Getting tested for syphilis is turning into quite a project. Lord Kissington’s doctor is way out in VA and doesn’t do blood tests, so I figured we could both go to Whitman Walker to get the test done, because it’s in the neighborhood and they’re like totally STD testing central. Only you have to have form 366 from the Department of Health Services filled out by the doctor to certify your test. And Whitman Walker doesn’t know anything about said form. Also, they told Lord Kissington that if when we got there, they try to tell us that women aren’t allowed, that he should call the person he had talked to. I find this really strange. I know that their main clientele are gay men, but I know several women (and straight men) who have gotten STD tests there and HIV doesn’t infect men only.

So I ended up making appointments at my doctor’s office for both of us, and they were perfectly happy to do the syph tests for us. They don’t know anything about the form either (the DC Marriage Bureau Web site assures us that in DC, most doctors, labs, hospitals, etc. will have this form). So I decided to call the DHS to find out if I could actually get hold of this form myself. Well, it turns out that you don’t need the form, you just have to bring your test results down to the DHS lab and get them certified (which they do on the spot) and then you can get your license. So, the information on the DC Marriage Bureau Web site is all wrong. Why I am not surprised?

Apparently, the test has to be certified as negative, which leads me to wonder what happens if the test is positive? Are you not allowed to get married until you can be certified as syph-free? And wouldn’t it totally suck to have to tell everyone you’re postponing your wedding because you have syphilis?

The Good and the Bad

The Good

1. The shower was just fine, pretty low key. Most people were able to make it, despite the inclement weather (sadly, my maid of honor was coming down from New York that morning and wasn’t able to make it because of the blizzard). It was very nice to have everyone there and the gifts were lovely.

2. The really good news: I finally have someone to officiate at the wedding. Yes, this one was down to the wire, but it all worked out.

The Bad

1. I’ve been sick for the past couple of days and in and out of work.

2. I am totally swamped at work and need to try to work ahead for the two and a half weeks I’ll be out for the wedding and honeymoon, so being sick pretty much sucks.

3. I think I may have broken my toe this morning. I decided to go into work late since I was still feeling crappy, and I was stumbling around the bathroom, not totally with it yet. I managed to ram my right pinky toe into the wall. It hurt, but I didn’t think that much of it since I do this at least a couple of times a month. It throbbed a bit, but I went back to bed and promptly forgot about it. When I got it, it was a little purple and tender, but didn’t hurt too much as I padded around the apartment barefoot. When I went to put on my shoes, I was overcome by serious waves of pain. So I switched to a less adorable, more sensible pair of shoes. Nope, just as bad. I taped the toe to the one next to it (luckily, we had some tape left over from the unfortunate Boxing Day foot-slicing incident), and I was forced to wear sneakers. To work. I pretty much only wear sneakers to the gym and maybe the occasional punk rock show (but only hipster sneakers in that case). I hobbled out to walk to work and was forced to admit defeat within a block. I took the bus, which made me totally nauseous.

4. The possible consquences of the allegedly broken toe are pretty dire. The wedding is in 3 and a half weeks. Am I going to be limping down the aisle? Am I go to have to (gasp) wear sensible shoes? Also, will the intense pain keep me from my usual exercise routine? Since I can barely walk, I think that might be a yes.

Shower Me with Love

So my bridal shower is this weekend, and I’m a little apprehensive. I’m not really a shower kind of person. I like parties that involve drinks, sparkling conversation, and lots of disco dancing. I am not a big fan of parties that involve me opening presents while everyone oohs and ahhs. It’s not that I mind being the certain of attention, I would just rather that it be because I’m busting a move to “Tragedy” or belting out a little karaoke. Luckily, there will be alcohol at the shower, and I have begged and pleaded for no games. Seriously, I am not wearing a hat made out of ribbons. Who came up with that idea?

I’m not even sure why I am having a shower. It just seemed like one of those things that you do, and so I am doing it, despite the fact that I have avoided some many other of the wedding things I am supposed to do. I feel bad that my friends, particularly my bridesmaids, are having to shell out for shower gifts in addition to wedding gifts. I feel bad that they are going to have to sit through a couple of hours of potential family drama (if I were a religious woman, I’d be lighting candles right now to pray that none of that happens). During the shower, Lord Kissington and the assorted husbands/boyfriends/etc. of the shower guests will be hanging out in a bar. Can I tell you that I’m a little jealous?

