On Economic Uncertainty, Fear, And Changing

Normally I don't repost pictures of weddings, but I'm making an exception this time. Many of you have probably read all about Kimi & Paul's wedding and Kimi's stunning handmade dress on A $10,000 wedding, and if you haven't go look. Now. I'll wait.

I'm reposting pictures of this wedding, because it set me free. Wedding planning has been awful and scary for us of late. Well, more precisely, life has been awful and scary for us of late, as we've been thrown emotional curve ball after emotional curve ball, and having the wedding on top of everything else has felt like too much some days.

The hardest part over the past few weeks has been dealing with, well, money. As the economic uncertainty around us has gotten more and more intense, the idea of spending money on a wedding has gotten scarier and scarier to me. I'm a money hoarder by nature, and I hate any kind of spending, so spending money on the wedding was always going to be tough. On top of all, lets just say that I have a very clear and data driven perspective on exactly what is going on in this economy, and frankly, its terrifying.

So, after a budget put together with much thoughtful consideration and discussion, we're now looking and finding more ways to simplify. We still have a very large family that we want to include, and we have a venue booked, and lots of things that we can't change much, but we've been trying to evaluate and re-evaluate things. And I was getting absolutely frozen with fear. How do you change course mid-stream, especially when you'd thoughtfully and lovingly picked the course you were on? How do you find new creative ways to make things work for you? Add to that the fact that as much as I write and think about new and interesting ways of planning a wedding, sometimes I feel trapped inside this crazy box of "how things are done" and I feel like I'm fighting for my life trying to get out.
And then I saw this wedding. Maybe it was that it took place in the Prospect Park Audubon Center, a place very familiar to me, and very close to my heart. Maybe it's that the bride clearly made simple but wildly creative decisions like making her amazing dress out of a simple sheath from Target. I don't know quite what it was. But suddenly I felt like the world cracked open for me. Of course we could do this. Of course we could throw out the way things are done (like, say, buying a dress) and figure out something new that worked for us. Of course we could simplify and streamline even more than we already had. Then I started looking at things we've already done. We have a venue we love in a public park. We've designed Save The Dates together that we adore. We've designed invitations that I love so much I have no words for that my sister will letterpress. We're excited by doing our own flowers. So we can do the rest of this. We can figure it out.

And for starters, I'm going to start asking for more help. So I talked to my sister, and we decided that we're going to attempt a wedding dress together, with her in charge of the technical aspects and me in charge of the endless pleating. If nothing else, we won't be bored over Christmas. And that's a start. And we're going to figure out the rest, somehow.

And at the very least, at the end, we'll finally be married. Dealing with economic turmoil, like dealing with everything else, is so much better when there are two of you.

As always, I welcome your stories and perspective. This is a h*ll of a time to be planning a wedding.

The rest of Kimi's amazing pictures are over here

Kayla and Wesley's Fall New England Wedding

I've been excited about this wedding for ages and ages, and I'm so excited that I get to share it with you. Kayla emailed me a while back telling me about her wedding, and asking if I thought they could have people stand during the short ceremony. "Of course!" I said. "Provide a few chairs for people that need them, and keep it short, but other than that, standing is the old school Jewish way. So know you're rocking a tradition, even if it's not your own." And now, the wedding. Kayla and Wesley are editors at Apartment Therapy Boston (the worlds hippest job, if you ask me) and they got married in New Hampshire in October. I'm going to let them tell you all about their amazing fall wedding.
Neither of us had ever spent much time imagining a wedding so when we started planning our ideas were fairly simple: small, intimate, relaxed and fun. Once we decided on the location of Wes' parents' farm we knew we could rely on nature to provide most of the decoration. For the rest we turned to our talented friends and family. By our wedding day nearly half of the guest list had pitched in in one way or another - designing our Save The Dates and invitations, cooking all of the food, growing and arranging all of the flowers, getting a good deal on the wine, making our cake, photographing the whole event, and generally pulling everything together in time. We'll admit that all this input saved us money but, beyond finances, to have our family and friends so intimately involved in the planning and preparation of our wedding made the day so much more meaningful and memorable.
Kayla's dress was found on a clearance rack at Saks and she had her hair piece custom made by Chelsea at Oh My Deer. Wes' suit came from Banana Republic but his whole look was built around a colorful striped tie and fantastic shoes.
We transformed the shed porch - designed and built by Wes and his dad - into an altar by hanging fresh cut branches with fall leaves from the roof and placing colorful items from the garden on the stones.
We also used Mason jars and sap buckets in lieu of vases for nearly all of the flowers.
Things we did spend money on: a nice tent (and heater) that would look lovely against the rural backdrop Chinese paper lanterns to fill the tent with color once the sun set, and candy apples for our 60 guests.
Wes and I didn't have a wedding party and the only moment when I questioned that decision was during the ceremony, when it came time for me to hand off my little bouquet so that I could hold Wes' hands for our vows. I thought "Crap - this is why people have bridesmaids," but when I looked to our family gathered so close around us I simply reached out and both my mom and his mom - standing there, side by side - reached to take the flowers from me. It was much more special than anything I could have planned.Also, we were banking on one of the biggest weather gambles there is: an outdoor wedding in October in New England. Wes' parents thought we were crazy and, looking back, we totally were but we knew what we wanted so we just focused on making it happen. We had a good Plan B and tried our best to not obsess on the forecast. It was cold and rainy the entire week leading up but the day of our wedding was absolutely perfect. Don't panic - things have a way of working out.

Thank you both so much for sharing your stylish wedding with us, and more importantly for sharing your words of wedding wisdom with us. Cheers to you both. May you have many years together, each filled with more happiness with the last.

