You know how you guys are always begging for David to do a guest post? Well he did one. Once. Two years ago. I know that by now we’ve trod back and forth over these ideas for a bit, but it’s DAVID, and you get to hear him in his own words, instead of through my (rather substantial) filter. So I figured that was the best Friday present I could give you. And now I’m going to go back to prepping Wedding Graduate posts until my fingers fall off. And drinking. But now, David himself:
David here, the “better half” at chez practical. I have been asked, well maybe more persuasively requested, to write a guest blog from the other-gendered point-of-view. I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with something to write for this first guest blog and decided that it may be best to use my insights into the male mind to aid you all along in the happiest day of YOUR life. Continue reading Classic APW: David’s Only Guest Post Ever
Posts Tagged ‘Classic APW’
Ahhhh…. well this one can stand alone, don’t you think? And, go!
I have started to notice that I use the phrase WIC quite a bit on this blog as a shortcut, and I’ve never discussed it at length. I think that shortcuts lead to lazy thought, which leads to dangerously sloppy thinking. So. Time to discuss.
What do I mean when I say WIC? In short: I mean the Wedding Industrial Complex. In long form, it’s a lot more complicated.
I wish I could tell you the genesis of the term Wedding Industrial Complex, but I can’t. I wish I could tell you the first time I heard the term WIC, but I can’t, at least not precisely. I do know it was in the 1990′s, a time when we spent a whole lot more time talking about the Military Industrial Complex, and I also know that I thought it was hilarious. It was funny in the way a New Yorker cartoon is funny. It was true and ridiculous at the same time. It was layered. It was evocative. The first time I heard the term I imaged factories churning out wedding dresses and massive diamond rings the same way they might churn out missiles or M-16′s. I thought that it was correct in that the wedding industry can be destructive and enormous, but it was silly because the Military Industrial Complex was about making war and the Wedding Industrial Complex was (at least overtly) about making love. It was complicated, and I like complicated. It made me snicker, and I like snickering. It made me think, which as you might guess, I like. Continue reading Classic APW: The Wedding Industrial Complex, As It Were
So. This post only ran a year ago, but since I'm revisiting the very best of APW, this is a MUST. When Christina first sent me her wedding graduate post I remember just sitting in the kitchen and crying and crying. Not like, a few happy tears, but just sobbing. It was just after Prop 8, so we were all a little emotionally raw, but I think the REAL reason I was crying is that Christina gave me full permission to do it our way, in a deep down raw sense, not in a indie-trend way. She showed me that I could throw out the wedding model, and end up with something even more wedding, something that really mattered to us. You'll remember Christina as the inventor of the bridal brigade, and you can see more pictures of their stunning wedding on Snippet and Ink. Since this post first ran, I've had the chance to get to know Christina and Patty a little bit, and hang out in their crazy, now-blessed-by-a-wedding backyard. And yes. They really are as great as they seem... well, better, really.
Continue reading Classic APW: Steady Happy Wedding
Via Indie Bride thread
where did all the sleeves go?:My grandmother and mother sat down together shortly after we announced our engagement and flipped through a bridal magazine to look at dresses. Grandma apparently spent the entire time talking about all the “nakedness” of the models in their strapless dresses. She kept asking my Mom where their jackets were. She even flipped to one designer’s page and commented to Mom that “those are lovely nightgowns.”
Indeed, Indie Bride. Indeed. And bedazzled, at that.
(First published here)
I found this in the archives and my eyes started to well up. The ring pillow that was really a brick from their house. This isn’t particularly feasible inspiration, but it’s so exactly right. It’s everything that a wedding (and a marriage) should be, all in one picture. And the funny thing is, it was basically a throw away post the first time around: hardly any thought, hardly any comments. Well, except Cate, who quoted coming home by The 88:
Won’t you bring light to my day
Won’t you be somebody new
It’ll be good
It’ll be like coming home…
The original details and source: Devon has been posting about her vibrant wedding over at In This Instance, and this detail made my heart sing. They tied their rings to a brick that was originally part of their house. Solid, practical, home.
You guys. So. I think about this wedding all the time, and I realize that most of you have never seen it. This is the very first wedding I was ever sent by a reader. A reader, that is, who read APW while they planned their wedding. And it was like…. the sky opened up and magic poured forth. This wedding, was a taste of what was to come from all of you. Also. Why didn’t I include more effing PICTURES? Clearly I had no idea what I was doing. So I just added a million more.
We were married June 15th, 2008 at Camp Angelos in Corbett, Oregon.
After briefly flirting with an elopement we discussed why we’d want to host a wedding. For us a wedding was not our special day or the beginning of our life together, a wedding was the chance to make a public declaration of our love in front of our closest friends and family. We wanted to honor our heritage and ask for the love and support of our community throughout our relationship and lives together.
I wasn’t interested in the traditional “unveiling of the bride” so we got ready together in a tiny poorly lit room together giggling like school children. We then trotted outside hand-in-hand to greet guests as they arrived with lemonade and ice tea.
Once everyone was assembled we, all 98 of us, paraded into a clearing in the woods for an intimate mostly standing ceremony under an antique lace chuppa Mike’s dad hung from the cedars. 
