My New Mantra

So, I’m back to liking the wedding planning process. I keep telling people who ask how it’s going some version of the following: “Oh, you know, I’m trying to enjoy it because you only get to do this once, and I’d rather have fun with it than be totally stressed out.”

Now, you couldn’t in all honesty say I’ve been “having fun with it” the past few weeks. I had several near meltdowns over the stupidest things regarding addressing and sending out the invitations. These are moments I don’t look back on proudly. For instance, dropping the F-bomb and almost crying because I wrote the city name where the street name should go on one invitation was a low point. As a side note, why don’t all stationary shops just give you five extra envelopes as a matter of course? No one can write everyone’s address perfectly the first time. No one, I tell you, no one! (Oops, I’m starting to lose it again.)

However, either because I’ve sent out the invitations now, or because I’ve said it enough that it’s starting to sink in, I’m actually having fun with the planning now. I made appointments for my hair and makeup today. (And a facial, okay! I’m not usually so superficial, but it is a wedding after all.) My dress fitting was only a little bit demoralizing … like when the seamstress measured my shoulders for the straps only to find that one is half an inch lower than the other (because of my broken collar bone).
Mostly, though, it was cool to stick my poufy wedding dress in my back seat and head off to the dress shop again. It was one of those things you imagine yourself doing before you get engaged (after people you know start getting married—otherwise, you don’t imagine that moment at all) … and then, suddenly, you find yourself actually doing it. And—I’m being serious—little kids and old men smile at you as you pass by with your dress in hand, like the joy of your wedding somehow rubs off on them.

So, if anyone asks, “I’m enjoying the wedding planning because you only get to do this once, and I’d rather have fun with it than be totally stressed out.”

Just remember that when you see me on the verge of my next meltdown.

Wedding Photography Blues

I’m feeling nostalgic for the Sixties and Seventies. No, not in the sense that I’ve cut long, blunt bangs or am coveting high-waisted pencil skirts (in orange) from Anthropologie. What I mean is, in those eras, no one felt compelled to pay (an arm and a leg) for professional wedding photography. In a sense, though, they didn’t know what they were missing.
The idea is extremely compelling for several reasons. I’d love to be able to give my grandchildren beautiful wedding photos. In fact, I have my grandparents’ wedding pictures hanging on my bedroom wall. Also, even though I’m not a big photo person—I don’t even own a camera—it would be great to have a wedding album, or even just a section of another album, to idly peruse through when you were feeling romantic or sentimental. And, last but not least, I generally look quite atrocious in photos (admittedly this is part of the reason I’m not a big photo person (see Exhibit A below)), so I wouldn’t find having a professional making me look my very best.
So, you see, I’d be happily booking appointments with photographers and flipping through their portfolios… if my Fiancé and I weren’t paying for the wedding ourselves. We’re happy to do it, and we’re even happy scaling back since the wedding bells… and whistles aren’t really our style anyway. But, malheureusement, it’s not happening. At $2000 and up, wedding photography just isn’t something we can justify.
So, that’s why I’m nostalgic for our parents’ generation, when family members just snapped photos throughout the day and gave them to you later… and that was normal. Not only have I rummaged through my parents’ DIY wedding photos, but my middle-school and high-school friends and I would scour through their parents’ albums too, giggling gleefully at the bizarre outfits, crazy hairstyles, and illicit substances caught on film.
But how can you settle for watching that new blockbuster on a clunky black-and-white TV when there’s a brand new Cineplex right down the block?
And so my friends, that’s where we’re left. Of course, there’s still something charming about old fashioned TV sets…. Just ask that girl in the orange pencil skirt.

Exhibit A:

Last name, please?

I have been mulling something over almost since the day I got engaged. Do I take my Fiancé’s last name, or not? I wish I could say that I feel really strongly one way or the other, but unfortunately I feel really strongly both ways. What else do you do when faced with a hard decision but make a list, so…

Pros of taking his last name:
1) We are symbolically, by virtue of sharing a name, part of a family (but if he took mine, we would still share the same last name).
2) If we have children, their teachers, or whoever, will know that they are ours (but ditto the last aside).
3) My initials would be BAM!

Cons of taking his last name:
1) It doesn’t make sense to me why women give up their last names and not (usually) the other way around.
2) I have to fill out tons of annoying paperwork.
3) I have published a few things under “Bess Vanrenen.” (But I could still write under “Bess Vanrenen….”)

I will spare you the pro and con list the other way around, for him taking my last name. (I’m sure you’re breathing a sigh of relief.) I did just write one, and, not surprisingly, it’s almost exactly the same as the above list—but reversed. Basically, my pro and con list didn’t really help. Damn it! This method has never failed me before….

Obviously, I’ve been thinking a lot about how strange it is that women take their husbands’ last names and that family histories are charted along the male lines, and it calls to mind all the other bizarre wedding traditions. For instance, why does the man stand at the alter waiting for the woman? Why does the woman wear white? Why does the woman wear a veil? The answers are obvious, but what’s strange is that we still adhere to many of these traditions. I will ditch a few of these customs, but not all of them. For instance, I won’t wear a veil, but I will wear a white wedding dress.

I think a similar mentality helps when trying to decide whether to take your partner’s name or not. Basically, I can ask myself, does this tradition work for me? Since I know I want to share a last name with my Fiancé, I have only two decisions: his or mine. And the fact that I get to make that decision makes me feel less burdened by the weight of the symbolism. Most of my friends did not take their husbands’ last names, so it doesn’t seem to be a given anymore. More importantly, ours won’t be a household defined by gender roles, so why does it matter if I take his last name? Because women’s roles are changing more and more, I can choose to take his last name, but I can also choose to be a working parent and I can choose to let him do the cooking (while I do the cleaning).*

So, it looks like I’ve decided—finally: I will take his last name.

