Hard Times and Marriage

More than a year ago, I dispatched Adam to read my very favorite Dickens novel, Hard Times. After struggling a bit through the beginning of the novel--Adam doesn't share my a priori love of depressing or straight-forward literature--he returned with a surprising verdict: Hard Times is a wonderful novel about marriage.

His announcement really shocked me. I'd like to consider myself an astute literary critic, but I'd completely missed any significant emphasis on marriage. Sure, the action largely centers around two couples, but surely the novel is about the monetary poverty and suffering of the lower classes, and the mental poverty and suffering of the elite. Armed with Adam's assessment, I returned to the novel over the last couple of weeks. Though I'll stick to my Dickensonian guns about themes of poverty, I think Adam was also right.

"Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life...This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these [school]children." These words open the novel and introduce the character of Louisa Gradgrind, the daughter of the speaker and the female partner in one of the two major relationships in the novel.

From a very early age, Lousia's father encourages her to dismiss her emotions and her fancies. She completely lacks experience in love and accepts an offer that would make her father and her brother happy--she marries the much senior Mr. Boundaby, the greatest humbug in the town. Needless to say, their marriage is unsuccessful.

Their loveless marriage contrasts sharply with the tragic love affair between Stephen and Rachel. Stephen, too, is trapped in a dreadful marriage with a woman who became an alcoholic and left him. He finds a long-term helpmate in Rachel, who tends to him with a quiet devotion, knowing that Stephen will never be able to marry her--no matter how much he wants to. Dickens draws our attention to how love makes a sacramental bond far more powerful than an unfeeling ceremony. Stephen gets from Rachel what only a blessed man finds in his wife: "I nevermore will see or think o' anything that angers me, but thou, so much better than me, shalt be by th' side on't." He looks forward to the day the two will be together in the bliss of eternity.

The greatest tragedy of the novel is not this poor couple's--they have hope for the future, even if it is only after death. Louisa has no hope. Her life is meaningless, and she knows it. Her upbringing has ruined her for the vocation to marriage for which her indomitable compassion suggest she is intended. Her father ironically admits this when he discusses Boundaby's proposal with her--"You do not come to the consideration of that question with the previous habits of mind, and habits of life, that belong to many young women." The goodness within her gradually stirs, first as she strives to help Rachel and then as she falls under the influence of her foster-sister, Sissy. But even after she returns to her father's house and her husband dies, she is permanently scarred. All the time in the world left to her "better nature" cannot undo what has been done. She remakes herself as a women children love, but is never loved by a man again.

What does all of this say about marriage?

First of all, love is what makes a marriage. Stephen and Rachel may never consummate their "marriage," but they are bound in a way far deeper than Lousia and Boundaby could ever be. A marriage without love means nothing.

Second, and more importantly, God grants to each of us only one life to live. Poor Louisa's life, the vocation her loving and compassionate nature could have meant for her, were stolen by bad habituation very early in life. To love, to be capable of receiving love, requires a lifetime of continually developing good habits. There is very little in life sadder than an unrealized vocation.

The "Not" Bridal Shower

Because there are so many people in England that I'd love to have at my wedding, I decided to throw myself a bridal shower and invite many of them. We had tea at the Randolph, the posh hotel where C. S. Lewis met his wife, Joy.

We had a wonderful time. The food was delicious and the company couldn't have been more pleasant. I felt really loved to spend a pleasant afternoon with some of my very favorite people.

I have to own up to being a bit disappointed with the picture, though. Ah well. Not everything is perfect, apparently including my photography skills or the concierge at the Randolph.

A Nicer Story About Adam

After posting about a dream that could be interpreted as an unconscious annoyance at Adam yesterday, I thought it only fair to post about something I absolutely love about him today...

A friend of a friend had a major run in while doing the right thing. It reminded me how risky it sometimes is to "step up" when something is obviously wrong. Zak was particularly unlucky, but there are few opportunities for interfering with other people's lives that don't carry the risk of embarrassment or emotional trauma.

