The Bridal Brigade

One of the things I love best about the Internet is it gives us all such a diverse and exciting set of wedding role models. I'll admit, I love me some Martha Stewart, but many of my wedding dilemmas are never going to be addressed in the pages of a wedding magazine, and I'm rarely going to flip through a wedding glossy and see people that look like our amazing friends. Which brings me to Christina & Patty's amazing wedding on Snippet & Ink a few weeks back. (Which reminded me of every single thing I love about LA.)

The whole wedding was stunning, and my kind of party, but the thing that blew me away was Christina's bridal brigade. Instead of having a traditional bridal party, all of the woman in her life pitched in to helped make the wedding happen, and she honored the group by making them her bridal brigade. As you guys know, I've been struggling with the idea of traditional wedding party. For me it's felt limiting and a bit uncomfortable. We have lots of important people in our lives, but somehow they didn't fit into the bridal party model (not to mention my total lack of interest in picking matching dresses for them).* We do however have tons of people helping with the wedding, not to mention a pile of Jewish honors to be handed out (chuppah holding! readings! blessings! door guarding! chair lifting! More blessing!) So the idea of a bridal brigade made me very happy inside.

I talked to Christina, and this is what she said about it:
The Bridal Brigade was amazing as it really, truly felt like a community effort. And I honestly think my friends had a great time (I hope they did--they seemed like it!!). It was also fun to use people's particular talents, for example, my friend Moore is a fantastic vegan baker, so she made our Vegan Chocolate Rose Cupcakes. My friend Kate (and her mom, honorary Bridal Brigade member!) does amazing work with flowers, so she put together my bouquet & all of the greens & flowers. Two of my friends are in graduate writing programs, so I asked Antonia & Melissa to write something to read at the ceremony. When we did DIY projects at my house, I usually bought lunch or snacks & really we just had a fun time crafting together! And Georgia, the "General," was my right hand organizer, taking over all the details, especially day of, so I didn't have to think about it!

That, my friends, is what I'm looking for in a wedding. A day put on by my community, not by a planner. A day about not just about who we are as a couple, but who we are as a party of a greater family - a family of friends and loved ones. This weekend, I had lunch with the marvelous Emily of Emily Style, and she gave me many many wise words of advice on weddings, one of which was "Ask people to help. Ask everyone to help. Everyone loves helping at a wedding."

And so I shall!

*Confession, if I'd gotten married a few years back, I think I would have picked out dresses for bridesmaids. But something about nearing 30 seems to make me less romantic, or fussy, or just, energetic like that...

Why I DIY

This was Project Wedding Weekend. We shopped for wedding dress fabric, we put together our Save The Dates, we finished our wedding website. At one point, late on Saturday night, I looked around the living room and there were scraps of silk, stamps, card stock, and inspiration pictures all around us. It was such a happy feeling. It was my first moment of wedding planning where I thought - ah, this is what I've always dreamed of.

Some moments from the weekend:

• I had lots of time as I sat hand addressing Save The Dates to think about our discussion about WIC vs DIY. Why do I DIY (or 'make stuff" as I call it in my head)? I realized sitting there that I make stuff because I want it to be mine, to be ours. I want something that's not a product someone marketing to us, but something we thought through and put together with our own hands. It was particularly nice to feel like we were sending something we'd thoughtfully created out to guests. It felt like sending them a little bit of us.
  
• Each time I walked into a fabric store someone would ask me "What project are you working on?" and I would flinch. I'm used to trying not to tell people that we're getting married in stores, because I hate that moment when it seems like dollar signs flash across their eyes. So, I sighed and said guardedly "we're shopping for fabric for my wedding dress." Each time there was a pause, and then shear un-guarded delight beamed from their face. "That's so wonderful!" they'd squeal, "Thats so exciting!" That reaction was reason enough to DIY. And if you ever go to Britex, look for Douglas on the silk and lace floor. He's my guy now. He told me, "When you find a fabric that speaks to you, that's your fabric. Just no point in looking after that." And he was right.
  

If you DIY, why? What to you get from making things? For me, when the world gets crazy, when I feel like being a bride is nothing more then being an advertisers dream, the simple act of putting something together with my hands brings me back to the moment, back to what I care about, back to what it's all about. The saving money is nice too, but I don't think it's the point.

