Michelle and Josh's Day Of Community And Love

When Michelle's wedding landed in my inbox, there was something about it that I loved. Maybe it was the fact that she and her husband Josh got married in the church that he grew up with, or maybe it was all the grinning faces, I don't know. But what I do know is while I was putting this post together, I kept feeling warm and wonderful. This is what a wedding should be, this is a couple and a community with enormous hearts and the right priorities. Because weddings should bring us joy, even in the midst of great heartache. And this wedding is nothing but joy.
Our wedding was held at Trinity Baptist Church in North Canton, Ohio. Josh grew up in this church and had several "second families" there, all of whom had adopted me since I had been attending with him.The reception was at the Metropolitan Centre in Canton. It was a little bit of a splurge for us, but we wanted to have a big-city feel to the day because I went to school in Boston and Josh proposed there. Living in a small town, there weren't too many options for that sort of venue, and this one was just beautiful.Our wedding was creative because we had almost a year and a half to plan it. This gave us a lot of time to come up with projects that I could do ahead of time. Josh and I spent a few months designing our own invitations -- He's not super crafty but he has good taste, so I spent my weekends at school making mock-up ones and mailing them to him for his opinion. We finally settled on a design and I spent a few days making them. Having that project done almost a year before the wedding was awesome. We also made the centerpieces while home for Christmas break and spent spring break making a reception playlist. I printed out pictures and glued them into a notebook for our guest book. We borrowed an antique truck that Josh's dad won in a raffle to get us from the ceremony to the reception.Someone in Team Practical (we don't remember who but we love you!) had the idea of serving the cake themselves and we decided to do the same. We knew the day would be rushed and there were a lot of people coming from out of town, so we wanted to make sure that we saw everyone. I wore an apron that my aunt gave me at our bridal shower and everyone loved it.We have been taking pictures of our feet throughout our entire relationship, so we wanted fun shoes to wear. I wore $20 yellow heels from Target that my mom spent an entire year trying to talk me out of, and Josh and his brother wore Converse. (They changed into them right before the wedding, you should've seen the look on his mom's face.)

Our wedding was thrifty because we both had a hard time with the "wedding tax," so if something seemed too crazy expensive, we either made it ourselves or just didn't have it. I made the bouquets the night before, following a tutorial that I found online, but let our grocery store florist make the bouts and corsages (not too expensive and I'd be no good at it). My sister was my only bridesmaid and we were planning our weddings simultaneously, so we shared a lot of ideas (and the cake servers, the guest book pen, I could go on). I bought my dress at the Filene's Basement Running of the Brides -- my roommate was engaged at the time and we went to find her a dress, and I happened to find mine the same day. It was crazy cheap and fit perfectly without alterations, and freed up a lot of money for other things that we wanted. Josh wore a suit that we found at H&M. Laura and I went to Dillards and found her a cute black dress for $80 and wore shoes that she already had. Josh's grandma made his little sister's flower girl dress. I bought our invitation envelopes in Times Square when we went on a mini-vacation there last summer.We unfortunately were not lucky enough to have a cast of family and friends with wedding-related talents (aside from my cousin, who did my hair), so we didn't have a homemade cake or our best friend running the music. Money was tight for both of us and our families, but the beautiful "coming together" moments of our wedding were when people saw that we were cutting things because we couldn't afford them, and offered to pay. We didn't hit anyone up for money or give them a sad story about how we were missing out on a fancy cake, but they were excited for us and offered what they could.What made our wedding sane was that we got married. I was really good at having the occasional "let's just elope" freakout, but thankfully Josh was even better at the "at the end of this, you will be my wife" speech. Getting married at his home church by the pastor that helped raise him helped us both feel grounded and connected to our families and friends. There were people there that had known us both for our whole lives and our whole relationship, so it really felt like everyone was invested in what was happening.There had been a lot of stressful things in our life leading up to the wedding -- my dad was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma and had to go through chemo, finishing his treatment the week after we got married. My cousin lost both of his legs in a hit-and-run in June, and he and my aunt and uncle were in Texas, working on his recovery. It was a hard summer in a lot of ways, but we focused on the joy for a day. The only tears shed during the day were by my sister during her awesome speech, who claims that she's "allergic to microphones" (she did the same at her wedding). No happy tears even, as far as I saw -- we were all just laughing, like we were finally relieved.One last thing that helped keep us sane was being engaged for so long. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, it did get a little bit old at times, but it gave us a lot of time to work things out. We had time to go through premarital counseling and talk to friends and family about what to expect. We spent almost the entire time apart, going to school and working in different states, so instead of seeing movies or listening to music or going for drives together, all we did was talk. It was tedious sometimes but we talked through some really hard things together, and I think that gave us a stronger foundation than we would've had otherwise.My favorite moments came from people after the fact -- a close family friend said that it was the most fun wedding she'd ever been to, because she could feel our joy; his grandma said she felt like it was a glimpse into our lives together. Those were our two main goals, and the fact that the people that came could feel that meant the world to us.

