I have to update, because I’ll go insane if I don’t.
There’s been a lot and nothing going on at the same time. As in, we’re making a lot of progress in various areas, but don’t have a whole lot to show for it yet. Part of this is due to holidays, but I bet a lot of it is because it became overwhelming, and I needed to escape.
This is where I tell you that I’ve been ignoring the wedding. Mostly. And where I feel guilty about it, as well as feeling elated that I was able to NOT think about it. Sorta.
This is also where I tell you that the unfinished nature of everything still weighs inside my brain like a nagging mother. I may not be actively thinking about nuptials, but they are thinking of me.
So, back to planning and plotting. Because we are at 18 months away.
Save The Dates:
We’ve got our illustrious and awesome designer friend working them now, and we’ll be reviewing results so far at the New Year’s party we’re going to. In this process, she’s showed us some sample sketches, ideas, etc of the mark we want to use for decorating a large portion of our items. The idea’s been put together forever, but really, we hadn’t started working on it till November. So…I expect those will go out late winter, early spring.
The Website:
I’ll need to have the website put together finally by the time we get those Save the Dates out. Because that’s the first place people will go. My web-fu is pretty good, but I still don’t have the skills in place to put a wordpress blog up in the website. So, it will link to a blog where I can update about mundane wedding stuff (aka – NOT BITCHING.) And people can ask questions, talk about plans, etc. It’ll be swell. I hope.
But that means I need to finish it. I’ve got the basic idea put together, the photos taken, even some of it coded. This is only the third one I’ve done, changing the look and feel each time.
Invitations:
The idea is still there, and it’s not being worked on any more until the Save the Dates are done. THEN, the invitations. No cart before horse, thankyouverymuch.
Other Plans
We have our photographer. We have our date, and place. We have set up and put a downpayment on the rental items we needed. I have a plan for the “guestbook”. We have tablecloths and we just have to dye them. We have our dishes, mostly. We have plans for making our own napkins. We have a plan for decorating the tables in a way that is pretty and doesn’t obstruct views. And once I stopped being psycho, I realized an even easier way to do it that doesn’t matter as much.
I need to get privies out there! That’s something to do. I will delegate that to my mother.
And I have to say, the strawberry cordial we made has turned out pretty darn good. We are planning for a much larger batch…
We’ve finally picked a photographer. Raymond Siler.
We went through some discussion regarding photography. Both J and I spend time taking photographs – he more than I – and have a nice camera that helps us recognize the difference between a powershot and a Canon digital. Still, both of us have been married before as well, and understand that the money spent on photos can be some of the highest fees, when in reality, you’re only going to ever use probably 10 of those photos. Photography can easily become a WIC sort of thing.
At my first wedding, I knew nothing. I got a local photographer who gave me a package (including his ugly book) and that’s what I thought I had to do. At J’s first wedding, they searched for their photographer for some time, got to know the guy, had dinner with them, and were very discerning regarding the photographs. We both had very different experiences.
Which is probably why I decided one day that I just felt like I wanted to have good photographs. Good photographs and a dress made for me – those are two points that I feel are important to me this time around.
The next hurdle was venue – our venue is my mother’s backyard in Crow Hollow. It’s not exactly easy to get to or in a typical church. So, I was going to need to find someone nearby so I wouldn’t have to pay extra for travel and lodging. Also – our venue is rather unique, and we wanted someone who was familiar with the area, someone who could see the beauty of it like we did.
I don’t exactly remember how I found Ray. I was searching for Wisconsin photographers – which there don’t appear to be a whole lot of. I must have looked through so many photos, but really – so few were really hitting me as interesting. I was pasting all these links into an email to J, so he could look too. However it was, I stumbled across Ray who lived in Viroqua – the town we would choose to live in if we moved out to Western Wisconsin. Ideal! I sent the link to J, and started to look through his site and photos.
I think I immediately knew that this was the one. But to confirm it, J sent me back an email saying, “I’d hire him right now, just based off what I’ve seen and his location.” Still, we wanted to talk to him, to meet him and get a feel. A LOT of Ray’s photos are of typical weddings, and we are having FAR from a typical wedding (backyard Balkan brass mayhem circus of doom is a better title for our shindig.)
We met with Ray. And now, he’s our photographer. You can see him added to our Vendors links at the side!
Attendants? Bridesmaids and groomsmen?
Could I really subject them to this?
Was this something we wanted?
In my previous weddings, I did not have them. The first one I wanted them, but I did not have the money or time to arrange such a thing. The second one just really wasn’t a wedding.
So when it came to this time, I had to consider: was this something that I felt strongly about having? Something that would help make the day perfect? J was in general against the idea, but not so much that if I really decided it mattered to me, he couldn’t play along.
