Sarah's dress was in the trunk of the car for a day between the cleaner and the tailor.

Sarah: Don't look in the trunk.
Me: I won't.
Sarah: I mean, it's in a bag, you won't be able to see it. You won't see anything. But still... just... don't open the trunk.
Me: Okay. No problem.

Wedding dress in the trunk. Wedding shoes in the trunk. It's sort of like there's a bride in the trunk of my car.

Sarah: You know... they use special hangars at the cleaners. Hangars with boobs. Sort of shaped like a woman's torso. So... just the shape of it... it does kind of eerily look like there's a body in your trunk.

Don't look in the trunk.

The evening took a strange turn, and, along with a group of friends, we ended up at a dance club downtown (you know, the kind with plasma screens playing two different movies from the Fast and the Furious franchise at the same time). The kind of place I end up in maybe once every two years, if that. Not really my scene.

Still, it was fun. And hey, two Fast and Furious movies.

Are these clubs always flooded with bachelorette parties? Because we saw several of them. Even more of them than we have to contend with in Wrigleyville, where we perform. Which is a lot.

One of the parties must have lost a tiara, because we ended up with it, each taking turns trying it on.

Alex and Megan's wedding is only a few weeks away. They scheduled a dance lesson to help prepare for their first dance, and since they were allowed to have another couple participate for free, they asked Sarah and I to tag along.

Alex: We're learning the foxtrot.
Megan: So I guess you guys have no choice but to do a foxtrot for your dance too. Either that or this lesson will be a total waste for you guys.

I was pretty good at walking to a beat, and swaying back and forth, but when it came time to put those elements together into an actual dance... not so much.

Dance Instructor Quote That May Be Some Kind of Cryptic Relationship Advice That I Don't Really Understand: Your man may seem like a solid sturdy door. And he is a door. But he will open for you.

After the lesson, the four of us went to see the 'A-Team' movie. So, a deeply romantic night from beginning to end.

A (probably fairly obvious) tip for people getting married and registering for gifts. Registering at stores is cool (you can get a slow-cooker!) but, since it's good to register at more than on place, doing something like Honeyfund is also a good option. Basically, they're just sites where, if people want to just give cash, they can do it online. You know, to help pay for the honeymoon, or in some cases, part of the wedding itself.

Plus, guest can pick what their money is "really" going towards. "Hotel Night ($200)." "Beach Day ($35)." Like that. It's cute.

My favorite part, though, was that you can come up with your own donation descriptions, which, of course, I mostly used as an opportunity to make jokes inspired by the stock photos they had to choose from.

Sarah suspects, and she may be right, that people are more likely to pick the funny ones ("Dolphins!") even though they're clearly not for real things. We'll see.

Our first wedding gift arrived. A slow cooker from Laura.

Sarah made a wonderful stew.

Me: So... it's basically a crock pot.
Sarah: Yes, it's a crock pot. Which is awesome.

It didn't occur to me that we'd get wedding gifts this early. Fun.

An email exchange I had recently with my friend, Trupe.

Trupe: “Arnie I have a secret to tell you that I am embarrassed and sad about. I can't fucking find your great invitation in my house! I'm in an RSVP dead zone!!! Can I reply online? I think Viv [his daughter] may have hid it. We want to attend your wedding!”

Trupe: “Also, do not tell your fiance about this invitation debacle, Arnie. “
Me: “Err…”
Trupe: “I AM STILL LOOKING FOR IT! DON'T BUST ME YET! WONAK [his wife] WILL BE MAD AT ME! FOR SERIOUS.”
Me: “Sarah says, ‘tell Trupe we can send him another one, OR he can write me an apology in the form of a poem and pick two songs’.”
Trupe: “YOU FUCKING FUCK! I TOLD YOU IT WAS A GODDAMN SECRET!”
Me: “Just write a heartbreaking poem. You do that all the time, right? It's how you pay for lunches.”
Trupe: “It’s okay. My life is over anyway. Now I’m going to have to interrogate Viv in a manner I was hoping to avoid.”

Trupe: “I’m sorry I yelled at you Arnie.”

Tonight I gave Trupe several extra copies of the invitation, although I realized none of them included return postage. So when it comes to minor wedding etiquette faux pas, we are equal.

One more picture from Chris's wedding.

I wish I could have gone, to take it all in, but it's just too expensive a year for a trip like that.

So much of it sounds really interesting. In this picture you can sort of see the elaborate henna drawings Nimi had on her hands and arms.

Chris: I had to find my name hidden in the lines. I had no idea it was going to be that hard. And it wasn't all together, you know, my name, Chris, written out, I had to find each separate letter. C's and S's are hard to find!

The ceremony ended with the two of them walking around a fire four times. Three times he led and then the last time she led.

Chris: I don't want to say it was anti-climatic, but you're used to a ceremony where you say "I do" and she says, "I do" and then they say you're married. There wasn't a moment like that. We walked around the fire and Nimi whispered to me, "We're married now." I was like, "Oh. Okay. Awesome. We're married."

Hung out with my friend Meador.

We talked about wedding music, how Sarah and I are going to bypass having a DJ altogether and just make our own playlists.

Meador: I recently had to save a wedding from the DJ. No one was dancing. He kept playing all these mash-ups. I get what he was trying to do, "these are two songs that people like, I'll play them at the same time," but it was not working. I went up to him and said, "Look, you have to play a Michael Jackson song NOW. Any Michael Jackson song. But it has to be next." And he did. And people started dancing. And he seemed to get the idea after that. Wedding saved.

[By the way, Meador didn't feel like having his picture taken so he hid behind this exercise ball.]

Meador: Oh, and guess what Michael Jackson song he played.
Sarah: Thriller.
Meador: Yep. Thriller. So it wasn't as much of a win as it could have been. But it was FINE. It worked. People did the Thriller dance.

Laura: I was so excited about your wedding invitation but then I realized I have another wedding that same day. And I'm in that one. I'm so bummed that I'm not going to be able to make it to yours.
Me: Wait... you have two weddings on September 11th?
Laura: Yeah. I actually went to a wedding on that day three years ago too.
Me: And how was it?
Laura: [thinks for a moment] Fine.
Me: It wasn't weird?
Laura: It wasn't weird.

Had some drinks to relax from our hectic schedules and wedding planning.

Three months! Three months!