A Wedding Retreat

If money and time, both of ours and of our guests, were of absolutely no limit whatsoever, a wedding retreat like Sara & Stof's South African wedding would be the kind of event that I'd want. Casual, in a gorgeous natural setting, and with sufficient amounts of time to hang out with everyone, both friends and all extended family. It just seems like it would be so much fun, and more in line with an idea of weddings for a time of gathering and celebration.

Stof and I made an intensely private commitment public, but we did so within a group of people who had come to appreciate each other almost as much as us, so we felt *held* by our community.

To be realistic, I probably wouldn't actually enjoy quite that much time with so many people, being as strong an introvert as I am. I just like the idea of it, and of the awesome people in our lives getting to know awesome people in other parts of lives.

Although we're just having just an afternoon event, I'm pretty sure I will need to schedule in downtime so that I don't get overwhelmed, like at the Thanksgiving dinner for the P-scholars senior year. I was so tired from cooking all day and setting it up and as soon as I saw that there were many people there and they seemed to be having a good time, I had to slip away to just sit in silence, by myself, before I could summon up enough energy to be around people again. Even with people that I love dearly and enjoy spending time with, I can only handle so much before I can feel myself shutting down, and the more people there are, the faster that happens.

The other thing I've been thinking about is the whole being the center of attention bit of 'traditional' weddings. I don't really want to make a whole grand entrance with my dress at the ceremony--this thing isn't just about me and how great I'll look, and how this is going to the best moment of my life. If that's the case, serious fail at life, really. I also don't want us to make a grand entrance as the married couple and do a first dance where everyone has to stand around and look at us.

I think my discomfort is mostly due to two things, 1) the feeling that the more people that are looking, the more people to notice when you screw up, and 2) the belief that forgetting your own inconsequence relative to everything and an inflated sense of your own self-importance will just bring you down in the end. I am deeply afraid of becoming someone who can't stop talking about her wedding planning and at whom friends roll their eyes behind her back, but it's hard not to bring up new things I've discovered that I'm excited about. Hence blogging at a stop-gap, right? :)

On the other hand, we shouldn't be so afraid of stepping outside this comfort zone. As Amy wrote to me earlier today, "Don't be afraid to ask your oldest friends to help out on the day of. I'm sure we wouldn't might at all. You're our friends, and it's a celebration. We're all there to have fun and celebrate, not to stress out!"

So, some quotes from A Practical Wedding for me to refer back to:

Wedding Reception Entrances: No, They Don't Have to be Grand

"I am not a "grand entrance" kind of girl. In fact, I think they are downright silly…Am I nuts? I just can't see making all my guests watch my new husband and me sway like 6th graders for 3 minutes before allowing them to eat."

Um. No. You are not nuts. I actually AM a grand entrance kind of girl, and there was no way that I wanted any part of that for my wedding. We just were not having that sort of party.

So what did our entrance look like? So, after our ceremony, we had our yichud(do this, people) and then our photographers pulled us aside for five minutes of photographs. And then we wanted to party. We were so excited to party. So we just walked over to the cocktail party going on.

 Your Wedding is Not a Show

I've heard a lot of talk on APW lately about people's fear of being the center of attention on their wedding day, and I thought we needed to chat. Because here is the thing: the whole wedding industry is built around this idea that the wedding is a SHOW, and you are the STAR(s). Which... of course that's enough to make an introverted girl freak out. But more to the point, we're so stuck in this idea of the wedding as a show, that we put a huge amount of thought, energy, and stress into the idea of entertaining our guests.

But here is the thing: Your wedding is not a show.
...
Weddings are about two things, and we only ever talk about one. Weddings are about everyone gathering to see two people make vows of lifetime commitment, and to celebrate that. But weddings are also about something else - they are about old friends and family getting together, sharing stories, catching up, hugging, laughing, talking... and making new friends, and creating new memories. The two of you are the reason why everyone is gathered together, but (blessedly) when a wedding goes right, it is about so much more than the two of you.
...
So don't worry about being the center of attention. Because you're not really. You're just the center. And that will be enough.

 Your Wedding is Not an Imposition

YOUR WEDDING IS NOT AN IMPOSITION.

Did you get that? It's not an imposition on *anyone.* And let me tell you why. It's not because your guests will have fun at your wedding (though, duh, they will), it's because your guests are grown-ass people. They are GROWN UPS. If your wedding is too expensive, or too far away, or just too much of a bother? They won't come. If you're lucky, they'll be very kind when they tell you about it. If you're not lucky? Then you didn't want them there anyway (try to remember that mid-sob, it was hard for me.)

