Things I'll Learn from Wedding Planning Wednesday, March 17, 2010

For better or worse, I'm putting a lot of my heart & soul into this wedding, and now that our engagement is starting to wind down (or wind up, as the case may be), I'm thinking more about what I'll take away from this engagement process. Here are some that immediately come to mind:

Self Image. I'll be writing another post on this later, but the fact that I'll be seen by many (and for many years to come) in my wedding dress has forced me to confront some truths about the way I see myself, and it hasn't always been an easy process.

I've re-discovered sewing and even purchased my first sewing machine. The process of having my dress made required me to think a lot about fabric, fashion, and how things are constructed, and I actually like that stuff! Go figure. I finally know what my mother was doing when she'd see a dress in the department store, look closely at the seams, and head to Hancock.

Organization. I've always considered myself organized, but my army of spreadsheets, charts, graphs, and folders have shown me that I really can organize a huge event and simultaneously deal with the merging of household finances. It helps that FH is constantly telling me how impressed he is. ;-)

After the wedding, I'm planning on working more with my photography business. I was always a little scared of starting a business on my own, but I have more confidence now that I could organize something as complicated as a business, if I wanted to.

Family drama. Unfortunately, my family's had its share of drama-inducing moments, mostly, weddings and funerals. At this point, I really feel that (a) I can predict pretty well who will be dramatic and how they will act out, (b) I am too old to worry about what they are doing and (c) I'm too focused on my own life to care.  I find that having this attitude actually encourages people to respect me more. In fact, I anticipated drama where there wasn't much at all. Another "go, figure!" here.

Domesticity. I hope it was merely coincidence that, on the same day I told the D.J. I'd like us to be introduced as "Mr. & Mrs. [Fiance's Name], I went out and bought the sewing machine. I know there are some ways in which I'm thoroughly modern (hello, first marriage at the age of 30!) and others where I'm just like my great-grandmother. I still feel a little conflicted about it, though.

Oh, no!!!

There are so many more things I could list. I think this post will require a sequel!

Anyone else? Is all this time/energy spent planning your wedding actually helpful to you in some way?

Some dreadful disaster Monday, March 15, 2010

Today I was visiting with my future in-laws, and FMIL was recounting the days of planning FSIL's first wedding, which was about 20 years ago now. It was a huge super-formal wedding, with all the requisite drama, and is the stuff of family legend.

While telling yet another story from this epic wedding, FMIL says, "Don't worry. On your wedding day, something will go wrong. It will be some dreadful disaster; just know that it will happen, but don't worry, everything will be o.k. Just focus on what matters most."

I know people say this, but really? Don't some brides, somewhere, have perfect wedding days? Or at least, days that seem perfect?

And of course, this gives me the chance to think about my wedding fears. I have a bunch of them, from having kids mess up the wedding to vendors who, despite seeming reliable, suddenly choose not to show up or disappear entirely. Plus there are the logistics of getting 100+ people from different parts of the country to the wedding venue, and all the little steps of planning (what if I forget something?). It seems like every step of the way, there's something to worry about.

At this, maybe I can apply one of my favorite quotes from President Obama. In response to something, some negotiation or another, he said, "I'm not going to anticipate problems." I took this to mean that one should be aware of the things that could go wrong, try your best to stop trouble before it starts, and then  go forward hoping for the best.

This seems like the best approach -- after all, on the day of the wedding itself, all you can do is let go and do your best to live in the moment.

What are your wedding fears? Have you faced them yet?


*The photo above has nothing to do with anything, except that she's a literal representation of a bride who's got "too much going on."

More Than Centerpieces Thursday, March 11, 2010

This photo and its accompanying blog post made my day. It's from one of my favorite photographers, Ryan Brenizer.

Mr. Brenizer is a wonderful wedding photographer based in New York. I found him on Flickr a while back and have read his blog for a couple years (as well as his photography column for Amazon.com). One of the things he does best is capture unscripted moments, often the wackiest ones.

I believe many wedding photographers fall into the trap of shooting the same moments over and over again, in the same way, at every wedding. It's easy to do -- there is a sameness to weddings, after all -- and a mediocre photographer could probably make a living out of it.

One of the reasons Ryan is so great is that he consistently rises above that. This glimpse into his photographic thought process is helpful for photographers and brides alike:


Photos like these are why I am a “moment junkie.” This is a cheerful hug between the bride, her father, and her grandfather, right after Viviana and her grandfather had a featured dance. Is it envelope-pushing art? No. Is it a picture that will have meaning for Viviana for the rest of her life? I’d imagine so. Let’s not forget that weddings are about moments like these more than centerpieces.

Dress Developments VIII: Shopping with the Moms Friday, January 15, 2010

After I decided to have my dress made, and after meeting two unsuitable seamstresses, I was lucky enough to discover the resource that is Fabrique! Fabrics. I went there this summer, met the owner, and was sold! Problem was, I wasn't quite ready to decide what dress I wanted to wear.