Wedding Party Alternatives

First of all, I wanted to thank you all for your many responses to my "Family As Wedding Party" post. They were wise and insightful. I should have stated at the get-go that this post was about our particular planning process, and reflected our particular situation. It was in no way a judgment of those of you who are not particularly close to your families or consider yourselves to belong more to a family of choice than a biological family. I understand all this, for sure.

The classic wedding party works for a lot of people, and is fantastic. For those of us who it doesn't quite work for, I'm trying to open up options of different ways to approach the issue. I thought I'd share some of the ideas from the comments that I found particularly thought provoking. A Bride In Exile said this:

My fiance and I wanted to keep things small, and I've definitely gotten the feeling that one of my non-bridesmaid friends was hurt that I didn't ask her to be in the wedding party. I feel terrible about it. I think if you're closer to your family than to any of your friends, the family as wedding party concept is a great one. But it's definitely not for everyone. I love my family but they are also a pretty stressful bunch, and I know having my friends around will make the day much more fun. But if I had to do it again I might just ask all of my friends if they'd like to hang out with me in the bride's dressing room, rather than trying to pick among them and decide who gets to wear the special outfits.

Of course! On our wedding day our focus should be to surround ourselves with people that love and support us. I think it's most helpful to first think of who those people are for you - are they family? Are they friends? Maybe your an introvert and you'd really rather just have some time alone. Once you've figured that out, then you should tackle figuring out what will work best for you. Maybe it's really important to you to have people were matching dresses and stand up with you - its traditional and its pretty. Or, maybe you'd rather have people support you by doing readings, or giving toasts. Or, perhaps you just want to have all of your guests participate in the ceremony by adding responsive elements. Whatever works for you, this thought process might be more helpful (at least for those of us struggling with the traditional notion of bridal parties) then just picking some people and picking some outfits.

Angie said:
I have a number of other women I'm very close to and while I want to find some special time with them, I don't want to burden them with matching dresses and mandatory hair appointments. So I'm thinking that I'd like to carve out an hour or so to spend with those women that I'm close to, to honor them with time instead of titles and obligations. I'm encouraged to find this community with other like-minded women.

While I'm not at all saying that being in a traditional wedding party is a burden (I've done it and loved it). I do really love this idea of finding ways to spend time with and honor the important people in your life on your wedding day, even if you decide to skip the bouquets. I like the idea of carving out time before the ceremony just to get grounded, and to surround yourself with people who love and support you during that time.

The Lovely Ms. Peonie talked about wanting the ceremony to be personal, in a way that I really understood:
We were adamant that the ceremony was between us and the officiant, no one else. My Mum gave a reading and walked down the aisle with the bridesmaids and my cousin and The Boy's cousin also gave readings. I wanted my close friends involved and around me on the day, but not too heavily.

We also are striking a balance with this. Our families will stand up, but we'll be alone under the chuppah with our Rabbi. Finding a way to balance the personal aspect of a marriage with the communal support aspect of the marriage was for us key.

Finally, Rebecca had some great insights on how they worked to include everyone that was important in their lives in different ways:
There was no way I could include in the wedding everyone that I am close with in my big fat Greek family! So, instead of choosing readings and people to read them, we let them self-select and opened up the mike to our gathered guests -- to contribute words of wisdom or thoughts during the ceremony. We warned our close family and friends that we were going to do that, so they arrived prepared. I don't think any of my family members felt that they weren't an integral part of the day. We saw the bridal party as a way to include those who are special to us even though they're not family. Because we didn't think twice about having equal numbers, everyone who stood up with us will be in our lives for a long time and, if not, they helped shape who we are and should be there anyway. We didn't emphasize the point, though, by having them introduced at the reception or a special dance with them, etc. Also, for the only really close family member that didn't have a formal role (my sister in law), we made sure to give her a corsage.

I hope all this has helped those of you who, like me, are struggling to find ways to include the people that are close to you in a way that makes some emotional sense to you, if the standard wedding traditions don't quite gel.

Wedding Graduate: Prom To Altar

Nicole and I bonded way back when I was first starting my blog - we had similar vintage engagement rings (yay!), and shared a similar sense of irony and mild distaste when viewing the state of the WIC. You might remember Nicole from that post sassing The Knot and their hot new color combos, and you may have seen her personal wedding blog, Prom To Altar. I asked Nicole to write a wedding graduate post, because I figured she had words of wisdom to share... and oh, does she. Take it away, lady....
This is the story of a wedding cake, and about how weddings aren’t about stuff—they really aren’t.

Patrick and I did two things when we began planning our wedding: we set a budget, and we prioritized the things that budget would be spent on. Top priorities included having our large families and closest friends present, good photography, a good DJ, and a pretty location (not mind-blowing or amazing, but pretty). All the rest we decided we didn’t care so much about, and/or knew we could do with very little money.

When we got to the question of the cake- very low on our list of priorities- we discussed a few ideas—cupcakes (more expensive than cakes! Who knew?), having a friend make it (not many people jumped at that high-pressure, no do-overs job), buying a bunch of small cakes (turns out that adds up), or nixing the cake altogether (that didn’t go over very well). We decided to hire a baker, but only if we could find one within the budget.

We came across a woman who baked wedding cakes out of her house for a very reasonable price and went to meet her on a dreary March day. The meeting was great—she had many photos of cakes she’d done, she provided references, and she seemed to understand the (very simple) design we described. She explained the mechanics to us, we discussed logistics, and we put down a deposit.