But the people that come to your wedding? Well, let me quote the wise Marisa-Andrea, "This is what I have learned: The people who love you and care about you will not feel like your wedding is a burden or an imposition. They will be thrilled that out of all of the people you could have invited, you want THEM. The (editors note: FEW) people who do feel burdened -- eh. You are always going to have someone who isn't satisfied."

 This just in: Dan's been looking over my shoulder as I pontificate and says that actually, he would like to do the 'Too Heavy' entrance below:

Jokes!

Google Docs' wedding templates

This is a great promotion by the Google Apps product marketing manager. I took a look at the templates and don't really need any of them right now, I'm comfortable enough creating my own as I need them for now, but just wanted to put it here for revisiting at a later point.

The rough guest list and budget are being held at My Wedding Workbook (from A Practical Wedding's endorsement). It's good enough, though I wish it were more customizable to remove all the line items we feel are unnecessary. For example, the budgets section is broken down not only to ceremony and reception, but bridesmaids' luncheon, post-wedding brunch, bridal shower, etc. No need for all those, and yet reception food is just one line item, without alcohol being broken out separately?

On class

I got a few different wedding-related books out of the library on Thursday. I flipped through The DIY Wedding pretty quickly, it seems like most of its suggestions are things I've come across already elsewhere, but I'll go back to in more depth later. I finished Offbeat Bride on Friday and more valuable than the tips on the side were her description of the order of events and the funny stories about her own moments of insanity, such as panicking about getting the guests out to the front porch in time for toasts to the sunset.

Now I'm working on One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, which even though I'm not very far into it, I think probably should be required for anyone who wants to be sensible about weddings. I'm going to get Dan to read it after I'm done, as one of the interesting points she makes in the beginning is how part of the purpose of the hype from the wedding industry is to overwhelm engaged women to the point of feeling like they absolutely have to rely on wedding professionals to stage the kind of event that's up to people's expectations--expectations that are conveniently also set by the wedding industrial complex.

An anecdote from this weekend:

on the drive to a Chinese supermarket Saturday morning
mom: so have you guys picked out a venue yet?
me: yeah, we've got this place in Princeton.
mom: how much is the site rental fee?
me: 2450.
mom: oh...that's rather expensive...
me: yeah, well.

on the drive back
mom: so, are you guys really settled on that place? that really seems pretty expensive (actually I can't quite remember how she brought it up again, but sufficiently close to this anyway)
me: yeah, well, the cheapest place we found that would be large enough was twelve hundred.
mom: wait, twelve hundred??
me: yeah...
mom: how much is your place?
me: twenty-four hundred.
mom: OH. Oh god, I thought you had said twenty-four thousand!
me: mom! I'm so surprised you were that restrained if you thought I was spending that much! if I had that much I would totally buy a house instead.
mom: yeah! well I just thought, maybe she's changed somehow.

As hard as I have worked in my adult life to convince my mom that I am sensible about money, still it's feasible enough in her head that she didn't question a deviance from that immediately. I'm going to choose to believe it's the WIC's fault and not her faith in me.

Even with that, my mom was a little uneasy that serving just dessert and sandwiches would be too simple. After I outlined some initial full hot meal catering estimates for her, she came around a bit more, and then I confirmed that Dan and I would be paying for everything ourselves. The main thing really is just that food is not good value; you have to spend a lot to get decent food.

She's going to look into whether there might be Chinese restaurants that do off-site catering but probably what they'll go with is that my parents will take out all the Chinese guests to a Chinese restaurant afterwards and pay for that themselves, which she estimates would cost about $1000. I think it's partly that she does want to be able to spend some more time with family friend guests from out-of-town, but also an idea about the minimum that they'd have to do to pass muster for the Chinese guests' expectations. Since my mom is a fair and sensible woman, though, she doesn't expect us to shoulder the burden of that expectation, for which I am grateful.

More good reading on class and weddings:

• Cupcake Wedding: on wealth and weddings
• Accordions and Lace: Weddings and The C-Word

I'm trying to develop more bravery against the deep aversion to more openly say, "I can't afford this," without any ensuing feelings of guilt about not making more money so that I wouldn't be in that situation, because money earned is tied to effort which is tied to your character--American culture just can't escape its Puritan roots. 

Even still, I feel defensive and have the urge to qualify it by saying, "It's not that I can't afford it, it's that I choose to be prudent and save money and with what's left I can't justify purchasing this item." But that's still silly, in the end. Not being rich shouldn't cause feelings of shame (and conversely, just like not wanting to go to med school or to grad school just yet shouldn't make me feel inadequate either, as much as my father tries).

Questionable "traditions"

From Meghan, the ladies of Slate's DoubleX debate the question, "Which wedding tradition do you wish were abolished?"