When I Get Married, I’m Keeping My Own Name. Or Maybe that Should Be “If I Get Married”

No, I’m not calling off the wedding, I just enjoy quoting Lisa Simpson whenever I get the chance. So, I’m keeping my own name after the wedding. You see, I am very attached to my name. It’s a weird name and no one can pronounce it or spell it properly, but I’ve had it for so long and it seems to go so well with my first name (well, as much as anything “goes” with Etta) that I can’t imagine being called anything else. I mean, Kissington is a perfectly promulant name and all, but it’s just not for me. Besides, there is something so fundamentally unequal about the idea that it’s all about the man’s name. Lord Kissington likes his name, I like mine, so we’re keeping them. No big deal, right?

I knew it might cause a little controversy, since I will be the first person in the extended Kissington clan not to embrace their husband’s name. And I’m a little surprised by that since most of the women had perfectly nice maiden names and several have traded them in for odd, hard to spell, hard to pronounce names. Buy, hey, it’s all about choice. This is a totally personal decision, and I think people should do what they want. The Kissingtons senior don’t seem to have an issue with it, and my dad is delighted that I’m keeping the family name alive.

So, basically this is a non-issue. Or at least that’s what I thought until recently. Lord Kissington and I met up with some friends of his older brother at a bar recently. One of the friends kept referring to me as Mrs. Kissington (ummh, dingus, that would actually be Lady Kissington), and Lord Kissington explained (patiently) that I wasn’t taking his name. From this gentleman’s reaction, you would think I had just announced that I would be spending the wedding night servicing the Green Bay Packers and my new husband could just wait his damn turn. He followed me around for the next half-hour, drunkenly pleading with me to take my future husband’s name because “he’s a great guy and you should just do it.” Oh, wow, dude, I never thought of it that way. I am so convinced. My polite protests fell on deaf ears and he just became ever more belligerent on the topic. Sigh. Why do people feel they have to the right to question my decision, but no one ever suggests that Lord Kissington might want to take on the Tiara family name? I’ve explained to people that in the Middle Ages, when an up and coming young man married an heiress, he and the children would often take her family name, since it was usually a more socially prominent one (I'm not trying to say that my name is more prominent, but we do have a crest. Just sayin'.). I actually tried to use that argument with the drunk guy, but he was far beyond comprehending medieval social practices at that point. I can’t wait until the wedding when everyone calls starts calling me Mrs. Kissington, and I have to say (politely, of course. I do everything politely.), “No, it’s still Ms. Tiara.” Our thank you notes are printed with both of our names, so perhaps that will get the point across. I don’t mind people thinking that I might be Mrs. Kissington, but I do get a bit annoyed at the automatic assumption that I will be. Really, keeping one’s own name is hardly so unusual these days, is it?

Odd Ends

I am excited to see how many people are coming here by searching for John Banville and Ian McEwen. They’re probably disappointed, but perhaps not as much as the people who get here by searching for “sienna miller hot hot jude law nanny porking.” Besides, having my blog come up in a search involving Booker Prize-winning writers just makes me feel a little more intellectual than when people get here by searching for “kate bosworth dickhead.”

Speaking of John Banville, I am reading his latest novel, the Booker Prize-winning The Sea. It’s the first book I’ve even attempted to read in at least two weeks. I just can’t seem to read much these days, even really dumb books. I dragged a mystery to the salon the other day since I knew I would be there for hours waiting for my color to set, but I ended up reading Allure instead. Awesome.

Every time I get my hair done, I have to explain it to a lot of people at work. I got a trim. I got a blow out. Yes, my hair is normally curly/wavy, but my hairdresser used a straightening iron. Yes, it looks different, but no, it will not look this way when I have to style it myself. Why are these concepts so hard to grasp? Still, it’s not as bad as the time someone asked, “Is it supposed to be that purple?”