Photos: Christopher Blues Photography

Dress, Offered V

Michelle's wedding is coming up tomorrow, and you're going to love it. Warm, full of family, full of love. But today Michelle is giving away her dress to another member of Team Practical. I love it when you guys do this for each other*. Michelle's dress is on the traditional side, but it's also simple, which you know I love. It's got a train for days, when you could keep or alter. Michelle says this in her email to me:"It's a size 8, I didn't have it altered at all except to add a bustle. I'm 5'8" and wore 2" heels, so it's pretty long. I'll include the slip if anyone wants it, although I want to keep the veil. It is pretty dirty** so it'll need to be cleaned. Josh and I had been talking about getting married for a while when my college roommate got engaged. I went with her to the Filene's Basement running of the brides in Boston, just to help her out because it can get so crazy. I found this dress for $250 and bought it that day. We got engaged a few months later and I finally got to wear it this past weekend."So. The giveaway works the way it always does. Leave a comment about why you'd love to wear this dress in the comments. The recipient pays for the shipping, and after the wedding should email Michelle a picture of themselves full of joy in the dress. And as always, I'd love if you considered sending me a picture too (because all of us want to see it). Comments will stay open for a week, or until the recipient becomes really obvious.

Thank you, for all being so kind to each other.

Smooches,
Meg

*I try to limit the dress trades to about one a month, so I can't do all of them I get, sigh. I usually do them in conjunction with a real wedding or wedding graduate post, if you're pondering passing your dress along.
**That's when you know it's been loved *properly.* Eff this 'Princesses keep their dresses spotless' stuff.

There Is A Difference...

Ok, this is the part of the blog you've been waiting for for the last 1.5 years. The part where I ask you, "Did you watch Oprah on Monday? No, seriously, DID YOU WATCH OPRAH ON MONDAY?"

Because if you didn't you must. Ellen Degeneres and Portia De Rossi were on, and Portia gave the most eloquent, emotional, and wise argument I've ever heard for marraige equality. Since I can remember, and at least since the seventh grade when I did my term paper on gay rights (yes, yes, yes, it's true) my gut level reaction has been, "Well of course gay people should be able to get married, because it's discriminatory not to let them. It's wrong and unfair." But Portia made a far more elegant and nuanced argument, a wiser argument, and one that I don't think would have hit me in the heart the way it did before our own wedding. You can, and must, watch the whole clip on the Huffington Post, and then you can go watch bit from their wedding here (which made me weepy) but here a bit of the wisdom:

"She's my wife, I get to say that she's my wife and that's just the way it is," said Portia.

"Anybody who's married knows there is a difference," said Ellen. "It feels like you're home. There's an anchor, there's a safety. I'm going to be with her until the day I die and I know that."

Dress, Loved

Remember when we did a giveaway of that wedding dress I adored? Leah's Vera Wang Bridesmaids dress with the black sash? You know, this Leah?Well, ladies and gentleman, the dress has been worn again! When I first saw pictures of Sam wearing the dress (I was just clicking through the comments, nothing doing) I stared at the screen frozen, and then it felt like my head exploded. The weird thing about blogging is that I have a hard time tying it to reality. In theory I know you guys are out there reading, and you seem real when you leave comments or email me, but otherwise you are just these numbers on my google analytics screen. So when I meet you, and you say you read the blog before your wedding and it was helpful to you, I am disoriented. But this, this blew my mind. There was a dress, that I facilitated the giving of, on another bride at another wedding being loved. That's tangible, people. So, here is Sam, wearing the dress that Leah wore at her wedding. I'm hoping she'll be back very soon as a Wedding Graduate.We ditched our guests to take a walk right in the middle of the festivities (the first time all day the rain let up) and yes, at one point I might have ended up sitting on the bar.The dress was fabulous. It fit perfectly, we didn't even have to hem it. I did end up tearing the skirt on my mom's dress (I couldn't pass up the opportunity for the Father-Daughter dance in it) but thanks to Leah's generosity I got to change right away into a dress that made me feel sexy and beautiful... and was so easy to move in! I am so amazingly blessed.Next up... the next Team Practical dress swap. You guys are the best.

