* Brigid, Law (JD) and Divinity (MAR) Student & Ximena, Art History PhD Student * Photographer: Kelly Prizel (APW Sponsor) * Soundtrack for Reading: “She Is” by Sufjan Stevens or “Sea of Love” by Cat Power *
One sentence sum-up of the wedding vibe: A friend early on declared it a “crisp crafty lovely vintage lady wedding.”
Continue reading Wordless Wedding: Brigid & Ximena’s Church & Croquet Wedding
It’s been a long while since we had a self-catered wedding here at APW (which if you’re considering catering your own wedding, we’ve got helpful tips for making it happen here and here). So I’m thrilled to have Amanda and Shaun here today to tell the story of how they made all the food for their own wedding, and how doing so ended up meaning so much more to them than they expected. But the thing is, what I appreciate most about Amanda and Shaun’s post isn’t that they took on the daunting task of catering their own wedding (though, to be clear, I think that is seriously rad). It’s that they did it because it was a path that felt authentic to them. Because while self-catering is certainly not for everyone (I mean, I can barely make spaghetti), shutting down the noise that says your wedding has to be the same as everyone else’s or the most different thing ever and instead saying, “Here’s what we’re doing because it feels right for us,” now that is something I can get behind.
—Maddie for Maternity Leave
Shaun and I were married almost two years ago in Toronto. The morning of our wedding, we awoke to find that what was promised to be a light dusting of flurries had instead been replaced with six inches of snow. While we ran last-minute errands and worried about our guests, my grandmother assured my mom that since I had always loved winter, it was the perfect day for our wedding. Shaun and I got engaged the previous August, and I—in that romanticizing of winter which can only be convincing at the end of a hot summer—had pictured just such a day.
What neither of us anticipated back in August was how many expectations and frustrations we would encounter along the way to January and marriage. We weren’t trying to be subversive, but we quickly discovered that in the world of weddings w-o-r-k was the dirtiest four-letter word around. When we talked about our wedding plans, the most common reaction was, “Oh, but that sounds like a lot of work!” uttered with a tone that seemed to suggest, “Oh, but you must be really poor!” Apparently, the only work we were supposed to do was endlessly research and agonize over everything, and then pay someone else to do it. We could have done this, had we wanted to, but we were too independent, thrifty, and particular. And besides, we had the slightly delusional conviction that we could do everything better ourselves—with help, that is.
Our decision to cook our wedding food drew different reactions: bewilderment, frustration, pity, indifference, and, thankfully, offers of help. Many times, people close to us tried to reason with us, and we seriously considered catering at several points. At times, cooking for about eighty people seemed like an insane task. Several months before the wedding, crazed from indecision, I actually e-mailed the lovely Marie-Ève, of APW self-catering fame, who reassured me that cooking for your own wedding was indeed possible.(Thank you, Marie-Ève).
For me, cooking food for a wedding was a long-standing fantasy. I thought of scenes from movies where families and friends were all sweaty and flour-coated in the kitchen (I watched Like Water for Chocolate several times in my formative years). I knew we were in for a lot of hard work, but this work was, in part, what I craved: a practical, grounded ritual of preparation to balance the awe-inducing realization that we were promising to be together for our lives. Continue reading Wedding Graduates: Amanda & Shaun
* Robin, Elementary Special Education Teacher & Rob, Middle School Music Teacher/Photographer/Wedding Band Guitarist * Photographer: Hart & Sol East (APW Sponsor) * Soundtrack for reading: “Sifters” by Andrew Bird *
One sentence sum up of the wedding vibe: Our wedding was relaxed, fun, warm, and sweet.
*Kaytlin, Graduate Student/Professional Job Seeker & Ben, Dental Student*
After this morning’s Ask Team Practical, we figured there was no better way to end the week than with an overtly feminist wedding. Because sometimes when people make blanket statements like, “Feminist weddings don’t exist,” the best you can do is point, and say, “Oh look! There is one!” And it turns out feminist weddings are a lot easier to find than say, heffalumps. So here is Kaytlin, proving it.
How being a feminist made my wedding rock.
I’m a queer-friendly, shaved-head, rainbow-wearing, Vagina Monologues-performing feminist. My partner, Ben, is a quiet, levelheaded, subdued, anti-sexual assault, pro-choice, dental schooling feminist. Getting married was a little outside of the box for us. And yet, we took the plunge anyway.