Picture: my living room floor on Sunday morning

Project Wedding Dress - It Begins

I mentioned in a past post that, inspired by the incredible Kimi, I'm going to attempt to make my wedding dress. In fact, it seems that all of the women in my family and David's family will attempt to make my wedding dress together over the holidays (how cool is that?) This sounds more ambitious then it is, since my mom sewed all of our clothes when we were little, and my sister and I have been sewing and designing our own clothes since we could reach the machine - we just haven't done much of it in recent (busy) years. Project Wedding Dress starts this weekend, as I crawl out of my sickbed to go fabric shopping, or more precisely, to go shopping for fabric swatches.

So this is where you come in, you creative and crafty readers. I'm looking for heavy silks and interesting lace. Where in San Francisco should I be going shopping? On my list so far are Britex (those colors, swoony delicious), and Satin Moon Fabrics. Where else should I shop?

Current handmade wedding dress inspirations: this handmade wedding dress via Once Wed , Another drop dead amazing dress from Down to My Soul via Peonies and Polaroids

Team Practical, You Are Excellent

Thank you ALL for your fantastic inspiring comments and links and good stuff today. It made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world. Now it turns out I'm not so much burned out as I am sick. That's probably why everything I type turns out like "grumblefishgog" and I delete it immediately. So, now I'm going to go do what the picture suggests, and cuddle up. Once I feel better I'm trusting that the good ideas in my head will come out better on the page.

But! I leave you with this. One of the most awesome comments of the day came from Amanda, who writes the excellent blog First Milk. I'm not sure why she's not one of the stars of the blog-o-sphere already, but she should be. Girl's got sass, and man can she can write. So while I take a bit of time off and feel better, go read and leave comments.

Photo via Courtney, of her wedding (it's what we have to look forward to afterwards, she says. Excellent!)

Needing Inspiration...

I've been feeling burned out and having a hard time writing lately, and today I got a wonderful email from a reader, it said:

Dear Meg,

I've never written a "Thank you!" email to a blog I love before, but...THANK YOU! I am getting married next September, and I am just so grateful for your inspiring posts in a land of Monique Lhullier-obsession!

You don't have to reply. I just wanted to say, Keep 'em coming. You have no idea how much fist-pumping your posts are being met with.
Laura

It made my day. Fist pumping, that's something I can get on board with.

Sometimes, I think, the best way to combat burn out is by being grateful. So, I wanted to say thank you to each one of you readers. Thanks for your wise comments, your kind emails, for sharing your amazing weddings with me, and for your general support. I read every single thing you send me, even though I've run out of time to respond to each one. Thanks for making me feel ok that the wedding industry en masse sometimes makes me want to stick a fork in my eye. Thanks for helping me trust my gut, even when it seems weird or different. Thanks for sticking with this little blog.

And, if you're feeling particularly generous today, I'd love it if you'd leave me something inspiring - a cool link, or something that's giving you a spring in your step. It doesn't have to be wedding related! Because I could use the inspiration.

Sponsor Introduction: Kali Kraum Photography

I'm so pleased to introduce our newest Practical Sponsor - Kali Kraum Photography. Kali is a local San Francisco photographer who particularly enjoys photographing down to earth creative couples. Her photos are dreamy (I wish the above photo was of me), but it gets even better than that. Kali works hard to run a green business - she buys carbon offsets for each bride and groom, but (here is where it gets crazy cool) she also plants a tree in each couples honor. All together now... awwwww.... San Francisco couples, check out Kali's work here, and her blog here.

Shower Me With Love

When we first got engaged my father gave me Miss Manners: On Weddings (a book I’ve previously recommended as being indispensable). While the book is not, by and large, written for the bride, it does open with a list called “Things A Bride Need Not Trouble Her Pretty Head About.” Trust me, this list gets more hilarious and informative the farther into the planning process I get. The very first item on this list is this:

“Do not worry about who is going to give you a shower. The shower is a lighthearted nonessential element of and engagement (as opposed to, say, the fiancé, who is essential and whose heart should be fixed at this point). In any case, it is voluntary on the part of the bride’s friends. They either throw one or they don’t, but she can’t demand one.”

As soon as I read this, I thought to myself, “Oh, well, that’s some advice I can get on board with.” As far as I was concerned, the last thing I needed was other parties to stress about. So, I promptly forgot all about bridal showers. I’d never been to one anyway (have I mentioned that our rather avant-garde, overly-educated friends are not currently the marring types?) So, I had nothing much to obsess about.

