Weddings

Apr 2012

When we were pondering talking about the idea of "Change of Plans" this week and how changing plans is somehow the very core of wedding planning (both its hell and its unexpected joy), I decided that I had to revisit my wedding dress search. For the handful of you who were around reading back when I was getting married, this is a three-years-later reflection on a story you know. But for the rest of you, I hope this encourages you through whatever your particular wedding trial is. And I do mean trial.

For me, finding a wedding dress was fraught right from the start. The wedding dress search somehow boiled down every single aspect of the wedding industry that I disliked into one compact package. Plus, I've had a very defined personal style since I was three, (when I flat-out refused to wear anything that wasn't a skirt out of the house. My poor feminist mother thought she'd failed, but she'd really just gotten a very tiny, very femme feminist). Add to the fact that, I shit you not, when I got my first piggy bank at five, I told my mom I did not want to save for college, I wanted to save for my wedding dress (again, cut to distressed feminist mother). So I cared about the wedding dress, from the get-go. Plus I hated every single modern wedding dress trend. And I really hate the feeling of being ripped off.

For those of you who didn't see it, just the other week, NPR's Planet Money team came out with a investigative research video (a must watch, there) that proves without a shadow of a doubt what I suspected with every fiber of my being during wedding dress shopping: the whole thing is a shake down. It's not that I wasn't ready to spend good money on a wedding dress (Hello! I'd saved a little yellow piggy bank full of quarters! This is not a joke!) it's that I wasn't willing to pay more than twice what a dress was worth, just because it was white and poofy.

And then, everything that could go wrong started to go wrong. A short sum up of things I never shared at the time: I found a short vintage-style dress that I loved (that, funny enough, was basically a slightly less cool copy of the actual vintage dress I would get married in) at a shopping trip with our best man's wife. I was all set! Then a month later, said wife left said best man, in step one of what would prove to be the world's most painful divorce. I couldn't think of the wedding dress without bursting into tears. This seemed like a bad sign. I had another dress shopping trip with amazing Kate (now APW editor) and a brand new close friend... who a few months before the wedding announced her new boyfriend didn't like us, so she was out of our lives. Amazing. It started to feel like my wedding dress search was cursed. In retrospect, perhaps the universe was delaying me, so I could learn something useful (which is a damn life lesson, if you ask me, and one I always find particularly unpleasant no matter how many times it happens).

Let's do a quick review of my wedding dress shopping:

Wedding Dress Shopping Round One:

Most of the dresses I saw looked like they were designed by a four-year-old girl. The little tiny designer clearly kept stamping her foot and saying "More ruffles! Longer train! Add some bows! Poofy-er! And I want a BIG tiara!"

And then they sent in a 13-year-old girl to bedazzle the dresses (and the veils, and the shoes). Continue reading Classic APW: My Wedding Dress

Posted in: Dilemmas, Meg's Thoughts, Planning, Style, Weddings | 66 Comments »

Mar 2012

Wedding Planning: You’re Doing It Right!

The other day (because God loves me?) I was working at a cafe, when a group of wedding planners got in a screaming fight in front of me. The whole thing was one of the most entertaining things that's ever happened to me while working in public, since they were screaming about antiques and chandeliers, and then kept mentioning their business' name (which of course I immediately looked up... obviously). But the most fascinating part was when the screaming match turned into a yell-y discussion of how to best make your clients book all the people you want them to, even if it costs them literally boat loads of money that they don't want to spend. Awesome.

They said (yelled) that the best way to sell their preferred caterer was to explain to clients that this caterer cooked on site, and most caterers cooked off site (true, by the way, since you're paying for the caterer's kitchen), which meant that if you hired someone else, when the food arrived, it wasn't going to be precisely the proper temperature. Leaving aside the fact that this isn't even true (most caterers worth their salt will reheat as needed), it so profoundly missed the point of a wedding that I felt sort of... gleeful? I immediately had an image of all the guests pulling out their insta-read thermometers at once (the perfect favor?), and checking the temperature of their steak, only to tsk-tsk when they found it a few degrees low.

This, of course, just highlighted for me the difference between an awesome wedding planner and a shitty one. I mean first, I think we can all agree that you don't need a wedding planner (though you do need someone in charge on the day of that's not you, friend or hired). But if you're going to get a wedding planner, you want an awesome one, who considers it part of their job to tell you: 1) You're Doing Wedding Planning Right. 2) You Don't Have To Spend A Crap Ton Of Money. 3) Your Wedding Is Going To Be Excellent Because It's Yours. And 4) We Can Problem Solve Together.

