Posts Tagged ‘Small Weddings’

Oct 2011

Today's Wedding Graduate post is especially moving because it's a Wedding Graduate post and a Wedding Graduate Returns post all in one. We've been in the process of cleaning out our Wedding Graduate archives (so much brilliant stuff in there), and following up with people on what has happened since they wrote their posts. Sarah's post talks about all the work they did to create a green wedding, and about how in the end, what really deeply mattered were the people there loving them. In the past year, their lives have changed enormously (more at the end of the post!), and it's that tremendous sense of love celebrated on their wedding day that acts as an anchor for what came next.

My husband (gah!) and I live in New Zealand. For those who aren’t quite sure where that is—and that is fine, there aren’t that many of us down here—it is south east of Australia in the South Pacific Ocean. We got married on the 3rd of April on a remote beach called Wai iti in Taranaki. Taranaki is where I grew up and it's where all my family lives, too. It has this great wild coast of beaches with high cliffs and slapping seas. It is beautiful there, and it's where we wanted to get married from the start.

Our wedding was a truly magical weekend at the beach, filled with love, wonderful family and friends, fun and games, and lots and lots of very special moments. When we first started planning, Marcus and I brainstormed together everything we wanted our wedding to be. We stuck our brainstorms on the wall in the office and they framed our approach to the weekend. While admittedly, in the end, we did have smack loads of help and luck, I think focusing from the start on what made sense to us, and doing it, made it the epic occasion that it was.

Right from the beginning, it was paramount to us that we got married in a sustainable way—both for the environment and for our own wallets. We are really into being low impact in our lives, and it was important that our wedding day reflected that. It was quite the challenge, but we relished trying to put it all together without using too many of the Earth’s resources.

We bought a great deal second hand. I did get mildly obsessed by charity shops as I hunted for vintage fabrics (to be sewn into tablecloths) and mismatched cut glass vases. We not only went second-hand, but we also up-cycled things that you might otherwise throw out. My friends and I had a ‘Wedding Bee’ at our house to create decorations. Actually it was less a ‘Wedding Bee’ and more a small sweat shop as we furiously made all the place names and then fifty tin can lanterns out of recycled cans. It was a great girls night in.

Though a word of warning: if you are thinking about making tin can lanterns, wine, hammers and nails are not a good mix! Continue reading Wedding Graduates: Sarah & Marcus

Posted in: Wedding Graduates | 35 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 | 26 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 »

Sep 2011

1971 Vintage Wedding: Amy & Fred

Today's Vintage Wedding is a brilliant must-read for about a million reasons. But what I like best is it simultaneously reassures you that simple weddings are very traditional, while reminding you that the wealth of options we have now (Keep your name! Get married in a park with a reception in a BBQ joint!) are not to be taken for granted. All that, and it's just super smart, so read on. (And then go interview your parents and submit their Vintage Wedding.)

My parents were married in Toronto, Ontario, on August 21, 1971. My mom, Amy, was 21 and my dad, Fred, was 23. My mom says, “I think the average age for getting married was younger then, but we were pretty young even so—we were both still in school. In 1971, and in our families, we couldn’t live together unless we were married. We badly wanted to live together, so we got married! We had a little car (a Datsun sedan we called Daisy), some used furniture, an apartment that cost $125/month, about $1000 in the bank, and lots of high hopes!”

My mom made her own wedding dress, and for reasons that she says “have disappeared in the fogs of time” decided that every inch of her skin should be covered—long sleeves, high neck and even a bonnet in August—but she loved doing it. She says “I remember spending many hours that summer in my parents’ basement, sewing and dreaming about our wedding and married life!” Typical of my mom, the dress pattern doubled as her major project in her Advanced Flat Pattern course at University (her major was Clothing, Textiles and Design).

The wedding was very small—only about 20 people. This decision didn’t come without a fight—apparently family arguments over guest lists are nothing new. “The wedding itself was lovely (except that the front of the church was under construction). But the hours and minutes before the wedding were tense. Until they showed up at the church, it wasn’t certain whether Fred’s family was going to attend. They were upset because we had foolishly told them they could invite only six people to the wedding. Since there are literally hundreds in their extended family, this was not a popular decision!”

