The Next Time

For the past month or so I've been thinking to myself, "The next time I do XXXX, I'll be married!" It started out with, "The next time I get my hair cut, I'll be married" and "The next time I buy dog food, I'll be married." Now, with two days to go, it's nearly everything. The next time I wear those jeans, the next time I eat a burger, the next time I vacuum the house... Soon it will be the next time I check the mail and the next time I take a shower! I get more excited every time I think about it.

Keeping It Local

Two of our goals in planning this wedding - besides ending up married and showing our guests a rockin' good time - were to support our local economy wherever possible, and to generate as little waste as possible. We felt very strongly that this occasion was a perfect opportunity for us to practice what we preach so often, and to keep our landbase healthy and our friends and neighbors employed and able to support their own families.

On the first goal, here is a list of local or small businesses supported by some aspect of the wedding:

Hamel's Creative Catering

Cassandra Holden

Guild Art Supply

Paradise Copies

Osgood Textile

Jackson & Connor

Ci Ci Boutique

Savers (supporting Big Brothers/Big Sisters)

Cedar Chest

25 Central

VFW Post 8006

Rebekah Brooks

Delectable Mountain Cloth

Table & Vine

The Hotel Northampton

McLadden's Irish Pub

Tranquility Day Spa

Canine Etiquette

In addition, many of our friends and family members are participating in our wedding, either in the preparations, ceremony or reception. Flowers, photography, music, transportation, hair and makeup, cake and decorating are all being provided by our guests. It means so much to us to have our loved ones be an integral part of this event.

For the second goal, we have made a wholehearted attempt to not generate a lot of waste in the implementation of the wedding. It's surprisingly difficult, especially when the preparations (and costs) really start ramping up and the disposable route is cheaper and easier. I have tried whenever possible to emphasize the need for low waste, and I am hopeful that most of our decorations and other materials can be reused or repurposed. My cousin will be getting married at the end of September, and as our wedding colors are similar, she will use some of my decorations, or we will share them, which is great. There are also a lot of repurposed vintage items, such as curtains, tablecloths, and serving platters, as well as all of the dishes, that I purchased at Savers thrift shop and will be returning to them after the wedding. Maybe they will catch the eye of another bride-to-be!

All the Little Things

A few days left, and most of the big stuff is done. Dress? Picking up today. Food? Done. Venue? All set. Rings? Reception? Cake? All set! Now it's just all the odds and ends. Who's doing what and when? Are the favor bags assembled? How much do we tip the caterer? I do event planning for a living, and it is still astounding to me how many different moving parts there are to a wedding, and how far in advance one has to start planning in order to have everything work out. I am so lucky that my mother has been a capable and willing partner in all this, and that my fiance' is extremely agreeable and willing to do whatever he is asked.

The rehearsal is tomorrow, decorating on Friday, and then we've arrived! Ten months of dreaming, scheming, planning, comparing, budgeting, agonizing, deciding, and finagling all coming to fruition. It's been such a lovely ride, and despite it sometimes seeming like a second full-time job, it's been incredibly fun and rewarding to have such an outlet for my creativity and such game collaborators to work with. Yay for Weddings, indeed!

The Guest Quilt

As many of you know, our wedding has a 1920's theme that is partially inspired by our mutual love of the television series Boardwalk Empire, and we've incorporated many elements of the show into our wedding reception. Instead of a champagne toast we've decided to do a Pimm's Cup, a British drink popular at the time that was also mentioned in one of the early episodes of BE. We're also making the boutonnieres to resemble the ever-present carnation that the main character, Nucky Thompson, wears on the show. We tried to figure out a way to work the theme song into the reception, but that hasn't really happened.

When it came to the guestbook, I was reluctant to make it an actual book. I have many memento books from various events of my life, filled with signatures and well wishes of classmates, friends and colleagues... that I never look at. Rather than a book that sits on a shelf and is forgotten, I wanted to have a more visible and viewable representation of all the people who were there and who we love and who care about us. I had seen an example of a "guest quilt", a table set up with squares of fabric that guests sign, which are then sewn into a quilt. I've even seen elaborate versions of this, where the handwriting is embroidered onto the quilt afterword. I would guess that this is a task that would take many, many, many hours to complete. One very important aspect of getting married is to know thyself first. I know myself very well. I am not that diligent. So I talked to my mom (who is very diligent) about it. I thought it might be possible to add a Boardwalk Empire twist to it. During the opening credits of the show, the main character is shown standing on an Atlantic City beach where there are hundreds of bottles floating in the water. We decided to make the guest quilt look like those floating bottles, with each "bottle" being signable by the guests. My genius of a mother worked up the design, found the right materials, assembled them, and even provided a posterboard with instructions on how to sign the bottle.

