So, our wedding will take place in five days, and today is also the feast of Saint Bruno, whose name only sounds the same as my future in-laws' surname. There is no family connection to the saint, but Bruno families around the world probably consider him to be a patron. He is a good man for the job.
Saint Bruno was born in 1030 in Cologne, and he had a fast rise from promising student to professor to presumptive new bishop of Reims. Bruno lived in tumultuous times. His own diocese was rattled by an abusive prelate and the battle to remove him. In Rome, Emperor Henry IV was resisting the church-wide reform efforts of Pope Gregory VII, going so far as to establish an antipapacy in Ravenna.
In the midst of all this turmoil, Bruno's esteem rose among many parties. The clergy of Reims sought his leadership, and Gregory sought his counsel. Bruno, though, longed for a simple life, attached only to prayer and work, eschewing power and influence. During his years in Gregory's closest confidence, Bruno took care to keep himself always in the background. His mission was to free the church from corruption and politics, not to defeat Henry.
Anyhow, the thing I most want to tell you about him is that Bruno, during his journeys toward and away from centers of power and conflict established two monasteries. The first was at a remote spot in the Alps known as Chartreuse, from which the Carthusian Order grew and gets its name. You may also know the liquor called Chartreuse, which the monks distilled and sold to support the maintenance of their houses, and which today is still sold in support of various charities.
The Carthusians live lives of great simplicity and quiet. They rarely speak except to pray. Each act - including prayer - is undertaken at the slowest practical pace. Their charism is captured by their motto: "Stat crux, dum volvitur orbis," which means, "The cross stands while the world is changing."
An acclaimed film was made about the monastery of Grande Chartreuse. The images literally defy words, which is surely the point:
Can you imagine what Saint Bruno would have thought about our modern wedding rituals? What today's Carthusians think of us - if they even know what we're up to? These ceremonies - ostensibly dedicated to the making permanent of something that is imperiled by human whims - have become binges of frippery. Michael and I are as guilty of it as anyone else - each argument we have had about paper, flowers and wine is venal. What will last after Saturday? Where shall we turn our focus?
We have five days left until our wedding. This week, we are going to approach life with our eyes turned toward what is permanent. Whatever is picayune and vain and worrisome is forbidden. Any thought that provokes me to anger is banished.
Each time the Bruno name is said or seen on Saturday, I will consider it a tiny prayer for the aid of Saint Bruno in keeping calm and quiet, and caring most about what is lasting.
Monday, October 6, 2008
What Is Lasting
Monday, September 29, 2008
Just As Unique As You Are
I'll admit to reading wedding blogs and watching wedding shows and skimming wedding magazines in the check-out line. It's a fun thing that one is only allowed to do (justifiably) for a few months. It's as if you only get one Christmas in your whole life - you maximize and exploit the opportunity.
In the spirit of over-doing it, it's great to try to get wedding ideas from the mainstream, heterosexual-dominated Matrimonial Industrial Complex. Our wedding will be a lot like straight people's weddings, with the flowers and the music and catering and stuff. Why not take some cues from their awesome celebrations?
But this morning, I learned from a particularly bizarre forum on Weddingbee that apparently many straight people don't want to share their wedding media with us, and they certainly don't want to highlight gay people's experiences on their websites. Apparently bandwidth - and compassion and justice - are in short supply.
But we need our space on those websites and magazines and TV shows - and it's not just to make a political point. Until there is enough gay-specific wedding media out there, you awesome/crazy brides have got to share with us!
Their "cover" argument is that highlighting gay weddings creates a "separate but equal" situation - that since gay people's weddings are just like straight people's weddings, there's no need to give them their own online space. Obviously, this is a strawman. It doesn't take a minute's thought to see why a gay bride or groom might specifically want to look at pictures of a gay wedding.
Here are some of the tricky questions that we have had to navigate, with little guidance from the Knot or Martha Stewart or those ridiculous shows on Oxygen and We:
What do two grooms wear? Should they match or contrast or complement each other? What have other grooms done, and what looks good? Where on earth can we find enough good pictures of enough beautiful weddings to get some ideas?
How do two grooms dance together? Should we play it up, or play it down? Choreography? Just boogie around like a couple of fools? What does a two-groom foxtrot look like? Beautiful or ridiculous? Where can we see examples?