Fast forward to this fall, when my mother and grandmother visited me from out-of-state. True, I would never have that "trying-on-dresses" feeling with my mother there, but this would have to do.

My mother is a third generation sewing enthusiast. She learned the craft from my great-grandmother, with whom she spent her summers as a little girl. My mother made many of the clothes I wore as a kid. Old Christmas ornaments, many of my baby clothes, a quilt, and a Christmas dress that I remember being made from a pattern my mom cut out of paper bags. Eventually, we moved too many times and my mother remarked that buying clothes became cheaper than sewing, so I haven't seen her pull out her old Bernina in quite a while.

But I have many great memories of sewing with my mom. The picture at left is the sewing machine my mom used, a Bernina 830 (circa 1979 or so). She'll be happy to emphasize to you that it still works.

When I told her about Fabrique, that it was a couture fabric store that had an entire section dedicated to bridal fabrics, she was so excited! So I made sure to take her and my grandmother, and I felt like I had two experts on hand to help me in this first stage of bridal dress shopping.

The store has a good selection of bridal fabrics; almost any bridal dress fabric you've heard of is there: silk satin, silk dupioni, shantung, mikado, and even a few high quality poly-satins if I remember correctly. Here's my mom checking them all out:

And here's my beautiful grandmother, looking on (and surrounded by trim):

But my favorite is the lace. Lace!!! I don't want an all-over beaded lace dress (although I think they're beautiful), but I want to incorporate lace in some way. The laces at Fabrique range from $50 to over $400 per yard. Some are domestic, some are imported, but every one of them is stunning. Here, the store owner shows a hand-beaded lace, with crystals attached. You just have to click these to see the beautiful lace up close!

Yep, you read the price tag correctly. Here's another...

And this is the one I bought!

I bought some trim, and the beads happen to be nearly identical to this lace. Perfect!

My grandmother's hands rest next to my iPod. I bring that thing everywhere -- it's so helpful to be able to show vendors exactly what I want. I even have a runway video of the dress on my iPod, and it's indispensable. If you look carefully, you can see my sketch in the foreground.

Also in this picture, my grandmother is wearing her original wedding set. I wish I'd taken a better picture. She recently found this after it had been packed away. The set is over 50 years old, as it was given to her by my late grandfather when they married. How sweet!

Despite originally wanting to wear a matte fabric like silk dupioni or radzimir (if I could ever find it), I ended up choosing a smooth, lustrous silk satin. Silk satin is responsible for beautiful gowns like these (click to see the fabric in motion):

Along with the fabric, I chose the beaded lace, and the matching trim. My grandmother decided to buy the dress fabric for me as a birthday present! I am so humbled by this and hope the dress is as beautiful as we envision it.

Money Matters in Marriage, pt. 2 Friday, November 20, 2009

The second article, "Five Money Woes That Can Trouble a Marriage," is more about the unexpected things that can get you down. When a couple is facing the next 40+ years of their lives together, it's impossible to predict everything and pre-determine your answers to things. After all, many of the things that financially devastate us are also emotionally wrenching, and we can't say with certainty how we'd react in the future.

I think this one is more about finding out your responses to crises, and your approach to catastrophe, and a reminder to deal with things as a couple, as a team; and of course, everyone should have a nest egg.

Continuing this theme was last Thursday's front page feature, the story of the Bachmuth family, whose young daughter is literally pulling her hair out from the stress Mr. Bachmuth's job loss has imposed on his whole family. Particularly interesting were the issues of traditional family/gender/breadwinner roles, and how a shift in those roles can be devastating (or not).

Many of the comments following the article are judgmental (okay, the couple's argument about firing the cleaning lady does sound a little out of touch), but the audio slide show puts things into perspective. From the pictures & audio, I saw a couple struggling with something they never thought would happen to them, and they are handling it the best they know how.

Do I think I'd react differently to that financial situation? Absolutely; I see a lot of issues here that seem bigger than the current economic crisis. But I can't judge. Who knows what marriage will bring? All we can do is promise to work through it -- together.

*Image of the Bachmuth family by Michael Stravato for the New York Times.

Money Matters in Marriage, pt. 1 Friday, November 13, 2009

Like most people, I don't like talking about finances, but I promised myself I'd spend as much energy preparing for the wedding as I would preparing for the marriage... so I try to confront these potentially uncomfortable issues when I get a chance.

The New York Times has published several articles on couples' finances in the past two weeks.

The articles, by Ron Lieber, are very helpful, if brief, and are in two parts (actually three, but more on that in a minute). The first one, "Four Talks About Money to Have Before Marriage," outlines the ways in which marital finances are impacted by our upbringing, our expectations, our attitudes toward money, and other habits.