Ambition Squared: New Orleans

As David and I work on our Ambition Squared projects, and discover new ones, I'll be giving you little updates here. Hopefully this will help continue the conversation about how we form the marriages we need to sustain ourselves. So here is what I hope is the first update of many.
A few weeks ago we went to New Orleans as Part II of plan traveltraveltravel (the honeymoon was Part I, maybe I'll tell you a little about that one day). Because, you know, we figure travel is a habit that we should get into before we are hauling wee ones around the world.

We were in New Orleans for a wedding of an old friend and we stayed a few days, just for us. New Orleans was different than any place I'd ever been, joyful and sad all at once. It drew me in, and made me want to come back, to become a regular at a cafe on Magazine Street, get to know the people, acquire a house with a porch. But what knocked me on my heels in New Orleans was the music. Our first full day in the city we were walking down a street in the French Quarter and an jazz band was playing in the middle of the street. They were a bunch of scruffy urbanites about our age, playing brass, dancing, and singing.It seemed like the most normal thing in the world, them making that music in the street, like it was as easy as breathing. I've found that every time I travel somewhere new, there is a moment when suddenly I see something I've never seen before, quite, and my perspective of the world changes a tiny bit. In New Orleans, this was that moment. I grew up around lots of music and dance (I dance, I don't play anything) but I'd never seen music integrated into a city quite like that. I'd never been to a city where music seemed like it's beating heart.

So there I was with my new husband in the French Quarter listening to jazz and suddenly pondering learning the Lindy Hop. There are *many* imperfect parts of my life right now, and many stressful, anxious moments, but there are also moments like that. Moments where you step back and think, I don't know how I got this so right, but here we are.

I wanted to track down that nameless jazz band for you, that jazz band who's CD I did not buy (stupid, stupid, stupid), but I figured it would be impossible. But one google search later, I found it: The Loose Marbles (Or Little Big Horns. We're not quite sure) with Meschiya Lake. The band that put 'learn the Lindy Hop*' on David's and my to do list:

So thank you Meschiya, thank you Loose Marbles, and thank you New Orleans. We'll be back.

I'm aware that they are not doing the Lindy Hop in this video. But I liked it. So there.
Pictures are by me, shot on our new 35mm Holga

This Is Why You Get Married

There are real tangible reasons to get married, and they are not because shopping for a wedding dress is fun (because f*ck me, it's not even fun). This is why:Seeing your friends (including some of your most unsentimental friends) looking at you like this, when they don't look like they are walking on air. That's it. That is why you do it.

Photo of two of our dear ones at our Ketubah signing by One Love Photo

Sponsored Post: BravoBride's New Boutiques

I'm pleased that prior APW sponsor BravoBride is back. BravoBride is one of those intuitive, "Oh god why hasn't this been around for years? Heck yes!" kind of sites. It allows brides and grooms to sell all manner of wedding goods when they are done with them, which is great for everyone. I, achem, have some left over wedding stuff in my closet, and I should probably sell it, so one of you can have lovely affordable new-to-you wedding stuff... and I KNOW I'm not alone.
Currently BravoBride has, well, everything. They have sweet and simple wedding dresses, and oh-dear-jesus-amazing Oscar De La Renta wedding dresses for half-off (and I *know* some of you are going for super-amazing-designer-dresses on a super-amazing-sales). Then there are engagement and wedding rings, for all budgets, at great prices. And then there is all the wedding stuff: hello half off Martha Stewart pom-poms, hello crazy-cool silver tree centerpieces, hello not wasting stuff after the wedding!
But the real reason for the post is BravoBride's new Boutiques... for the entrepreneurial couple. Say you have a *lot* of wedding stuff to sell. You had a super stylish wedding (as y'all do) and you want the stuff out of your dang house now. You have candles, you have a freaking amazing dress, you have cake stands, you have a Polaroid camera, you have a guest book that you never used. Well, if you have more than 10 things, you can now hop on over to BravoBride, set up your own stylish boutique, with a direct URL, on a high traffic site and sell, sell, sell. And, if you're not a ex-bride (can we call ourselves ex-brides now?) but want to sell to the soon to be wedding-ed your wholesale or handmade goodies? You can do that too. So go shop kids, and enjoy!