I wasn’t sure I wanted attendants – our backyard aesthetic was going to be less formal than that- even though I appreciate it in most weddings that I see photos of. I want that group of fun gals around me – but without all the rigmarole of having to rehearse where they were going to stand.
But one of the greatest things about being with J is that family and friends have a much stronger presence in our lives. We feel very blessed to have so many awesome people close to us, and our love for each other has spilled over to allow us to feel comfortable in opening up to bringing more people into our lives. So, family and friends were very important. We were having a wedding so that we could have them with us on that day.
And…I did want to somehow make a note of the people who are prominent in my daily life, whether through email or in person. I’m can be interesting to deal with, full of energy one moment, totally crushed the next. I wanted to have people close to me on that day who would be involved.
I recalled seeing something somewhere about “anti-bridesmaids”: a gal decided she didn’t want 20+ attendants, or to have to pick between her friends. So she asked them to be a part of the close celebration, but without making it such a formal item. I realized – that’s what I wanted. My friends around me during the whole process and on that day, but in an informal, fun way.
I made this plan to ask three gals to be my Wedding Posse. Each of their names started with K, so I dubbed them – to myself – Circle K. I was going to make these really awesome invitations from a local paper store – Broadway Paper - asking them to join me in this crazed spiral into wedding madness.
But as is usually the case, I didn’t get to it. Somehow all the ideas I had for asking seemed really…formal and distant. And in the meantime, I was putting together plans for this event already and not including them.
So, last week I just couldn’t wait any longer. I sent the invitations to the Three K’s via email.
They accepted! Whew!
Yeah! I have Circle K to support me in this whole process! I’m hoping to schedule regular get-togethers to hang out and talk wedding stuff. Hopefully that will be a way for all of us to regularly get together and have a good time, and still keep everyone informed on what is going on.
“This was sort of the eye-opener to me, that marriage is hard,” the first lady said with a little laugh. “But going into it, no one ever tells you that. They just tell you, ‘Do you love him?’ ‘What’s the dress look like?’”
That is a quote from Michelle Obama from the New York Times story on November 1, 2009 about their marriage . (Hat tip to Meg at A Practical Wedding for finding this awesome article and quote.)
A month or so ago, I was sitting down with one of my best friends who I hadn’t seen in a little while. We both are busy in our ways, and often find ourselves unable to schedule time to see each other, even though we live in the same city. So we chose a little wine bar in the Third Ward and attempted to catch up.
A moment came when we started talking rather frankly. She wanted to get my real feelings on this marriage, and how it was different from the last two. In other words, she wanted to bring up the hard point now in case I was committing myself to another seriously flawed situation.
I can’t blame her for her concern, and really, I’m glad she asked. Because I’d asked myself the same thing several times, and while you may have the answer for yourself, sometimes it really makes a difference to tell someone else, to lay your cards all on the table.
In responding to her, I took a quiet moment to myself to put together my thoughts. Because the answer immediately welled up inside but was very emotional:
This time is different because I am different.
I am different because I have realized the truth that Michelle Obama shares: Marriage is Hard. With a capital H. I’ve been in two of them, and making them work is really, really hard. It’s hard to make sure you stay connected. It’s easy to take each other for granted. It’s really hard to remember in the middle of being upset the simple facts: you love this person, and this argument over communication does not really matter in the long run. You have to know where your boundaries are, be ready to be the first to reach out, know and communicate your deal breakers, and recognize regularly that you are not a dispassionate observer.
It’s hard when you’re the only one working to make it work, too. Or when you don’t realize you have to work.
So I take you now to a previous flashback where J and I were having an argument. It was early in the relationship…probably 3-4 months. We were in a public eatery (always a great place for an argument) talking to each other, explaining our sides and emotions. I started to cry and have this feeling of desperation that things were going so wrong – why were we arguing? Why did we both feel like the other person was being so difficult? Shouldn’t Love be smoother than this?
And then it hit me. An epiphany that seems so simple, but is not so simple.
Relationships are Hard…
And if I wanted to be in a good one, it would require daily attention and a lot of work.
It’s not something people talk about, like Michelle notes. In fact, most of the time, it is insinuated that working to reach common ground is not lucky in Love, that it is a sign that you weren’t meant for each other. All our fairytales end with overcoming adversity just to find each other, and then happily ever after. They don’t discuss the fact that Snow White probably hated the way Prince Charming would ride off right when the dishes needed doing. Or that Prince Charming found Cinderella’s penchant for playing with mice extremely annoying.
