Planning

May 2013

Up to now, I’ve spent a lot of time fretting over our wedding clambake. Between negotiating my divorced parents in the same place, and my genuine questioning about whether getting married as queer women is the right thing to do; between our extrovert-introvert unbalanced guest list, and the feeling of blowing our life savings on a one day event; yep, I’ve been fretting. K and I have been jointly fretting, actually, although about different things, which has meant some tense conversations over dueling laptops and Excel spreadsheets. About a month ago she wanted to delete a column where I was collecting stats on neither-responded-nor-invited-yet guests who might decline a pre-wedding event, and I could not possibly understand why she wanted to delete said column since it was key for my estimates, all of which culminating in me shrieking, “Data is the basis for the entire field of epidemiology and frankly all of public health and you can certainly delete that column, I’m just POINTING OUT it is everything I stand for personally and professionally.” About ten seconds after saying that, I wanted to shove myself back in the closet, but it’s too late and now K pretends that I am John Snow, getting married in between field collection at the local water pump.

In the past week, though, the vibe has definitely started to change. Last Saturday I woke up at the crack of dawn to head for the Short Hills Mall, that magical suburban Mecca that I once heard referred to as the heart of darkness. I had two of my most fashionable friends with me, and we were going to find me a dress to wear at my wedding. I had a BPA-free water bottle, supportive running shoes, and protein-based snacks. Find me a goddamn dress and let’s get on with it.

I’ve mentioned my struggles about trying to figure out my wedding outfit, about what one should wear if one doesn’t want to wear white and doesn’t fit into “regular” sizes. Since that post, I can report I’ve done exactly nothing except fret (well, and rail against the media’s portrayal of women). In March, a friend made me go to Lord & Taylor (we tried Saks, but the one in the city doesn’t carry sizes past 14. Thanks, Saks!). She picked out about four hundred possibilities, and I picked out one that I thought was properly festive. It seemed promising. I did a slow turn as my friend diplomatically said, “That would be a great wedding dress, if your wedding was a dance club in Miami instead of a daytime clambake cocktail party.”

Real talk: if I did this on my own, I’d end up in a sailor shirt. A friend once described my gender identity as “camping femme.” Accurate! I refuse to wear those zip-away combo shorts-pants, but other than that, my standards are sensibly low. That, combined with my general shopping disdain, frustration at rarely finding things that fit well, and major unease with the wedding industrial complex, brought me here, about four months out from the wedding with not even any ideas for what to wear. So when we pulled into the parking lot ten minutes before the mall opened, I took a long slug of decaf coffee and ordered myself to think differently. Continue reading Elisabeth: Changing Course

Posted in: Marriage Equality, Planning, Style, Wedding Undergraduates | 57 Comments »

Apr 2013

Elisabeth: What If It’s Not Forever?

K came home the other day with her face drawn. A couple she’s known for a long time, two good people who have gone through a terribly difficult time, have announced that they are separating. She said she couldn’t stop thinking about it all day, and she tried to explain why over a salmon cobb salad: “I’m surprised because they made such sense together.”

We sat there for a long time, picking the good bits out from the lettuce, and talked about the news. About how she really liked both of them, and that they seemed like such a match. About how we both know people who are working hard to stay in situations that seem, from our outside perspective, at best baffling and at worst damaging, and how different this particular split seemed to be. There didn’t seem to be any reason for the separation that we could identify, even as we reasoned that this was a naive assumption. Those who are not involved in the intricacies of a marriage cannot even really know it. Are there things that people just cannot survive, we wondered.

It was a sobering conversation. Here we are, two people who dearly love each other, who are good for each other, in a million big and inconsequential ways. What could happen that would make us decide to leave each other? And what can we do to prevent that, besides keeping communication open, being honest with each other, avoiding condescension, and dreaming up ways to stay intimate? If we cannot reasonably take vows of love’s permanence, then what do the vows even mean?