It’s funny how the moment you (finally) totally let go of all our preconceptions in the wedding planning process* things just fall into place. So, as soon as I’d completely forgotten about bridal showers, I of course promptly had two. The first shower was this weekend, and it was thrown for a few of my east coast friends by a dear friend from college in New York City. When she decided to throw the party, she asked me what I wanted my “theme” to be for the gifts. My eyes went wide with panic. I’m not so good with registries, so the idea for picking a theme for gifts felt totally beyond me. My friend helped me sort through the options: Did I want gift cards? (No, I did not. It felt like asking for cash, and many of our friends are poor/in grad school) Did I want things from my registry? (No, I did not. We don’t really have a registry yet.) Did I want gifts themed by hours of the day? (No! Did I mention our friends are avant-garde artists?) So after much thought, we decided that what I did want was books – lots and lots of books. Books were perfect for me because 1) I can’t own enough of them 2) They come at lots of different price points and 3) My friend throwing the shower happens to be a super-talented book editor.

So. There we were. A book shower. I was pleased, but I still didn’t have much in the way of expectations. I bought plane tickets and a new shirt. The day of the shower I tried to get my hair to lie down nice and flat. Then, David and I rushed out of the party-throwers way, and ran off to a huge demonstration for gay marriage rights**.
By the time we got back to the apartment, I was shocked: a giant cheese-ball had been made from scratch, Deviled Eggs had taken over the counter space, a pink cake had been procured from Magnolia bakery, rose petals and tiny silver wedding bells had be-strewn every surface of the house, champagne was being handed out, and there were piles of craftily wrapped presents.

The shower itself was an absolute delight. Friends from every part of my New York life all showed up at one apartment. Almost no one knew each other, but everyone seemed delighted to be there. We all drank, we told stories, we admired the enormous cheese ball. Three or four people said they’d never been to a wedding shower before. We all pondered if we should do something silly or embarrassing. Should I sit on a big chair? Should we make something out of toilet paper? We decided no, maybe we should just have another drink and talk some more. Then we got to the presents. I’m not sure I’ve ever had more fun opening presents. Even though almost no one properly recorded their purchases in the registry, I didn’t get a single double book. Everyone bought something that reminded me particularly of them. Cookbooks, political science books, novels, coffee table books, all there. Then we had cake, and more champagne. And is if all that wasn’t enough, my dear friend passed on special candy bars to everyone with our initials, our engagement date, and our wedding date. And then we all trooped out into the fall night to meet all of David’s friends at a dive bar.

What’s the lesson of all this, other then showers can be loads of fun? Well for me it was, when you relax, and stop caring about what your style is, or what your wedding philosophy is, and just let people do what they want to do, they will help you celebrate your wedding in ways you never would have imagined. So just let it all go a little bit. Trust your friends and family, get rid of your expectations, and enjoy the ride. People love you more than you know.

*Desaray wrote an excellent post about just letting go in ceremony planning over at Dingmoonment.

**hint: start your wedding parties by doing something good for the world. It will make you feel grateful and happy.

Photos: The invite!, crafty present by my crafty friend Lauren who also took the photo, some of the books I received

Scattered, but back

I'm just back, tired and happy, from a whirlwind trip to our beloved New York City. We flew out for a bridal shower that a dear friend insisted on throwing for me. At first, I was a bit apprehensive about the concept of a shower... it sounded so 1950's. But now that I'm back, a little older and wiser, I can tell you that it was fantastic. If getting married is more joyful than this marvelous weekend, then one's head must actually explode from all the love and delight.

As soon as I pull my wits together, I'll be back with the full scoop.

DIY versus the WIC

A commenter wrote this on my recent post on economic uncertainty:

I definitely have made sure not to buy into the WIC, but at the same time I don't think I can do the DIY route either. My new career is more travel intensive (and 8 weeks before our wedding it will be at its most intense period). I don't craft. I'm not a designer (I can barely sketch!) and I don't have friends or family who are designers or seamstresses. While I really like this post, I feel like the opposite of the WIC is the DIY movement. I guess I don't really feel part of either.

I’ve been thinking about this ever since.