My dad says, “By the time I was ready to go to the church—with the best man [his brother, who hadn’t yet shown up] or a substitute—I was so stressed I just wanted it to be over. I was resigned to the fact that my family might not be there, but I wasn’t going to miss this day for anything.”

It was important to my mom that the wedding be small—she was terrified of being the centre of attention of such a large crowd, and there were financial considerations as well. Funnily enough, 40 years later she’s an Anglican Reverend who specializes in officiating weddings and other celebrations, so it’s her job to speak in front of those crowds! Luckily my dad’s family turned up (all 6 of his siblings and his parents), and in retrospect, she says, “I didn’t handle things well at all with my in-laws. No wonder we weren’t sure they were going to show up on the big day. They did turn up at the wedding and after our honeymoon they gave us a lovely party in their home town. ” Continue reading 1971 Vintage Wedding: Amy & Fred

Posted in: Wedding Graduates | 15 Comments »

Aug 2011

1951 Vintage Wedding: Christine & Dominic

Last month, Emily of Emily Takes Photos shared her great-grandparents delightfully simple wedding with us. Today she's sharing her grandparents wedding (Christine is their daughter). Christine and Dominic are celebrating their 60th anniversary this week, so today we get to hear their best marriage advice, and all about their simple wedding (which they informed their families was the last time they would be attending church). So let's hear it for grit, backbone, and plenty of style.

They met in 1948 at UC Santa Barbara. Grandma (Christine) ran the science storehouse and Grandpa (Dominic) met her while he was taking a chemistry class (and no, neither of them made any joke about "chemistry").

Dominic got a scholarship for school in Wisconsin, and they discussed whether Christine would stay in California or if they would get married and she'd join him in Wisconsin. They decided to get married (no crazy elaborate proposal or anything).

They got married at the Mission in Ventura, because they had family in Bakersfield and Santa Barbara and wanted to make it easy for everyone to travel to the wedding.

Except in their day, apparently if you got married at a church outside of your hometown, it was usually because you were expecting a baby and wanted to keep hush about it. Which would explain why five months later they received Christmas cards address to Mr. and Mrs. Dominic Perello and family! (They didn't have their first kid until four years later.)

They had a short ceremony with no Mass (a full Mass is common at Catholic weddings), and according to my dad, they told their families that would be their last time going to church Continue reading 1951 Vintage Wedding: Christine & Dominic

Posted in: Wedding Graduates | 11 Comments »

Jul 2011

1924 Vintage Wedding: Emily & Richard

Way back when I started APW (it's funny that 2008 seems so long ago now), one of my goals was to prove, once and for all, that simple weddings were traditional. Or, in other words, to prove that all this nonsense about but-you-have-to-have-it-it's-tradition, was just that: nonsense. And then I wrote a whole book about that very same subject, which you all will get to read come January.

So I'm beside myself with glee to share Emily's, of Emily Takes Photos, Great-Grandmother Emily's wedding from 1924. First, let's all swoon over her grey wedding dress and her adorable hat and flowers. And then, let's chortle with delight over how simple their invitations were:

Indeed. Simple and traditional and proper. And yes, you caught that. At the bottom of the invitation it indicates that the reception will be, "At Home." Traditional indeed.

But the best part of all of this? The newspaper announcement, that starts with, "Simplicity will characterize the wedding this morning of Miss Emily Mon..." it continues, "A luncheon at the Mon home will follow the service at the church. This will be simple in keeping with the charming dignity of the wedding..."

And don't even get me started on, "The two young matrons of honor at today's ceremony were also recent brides. In their early girlhood, Miss Mon, Mrs. Dietze and Mrs. Nicolaides agreed to serve as bridesmaids or matrons of honor for each other and this morning the romantic contract is fulfilled in its entirety." I know. Anne of Green Gables and I will be over here with the smelling salts, trying to pull ourselves together.

Posted in: Tradition | 49 Comments »

Posts Tagged ‘Small Weddings’

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