Fast forward to our wedding day. When we arrived at the reception venue, Patrick and I went to look at the room while our guests were enjoying cocktail hour outside. The room looked beautiful (and gasp! we didn’t even hire a lighting designer!). I had totally forgotten about our cake until that moment, and got excited when I spotted it from way across the room. “Oooo our cake!” I started over towards it. “Um, honey, there’s bit of a problem with the cake,” Patrick very gently said. I noticed at that point that all activity in the room had halted-- the waitstaff, the DJ, our photographers, they were all watching as I approached the cake. When I arrived beside the tower of confection I immediately saw the “bit of a problem”. The bottom tier was cracked, and the whole thing was off kilter. It looked like an earthquake had hit, and there were no survivors. It was not pretty. Not at all.
See? Heinous. And it only got worse.

“Ohhh…. well, alright, whatever!” I laughed. I had just married the love of my life-- I was so happy, in such a good mood, that nothing was going to get to me. The cake could have been in a heap on the floor and I wouldn’t have cared (well, I may have sent someone out to buy a dozen pies in that case). Besides, the cake remained way way down on our list of priorities—that hadn’t changed.

We shifted the timeline around and cut our cake first so it could be removed from view (and away from the danger of completely collapsing on a small child) as soon as possible. Our DJ made a cute joke about being able to have dessert first on your wedding day, our photographers were able to capture the cutting in a way that hid the cake’s defects, and the day went on. The cake was a catastrophe (although it did taste good). And it didn’t matter one bit.

Our wedding day was beautiful.
Our wedding day was incredibly fun.
And the cake was a total disaster.
It just didn’t matter.
That’s the secret that the books and magazines won’t tell you.

So this is my lesson to you. No matter how many books are written about perfect wedding cakes/flowers/dresses, regardless of Martha Stewart articles that argue otherwise, and no matter how many blog posts focus on the minutia, the ‘stuff’ doesn’t matter. The flowers, the cake, the dress, the jewelry, even the venue- all that stuff that gets so much attention while you’re planning actually gets the least amount attention on your wedding day. Your joy, your guests’ happiness, the way you two look at each other—those all have starring roles.

Here are some of my favorite photos of the stuff that does matter: the love, the laughter, the people we brought together, the joy, and the moments that never could have been planned—no matter how careful a planner you are.
We had a blast dancing to our entrance song, The Jackson 5’s ABC. Everything was just so FUN!
It was the greatest thing to see our guests having such a good time. The dance floor was full all night, and guests of all ages, family and friends were having a blast together.
A trolley turned out to be budget friendly (vs. renting a limo large enough for our bridal party). It was also great fun. We spent the 20-minute ride to the reception singing, toasting, and (Patrick and I, anyway) kissing every time someone honked or cheered at us. We were so glad to have our best friends there.
More important than the cake was the cake topper, which had been used on Patrick’s grandparents’ wedding cake.

Can I hear an Awwwww...? Thank you Nicole! I'm not sure I can hear the 'not about stuff' message too many times, because darn it, the stuff is so shiny....

All photos by Upstate Photographers

Emma & Mike's At Home Wedding

Awhile back, I blogged about an adorable bride brushing her teeth post wedding and looking blissed out, and then I blogged about these great conceptual invites for a at-home wedding. And then I found out they were both from the same wedding. Ah!

I promised you I'd do my very best to get more pictures of this wedding. So I'm very excited to get to share Emma and Mike's at-home wedding. I love this wedding. Something about a wedding taking place at home is so personal and also somehow so old fashioned, in the very best sense of the word. This wedding is told so much better through pictures that I'm going to let them tell the story:







See? Now don't you want to cancel all your plans and get married at home? In these tough economic times it's amazing to see a small delightful wedding that makes you want to drop everything and do something just like it. Thank you to Emma and Mike for letting me share their day with you. This is quite officially one of my new all time favorite weddings.

All photos by Cappy Hotchkiss

Me! Interviewed!

I've been practicing for my first interview since I could hold a brush as a mike and peer into the bathroom mirror, and today is the big day. Virtually. I happen to be a Wishspot Wedding Expert,* and Christine over at Wishspot did a interview with me, about well, me. If you want to learn more about my non-wedding self, go check it out (and tell me what you think).

As for me, it's been a LONG week at work, and I'm out for the rest of the day. Next week we'll finish up the wedding graduate posts - at least for now - and I have some cool weddings to share. Enjoy your weekend rambles.

*I think we can agree, given how untalented I appear to be at registering that it's amusing that I'm considered to be a expert. But, Wishspot has actually made our real life registry less of a chore. And you can put goats on it.

Family As Wedding Party

The thing that has given us the most problems in wedding planning has been getting our heads around the concept of a wedding party. First off, the exclusivity of wedding parties makes me a little bit uncomfortable. I've never liked how wedding parties can lead to something of a feeling of a 'in crowd' at weddings. Some people are good enough friends to get invited, and some people are good enough friends to wear special outfits and attend the rehearsal dinner and get flowers? It just feels weird to me.

But I think more then anything what I find strange is the idea that we should physically surround ourselves with friends at our wedding, but not family. When I was a tiny girl, I used to point to the woman standing next to my mom in her wedding pictures and say "Who is that lady?" Turns out it was her best friend at the time, and maid of honor, someone she grew apart from right after she got married. Needless to say, I'm delighted with the Jewish wedding tradition of having your parents stand up with you at the huppah. This makes sense to me. You can't, after all, grow apart from your parents, no matter how hard you try. So I was surprised and delighted when I saw this picture in Martha Stewart weddings this month: it's a bride surrounded by her family, and her mother and sister in law are sporting... bouquets! A light bulb went on in my head when I saw it. "Of course!" I thought, "Why not give the ladies that are going to be in your life no matter what bouquets? Why not make them feel extra special?"