First of all, I don’t consider myself to be part of the DIY movement. I’m part of the do-it-together movement, but do-it-yourself? No way. I’m always reading long little essays about things people lovingly crafted by hand for their wedding days, and I’m fascinated, and then tired by the end of the post. I work really long hours, and have more than a few side projects (achem, blog, achem), so I just don’t have that much time to get things done. We’re taking on projects for our wedding, selectively. We pick projects based on what we care about, what we like to do, and what we can save a bunch of money on. Basically, we have no time, but we’re really cheap. Since David and I produced theatre together before we started dating, much of this feels natural. We designed our Save The Date’s, sure, but we used found internet images, and we’re printing them at home on our color printer. It’s creative, but not very labor intensive. My mother, sister, and I are going to attempt to sew my wedding dress, but we’ve been sewing for years, we’re keeping it simple, and we have relatively low expectations. All this helps.

As the DIY movement has reached new heights of coolness (hello etsy!) the bar keeps getting higher and higher. It’s important to remember that we can do things on our own without being professional crafters. The tips I talked about when I did my DIY flower dry run help. In sum: think about what you like, don’t follow the rules, and just go for it. Everyone is going to be far too nice to tell you that you screwed it up, and the aura of confidence covers up a world of flaws.

Which brings me to my second point: Maybe we should all just lower our expectations on this wedding stuff. I was pondering DIY vs. WIC and it occurred to me that there is a very real third option – it’s the old fashioned route. Yesterday we talked about smaller and simpler weddings of a generation ago. I don’t think our grandmothers would tell you that their wedding was DIY (though some part of it probably was. Weddings had been less professionalized a few decades ago). I suspect our grandmothers would tell us that they just worked with what they had, and made do. My paternal grandmother took a taxi from Alabama to California to marry my grandfather when he was released from a prisoner of war camp after WWII. She told me that he told her to get a white satin dress, so she bought the only one she could find and refused to let it out of her sight the whole trip. The only wedding picture we have up in our home is theirs. It was a really meaningful wedding, but I can tell you right now that they didn’t think about colors, let alone favors.

So. Where does that get us? Bride in Exile made an excellent point yesterday when she pointed out that weddings are more complicated today since most of us have people flying in from all over. For us, this meant that we really wanted to feed everyone. But, that said, regardless of where people are traveling from I think we need to lower our standards. Our guests want to see a wedding that genuinely celebrates who we are. Just because they bought a plane ticket doesn’t mean they expect us to throw them a party just like the last 5 weddings they attended. What is important is that your wedding day is really happy, and is the start of a fantastic lifelong partnership. The trick is figuring out what will make us happy, and what is just extra fluff. If you can’t DIY your dress, can you buy a white suit off the rack? If you can’t DIY your Save The Dates can you skip them altogether, and drop people a note or a give them a call? If you don’t have time to DIY confetti packets, can you just let people throw confetti by the handful?

What do you think? How can we collectively ratchet down wedding expectations? What is the middle ground between DIY and WIC?

Picture: Me rocking my DIY bouquet

A 1927 Practical-Offbeat Bride

There is something about weddings from our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents generations that I find so grounding. Weddings were usually smaller and simpler. Everyone spent much less, but expectations were lower too. There were no favors, and often there were no bridesmaids, no seated dinner, and no wedding colors. There was just a bride and a groom and a hurry to get started on the actually-being-married bit. So it's with that spirit that I have to share this incredible article that reader Alison sent me. The wedding in question is her great-grandmothers. Not only is it practical (at home) but clearly this is a bride with, as they would have said, some spunk. Miss June VanBuskirk got married at 5am on June 1st, because she was determined to be the first June bride of the season (that being her name and all), which really should qualify her to be a 1927 Offbeat Bride. The article, with all of it's great 1920's language follows.

WINFIELD HOME SCENE OF FIRST JUNE NUPTIALS

Miss June VanBuskirk Bride of Robert Bennett In Early Morning Wedding at Home of Bride’s Parents.

Wedding bells pealed forth for the first June bride of the season at five o’clock this morning at the home of John VanBuskirk at Winfield when Miss June VanBuskirk and Robert Bennett were united in the holy bonds of matrimony.

The couple entered the beautifully decorated rooms to the strains of Mendelssohn’s wedding march played by Miss Naomi Bender of this city, an intimate friend of the bride. Rev. William O’Donnell of the Evangelical church tied the nupital knot, using the beautiful double ring ceremony.

The bride was attractively attired in a gown of white georgette crepe with slippers and stockings to match and wore a bridal veil of tulle. She carried a shower bouquet of white rosebuds and lilies of the valley.

Immediately after the ceremony the bridal couple and guests proceeded to the dining room where a tasteful wedding breakfast was served.

