T -123: Surprises good and bad

Not long after Bill was whisked away for his stag, leaving me home alone with his parents on our visit to the West Coast, his mom sprang a surprise on me. She and Bill's sister were throwing me a bridal shower!

Twenty ladies, including Bill's friends' wives and his aunts and cousins (most of whom I've never met before), came over to eat little dainties, laugh at me when I didn't know Bill's shoe size after 3 years of living in sin, and give me fun new kitchen toys and lingerie.

I hadn't expected any showers since most of our guests are from out of town and I didn't want anyone to feel like I was hitting them up for more presents. But this was so thoughtful and touching and made me feel officially welcomed into their family. It was an excellent way to spend the day while Bill getting sloshed and misbehaving with his boys.

So the bad surprise. My 80-something year old grandfather announced that he will be attending our wedding. Before you think I'm the worst person ever, let me explain. I haven't seen my grandfather since I was 8, and the only contact we had was an annual Christmas phone call, which stopped sometime before I graduated high school.

What upsets me is not that he's coming but that it drives home the reality that the grandparents I was close to won't be there. My other grandfather died suddenly several years ago, and my grandmother has severe Alzheimer's so she can't be there either.

It's a little heartbreaking to know that the grandparents who meant so much to me won't be there, but this man who is quite literally a stranger will be. I hope at least his wedding gift to me is his longevity and good health, so I can still be tearing up the dance floor at my future grandchildren's big events.

Image: Davey S.

T -135: Sing it, sisters.

East Side and Meg wrote this week about reverse budget snobbery - the idea that "The length of a marriage is inversely proportional to the cost of the wedding" - and as usual, they perfectly articulate something that's been bugging me for a while.

Our budget for the wedding is $30K. I know that's a lot of money to spend on one day. I still wrestle with guilt over spending so much money on a party and not on a charitable donation, or even a down payment on a house.

But here's the thing... Actually, here's a lot of things.

1. We can afford it. We're savers and planners, and this is one of the things we've saved and planned for.


2. $30K for a wedding in a major US city isn't extravagant. I've scoured the Internets for a photographer and florist within our budget (both under $2K), we're not doing a limo, a champagne toast, letterpress invitations, individual favors, or anything we've deemed non-essentials (for us - for you they might be critical, and that's fine too). However, having our ceremony in sacred space and having a great party with good food and wine (and cake; I will not have fondant on my cake) are essential, and those don't come cheap in Beantown.


3. Many of our loved ones are traveling to celebrate with us, and it's important to us to return the love by doing what we can to show our nearest and dearest a good time.


4. We live in Canada and we're getting married in Boston, so options for DIY are limited. For example, Kristina's adorable homegrown centerpieces are out, because I would be heartbroken and shit out of luck if customs stopped me from bringing them across the border. (Not to mention that bringing them across the border means renting a car and driving for 10 hours.)


5. The biggest thing of all? I'm not worried about our marriage. I know there will be rough patches, I know things won't be perfect, but I'm not worried. We've been together for almost 7 years; we've lived together for 3. After the wedding, I know Bill will be a kind, considerate husband because he's been a kind, considerate boyfriend. We'll still make risotto and drink red wine on Saturday nights. We'll still crack up quoting Old School for the millionth zillionth time. We'll still be grouchy in the morning and disagree on the pronunciation of "decal." We'll still cuddle every night. That's us. We're already in it together, good and bad, come what may, and whatever way we choose to solemnize our partnership can't and won't change that.

So that's my rant. Deep breath, step away from the computer, but damn, it feels good to get that off my chest.

T -153: Ohhhhhhh, we're halfway there

So I took a little hundred day vacation from wedding blogging, but not (alas) from wedding planning.

Illustrative anecdote: my doctor was asking me about the wedding and I said I would be glad when it's over. He gave me a death stare and told me I should really tell people I'd be glad when it happened. I meant planning, he meant the actual event. So I don't sound like a total brat, let me stress that I am excited beyond words for the wedding, and I can't wait to be married. I would just like both of those things to arrive more quickly than they are scheduled to.

Tantrums aside, it's been a productive spring. To recap:

• Cake: tasted and booked
• Hair trial and final appointment: booked
• Hair: long enough to pull back, with five months left in the growing season.
• Florist: booked
• Rehearsal dinner: booked (I'm so excited for this! Especially for the out-of-towners in the wedding party [i.e. everyone but my immediate fam] this is such a Boston institution)
• Honeymoon: dates and location nailed down (South America in January!)
  
• Registries: up and running
  
• Bill's bachelor party: imminent (we're going to visit his family on the West Coast at the end of the month, and since most of his friends are still out there too, they're pouncing on him while they have the chance.)
• Invites: designed.
  

This spring was also when we (okay, I) let go of the letterpress dream. Even discount printers are so expensive, and I know that the fate of virtually all wedding invitations is to linger on the kitchen table gathering crumbs and coffee stains until the guest remembers to RSVP. (I know because I'm guilty of having done this with every wedding invitation I've ever gotten.) So, flat printing it is, but I'm letting us splurge on nice paper as a compromise. I also splurged on a lovely font and have been having fun seeing our names in fancy script.