I don't know if we'll give our close female family members little nosegays, since it's a new idea to me, but we might. What I do know is that we're going to focus on giving family members specific roles in the weddings. We'll ask aunts and uncles and cousins to do readings, or bring up the kiddish cup, or make toasts. We feel like the people who watched us when we learned to crawl should be given at least as much honor on our wedding days as the people we learned to love in High School or college. We have friends who are like family who we will also include on our wedding day, and we're figuring that out. But the one thing we have figured out is that for us, it's going to be family surrounding us first.

Are any of you including your family in special ways on your wedding day? Grappling with feeling like wedding parties feel like a in club? Negotiating non-traditional but meaningful wedding parties? Fill me in! (I need to know!)

Photo via Martha Stewart Weddings (and check out the flower girls face!)

Wedding Graduate: c(oi)n:purse

Our next wedding graduate post is from Dubbs who writes about weddings (her sassy wedding in particular) and life over at c(oi)n:purse. We've been reading each others blogs for a while now, but I have to tell you that every email conversation I have with Dubbs reveals something new and kick-ass about her (like she wants to do flowers for peoples weddings who can't afford it, but deserve it, for free!). So I'm very excited to give you Ms. c(oin):purse's wedding graduate post which is wise and honest, and well, beautiful. Take it away, lady....

Before the wedding, if anyone asked me for general advice on wedding planning, I think all I could have offered would be “Just don’t do what I do!”

The truth is that I was a mess during most of the process. All the research required, all the cool wedding ideas around the blogsphere, all the ‘requests and preferences’ from families, made me a rather overwhelmed bride. In our long (21 month) engagement journey, I learned a lot about myself that I wasn’t able to digest until after the wedding. But this stressful time endured by the hubs and I also made me realize more than ever that I’m the luckiest girl in the world.
Our wedding, by some miracle, turned out to be a great success. The weather was gorgeous, the night was charged with celebration, and love (from everyone) was so thick in the air you can almost touch it. This is despite one vendor not showing up, another vendor not fulfilling their contract, the centerpieces thrown together in a hurry, the time schedule being off… etc. If an obsessive compulsive nut job like me can relish in the perfect imperfection, I promise you can too.
Even though our budget was small, there were a lot of details that went into our wedding. None of it fancy, most of them homemade, but all of them personal, meaningful, and / or surely worthwhile having to us. Even though much of it were not executed as planned, or did not have the effects we hoped for, our good intentions still added up to a warmth that was widely felt. Instead of funds, we poured a ton of heart into the wedding, and it showed. We made most of our wedding decisions while putting ourselves in our guests’ shoes. After all, this day was always meant to be as much, if not more, for them as it was for us.
If someone told me two months ago that our wedding would be as fantastic as it turned out, I would have never believed it. Now as an official wedding graduate, my humble advice to those seeking the same degree is to ‘dance to the beat of their own drums’.

Just because all the weddings you’ve been to include a bouquet toss, doesn’t mean you can’t skip it. And by the same token, even if all the practical brides you know pass on the designer dresses, it doesn’t mean you must too! The key is to find balance. If you can afford (in terms of time, effort, money, stress level) to splurge on your priorities and you can offset it in other places, make yourself happy and go for it. More importantly, don’t let any guilt gets to you! Be brave and define your own sanity. I wore a dress I didn’t much love purchased from BABC and altered it myself, but we spent money on a chocolate fountain! While not a budget choice, how can you argue with this face that it wasn’t the right one?
So your mother in law may raise a brow (or two!) at some of your unconventional wedding decisions. Remember that they can’t see the big picture like you can. The couple’s personality infused into a wedding can make it feel much more personal, and often the smallest things contribute to that sentiment. Star Wars theme playing pre-ceremony? Check. Optimus Prime instead of ring pillow? Check. A wedding undeniably our own? Check!
Married peeps (you know, like me) love to give advice, but what’s important to them does not necessarily mean it will be important to you. Some tell you the ceremony is the ultimate experience; others say the first dance is when the world seems to disappear… I didn’t have any such moments during the wedding (I have it everyday when he comes home after work instead), and I don’t feel like I missed out. I wanted all fun, no mush – and that’s exactly what I got but it was definitely no less memorable. Focus on what’s right for you!
This next bit of advice is from the hubs, because he chips in every step of the way. He says you should be true to yourselves about what you want from your wedding. While we had a very guest-centric wedding, and most people claim to want the same, it isn’t necessarily right for everybody. Giving your guests the best time can conflict with many spotlight or romantic moments that define a wedding for some. Be upfront with yourself about your priorities, whether it is for you to have the most unforgettable time slow dancing to a long song with your new spouse, or for your guests to have a blast and join in the fun. One is no better than the other and your guests will love you regardless, but honesty with yourself will take you a long way.
At the end of your wedding day, along with all your other days, only one thing matters about your marriage. It is the fact that you’re giddy at the thought of being with that person, and you can make that person grin like a fool with your mere presence. This is what makes me a successful bride and wife, and I wish you all my kind of success.
*Images by Travis Hoehne

Registry Idea: The Goat Project

When I sent a email out to request wedding graduate guest posts, Aimee and Minh wrote me a post about one of the coolest wedding ideas I have ever heard in my life. Period. As I mentioned yesterday, I've always felt a little strange about having a charity registry, since it feels a little like asking for cash, when I know people want to give us something tangible to help build our home. Enter Aimee and Minh with the tangible charity gift that you can mix in amongst the china. We are planning to participate in this project too. It won't help build our physical home, but it will help to build someone else's home, as well as the strong bedrock of values that we bring into our marriage. And, we'll still get those shiny pots and pans. Take it away, you two....
Registries. Awkward, aren't they? At no other time in your adult life do you openly ask for gifts, let alone post a comprehensive list on the internet asking for lots of gifts. But as anyone who has been involved in a wedding (as a guest or host) knows, registries are very practical. Luckily for us, one of our registry choices added an unexpected richness and depth to the wedding experience, so when Meg asked us to write a little something for A Practical Wedding, we knew it would have to be about The Goat Project.