Mrs. Bennett is the accomplished daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John A. VanBuskirk, of Winfield. She numbers a host of friends in this city as well as in her hometown, having attended Sunbury High School, graduating with the class of 1925. For the past year, she has been employed by the Quaker Manufacturing Company at Lewisburg.

Mr. Bennett is the son of Mr. and Mrs. John W. Bennett of Winfield. He also is quite known among the younger set of this city, having been employed here several years ago. At present he is engaged as a mason with the Lewisburg Construction Company.

The newlyweds have gone on an extended honeymoon tour during which they will visit Pittsburgh, Baltimore and other points of interest.

Upon their return they will reside with the bride’s parents until they go into housekeeping in the very near future at Lewisburg.

Their many friends extend congratulations and best wishes for a long and happy wedded life.

Alas, there was no photo from this wedding. This is a found wedding photo (love those!), via Lovedaylemon on Flickr

Erika & Kevin's Upstate New York Wedding

So I tried to make Erika's wedding shorter for your reading pleasure, but I just couldn't. Every single bit of their story is so inspiring to me, and makes me feel a little bit more relaxed about wedding planning. So, without further ado, I give you a wedding that inspires and delights, I hope it makes you half as happy as it makes me, since that would be very happy indeed. Erika, take it away...
We got married in Beacon, New York (in the Hudson Valley, about 70 miles from our home in Brooklyn) on September 20, 2008. We got married at the Howland Cultural Center, a 19th-century Victorian building that is the former library of Beacon.
We gathered in front of the Howland with friends and family as they arrived. This was great because it gave us an extra hour to talk with people. It also took some of the pressure off: I was not one bit nervous during the ceremony and we had a lot of fun up there. We had a wedding party of two: our lifelong best friends stood up with us as best man and best woman.
The ceremony was secular for the most part, but we opened with Namaste. We asked three friends to give readings, and the best woman sang a Kinks song. We had written our vows on cue cards, which only my brother knew about, so when he pulled them out and handed me and Kevin our sets of cards, we got a great laugh from everyone! What made our wedding creative, thrifty, and sane:
We started off knowing that we wanted to keep things relatively small and relatively local. I didn't want to overplan or overthink, and since we had a relatively short engagement -- 9 months. When we found the Howland, things just started to fall into place. When we were up in Beacon signing the contract at the Howland, we had lunch down the street at this great little lunch place, Homespun Foods, and pretty much on the spot asked the owner Jessica to cater our wedding. We loved her approach to fresh, local food, and Jessica actually suggested ways we could save money on the food, saying "I don't think people should go broke to have a nice wedding." We had a delicious buffet of Mediterranean foods including couscous, lentil, and white bean salads, and a spicy shrimp dish, and delicious spreads, olives, dolmas, cured meats, etc. Jessica was also the one to suggest we ask friends to do bartending shifts to save money on staff. I was a little nervous about that, but in the end our friends loved it!One couple told us that they loved bartending because people would come to the bar for a drink and stay to chat, so they ended up talking to more people than they would have otherwise. We decided to forgo champagne and instead had a bourbon toast (I grew up in Kentucky and my whole family likes bourbon, and Kevin and I have a long history of drinking bourbon together, which goes back to our second date).

We had just two vendors, er, wedding elves. (Actually, my husband hated the word "vendor" and refused to use it during the wedding planning. I told him about wedding elves.) I planned to DIY most of the flowers, but I did order a bouquet for me and one for the best woman from a florist. The florist ended up going out of business the month before my wedding! And didn't tell me! So, two weeks before the wedding I made the decision to forget the professional bouquets. We bought 10 dozen white roses and used them for centerpieces and bouquets. Kevin made my bouquet on the morning of our wedding, and the stems were wrapped with my grandmother's handkerchief. I have no regrets about not having the professional bouquet: what I ended up with was much more special.
My dress was low on the budget priority list, and I ended up with an aqua blue silk Nicole Miller dress that I bought at Macy's. The men all bought vintage suits in the East Village and they looked smashing! Kevin's attire included a vintage 60s Bill Blass pocket silk. Uh-huh.
Some other details that made our wedding so lovely:
We didn't want to do the traditional thing where only the best man and the maid of honor get a chance to toast, so we opened up the floor to everyone else after they gave their toasts. We thought we might get a couple more people up there, but we ended up with something like ten toasts! I thought my heart would burst, I was laughing and crying so much. It was totally overwhelming and the wonderful things people said in their toasts kept going through our heads for days afterwards.

