Lash out!

My interest in:

*Plastic surgery: mildly curious
*Teeth whitening: curious
*Laser eye surgery: curious but scared that I'm curious
*Eyelash Extensions: borderline obsessed

I don't recall exactly when I first heard about eyelash extensions, but my interest level is coming dangerously close to obsession. And the more I keep trying to put it out of my mind, the more I keep reading about it and reading about it.

It really just seems like the most brilliant idea ever. The lashes supposedly last up to two months, you can wear them with contact lenses and they supposedly look so lush and gorgeous, you can ditch your mascara. The price tag, however, is hovering in the $200 to $300 arena, and well, I've been trying to be thrifty lately. Of course, for my wedding day, I'm happy to splurge, but I feel like I'd want to take these puppies for a test run beforehand. I think I might have to bite the bullet.

For those in NYC, you can get yourself some eyelash extensions at Glow Spa.

Spanx!

I realize that I'm way late to the spanx game, and quite frankly, I'm seriously disappointed in myself.

It's very unlikely for me to be so painfully ignorant about something as fantabulous and life-changing as spanx, and yet here I was. Notice the use of past tense?

I am now a spanx convert and, frankly, I can only think of about 2 or maybe 3 people I know in the whole wide world who couldn't benefit from the magic of spanx.

For those of you like me who were NOT in the know, here's the basic idea behind all spanx products: they make all your jiggly parts look fabulous. How they do it, I don't quite know, but as someone who has a few jiggly areas that need taming, these puppies are miracle workers.

Best of all, I really love the story behind Spanx and all of the hoopla creator Sara Blakely went through to make sure that all of us ladies are looking are best.

Everyone knows about Martha Stewart's lush, glee inducing wedding mags, but as of today you can put down your reading glasses and fire up the old DVD player: Martha has gone digital.

She has just released a glorious 4 disc collection: Martha's Complete Weddings with all the tips, tricks and suggestions on every aspect of wedding planning they could squeeze in. Despite its $44 pricetag, I just placed my order--I can't help myself.

Thanks to Hitch NY, a fabulous wedding resource for brides in NY (and everywhere!) for alerting me to the Martha mayhem that is soon to explode all over my TV. If you ant to be in know too, subscribe to their daily email.

My name is Erica, and I'm addicted to English wedding mags

It's hard to convey to others my deep and undying love for magazines, but let me say this: visiting those airport newsstands is, for me, what I imagine its like for some sneaky, slimy husband who visits a stripclub on his business trip without his wife's knowledge--naughty, and yet he(I) can't get enough of it. I don't even blink at spending $30 on all the glossy mags I can fit into my bag, and devour them all from cover to cover.

Needless to say, since I've launched Paper Bride (and gotten engaged myself), I've been slurping up wedding mags like a milkshake. About six months ago, however, I discovered something even more wickedly delicious than wedding magazines: ENGLISH WEDDING MAGAZINES.

I'm now insanely addicted to any and every English wedding mag I can get my hands on--they are *that* good. So good, in fact, that it makes me sad that I never knew what I was missing out on.

Here's why English Wedding Mags Rock:

!. Style File - they have all these sections with tons of little ideas (each accompanied with a photo and buying info). These are standard in U.S. mags as well, but often they will include maybe 5-10 choices in the U.S versions and in the English ones, they throw in twice as many...and much more creative ones too.

2. Ridiculously over the top doesn't seem to exist with English Weddings - Ok, that's probably not true, but for some reason, it doesn't seem to come across in the pages of their magazines. All of the features, suggestions and ideas are just creative, fun and very non-typical. There seems to be scads more inventiveness and innovation on their pages vs. ours.

3. Loads-o-real weddings - English mags always feature a bunch of "real weddings" spreads in every issue. Some U.S mags are pretty good about this, but many only feature on or two real weddings..or none at all.

4. Even the ads are more interesting - There are lots of ads in English mags, just as there are in their U.S. counterparts, but you haven't seen them all a million times already. And they are advertising different brands, dresses, etc, so even the ads are fun to look at.

The only bummer about English mags is that they are a few bucks more expensive than U.S mags, but trust me when I say, it's worth it!

If you don't have a great newsstand in your area, you can usually pick these up at Borders and Barnes & Noble stores with larger magazine sections.

To Change or not to Change...that is the question

I always assumed that when I got married, boom, I would change my name, no questions asked. Well, that's not entirely true.

I guess I've always sorta thought of the "trading up" theory: if I was marrying someone who had a "better" last name than mine (Goldstein), than of course, I would trade up. There is nothing at all wrong with my last name--its suited me fine my whole life. *But* it's not necessarily sitting pretty in the category of "desirable" last names like Vanderbilt or Berg. Why those names are desirable to me, I have no clue (well, except for Vanderbilt because, of course, that would mean that I would be really rich, and out shopping right now instead of blogging for you guys, but now I digress...) Anyway, my point is that I always thought it would be super easy to ditch Goldstein and move on to the greener pastures of whatever my new last name would be.

Now that the situation is real, I must admit I'm feeling a little ambivalence, and dare I say, sadness about ditching my name. I never expected to feel this way and, at first, wasn't quite so sure what to do about it.

On one hand, I'm totally excited to take on my new last name (Reitman), and on the other, I feel like if I ditch Goldstein, I'm taking this major part of my identity...a big piece of who I am and burying it in the back yard.

I don't want to hyphenate. Apologies to all of those out there with hyphenated names...I fully support your right to do so, but quite frankly I'm too lazy. I don't want to be constantly correcting people, dealing ith misspellings and doling out explanations.

Our fabulously progressive friends Alistair and Cara both took on an entirely new name when they got married, so both of them ditched their former last names. This is also a pretty cool solution if you are willing to take the leap.

After much thought, I think the solution I've reached is this: I'll ditch Beth (which is pretty much a standard issue middle name for many Jewish girls of my age) and replace it with Goldstein. No hyphen--it will just be my new middle name. So, I'll trade Erica Beth Goldstein, for Erica Goldstein Reitman. I think this will work for me.

For those of you out there who are also struggling with this, here is an interesting roundup from metafilter that discusses all of the ins and outs of the issue. About.com also has an interesting discussion on this.

Finally, Nolo.com answers some basic questions and offers some advice about name changing after marriage.

Make sure to check the laws in your own state on this topic for more specifics about what you do (and don't) need to do about this.