Don't get us wrong, we love shiny things as much as the next couple. (Especially bad ass samurai sword kitchen knives.) But we wanted to balance out the more traditional registry items with stuff that was more unique to us. We wanted our registry to be an opportunity. So we registered for goats.

We have actually been to a number of weddings that had charities listed on their registries and we thought it was a beautiful gesture. The key was to find a cause that spoke to us and reflected our sense of a larger global community. We considered several options, but ultimately decided on a unique goat program that Aimee saw personally while in Uganda. The program is run by TPO Uganda (a local Ugandan NGO that provides psychosocial support and mental health care to communities, families and individuals in conflict and post conflict settings), and administered in the U.S. by the Polus Center for Social and Economic Development.

You can read more about the program here and here. But here is the simple version: Children with special needs in refugee camps and rural villages throughout east Africa often are hidden from society, ignored or abused and considered cursed. An announcement is made in the villages that a goat will be given by TPO to any special needs child, which provides visibility to the families so that proper care and support may be given. Families are taught the actual potential and limitations of their children, and often realize they are not alone, as other families with special needs children also become visible. Community is engaged in dialogue and learning, and attitudes slowly transform. The goats provide nutritious and necessary milk and, after bred, food for families in dire straits. Finally, the child, who now owns a goat, has status within the family and community, and a small charge to care for and love. The ripple effects have been astonishing. All for a $45 goat!

Aimee saw the program first-hand while working in Uganda and was impressed by its simple nature, immediate, direct impact, and its efficacy. Although the Goat Project didn't have a formal "registry" program, several characteristics of the program made it ideal for our alternative wedding registry.

1. Each goat costs $45, a reasonable, affordable amount, on-par (or less) than many traditional wedding gifts.

2. We're connected to the project. Friends and family know about the program, our involvement, and that it is personally important to us.

3. A goat is a concrete, tangible gift. It is straightforward. When people give $45, they get a goat! They also get to see that goat and the receiving child/family (via a certificate and photo sent by TPO), as soon as the goat is purchased. This was, by far, the most important factor in our decision and we can't stress it enough. Tangible items are great gifts. And our friends loved it. LOVED it.

Honestly, we never, ever could have anticipated people's responses and enthusiasm. We created our own wedding website and then posted the link to The Goat Project under "registries" with a very short explanation. We left it at that, never knowing if anyone would actually see it, "get it" or get goats. We received goats all right, plus a ton of animated phone calls and giddy emails from our loved ones, telling us how excited they were about their gift to us. Even at our reception, right on the dance floor, we had friends and family eagerly sharing their goat gifts with glee! How happy is that?!

We also could have never anticipated the extent of our own excitement. The first time we received a certificate saying that our friends had donated goats in honor of our upcoming marriage, Aimee cried. We knew at that moment that our wedding was extending far beyond ourselves. For each subsequent goat we have received, there has been dancing around the apartment, shouts of delight, and general merriment.

Initially, some folks were skeptical, but in the end, the goats did not take away at all from the more traditional gifts that we did receive. On the contrary, having the dual registries allowed us to enjoy the beautiful household gifts that we received even more, because we know that there is also a herd of goats in a small corner of Africa working hard to change fortunes, attitudes and lives.

If you are inclined to go this route, there are myriad of options. We found that the Goat Project had particular attributes that make it ideal for a wedding, but we're a bit biased. (Disclaimer: Minh was born in the Year of the Goat, so he is particularly biased.) Point being, there are so many amazing projects out there, and the key is to find the one that fits you as a couple. For us, goats were a great way to go and we'd do it again in a heartbeat. But whatever makes your heart beat, we wish for you to find it also in your engagement, in your wedding, in each other.

If you are interested in registering for goats or learning more about The Goat Project, you can e-mail giveagoat@tpoug.org.

(A huge thank you to our exceptionally generous family and friends, and especially to the fabulous Meg for letting us talk about farm animals on a wedding blog. You are awesome.)

The pictures are of Aimee and Minh's amazing wedding, where the centerpieces were made from handmade baskets from Uganda that the couple already owned.

Photos by AHS Photography

Registry Ennui

I have a confession to make. Early this year, when we were not engaged, but boy was I ready to be, I used to wander through the high end cooking store near my office and play the registering game. "Hum," I'd think to myself, "this sure is a nice fancy cheese board. I bet married people have cheese boards like this." Of course, what would follow was me looking at the price of said cheese board and thinking "AH! It's not that nice a cheese board!"

