The Wedding Shrug

I'm currently loving the wedding shrug. It's a nice mix of casual with dressy. In San Francisco in August, I'm going to need something warm. I bet I could find one/ get one made on Etsy.

(top photo via Jessmyn Harris, photo by Sara Sanger, Bottom photo Via Whitebox)

Wedding Awesomness Elsewhere

"Did you know, unless you are bananas-rich, you are kind of expected to plan an entire wedding by yourselves? Venue, invitations, colors, flowers, caterers. (For example, Papa John's requires a two-month lead time for weddings! And they don't do cakes.) You even have to be sure of things like "will the wedding venue have a sadsack on hand in case one of your wedding guests besmirches the restroom?" It really is that detailed."

My new favorite word for weddings is now bananas.

Read it all here. (Thanks Lauren!)

Credit where credit is due, or, some sanity in Brideland.

I understand Miss Manners is a little out of vogue these days. People seem dislike her mainly due to the fact that she's called, well, Miss Manners. How proper, how formal, how dull, they think. Well, I am here to tell you that the two people that help me keep my sanity the most during this wedding process are Ariel Meadow Stallings over at Offbeat Bride, Miss Manners. I know that makes me sound crazy, and confused (aren't they the opposite, you are now thinking) but let me give you some examples of their sane wedding advice (because really, I don't have time to list all of the insane wedding advice I have heard):

"You, out there in Brideland, you sweet thing: Are you planning your wedding so that it will be perfect in every detail? Do you expect it to be the happiest day of your life? Miss Manners sincerely hopes not. Few of those who prattle about that "happiest day" seem to consider the dour expectations this suggests about the marriage from the second day on. At any rate, someone whose idea of ultimate happiness is a day spent at a big party, even spent being the center of attention at a marvelous big party, is too young to get married." - Miss Manners

"Engaged women don’t need another voice telling them they’re failing. It doesn’t matter if it’s a voice of tradition telling them they’re wrong for wanting to have their wedding in the round, or a voice of nontradition telling them they’re wrong for wanting to wear a white dress — brides need encouragement and support. This is all to say, your wedding isn’t a race, and there’s no need to win — the only prize you need is the commitment of your partner (aww) and you get that no matter what." - Ariel Stallings

In which the WIC makes it's first grab at my soul. And wallet.

So I sort of figured I had the engagement ring thing all figured out. I'd wanted the simple platinum (or white gold, or silver, who cares) ring with a single solitaire diamond. Easy, right? Ha.

Little did I know that the search for the engagment ring is your first full blown encounter with the Wedding Industrial Complex. The conversation goes a little like this: " You are getting married! Fantastic! There are so many things you must BUY BUY BUY! We don't care if you want these things or not! They are traditional! They are vital to your future happyness! Everyone Else is doing it! You don't want to look POOR do you?"

We started off at your run of the mill jewelers, and I'd tell them what size stone I was looking for and they would look disappointed, then giggle a little (who was I to know what I wanted, after all), then say they had the perfect thing. Then out would come a stone that would feed a family for a year. I have little hands. These rings looked crazy on me. And I didn't like the way the jewelers were looking at us. It creeped me out. They seemed to be implying that David would only be a Real Man if he ponied up three months salary on the ring. I didn't want to be the all American princess Barbie bride. I felt sort of panicked. Suddenly I didn't even want to be engaged anymore.

So, we stopped looking at engagement rings for a while. Then I realized to hell with these sleazy Jewelers, I knew what I wanted, and what we were comfortable with.

• A ring I could wear in a board room, and not be embarrassed by.

• A ring that wouldn't feel outdated in 10 or 15 years.

• Something that had character.

• Something I could wear in a third world country and not look like "HEY! I'M A AMERICAN! MUG ME!"

• Something I could wear doing work in a housing project or a soup kitchen or just back in San Bernardino where I grew up, and not look like a asshole.

• Something that was beautiful.

I was afraid my list was near impossible. But then we found it. A estate diamond ring from the 1920's, in a gay antique store in the Castro. They specialize in estate jewelry and vintage gay porn. We just went with the ring. This time.

A Practical Wedding

Welcome to my new blog. I decided that I needed a place to talk about weddings, and it wasn't fair to inundate my friends and family over at my personal blog. Here at chez progress, my partner-in-crime and I are trying to plan a sane wedding on (gasp) a reasonable budget that reflects our personal values. I love offbeat bride, and largely share Ariel's philosophy, in some ways I'm not that offbeat. I plan to rock the Huppah in a white dress, have bridesmaids, and have a first dance with David. But I seem to have next to nothing in common with the wedding industry, and I hate that it's trying to tell me what to do.

That said there are a lot of things I care about in this process:

• keeping the wedding on a sane budget
• having a simple and religious ceremony
• keeping in mind that this is our families day as much as this is our day
• Having a egalitarian wedding
• Making sure the party is FUN
• Including our community

Oh yes, and I want the wedding to be stylish and creative. We started dating when we were producing theatre together, for goodness sake!