The guests will sign a piece of writable fabric, which will become the label on the bottles! I can't wait to see how this turns out. We're going to have such a unique and beautiful memory of everyone who was there, hanging on our wall every time we pass by.

Minstrels

Our Greg-of-all-trades will be DJing the reception, but as he is our officiant, he was clearly out of the running when it came to music for the ceremony. Also, there's no electricity where we're getting married. Live music it is! Once again I am so lucky to have musically talented folks in my circle of friends. Remember my best friend Heather?

She and her husband Steven are accomplished musicians and performers, and volunteered to be my wedding ceremony minstrels. Both of them are regular players in the Valley Light Opera community theater group. Steven is also a violinist, and Heather is a pianist, piano/voice teacher, and a church organist. In short, very musical people.

We got together last night to finalize the musical selections for the ceremony. For the processional my mom had suggested "Side by Side", a classic 1920's number whose lyrics are a perfect fit for us. Heather and Steven recorded a practice video of them singing it as a duet and sent it to me for feedback. It was either hilariously beautiful or beautifully hilarious, I can't decide which. We discussed a few tweaks and the song is good to go! For the recessional I wanted to go with "I Got Rhythm", a Gershwin song that's instantly recognizable to most folks. Technically it wasn't published until 1930, but I'm gonna say it was composed in the 20's. On that number Steven will play the violin and Heather will sing, as it's rather tricky to truck a piano into a garden for a half hour. We are also going to try to get the audience to clap along as we make our way back up the aisle. It will be so wonderful to have my best friend and her new husband serenade me as I walk the wedding plank!

Bouquet OK!

Today is my mom's birthday! I had spent the night at Heather's due to the excessive imbibing of the bachelorette party, and Heather, Steven and I called her first thing this morning and serenaded her with a three part harmony version of "Happy Birthday". This evening we went to my cousin's for dinner and to play with flowers for the centerpieces and bouquets. The dahlias are finally blooming! There are some amazing dinnerplate ones, and some smaller ones, all spectacular. We picked a few and tested out some arrangements, finally settling on simple ones of one or two dahlias with greenery. Guess what worked the best? Asparagus! Its ferny, feathery texture is a perfect echo of the 20s decor, and the leaves hold up well.

We'll need two bouquets, one for me and one for Maili. I fell in love with one of the dinnerplate dahlias. Look at the size of it!

I tried putting it together with some hosta leaves from the garden. The effect was stunning.

We decided to go with orange silk flowers in the same color for Maili's bouquet.

I took the hosta leaves home to test them and see how long they can stay out of water before they start to wilt. About three hours in and so far so good!

The Bachelorette

Last night was my bachelorette party! My amazing Maid of Honor Maili organized the whole thing: Snacks, drinks and games at her place, then a canoe/kayak paddle at sunset, then dinner and more games, and finally a campfire and s'mores. We had a blast. First, I was surprised by Heather's sister, Andrea, who is one of my best friends from childhood and who I didn't know would be there. We drove up to Maili's with a canoe strapped to Heather's Ford Focus. After some alarming buzzing, followed by a screeching, then a quick stop to tighten the canoe so we didn't accidentally get airborne, we were back on our way. Over the course of the evening I: got a signature cocktail thanks to Megan, consisting of Jameson whiskey, Disaronno and birch beer, called "Laurel on the Rocks" (a little Italian, a little Irish, and a lot of woods!); put a condom on a cucumber; saw a blue heron and a pitcher plant; constructed a penis out of play-doh; wrote a song about aging; invented a kahlua toasted marshmallow; and dug a maraschino cherry out of a dish of whipped cream using only my face. Not many people can say they did all that at their bachelorette party. Thanks to Maili, Heather, Andrea and Megan for showing me the best time a girl could ask for!