Fast forward to now. We've been engaged long enough that registering is something looming on the horizon. Oddly, I'm much less excited about it than you might expect. I really love shopping for presents for other peoples weddings off registries, mind you. Who doesn't? You get to play house, and get a inside look at peoples tastes. "Cool wine glasses," you think. Or "Ohdeargod, who asks for reindeer Christmas china?" And then you get the delight and satisfaction of foisting shiny wrapped things on newlyweds. But I can't seem to muster any of that excitement for our registry. Here are the issues:

• I'm almost thirty. I've lived in apartments of one form or another for the last 10 years, so chances are if I can't live without it, I've probably already bought it. We truly needed a registry a year and a half ago when we moved to San Francisco, and seemed to need a million things for our new apartment. But now? We've got those things.
• I don't cook. Period. David does cook, and he's very serious about it, so he has some things he's really excited to register for, like pans that will last a lifetime and serious knives. I'm excited that he's excited, but that's the extent of my emotions.
• We have a small apartment, and it's tidy. The rules are, if we don't have a place to keep it, it doesn't come in the door, and most spots are already taken. We have no plans to move to a bigger space soon. Our apartment is 1930's immaculate rent controlled perfection, so our thoughts are more of the "do we have a walk in closet big enough to convert to a nursery?" variety.
• I'm not a shopper, so the idea of taking hours and hours to set up a online registry filled with flawless etsy finds makes me feel bored.
  

So, we're pondering this registry stuff. David has his cookware, so he's set. I really want silver, as I'm thoroughly old fashioned, but it's expensive these days, and most people won't be able to afford it. My grandmother gave us a set of family china when we got engaged, so I'm happy as a clam in that department. Oddly, I do want a fancy toaster, since at some point I decided that a fancy toaster meant that you'd really made it into adulthood, so I'm sure we'll register for one of those.

The real issue is, I feel like the only bride in the world not excited by a registry. It's not that I somehow object to the materialism of it, I don't. I love getting for others gifts, and I always appreciate useful things for us. It just that the whole thing feels odd to me (not to mention 5 or 10 years too late to be useful). Isn't getting married enough? Do I really need gifts too?*

Anyone else share my registry ambivalence?

*And please no suggestions that we register for cash, or cash for a honeymoon, or anything cash related. I find it strange enough that the happy event of our marriage allows us to ask for gifts. I'm most definitely not going to be asking for anything more extreme then a toaster or a challah cover.

Picture via Yum Sugar

Miss Manners on Wedding Favors

Perhaps one of my favorite posts I've written is one I wrote ages ago, on favors. In that spirit, I thought I'd share this thought from the imitable Miss Manners:

Who told you that you had to give out wedding favors? Etiquette has never thought of weddings as comparable to children's birthday parties, where the guests might need consolation for not being the center of attention. You owe them only the hospitality of the occasion.

There. Now don't you feel better?

Affordable Wedding Dress Alternatives

Someone (who wears a size 8 or 14) needs to go buy this dress immediately as a simple beautiful wedding dress. And then send me pictures. It's on sale for $359, which puts it firmly in the 'expensive for a normal dress, fantastic price for a wedding dress' camp.
I know, I know. Normally you expect far more wordy goodness from me. But, frankly, it's been a crazy week, and I wanted to leave you with a tiny bit of goodness before the weekend. I have so many great exciting guest posts for you next week, and a few of my regular sassy posts. Until then, I wish you wild weekend rambles.

Wedding Graduate: Peonies and Polaroids

Our next wedding graduate post comes from a woman that needs no introduction, the unbelievably talented blogger behind Peonies and Polaroids. I'm so honored to have Ms. Peonies come share some of her considerable wedding wisdom. I think you'll find she shakes none of the glitter off her day, but tells us just enough that you will nod and smile and tear up and feel so much better.
What did I learn from getting married? Many things - if you're Doing It Yourself ask for help, loads of it. You don't need as many boxes of biscuits as you have guests. Spending your monthly food budget on fancy cheese is unnecessary and if you take medication that alters your mood taking it upon yourself to lower the dose a fortnight before your wedding is a bad idea. But which of these things to expand on, which that might offer some insight to other brides to be? I'll go for the one that I wish I'd realised earlier....

It's not about the details.

Hardly a novel idea, I know. Wise women like Meg and East Side have been telling us this since the very beginning but lovestruck fools like me (I'm assuming that I'm not the only one) have been ignoring them. Let me share what I have learnt, although I feel like an idiot for not listening in the first place...

I love the details, the details were my sustenance during the bitter moments of wedding planning, the he wants to elope so he doesn't have to wear a suit moments, the my mother has told me 16 times in the last 12 months that she hates weddings moments. Making handmade prettinesses made me smile (and occasionally want to throw things out the window, but that's par for the course right?) and I firmly believed that they would make our wedding...*better* somehow.

Well, they didn't. It wasn't the details that we managed to pull off that made me realise this, it was the huge number of projects that didn't quite make it to the wedding day either because we just didn't have time to finish them or because on the morning of the wedding we were too busy making sure our guests would have tables to eat at to worry about fripperies like decor. The aisle decorations never made it, but even better than admiring our beautiful silk ribbons our guests admired the love and joy that shone out of our ceremony... Escort cards? Well I spent days making them but again and I know not how or why, we ended up with a list of names written on a piece of card and no lives were lost as people found their seats without the help of handwritten notes hung on a washing line with bird shaped pegs. Finally, the one thing that really brought it home to me that the details matter less than the thought behind them - the photo line.