Because I've known Adam for more than a quarter of his life now (we've been dating for so long!), I watched him grow into a conscientious man who's willing to help others, even when there's a cost. It's been wonderful to realize that he's willing to take these kinds of risks to do the right thing.

I'm aware that last time he did this, I questioned his motives. I was embarrassed that he'd done something very public to help a woman in need. That's not the attitude of a teammate--a helpmate--with a shared commitment to helping others. I hope I can better learn from his example.

Particularly for a woman, there are serious limitations to how helpful I can be. My public sphere of helpfulness is usually limited to offering to call the police--confronting people in public isn't really part of the vocation of a 5'2" female student except under extraordinary circumstances. I'm especially glad to be with a man who takes being helpful seriously. We can use our strengths together to help others!

Wedding Nightmare #2

Nothing profound to say today, so another wedding nightmare...

With our ceremony fairly soon (just 81 days to go!) the fear that inspired this nightmare has largely evaporated. I think I can manage another less months (less!), but back in March, I wasn't sure I could manage five.

I dreamt that Adam and I decided to get married earlier. Not elope, but to move our proper, full-blown celebration up by five months with only a week's notice. Undaunted, I told him that I would take care of everything. All he had to do was get the priest (Father Bill Gurnee, who is flying in from Maryland for the wedding) to the church by the day of the ceremony.

I worked tirelessly all week to rebook the church, the photographer, the caterer, the band... I called every single individual guest, talked people into flying thousands of miles without any warning. Saturday came. Everyone was there and everyone was set.

"Where's Father Gurnee?" I asked.

"Oh. I called and left a message on his phone a couple of days ago. I haven't heard from him."

Silence. I was so irate! I grabbed his phone and glared at the outgoing calls list. He hadn't even called the right number. It was so unlike him to drop the ball, I couldn't believe he'd done it over something so important. I was so annoyed that I woke up furious with him, even knowing it was a dream.

Of course, Adam would never do anything that careless or thoughtless. He's a wonderful fiance who's been amazingly helpful during the entire planning process! But even though I can hardly wait for the day we get married, but that nightmare was certainly an incentive to try!

Literary Happiness

Leo Tolstoy wrote that "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." The line is one of the most famous in Western literature. It seeps into the reader's soul with a kind of all-pervading "true-ness." But is he right?

Adam has been making fun of me recently for my choice in literature. I like depressing books where unhappy things happen to characters. I think the only poetry really worth reading is poetry about dejection, loss, and pain. These stories and poems seem to mean something in a way other stories don't. If Tolstoy is correct--unhappiness is a unique, case-by-case, individual experience--how can it be that the literary texts, the ones that are supposed to capture universal human experience, are so often the tragic ones?

There are many poems that describe the way I feel when Adam is far away. Many that capture the fears I have about losing him. But there are no poems that express the way I love him. No poems that encapsulate the way he makes me feel. There are analogies in texts, and I've written about these, but nothing really fits us. It isn't our unhappiness--missing each other like we'd miss a piece of ourselves--that makes us unique. Lots of people spend months, years, or even decades apart from their lovers. It's our love, our own story of our vocation to marriage, that makes us unique. Our unhappiness is shared; we are happy in our own way.

So perhaps that's why I prefer "depressing" poetry to "happy" poetry, if such simplistic labels ought to be applied. Sadness is sublime. It transcends human differences of time, or class, or race so that I enter into Poe's pain, Longfellow's longing, and Hardy's obstinate grip on hope. Happiness is transcendental. My love, my happiness, is intimate, uniquely shared with only one other person. It's our own. We can, and hope, to pass it on to others. But I can only ever share my happiness with Adam.

Am I wrong? I'd love to learn about the positive stories, songs, or poems that you find compelling.

Experiences I Wish I Could Have Shared with Adam #3

...learning to draw.

I guess this is more of an ongoing process, something I worked on today that I'd like to develop further with Adam later. But I couldn't share an amazing day of drawing in an idyllic setting under cloudless skies with him today.