How do two grooms walk up the aisle? How can we capture the traditional spirit of the wedding procession, while acknowledging what's different, but doing it in a simple and subtle way? What have other couples - male and female - done? Who has the pictures and who can explain their line of reasoning?
What are some "new traditions" to replace or supplement the old (but fun!) hetero-normative ones, like the bouquet and garter tosses and the classic Midwestern Shot Line? There must be hundreds of stories of what worked and what didn't - we need to see options that fit our style and our celebration. Show us!
So, we're not being greedy or "political" when we ask for something like Queer Wedding Wednesdays. Maybe there's a money-making idea out there for me to establish my own Queer Weddings version of the Knot (hey - I'm patenting that right this second).
I can't deny that looking at pictures of same-sex and other queer weddings brings the political issues of marriage equality and justice right to the forefront, right in front of your face as you're trying to do something as light-hearted as choose a letterpress printer or a cake flavor. But that's exactly the point - letting us share in the fun in a way that works for everybody will quickly and finally lay all these tensions and debates to rest.
Where are my awesome brides at? LOVE YOU LADIES!
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Frendors and Venemies - Pick Up Your Phones!
I raise money for a living. I have done so for several years. Some parts of my job are difficult - writing long proposals, organizing big events, preparing complicated budgets. But perhaps the easiest and most important part of my job is returning phone calls. It is often the tiny, crucial difference between yes and no from a donor. I want to teach our vendors the why and how of using telephones to make money.
To assess their current competence with regard to telephony, I have created this short quiz:
1. Let's say you are the manager of a transportation company. You receive an email from a customer confirming coach service for a date four weeks from today. You reply with a terse email demanding a phone call and immediate payment. The customer quickly dials the number you have provided. What do you do? Do you a.) answer the phone or b.) let it go to voicemail? If you answered b.), do you ignore the message or reply?
2. Let's say you are the manager of a wine store. An engaged couple has visited your store to talk about wine selections for their upcoming wedding. Of course, you are extremely courteous and helpful in discussing their preferences and their budget. You send them home with a few bottles to taste, and tell them to email you with their entire order within a week. You provide the store's email address and emphasize that they should write, "Attn: Manager" in the subject line. They send you an order amounting to almost $2,000 of wine - a major and serious purchase for this young couple. Do you reply to thank them and confirm their order and arrange for payment? Or, do you leave them hanging with no response for 5, 6, 7 days???
3. Let's say you are the menswear manager of a small, posh boutique. An engaged couple has ordered custom formalwear for their wedding. They are prepared to spend more on these garments than they have ever spent for anything other than their car. After they place their order, let's say you make a little forgivable mistake, and forget to send it along to the workshop. But, that's okay! You fix the problem in plenty of time. Later, one of the grooms phones you to check on the delivery date. You say, "They have not arrived yet, but I'll check on them, and call you right back!" What do you do? Do you check on it and call back right away? Or do you ignore the question and never call back at all???
I know some of these questions may be tricky for neophytes, luddites and (apparently) people who make their living through sales. But try your best! There could be a career in it!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Philately Will Get You Everywhere
Emerson recently posted about how the post office is making our lives miserable. Briefly, our reply card is a post card and thus requires only 27 cents of postage, but the post office only makes horrible, ugly tropical fruit post card stamps valued at 27 cents. Tropical fruit, while nice, does not "fit" with our invitation, which has more of a, well, let's just say non-tropical feel.
So after going so far as to calling the post office to find out if they were planning on issuing any other 27 cent stamps in the near future, we realized we would either have give up and put on a first class stamp or come up with another solution. We, of course, came up with another solution since when it comes to the matrimonial-industrial complex failure is not an option.
One of us (probably Emerson) had the brilliant idea that, while first-class stamps today may be 42 cents, they weren't always. At some point in U.S. history, they must have been 27 cents! So the solution becomes simple: Find out when that is, travel back in time and buy up one hundred 27 cent stamps! And by "travel back in time", I mean look on eBay...
Well, it turns out that the U.S. never had a 27 cent stamp before 2008; but back in the early 1990s, during the introduction of self-adhesive stamps, first class postage was 29 cents. And that was close enough for us.