We set ourselves up to believe that the fairytale is the ideal, and that conflict is bad. It isn’t. It just is. And usually, there’s no right or wrong side.
When the epiphany hit me during this argument, I had to contemplate it and internally make a decision: was I ready to commit to this person and work through everything with him? Was I willing to give all my hope and all my effort to making this relationship work, without becoming passive or aggressive? Was I willing to enduring a million more fights, feel misunderstood, frustrated, angry, and more, and still reach out to touch my partner in Love and tenderness?
This person will change and I too will change. Am I able to open my eyes each day and approach this person with acceptance and strive to understand?
It’s a very real question, and I think it is fair to ask of oneself long before you get married. A committed partner relationship is really hard to keep healthy and happy. I feel that it’s harder than your job, than dealing with your family, than dealing with death and birth. A relationship is a growing, organic thing that needs tending. The sheer amount of time and intimacy you spend together means that you are tending it constantly.
And getting married won’t suddenly create that commitment, in you or in the other person. Believe me on this one.
I took that moment of pause in the argument, and while I sounded bleak and distraught, internally I made the decision to commit myself to that life-long labor of Love with J. I admitted to myself that this was going to be so much harder than I could imagine, but that I was up to the task because it really was what I wanted.
So when I described this same situation to my concerned friend, she thanked me and smiled, happy for our upcoming marriage. Because she knew what I knew that day many months before:
That we already are married. The wedding is just a celebration of that.
Most people see this timestamp and say, “Oh goodness, you have plenty of time!” In fact, a number of people have mentioned that they think I’m crazy for already planning things. Well, they don’t really say I’m crazy. Instead they say, “Oh my, aren’t you on top of things!” or “I’m amazed you have so much done already this far out.” Which are all ways of saying, “I think you’re crazy/obsessed.”
But others, others understand. One person put it this way: Time somehow finds out you’re getting married, loads up on steroids and caffeine, and travels faster than ever. Next thing you know, it’s the day after your wedding, and you’re exhausted from saying, “Thank you for coming! Please have some more punch. And don’t forget to tip your bartenders.”
Broke-Ass Bride definitely understands. She wrote the blogpost about the side effects of procrastination, which really addresses several of my concerns, the largest of which is that I will become an emotional wreck that even *I* wouldn’t want to marry. When it feels like everything is cramped (usually because I’ve planned too much in one day) I break down and either (bad) lose all ability to make decisions, or (worse) become Field Marshall and lose all compassion and sense of balance.
I do not want this to happen. Because, while Field Marshall is extremely effective at “Getting The Job Done”, she is not as effective at “Treating People With Respect or Kindness”. Really, the whole point to having a wedding (for us anyway) is to share this love and moment with our community. Hard to do when everyone hates you.
And besides, it isn’t like time stops when you’re planning a wedding. There are still holidays, jobs, family obligations, birthdays, lawn maintenance, grocery shopping, illnesses, hobbies, and everything else. Wedding planning is just ON TOP OF ALL OF THAT. And sucks out all your money to boot, so in ways, it makes the OTHER tasks even harder to manage.
Hey Minstrel! Your love makes me sing! Arise! Come! My Darling, My Beautiful One, Come with me!
Really, I’m a list maker. Lists of lists that have listed items. But somehow, an emotionally charged event like a wedding often messes those lists up. For example, I am whipped totally off track by a pair of awesome Fluevogs for the wedding day, when in reality, I don’t even know what my dress will look like yet. or that I’ll want white shoes.
So – with the BAB’s support, I’m fully entrenched in the wedding planning process, 20 months in advance. Here’s sort of what’s going on right now.
- Each day, I check the bridal blogs that I link to from this blog. I have them on here because they are awesome, full of ideas and reality checks. From these wonderful places, I gather ideas that interest me.
- J and I have scheduled Wedding Nights each week. This is necessary to keep me from spamming him with ideas constantly, as well as taking up all of our time together with wedding stuff. I’ll talk about what we do on Wedding Nights in a later post.
- I blog some of my ideas regularly. Usually, they are ideas that have run the mill of discussion and have made the cut to the planning stage. This is actually helpful to me because when I blog, I write out the details of the idea. In many cases, I realize I’ve missed a step, or that we forgot about something important. Blogging about the wedding really helps me circle around the idea and address issues.
- We shop for things without pressure of having to buy. J has to remind me of this sometimes. I’m easily caught up with the look of something without addressing the cost.
- We take time from the “OMG GREAT IDEAS” to let them hang out in our heads. This is key, really. We’ve changed the theme several times already, despite my initial certainty that we would go in a specific direction. I’ve gone from an elaborate centerpiece to no centerpiece at all. Because once we weighed the practicality of the situation, centerpieces didn’t matter to us as much as other parts of the day. And once the theme changed, we realized that centerpieces would actually defeat our goals and look. So, we nixed em!