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Dollars

Way back in January when we attended the Bridal Expo I checked out some of the photography vendors who were tabling there, and came to the realization that wedding photography is effing expensive! Wedding anything is expensive, but photography seemed to be particularly so. Well, photographs are important, aren't they? In a way they will be the most concrete evidence that the wedding actually happened. And by the time the actual day rolls around the happy couple are far too exhausted and overwhelmed to really absorb or remember much, so they must relive the day through the photos. I can see why people spring for a photographer to immortalize the experience of a lifetime, lived in one day.

I am extremely fortunate to be surrounded by talented photographers, especially as my photography skills amount to the equivalent of a 4 year old trying to write his own name. Both of my best friends are hobby photogs, which makes me so happy when we go on vacation together, as I get to stand back and drink in the gorgeous scenery while they run around getting all the money shots. However, as both of them are actually in my wedding, being the photographer would pose a slight problem. Luckily I know even more superheroes! One of my mother's best friends, Holly Hargraves, is a photographer and web designer and she offered not only to take the photos but to let us use her house, which is steps away from the ceremony, so that we could get dressed there. She's known me since I was a kid, so it will be great having her there to document this important day.

I will also have a second photographer, my cousin Jessie. She's currently studying photography and has an amazing vintage camera collection:

I asked her if any of her cameras still worked, and she said most of them did. I asked if it's still possible to get film for them, and if so could we take some real vintage photos, it being a vintage wedding and all. She said she could! So we will be getting some old timey photos of our old timey wedding. So cool!

We'll be taking pictures in the garden, of course, and then going across the street to the Smith College boathouse, where my father worked for many years, to take some photos there. Fingers, toes and everything else crossed for nice weather - the extended forecast is still a little too far out to be reliable.

Finished!

The dress is done! I picked it up this morning and brought it directly to the cleaners to have it pressed. It came out beautifully. Cassandra put on the finishing touches, and I took both dress and veil with me. Now I am on diet LOCKDOWN for the next week so I'll be sure to fit into it! No photos yet, but there will be very, very soon!

It's official! Well, almost.

Today Eric and I took a very big, very important step.

(drumroll......)

We went to city hall to apply for a marriage license!

It was far more straightforward than I thought it would be. I had always imagined the process of acquiring a marriage license to be a sort of labyrinth, dotted with nasty blood tests, letters of reference, and the digging up of birth certificates or possibly long-dead relatives if necessary to prove one wasn't related to one's betrothed. However, this was surprisingly painless, and not just because of the lack of blood or exhumed relatives. We didn't need to provide physical proof of anything besides our two selves. Everything else was written onto a form and sworn by oath to be true. Though the forms were a tad tricky. There was a bit of a scuffle over who got to be Party A and who got to be Party B.

A very nice clerk named Wendy talked us through the whole set of instructions. While we plodded our way through the forms, a woman came in to license her dogs, something one does think of as a straightforward procedure. How many dogs, this much per dog, here's your tags, thank you and see you in a year. Not this lady. As the story unfolded, we gathered that she hadn't been too responsible about keeping up with the whole dog licensing thing. Wendy's colleague informed her that her dogs hadn't been licensed since March of 2012. Furthermore, it sounded like the only reason she'd come clean about it was because her dogs had caused trouble, one of the neighbors complained and the police got involved and told her she'd better get those dogs licensed. The total, including licenses, backpayments and penalties, came to $180. Needless to say, the woman was none to happy about it, but reluctantly paid as she really didn't have a choice.

By this time we had completed the forms after a few embarrassing missteps (I couldn't remember Eric's birthday, he couldn't remember mine or his mom's middle name. Sometimes your mind just goes blank). We brought the forms over to Wendy, who double checked them, made us swear (but not in anger), then presented us with the equivalent of a dry cleaning ticket. We get to pick up the license on Friday! She was even nice enough to take a photo of us with the claim ticket to commemorate the event. One small step for man, one giant leap for marriage!

Moral of the story: A human license is easy; It's the dog's license you've got to worry about.

Delectable Mountain

The dress hit a few snags on its journey to being complete. There were some aspects to the bodice that I wasn't quite happy with, but didn't quite know how to fix. Thanks to some advice from my friend Megan, I experimented with the idea of a sash. Cassandra sent me up to Delectable Mountain Cloth in Brattleboro, VT to hunt for some appropriate fabric. MOH Maili offered to go with me. It was intended to be a combination fabric hunt for me and new car hunt for her (hers is on its last wheel), but sadly the car shopping part never materialized. Get it? MATERIALized? Haha! Heh. Ok, nevermind.