Our next visit to Beantown is in September, when we'll meet with our officiant, choose our menu, and get our marriage license! Five months to go...

T -240: Invitation love

Being a librarian, I love paper products, and all the beautiful invites on the wedding blogs this week have been cheering me up considerably.

A Practical Wedding and A Ten Thousand Dollar Wedding both featured Printable Press, the gorgeous and affordable semi-DIY line from Kimi Weart and Paul Galloway.


My new sweet treat, the 100 Layer Cake blog, had more semi-DIY inspiration, with a little calligraphy porn thrown in to make me extra happy.


Finally, Snippet and Ink's series of budget friendly inspiration boards had a link to affordable letterpress printer Mercurio Brothers.


Bellissimi, tutti!

T -242: Registry nightmares (oh, they exist)

I've been feeling the wedding bell blues lately, so I turned my attention to our registry. Looking at china and shiny kitchen gadgets always perks me up. This time was no exception. I went to Canada's first Crate and Barrel this weekend, where I fondled slow cookers and dreamed of the day when I would have a wood cutting board that wasn't cracked and warped.

Then I started to think about logistics and my cheer vanished. Canada, my country of residence by choice, is amazing in many ways; it has provided me with two degrees, affordable healthcare, and a man. But let me be clear about this: Canada sucks at shopping.

[Maybe, in the big picture, that's good? I do believe that the neoliberal substitution of consumerism for citizenship is a bad thing and I'm skeptical of a global economy that relies on Americans going into debt to buy shoddy consumer goods from developing nations, but let's leave that aside for now so I can rant freely.]

Without further ado, let's dive into the logistical nightmare of planning a wedding between two countries whose economies are supposed to be closely bound by NAFTA.

All I want is simplicity. I would like to select a few carefully considered items from a few stores so that it's easy for me to manage and that if our guests choose to avail themselves of the registry, it is easy for them to use.

Problem: The big department stores are different. In the US, it's Macy's and Lord & Taylor (RIP Filene's). In Canada, it's the Bay and Sears (OK, yes, there is Sears in the US too, but Sears is the States is Corelle and Fiestaware, and Sears in Canada is Wedgewood and Royal Doulton, so I don't consider them the same).

Problem: The chain stores are the same - Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel - but their Canadian operations are truly dismal. C&B allows you to register, but guests have to first call the store to be emailed or faxed (faxed!) a copy of the registry and then call again to place an order. Really? In 2009, it's too difficult to make Canadian registries available online? It's the same Internet up here, people. Williams-Sonoma is barely more functional - registries are online, but guests still have to call the store to place an order.

Problem: If we register at American stores and use my parents' address as our shipping address, we probably won't bring our wedding gifts home till we're sixty. Plus, it would be hard to stay on top of thank you notes if I'm dependent on my moms to report new packages.

Problem: I'm tempted to just fuck the big stores and only register at some Toronto specialty shops, but I know some guests like to bring a gift to the actual wedding, and I don't want to be offputting to any American guests who don't want to do mail order.

So my sweet dreams of lovely slender but weighty flatware have evaporated into a giant haze of transborder nightmares. The longest unguarded border in the world does jack shit when it comes US-Canadian wedding relations.

T -254: Bad bride

Sometimes, wedding planning bores me. I'm bored with it right now. I can't even muster up enthusiasm about invitations, which is usually my failsafe wedding porn.

I'm at that magical point where everything looks the same and overpriced, and I can't bring myself to care about something so transitory as one day, even if it is My Special Day(TM). Basically, I'm back to where I was when we started wedding planning, only now I should care about these things since November is inching up on us and we're 250 days (!) out.

Right now I'm more interested in enjoying the February thaw, playing with Bill's new camera, thinking about spring flowers and of course spring training and maybe even my upcoming dentist appointment. People ask me wedding questions and I change the topic, driving my mom crazy and forcing her to up the volume of wedding email questions instead of trying to pin me down by phone.

When we first got engaged, I had a wedding nightmare that we ran out of time and had to send out evites... Right now, I think I would be OK with that. Or at the very least, not upset enough to plan a classier alternative.

Image: Shawna Herring

T -255: Wedding March Blues

One of my favorite wedding blogs, What Junebug Loves, is hosting an iPod nano giveaway. My iPod is on its last legs, so I'm all over this contest like a fat kid on a Snickers.

I've been thinking about wedding music since even before getting engaged. I carefully coordinate my music to my moods (February is misery mix month, I'm so sick of winter) and what is wedding music but the ultimate celebration playlist?

I've never been a fan of the Wedding March (especially since isn't it a funeral march in the original source?), and although I love Pachelbel's Canon, I feel like it's (a) really a Christmas piece and (b) overdone.

This spring the NYT Vows column featured a wedding in a meadow where the bride walked down the aisle to a guitar, and suddenly I knew what I wanted: "Words for Two" by Six Organs of Admittance.

I'm obsessed with this song - it's wispy and gentle and so lovely. The idea of words for two is perfect since that's what our vows are. Also, Bill and I fall asleep holding hands every night (it's kind of vomitous, I know), so the line about a chance to sleep hand in hand makes me all mushy.

Listen for yourself: