Posts Tagged ‘DIY Photography’

Oct 2011

If you are like me, you have been waiting around tapping your toe, wondering when our own Shotgun Shirley (whose real name is Rachel... long story) would write her wedding graduate post. Rachel shared a bit about planning her Shotgun Wedding (which we both agree is the funniest term in the world, so we're using it) last fall, when she found out rather suddenly that she was pregnant. And now she's back, with a beautiful wedding story (that dress!) and... A BABY! Rachel's story is a perfect complement to this morning's discussion of accepting life, our partners, ourselves, and our union exactly how they come... and letting there be perfection in the imperfection.

There are so many ways to approach this that it’s taken me a while to get started. (And I’ve had three false starts already.) Do I talk about including each of my six siblings? The mama (in-law) drama? Planning it almost by myself because Anton had to study for the bar exam? But what’s really different about our story is that it was a shotgun wedding.

We were proto-engaged for over six months, then we got officially engaged and BAM it turns out we are two months along—what?!? Despite our best efforts, our plan to have a family became a bit off schedule.

We had been considering a Fall 2011 or Spring 2012 picnic reception at my parents’ house. We even did some landscaping to prepare during the secret proto-engagement. So, why did we go for a shotgun wedding? Well, there were the legal benefits, and the tax benefits, too (when one of you makes $0, you get a nice big tax refund, which can help pay for a nice big party), but that’s not the only reason. When it comes down to it, we wanted to be married before our daughter's birth. It was important to us personally, and it also seemed more practical. (I am so glad I didn’t have any postpartum wedding planning!)

We had a civil ceremony a month after our official engagement, in November 2010, and scheduled our religious wedding for January 2011. That way I still had plenty of pregnant time to switch from my OB to an awesome midwife, prep for the birth, and get ready for a baby. A shotgun wedding was the most practical option for us, and that’s why we did it, difficulties and all.

Now, onto the how. A lot of the wedding planning was not particularly “shotgun”—we set our budget and our priorities early on (family/friends, booze, food and funk) and went from there. Invites and reception venue had to be figured out ASAP since we already knew we’d be married in my family church. We had just announced our engagement and now we had to spread the baby and wedding news. We mostly waited, except for close family and friends, until we could announce both.

Continue reading Wedding Graduates: Rachel & Anton

Posted in: Wedding Graduates | 42 Comments »

Sep 2011

Wedding Graduates: Juliana & Joan

You want a perfect wedding? Well. I think today's wedding might be as close as it gets. It's not perfect in a single traditional sense (no white dress, no big party, no details to speak of, only a few weeks to plan), but it's perfect in the ways that matter. They decided they didn't want to live without each other, they braved multi-national legalities, they planned a wedding in a few weeks that reflected them. Plus, I have a huge soft spot for the ladies who thought they would never marry and then decided they could rock marriage in their own damn way, just like everything else in their lives.

I had never given much thought to a wedding, or even marriage. I pictured myself as one of those mature women who wears red dresses and big floppy hats with large sunglasses and sips wine on sidewalk cafes with a book by her side, with lots of cats waiting at home, or perhaps making time before she meets with her current and not permanent beau. But married? Nope.

Half a year before our wedding, my boyfriend of four years and I decided to split up after I moved to Costa Rica, when we realized that traveling back and forth was completely out of our budget. He had mentioned the option of marrying in a Mr. Darcy way—not the "I ardently love you" proposal but the "against my better judgement" one. I was in shock at first and then shot it down as more trouble than it would be worth and had a dozen different reasons as to why it didn't make sense when neither one of us has ever been "the marrying kind." A couple of months later we discussed the more realistic possibility of him traveling to Costa Rica on a tourist visa, finding work and a way to make his stay more permanent. We even joked about getting married to buy time while they sorted the paperwork out. Two weeks later when his visa application for Costa Rica was rejected, we had to think fast and plan. And then it became crystal clear to me, in a way that it hadn't before, that although I could live without him, I didn't want to. He made my life better, and I wanted him with me. So I proposed and he said yes. It might be good to mention that all these conversations took place on an instant messaging client while we were sitting miles and miles away from each other.

I told my parents, he told his. Due to study and work issues, I could only take a month to go to Colombia, plan the wedding and get married. Getting married in Colombia requires quite a mountain of paperwork and I had to be there in person to hand it in and then get approved to schedule the wedding date. We had to jump through legal hoops and over hurdles, but in the end, I got him some papers so my fiance was able to act in my name, and we had a wedding date. We also had less than six weeks to plan.