This place is like a candy store for dressmaking. They have every kind of luscious silk, chiffon, brocade and lace, no synthetics. And the buttons! So many colors and shapes and sizes. The owner and employees are extremely knowledgeable about cloth as well as how garments are put together and which fabrics complement each other. After much exploring and quite a bit of drooling we ended up leaving empty handed. Despite there being such a fantastic selection, they didn't have much in the way of bridal trim, as the sad fact is that nearly all of it is synthetic nowadays. In having to drive over an hour to get to a fabric store that didn't cater mostly to quilters, I realized how few people make their own clothes anymore.

The place also had a great selection of vintage jewelry. I almost bought a pair of earrings, but changed my mind at the last minute, as I probably will wear small, simple earrings if anything. The birdcage veil will be enough decor for this tiny head of mine!

Taking the Cake

Friday I had a lovely meeting with Eric's cousin Jenni and his aunt. His cousin recently got married, and we attended the wedding. Everything about it was perfect, including the weather. Jenni is a very creative person, and I think she did most of the preparations, from invites to decorations to choreographing the best bridal party intro I've ever seen (it involved football passes). She is also a very talented baker. Every time we go to a family event at their house there have been the most elaborate and adorable cupcakes, brownies, cookies, and other delicacies. For Christmas she made cupcakes that looked like Christmas trees, with candy coated sunflower seeds as the ornaments. Once there were cupcakes in the shape of butterflies. We decided early on that we wanted her to do our wedding cake if she was willing. She was! So I met to talk about colors, flavors, and all that good stuff.

As our colors are navy and coral, we decided to go with white cupcakes. Navy frosting is just gross, and everyone would be walking around looking like they'd just sucked on a ballpoint pen. I saw a cool idea online for a cupcake bouquet.

We decided to do that as a topper, with freestanding cupcakes for the guests to eat. Each cupcake will have a fondant garnish, and I'm thinking of using the deco fan motif - the one I never ended up using for the invites - for the garnish! As for cupcake flavors, for now it's vanilla and chocolate, but if anyone knows of some more interesting options, I'd be interested to hear.

Made in China

I've spent a large amount of time over the past ten months collecting dishes. You might remember the wedding room post, where a small, respectable stash was displayed. It has since taken on a life of its own and morphed into a tabletop, piles on the floor, and boxes in the basement. My mother has been an unwavering help and resource in this pursuit. Her volunteer position at a thrift shop in North Carolina has provided us with many choice items for the wedding, and dishes are no exception. Between the two of us we have located some rare vintage finds as well as regular old cups n' saucers. The plan is this: each of our eight tables will have a unique set of tableware, with the unifying theme of orange and white. I've collected vintage china from the thirties through the sixties, including a pile of rare and quite expensive Salem Tricorn china that I scavenged off of a flatbed truck destined for the landfill. This will be mixed with contemporary pieces that have a vintage design. In short, it's a lot of dishes!

Such a display required some heavily coordinated shuffling around. Most brides are pulling their hair out over seating charts, trying to ensure that those cousins who feuded back in '75 and haven't spoken to each other since don't end up sitting together. I declared open seating early on, avoiding that whole potential kerfuffle. But to make up for it, I've been pulling my hair out over the place settings. Like, the actual dishes. Is there an equal distribution of orange at each table? Does that cup and saucer go with that plate? What on earth matches orange Salem Tricorn China? After much wrangling and rearranging, I think I've figured out the magic combination. So in order to ensure that it actually materializes on the big day, I have a plastic tub for each table, with the appropriate set of dishes as well as a card indicating which cups, saucers and plates go where. I call it "The method to my madness".

It makes perfect sense to me, but as I might not be the person setting up the tables, I can only hope that my crazy system can be translated into tabletop triumph. We'll find out. Now, on to the music!

T Minus Two Weeks!

I can't believe it's two weeks until the big day! These months have gone by so quickly, and there is still much to be done. This afternoon Eric departs for his bachelor party, a trip to Cabellas (like Disneyworld for sporting goods) and then to the Mohegan Sun casino, where he will hopefully have great fun throwing money into a slot-machine-shaped pit. My bachelorette party is next weekend, then my parents arrive the following Monday, and then it's going to be a frantic blur of preparations until BOOM, married. I only hope I can hold onto this even just a little and enjoy the moments as they pass by far too fleetingly.