Posts Tagged ‘Classic APW’

May 2011

Today APW is partnering up with Apartment Therapy's The Kitchn to talk a little about weddings and food. As someone who spent 50% of her wedding budget on food, very intentionally, this is right up my alley. Later today, I'll be over on The Kitchn, writing about Team Practical's collective wisdom about self-catering your wedding. This afternoon, Apartment Therapy Managing Editor Faith will be here, talking about sensible ways to build a cooking focused wedding registry. But to kick it all off, I wanted to start with Faith's wedding. Faith wrote about her wedding for APW two years ago, and it remains one of my all time favorite wedding graduate posts (no kidding). The way she discusses faith, hospitality, and food were so wise and so impact-full for me. So, as I said two years ago, I hope you like it a quarter as much as I do, because that would be very much indeed.

Mike and I were married last September in Columbus, Ohio. We really value our community of friends and family, and we wanted a celebration that would thank them for all their support in our journey, and acknowledge that marriage isn't just a joining of two people: it's more far-reaching than that.

I'm a food writer, so food and drink are crazy important to both of us. We lucked out big time with our caterer, Creative Cuisine. John, our contact there, is on the board of the Ohio organic and ecological farming association, and he was able to bring in some local ingredients. He was great to work with: I gave him my dream menu and he not only pulled it off but at a great price too.
Important words: We pulled out a few words to keep us anchored and centered during the process. Hospitality was one. I read once that a wedding reception is a bride and bridegroom's first act of hospitality as a married couple. This drove a lot of the decisions we made: is this idea hospitable? Also, community. We have deep friendships with people all over the country, and we wanted to bring them together in a one-day reunion!
Being practical: A Practical Wedding was a big inspiration. I like the thought that being practical means doing what's right for YOU - not just what the wedding industry or indie crowd thinks is ideal. This post also made me crow! So true.

We paid a little more for our wedding than we planned, but it was a deliberate decision. We wanted to serve everyone an excellent meal with great wine, and this is where the majority of our money went. It was 110% worth it. We were very frugal in other areas, but we also tried to be sensible in balancing creativity and time vs. the convenience (and sanity) of paying others to do things. We had a short engagement of about 4 months, so this was important.

Also on practicality and frugality: we had the wedding on a Sunday afternoon, which saved us quite a bit on venue. We also decided to keep our wedding party intimate: just our siblings and one good friend as the flower girl. I felt strongly about paying for my bridal party's dresses - one thing that has always annoyed me about American weddings is the expectation for people to drop a ton of money on a dress they will of course, "wear again." Keeping the parties intimate kept costs down, but the real reason was just that we wanted to stick with people that we know will be in our lives forever. Continue reading Wedding Graduates: Faith & Mike

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Jul 2010

Classic APW – Post Wedding Freedom

This post ran as we flew out on our honeymoon last year. It only seemed right to run it again today, as David and I will be boarding a plane for our one year anniversary trip at dawn tomorrow. When we got back from our honeymoon last year, I said to my friends that I was so sad that the honeymoon was over. Forget the wedding being the best day of my life, the honeymoon was two of the most blissful weeks of my life. And being wise friends, they reminded me that while you can never re-live your wedding, you can have many many honeymoons. So, in a way, we're off to our second one tomorrow. It's been a long, stressful, wonderful year, better and richer than I ever would have dreamed. I'll write more about it on the other side, but for now I leave you with this. A tiny post that proved to be so, so, true.

...

The evening of our wedding day we were browsing in a used bookstore (this is not surprising to you, is it? Of course not). I was looking through the magazine section and I stumbled upon a wedding magazine, a wedding magazine that I *like* at that. And I had this dull feeling in the pit of my stomach.

And suddenly I realized, "It's not my problem anymore!" And I felt terribly terribly free.

You hear a lot about post-wedding depression. You hear about how when you wake up the morning after your wedding you will feel happy, but also a little empty... sad that the party is over. Maybe. Maybe this will happen to you, I don't know. But what I can offer you is a ray of hope - it did not happen to us. Our wedding was wonderful. Our wedding was absurdly joyous. Our wedding was one amazing party. But it was exactly the right length, and when it was over I ran out of that door, making long strides in my silver heels as I dashed to the car.