Coming from a rural, conservative town in Southern Illinois, it was difficult for people to understand why we had been together for six years and gasp we still hadn’t gotten hitched. It was even more difficult to tell people that, well, not everyone can get married, so why should we? So we conveniently let school and money and family and age and everything else speak to why we didn’t get married sooner like other people our age (to be sure: twenty-two and twenty-three years old, respectively is still very young to get married). Finally, we were getting ready to graduate from college, move into our real first home, and begin graduate schooling—a pretty grueling, time consuming process. Suddenly, it seemed like if it wasn’t going to happen now, then it wouldn’t happen for another four years—at least.
And even still, Feminist Kaytlin nagged at me. “Patriarchy,” ze* cried, “Institution. PROPERTY. Blood Diamonds. Tradition. Bullsh*t.” And I didn’t know what to do. I hid my engagement ring in my Gender Studies classes for fear of being called out as a phony. I told a few people that we were engaged but, “You know, it’s no big deal… I’m not excited about it or anything…” (I was so excited!). And I struggled. So I wrote a blog. And I researched. And I realized that a lot of my mentors and heroes and role models were MARRIED women. How did they do that?! How did they give into this industry and still manage to be awesome? And then I knew what I had to do. (Spoiler Alert: The answer is “get married and be really good at it.”) Continue reading Wedding Graduates: Kaytlin & Ben
*Hannah, Marketing and Publicity Intern & David, Law Student*
I’ve been waiting for this post for two years. No joke. Two whole years. Hannah has been reading APW since back in the very early days, and when she got married, the note she sent me about her experience so closely mirrored mine it was eery. Gorgeous pictures? Check. Day full of love? Check. Feeling of being emotionally raw and overwhelmed and Oh My God Is This Right Has Anyone Ever Felt This Way Before Am I Broken? Check, check check! So for me, this post is what no one ever told me about getting married. The thing is, the raw emotion is perfect, in it’s own way, but if it hits you, it’s nice to have a voice in the back of your head telling you, “Normal, this is normal.” So, as we explore the theme of Memory this week, coming off the US’s Memorial Day, let’s start with Hannah’s wedding, explored at two years distance.
I’ve been planning on writing this post since before I got married. I’ve been reading APW since before I met David and I assumed that after reading so many Wedding Graduates and having such reasonable non-WIC expectations. Remember my parents? I was expecting to have a nice party and go on with my life. I thought I’d be able to tell you how the Wedding Zen set in and I felt the love of my family around me and I basked in it and it was amazing.
Nothing anyone said prepared me for what it felt like to get married. I felt raw and shocked, my soul felt different and weird. I was scared. I went back to the B&B and cried myself to sleep because I felt wrenched. No one told me it was going to feel like that. I’ve seen a gazillion pictures of gorgeous glowing brides and no one told me that when your dad gave a speech and you cried it wasn’t a photo op, you were REALLY CRYING and a lot of people were looking at you crying and you were actually sad. I think it’s okay to feel raw and wretched. Marriage is a big deal. It is something to be taken seriously. I felt bad about feels scared and sad and raw and wrenched. I felt really guilty.
None of which is to say that I didn’t love our wedding. I did. It was a gorgeous wedding. When David proposed I was in my ninth month of being unemployed and within weeks my dad lost his job too. Out of economic necessity and my own long-lived devotion to make stuff I crafted and my sisters crafted, and my mother and my friends crafted.
I made the cake topper because I couldn’t afford one and because I made clothespin dolls with my mum as a child; I couldn’t afford a florist so my bridesmaids and friends and I put together made the most beautiful flowers ever; I poured candles for weeks; my maid of honor and my little sister did hours of calligraphy. We didn’t have any money but we had a lot of time and we built our wedding out of nothingness. I made flowered headbands for the flower girls and tote bags for the bridesmaids; David and I hung papel-picado and bistro lights and we swept the barn and my mother and cousin made fresh blueberry chutney and sandwiches on wedding day for us all.
I heard time and time again during wedding planning that the details don’t matter and for some couples maybe they don’t but my sister’s handwriting on my place card, my brother’s band playing, my nephew carrying the ring bowl my mother made, the bridesmaid assembled flowers everywhere, the tissue paper pom-poms hanging from the rafters, the flowered combs in my hair made by my friend who drank a box of Franzia and burnt the hell out of her fingers with a hot glue gun, these things mattered. I can’t even tell you how much they mattered. They felt like a gift and I felt wrapped in the sweetness and the love and the care that had gone into them.* It was a gorgeous wedding and I felt the love. I felt the magical love we are supposed to feel but I also felt like I had been hit by a bus. Continue reading Wedding Graduates: Hannah & David
* Fiona, Chief Officer Merchant Navy & Karl, Construction and Groundworker * Photographer: Lillian & Leonard (APW Sponsors) * Soundtrack for reading: “Home” by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros *
One sentence sum up of the wedding: A homemade, family effort with many friends game for a giggle—homemade love.
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