Reclaiming Wife: Brave Marriages

It's so heartening to hear all of you talking about marriage and being a wife (or a husband) and what it means to you, and what it can mean for each of us, and about the ways in which we are *choosing* the life we want to lead. And the amazing emails just keep coming. After the discussion after the Crying In The Car post, the lovely lady behind Sapphic Housewife sent me this email that made me, well, cry. She articulated what I've been trying to talk about so beautifully, and in a way I never could. And, after the heartbreak in Maine this week, she reminds me of what we are fighting for. Because in the end, marriage equality is about all of our marriages. It's about who we are, and who we want to become. So, without further ado, the Sapphic Housewife:

I know how I feel about marriage. I want children. I want to be a stay-at-home mother if possible. I want a picket fence (I was thinking yellow or green instead of white though). I’ve felt this way for years. Meeting and dating and falling in love with a woman may have changed a lot in my life, but it never changed any of that.

But the thing is, my traditional view of marriage tends to make me more instead of less adamant about people not getting forced into cookie-cutters after they get married. Nobody should get to tell somebody what she’s supposed to become. Nobody should tell a woman in a heterosexual relationship that “it’s time” to get married or have kids or take up [insert name of craft]. And I don’t feel like anyone should tell LGBT couples that “it’s not time” because “the country’s not ready” for same-sex marriage and adoption rights. I’m ready. I’m ready to be a wife and mother. I’m ready to not have to file state taxes as “married” and federal as “single”, dammit. And millions like me are ready to be loving spouses and parents.

I feel lucky that my partner and I live in a time that few people bat an eye at the fact that we’re two different races. But sometimes I wish people would ask when my partner and I are going to start having children, about as much as I wish people would stop asking my heterosexual married friends who feel pressured by the question because they don’t know yet. Because the same thing that makes my marriage invisible has the potential to make everyone’s marriage invisible. We’re told that marriage is being a woman who does x and a man who does y who both stay on timeline z. There’s no room in that for who the couple is and who each of the individuals in it are.

But maybe if people expand their opinion of what marriage can be, they’ll also broaden their view of who it can include. So here's to brave marriages!

(And for today, I'll let that be our rallying cry.)

Love For All: A Plea, A Sign.

I wanted to reach out a small hand to give a hug or a hand to hold to any of you who need it after the heartbreaking vote on gay marriage in Maine yesterday. It is a harsh reminder that the battle for marraige equality is still uphill, but for me today it was also a reminder of why we will keep fighting, no matter how long it takes to reach justice.

For now, I'll leave you with a small poem that has been running through my head all day. It's a snippet of a hymn that Amanda posted last Christmas, and has lived on a post-it on my desk ever since. And today, it seems like the best thing thing I can offer:

Love shall be our token;
love be yours and love be mine.
Love to God and to all men,
love for plea and gift and sign.

(And Washington, Thank You.)

Wedding Graduate: Chic On The Cheap

Some weddings I get all excited about because, to be frank, they are totally my style. Liz and Josh's wedding is one of those. First of all, I'm going to be shallow and throw out there that both of her dresses are effing HOT. Second, David and I are also what Liz terms "A-typical traditionalists." Meaning, everyone who's traditional thinks we're super indie, and everyone who's hipster things we're a little too traditional. So Liz's jazz-music-pumping, formal desert reception sounds like a party I would like to be invited to, and maybe like one I'll throw in the future. Now I give you Liz of Chic On The Cheap with her best advice:
Our wedding was crafty and DIY, not because we’re cool indie kids. Because we’re broke. Some of (all of?) my favorite parts of the wedding were the result of cut-corners to fit the budget. My mom hand-sewed my cathedral-length veil and baked the four-layer wedding cake.Not to mention we (and some really awesome friends) prepared the rest of the food. We made the invitations, programs, table numbers, and all of the décor (black and white baby photos, candle centerpieces, vases of apples, wreaths for the doors, etc) The time invested in actually making each detail made it all the more meaningful and (while maybe stressing us out sometimes) also helped us gear up and get excited for the day.The bottom line is, Josh and I are a-typical traditionalists. I know the indie-chic thing right now is the rustic wedding. But that's so not us. We wanted to channel Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant at a lavish, jazz-music-pumpin, champagne-flowin, hot-damn-party chock full of garters and bouquet tosses and all the usual wedding junk. So, um. We did. We got married on October 11 at 3pm. Yes, that's a Sunday. Yep, middle of the afternoon. We had a dessert reception.After trying and trying to make a dinner fit in our budget, Josh and I realized the reason we were so unwilling to stretch the budget is that we wanted a really fun party. Not a prom-style chicken dinner. So why were we going to take out a loan for something we didn’t want? Once we dropped the “must be a dinner” parameter, we had a lot more fun picking out the food and more money to go around. We ended up spending nearly double our original budget of $6,000, but were able to invite everyone we wanted (read: just about everyone we’d ever met) and take our entire extended family out to dinner that night, and we don’t regret a single dollar. I was petrified that without the open bar and DJ, noone would dance and everyone would fall asleep. But, here's the thing. If you have fun friends, your wedding won't be bland or boring. And if they love you, they'll be excited just to be there (with or without free booze).Some advice I wish I'd had:

