* Erika, Actor & Tristan, Payroll Administrator * Photographer: LittleBat Photography (APW Sponsor) * Soundtrack for reading: "I Have a Boyfriend" by The Chiffons *
One sentence sum up of the wedding vibe: We had a wonderful party where our friends and family could be completely themselves in the most glamorous way.
* Aubrae, Chef/Entrepreneur & Joel, Medical Student * Photographer: Hart & Sol Photo (APW sponsors) * Soundtrack for reading: "La Valse d'Amelie" by Yann Tiersen from the Amelie soundtrack *
One sentence sum up of the wedding vibe: Our wedding was exactly ours: free of extraneous frills, noise, and distractions—just us, celebrating our love with those we love, surrounded by nature and the city.
*Kristine, Registered Nurse & Steve, Benefits Coordinator*
Today's post is proof in its purest form that you don't need a fancy wedding (or a wedding with lots of details, or an expensive dress, or any of the nonsense the WIC is selling you) to have a glowingly happy wedding. Kristine & Steve's wedding, with a white bridesmaid's dress, a tiny guest list, an impromptu iPod dance party, and photos by long time APW sponsor A Beautiful Day Photography, is one for the ages. Let's do it.
My baby family is only three months old and I’m already chomping at the bit to write a Wedding Graduate post. I have been since the day I discovered APW. But I’ve struggled to begin because there is just so much to share. Do I focus on the gorgeous setting that made every venue-related mini-meltdown completely meaningless? What about the dress saga? As a plus-sized bride, I knew boutique shopping would be a challenge. After the salesgirl at the first store put her foot in her mouth one too many times, I tried to have my dream gown custom designed through Etsy. This was a disaster too. So I said uncle six weeks before my wedding day and rush-ordered an ivory bridesmaid dress from Joielle. And it was just right.
Or should I share the experience of becoming a wife for the second time by the age of thirty? There was a whole heap of baggage I had to wade through during our pre-engaged and engaged eras. But somehow those insecurities were nowhere to be found on October 15, 2011.
But what has really stuck with me is how damn joyful the whole weekend was. Pure f*cking joy.
I knew Steve and I were making an important commitment. I knew it would be special. But maybe because of the planning stress or because of the baggage, I wasn’t sure I expected to be so high that day. Maybe because I was trying to be so cool and laid back about it all, I didn’t think the actual wedding day would matter so much.
It mattered. So much.
We chose to have an extremely small ceremony. Part of it was to stay within our budget and part was that we didn’t think we needed the production, as we called it. It was about celebrating our commitment. Who cared about a million tiny details? So we invited immediate family and a couple of very close friends and called it good. My aunt and uncle and Steve’s dad generously offered to throw us a post-wedding celebration in our hometown a few weeks later. We really got the best of both worlds: An intimate ceremony that perfectly reflected our relationship and our personalities, followed by a casual party that allowed us to celebrate with everyone we knew and loved.
I had a very close friend and former-roommate get reunited with an ex-boyfriend, engaged to the boyfriend, and married to the boyfriend in the span of seven months. I fully expected to be on board on The Big Day, to support my friend in entering a new world, to embarrass her conservative values with a penis-themed bachelorette
But still! It really stings that after all we went through together as friends over this boy, I didn't get to be there for the conclusion of their dating life. It feels like someone ripped the climax out of a really good book and left the entirely unsatisfying last page.
How do I make up for this sense of loss of not getting to participate? Do I just put on my big girl panties and act like it's all okay? Do I confront her about it and make her feel bad for making me feel bad? Do I simply remember this feeling when it's finally my turn and invite everyone I ever met? I want to be genuinely and un-distractedly happy for her when I see my old friend, the new Mrs.