- We talk about what are the important tasks to do next. Sometimes, I get so excited about something that I lose focus on the item we have to do next. See Fluevogs above.
Just because I’m trying to be sane the two weeks before my wedding doesn’t mean I should be insane for the two years before it instead!
Well, I’ve contacted a seamstress, and she’s willing to work with me. At least, right now she is. I just sent her a massive email with all my hopes and fears and photos and thoughts.
I kind of overdid it – as usual. But she’s apparently still talking to me, so that’s good.
I’m really excited though. It will really happen, the dress will be something created for me. This is a major step, and why I felt like I had to give her a progression of where I once was about my dress (large, red or blue ball gown or lengha) to where I am now (more simple, more movement, dance-able, able to be worn in a backyard).
So on that note, I have more inspiration for The Dress.
It comes, of course, from Offbeat Bride’s pool (I was alerted by this Offbeat Bride post) of a circus wedding in San Francisco. Jaleen and Andrew’s wedding. Here are just a few photos from their flickr.
Look at the movement!
I am speechless. Really, this Ivan Grundahl dress hits so many important needs for me:
- Alternative color options (I probably wouldn’t do grey)
- Simple but unique
- Femininity (ruffles I actually LIKE)
- Great silhouette
- I CAN DANCE IN IT
It figures that this gal has performing experience because it really seems to hit an artistic balance that I adore. That little capelet about her shoulders? Removable.
I’m sure it helps that she’s wearing awesome purple Fluevogs. I die.
This store is an idea factory. We always think of something that we absolutely MUST create or have when browsing here. Like Bella’s Fat Cat sundaes, Anthology, an adorable little store on State Street in Madison is one of my weaknesses. It’s like Etsy, but in person. Ideas aren’t hoarded, but rather shared. You’ll say out loud, “I could do that,” and they’ll agree, give you encouragement and advice. I get the feeling the proprietors relate to the uplifting feeling we all get at the beginning of a creative project. As business owners, it is their bread and butter. Keep ‘em comin’ girls; we’re butterin’ our own toast thanks to ya’ll.
What’s a Paper Cut in the Kismet blog? It’s a use of paper, or just paper, that makes you ache. So occasionally, I’ll be cutting away from my usual thoughts on wedding stuff and feature some paper item that I adore so much that it hurts.
As a graphic-designer wanna be, with lots of designer friends, I’ve always cultivated a love of paper, lettering and beautiful design. I tend to be drawn to things romantic and vintage, and even moreso if they feature historic embellishment or a feel of times past.
I regularly troll etsy for interesting things that are out there, what people are doing. Because handmade often just FEELS better, don’t you think? And why not share it with everyone! Spread the love.
Anyway, today I happened across PaperNosh. Here are a few samples for you to drool over:
Is this not a fabulous vintage-style card, complete with antiqued edging and glittery accent? Seriously, this Parisian-influence going around has me practically fainting at every turn.
Or this vintage feel bird that could easily double as either a holiday card or just a note card? I have memories of ornaments my grandmother would put on the tree that looked similar to this bird.
I just adore all the tea-dyed old paper accents and embellishments. And even better, PaperNosh draws me in with vintage underwear, leading to a complete paper love meltdown.
Go check them out over at etsy – PaperNosh
I’m declaring our Crow Hollow Festival a Practical Wedding. Meg of A Practical Wedding says that “the ideal* of a practical wedding is one that doesn’t make you broke, and doesn’t stress you out.” (We’ll see about the “stressing you out” part.)
However, I also think a practical wedding is practical in its expectations. Specifically, determining and meeting the expectations of the couple.
A practical wedding recognizes that the purpose of the wedding is really the promise that the two people are making, witnessed by their family, friends and community. That connection, that purpose that unites them in whatever way is important to them. Because a wedding isn’t necessary to be married.
Yes. It’s true. A wedding isn’t necessary. I know…I’ve been married without a wedding. It is not necessary for a healthy, happy marriage. And having a wedding won’t make your marriage happy and healthy. That’s all you and your partner.
Heck, it isn’t necessary to be married to have a wonderful, loving, healthy and happy relationship. Hundreds of thousands of people do it all the time, and have for centuries. A marriage contract is taken on by choice, and is not an indicator of committment. All you need are two people who wish to be together. That’s it. The rest is dependent on individual preference.
