Figuring out where to go on a honeymoon has been tricky. Our wedding is on October 18, a time that neither hemisphere is at its best -- travel in the north is preferable through September, and travel in the south is generally better starting in November. Of course, there are a few exceptions, but either the plane tickets are too expensive, the country is too expensive (and the dollar too sad), or the country is covered in landmines. I'm actually weirdly drawn to the more dangerous places, but of course I'd like to return from my honeymoon in one piece, and on top of that, Todd is most definitely not drawn to those places.

I've been researching countries on the Lonely Planet site, which provides a run-down of the best time of year to visit, what there is to see, and how safe each country is. It's pretty fascinating. I particularly like clicking on the countries I know are terrible choices, just to see what the site has to say to deter me from visiting, say, Iraq, or the Democratic Republic of Congo. The site seems to almost balk at me for daring to click on that country's name and is very insistent that it is not the best idea, but in the nicest language possible.

I can imagine that whoever wrote the Iraq entry just wanted to put something like, "C'mon. Really? Iraq?" but, in keeping with the politeness of the site, had to go through the trouble to write a reasoned explanation, taking care to use a red font and phrases like "not a place for a holiday," and "Travel Warning: Instability Rules." Also, it turns out, the Democratic Republic of Congo is not particularly democratic. In fact, the Lonely Planet site instead called it a "long-suffering cauldron of chaos."

I've sent Todd a few suggestions, slipping in oddball locations like Bosnia-Hercegovina ("dynamic") and Sierra Leone ("beautiful and weathered"), noting that they're really on the upswing, but this is what I got back: "Lisa, we're not going to spend our honeymoon in Bosnia." I guess that means Libya is out of the question?

Everything has been moving along pretty seamlessly, so far -- Todd and I picked out a neat ring (from the 1920s!), found a venue we both love, set a date (October 18th), and hired several talented vendors who also happen to be people we know and like. The only thing that’s given me any trouble is the dress. I’m not too concerned (yet), as it’s still early in the process. More than anything, I’m curious what I’ll end up with.

Part of the problem is that I don’t really know what I want. I don’t think I want a proper wedding dress and am searching (so far) for something more like an evening gown. I’ve actually picked out an Oscars dress I like from a couple years ago, but so far I haven’t been able to find it, I know I couldn’t afford to buy it (though I’ve been entertaining the idea of having a copy made), and I don’t have a clue how it would look on me. I figure the best approach is to actually try on some dresses to educate myself -- to see what feels right, and to figure out what I can wear that doesn’t make me look like I’m wearing a costume.

The first dresses I tried on were, oddly enough, in front of both Todd and his parents. The three of them were very patient as I thumbed through dresses on racks, and they sat quietly on the couch with hands clasped while I tried them on, one by one. It was a bit embarrassing, stepping out of the dressing room wearing ill-fitting gowns that accentuate all the wrong parts, and even more embarrassing when Todd’s parents gave rave reviews. (Also, I’m not really sure I was ready to introduce Todd’s parents to my cleavage.) In the end, I found a couple C pluses and B minuses but nothing worth going broke for.

My second look at wedding dresses was at a consignment shop in North Carolina, this time with Todd and my parents. Although the store had some interesting dresses and amazing prices (like $40 amazing), most of them hung off me like a (sparkly) sack. My dad, ever the optimist, kept asking me in a curious tone, “What’s wrong with that one?” each time I rejected a dress.

My third trip, today, was to a fancy vintage store in Manhattan where they sell a century’s worth of dresses in remarkably good shape. It was a bad idea for me to go, though, because I was feeling frumpy and not the least bit glamorous. I need a hair cut (my hair is looking overgrown, flat, and limp), I was wearing my glasses and an outfit comprised of items I bought a decade ago, and I’d just eaten a cupcake, which made my stomach expand instantly as punishment.

The shopkeepers were in a collective bad mood and kept swearing at each other and at life in general, until they noticed the sad-looking girl combing through their dresses, and then they showed a passing interest in helping me. I dragged a wide variety of dresses into the fitting room. Most of them were from the 30s and 40s; some had delicate snaps held on by threads or rows of painstaking buttons and tiny waists that did not want to squeeze over my very inconvenient boobs. I kept getting stuck, with dresses half on, my eyes blinded by fabric, my arms pinned in the air, and my bare legs helpless. The dresses were fragile and pricey and many of them had beading and lacework and lots of other things that might tear if you try to free yourself from their grasp. I slowly worked my way out of them, cringing, nervous I might hear the sound of fabric tearing or beads falling to the floor.

There was cruelly no mirror in the dressing room, so if I wanted to learn anything, I had to step out and walk past the shopkeepers to see what I looked like. Without fail, no matter how awkwardly I was stuffed in a dress, one of the shopkeepers would tell me how the dress looked beautiful on me. I wanted to call them out and tell them they really didn’t have to say that, that it was actually kind humiliating, but of course I refrained, and just fled back to my private room to get all tangled up again.