One of my best friends and I walked down to Port Meadow. Everything and everyone was fresh and vibrant. Cows lolled along, grazing on the grass and gorgeous yellow flowers. Teenaged boys prodded each other into jumping off the bridge into the river. Babies abounded. Everyone was happy and smiling.

You can click here to see more pictures of the day. There are also older pictures of the meadow on less idyllic days here and here.

Epic Fail

Today I had the distinctively unpleasant opportunity to be reminded of one of my greatest flaws: I hate to lose. I hate not being at the top of the class. Not being the greatest and best at everything I do.

Over the years, I'd like to think I've improved. Now that I've learned to better love and respect the people around me, I'm usually very happy when they do well--even when it's better than me. But I still can't stand the idea that my performance was sub par, that I could have done better.

It occurred to me how dangerous my attitude toward failure may be for the future of our marriage. What happens when something goes wrong? Am I going to try to hide it, pretending it doesn't exist so I don't have to admit I might have failed? Or will I quit? Just get up and leave out of a fear I might not succeed at "this marriage thing" after all?

Of course, failure isn't the same for married Catholics. Divorce isn't an option. But separation is. Even worse, so it deep-seated unhappiness and resentment. My fear of failure, left unchecked, could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy if it forces me to stop communicating with Adam.

No, I haven't failed anything today per se. I've only disappointed myself. Maybe in the long run it's far better to be reminded of my very human shortcomings in a context where the stakes aren't very high.

Young Widowhood

One of my best friends went to a funeral today. I wish I'd known who it was for--I would have gone, too. The husband of one of my tutors from last year died. That might not be surprising to you, but it was to me. You see, the tutor can't be more than about ten years older than me.

Her face has haunted me all day. It's terrifying, the idea of being a widow at thirty five. The whole big, beautiful future that floats tantalizingly before me could melt away in an instant. I could lose Adam and there would be nothing I could do about it.

At the risk of trivializing something as serious as death, I have to say that being in love makes me feel just a bit like Edward Cullen from Stephanie Meyer's Twilight saga. "Have you ever thought about how fragile they all are? How many bad things there are that can happen to a mortal?" the immortal lover says of his breakable human girlfriend in Midnight Sun. Late at night, miles and miles away from Adam, it's hard not to dwell on how fragile he is--how fragile we are. Our huge, momentous love that means everything in the world to me now can disappear in the moment it takes a heart to stop.

I've written before about how morbid and flippant I sometimes find Adam's attitude toward death. "We all die when we're meant to die," he'll say. In some ways, it's the sentiment of someone who's never really suffered the loss of a loved one. But, in others, he's profoundly right. Part of the reassurance of being a Christian, particularly in a tradition that puts so much focus on vocation, is my faith that God has put Adam on the Earth for a reason. As much as it hurts me to think that reason might not include raising children and growing old with me, that's a fact of life I have to accept. If it's true that whoever tries to save his life will lose it, it must also be true that whoever clings to the life of a loved one will never take as much joy from their relationship as God intended.

I know none of this would help my tutor, surely grieving from her terrible loss. But I hope you will join me in keeping her, her husband, and their family in our prayers.

Wedding Hymn

Because Adam and I are having a nuptial service instead of a Mass, we only get one hymn. For two people who love to sing, that's a bit of a disappointment. And a lot of pressure to pick just the right one.

We went through a long list of hymns. The "wedding hymns" in most hymnals are pretty spectacularly awful. We also wanted to be sure to choose a hymn which my Southern Baptist relatives would know. After two months of searching, I'd almost decided we should cut the hymn all together.

That's when I remembered a scene from one of my very favorite films, Little Women. Meg March marries on a bright spring day. The entire family walks around the happy couple, singing a hymn of thanks to God, "For the Beauty of the Earth:"

For the beauty of the earth,
For the beauty of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our grateful hymn of praise.

For the beauty of each hour
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flower,
Sun and moon and stars of light,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our grateful hymn of praise.