We rented a great apartment for the weekend and hosted a rehearsal dinner there. The apartment belonged to an artist-and-designer couple and was absolutely gorgeous. It also saved a lot of money because we brought in take-out food. It was also nice to have a private place we could hang out in all evening. And Kevin and I wanted to stay together the night before the wedding. We woke up early and had coffee and breakfast in bed, just some quiet moments to appreciate each other before the Big Event. It was nice to really spend the whole day together.

The other thing is that our wonderful caterer packed up all of the leftover food and we took it home at the end of the night. We brought it with us the next day when we met up with people again at the Dia:Beacon museum, and after wandering around the museum for a while, we had a picnic for 30 people on the lawn of the museum. With leftover wedding cake too! It was a totally spontaneous post-wedding lunch, and it didn't cost a thing and we didn't have to throw out all the leftovers and it meant we got to spend even more time with people

In the end, we came in just under our $10,000 budget -- and that includes the apartment rental, rehearsal dinner, and car rental for the weekend, everything!

All photos by Dova Studio

Prop. 8 News

I know quite a number of you care about what is going on with Prop 8 in California - and some of you really care, since its your marriages that are being legislated away. So, I had to pass on the most informative article I've read so far: The Law and Prop. 8 (which just happened to be written by my better half's Constitutional Law Professor.)

And, now that I'm done informing you, the front page article from the San Francisco Chronicle today just feels good: Prop 8 Backlash Grows. Now that we're done feeling sad, lets start getting angry, because we've got work to do.

Teri & Lisa's Fancy Budget Wedding

As we keep on trucking, and keep on celebrating weddings, legal or not, I'm so pleased to bring you the wedding of not one, but two readers. I sort of can't put into words how exciting this except: two awesome wedding dresses! A *white* gothic dress with a corset? A formal budget wedding? Weird Shriner details? Gah! Ladies, take it away!
Who: Teri and Lisa (Teri, the tall one, is the one writing this, in case anyone is curious)

Where: The Harrington Mansion, (a preserved mansion belonging to the local Shriners. That's right, the guys with the tiny cars and funny hats.) Minneapolis, MN.
What made your wedding creative: Meshing our aesthetic styles together. All you brides who complain that your fiancés aren't involved in the wedding process, take a moment to think about what it would be like if your hubby-to-be had a strong personal aesthetic they wanted to include in the day, alongside yours. While there were stressful aspects of this (including The Great Black Dress Debate) it ultimately turned out to be a fun and rewarding experience for us. Her style is, neo-victorian Gothic. It includes a lot of crimson and black. My style includes a lot more in the way of sunshine yellow and butterflies, but we made it work.What made your wedding thrifty: We defiantly had a strange setup when it came to financing our wedding. Several years ago, my little sister started talking at dinner one night about her dream Big White Wedding. My father, just traditional enough to want to pay for his daughters wedding, blanched a bit, and a few weeks later announced to the family that he had put aside 20k for each of us (the average wedding cost at the time), for a wedding fund. And that he was just going to write us checks when the time came, and we could use the money as we saw fit. I looked at 20k, and saw a very small, inexpensive wedding, and $15,000 that would help Lisa and I survive financially while I completed my year long mandatory unpaid internship I need for my licensure. So, we set a wedding budget of $5000. Surprisingly, with our 80 person guest list, we had no trouble throwing an elegant evening event and still coming in under budget by several hundred dollars.Our main budget savers were 1) the location ($500 for what ended up amounting to 13 hours. And the proceeds went to the Shriners children's hospital!) 2) Having a dessert buffet, and 3) relying on friends and family for a lot of "vendor" type assistance. My mom did the flowers, 2 friends photographed, 1 friend did lighting design, 1 made the dresses, another friend made the cake toppers, and another officiated the ceremony. We were really lucky to have so many talented people willing to help out.
What made your wedding sane: While we had no trouble budgeting our money, we had a lot of trouble budgeting time. Both of us work full time, and for most of the planning process, I was also attending fulltime graduate school classes at night. So, keeping things sane was a big priority for us. Planning had to be efficient, and not draining. As often as possible, we would try to solve many problems with one solution. For example:

