APW Happy Hour

meg keene delivering keynote at alt

HEY APW,

Heyoooo! We, aka four members of APW (Meg, Maddie, Najva, and me) have been at Alt Summit all week. It’s my first Alt, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s the best Alt, because hello! Rainbow walls and good vibes, unicorn floats and emoji hats, keynotes who keep it real and encourage your inner Hermione, and like, you know, champagne.

I’m going to take you guys on a bit of a journey here, a little behind the scenes, a little let’s-hold-hands-and-talk-about-why-we-love-APW time, cool? Cool. I have been working in weddings for a little over eight years, and have known about Meg and APW for a little over six years. I’ve worked for other wedding sites, I’ve always circled the bright orb of the center of the wedding universe that is APW, but until Meg casually asked if I’d want to work 5 hours a week while she was on maternity leave (word to the wise: the baby is 18 months and I’m full-time in Oakland these days), I had not tapped into APW, like, officially. I was, in other words, appropriately fan-girling.

Yesterday Meg gave an interview as a keynote at Alt.We had casually all spent a lunch discussing various talking points she might want to hit, and during that conversation there was a push to get a little political, dig a little deeper, to ask more of her audience than they might expect—but also to include plenty of how-to in the wedding industry, how-to in the real life, how-to make sure you always get to wear what you want to work, and to work from wherever you want. Because, you know, #dreams. #Goals. #Hashtag.

So Meg gets up there, and she’s kind of amazing already because APW, because she managed to perfectly coordinate her shoes with her lipstick (I still don’t wear lipstick, I’m 32, I guess there’s time?), and at like approximately minute ten, second eighteen (check it on Instagram stories, y’all), she begins to talk about the Why. The why of APW, the how, the who, the everything. As you guys know, in this new political atmosphere in the US, this god-awful environment, this heightened experience of #whiteflail (I’m trademarking that one, y’all enjoy), APW has drawn a pretty clear line in the sand: we’re here to give you wedding inspiration, to motivate you to have the wedding you want to have, but we are also here to get shit done. We are not fucking around. The phrase “dude bros” was dropped multiple times to great glee, emphasis was placed on not shying away from putting your political views out there, and the moral of the story was hey: if you have a platform and you’re being silent, you’re still telling people something. And you know? That something is not the something we are in the business of.

And guys? I cried. Because obviously a) I really love my job, but b) I felt really proud of my job. I felt proud of my team, proud as hell of my boss, and proud of what has been built, what we are still building, and what has yet to come (sidenote: Najva felt the same way). And I’m writing all of this because I want you guys—whether you showed up here nine years ago or nine seconds ago—to feel equally proud. Because while I know we say it here and there, right now, in 2017? We all have serious skin in this game. And it was… it was just validating as all hell to hear my boss, my friend, this cool person calmly tell a group of people why they need to fight, to #resist, to take a stand. I have been writing online since 2000 (!!!) and working officially online since 2010 and you guys? This is not common.

This is a thing we’re doing. It often feels casual to go to my boss and be like, “Hey, I have an issue I really need to write about, can I do it?”, but yesterday made me realize: it’s not. This is a good space. This is a motivated space. This is a I’m-mad-as-hell-and-I’m-not-going-to-take-it-anymore space. I dig the shit out of it.

So, hey you. Hey girl (in a non-gendered way). Hey, thanks for being here. Thanks for coming back each week. Thanks for showing up, for speaking out, for supporting us while we do what we do. It’s good, it’s solid. I know when you read a site for years and years it can get to be like “OMG HEY this site! Glitter! Yay!” but trust: I am picky as all hell, and I am proud as fuck to work for APW. Dig.

We are doing this thing.

XO

stephanie

PS: If you haven’t watched Terrace House on Netflix, holy cow you need to. Najva and I have had one gigantic sleepover all week, spending our evenings watching Terrace House and drinking hibiscus margaritas in between rallying our moral and figuring out how the fuck to defeat Trump. Trust, it helps.

throw your money here

JFREJ

New York Immigration Coalition

African Communities Together

Arab American Family Support Center

National Immigration Law Center

Legal Aid Society

AID Foundation

Mercy Corps

Link Round-up

Bey is pregnant with twins and the entire maternity shoot is incredible.

Drag Race is baaaaaaack.

Frederick Douglass is continuing his streak of recognition.