Our culture tells you that having a wedding is of utmost importance. It defines your marriage and relationship. It defines who you are. Which is all bullshit. (In my head, the nightmarish Wedding Machine (“WM”) is draped in white satin, whirling about with Canon in D playing while people recite in monotone ”Love is patient…” from Corinthians.)
A LOT of these expectations are ingrained from our youth (wedding Barbie anyone?) The moment you are engaged, those expectations begin to tighten their hand around your throat.
Because of this societal pressure, even from non-traditional sources, it seems that it can be easy to forget why you want to have a wedding in the first place. It starts to become about the favors. The tablecloths. The damn centerpieces.
Oh GOD the centerpieces.
I recommend doing what I do when this all starts to get to me: close your eyes, breathe, think of the person you love and are planning to marry. THAT’s what’s important here. Ariel of Offbeat Bride says, “Your Wedding is NOT a Contest.” Read it. Twice. Make it a mantra.
As you’re wading through that Wedding Machine muck thinking that you don’t have enough white on your dress, or perhaps alternatively, your wedding isn’t “funky” enough, or even that you aren’t THIN enough for photos, repeat the mantra.
So, I think a practical wedding involves answering these questions for yourself:
- Why do I feel having a wedding is important?
- What are my expectations for my wedding?
- What can I afford, financially and mentally?
I think J and I are on this track, and I’ll write how we are answering these questions in another post.
But, as a commemorative action to ring in our practicality, we’re saying,
“Screw centerpieces – we don’t need no stinking centerpieces!”
Amen.
The night before, I was remembering a suggestion from a friend. Handkerchiefs. as Favors. It had been one of our early brainstormings, and I’d written it down somewhere. Vintage kerchiefs, new kerchiefs, whatever.
So I looked on eBay to find them, and I did. Plain men’s white ones, old frilly lace ones. I decided to put this back on the “list” of things to consider the next day when I’m letting ideas percolate.
Then the next morning, in the “Checking of the Blogs”, I see brokeassbride’s post about Bird and Banner’s work for Design Sponge. Apparently, there’s something in the latest Martha Stewart Weddings magazine too.
I flip my shit.
This is it. This is the thing I’ve been looking for.
The spark.
Till now, most of the things I’ve been thinking of have been nice, but I constantly felt like I wanted a theme that wasn’t so OVERARCHINGLY a theme. Something that felt like “us” but not like we matched every damn thing to it. It’s a hard thing to give an event your touch without painting everything with the same large brush.
We knew we wanted a massive Balkan dance party a la Pennsic War. We knew we wanted to have people alive and wild into the night around a bonfire of love. That’s the easy part.
The hard part was not spending too much money, but still feeling like it said something about us and giving it detail without it being heavy. We wanted people to be there and say, “This is so them.”
Little did I know that it was really going to say something. These are handkerchiefs, screenprinted with the invitation. I KNOW. Isn’t that amazing? I wanted handkerchiefs, but really wasn’t sure how to utilize them – in favors? As napkins? I was also uncertain about my invitations – how to have lovely invitations that people might want to keep without burning up too many trees in the process?
Oh – want to see the RSVP cards? They are vintage postcards.
We’d put in another part to the invitation with lovely paper, with maps, information and details about the event (since there’s a lot for them to know) and so much more.
But I’m still beside myself about this find. A handkerchief invitation is actually useful later on. It shows our penchant for scouring resale, thrift and antique shops for nifty things. And our wonderful, delightful designer thinks she can do it – with my help of course! Heck, I think this is such a cool project that I definitely want to be involved in making them.
So, a great find. Especially since the invitation can provide an instant feel for one’s event. But the excitement didn’t end there.
The same day I found a post from iDIY that fit right into the vintage textiles and words theme: hand-typed labels and tags.
No no, you have to look. Because isn’t just labels. It’s the revelation that you can TYPE ON FABRIC. Oh yes, yes you can. With old typewriters. Or new typewriters. Oh Yes.
Oh yes...
This immediately led my mind in the realm of vintage love letters. This idea has a place near and dear to our hearts, and I immediately realized that I could make table runners of natural undyed muslin and type out snippets of poems, letters, statements of love…all of that sporadically typed across the table runners. Our guests would be surrounded with love.
Of course, when we get going with these projects, I’ll actually post photos and the like.
Once I got going on the idea stream, it was flowing smoothly. Everything else curled around this letters idea. The original plan of having doily hearts clothespinned as “guest book” items seamlessly became pages of muslin that people can write on (or type on!), draw on, and then sign by using old lead typeface pieces pressed onto a stamp pad. We already have the type tray. We’ll have the muslin.
And when we’re done, we can sew it together and make a quilt, or a wall hanging. Or whatever.
So exciting when something clicks!
Lane Ellen
jizosama