(Thank goodness, because I really wanted my initials to be BAM!)



*I think it's important to note that same-sex couples can't choose to get married, and women still make less than men for the same jobs, so obviously there's still a lot more work to be done.

You Do I Dos?

One of the hardest--or maybe "weirdest" is a more apt word--decisions to make regarding this whole wedding thing is choosing an officiant. In the olden days, or somewhere in Middle America, people just asked their community's religious leader to do this. But my Fiance and I don't got to church in any regular way. So, we're basically picking a stranger to marry us. That's weird. I mean, because this person is marrying you, they are playing an extremely intimate role in one of the most memorable moments of your life.

So, I found listings for a few officiants in the area and set up meetings with those that weren't ridiculously overpriced, or otherwise scary. Actually meeting up with an officiant is uncanny. It's like a first date, a blind date, but without the sex stuff. You set up a time and a place. You arrive, nervous, look around, spot the person you're meeting, compare what they look like in person to what they look like in two-dimensions, and make a snap judgment, knowing that they are doing the same.

Does this person get me? Does s/he like me? Do I find this person attractive, interesting, and nice? Does this person share my values? Is this person responsible and trustworthy? How will this person match my general wedding decor? (Just kidding on that last one, sort of.)

To make matters worse, you can't really talk about money in any blatant way. You don't pay officiants a fee. You give them "donations," but they have standard "donations" for different levels of services, which are of course just fees.

It turned out we met two really nice officiants, either of whom I'd be happy to have marry me and my Fiance. One of them happened to have a religious background similar to that of my Fiance's family, so we went with him, Father Marty.

But, I don't really know him that well.... Hopefully I can trust him.... Hopefully, he'll end up being everything I hoped he'd be, and more.... Hopefully, he'll show up on my wedding day.

See, finding a wedding officiant is a lot like finding a spouse.

Invitations, Check

After throwing a fit on Friday because I couldn't order the invitations that day, we finally ordered them today! Yay! I have moved, hopefully temporarily, into the stressed realm, which became obvious when, after looking so forward to checking another thing off my wedding to-do list, I was told that the word-person wasn't at the shop that day. Then, my Fiance had to hear a long list of things we still had to do that were weighing on my mind. At that point, or shortly thereafter, my Fiance, asked me earnestly what he could do to help. I, eagerly, gave him a short list. The truth is, as stressed as I may get, I also like planning the wedding. It's a fun creative outlet. Maybe that's why I end up spending so much time thinking about the details. And why I end up stressed out, and why I feel so relieved when I finally check said to-do off my list.

So, today, invitations are it, and I have to say, I'm excited about the choice we made. The design is pretty cool and unique, and it didn't cost a million dollars. We went to a local shop called Word Shop and chose a design by Lucky Onion. Here are some other designs they've done.




Now I get to stress myself out about flowers!

Holy Cannolis

I just got a quote of $700 for 75 invitations.

The Wedding Planner

Planning a wedding has started to bore me. Okay, I can see the allure of having a beautiful, artistic, and memorable wedding, but it’s also so unrealistic that it’s mostly laughable to me now. Scouting out the location might have been the peak of the whole planning process. Picking out a dress was fun (and stress inducing), for sure. Choosing the colors was too (navy and ivory, by the way; note: if you come, you will never even know the colors were navy and ivory, isn’t that funny?)—as was pinpointing the “theme” (note #2: I have discovered that no real wedding actually has a theme, except for the “wedding” theme, which includes all the wedding fixings, like flowers, centerpieces, table clothes, cakes, and candles). In short, I am at the point where there are few big decisions to make, leaving just the little frankly boring details, like invitations, to be finalized.

I’m sorry, but the invitation industry has gotten painfully bloated. Three things are keeping me from just picking out any old invitation: 1) is the invitation in my wedding’s colors? (God knows why I care, but I do); 3) do I think it’s pretty? and 2) will my friends and relatives perceive this invitation to be tacky? Cost is an issue, too, but I’m perfectly happy going without a few of the industry standards, like Save the Date cards and letterpress printing. I don’t think I’m going to be able to go the cotton paper route, so getting a recycled paper is up there on my list, too.

But the thing is, whereas in the past I might have been psyched to make a new wedding decision, now I’m just not. If someone tells me how many exciting options I have with regard to my invitations, I want to tell them that I don’t want options. Just show me a pretty, reasonably priced invitation that happens to have some navy or ivory in it, and I’m sold!

The sad thing is, I can see most of the upcoming decisions falling into this category. What color/kind of table clothes? Well, table-clothe table clothes, in navy, or ivory. What kind of centerpiece? Sorry, no Rocky Mountain wildflowers in tin watering cans, here. No, striking, stark black-and-white centerpieces, say Cala lilies in ebony vases of varying heights for me either. I don’t have the time to spend on making that happen. Just centerpieces! Candles probably! And just regular chairs around the table! The chairs they already have there at Chautauqua! And no special dance floor needed! People can just dance on the goddamn floor!

I’m sorry, but all the million details that the bridal industry would like you to think you must attend to seem so silly to me. I want my wedding to be relaxed. I want it to be pretty. I want to have a good time, just like I want my Fiancé and our friends and family to have a good time. But beyond that?

Well, let’s just say planning a wedding has started to bore me.