Our second mission was to find an acceptable image that would work stylistically with our invitation. In the early 90s, there were so many wonderful varieties of stamps to choose from! Ducks! Thomas Jefferson! Eagles! More ducks! Squirrels! Wood ducks! Hearts! Various Olympic sports! We ultimately chose a stamp that went very well with our evergreen motif: a pine cone!
Our third mission was to find a seller, or sellers, who had 100 of these stamps from 1993, un-used, at a reasonable price. A book of 29 cent stamps is valued at $5.80 and a book of 42 cent stamps is valued at $8.40. So as long as we kept the price under $8.40 a book, we were spending no more than our most expensive 2008 option, which was a regular old Liberty Bell stamp. And unbelievably, we succeeded. Some guy in Michigan had 5 books of pine cone stamps from 1993 and he was selling them for only $7.50! And with a "bulk order" we only paid $1.00 for shipping! Score!
Grand total: 38.5 cents! To mail a post card. Because the idea of putting a kiwi on my beautiful reply card was so horrific that it gave me nightmares for a week.
And this is to what the matrimonial-industrial complex has reduced us.
UPDATE: Over drinks last night, Emerson pointed out that there were only 18 stamps in the books that we bought, not 20. That actually brings our total per stamp price, after shipping, to 43 cents! So I guess we didn't win, except insomuch as we refused to kowtow to the post office's cruel choice of stamps and ended up getting exactly what we wanted. And if you really stop to think about it, it was only an extra dollar over first class postage, and only $16 more than post card rates. And that's only like half a table-cloth!
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Parting Gifts
I hate terrorists.
Oh, I'm sure some of them are really nice if you get to know them before they blow something up. And certainly their mothers' probably think they're sweet. But those adoring maternal types might think differently if they realized how their terrorizing children are mucking up my perfect day. (You'll see why in a minute).
Now as many of you know, one of the customary wedding-y things is to give a little thank you for trekking all the way out here and buying us a place-setting gift to all of your guests. A sort of thank you for playing, you've been great sort of dilly. These are usually a) edible, b) emblazened with the couple's name and date, lest you forget who they are or to send them an anniversary present, c) breakable, or d) all of the above. Emerson and I, not wanting to be left out, have been agonizing over what to give. Weddings we've attended have had everything from candies, to flower bulbs, to custom beer bottles. But unless you own an engraving company that makes wedding trinkets, the cost quickly increases.
Plus, we have a pathological desire to be different.
And since everything else in this wedding seems to be homemade, why not the parting gift? We weighed our options and came up with, what I think is the coolest idea ever. Recently I've taken to pickling (hey, everyone needs a hobby). I've pickled everything I can get my hands on at the farmer's market and as far as edible, inexpensive, DIY gifts go, you can't go wrong with pickles! A mason jar, a cute hand-written label, a little raffia around the rim and voila! All you need is some fresh produce and penchant for boiling vinegar and you've got yourself a thoughtful, unique, and useful gift.
Except there are terrorists.
Since nearly everyone is flying and with the airlines getting all bitchy and beginning to charge for checked luggage, we're betting that a good number of guests will not be checking any bags. And since some jackass terrorist somewhere got the bright idea to hypothesize that he could make a bomb out of mixing liquids, guess what you can't bring onto a plane? Pickles. Which are floating in a sea of liquid.
So instead of spending the next 72 days slaving over a hot stove making pickles and jam that people are either not going to take or going to take because they are polite but will leave in the hotel room or are going to take but have them confiscated by the TSA, I'm going to bitch about how much I hate terrorists and their imaginary, hypothetical, unrealistic plots to destroy us, and the irrational, infantile, pointless steps our retarded government is taking to make me "feel safe" when in reality all it is doing is inconveniencing me and RUINING MY PERFECT DAY!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
A Little Soft-Shoe Gentle Sway
As you may have gathered, we are not having a traditional wedding. Well, let me rephrase that: we are having a traditional wedding in the sense that we are retaining all the important elements of the marriage rite that connect us to our religious and cultural heritage. We are not retaining a good portion of the frivolities that come with the matrimonial industrial complex such as cake cutting, wedding parties, DJs with microphones and the chicken dance.
However for some reason, which neither one of us can remember, we kept the "first dance". Probably because it truly is a first dance, since Emerson and I have never danced together. Ever. That's not how we roll.