Our wedding was just right. But we are both so happy to move on. We'll have it in our memories for ever, and now we have a wide open vista ahead of us, with new adventures to be had... Continue reading Classic APW – Post Wedding Freedom

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Jul 2010

Classic APW – Wedding Graduates: Cara & Nye

For some reason, Christa's wedding graduate post this week made me think of one-of-my-best-ladies Cara's wedding graduate post. Cara was one of the original wedding graduates, back almost two years ago (Ah! That long?!) when I asked a few of my new blog friends to write about what they'd learned getting married, to help steer me, still on the other side. I've never re-run Cara's post, and I'm not sure how that is. She summed up everything you need to know when figuring out your wedding and the details, in a world that tells you it's all about the details. Because it's a delicate balance for those of us that care about style... what will matter? What won't? How will it matter?

So today, one of the *most* classic APW posts. Since it ran, I've drunk whisky in an bar in an old church with Cara and Nye in Scotland, toasted my 30th birthday with them in New York, and cried over their soon-to-be twins. It's been a long and wonderful road, but Cara's words are just as wise now as they were then. So with that, the lady herself:

What did I learn from getting married? Many things - if you're Doing It Yourself ask for help, loads of it. You don't need as many boxes of biscuits as you have guests. Spending your monthly food budget on fancy cheese is unnecessary and if you take medication that alters your mood taking it upon yourself to lower the dose a fortnight before your wedding is a bad idea. But which of these things to expand on, which that might offer some insight to other brides to be? I'll go for the one that I wish I'd realised earlier....

It's not about the details.

Hardly a novel idea, I know. Wise women like Meg and East Side have been telling us this since the very beginning but lovestruck fools like me (I'm assuming that I'm not the only one) have been ignoring them. Let me share what I have learnt, although I feel like an idiot for not listening in the first place...

I love the details, the details were my sustenance during the bitter moments of wedding planning, the he wants to elope so he doesn't have to wear a suit moments, the my mother has told me 16 times in the last 12 months that she hates weddings moments. Making handmade prettinesses made me smile (and occasionally want to throw things out the window, but that's par for the course right?) and I firmly believed that they would make our wedding...*better* somehow.

Well, they didn't. It wasn't the details that we managed to pull off that made me realise this, it was the huge number of projects that didn't quite make it to the wedding day either because we just didn't have time to finish them or because on the morning of the wedding we were too busy making sure our guests would have tables to eat at to worry about fripperies like decor. The aisle decorations never made it, but even better than admiring our beautiful silk ribbons our guests admired the love and joy that shone out of our ceremony... Escort cards? Well I spent days making them but again and I know not how or why, we ended up with a list of names written on a piece of card and no lives were lost as people found their seats without the help of handwritten notes hung on a washing line with bird shaped pegs. Finally, the one thing that really brought it home to me that the details matter less than the thought behind them - the photo line. Continue reading Classic APW – Wedding Graduates: Cara & Nye

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Jul 2010

Classic APW – Words To Read When You Wed: Ashes, Tea

As I've reprised Amanda's Words To Read When You Wed seires (Part I, Part II, now with Cara's amazing photographs), I've been purposely vague about which of these readings we used in our wedding. But I will tell you that we used Craig Arnold's poem from today's selection. It was a fraught choice, and people were very confused as to why we'd have a poem about death at our wedding. But it was what we wanted to say. Not just that we loved each other, but as my Dad finally said, "Weddings are about death. That's the whole point." So we did. And it was the right choice.

And then, when I started re-running Amanda's amazing wedding readings, I got an email from a reader. She told me I could share a bit with you:

"It would mean so much if you and Amanda reprised the Craig Arnold poem you put up last February. Craig was a wonderful friend and poet who died tragically and unexpectedly in an accident last year. He was so excited when I pointed out that his work was presented as a potential reading for weddings on your site. It thrilled him to his sweet, fun, funny core that his words might guest star in such important moments in like-minded peoples' lives. He told everyone for days about how excited the idea of 'being a reading' made him."

So this post is for those who loved him. Craig got to 'be a reading' at our wedding last August, and we could not have been happier to have him there. Thank you, for letting us borrow him, if only for a few very present, very important moments of our lives.

For “sickness,” for “poorer,” for “dust” and “until.”