Problems:
1) Lisa's father isn't coming. Teri doesn't want to have a father-daughter dance, and leave Lisa feeling left out
2) We need to get 3 very different groups of people to enjoy each other without friction, and without any political conversation
3) We want to have the reception and the location in the same place for budget reasons, but that limits our space options
4) Lisa has bad pollen allergies, and can't handle a lot of flowers
5) Most of the friends of the couple don't like to dance
Solution: Feature board and card games instead of dancing at the reception. They will give people something low-friction to talk about, and let people mingle easily. Games don't need much space, so we could use the same space for the wedding and reception. As a special bonus, the games can serve as centerpieces, thus eliminating the need for a lot of flowers, or time-consuming DIY projects, which would then need to be stored.
A huge congratulations to Terri & Lisa. I have never ever seen a wedding like this, with its blend of styles and tastes and coming together into such a unique package. May you have many wonderful years together!

For extra fun, check out all the pictures here

Justice, Justice, We Will Pursue

I realized that I couldn’t not say something what happened in California today, when we found out that Prop 8 passed by a narrow margin, and that gay marriage would be legally outlawed in California. First of all, I can tell you that getting the news felt like getting drop kicked in the stomach. It was a horrible feeling, and particularly strange coming right on the heels of a night that was filled with elation for so many of us.

I’m known for being something of an eternal pessimist, but not today. I refuse. No matter what happened last night, those of us who are on the side of LGBT rights are on the winning side of history, and this will not stand. My family has been fighting actively and loudly for gay rights since I was ten years old, and for the first time in my life victory and justice are so close that I can taste it, and so close that I can see it, just over the horizon. Now is not the time to give up hope, now is the time to pick up the banner and keep marching forward.

If we learned anything last night, as we watched old black women with tears streaming down their faces hold hands and sing old civil rights protests songs, it was that in this country bigotry and prejudice will not stand. Change will come. We will get there together, we just have to keep changing hearts and minds with acts of love and tolerance and acceptance. I speak from the bottom of my heart when I say that no one can take away what I’ve been given over the last few months. No one can take away the feeling of joy and elation I felt watching celebrating legal marriages with long-time couples, how I felt that first Friday in synagogue as we celebrated brand new rights, or what it was like standing on the steps of San Francisco’s city hall as elderly gay men walked out hands held high. That taste of freedom is what gives us the strength to keep going, to keep fighting, to know that justice is around the corner.

I’ll leave you with that old civil rights anthem, which has been ringing in my ears, and is doubly meaningful today:

We shall overcome, we shall overcome,
We shall overcome someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall overcome someday.

Photo by Jessamyn Harris
P.S. Wedding porn resumes tomorrow, and excellent wedding porn at that.

Wedding Graduate: Emma!

Ok, ladies and gentlemen. As of this writing, I don't know what happened on Prop 8, and I try not to talk about non-wedding related politics here. But I will tell you that I'm typing this tipsy, and I hope that many of you are as happy as I am right now. Now! On with the show! I love every single wedding graduate post, but this one made a huge light bulb go on over my head. "Ohhhh...." it made me think "of course." So, I bring you Emma, of the killer at home wedding.
I always imagined that I'd want an enormous wedding, with hundreds of people and fanfare befitting a queen. When it came down to it, however, and it was time to plan my actual wedding, with my actual boyfriend and my actual family, I was surprised to discover that what I wanted was much more intimate. We ended up with about thirty people in my parents' dining room. I wore my mother's dress and a piece of tulle the size of a pumpkin on my head. It was packed and warm and perfect. Everyone (including the rabbi) laughed throughout.

What we did right: keep it small. The smaller the better. We had a larger party the next day, but in retrospect, I would have picked a handful of people and moved them to the ceremony list, and then cancelled the second event. After the wedding, all I wanted to do was hang out with my husband and our families.
Have talented friends. We had one friend, Catherine Thompson, draw our portrait. Another friend sang at the ceremony. The printer cut our letterpressing bill in half because Mike does a lot of work with him. In my experience, everyone loves weddings, and will go out of their
way to help you. Help is good.

What we did somewhat right: Tell people what to do. This is not the time to be a shrinking violet. I think this is something we could have done more of, actually-- we were so solid on what we wanted that we didn't end up delegating much responsibility on the actual day. Make
lists. Give them to your mothers and friends.

Schedule things well. I spent much of my wedding day getting my hair done. Make sure you're not missing the fun.

What we did wrong: Nothing. Here's the thing. I was at my parents' house, surrounded by people I love. We hired a great photographer, and my best friend was shooting video all day. Afterwards, we all had lobster rolls. What could be better? No matter what isn't exactly right, it's still your wedding. You're going to be goofy with laughter all day long. Just enjoy it.