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth, and friends above,
Pleasures pure and undefiled,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our grateful hymn of praise.

For each perfect gift of thine,
To our race so freely given,
Graces human and divine,
Flowers of earth and buds of heaven,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our grateful hymn of praise.

For thy Church which evermore
Lifteth holy hands above,
Offering up on every shore
Her pure sacrifice of love,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our grateful hymn of praise.

It hit me! What a perfect hymn! It perfectly summarizes our feelings of gratitude and love for one another and the God who made us for each other.

Of course, it's a bit long as it is. We'll almost certainly cut verse five. Which other one should we cut? The verse about human love is the least poetic sounding but, as my mother pointed out, fairly perfect for a wedding. What do you think?

Either way, I'm very excited about the idea of singing this song to God with Adam and with my family on our wedding day.




PS: The hymn only plays at the beginning o Don't watch the entire clip unless you like to cry.

Friends Abroad

Adam and I have friends in many, many different places. That's one of the consequences of our unusual, long-distance relationship. I've lived in four states and two countries in the past three years; Adam, about the same. But very few of our friends are left in the city where we're getting married.

It's a bit bizarre planning a wedding to which you expect very few of your friends to be able to come. The reception promised to be fun, but with an unusually venerable group of attendees. What kind of music do you choose when the average audience-member is likely to be closer to fifty than thirty? And to whom do you throw the bouquet when the only "maids" at your wedding are your bridesmaids? I love my family. I'm excited to celebrate with them. Still, I couldn't help feeling a little disappointed that so many people I care about would be excluded from our big day on the basis of sheer distance. Adam and I have always been a bit too self-conscious about friendships to presume on anyone's time or dime by inviting them to our wedding from so far away.

That's why I've been truly amazed by the outpouring of support Adam and I have had from our geographically-diverse friends:

• A few of my friends in England made it clear they expected to be invited. What a wonderful way to make me feel loved! They knew how much it meant to be and took for granted they would do whatever they could to come.
• An impressive number of people from DC have volunteered to travel by planes, trains, and automobiles the five hundred miles between Washington and Atlanta. We haven't lived in DC for two years, but our friends share our strong feelings of affection and community. We are so excited to be joining them again.
  
• Encouraged by my success--and a few prods from interested friends--Adam finally broke down and asked his Seattle friends who would like to be invited to our wedding. Again, we've felt so loved by the number of people who want to, or sincerely wish they could, travel across the country to spend the day with us.
• Not to mention, of course, Adam's relatives--all of whom have many miles to travel to come to Atlanta--and my South Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi relatives who will be trekking with kids in tow.
  

Overall, the whole experience of getting married has really highlighted how loved I am--not just by Adam, but by all of our friends and family. Whether you're coming to the wedding, or wish you could come, or have been faithfully following my ramblings on this blog, we appreciate your friendship.

An Awesome Cake

No profound thoughts today... just an awesome wedding cake that sent my delightfully nerdy fiance drooling.

Notice the intricate detail, including the icing roller in the back. Also the Lego men in bakers' hats.

Too bad Adam insisted we couldn't have a sugarpaste cake. We had to settle for something a bit more sane... and significantly more appropriate for soon-to-be-married adults.

The photo comes from Cake Wrecks, which may be the best useless blog of all time.

Another Medieval Marriage

Much of the work on my dissertation focuses on the romance Guy of Warwick. The work has provided me with yet another medieval model of marriage, but this time with a few more added questions.

As a young man, Guy falls in love with the king's daughter, Felice. He goes to her and tells her that he loves her, but she rebuffs him. She's a princess, he a mere retainer's son. When he seeks her attentions again, she tells him that she will accept his love only if he becomes the greatest knight in the world.

Guy spends the next seven years traveling in Continental Europe and the Middle East winning tournaments and defending good against evil. He finally returns as the most renowned and talented knight in the world. He marries Felice, the most beautiful and intelligent woman in the world. They are the perfect couple.