Can we drunk text our Bae, Barack, that we miss him?

How to #stayoutraged without losing your mind.

In the new White House, female staffers must “dress like women.”

Arkansas has a new law that would allow family members to sue to prevent a woman’s D&C.

Medicaid blocks are a bigger threat to U.S. healthcare than ACA reform.

It may only take 3.5 percent of the population to topple a dictator.

As Trump’s administration pushes for a DAPL fight, tribes are ready to fight back.

Whether or not you believe in climate change, the laws of physics will continue.

Yesterday’s #BodegaStrike was powerful.

Our Vendetta: Witches vs Fascists

Love, Family, and Intentional Sobriety Are What This Wedding Is All About

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When it came to planning their wedding for fifty-three guests (thirty-nine adults and fourteen kids) in Hawaii, Billie and Ryen knew what they wanted more than anything: a sober, kid-friendly destination wedding on the island of Kauai. As Billie explained:

Ryen and I are both recovered alcoholics. Very early in our relationship, we managed to become and stay sober together, an against-all-odds anomaly that is to this day amazing. We met in 2007, both reeling from the consequences of our drinking. I was fresh out of the hospital from an alcohol related illness, he was fresh out of jail from more of the same. It was a fateful Cinco de Mayo afternoon at TGI Fridays. We more or less immediately connected–neither of us can recall with certainty. The next morning, we talked sobriety, hope, and treatment. Two months in, we had an apartment together, I’d checked into rehab, and we started to build. Eight years, thousands of A.A. meetings, and two children later, we got married.

The vision for our wedding was “simplicity and joy,” and the children made that happen with ease. We also planned a few outings to make the destination experience inclusive and celebratory beyond just the wedding day. We had a wedding website and planned three trips: zip-lining, a hike to a local spot of beauty (Queen’s Bath), and an A.A. Meeting. All three were incredibly special. In lieu of gifts, we requested donations to the women’s treatment center that helped get me sober, Residence XII.

So the family of four packed up and headed to Kauai, with APW fave Jonas Seaman Photography in tow… and something pretty special happened:

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Deciding to have a sober wedding was incredibly important to both Ryen and Billie—anything else wasn’t even an option:

Deciding to have a sober wedding was definitely outside the box for my side of the family. Alcohol had been synonymous with a good time for Ryen and I, too, once upon a time, but our recovery was the result of that not having been the case for us anymore. We are committed to our sobriety, and the truth and honesty that goes along with it is the foundation of our solid respect and love for one another. Having alcohol at our wedding wasn’t even an option. While I self-consciously imagined vibes of resentment that the reception wasn’t a “party,” having it during the day (freeing up the night for imbibing) made sobriety a more palatable experience in my mind. We also had a lot of sober friends attend, which made it easier and less stressful.

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In addition to celebrating sobriety and love, the pair wanted the focus to be on another incredibly important part of their lives:

The wedding was not only about bringing Ryen and me together, but was also about uniting us as a family with our daughters. Whitney and Maggie are both little manifestations of the strength and hope we have found in one another! It was important to us that they were included in the ceremony and involved with the whole process. We made sure to plan the wedding for when Maggie could walk down the aisle with Whitney. When we had our rings made, we commissioned the artist Nadine Kariya to make rings for the girls, too. When we sent out save-the-dates, we included Whitney and Maggie’s name in parenthesis to highlight that it would be a family affair. I also had Whitney paint with me while I made the invitations so she felt a part of the process.

Along with Whitney and Maggie, we were keenly aware of the children of friends and family attending as guests. On the invitations, we included the family’s children’s names. Within, we printed, “Kids welcome at every part of our celebration!” Our wedding coordinator, Kaye, brought hula hoops, which were used in every way imaginable—leashes, jump ropes, hula (of course), and space makers. We had a food truck that put out a yogurt parfait bar, which was helpful in getting hungry kiddos fed while the meals were cooking.

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And in the end, every single thing fell into place like they wanted—and needed—it to.

Our love and joy was translated beautifully by the playful and hyperactive kids who endlessly danced, ran, cartwheeled, and tumbled throughout the day. The sun shone just long enough to allow for easy celebration, then the North Shore weather rolled in and doused us in sky and rainbow. As the day’s events wrapped up and the rain began, the safety of our union felt complete and ready for all weather. We are so happy to at last be husband and wife!

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