But nothing we do is ever easy. Our song is not a Bryan Adams pop ballad; it is Gershwin tune from an obscure 50s movie musical starring Bob Fosse, so two dudes swaying back and forth with their hands on each others' hips like they're dancing to "Yesterday" in the gym at their junior prom ain't gonna cut it.
Enter Yuliya...
Last week we sucked it up and laid out a hunk of cash to Yuliya, a Ukrainian baby doll who is going to teach us how to Foxtrot and choreograph a little routine for us. It'll be like if Pasha danced with Dmitry, only if Pasha and Dmitry were ten years older, 40 pounds heavier and didn't know how to dance. If we were in front of the judges, Mary Murphy would be like: "The way you're moving into your moves like your fall-away split pivot over-spin into your throw-away? Is it working for me? No, it isn't. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to kick you off the hot tamale train."
Anyway, as you can imagine, there are, um, problems. Mostly with Emerson. First of all, I know a thing or two about Dance. I took ballroom dance classes in college and used to go salsa dancing in grad school (read "used to go" as "went once"). Emerson, on the other hand, has two gigantic left feet. So with my loads of experience and Emerson's lack of talent, I am a natural choice to lead.
But all of you astute readers out there are saying "Wait a sec! If you lead, doesn't that mean Emerson has to follow?!" Oh yes, boys and girls. It does. And I'm not convinced Emerson has followed anything in his life. Instructions. Directions. The clearly marked trails in the woods. Yuliya is not convinced either. We're trying to practice our one-two-quick-quicks and he's dragging me around, looking over his shoulder, paranoid that I'm going to dance him into a chair. And I just might do if he continues to be such a bad dancer.
So if we survive these dance lessons which are clearly a metaphor for our relationship vis a vis trust, control, communication and compatibility, we will have an awesome first dance. If not, one of us will clearly end up dead.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Howard Beale Moment
I am not going to bad-mouth our caterers in public. Seriously. They are almost certainly the best caterers in this area, and they are going to do a great job. They make damn good food; they understand and play along with our crazy ideas (e.g., heritage pigs); and, they know how to get the details just right in achieving a beautiful event.
But, as you may know, we were having some problems. It was like pulling teeth to get the clear, detailed answers we needed to keep our budget under control. We felt nickled-and-dimed by unexplained surcharges and exorbitant bartending fees, among other things. We were losing trust, not to mention our savings. To be frank, we contemplated postponing or canceling the wedding for fear of going too deeply into debt.
Finally, yesterday, we channeled our frustration into action. In a very firm but very clear way, we delineated exactly what expenses we refused to pay. We requested the discounts to which we felt entitled because of reserving the date so early. We insisted on a complete, clear, detailed spreadsheet of charges. We insisted that the catering staff coordinate more closely with the farm staff to find cost savings, such as eliminating unnecessary rentals.
You know what?
It worked. Just by doing the bold, grown-up thing, we have shaved at least 10% off the cost of this wedding, all in a matter of minutes.
On the one hand, it feels great to have "beaten" the system that takes advantage of every couple's desire for a perfect, magical day. But more importantly, it feels good to have taken responsibility for getting what we needed, putting our concerns first and communicating clearly.
Now, maybe for the rest of the week, I want to take on the world, with the voice of Peter Finch ringing in my ears: "You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, Goddammit! My life has VALUE!'"
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
A Stitch in Time
I believe that I have, in the past, mocked brides for obsessing over the size and shape of their bustles. My thought - and I'm about to apologize for it - has always been, "Buy a shorter dress!" Getting dressed should be fun and easy!
I say I am ready to apologize because, as wedding things start falling into place, I have a little bit of breathing room to think about what I'm going to wear. As I have mentioned before, I found the perfect suit. I have even found a tailor, who works in-house for the eminent menswear store Julian's in Chapel Hill.
I even believe that I have found the right shoes - the saddle-tan version of a black pair I already own and love. So what's the sticking point? What is my own personal bustle dilemma?
Top stitching.
The shoes have brown top-stitching, which looks appropriate for daytime and outdoors, but is still dressy.
But the only belts Cole-Haan produces in the same tan leather have white top-stitching or (gasp!) braiding. Can you imagine? My country wedding is not an episode of Hee Haw!