I finally got a new cell phone. This will please my friends and family to no end, since the old one had only intermittently worked for the last few months. Damn you, Cingular. Anyway, I switched to Verizon, and the new phone is just great and so cute. Sadly, I am now going to have to say “Damn you, Verizon,” since they only allow you to download ringtones from their lame selection and you have to pay for the privilege of just hearing the ringtones before you can even download them. What a rip-off. I am totally bummed too, because I had a bunch of really cool ringtones picked out and I was stoked to have “Come on Eileen” or “Jesse’s Girl” as my ringtone. (As a result of typing this paragraph, “Come on Eileen” is now officially stuck in my head.)

You Have to Suffer to Be Beautiful

I have a confession to make. I am lazy about beauty matters. For years, I have been coasting on my good looks. (Yes, I realize this sounds conceited, but I have heard that I am pretty or hot or attractive or whatever enough times over the year to figure that I can’t be too hideous. And yes, I’m sure not everyone finds me attractive, and if you’ve met me and think that I’m totally fugly, feel free to comment to that effect.) But as I get older, I am trying to make a little more of an effort. I always wear makeup. I have my hair done (although not nearly often enough). I always wear sunscreen on my face and I make a lot of effort with my skin. But beyond that, I’ve never bothered too much. For example, I have never had my brows done. I tweeze stray hairs now and then, and for the past few months, I have been thinking that I need to make more of an effort, but meh, that would require getting off the couch and doing something about it.

But on Saturday, this all changed. I was at the salon having my hair cut and colored. My hairdresser and I discussed what I wanted to do for my wedding, and she somehow convinced me that I needed to make four appointments between now and the wedding: 1) having my color redone 10 days before the wedding (less than 4 weeks since my last appointment. Left to my own devices, I would never get it done that quickly.), 2) a hair and makeup consultation to decide what I want to do for the wedding, 3) having my hair flat-ironed the day before the wedding, and 4) hair and makeup the day of the wedding. I barely make it to the salon 4 times a year, so going there 4 times in 10 days should be very interesting.

My hairdresser also convinced me that my “brows need work” and that she should wax them. I was already overwhelmed by the prospect of all those wedding appointments, so I agreed without thinking. I figured, how bad can it be? I tweeze my brows and that’s really painful, so this can’t be that much worse. And after the unfortunate incident between the bottom of my foot and the Corona bottle in 2002 (that’s a blog post in itself), I received most of the stitches after the anesthetic had worn off, so I know I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. But this was really fucking painful. The first rip wasn’t so bad, but then each successive one was exponentially more painful. And at the end of it, my face looked like I had put sunscreen everywhere but around my eyebrows and then spent about 8 hours in the sun. The redness went away, but the bumps are only just disappearing now. Is it supposed to be this bad? I do have sensitive skin, so maybe that makes it worse. I came home and Lord Kissington looked horrified.

“What was wrong with your brows?” he asked.
“Oh, they were really awful. They needed work,” I said.
“But they don’t really look any different.”

Lord Merlin came over to check out my hair and brows and also thought they didn’t really look that different. They both marveled that I had willingly put myself through this.

Then I made the mistake of mentioning this to my mother. She was beside herself. I had to explain to her that most women I know are actually waxed from head to toe and that having your brows done is really no big deal. I explained what a Brazilian is and she was completely shocked. How has she never heard of a Brazilian? Then she launched into a long story about how the only person she ever knew who waxed anything was a friend from high school, but “she was Italian and she really was very hairy, you know.” (My apologies for any anti-Italian sentiments contained in that statement. Personally, I love Italians. I’m marrying one and all.)

So everyone was horrified, but they’re all wrong. I feel like my brows have never looked this good. So now I have yet another thing to keep up with in life. Because I think this is one of those things I can never go back from.

A Silent Reading

Yesterday was kind of a rotten day. Work sucked the soul out of me. A weird man in leather propositioned me on my way home. It took me 20 minutes to locate two poetry books (a sign that I have too many books or at least that they need to be better organized). Then Blogger flaked out on me. So here are my poetry contributions to Reya’s Silent Poetry Reading (I couldn’t narrow it down to just one), a day late. Having to dig through the Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara and William Butler Yeats improved my mood considerably.