EPITAPH FOR HIS PARENTS

-- Ben Franklin

Josiah Franklin and Abiah his wife
lie here interred.
They lived lovingly together in wedlock fifty-five years;
and without an estate or any gainful employment,
with God's blessing,
maintained a large family comfortably;
and brought up thirteen children and seven grandchildren
reputably.
From this instance, reader,
be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, by constant labour,
and honest industry, and distrust not Providence.
He was a pious and prudent man,
she a discreet and virtuous woman.
Their youngest son,
in filial regard to their memory,
places this stone.

LIVING WITH IT

--Craig Arnold

It is nothing that they did
Or could have helped, two people
Falling in love. Not even
Because they shared a toothbrush,
Once. It is their germs
Getting acquainted.
For weeks
They take turns being sick
--one makes the tea, the other
answers the phone. Slowly,
they can’t tell better from worse.
This goes on
Until one dies. Continue reading Classic APW – Words To Read When You Wed: Ashes, Tea

Posted in: The Ceremony, The Hard Stuff | 33 Comments »

Jun 2010

Classic APW – Words To Read When You Wed: Olives, Leaves

Today we continue down our meandering path of discussing ceremonies (because, yup, it's that time of year). This is Amanda of First Milk's second set of modern wedding readings (see Part I), now part of the Classic APW pantheon. This selection bends towards the classics (actual, not APW related). It ends with a passage that lights up my face, one Amanda selected without having any idea that I loved it so much I'd used it in a performance piece when I was just 21. So I give you images, readings, magical synergy. Amanda, take it away...

Gifts and ornaments, wishes, grins. For giving, for keeping, for sending off, raising high.

From THE ODYSSEY
--Homer, Translation by Robert Fitzgerald

There is our pact and pledge, our secret sign,
Built into that bed—my handiwork
And no one else’s!
An old trunk of olive
Grew like a pillar on the building plot,
And I laid out our bedroom round that tree,
Lined up the stone walls, built the walls and roof,
Gave it a doorway and smooth-fitting doors.
Then I lopped off the silver leaves and branches,
Hewed and shaped that stump from the roots up
Into a bedpost, drilled it, let it serve a model for the rest. I planed them all,
Inlaid them all with silver, gold and ivory,
And stretched a bed between—a pliant web
Of oxhide thongs died crimson.

There’s our sign!

From EPITHIMALION
--Edmund Spenser

And ye high heavens, the temple of the gods,
In which a thousand torches flaming bright
Doe burne that to us wretched earthly clods,
In dreadful darknesse lend desired light;
And all ye powers which in the same remayne
More than we men can fayne,
Poure out your blessing on us plenteously,
And happy influence upon us raine,
That we may raise a large posterity,
Which from the earth, which they may long possesse,
With lasting happinesse,
Up to your haughty palaces may mount,
And for the guerdon of theyr glorious merit
May heavily tabernacles there inherit,
Of blessed Saints for to increase the count.
So let us rest, sweet love, in hope of this,
And cease till then our timely joyes to sing,
The woods no more us answer, nor our eccho ring.

Song made in lieu of many ornaments,
With which m love should duly have bene dect,
Which cutting off through hasty accidents,
Ye would not stay your dew time to expect,
But promist both to recompens,
Be unto her a goodly ornament,
And for short time an endlesse moniment.

From ANNA KARENINA
--Leo Tolstoy

There was only anticipation—fear and joy of the new and the unknown. And in a few moments now, the anticipation and the unknown, the remorse and the renunciation of her old life—everything would come to an end, a new life would begin…
Turning again to the lectern, the priest with some difficulty picked up Kitty’s little ring, and, asking Levin for his hand, put it on the top of his finger. “With this ring I wed thee, Konstantin, servant of God, to the servant of God, Katherine.” And putting the big ring on Kitty’s slender, rosy finger, pathetic in its weakness, the priest repeated the same words.
Several times Levin and Kitty tried to guess what they had to do, and every time they were wrong and the priest corrected them in a whisper. At last, having done what was necessary, he again made the sign of the cross over them with the rings and again gave the large ring to Kitty and the little one to Levin, again they got confused and twice passed the rings backward and forward without getting it right.
Dolly, Chirikov, and Koznyshev came forward to help them. The result was more confusion, whispering, and smiles, but the touchingly solemn expression on the faces of the young couple did not change; on the contrary, while mixed up over their hands, they looked more serious and solemn than before, and the smile with which Oblonksy whispered to them to put on their rings involuntarily died on his lips. He could not help feeling that any kind of smile would hurt them.