Check out the shoes and the "coordinating" belts. Will any of them suffice? Should I look for a different shoe? This one is such a nice shoe for the price. Or, should I look for a belt that almost-but-doesn't-quite-match colors?
(Do note that the colors on the screen are not true to the colors in person.)
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Breathless Anticipation
So, we set out a work plan, and it did us a world of good. We made a lot of progress, but there are still many open questions, and we are 128 days (gasp) from our wedding day.
We haven't blogged in a couple of weeks because we like to wait until things are settled, and right now, almost everything is in a state of uncertainty.
As promised, here is an update on our objectives - I hope this doesn't give you hives as it gives me:
1. Invite the officiant by May 2. Status: Almost settled. Officiant invited in a long, emotional conversation. Officiant accepted invitation, but there are some lingering complications involving the superior of his religious order, and some very valid concerns about public perceptions. This is "settled enough" but of course we are praying very hard that we don't end up with no officiant at the last minute.
2. Hire a DJ by May 22. Status: Complete! And we are thrilled with the young, cool, enthusiastic DJ we found at a price almost half of the "prestige" DJ that our caterer suggested.
3. Plan Ceremony Music by May 22. Status: Totally unsettled. We spoke to musicians for the first time last night, and not only are they more expensive than we hoped to pay (for students, no less), but it's not certain that they can fulfill our musical wishes. On the other hand, this may be a case where compromise is totally acceptable. In other words, it will be awesome to have a brass ensemble, even if they play more traditional music than we would prefer.
4. Walk-Through with the Tent Guy on May 23. Status: Limbo. We had our walk-through, and it was not a happy day. The tent guy had utter disrespect for our money and our budget, which was quite disturbing. He and the caterer seem to think that we need to rent a $1,200 outhouse, and separate chairs for the ceremony and the reception. We are still awaiting a quote that was due last week. This is either going to turn into a tooth-and-nail fight to protect our budget, or we are going to have to betray the caterer (whatever, this is business) and go with another rental company altogether.
5. Design and Print Invitations beginning May 28. Status: Good progress. We had a really fun meeting with the designer and artist who are working on this project, and they were both exactly as enthusiastic and creative as we hoped they would be. The "edition" that will come in the envelope is going to be really cool, and the invitation itself is going to be beautiful. We even visited the paper supplier, and discovered that paper is going to be really affordable! Our next step is providing the final text for all the pieces so these guys can get to work.
6. Book the Buses by June 1. Status: Complete! Our guests who stay in downtown Durham or in the Hillandale area will be able to enjoy themselves with abandon since they have a ride to and from the wedding. As this was the subject of my worst nightmare earlier this year, I am relieved to have this task finished.
7. Finalize the Menu by June 6. Status: Incomplete but not urgent. We have been in ongoing communication with the caterer about the menu, but really it does not need to be finalized until a few weeks before the wedding. The pigs, as you know by now, are secured, though we still don't know how much we're paying - presumably about two or three times the budget, given the pattern we've seen. And, we need to decide if we are going to serve fried hors d'œuvre, since those require special rentals.
8. Get a Florist by June 30. Status: Incomplete and getting urgent. You know we want to keep this simple, and our moms are going to help out a lot. Michael spoke with one farmer who said, "Sure," but I hope we can get a more secure agreement and a freakin' quote. Why's it so hard to get a quote here? Is everybody in North Carolina secretly rich?
9. Figure out the Bar by August 15. Status: Good progress, with a bump in the road. Here's the bump: we thought that by providing our own hard liquor we could save money. Au contraire! Not only are we required by law to provide and deliver our own liquor, but we also have to pay $4 $5.25 per pour for cocktails! Where I'm from this is known as a "scam." In any case, it helped us plan the bar! One hour of butlered cocktails is it. And, we're doing well on the wine selection. I believe we actually have delicious, affordable wines picked out, and the incomparable (if slightly tacky) Total Wine & More is giving us a case discount on specially ordered magnums. Finally, somebody willing to help us out!
After writing this list I have to tell you I am more than a little bit tempted to lump the catering, the rentals, and everything else and turn this wedding into a backyard barbecue picnic. That would be equally fun, right?
Friday, May 16, 2008
Good Enough for Now, I Guess
I received a sweet, unexpected email from my sister yesterday saying, simply, "Congratulations!" on the occasion of the California Supreme Court's decision to . . . erm . . . stop the politicians from robbing a whole class of human beings of their rights.