~Suddenly A Downer; Bummer Friend Forgotten
SAD BFF, let's look at this from a different angle, just for fun. You with me? Of course you're with me:
Dear APW,
I recently reconnected with my ex-boyfriend and found out that we'd both changed in wild and wonderful ways. The sparks flew, as did our clothes, until we realized that we couldn't do without each other. In a whirlwind fashion (that is so not like conservative me!!) we reunited, got engaged and got married all within a span of seven months. I know it didn't appeal to a lot of people, especially my friends, but we really didn't want to waste any more time that we'd lost while being broken up. We decided to have a very small wedding in my husband's hometown for a variety of reasons; some of which were due to budget constraints, the location and the very short timeline we decided on.
We were thrilled to pieces with our wedding, but apparently some of our friends were not. We did not single anyone out and tried to be as fair as possible about the guest list, but I feel that some of them don't understand why they were not invited. I know feelings were hurt, but it wasn't that we tried to exclude anyone; our small wedding ended up being the best thing for us. How do I make them understand that our friendship isn't contingent on the invitation to our wedding and that I still adore them as much as I ever did?
~Suddenly Apparently a Downer; Bad Feeling Friend
Original SAD BFF, do you see what I'm getting at? I do feel really badly for you; it is very disappointing to not be included in a close friend's wedding, but it's a disappointment you're going to have to weather. If you confronted your friend about it, what answer could she possibly give you that would make you feel okay? (Besides, you shouldn't ever make someone feel bad if they made you feel bad. The moral high ground has a lovely view...) Your hurt is understandable, but cluing her into it won't elicit anything further than an apology, followed by justifications on why they had the wedding they did and then a long uncomfortable evening.
There's also the option that something way beyond her control kept her from inviting the people she wanted to and she already feels pretty bad about it. There are plenty of us who wish we had a do-over with certain aspects of our wedding and I bet 90% of us would include the guest list in that list. It's a tough thing, planning a wedding, and the last thing you need to hear as a newlywed is how you did it wrong.
And, um, point of order—who says the story is over?!? Continue reading Ask Team Practical: Small Weddings, the Other Side of the Coin
We started this week with Manya's story about how crazy waiting to get engaged can make you and how you can be redeemed with your actions. So it only seemed right to follow that up with Brittany & Nick's story about how planning a wedding was making them crazy... and how they chose to let go of it all, and have a teeny tiny wedding where they followed their hearts and were surrounded by love.
Planning a wedding is like eating pancakes. Initially you’re super stoked—it’s gonna be so great, I love pancakes! There’ll be all these adornments—pecans and bananas and syrup and butter. Glorious! But a few pancakes in you’re sick and f’ing tired of pancakes… but you’ve already committed. So you feel like you have to finish the pancakes you’ve already started, and if you do, by the end you’re like EFF—I never liked pancakes in the first place! I’m never eating pancakes again! I don’t want to see another pancake recipe as long as I live. I might vomit. But what happens if you scrap the pancakes halfway in and decide to have an omelet instead?
Before I knew it, I was knee deep in pancake batter and there was no eating my way out. Nick and I, in a failed attempt to appease the masses, staked our claim on a moderately sized and well-antiqued bed and breakfast in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We hired string musicians, debated hors d’oeuvres, researched flowers, types of paper and invitations (embossed or just plain print? Will I be judged for cutting that God-Forsaken corner?), and all sorts of other sh*t that neither of us had ever cared about before. We were swept away in a monsoon of half-a*sed concessions and sacrifices we swore we’d never make.
And then one lovely December afternoon, a request for a deposit came. Our venue wanted their cash to reserve the date, as it was merely five months away. It was timely, yet for some guttural reason unexpected. And with that brief three-lined email, my wedding-world-façade came crashing down. It was met with panic and hesitation. This would be the commitment to a wedding event that we didn’t want. I had been so sure, so committed to this pancake extravaganza we were cooking up. When in reality, we were egg people all along.
So I called my family. I told them we were eloping but they were most certainly invited. It would be in Savannah, Georgia over my Spring Break. Why Savannah? Why not. Why Spring Break? Because what else do you do Spring Break your senior year of college? And Nick did the same. They applauded our honesty and stood by our decision.