We fantasised about a string of photos hung outside and fluttering in the breeze. Photos of us at every stage in our lives, with our family members and friends hung where all could admire them. We spent hours choosing just the right photos and a fortune having them printed. We bought ribbon that coordinated with the rest, two bamboo sticks to string them between and a hundred wooden clothes pegs to hang them up with. On the morning of the wedding we got as far as putting the sticks in the ground before we were confronted with a worrying lack of dinner tables and ceremony chairs and the photos were abandoned in a sorry pile at the bottom of a cardboard box and swiftly forgotten about. Until much later in the day that is, when they were found by a bridesmaid slightly squashed and in a terribly unattractive yellow cardboard packet. She took them out, divvied them up into three piles and handed them round. People held a half eaten cupcake in one hand and a handful of photos in the other as they congregated in groups to laugh, reminisce, cringe and get tearful. The photos were a huge hit, with everyone. People who had never met before shared giggles at my mum dressed (very convincingly) as a Mexican man; friends saw pictures of parties they had hosted and remembered what it was like back in the old days and girlfriends saw their boyfriends as little, fat naked babies and cooed delightedly. Nobody would have enjoyed them more if they had been hanging beautifully in a line, nobody cared that the yellow packet didn't match the invitations or that the photos weren't in chronological order. What they did care about was that they were given a chance to come together, to tell new friends old tales, to remember other occasions we had all been together. The details can be pretty, they can give your guests something to admire, remember and talk about. Spend time on them if you want to, spend time on them if you enjoy it. But know this one thing, your guests care about the thought not the execution. The things your guests really want to admire, talk about and remember? The love they share for you and each other. Think about the memories you will make, not the photos that your details will make. I won't deny that the compliments I got on the little things made me smile - 'Oh, you like the matchboxes? Why thank you, they took me hours to make', but the self-satisfied glow that I get from remembering those moments is as insignificant as a sparkler to the sun when I think about the sight of our friends and families coming together and talking and laughing, really laughing, about the history and the future we were building and celebrating. That is what matters, those are the memories that will fill you with love once it is over. Not the escort cards, not the aisle decorations and not the cursed invitations.

Wedding Graduate: A Desert Bride

I'm super duper excited to have The Desert Bride of the fantastic blog a desert fete sharing her wise words on wedding planning today. I fell for Jamie's wedding *hard* when I first saw her inspiration board, which was nothing like any inspiration board I've ever seen. Her architect's eye brought something profoundly artistic to her wedding planning process, and her wedding is one of the most stunning and personal I've ever seen. On with Jamie's wise wedding thoughts:
We approached our wedding as planning a very special, very personal party celebrating our choice to join each others family [with a whole bunch of friends and family]. We tried to keep it as simple [and special] as that. There was never any pressure to include the wedding must haves [groom's cake? special cake cutting knife? ring pillows? garter toss?]. We basically started from scratch and only included the elements that had special meaning to us, that sounded like something we would like to have or like to do, and said no thank you to the rest.
Choosing the location was integral for us as far as wedding planning went. It was important to us that the venue be very private- a place that we could "take over" for the weekend with our friends and family without a bunch of fussy staff members or rules [or other hotel guests!] to contend with. We also were careful to choose a venue that was, in our eyes, quite beautiful on it's own, going with the tried and true advise of- prettier the place, the less decoration necessary. We let the location [a little hacienda style inn in Joshua Tree aka the middle of the desert] set the tone, mood and style for everything that followed.
We asked a lot of questions every step of the way to help keep things real, affordable, and not wasteful:

• Can we do this ourselves ahead of time? Is it something we can delegate to our friends to do the day of the wedding? Is this something someone can do for us?
• Do we need this? Can we make it? Can someone who loves us enough to do so make it? Can we buy it used or rent it? Can we borrow it? What will happen to this after the wedding? How will this affect us if we do not have it? How will it affect our guests?
  

This little exercise really helped.

While we had a pretty tight budget we didn't obsess over it toward the end. Having already put money aside for the big necessities, I [to be quite honest] stopped keeping track of the small stuff. If I wanted to spend my pocket money on wedding stuff from week to week then I wasn't going to stress out over it, as long as we weren't relying on credit cards.
Something that really surprised me about our wedding, is that the ceremony went by waaaaay too fast. This is because it was short-short-short. Intentionally. Ben and I are not terribly sentimental people. We find that our love and commitment is expressed on a daily basis, and while it was important to us to make this commitment in the eyes of our community of friends and family, we did not want it to be a big production. Short and sweet and on to the party pu-lease. BUT, I found that because it went by so fast, it was hard to take it in. I did not have time to look out at the faces of my guests, of our families and take in these little joys. [I was too busy crying like a baby and trying to get through my vows!] I suppose some sort of audience [is that the right word?] interaction part of the ceremony might have helped that.

This small observation can be applied to a more general element I had not quite planned as well as I could have. I hadn’t really considering the evening through my own personal own experience. Kind of weird, but I never really thought the day through by examining what I hoped my own experience to be like. For example, while I knew I had at least 3 hours to "get ready" I never took the time to think about what I expected out of that time from a more experiential viewpoint. While we planned the entire reception based on how all of the guests [ourselves included] would experience it, I never thought about how I would personally like to experience the evening. I suppose I expected this to come naturally but, while I wasn't stressed, it was still such a big day that I that I neglected to let loose as I would like to have. I think if I would have thought about this before hand, I would have done so.

I think the most important thing you can do is locate your inner dao-ist or buddhist or whichever eastern thought talks about expectations [not too lump them, I just don't remember over the years where I have read these things...] and find a way to take the really obvious advice and know that not everything will be perfect [and it shouldn't be, isn't the beauty in life in the imperfections?], and to be ok with that, to embrace it! And always remember what it is about, your getting freakin married! Awesome!

Photos by Michelle Pullman

Wedding Graduate: East Side Bride

I'm not sure I have enough kind words to say about the fabulous East Side Bride. She's infinitely hipper than I will ever be, and you could read her blog just for it's style tips. But what keeps me coming back is how funny, wry, and honest she is (her f* this series will make your day). She makes me feel more relaxed about wedding planning. So without further ado, the girl herself:

I got married on August 9, but I still haven't managed to post many details (or photos) on my own blog. Part of me doesn't want to share my wedding with the world. I think I'm afraid if I shake it too hard the glitter will fall off.