Which brought me to thinking about, well, ourselves. Because the wedding planners I described are nothing more than the good and bad angels of the wedding industry, as I see it. One is about shaming and guilting you to think that you're not enough (so you spend All The Money), and one is about helping you see that you ARE enough (and, who cares if you spend more money?). And while nothing is ever that simple, exactly, I do think we've all absorbed both of these perspectives into ourselves (the former a little too much). Continue reading Wedding Planning: You’re Doing It Right!

Posted in: Meg's Thoughts, Planning, Weddings | 63 Comments »

Feb 2012

Is Marriage An Economic Privilege?

The minute I read the New York Times article this weekend, "For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage," I knew I had to write a response because the issues in the piece hit so close to home.

The fact is, when I first picked up the newspaper and started reading, I was thrilled. The article lead in is:

It used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage.

I was delighted. We have many close friends that had kids without being married. Some of them had kids very young (surprise!), and for others, marriage is just not something they are into. So at first blush, it seemed that a national trend that made it easier for people to choose not to marry was a damn good thing.

But then I dug further into the article, and my feelings changed. It turns out that the trend line we're looking at is not that more women are feeling empowered to have children outside of marriage. The trend line we're looking at is that marriage rates, as at least as they correlate with children, are falling for everyone but the well off. The facts are these:

About 92 percent of college-educated women are married when they give birth, compared with 62 percent of women with some post-secondary schooling and 43 percent of women with a high school diploma or less, according to Child Trends. ... That is turning family structure into a new class divide, with the economic and social rewards of marriage increasingly reserved for people with the most education. “Marriage has become a luxury good,” said Frank Furstenberg, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania.

David and I grew up in a very poor area. We grew up around families that were on the brink: they didn't have money, didn't have opportunities, and often they were struggling in ways you can't even imagine from the outside. We saw a lot of emotional and physical abuse. We saw a lot of kids lacking the basic emotional support that parents provide. We saw a lot of shattered families (and by shattered, I don't mean divorced—I mean an emotional wasteland of hurt, which was pretty equal opportunity). And because of all this, our high school friend group functioned in many ways like a substitute family. Whenever we could, the teenagers supported each other in a way that many of the grown-ups around us could not. As a result, we're still very close to many lots of people we grew up with because substitute families are like that.

When it comes to our hometown friends, not a ton of people have gotten married (and at thirty, we've already been through a wave of painful divorces). And, as you do when you grow up in tough circumstances, we've learned to laughed it off. "You're dealing with nine wedding inviations this year? Well, not us. Our friends don't get hitched, we grew up in a poor area." "Your friends get married and stay married? What's THAT like?" And on and on.

But the truth is, the fact that David and I have been happily together for seven years, and happily married for two and a half, is something of a luxury marker among our friends. We're the kids that grew up with together, educated, supportive families. We got out of our hometown in (more or less) one piece, went to good schools, and then, to top it all off, we got to get married, too. Yes, we worked hard to make good choices and to end up in a relationship with someone who was good for us. Yes, we work hard at our relationship. But we also are very aware that we're lucky. We ended up equipped with the emotional and practical skills to make a marriage work. We had a better shot, right out of the gate. Continue reading Is Marriage An Economic Privilege?

Posted in: Life, Marriage, Meg's Thoughts, The Hard Stuff, Weddings | 222 Comments »

Feb 2012

APW Book Tour: The Video

Meg Keene: You're Welcome, Internet. from Rory Gordon on Vimeo.

Party In A Book Store from Rory Gordon on Vimeo.

Dear Team Practical,

I've been writing you letters for years, but this time I just want to say thank you. Thank you for supporting the APW Book and helping it to do so tremendously well that, in month two of the book being out, we're in the third printing (howcrazyisthat). Thank you for coming out on the book tour. Thank you for being smart, articulate, and hilarious, and making a month on the road a total joy.

And what better way to end this whole tour than with some video? The first video is an interview with me, mixed with some fun stuff. The second interview is bits of me speaking. Both of them are me with my most casual, least professional, least NPR voice. Fun, no? Hopefully it will make all of you feel a bit like you came on the tour, or like we had a drink together. It was all shot by Rory Gordon Photo in LA, who's a total wonder-ball, and shoots photo and video for weddings and small businesses. If you've been pondering a bit of video, you should totally call her right this second. She's so easy to work with that the whole thing seems effortless.