“I really, really do not want to get divorced,” K vowed. As a child of divorce, I agree with her. I don’t want to go through it, and I don’t want my future kid to go through it. But then I think about my own parents, who are much better not married to one another. My world was rocked when they broke up, but even with all the hurt, I wouldn’t want to stay in a bad situation either. Does that mean I’m not as committed to the cause?

After dinner, we sat down and started a small wedding registry, but couldn’t think of anything to add besides a pressure cooker from this century (we use an antique one we unearthed from the Chincoteague shed that seems MOSTLY safe). It was as if we were looking for some reassurance in the tea leaves, in sheets and towels and pans. As if registering for expensive things, and promising extra hard to be married and stay married, meant we could control all the possibilities of a lifetime. Continue reading Elisabeth: What If It’s Not Forever?

Posted in: LGBTQ Weddings, Marriage Equality, Planning | 42 Comments »

Apr 2013

Pizza & Beer

Lets be for real: wedding planning is not always that easy, or fun. We have yesterday’s four hundred plus comments worth of wedding problem solving to prove it. Sometimes, we have to shake it all off and focus on what’s going right amid the small sadnesses of things that are not the way we wanted them to be. Today’s anonymous post does that beautifully, and it also reminds us that sometimes we have to meet our family and friends halfway. So let’s do this thing. Let’s share our small wedding goodnesses.

—Meg

The Good.

Before I get to the good, let me give you the background. After a long February where we told our respective parents that we decided we were getting married, which led to my mother stating she thought our venue looked cheap, our menu was an embarrassment, and that she would not go to the wedding if we served pizza; my friends giving me backwards compliments, or telling me “reservations” they had about us getting married; and another friend stating we weren’t engaged since he didn’t propose and give me a ring. (FYI, he did propose, but I’m keeping that secret, because what did ESB say about shaking that glitter off?), things finally started falling into place.

The Good

After a calm-down session/weekend, I sat with my mom and dad and spoke about what we all envisioned and why my mom felt so strongly. Turns out she wanted better for my wedding than she was able to have. My dad and I had to explain to her that my fiancé and I didn’t care about fancy stuff, we just wanted to be married and to celebrate that with family and friends. The compromise—we decided to minimize the guest list, have a backyard bash with pizza and beer, and she could add whatever food she wanted. I am really happy that we are on the same page and that I get to have her help with this wedding, because trust me I need it. (Oh and my mom and I went dress shopping this past weekend and found a dress!)

The Good

With all the backhanded compliments…there were many friends that came through. People who I thought might be reserved are genuinely happy for us and I’ve had a lot of friends offer to make us bouquets, one thousand paper cranes, decorations for our backyard bash, or help find a DJ or a wedding photographer. I love them, their happiness, and their excitement. Continue reading Pizza & Beer

Posted in: Planning, Wedding Undergraduates | 26 Comments »

Apr 2013

Going To Mars

When I moved to Houston a couple years ago after meeting and falling in love with a Kansas-to-Houston transplant, I had heard the idea that Texas was less like another state and more like another planet. And it does feel like another planet to me…a planet filled with strange and interesting creatures. Men.

The only memories I have of my father from when I was young are spotty; trying to remember what it was like to live with him is like trying to remember a dream several hours after you had it. I remember seeing him perform in plays as a professional actor, but I don’t remember him at home. When I was five, my mother left my father and took me to Michigan to live with my grandma and my very young aunt. For the next fourteen years, this group of three women would come to define my concept of family. Though I had uncles and I saw my dad occasionally until his death in 1998, when I was speaking of my family, I was thinking of my mom, aunt, and grandma, as well as the other female relatives on my mom’s side with whom we were all close. It didn’t occur to me that anything was missing, really, because I had never really known what it was like to have a male presence in my life. When I got to college, I joined a sorority, extending the family I had become accustomed to include 114 other women, 50 of whom I shared a house with for two years.