I just wrote and then deleted a long and pessimistic post about the state of the world and the slow progress of justice. It is true, I think, that this week's "victory" is too small, too temporary, and is overshadowed by the seemingly inexhaustible mass of fear and ignorance. So I'm trying again for something more optimistic.
As I wrote of my anger today, I also began to feel compassion for those who sense their power - their long history of privilege and authority - being stripped away. It is this anxiety and loss in the face of radical changes in the world that leads them to fight against marriage equality, among other objectively good changes. When I hear them say, "think of the children," or "threat to the family," or "it's a slippery slope," I know that those are merely effigies of hurt feelings.
At the risk of sounding condescending, I would pray for them, that they should every day reflect on the fact that all their power, all their privilege, that all authority and all dominion come from God. Power is not a right, but a costly gift, and one that we all - who possess it - are called upon to steward wisely as we strive to live more fully in God's image. Our power gives us the capacity to choose the right, to love one another, and to live well.
I also pray that my own patience and compassion should increase. I know that I share in the sinful tendency to translate my subjective experiences into a putatively objective reality. I should remember that my moral judgments primarily stem from my own anxiety, and that by better understanding my fears as well as my desires, I will see the world and people more clearly.
I am happy that so many California couples, after years of faithful love, now possess the right to seal their unions under the law and in the witness of the community. I am happy that these justices understand that democracy - and, indeed, civilization - depend upon the rule of law and not majority rule. But I am unhappy that this is so extraordinary an occurrence. We are living in the 21st century, and yet our progress is continually offset by fear and ignorance.
Perhaps the resolution to this ambivalence is to shift one's focus from the general to the particular. If one sets one's sights on the vast and perpetual battle between human dignity and human darkness, one is inevitably frustrated. The score is impossible to calculate at that scale. But in reflecting on the love one feels and the love one witnesses, gosh, in this there is so much comfort.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Tableaux Vivants
In the perpetual effort to do something unique - have I mentioned that I am very competitive? - the issue of long vs. round vs. square tables keeps cropping up.
Long banquet tables are very hot right now. They have a dramatic look and good symbolism, with everyone sitting together like Medicis in their piano nobile. It would seem that they are more expensive, because you have to rent more long tables than round tables to seat the same number of people. I also assume the long linens are more expensive, because the whole rental system is designed to punish you for having ideas. And, you need more flower arrangements for this to look right.
The other trendy thing to do is to mix square tables (eight-tops, as any waiter would say) with round tables. You get a good visual impact thanks to the variety, and you retain the flexibility of those round tables, which can seat 7 - 10 people.
Finally, what is probably the sensible thing to do, is to stick with all round tables and to be creative with the tabletop decor. Rounds have lots of room for "tablescaping" with flowers, lanterns, and other stuff.
The real complicating factors here are budget and space. I have planned countless catered affairs before, but they were gala fundraisers with huge budgets. And they were in New York. The circumstances here are so different, it's like starting from scratch. And our caterer is so accustomed to working with wealthy clients that she hasn't been very detailed or concerned with budget issues; her estimate didn't even show the rentals itemized.
I guess when we do our rentals walk-through in two weeks, we'll have to demand three separate, detailed estimates, and we'll try to maximize. I just hate having these ideas hanging out there in the purely theoretical realm, when we have only 5 months left. ACK!!!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Food, Flowers, Farming, and Fabric
So, I undertook the spectacular waste of time known as "inspiration boarding." I think this activity was invented by bridal magazines as a way to be more internetty.
I'm not going to lie and say it wasn't pretty fun.
I think this activity is probably useful if you are hiring a coordinator, or even to share with your caterer. It's a snapshot of how you want the day to look and feel--except instead of you and your fiancé in the pictures there are catalog models. Maybe it can help you make consistent decisions if you are risk of veering off course into fluorescent colors or a "theme" (eek!)
I'm not sure the mosaic I made reveals anything about me or our wedding that you didn't already know. It's going to be rustic, and we're going to eat well. Have a look after the break and tell me if this silliness is a window into my psyche:
Click on the mosaic to see the pictures in big, lavish detail!