And finally, finally. The book tour is over, sort of, for now. Next week, once I've gotten enough sleep that I'm coherent enough to write, I have a bunch of entrepreneurship posts (and some marriage posts) up my sleeve about the broad scope of things I've learned in the past month. Plus, we have a ton of APW projects that we'll finally start getting to show you next week, and then even more projects a few weeks after. So! There is so much more happening. But for now, we'll bring the book tour to a close with this. Perfect.

And, for the record? I've decided I want to do more public speaking. So if you want me to speak at an event in the Bay Area (or can get me to LA), let's chat. I'm quite the talker, and I make good jokes, too.

Thank you thank you thank you,

Meg

Posted in: Book Tour, Events, Marriage, Meg's Thoughts, Weddings | 38 Comments »

Oct 2011

You Don’t Have To Buy All The Things

I got this excellent email from the now happily married Jessica two weeks ago. I couldn't let such a good thank you note to all of you, about what we crack on about every day, lie unpublished. So, All The Things, consider yourself on notice:

My wedding is a week from today. I was running around today feeling consumed by WIC-promoted Consumerism... thinking, Oh My God, I need to buy a new dress for my rehearsal dinner and new shoes and we should buy everyone in the wedding party more stuff to thank them and what about a cute hanger, don't I need a cute hanger for my dress?! And, and, and....

Anyway, all of a sudden I had a moment of clarity. I turned to my fiancé, who was looking (rightfully) frightened, god bless him, and said, "We don't need All The Things." We already have All The Things that matter.

We hugged and went home. We're about to enjoy a nice bottle of wine.

All in all, my fiancé, our bank account, and I thank you, Team Practical.

P.S. When I emailed Jessica to ask if her wedding survived no cute hanger, she said, "It sure did. As did the filthy dress (thanks to amazing second line through NOLA's French quarter). It's funny how the joy is the only detail that matters..." Wedding Graduate post coming soon.

Photo from the APW Flickr stream by Emily Takes Photos

Posted in: Budget, Meg's Thoughts, Sass, Weddings | 71 Comments »

Oct 2011

Second Time Bridesmaid: The Fiercest Kind of Love

I was a bridesmaid this weekend. I always joke that our friends are not the (traditional, bridesmaid having) marrying type, and by and large they are not. That comes from a deeply bizarre mix of growing up around poverty and having slightly bohemian friends. But I've been a bridesmaid twice, both times for my friend Lacey. The first time was ten years ago when we were 20, and the second was this weekend when we were 31. The fact that the wedding party was a group of girls that have known each other for twenty years tells you much of what you need to know about our hometown and the kind of intense loyalty growing up in a very difficult place engenders. For me, the wedding was about the story of the last ten years, the growing up we've all done, loss, and the profound hope of love.

I get a lot of emails about second weddings. I hear a lot about ladies who are terrified how their community might judge them—ladies who are worried whether they deserve a party the second time around. Here is what I learned this weekend: chances are, this fear could not be farther from reality.

As bridesmaids, this was not our first time at the rodeo. We knew a thing or two about getting the bride dressed, making sure the groomsman behaved (at least till after the ceremony—shots!), and setting up centerpieces. Ten years ago, we'd done what on paper looked like the same tasks, and we'd worked hard trying to get it right. But none of that compared to the ferocity of love present at a second wedding with a crowd of women who have walked through the fire together and who know what love and loss look like. Ten years ago, I worked hard to make Lacey happy on her wedding day. This weekend, I would have walked on water to make her happy, and all the other girls felt the same way. When someone you love has walked a hard path with grace and found someone who really makes them happy and adores them just the way they are? That is the kind of love you fight for, curl hair for, set up centerpieces for, wrangle tuxes for, line up groomsmen for, wipe tears for, and throw confetti for.

Going into the weekend, I had a sense of just how hard everyone was loving Lacey and Ric. But I thought, on some level, that we'd pretend the last ten years didn't exist. That to make room for love, we'd let everything else go. What I hadn't realized was the way that weddings allow you to hold many conflicting things in your heart at once. They allow your heart to enlarge; they let you access the rooms whose doors you'd locked.

On Saturday, all of the last ten years were in the room at once. I watched Lacey read her vows (off her phone!) thought about how wonderful it was that she finally had found someone who deserved her. I watched her dance with her eleven-year-old son, and teared up thinking about how I used to spoon baby food into his mouth while gossiping with Lacey about my over-wrought collegiate dating life. I watched Lacey's tiny niece, a flower girl, spin around the dance floor, thought of her as a baby, and hoped for the future.