Despite the fact that I loved being surrounded by women, a lot of my thoughts in high school and college were focused on boys. While this isn’t out of the ordinary, my appreciation for the opposite sex stemmed not only from attraction but also from…fascination. Who were these other creatures? How did they think? Why did they act the way they did? If men were from Mars and women were from Venus, I was mesmerized by the Martians. They weren’t my kind. I didn’t get them at all, so that’s what I focused on. Getting in their heads and getting them in bed. When I began my writing career, I wrote about both topics quite regularly.

My mom had another baby when I was nineteen, and for the first time, my family had a male presence in our multigenerational home. When Preston was born, he looked otherworldly; he had the large, curious eyes and careful movements of a Furby. As he grew up, we realized he couldn’t have been more different than I was as a child, and this, it seemed, was further proof that boys and men were not from my planet. They were Others. And I had no idea how to live with them.

When I first moved to Houston a few years later, I didn’t live with Eric. I found a roommate and took a marketing job at The Motherhood Center, which had pre-natal classes, baby and toddler music classes, and lots of family events. The staff and clientele were overwhelmingly female, so once again, I was surrounded by women and back in my comfort zone.

Then my boss left, so I found a new job, where I was one of two women on the staff. And then I moved in with Eric, which was pretty much like finding E.T. in my shed. All of the experiences I had gained from dating and observing men for several years did very little to help me understand Eric. And not long after I started at my new job, my female coworker was let go and I became the only woman on a team of eight people. At a tech startup. In Texas. Being surrounded by men in my personal life and professional life made me feel like my ship had suddenly crashed on their planet, and I was terrified. Continue reading Going To Mars

Posted in: Friends & Relations, Gender & Feminism, Planning | 27 Comments »

Apr 2013

Elisabeth: What the Psychic Said

Even though APW operates around monthly themes these days, sometimes a weekly theme will emerge as we work our way through a given week’s content. This week, it would appear, is all about figuring out who we are. For me, this is it. No matter the circumstances, knowing who we are is the first step to being prepared to enter into a lifetime of partnership. Because when you know what makes you feel fulfilled, then it won’t end up falling to someone else to figure it out for you. So today we have our intern Elisabeth, with her always-hilarious writing, and a brilliant narrative take on knowing oneself. Plus, there is knitting and baby birds.

—Maddie

When people ask how K and I met, I generally tell them we saw each other online, exchanged a series of winsome emails, and then met up for a bourbon cocktail. If there’s time, though, I like to tell them that what really happened: I put away my shoebox, and I knit a sweater.

A few summers back, I went to a psychic, mostly on a whim, when I was mooning around getting over my last break up. A good friend strongly recommended her. She said that her theatre company relied on the psychic for guidance about absolutely everything. And a theatre company is way more complicated than me, all that blocking and staged readings and shows run entirely on electricity generated by bicycles. Plus the psychic’s office was on the same block as my therapist, which seemed very important.

The psychic had a lot of slightly bizarre and moderately profound things to say to me, including that I was like the 2010 Gulf oil spill and my recent ex was like the cap that neatly sealed it off (not a false assessment of our relationship, but couldn’t you just agree gently that we were a bad match?!). She had lots of things to say about how creatively blocked I was, and that I needed to stop relying on other people to find outlets for my creativity and happiness. When I got out there and found it for myself, by myself, she intoned, only then would I be my authentic self with or without a relationship. Now, I realize that 99% of psychics probably say this to 99% of their customers. But then she said sternly, “You like wounded birds, and you need to stop carrying shoeboxes around for them.” How did that psychic see the last decade of my dating history? This was a logic model I could get behind: spend time alone; do not be distracted by wounded birds, even the most adorable ones; use all that time to discover my authentic self; once self is found, hold onto it and find a Person who is really pumped about my authentic self.