Ohhhhh.... ask for help! And more help! Of course! Thank you for stopping by Emma, and for all your wise words of wisdom.

Photo by Cappy Hotchkiss, and check out the grooms awesome design studio

What Are You Even Doing Here?

So I was going to post this amazing gay wedding, to urge you to get out and vote today, but I'll post it later this week. I am dead tired from waiting two and a half hours to early-vote at San Francisco City Hall. Had I realized I would be waiting so long, I wouldn't have worn my red high heels, but live and learn.

So here is the thing. Your wedding does not matter today. My wedding does not matter today. What are you even doing here? Go to Politico, go to Real Clear Politics, go to the Twitter Election Feed, or just watch the news. It's election day, and that's about all that matters.*

And California voters, go vote no on 8. If I can make it through two and a half hours of pain, so can you.

*I know, I have lots of international readers too. But who are we kidding? All you care about today is this election too.

Vote No On Prop 8

I've been a outspoken advocate for gay rights since I was in the 7th grade, when I wrote my social studies thesis paper on the right of gay Americans to serve in the military. After I presented my paper, my ultra-conservative teacher told me that while he still didn't think that being gay was right, I had convinced him that regardless of what he thought, it was not his right to discriminate against people for being gay. Mr. Espinoza, wherever you are, this one is for you.

Tomorrow is a huge day for America, with a important and historic presidential election. But for California, and for this blog, the day has special meaning. Tomorrow we will vote on whether or not we amend the constitution of this state to include discrimination - to strip the new found rights of gay and lesbian men and women to marry and have a legal foundation on which to build their families. We can not let this happen. So wherever you are in the state tomorrow, and whatever you are doing, go vote. I don't care if you are tired, if you are sick, if you have never voted before, if you don't think politics has anything to do with you, if its hard for you to get off work, if the voting lines seem long, or if you think the presidential election is in the bag. You need to walk out your door, and walk to the polling place and vote no on Prop 8.

Even though I have been a advocate for gay marriage since middle school, this year has brought a greater sense of appreciation for what gay marriage actually means. This year I've blogged about new found legal gay weddings in my home state, stood on the steps of San Francisco's city hall as the very first legally married gay couples walked out, and wept while I danced a celebratory hora at our LGBT shul the week that the Supreme Court decision was announced. Watching the faces of established gay families and lifetime partners as they were finally able to make their partnership legal has given me a sense of the value and sacredness of marriage that I didn't fully comprehend before. It has been such a gift to experience all this in the year that we are going to be married.

So for all those reasons, go vote tomorrow. Tell someone else to go vote tomorrow. Stand up for human rights, for equal rights, and stand up for all that is good and pure and true about marriage. Stand up and vote no on Prop 8.

Picture from this weeks amazing New York Times Vows column

Sponsor Introduction: Studio Mathewes Photography

I'm so excited to introduce you to our newest Practical Wedding sponsor - Studio Mathewes. Jocelyn is our first practical photographer in the mid-Atlantic - she's located in the lovely Baltimore. First of all, poring through the Studio Mathewes blog is a joy - it's artistic and thoughtful and chocked full of great pictures. But one of the things that blows me away about Jocelyn is her amazing down to earth wedding philosophy. She talks about the importance of having a wedding you can afford and says:

"What makes a meaningful and exciting (read: fun to photograph) wedding is primarily the energy and the atmosphere of the people involved. Of course, a beautiful locale, fancy dresses, and delicious food can certainly help get everyone in a celebratory mood. But the source of the celebration is you."
And you must read her post about her flexible approach on pricing, which includes some of those jaw droppingly awful WIC tales. She says:

"What it comes down to for me is this: It's energizing to be around people who are as excited about having me at their wedding as I am about shooting their wedding. It feeds my creativity, gives me energy, and keeps me excited about my work! Win-win all around"

My favorite photographers are the ones who balance what they need to charge to make the living they deserve with the idea that they want to shoot weddings of practical, low-key DIY couples, because those weddings are amazing and inspiring. I'm so excited to get to introduce you all to a photographer with just this philosophy.

One good look at the Studio Mathewes blog, makes in clear that Jocelyn is someone I'd like to pal around with on my wedding day. And for a photographer, isn't that really the whole point? Now go look at her awesome images.

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