When it comes to this, I know I'm definitely not perfect when it comes to finances. I tend to hyper-manage my money, sometimes even programming my browser's home screen to go to my bank's webpage so I can remind myself of what I spend. Not surprisingly, I'm also a spreadsheet junkie. :)

This means, though, that I tend to over-budget, which leaves little room for surprises, and that I worry about money when sometimes I don't need to. I also attach guilt to my spending, which means I'm extremely frugal for a while and might blow it later. I can trace all this to my childhood, which was marked by economic ups & downs, and my fear of repeating my late father's money management mistakes.

But also, my father's death really was a catalyst for me thinking about money; I was 20, so it would have happened close to that age anyway, I guess. But most vivid in my memory are all the times my father "had to work," and everything he missed as a result (we had an especially poignant conversation when I left for college, where he confessed that he felt he didn't really know me, because he'd missed so much). Our relationship definitely suffered because of that, as did his marriage to my mom.

And then he was gone, and it didn't matter at all how much he had to work. And all those material things he'd amassed; they were still here, and he wasn't, and they didn't matter much either.

I decided then that for my life, for myself, security would always be more important than wealth. I don't mind driving a 10 year old car if I have the means to maintain it. Our house doesn't have to be the biggest, but if it's safe and clean and comfortable and everything works, I'll be happy. There are more important things.

Fortunately, my fiancé's approach to money wasn't shaped by anything nearly as traumatic. He had a more consistent upbringing, and doesn't feel guilty for the occasional splurge or two. He isn't near as spreadsheet-happy as I am, so he leaves that to me -- and I don't mind a bit!

Anyway, the fiancé and I had certainly discussed these issues, but these things repeatedly come up in a marriage, and the article helped facilitate another good conversation.

Do you plan to talk to your FH/FW about finances? Do you like these kinds of discussions?

Worth a thousand (more) words Monday, November 9, 2009

This weekend, after placing my invitation order, I was so pleased to have something done so early. For a July wedding, I wouldn't need to order them until January or February, and mail them at the end of April. But the company is giving a discount to orders placed before the end of the year, so I was planning to order them in a month. Then, the invitation shop had a promotion for an additional discount this week, so there you go!

The lovely invitations are probably the only thing I've been 100% consistent about throughout this entire wedding planning process. The wording should be simple and formal. Easy, right? I arrived at the shop with all the information in tow (typed up, no less!) and today I got the call.

They want to change my invitation wording because it is improper!

Specifically, they want to change my "half past five" to "half after five" and we disagree about the usage of "two thousand ten" vs. "two thousand and ten." (They prefer the latter, by the way.) All my research says that both are acceptable, but it seems that "half after" and "two thousand and ten" are most likely related to British usage and are therefore more formal.

Two things at work here. First of all, I am having a formal wedding, which requires a formal invitation with formal wording. So I get that this is the time to be "correct."

But I wonder if these etiquette rules might just be too obscure for me. Who IN THE WORLD says "half after five"? I've never seen it; every wedding invitation I've seen says "half past." Every invitation also says "two thousand and ten" and since it looks better in print, I might concede that one. I might even write "half after" for the time... but I can just imagine my family calling up saying, "When is the wedding?"

On the other hand, just because large swaths of people don't understand an etiquette rule doesn't mean it's invalid.

We'll see. At this point, the invitation reads:

Together with their families
[Bride] and [Groom]
request the pleasure of your company
at their marriage
[Day] the [nth] of July
two thousand and ten
at half after (?) five in the evening
[Name of place]
[City, State]
Reception to follow

[in the lower right hand corner]:
R.s.v.p. before [Month] [Date]
[website address]

I had originally written, "Please r.s.v.p. by [date], but realized that, while in English, "to r.s.v.p." is a verb or a noun, it's actually a phrase that already contains the word please (Respondez, s'il-vous plait). But most people will read it as a verb, so...

Honestly, I'm surprised that I care so much. But as someone who loves to write and is interested in what words mean to different people, this is actually kind of fascinating.

Also, I think it's funny how wedding invitations, like so many aspects of the wedding itself, bring out these issues of class and style. I think many wedding disputes we have now are the result of being in different classes, and of our culture being in sort of a transitional period with different cultures & class systems. I mean, wouldn't this be easier (but so much more boring!) if every member of one family was in the same social class (and thus, had the same expectations for your wedding)? But, thankfully, that hardly relates to any Americans anymore. Interesting.

*The photo is of Emily Post, who frightens me a little.

What is he thinking? Thursday, June 4, 2009

For all of you wondering what your father is thinking about during this wedding planning process, look no further than Poor Wedding Dad. My own father passed away nearly 10 years ago, and I still miss him (and Father's Day is coming up!). Still, I love to listen to/hear these different perspectives. Click over to Poor Wedding Dad, relax and have a laugh or two!