Planning this wedding had very little to do with the fluffy bits: decorations, food, flowers, dresses, cards and invitations, engagement photo shoots or gift registries. It had to do with practicality, with simplicity and a lot with boring things like running around the city getting paperwork signed and stamped in different offices and then getting them mailed off. We had long conversations over skype and through chat about our personal goals and expectations of married life and one of the important items had to do with money. We decided two things: we would pay for the wedding ourselves, even if that meant having a really small wedding, and we would not get into debt to have the wedding. Continue reading Wedding Graduates: Juliana & Joan

Posted in: Wedding Graduates | 25 Comments »

Sep 2011

Wedding Graduates: Maryanne & Harry

Today's wedding is going to restore your faith in the world, I'm just warning you. Maryanne and Harry had their reception at a restaurant that works to feed everyone, whether they can afford to pay or not. It focused on their values instead of stuff. But in true APW fashion, they balanced their values with who they are and still had damn beautiful wedding and a string quartet. This wedding reminds me of what the APW community is all about: being true to yourself and your values; not letting the pretty conflict with the meaningful; standing your ground without making too much a fuss (unless you need to). So without further ado, I bring you Maryanne:

My husband surprised me with his proposal. We were in love, and things were going really well between us, but I didn’t expect that on a Sunday morning last May he’d put an engagement ring on a necklace, put the necklace on my 16-year-old cat, and the two of them proposed to me. I happily said yes.

And after all the happy phone calls to give our families the good news, the question became: when and where shall we have the wedding? We didn’t want anything too fancy or over the top. We knew we didn’t want to break the bank with expenses, and we absolutely knew we didn’t want a lot of material gifts, since we both already had established separate households.

The part that really helped a lot was sitting down at our favorite diner over a grilled cheese (me) and a hamburger (Harry) to decide which elements in the wedding were most important to us.

The list: I wanted to look like a bride; we wanted a string quartet; we wanted to tie in some kind of charity-related theme; we wanted a meaningful and personal ceremony; we wanted to keep it small; we wanted to have it in Denver. We also didn’t want to rush the planning, but we didn’t want to drag out either. So almost six months to the day of getting engaged, we got married on Nov 20, 2010, the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

We ended up choosing to have the wedding reception at the same place as one of our first dates in Denver: the So All May Eat Café (SAME). SAME is an innovative restaurant concept in Denver. It serves healthy meals to people and the customers pay what they think the meal is worth, or, in some cases, what they can, and if they have no money, they can do dishes or help clean up in the kitchen.

Continue reading Wedding Graduates: Maryanne & Harry

Posted in: Wedding Graduates | 27 Comments »

Jul 2011

Wedding Graduates: Candis & Hayley

Today's wedding is awesome, not just because it's a lesbian wedding that took place in a deeply red state (though I love that bit), but because of everything else. It features partners who don't see eye to eye on aesthetics and styles (you don't have to!) and DIY everything, from photography to food, and a dessert (but country club style) reception. Hurrah!

Indulgence was the word of our spectacular, DIY wedding day. Hayley and I aren’t much for themed events (or so I thought), yet our wedding was absolutely centered on indulgence, with a dash of hedonism and political rebellion. We’re a gay couple getting married in a completely crimson state, and we only set out to please ourselves. Ever wanted to see a feminist country club wedding? You should have been there.

Hayley and I come from vastly different places in the world. Geographically, she was born and raised in Louisville, KY, a city with severe bipolar disorder (Midwestern? Southern?), while I grew up in romantic, deeply Old South Georgia. Her fondest memories from childhood include riding her bike to the country club to swim the day away, while mine tend more toward riding my bike down the dirt road to the local pond to fish. She has political anemia: she knows, but she never gets too fired up about much of anything. I, on the other hand, have been known to scare lesser mortals with the vehemence of my social zeal. We may be best friends, but we’ll never be total birds of a feather.

So when the planning began we struggled to conceive of an event that said “Candis and Hayley totally love each other” in a way that was both exciting and authentic. We thought big wedding, small wedding, beach elopement, farm weekend, country club soiree, art gallery chic, etc, etc, ad nauseum. After months of ideas being rejected, we settled on one that had been heavily endorsed by Hayley and that didn’t make me want to vomit. Compromise is the name of the game after all. With Hayley’s family home as venue and garden cocktail party as the style, we were ready to get serious.