Steps by Frank O’Hara

How funny you are today New York
like Ginger Rogers in Swingtime
and St. Bridget’s steeple leaning a little to the left

here I have just jumped out a bed full of V-days
(I got tired of D-days) and blue you there still
accepts me foolish and free
all I want is a room up there
and you in it
and even the traffic halt so thick is a way
for people to rub up against each other
and when their surgical appliances lock
they stay together
for the rest of the day (what a day)
I go by to check a slide and I say
that painting’s not so blue

where’s Lana Turner
she’s out eating
and Garbo’s backstage at the Met
everyone’s taking their coat off
so they can show a rib-cage to the rib-watchers
and the park’s full of dancers with their tights and shoes
in little bags
who are often mistaken for worker-outers at the West Side Y
why not
the Pittsburgg Pirates shout because they won
and in a sense we’re all winning
we’re alive

the apartment was vacated by a gay couple
who moved to the country for fun
they moved a day too soon
even the stabbings are helping the population explosion
though in the wrong country
and all those liars have left the UN
the Seagram Building’s no longer rivalled in interest
not that we need liquor (we just like it)

and the little box is out on the sidewalk
next to the delicatessen
so the old man can sit on it and drink beer
and get knocked off it by his wife later in the day
while the sun is still shining

oh god it’s wonderful
to get out of bed
and drink too much coffee
and smoke too many cigarettes
and love you so much

A Drinking Song by William Butler Yeats

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

The Perfect Song

Lord Kissington and I are having a lot of trouble choosing a song for our first dance at the wedding. I really feel like this song has to be the perfect song. It has to embody us. This is the only element of the wedding that I ever gave serious thought to before we got engaged. He isn’t as hysterical about this as I am, but we are getting down to the wire and we need to make a decision. There are lots of songs that we like, but that aren’t appropriate for one reason or another (too cheesy, too overused, too weird since one of use made out with someone else to it 6 years ago). Also, our usual musical taste doesn’t necessarily lend itself to good first dance songs (he likes britpop and 60s stuff; I like britpop, indie, and emo).

Here are a few songs that have been considered.

1. I was thinking something traditional like “The Way You Look Tonight” (Fred Astaire or Frank Sinatra singing) or “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” (again, Fred or Frank’s version). Unfortunately, one of the lamest couples whose wedding I’ve attended (I was there as the date) used the former song, so that’s out. As for the latter, my mother wants it played at her funeral, so apparently she has dibs.

2. “Slave to Love” by Bryan Ferry. Mr. Ferry and I go way back, and this is an amazing song. But it’s also pretty long, and as a wise friend pointed out to me, you want it to be three minutes tops. Also, Lord Merlin claims the song is about S&M. I’m not sure if that’s true, but it may make it somewhat less appropriate as a wedding song.

3. “Come What May” from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. Lord Kissington vetoed this because apparently our first dance cannot be to a show tune (so I guess anything from the Rent soundtrack is out too?).

4. “I Wanna Be Adored” by the Stone Roses. It’s not “our song” per se, but it sort of makes sense, except that it’s too damn hard to dance too. It’s not quite fast enough; it’s not quite slow enough.

5. “Paris Match” by the Style Council. Lord Merlin said he would never forgive me if I used this one since it’s his mostest favorite song ever.

6. “Kiss at the End of the Rainbow” by Mitch and Mickey (from A Mighty Wind). Great song, it’s pretty short, and we could totally do the kiss at the appropriate moment. The down side: Other than our closest friends, who are all obsessed with Christopher Guest’s films, no one will get the joke, and they’ll just think that we’re like all other couples and we chose a cheesy song. And you know, I just can’t stand being like everyone else.

7. “Here, There and Everywhere” by the Beatles. bryc3 said this one is too much of a cliché. And I would really hate to a cliché.

The frontrunner is looking like “You’re the Best Thing” by the Style Council, but not because it’s really “our song,” mostly just because we can actually agree on it. I also like “Smile” by Weezer because it’s got this whole Cheap Trick, 70s prom anthem vibe, but I don’t think most of the guests will get what we’re going for there. Or maybe we could go for something totally cheesy, like Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You” (as cheesy songs go, this one is pretty awesome), except that no one but our friends would get that we were being ironic, and everyone else might just think we’re cheesy. Oh, the horror.

Does anyone have any suggestions for the perfect song?