Of course, I had big intentions, but as with many of my projects, I was long on enthusiasm and a bit short on follow-through. I would “be creative” in periodic fits of energy. I sewed two pillow covers out of sea themed dishtowels from the Crate and Barrel outlet, my wild and distracted stitches marching up and down the messy seams. I co-chaired a consensus-based community garden committee. I rearranged my desk. I scattered ocean treasures just so across the wide planks and waited for inspiration to strike and ignored the fact that I had so many public health papers due that I never had any time to do any writing for myself anyway. (In retrospect I may have gone overboard with the ocean treasures. When a friend saw the pillows and sea glass strewn everywhere, she asked if I had plans to rename the bathroom “Buoys and Gulls Room.”) Of course, I also spent a lot of time creatively crying on the Q train.

Then, in the middle of a miserable city winter, I decided I’d embark on a truly creative pursuit: I’d knit a sweater, and I would start dating again when it was finished. Not even any making out lying down, nope, not until I was wearing a hand-knit creation. I reasoned that as adrift as I felt, by the time the sweater was finished I’d feel differently, maybe a little closer to the person I wanted to be. I went to the Lion’s Brand studio just outside of Union Square the next day, found a perfect, vibrant fuchsia, and brought it home. It was just me and those needles, flashing furiously. I realized that in two decades of knitting, I’d really never made anything for myself—not a pair of handwarmers, not even a scarf. I raced jubilantly through the first six inches without realizing the raglan increase was backwards. Ripped the stitches out, started again, slower this time. I would bring my sweater on the train; listen to The Moth podcast while I slipped yarn through loops and counted the rows and let my mind fade away, feeling calmer already, creating my own string theory. “By the time this sweater is done,” I would think, “things will be different.” Continue reading Elisabeth: What the Psychic Said

Posted in: Marriage Equality, Planning, Wedding Undergraduates | 37 Comments »

Apr 2013

This Isn’t Your Last Chance

Being a wedding industry professional can be both a blessing and a curse. There’s so much more that I know about weddings now than I did four years ago, and it can be really hard not to play the what-if game. (Can you believe I thought a backyard wedding wouldn’t be good enough? Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.) But one thing that helps is knowing that my wedding was not the last chance I’ll have for things like wearing tulle or dancing until midnight or drinking mimosas on the beach. So today I’m thrilled to bring you Hazel, who is so much wiser than I was.

—Maddie

I was smiling at the joy and beauty in a Wordless Wedding post when the thought crept into my head: “That’s what I wanted my wedding to be like.” I’ve noticed this more and more as time stretches away from our wedding day. Seeing other people’s outfits and ceremonies and yes, even flower arrangements on Pinterest, makes me wonder if I should have done something differently. They had the sunshine I wanted—why did it have to rain in August on my day? (Potentially something to do with getting married in the Lake District in England.) That is just the sort of venue I had in mind, before reality set in and we booked the village hall. That hen party looks so fun, I wish I had organised that!

Scrutinising these feelings has made me realise that this is the fantasy I had unconsciously embraced about weddings: that your wedding day is your only chance. The worry I had about getting the right pictures that looked amazing was only partly to do with the fact that I wanted nice pictures, and mainly because I felt this was my only chance to get those lovely pictures. It didn’t actually bother me that we used the village hall as our venue, except for the feeling that I’d missed my chance to spend a day in a stately home or gorgeous forest clearing. And the hen party—well, that was me thinking I’d missed my chance to feel certain feelings, as if it was the one evening when I could feel loved and supported by my friends.

But of course, having a wedding where we actually get married is far more important than organising the ultimate wish fulfilment parade. The reason we didn’t exchange vows on a mountain top and serve individual hand crafted pavlovas and give out handmade favours and personalise absolutely everything was because, frankly, we wanted to get married, and we didn’t want to wait a hundred years until the stars aligned and we had an astronomical bank balance to spend on all these things at once. (Note: If you are able to do this, that is awesome, so please go ahead and then post some pictures!) We also wanted our family and friends, including elderly people and those with health problems, to be able to attend and enjoy themselves. Continue reading This Isn’t Your Last Chance

Posted in: Planning | 61 Comments »