1) Avoid “wedding” things like the plague. As soon as something is specifically designated for weddings, the price skyrockets (and often the quality plummets. eg: bridesmaid dresses, videography, live bands, favors, etc)

2) If a certain detail is becoming painful to put into action, drop it. You’re going to remember those months of planning before the wedding just as much as the day itself. Don’t ruin the memory with tedious hours of steaming some tablecloths that still look wrinkled anyway. If it’s tedious and not fun, it shouldn’t be apart of a happy day.3) It’s not about you. We always hear this with regard to including the groom in the planning. Don’t limit yourself here. Make the day about your relationship, your families, your friends, anyone who has been there along the whole process that ended in your marriage (and will keep on being there through the ish that’s gonna come after). (Our guestbook was a compilation of wedding photos from both families, going all the way back to the 1900’s)4) Damn the man. NOT choosing something because everyone else does, is just as bad as choosing something because everyone else does. It’s the same thing. (This includes nixing something because your photos will look “dated.” Um. Go back to your parents’ wedding photos. My favorites are the dated ones.)5) It’s NOT “just one day.” The whole wedding planning process can be a buttload of fun, too. The key to this is to just suck it up and use your friends if they offer. It may make you feel super guilty handing over those envelopes to stuff and the hankies to fold, but damn, is it nice to have a second to breathe. Working with friends and family was the best part of our wedding. I may be exaggerating (having a husband is pretty awesome, too). But making all of the little details together brought about some of the best, most memorable moments of the wedding process. I couldn’t afford a veil, so my mom and I learned how to make one and shopped for the fabric together. We catered the reception ourselves, so I had hours of prep and set-up the day before with both families and tons of caring, awesome volunteers. Sure, we were exhausted by the end of the night. But I never knew you could laugh so much while setting up folding chairs and coffee pots. Not to mention, it makes everyone feel so involved in the day… almost take ownership of it, really. And all of those little details are made meaningful when you don’t just see cupcakes, but you see cupcakes-that-Amanda-iced and memories of flour-covered-kitchens. (sorry about the novel, Meg… I could go on and on here)

6) Have a deadline. Planning everything ourselves meant that we were building, creating, and setting up til Saturday evening. But I gave myself a cut off. After 9pm, no more wedding planning. Seriously. All that night, all the next day, no “planning” allowed. Whatever was left on the to-do list was dropped (some of it was “important”!), and I soaked my little feet and packed my suitcase for honeymoon.7) Don’t stress if you’re “late.” We didn’t have a venue until two months before the wedding. That’s after 5 months of searching and planning. I’ll be honest. I was freaking out. But the important stuff will fall into place by itself, as long as you don’t get in the way. (ps: The only important stuff= 1) you’re married by the end of the day and 2) everyone enjoys themselves. And usually, as long as you’re married by the end of the day, everyone enjoys themselves.)YAY! May you two dance your way through the rest of your lives together. And then next party you throw, I want to be invited.

(Photos are via Carina and Amanda of Love Me Do Photography. You know these guys were good because as I looked over photos of other weddings, I kept thinking, "Our guys didn't get photos of that." But they did. They were just so stealthy that they didn't interrupt our enjoyment of the day. I don't look back and remember clicks and flashes and cameras in my face. That's a good wedding photographer.)