Above, the one traditional gown I've tried on so far, and incidentally not one of the difficult ones. (Photo taken during shopping trip number one.)

My voice teacher lives in a small apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, high above 7th Avenue. Her apartment is always radiator-hot, and she cracks a window (the way one unfortunately must in New York) at the beginning of our lesson, letting some cool air and faint traffic noise seep in. She assures me that her apartment has thick walls and that the neighbors can't hear me. I don't believe her, but I pretend, and I tell my subconscious to follow suit, so that I don't get too shy and sing in a whisper. (I'm a quiet talker by nature, and I hate being overheard by people I'm not talking to. Singing, of course, is worse.)

Her cat (she has two, but one's in hiding) is fat and friendly, and my teacher has told me he sometimes sings along. I'm not sure if I should take offense that he hasn't done a duet with me yet. In any case, I like that he permanently hangs out beside us, sprawled on his side and blinking in a satisfied, lazy way.

At first we warm up our voices, doing silly voice arcs and staccato scales (ha-ha-hee-hee-ho-ho), and making certain I'm breathing from my diaphragm rather than higher up in my lungs. (She pays attention.) From there, we move onto the keyboard -- she plays, and I match the notes. I sing along with it for two octaves (strained at both ends), oh-ee-oh-ee-oh-ee-oh-ee-oh, sung in a mountain-shape -- low at the ends, and peaked in the middle.

Not surprisingly, singing actual songs is the more satisfying part. We choose the material together -- her, selecting material at my level, and me, picking out songs I like the sound of. Initially I gave her a list of suggestions (to help her know what types of music I was interested in singing), with little idea how difficult they actually were to master. We've abandoned all of them except for 'Crazy' by Patsy Cline. I've wanted to abandon that one too, believe me, but she thinks it's a good way to mark my progress, as I slowly start to conquer it. ('Stormy Weather' is my favorite one that she's introduced. She seems to think my voice goes well with jazz.)

As a kid I loved singing in choirs (and occasionally I sang solos, despite that I wasn't really cut out for it, voice- or personality-wise). As an adult, though, I don't have a lot of faith in my voice. It's almost as if I have no idea what will come out of my mouth; my singing voice is about as predictable as my pool game, and the variables that determine how it'll go are mysterious to me.

Which is the reason behind the lessons, really. I want to know my voice a little better, and to like it, trust it, and control it more, and to be able to feel okay about being overheard. So far, that seems to be starting to happen. And the lessons are actually really, really fun.

When I get home, I ramble to Todd about all the things we sang and what my teacher said about this or that, like it was my first day of kindergarten, and then I try out my latest material on him, a cappella, while he grins at me. Just as I sing the last note, I instantly become shy and I duck out of the room.

I never knew much about weddings before. Actually, I still don't know much, but I'm learning! Here's a sample of what I've picked up just in the last two weeks:

1. People who have obsessive tendencies should not plan weddings. There are so many avenues to explore and details to consider that you will forget to look away from your computer at all, for any reason, really. Somehow I've also collected a pile of papers, jackets, and shoes all around my desk. Normally I keep it pretty tidy, but now it appears as if I'm sitting in a pile of trash.

2. Wedding dresses are boring and all look the same. Ninety percent of them seem to be strapless. They also look remarkably different on models than they do on real brides.

3. Sapphires aren't always blue, platinum is expensive, and avoiding diamonds has been harder than I thought it would be. We may have found something, though. I think it's a good sign that after discovering one particular setting, I became indifferent to everything else and kept drifting back over to it and studying it.

4. When people leave shiny stones in front of me and then walk out of the room, I feel inclined to lay my hands out flat on the table, just to let them know I didn't steal anything.

5. Shopping for a fancy ring may be the thing that shames me into not making my cuticles bleed. It'd be kind of a disgrace to have such a pretty ring on a monster hand.

6. I don't want a traditional wedding, and I don't want a deliberately non-traditional one. I'm discovering it's more difficult when you make it all up as you go along. (Unfortunately, that's how I approach just about everything.)

7. Trying to determine the guest list may make you irrational. For example, I had the fleeting idea to ask two single friends to start dating so I could knock off their plus-ones.

8. Brainstorming and finding ways to incorporate our friends into our wedding is actually pretty fun. We're lucky that we both know a lot of creative people.

9. My parents are even more easy-going than I thought. When I mentioned to Todd that I'd read that family members' personalities are exaggerated during the engagement months, Todd asked, "Does that mean your mom is going to become even more laid-back?" Apparently it does.

10. I like being engaged.

Me, on a glacier in Argentina, wearing an engagement ring made of candy* that I received the night before. (I said yes!)

*We're planning to pick out the non-candy version together once we're back in New York.