It's not that I was hard up for a topic, really. I just wanted to conduct a little experiment. Yeah, that's what it was.

So this morning I asked three guys I work with what I should blog about. And maybe this is because two of them are great musicians (and third is a fab dancer) but they all instantly agreed that I should write about music.

But maybe it's not because they are music-happy guys. Maybe if you ask any bunch of guys to think of what interests them about wedding planning - they think "music." What? Are you shocked that they didn't pick wedding favors? Ring pillows?

Nope, music. Even people who have no opinion about fine art, or books, or any other art form still always manage to have a favorite kind of music, or at least a favorite song. Music is, in my opinion, the stuff of life. Nothing switches on a good mood like a Crowded House song. Nothing energizes me like the Jackson 5. Nothing mellows me like Feist's "Let It Die." At my wedding, my also-avid husband and I handpicked every single song we wanted played during our reception.

I'm biting my lip right now. I don't want to offend anyone. But then again since when do I hold my unasked-for opinion back. So I'll just say it: I never got people who opt not to have any music or dancing at a wedding. Okay, the dancing I guess I can see, especially if whoever is planning the wedding ain't the drinkin' type. But no music? At all? I think I'm biased because I'm such a music geek, but I don't think a celebration is a celebration without at least some music.

Which brings me to my bloggy little question of the day. What do you prefer? Band or DJ? Both as guest, and as future bride. (Btw, if you need to dig up some good wedding music ideas, this is a great place to start.)

Scary PS - While I was editing this post, my "first dance" wedding song just came on the radio. And no, it's not like it 's super common, it's "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes."

Great, now I'm all eeried out.

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine about aging and plastic surgery. I said I'd rather age gracefully than to get a bunch of surgery and look foolish. Even the best, most subtle surgery can delay the inevitable for just so long.

Eventually - we all will look wrinkly and grey. It's far smarter to spend your time figuring out ways to be an elegant, happy wrinkly grey person, than it is to try to stop it from happening. 'Cause you can't. (Yes, even you can't, Goldie Hawn. In fact, especially you.)

Stressing out about your wedding is a lot like aging in that way. You honestly can't stop it from happening. Even a relatively stress-resistant person like myself experienced spikes of severe anxiety while I was planning my wedding. Unless you are eloping, or unless you're on lots of medication, I predict you will find yourself a little freaked from time to time. Even if you normally never, ever get freaked.

So wedding stress isn't something to be avoided. It's something to be managed. To be endured. How, though? What are the best ways you can think of to deal with your wedding planning stress?

I'll go first. Really hear me on this one. There is nothing cliche about the relaxing effect of a hot bubble bath. They work. What else...keep good mellow music on you at all times. I keep a Trash Can Sinatras CD in my car at all times, for just this purpose. Chill music can make even dashing late to an appointment a little less stomach-knotting. Then there's my favorite way to deal with your wedding planning stress - offload it. If you picked the right people in your wedding party, they can help you more than you know, but you have to ask them. Don't be afraid to get help with anything and everything.

What else can you recommend to other brides? What's worked for you so far?

Am I jerk?

That's what I'm sitting here wondering. I'll tell you how I got to this point. I was reading something this morning and it mentioned the word "confetti." Instantly thought two things at once: "I love the word confetti. Con-fet-ti." Followed by "God do I hate confetti. It's irritating as hell."

A few years ago I read a book with the world's best title, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again." The book is funny, if a little long, but it's the title that kills me. Because that's how I feel about a lot of "fun" things. I think weird things are fun, and "fun" things are annoying. Especially when it came to my wedding!

Examples:

~ Confetti
~ Opening gag gifts at a bachelorette party
~ The garter thing. (I can't even watch this without cringing, let alone do it.)
~ The cake/face smash.
~ Bridal showers.
~ And there's a special stool in hell for the guy who invented silly string.

Lest you think I'm an uptight grump, I'm not. Here are things I thought were truly fun at my wedding:

~ Reading personal letters during the ceremony.
~ Dancing with my Dad to Neil Diamond.
~ Dancing barefoot with my pimped out little nephew.
~ The bubble bath I took when it was all over.

So maybe I'm not a jerk? Who knows. What do you think will be the most fun you'll have at your wedding? What will be the least? Anything you are purposely avoiding?

There are quite a few things I'd rather do than speak in public.

Like, be eaten by a grizzly bear, as we both fall off a cliff to our deaths on the stabby rocks below, which have been splashed in poison and acid.

Hate public speaking. Hate it. I hate it so much that I can't get why some people like it - or at least don't wilt at the thought of it. It's not like finding out someone likes Clay Aiken and thinking 'Not my thing, but to each his own.' It's like finding out someone likes to eat glass. Who could enjoy this?

Unfortunately, my disdain for speaking in public is obvious, even in our staff meetings. I should have hid it more. Because as part of my career growth, I have been trundled off to Dale Carnegie classes, to simply get over it.

And it's hard to have to stand up there, week after week. 20 shy people blushingly through 2 minute presentations. I know we're all so growing and we're all so evolved, but damn. Making speeches is hard.

Except for the speech I gave at my wedding. Why is that? I was in class last week stuttering through my talk, and I remembered that at my wedding, you couldn't shut me up. Thank-you this, most-amazing-day that, I was. For some reason it was exceedingly easy and even fun to get up and address the 90+ people we had there.

Do you plan on making any speeches? (If you do - here's a pretty good wedding speech starter site.) Does the thought terrify or tickle you?

Having just gotten back from China...wait, I can't believe I just typed that.

I just got back from China - a place I never thought I'd go. Not because I didn't want to, but because I thought that if I ever went overseas, to an exotic far away place, it would be Africa to see the lions or to Ireland to see the guys with hot accents.

So had I not taken a business trip to China, I probably never would have gone. But I am really glad I went. The extreme culture shock, the incredibly long flight, all of it just left me in a state of wonder.

I like being jarred out of my everyday reality. And China did that for me. The entire thing felt like a long odd dream. A good dream. A very hot dream. Did you know Guangzhou, China feels positively tropical in late April? It does and it kind of took me by surprise. Rather, it took my hair by surprise. Well hello little clown wig!

But the toughest thing to adjust to in China wasn't the time change or the humidity. It was the etiquette, or what they call "li." Apparently the better one knows one's etiquette the more learned and moral a person you appear to others. Which would be fine, except that there seemed to be absolutely no consistency. In fact, many of them almost conflicted. Chinese culture says that it's rude to hand a business card to someone without using both hands. But it's okay for them to scrutinize any cash you give them with intense suspicion. I actually had a cab driver refuse some of my money, so convinced was he that it was counterfeit.

What else, what else...if you give someone a clock, it means "I wish you would die." But if you give them a WATCH, it means "We're as close as lovers or family." China is a minefield of offenses for a hapless foreigner like myself. I felt myself tiptoeing around and constantly triple-checking with our interpreter that I wasn't being unintentionally rude.

Reminded me of when I was a bride, consulting all the etiquette books, making sure I wasn't unintentionally being a boorish bride. There are so many do's and don'ts to conducting a wedding that it's hard to know what is the proper thing to do at any given time. Heck, we even have a little etiquette war of our own going on here at HCTB.

What is your least favorite wedding etiquette? How important do you think it is to have rules and regs when it comes to your wedding?