From LEAVES OF GRASS
--Walt Whitman Continue reading Classic APW – Words To Read When You Wed: Olives, Leaves

Posted in: The Ceremony | 16 Comments »

Jun 2010

Classic APW – Words To Read When You Wed: Water, Wine

I’m feeling a little sleepy this week (is it the beginning of summer slipping over me?), so I thought as part of our meandering discussion on ceremonies we’d re-visit some classic APW posts, namely Amanda’s posts about wedding readings. These are, in sum, some of my favorite things that have ever been run on APW, and I had to share them with the many of you that were not around back then.

More than a year ago, I asked Amanda, she behind the lovely First Milk, if she’d gather up some inspiring wedding readings. By inspiring, I don’t mean “inspirational” (god help us), but instead, readings that say something real, readings that gain traction in your heart. It ended up that we picked every one of our modern wedding readings from this collection.* They made us cry and laugh, and they made David’s and my high school honors English teachers sit up and take notice, and ask about them after the ceremony. So, as we go into “Ah, we have to write our ceremony” season for you summer brides, some posts and notes, brought to you in bursts. So here, Amanda (with photos all by Cara. They were not before, but now they are. It seems better that way):

....

I tried to stay away from religious texts (not because I don't think they're appropriate and full of lovely, but because folks have such strong feelings about them, and because many of them are so well-known) and Shakespeare (obviously, even Sonnet 116, which was very hard to ignore), and found myself drawn toward passages that I love anyway--not just for weddings. There isn't a lot about love, I'm afraid, because I figure by the time folks are getting married, well, there's just more to it than that squishy kind of love. And I tried to come up with passages with which people might not be so familiar (or might simply have forgotten about), some of which are classic, and some of which are more modern. That's all.

Today, a collection of those that cry to me of lovely and transformation, of what is real, what is full, what is peaceful, waves, swells. As for the whys and wherefores of choosing, I’m not sure I have much to say—it is my hope that these pieces will sing for themselves.

THE POEMS OF OUR CLIMATE
--Wallace Stevens

I
Clear water in a brilliant bowl,
Pink and white carnations. The light
In the room more like a snowy air,
Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snow
At the end of winter when afternoons return.
Pink and white carnations--one desires
So much more than that. The day itself
Is simplified: a bowl of white,
Cold, a cold porcelain, low and round,
With nothing more than the carnations there.

II
Say even that this complete simplicity
Stripped one of all one's torments, concealed
The evilly compounded, vital I
And made it fresh in a world of white,
A world of clear water, brilliant-edged,
Still one would want more, one would need more,
More than a world of white and snowy scents.

III
There would still remain the never-resting mind,
So that one would want to escape, come back
To what had been so long composed.
The imperfect is our paradise.
Note that, in this bitterness, delight,
Since the imperfect is so hot in us,
Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.

CHILDREN RUNNING THROUGH
-- Rumi, Trans: Coleman Barks with John Moyne

I used to be shy.
You made me sing.

I used to refuse things at table.
Now I shout for more wine.

In somber dignity, I used to sit
on my mat and pray.

Now children run through
and make faces at me.

RAISE HIGH THE ROOF BEAM, CARPENTERS
--J.D. Salinger

When I’d checked into the bathroom with Seymour’s diary under my arm, and had carefully secured the door behind me, I spotted a message almost immediately. It was not, however, in Seymour’s handwriting but, unmistakably, in my sister Boo Boo’s. With or without soap, her handwriting was always almost indecipherably minute, and she had easily managed to post the following message up on the mirror; “Raise high the roof beam, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man. Love, Irving Sappho, formerly under contract to Elysium Studios Ltd. Please be happy happy happy with your beautiful Muriel. This is an order. I outrank everybody on this block.” … I read and reread the quotation, and then I sat down on the edge of the bathtub and opened Seymour’s diary. Continue reading Classic APW – Words To Read When You Wed: Water, Wine

Posted in: The Ceremony, Uncategorized | 112 Comments »

Posts Tagged ‘Classic APW’

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