After posting in detail about how woefully behind-schedule we are, I should note that we have accomplished some very important steps:
1. Hired a caterer who still has us very excited, especially when we snack on her hush puppies late at night.
2. Rented a goat farm, the location of our dreams, an amazing business run by cool people who have made us feel more welcome than we ever expected.
3. Hired a photographer whose work is stunningly beautiful, and who has been a very good working partner so far.
4. Booked lodging for ourselves and arranged lodging for many guests, in spite of the totally bad customer service around here.
5. Invited three dear friends to read scripture passages in the ceremony, and been lucky enough to have all three accept the invitation.
Even if we accomplish little more in the next 165 days, we have done enough to ensure a pretty good wedding.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
And a Brief Pat on One's Own Back
Outstanding Work, Gentlemen!
Did you know our wedding is less than 6 months away? Or, as Crate & Barrel puts it, "Only 165 days til the big event!" (This is right next to their red-typeface exhortation, "Add more gifts!")
I feel as if we are way, way behind where we should be at this point. I know that many people, including my amazing sister, succeed in planning weddings on a very tight timeline. But, I still feel anxious and panicky that we have so few things finalized.
If there's one thing I know for sure in this life - and it took me about 30 years to learn - it's that things get done when you make a schedule for doing them. Below is our to-do list, with deadlines, and we will keep you updated as we accomplish these objectives.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
When You Care Enough...
So I haven't cut my hair in weeks. This is partially due to being lazy and partially due to being busy writing my grant (I call it my "grant hair", like "strike beard"). It is also partially due to not really having found a good place to get a haircut. But ultimately it is because I have this stupid idea that I will grow my hair really, really long and then when I go to New York next month I will get a kick-ass haircut at Bumble and Bumble. However, my laziness and apprehension may have been a fortuitous event that will help me with my new idea (but more on that later...)
Another seemingly unrelated issue is wedding rings. I'm too lazy (notice the theme) to check to see if we've blogged about rings yet, but suffice it to say we've batted a few ideas around. We'll probably have our engagement rings bonded together. I know, it's cheesy but also really sweet and awesome because we'll probably have Little King, the jewelers who made my ring, do it since they are quite talented and do some amazing things with palladium. What, however, does this have to do with my hair?...
Monday, April 7, 2008
A Fine Day for English Majors (and Those Who Love Them)
Stanley Fish, about whom I harbor no strong feelings or opinions, has written an agreeably simple review of a forthcoming book called "French Theory" (&c. with a long subtitle). Dr. Fish's review appears as part of his blog on the New York Times website. He devotes most of the review describing what we would have called (in grad school) the "contours" of French theory, which is to say that "French theory" is shorthand for something very diverse and hard to define, and quite special without being too important.
Dr. Fish points out that "deconstruction," which is really just a way of reading, became a weapon of choice for many participants in the "culture wars," which made and lost many fortunes and careers. He also points out that the "culture wars" are simultaneously more amusing and more frustrating when viewed through the lenses of deconstruction.
A wedding, too, is the very sort of thing that deconstruction is a good tool for examining.
It is misguided to think that what validates a wedding ceremony is the making public of innermost feelings, and the sincerity or earnestness thereof. That may be a satisfactory performance, but it is beside the point of the wedding vow.
This is one of the things that I tried to express in my earlier post about sacraments. And, it is also one of the reasons why we have chosen to cleave as closely as possible to a traditional Catholic ceremony, rather than a personalized one: it is not "as if somehow the more heartfelt and confessional your ceremony is, the more married you are."
Indeed, although our feelings that have brought us to this point, we still believe that marriage has a permanent, objective value for us, for our families, and for our community. So the wedding ceremony has to have a bigger scope, and it truly should not be "all about us."
We will take some small advantage of having a wedding outside the traditional institutional structures of Church and state. Our Scripture readings, for example, are some that you are unlikely to have heard at any other wedding, but they probably won't leave you scratching your head either.
I plan to write more about the legal, social, and political meanings of our wedding over the summer -- and, like it or not, it will carry some meanings in each of those realms. I hope that by deconstructing this thing, this event, this day -- at its heart it should always be mostly a party -- we can do a better job of getting down to the core business of making something happen.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
"Beware all enterprises that require new clothes."
If clothes make the man, then I am bound to be Gregory Peck on my wedding day. Except without the height, gravity, Oscar, and jawline. What I mean is, I found the Gray Flannel Suit. And, I love it. My first eBay purchase may be the most important I ever make.