Like all couples (maybe more so with two brides) we went through the inevitable arguments over invites, flowers, cakes, dresses, favors, blah, blah, blah. Even the date wasn’t sacrosanct as we changed it twice to accommodate family members. Eventually all things were decided, plans set, dresses bought and gifts arriving in the mail. Wedding planning turned out to be both harder and easier than imagined. Continue reading Wedding Graduates: Candis & Hayley

Posted in: LGBTQ Weddings, Wedding Graduates | 26 Comments »

May 2011

Vintage Wedding: 1981

Today's Vintage Wedding comes from reader Melissa, and will make you stop in your tracks. It will make you remember what weddings are about, and what marriage is about, and why you're doing all of this in the first place. So take a deep breath, read, and then go find your partner and kiss them. If you've got love, the details don't matter so much.

My parents met in college and became close friends. They dated for 8 years before finally deciding to get married. They got engaged in July and set the date for August of the same year. They weren't pregnant at the time - they just decided it was the perfect time for them.

With less than a month to plan they decided to keep everything simple and intimate. My Dad's family all lived out of state. His parents were able to make it, but not all of his siblings. They decided to get married in my Mom's parent's backyard, on a lake.

I e-mailed my Dad to get a few more thoughts from him and he said the following :

"An intimate wedding was just what we wanted. We were both working hard in full-time jobs and we didn't have time to plan out a big fancy wedding... nor did we want one! I loved having the wedding in my new in-law's back yard, right on the water and having every one ring hand bells when the service was complete. I also loved that my new sister-in-law put a "Just Married" sign on the mast of the sail boat and took a picture of us sailing off into the sunset. I loved having a swimming party with fried chicken and potato salad with the family right after the ceremony rather than having a stuffy reception where everyone has to do The Chicken Dance!"

I wish I had more from my mom about their, but when you're 13, the younger you doesn't think to ask about wedding day memories. I really wish I had, because by the time you want to know all about that, it's too late.

They married in August 1981 when they were both almost 30. They were both pretty nontraditional individuals so much of the pomp and circumstance of regular weddings fell by the wayside. My mom picked a simple ivory dress and my Dad wore his suit and full hippie beard. They both had only one attendant. My Mom had 5 sisters, so one attendant is impressively small. They included a few songs in the ceremony, because music was so important to both of them. It's that simple. Continue reading Vintage Wedding: 1981

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Apr 2011

Wedding Graduate: Abi & Eddie

I love Abi's post because she talks so wisely about the way we journey to our wedding, how we have to do the work to "reach the point that you knew existed all along." Which is so true. Plus, halfway through Abi's wedding graduate post, she starts talking about having a meltdown over barn weddings 'not seeming feasible' and I started cracking up. I know, terrible right? But in this age of indie-rustic-chic-weddings, who hasn't been there? Who hasn't had a meltdown seeing something on a blog, and then trying to replicate it, and then realizing that it would cost a million dollars and require a small production team to pull off? So here is a love song to the journey to your own truth, and to simple weddings that are actually simple.

I started out like most brides probably do. I ignored any and all duties and began scouring the internet for venues, dresses, caterers and bands. I set aside school, dog walking, dinners and even my poor fiance while I delved into the once unknown world of trendy online wedding blogs. I denied that I was working hard on this event, or that I was trying to plan anything spectacular. When people asked I would say that we weren't in any big hurry to get married and we would just see what we found.

The truth? Having gotten engaged in February and being in the middle of nursing school, I was internally freaking out that if I didn't have my wedding over the coming summer, I would have to wait an entire 16 months from our engagement until the following summer and I just didn't want to wait that long. A winter wedding maybe over my school break? I looked at romantic and beautiful snowy venues but soon realized that it would cost a fortune to have everyone inside and I could hardly ask my friends to fly to San Francisco only to be caught on Donner Pass in a freak snow storm with no chains.

After 2-3 months of trying to squeeze my budget and time frame into the beautiful world of weddings and other brides (with bigger budgets) that I was seeing online, my head began to spin. I had had it with the wedding industry dictating what I "should" do and tacking on several thousand dollars to every service once the word "wedding" passed through my lips. I felt like every idea that I had was shot down as being unrealistic for our budget, and that nobody had solutions for me, only potential issues like, "that venue is too small" or "too far away" or "too expensive to get to".....agh! One night I finally cracked under the pressure that I didn't even know existed and began a good solid crying session after a discussion with my mom about how a barn wedding without a caterer just didn't seem feasible.

After some wonderful consoling from my soon to be husband, we remembered that this was supposed to be fun. Right then and there I decided to do everything in my power to have a wedding without enlisting the help of "the industry". I knew that I could do it and that it could be simple, I was just going to keep my vision and not get distracted. Once I reached that point and made that decision, it was as if opportunities just started falling in my lap. Continue reading Wedding Graduate: Abi & Eddie

Posted in: Wedding Graduates | 35 Comments »

Posts Tagged ‘DIY Photography’

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