Unsuitable
One obvious upside to having a two-dude wedding: no dresses. The dress shopping that I read about in the bridal blogs and magazines sounds like a nightmare, a tortuous ritual to make women feel fat and poor while chasing the opportunity--often fulfilled--to look more beautiful on one day than on any other day of her life. It's an emotional roller coaster that rattles enough to shake all the money out of your pockets.
For men, the pursuit of wedding-day attire has a different if equally unpleasant dimension. There are simply too few options. I happen to think tuxedoes look dashing on New Year's Eve or at a charity ball, but I find them to be somewhat strange at a wedding, especially during the day. Rented clothes? Weird.
Suits are troublesome because they suggest business rather than celebration. Off-the-rack suits are particularly conservative, generally made of dull, serious fabrics and cuts that don't so much dance across the floor as sit in a boardroom chair.
So what I think I want is a vintage suit. Something gorgeously Edwardian. Or a vintage-looking suit. Something like this:
Maybe what I really want is to look more like Daniel Craig!
The quest has not been easy, and it gives me great sympathy for brides. I have lost two auctions on eBay so far. I'm new to eBay, and I find it a bit intimidating. Nonetheless, it appeals to my competitive nature, so I'll probably warm up to it.
I'm also setting aside time on my two spring visits to New York to shop at the sorely missed Century 21 and Housing Works Thrift Shop. Any suggestions? Anyone have a beautiful old suit that I can take to Leung's (the best tailor I ever found) and make to fit me?
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Ain't Too Proud To Beg
Registering for gifts is reputedly the most fun thing about wedding planning, although it is a custom that bumps against every taboo about generosity. It sure is awkward to ask people for very specific (and sometimes very expensive) things you want, when the purpose of a wedding is meant to be more high-minded. And, of course, you can count on us to make the whole process more stressful than it ought to be. I've mentioned before that I'm a "maximizer"; the simple way of putting that is: Worst. Shopper. Ever.
Nonetheless, we buckled down this weekend to choose the material things that we want most as part of the home we make together. And, I hope you'll indulge our asking, and know that we are deeply grateful for anything you might choose to give us on the occasion of our marriage, including your well wishes and prayers.
We are probably most excited about Heath Ceramics, where we registered for enough dinnerware to fulfill our dream of hosting many Thanksgivings to come. Heath is a pottery studio in Sausalito, California that has been operating continuously since the 1940s, and it is renowned for the remarkable quality of its products and boldness of its designs. Every piece is finished by hand, and the factory adheres to the strictest possible environmental standards and respect for workers.
Only one place carried a variety of affordable flatware stylish enough to complement Heath's plates and bowls, and that was Crate & Barrel, where we also registered for high-quality organic cotton bed and bath linens at reasonable prices.
Sorry, Mr. W. Sonoma, but you simply couldn't compete on selection, price, or convenience with Amazon where we registered for kitchen items, including cookware, bakeware, small appliances, cutlery, and tools.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
The American Dream
I'm happy that this election year dovetails so well with the wedding "theme" we established back when we got engaged in '06 (and which is also the title of this here blog). At the very least, there will be a guaranteed topic for table conversations at dinner!
Of course, "united" is probably a poor description of our country today. I think that since 1991 when it was abruptly decided that culture is a set of wars and cable news networks should be the battlefields, our political and civil society has had an unhealthy fixation on winning at any cost. The necessarily combative structures of a democracy are supposed to create good outcomes, not merely victorious ones.
That said, I have my own unhealthy fixation on winning, and there's no excluding this wedding from my competitiveness. When we reserved our caterer a couple of weeks ago, she told us that October 11 may be the biggest wedding day of 2008. So we won the race to book perhaps the most presitigious caterer in Durham! The early bird gets the worm and all that.
On the downside, it's important to remember that we are not quickly winning the fight to expand marriage equality, and none of the three viable candidates for President is going to show any leadership on that issue. Still, going ahead with a meaningful and beautiful wedding that consecrates our marriage in front of family and community? That feels a lot like winning.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Express/Impress Yourself
I love watching “Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?” when I’m home on a weekday. It’s better than “Wedding Story,” insofar as “Whose Wedding” emphasizes the humor and the melodrama, rather than the phony romance stuff. During the opening credits, you hear the voices of wedding planners, speaking their words of wisdom. One of them says, “You only have one day, this one day to express yourself.”
I am pretty sure that every single syllable in that sentence is false.