How then to write a "wedding graduate" post for A Practical Wedding? What can I share that might help the rest of you? My thoughts came out in the form of a list. (It's possible this is a side effect of compulsive wedding planning.)

1. Don't go overboard with the wedding blogs. I know…. right? They will give you a complex.

2. Delegate. Early. Our wedding was essentially made by our friends and family: the baker/shirtmaker, the stylist/photographer, the chef, the musicians, the sculptor, the potter, the painter, the gardener, the director, the expert shopper, the mad organizer…. Honestly, I'm a better delegator than a DIY'er. I have good ideas, and then I look around to see who can help me make them happen. And a very happy byproduct of wedding planning was that we found ourselves talking to far-away friends more often. By the time the wedding rolled around it felt like a big party we were all throwing together.

3. Know when to let go. Two days before the wedding, your to-do list will seem insurmountable. It is. Take a fat sharpie, cross out three big projects, and get some sleep. Seriously.

4. The vows are more important than any of the crafty sh*t. We wrote our vows together, and we labored to make them simple and personal. In fact, I drove my almost-husband bonkers obsessing over them. But the vows are what people talked about. And because we memorized them and practiced saying them to aloud each other, they are imbedded in my brain. I love that.

Photo by Tiffany Pond

The Wedding Graduates

I’ve mentioned before, when we first started planning our wedding, I had a hard time finding wedding planning resources that were a great fit for our needs. So, I was over the moon when I started blogging and started meeting smart, savvy, thrifty women who were planning weddings who had amazing style and a sense of humor. Some of these ladies were bloggers and some of them were readers that I got to know through long late night emails.

So, it was with some anxiety that at the end of July I realized that 90% of my new-found internet wedding support group was getting married. In August. Of this year. And here I was, not getting married until next August. What was I going to do? Suddenly I was going to be all alone in wedding land again. I’d noticed that in the indie Wedding world, people often find the wedding planning process so draining, that once their wedding is done, they never talk about it again. I was convinced I was going to be savvy-wedding-posse-less.

Then, the weddings of internet friends started happening, and I started hearing quick stories, tips, and yes, seeing pictures. I realized that far from being all alone in the wedding world, I now had friends and allies with real life indie wedding experience. They knew something magical that I didn’t know yet. They had gone through the transformative process and come out the other side.

I wanted to hear more from these newly married women, and I thought you might to. So, a new Practical Wedding series was born: The Wedding Graduates. Over the next two weeks some fabulous woman (and one man, hooray!) are going to guest blog about what they learned from their wedding. I can’t wait to hear what they have to say.

Professional Photography Alternatives

This week a reader emailed me and pointed out that a lot of the weddings I feature have gorgeous professional photography, and that I have a lot of photographers as sponsors. This is true. I admit to being a sucker for beautiful photography, and having a soft spot in my heart for indie photographers as wedding elves*. However, writing with a eye to the practical, I'm well aware that not every couple can afford, or wants to pay for, pro-photography. Lots of the weddings that I've featured have gotten photography for free, from a pro or semi-pro friend or family member, and I think that's great. In fact, inevitably, some of the coolest weddings I receive are ones where a pro-photographer shot their best friends wedding for free - like Ember and Ben, or Kate and Colemine. That said, not everyone had a talented photographer friend. So! I can only blog about weddings people send me, so I would love for readers to email me weddings where the pictures were taken by family and friends, and stories of not using a professional photographer, and other tales of photo mischief.

When I asked for stories about affordable wedding dresses, you all blew me out of the water, and we ended up with the tale of the great wedding dress hack. So, team practical, what have you got in the way of photography hacks? Email me your stories, and leave your tips in the comments.

*Full disclosure: before I found a pack of indie photographers, I was in photographer hell. I've gone to weddings that were ruined with a photographer screaming orders "Cut the cake now! Kiss the bride!" I've interviewed photographers that came complete with scary generic shot lists. This is why I have been so excited to find photographers of the wedding elf breed.

Beth & Chris' Simple Orcas Island Wedding

This wedding, shot by Seattle photographer Jenny Jimenez has such an amazing simplicity to it. I'm so inspired by this wedding, because it seems that the couple stripped all the excess away, leaving a pure and simple ceremony, expressing love and joy and family. And on top of that, it features stellar scenery (who would ever need wedding decorations again, if we all got married in amazing natural places like this), found art sculpture, and a dress so amazing I would steal it out of the pictures and wear it myself if I could.
Beth and Chris planned their wedding while living halfway around the world in Mumbai, India. Beth had her dress made for her in India, and I think it might be the most beautiful wedding dress I've ever seen. Simple, somewhat traditional, but made of a easy relaxed fabric.
The wedding took place on family property on Orcas Island, where Chris's grandfather had collected items and made them into found art.

Is there anything more we could as for on our wedding day then to climb through nature, barefoot, with our beloved? Since we are also getting married in nature, I intend to be doing some of this myself.
The bride was walked down the aisle by both of her parents, a Jewish tradition that I love. And look how much they are all enjoying each others company!
I've showed you their chuppah before. So simple and so beautiful.
The ceremony site featured some of Chris' grandfathers found art, three concrete circles overlooking the water.
I love pictures of couples laughing and enjoying each other during the ceremony.
The wedding pictures that I love the most are always these pictures of the couple, after the ceremony, giddy with the joy of it all.
And ok... this picture, with the vintage umbrellas... Oh. My. God. Best wedding party ever.
The evening ended with some dancing in the barn.
And a huge hora outside. Hurrah!

A big congratulations to Beth and Chris! And a huge thank you to Jenny Jimenez for sharing this wedding with me. You should go check out much more of this wedding on her blog.