Thanks to my new friend bronchitis, I nearly slept through the new year countdown. Matt woke me up about ten minutes before midnight so I could gather myself up and drag myself outside to watch the final fireworks of the night. At midnight I kissed Matt on the cheek (to prevent spreading of sick), wished him a happy new year, and promptly went back to bed.

I don't have any retrospective or resolutions to offer. It seems that the entire holiday season came upon me unexpectedly, too fast and too soon. I think it's mostly because the upcoming wedding has resulted in a sort of tunnel vision that doesn't allow me to focus on anything else. As a result I've built up a lot of what I can only describe as wedding rage.

Matt has road rage. Not the extreme sort, but he does often yell at people even though we have the windows up and radio on. I remind him that the person in the other car can't hear him, but it doesn't matter to him. As for my wedding rage, I often find myself yelling into the phone after the other person has hung up all the things I wanted to yell, but didn't for fear they might ruin something just to spite me afterwards. Even though they don't hear it, I feel better. Most of the time I'm choking the phone and saying, "What's wrong with this person?!"

My best advice to anyone planning a wedding is either hire someone else to do it or elope. And to help alleviate the stress of the poor souls who won't take my advice, I offer the following advice for those who know people that are getting married:

-- The RSVP date is the date the couple expects the invites to be in their mailbox by. It is not the date when you finally decide to fill it in (and then mail it a week later).

-- Do not respond with a "will not be able to attend" and then two months later tell the couple you've changed your mind and have already bought tickets and made staying arrangements for yourself and your entire family. If they are gracious enough to make space for you, you will have probably forced them to rearrange their seating charts and make several phone calls.

-- If you offer the bride to help, mean it. Do not offer to help and then when asked tell her that you refuse to do the following things and list off everything that one does for a wedding. She will not speak to you for a very long time, perhaps never again.

-- If you are being paid a horribly large sum of money try your best not to fuck up, like ordering the wrong wedding dress that doesn't even look remotely similar to the correct one.

-- Do not call the couple within a week before the wedding asking if you can bring a date.

-- If you are doing some sort of business with the bride, do not give her a timeline that you can't keep up with. When you find yourself in a bind, the professional thing to do is reschedule as soon as you are able. Do not complain to her when she holds you to your deadlines.

Our wedding date is this Sunday, only a handful of days away, yet I can imagine a whole lot more can go wrong. I never expected the wedding to be perfect yet I never imagined that so many people would be so inept (what I listed is only the beginning). To keep myself sane and not to take out all my rage on Matt, I keep telling myself: The wedding is just one day, I have the rest of my marriage to look forward to.