As for the rest of our wedding planning—it was cake (ha!). It consisted of picking flower colors, cake flavors, type of champagne and time of ceremony—all left up to my most wonderful partner Nick. There was one thing from the original plans we didn’t scrap—the photographers. We needed someone who would capture the day as we experienced it, and seeing as there would be few witnesses, this became even more of a priority. And we were so not disappointed by that decision! The photographers were two lovely ladies we found on APW who were equally as excited about the prospect of our elopement and were quickly onboard with the new plan.
Some people might have an aversion to a pre-packaged elopement, but it fit us just right. We didn’t want a courthouse elopement, but a full-fledged wedding wasn’t our style either. This allowed us to find our place in the wedding-spectrum that felt to be the most candid, unadulterated representation of who we are and what our unity represents. Oh, and when we told people we were eloping and our closest family would be there, the puzzled looks were promptly followed with, "Isn’t the point of eloping to have no one know? It isn’t an elopement if people are there and it’s planned!" We called it an elopement because that was the name of the package. We could have called it a small wedding, or an intimate commitment ceremony or a union gala. It wouldn’t have made a difference. All that mattered was Nick and I were there, it was exactly what we wanted, our family was joyous and we were surrounded by love on the most important, defining day of our lives. Continue reading Wedding Graduates: Brittany & Nick Elope (Sort of)
Today's vintage wedding (vintage weddings, by the way, are among my favorite things) is from the parents of Elissa of Elissa R. Photo in Austin, TX (APW Sponsor). The fact that Elissa is the spitting image of, well, both of her parents, only makes this a happier read for me. Dan and Reiko's wedding has all the hallmarks of current international weddings (some things change, other things never do), with multiple ceremonies stretched out over time. But it also speaks of a time when doing it simply was a little easier, and it points to what's really important—the marriage.
Reiko and I met in suburban Minneapolis in the Fall of 1971, about two months after she arrived in the United States from her native Japan as a Rotary Exchange Student. During this time, we met regularly and experienced High School together. We couldn't call it dating because she was on an exchange program and the sponsor forbade it, but together we shivered through ski-jump meets, downhill skiing, and other outdoor winter activities.
I made my first trip to Japan in 1973. At 19-years-old, looking over the waters of Lake Chuzenjitoward Nantai-yama, we talked about our future together. To my proposal, she did not say yes. But most importantly, she did not say no. For seven years, we courted. I made several trips to Japan; Reiko made several trips here. We exchanged a few dozen letters (it took almost a week for even an airmail letter to arrive). In the end, both Reiko and her family agreed that we could marry, so she bought a one-way ticket on Pan Am's nonstop flight from Tokyo to New York where I was living and working at the time.
I met Reiko at JFK Customs and we drove into the city to my very tiny apartment in a huge sky-scraper across the street from a large hospital. Neither of us was hungry. She was jet lagged; I was tired. We had a simple but meaningful talk over a cup of very bad instant coffee. We now celebrate that date (it is engraved in our rings) as the day we began our lives together and forever.
Some weeks after our commitment to each other, we asked my mother's uncle to meet us at the New York County (Manhattan) Marriage Bureau where we were legally married by a judge. A passer-by in one of the corridors outside the Judge's office used my 6x6 camera to make a photo record of us as we looked that day since photos weren't allowed in Chamber. With the time-clocked and signed marriage license safely stored in an envelope, my great-uncle took the train home to New Jersey and we took a subway up-town. Continue reading 1980 Vintage Wedding: Dan & Reiko
Hi, I'm Meg Keene and I live in San Francisco. I started this blog to talk about planning our 2009 wedding, but it grew to include a lot of grounded smart-alecky women talking intelligently about their weddings and marriages. My first book, A Practical Wedding, was released in January 2012.
*photograph by Emily Takes Photos