Hanna Rosin: I would definitely say the throwing of the bouquet. In the last few weddings I've been to—even the ones for more conservative friends—there is a strong ambivalence hanging over this moment. The ladies gather shame-faced in the corner and the bride gives a limp, embarrassed toss. In each case the flowers landed on the floor, as the women were too embarrassed to catch them. The age when women want to get married is not over. But the age when women proudly display a grasping eagerness to do so is long past.

I've previously posted how I love Saipua's flower arrangements, as well as the idea of button or felt flower bouquets, so I suppose whether I do a bouquet toss (assuming I do get a bouquet) will be dependent on how invested I feel in the bouquet itself (and therefore don't want it to get damaged) and whether more than three (enough to make a small crowd) of my girl friends feel really strongly about it.

It does seem to be a "tradition" that has a slightly unsavory tinge to it but if I don't care about preserving the bouquet too much and there are guests who really want to partake, including guys, then at this point I don't feel particularly strongly about it.

Other items of interest:

• "No one needs a little box of chocolates with the couple's name on it." - Ha! In one random wedding magazine I picked, the bride was a watch designer so they gave all the guests a custom watch design with the name of the couple and the date of the wedding on the back. ?!??????
• "Extensive hors d'oeuvre spreads followed by massive, plated meals. Your guests just feel guilty about the wasted food, and then they're too bloated to dance." - undesireable and unaffordable
• "The one I hate most is a relatively new invention: the unity candle. It's meant to symbolize the joining of two families, but isn't that what the wedding itself is? Really, these elaborate, pricey candles just add to the cost of the event and make the ceremony longer." - Ha, I can just imagine now Dan's speechlessness if I were to suggest a New Age-y thing like a unity candle that also costs way more than its worth
• "And instead of having my father "give me away," I had both my parents walk down the aisle with me. It wasn't a "passing off," but symbolized, at least to us, the journey they had guided me on from my birth up to that point, and how they were there for me at the biggest moment of my life and always would be." - Yes. Also Martha said this is a Jewish tradition, props to them for that.
• "But I will say that I enjoy a lot of the pageantry at other people's weddings and seeing how their personal style gets expressed (or, more often, crushed beneath conformity and family pressure)." - We are not pageantry kind of people, pretty far from it, actually (see A Practical Wedding's wise words on 'Your wedding is not a show' and 'Your wedding is not an imposition').

Pretty much all the effort that I'm putting in is precisely to avoid the being crushed by conformity and family pressure. I would love to have a totally equal sharing of the planning with Dan, but the issue is that he doesn't really have a problem with conforming to family pressure except if it's going to be a lot more expensive to do so. So I'm a bit of a fish swimming against the current here, but I am supported by all the modern, independent female friends instead. Thank you.

Cupcake pies

Via Amy, more adorable mini-food!

First favors ideas post

Favors, ooo man, can we talk about THE wedding item I am most likely to get nuts over the crafty possibilities?

• (from Mama G/Meghan): fortune cookies with a custom message inside, in clear plastic takeout boxes
• various little jarred gifts from Design*Sponge: granola, tea, potted plants, pickling kit (maybe something with a pie recipe?)
• booklet of pie & other dessert recipes collected and bound
• mini-pie pops!! (via A Cup of Jo) Ok, clearly something that would need to be tested and see if it could be made way ahead of time...but there's just something about mini-food, I guess. [edit: more pie lollipops here]

Thank You photo

This idea suggested to me by Abby, whose mom saw it at a recent wedding. The couple has photo taken of them holding up signs that say "Thank You" and then uses that photo to print up custom thank you cards.

(image found on flickr)

Cute, right? We would do this with more handmade/crafty-looking signs. Of course, it would only work for thank you cards sent out post-wedding, but if we get gifts early it's probably better if we send out cards for those early on. I'm not a real big thank-you card kind of person but I recognize it as a reasonable custom. And it is nice to receive thank-you cards.

Also, apparently you can get 100 free postcards + $15 shipping from VistaPrint for postcard save-the-dates and such. Dan has already put a kibosh on those magnet save-the-dates since they're something like $1-$2 per magnet, plus the cost of postage.

There are some cute and crafty save-the-date ideas out there (here: photo of fridge, book stack with circled numbers) but I think save-the-dates in general fall under "projects I should only take on if I find myself with a lot of free time and extra inspiration." Once we reserve the date, I'll post about it here and hopefully a mass email or two will take care of the younger folk and phone calls will suffice for the rest of the fam.

Yes, of course I like letterpress and lovely paper goods and yes, some people may find a reminder that they can post on their fridge to be helpful, but with limited resources I think this is something I don't care about all that much. Maybe I'll design one in Photoshop that people can print out if they want something to stick on their fridge :)