APW Happy Hour

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HEY APW,

Maddie here, writing to you from the last few weeks of pregnancy (insert happy/scared/omg emoji here). I haven’t written much about the being pregnant on APW. I wish I had lots to say on the subject, but it’s been primarily a physical experience for me. Lots of nausea, falling asleep at 8 p.m., trying to figure out what foods won’t give me insta-heartburn, working on the perfect position to spoon my overpriced but totally worth it pregnancy body pillow.

But I will say, one unexpected upside is that pregnancy has given me a level of chill I don’t normally possess. All those people-pleasing tendencies and discomfort at being the focus of anyone’s goodwill? Gone. And since I haven’t had the energy to get in my own way lately, it’s made space for a lot of love and generosity to come my way. Case in point: last weekend, the APW team threw me a baby shower. And y’all? It was the most Maddie party I’ve ever been to. Meg’s son (aka my godson) dictated many of the details, so highlights included a onesie bedazzling station and party food from McDonalds. I was in heaven. I’m hoping the zen carries over into parenting, because I could get used to this new me.

In totally unrelated news, you may have noticed some new ads on APW this last week or so. We’re testing out a new ad delivery system, which means that things are going to be changing in real time over the next few weeks as we figure out what works best. It’s very much a living breathing thing right now and hasn’t been finalized yet, so thank you for your patience while we’re sorting it all out.

In the meantime, I really appreciate the feedback we’ve received from you guys so far. Y’all are always so nice when giving us bad news. We’re taking all of it into consideration as we work on the final ad configuration. If you do see anything you want to bring to our attention (especially any ads that seem against the ethos of APW), the best way to do it is to email team (at) apracticalwedding (dot) com. If you can, please include a screenshot illustrating the issue so we can forward it to the ad folks.

And with that, it’s your happy hour so get to it!

XO,

MADDIE

P.S. If you’re in the Bay Area, there’s still time to get in on the Phenomenal Woman campaign event happening at the APW offices on Saturday and Sunday. Head here to get more info and sign up!

link round-up

Operation London Bridge: The secret plans for the days after the Queen’s death.

The return of the Ableist narrative: Why do we have to keep demanding food accessibility?

Self-proclaimed Nazis were thrown out of a bar in Portland.

Everything You Think You Know About the Death of Mike Brown is Wrong, and the Man Who Killed Him Admits It

Are we raising racists?

19 Times Women Were Too Good and Pure For This World

Unspeakable realities block universal health coverage in the U.S.

How We Created a Chinese-Jewish-Jamaican Wedding in Brooklyn (That Everyone Loved)

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Brenda, humanities teacher & Emanuel, chess teacher

Sum-up of the wedding vibe: A multicultural Brooklyn wedding overflowing with love and joy.

Planned budget: $30,000

Actual budget: $40,000

Number of guests: 140

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Where we allocated the most funds:

We spent a large part of our budget on catering. Our venue only allowed us to choose from a list of eight vendors. Since I am Chinese and Emanuel is Jewish and Jamaican, it was really important for the food to reflect our cultural heritages. Thus, we chose a catering company that specialized in creating culturally diverse menus, and our guests ended up enjoying hors d’oeuvre as varied as latkes, dumplings, and curry goat miso spoons.

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Where we allocated the least funds:

Overall, we spent the least amount of money on decor. The Picnic House did not allow us to affix anything to its walls, which was not such a terrible thing, since it is a beautiful venue as is. For the flowers, we went to a local florist, supplied her with mason jars, and asked for simple centerpieces and bouquets. The flowers did not turn out quite the way I expected them to, but we couldn’t really complain since we had spent no more than $400 on all our flowers.

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What was totally worth it:

All our vendors! We considered ourselves extremely lucky to have so easily found such kind, talented, and dependable individuals who were so clearly passionate about their work. Because we are not very particular people, the Picnic House was the only venue we visited and we ended up hiring every vendor that we reached out to. Yet, each of them—especially our photographer, Julie Pepin, our DJ and MC, my makeup artist, and our caterer—went above and beyond our wildest expectations. They were all genuinely nice people who put us at ease throughout the entire process and during the wedding day itself.

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What was totally not worth it:

Having endless doubts about how it would all come together. In the end, as one moment led to another, everything just fell into place.

A few things that helped us along the way:

What made our wedding feel true to “us” was the outpouring of love, support, and generosity from everyone we knew. One of Emanuel’s best friends from high school became a Universal Life Minister in order to officiate our wedding and created a ceremony that had onlookers in the park moved to tears. My cousin designed a charming, whimsical painting of us that we placed next to the guestbook, which added a personal touch to our wedding. Emanuel’s mom ordered mini Jamaican fruit cakes for our guests that celebrated his Jamaican heritage. Our high school guidance counselor sang a duet with Emanuel in Chinese that surprised not only me, but several of my older relatives as well!

I should also add that I started reading APW before I even got engaged. As a Chinese American who had only ever attended Chinese banquet-style weddings, I did not know the first thing about planning a “western” style wedding with a ceremony and reception. APW’s wedding planning articles were especially useful in helping us craft the structure of our ceremony and our day-of timeline.

Finally, creating a simple “to-do” list in a Word Document allowed me to keep track of the things I needed to get done for each month and made the whole process a lot more organized and a lot less stressful.

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My best practical advice for my planning self:

There were two mantras that kept me sane and calm throughout the whole wedding planning process:

  1. As long as we got married by the end of the night, then our wedding would have been considered a success. (I got this from APW!)
  2. Our wedding would just represent one day of our lives. The days after the wedding were what would really matter at the end of it all.

Having these thoughts liberated me from sweating the small stuff. If our flowers turned out looking very different from what I imagined (they did), or if it rained during our ceremony (it didn’t), I told myself that it would all be okay. And our wedding turned out to be more than okay. It certainly had its share of minor logistical mishaps. However, the things that really mattered—the ceremony, the people, the emotions—were what truly defined our wedding and our memories of it.

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Favorite thing about the wedding:

Having all our loved ones—from our past and our present lives, from so many walks of life, from all over the world—in one place at the same time was the most amazing feeling in the world! My parents finally got to meet the people whom I had been raving about forever, such as my current principal and my high school English teacher. My sister danced with one of Emanuel’s high school buddies. It was so surreal—yet so cool—to see it all happen!

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other things to share:

One of the most touching moments from my wedding actually came afterward. My dad told me the next day that he and my mom had stayed up until discussing the wonderful highlights from our wedding and that they were overflowing with joy for us. My dad is usually reticent about showing his feelings at all, so it meant so much to me to hear him express his happiness.