Up to this point, the romance perfectly captures my ideal for marriage. Guy's love for Felice forces him to be better, striving to earn her love. It isn't just that he's showing off. He can't just appear to be the best knight, but must become the best knight--with all the qualities of courtliness, moral strength, and chivalry that go with the title.

A subtle allegorical note makes the romance even more astute. Felice's name means "happiness." Medieval philosophers recognized happiness as the greatest good of human life. She's not only the perfect woman, but the greatest good which Guy can ever attain in this life. Who wouldn't love that image of marriage? Guy's marriage to Felice represents a man who has worked hard to become perfectly happy.

But that happiness isn't enough for the romance writer, or for Guy. Just two weeks after they marry, Guy walks alone along the parapet of his castle, staring at the stars. He suddenly realizes what a fool he has been, working all his life for the sake of Felice rather than for the sake of Christ. So he leaves Felice, simply packs up and walks out on a pilgrimage which will consume the rest of his life. He's gone to seek God--Felice and earthly happiness are left by the wayside.

Felice, left sobbing on her own in her husband's extended absence, struggling to do good on her own: the most terrifying image of marriage I can imagine. She's been tossed aside by a husband who goes to seek a greater good. Their marriage has been insufficient. It hasn't brought Guy any closer to God. What a nightmare!

So the romance left me wondering: how realistic is it to expect marriage to help me be better? Why are there so few married saints? Is it really that hard to be married and holy, so hard that Guy had to leave Felice?

Adam and I want to commit ourselves to a life of doing good and seeking God together. I can't imagine the pain it would cause both of us if either struck out on his own her own. We hope our felicity will lie in our marriage to each other and, in loving each other, we can grow closer to God.

Experiences I Wish I Could Have Shared with Adam #2

My mother raised me to find time to volunteer, no matter how busy I am. The objective was clearly to help people, but my most recent volunteer activity is more fun for me than anything else. Who wouldn't want to spend a Saturday afternoon helping English children try on chain-mail or make paper samurai helmets? That's just how fun it is to be an Oxford University Museums volunteer.

Today I did something new... I helped kids dissect pigs' eyeballs. As squeamish as I know Adam can occasionally be about his eyes, I would have loved sharing the fun I had today with him. Adam loves helping people learn things! And these children were really, truly engaged in learning about the eye. Volunteering is something I really look forward to sharing with Adam!

If you're in the Oxford area, I strongly recommend volunteering with OUM. You can find out more about it here.

Offbeat?

I recently discovered a new bridal blog, offbeatbride.com. I don't really like as much as Weddingbee, about which I've posted a great deal, but it's still a fun diversion from writing my dissertation. Most of these weddings are so bizarre and so far-out it's difficult to take them seriously.

Then imagine my surprise when I discovered that, from their perspective I'M AN OFFBEAT BRIDE. Why? Because I'm planning to wear my glasses on my wedding day.

I HATE contact lenses. I hate the wear they adhere to my eye. I hate the panic that sets in when I can't get them out. And love the way I look in my glasses. They offset the roundness of my face and make me look generally a bit more clever.

Does that really make me offbeat? Is it a horrible idea for me to wear my glasses on my wedding day? Here's a picture of my AWESOME glasses. What do you think?

Camera Shy

For most of my life, I've looked pretty rubbish in photographs. That's why paying lots of money for a pretty dress and a nice photographer makes me feel so nervous: I may well turn out looking frumpy and uncomfortable anyway.

There's really only been one photographer in my life who has made me feel comfortable in front of the camera, my friend Anne Abarr. She took my high school graduation photos. I think I look particularly nice in them. She made me feel beautiful and completely comfortable in front of the camera. (She now runs a studio with her husband. You can see more of their work here.)

Anne didn't quite work out as our wedding photographer, but she was really supportive in helping us find another one. No one else in the Atlanta area seemed to have Anne's impeccable taste. After days and days of Google searches, we found Robert Combier. I have to say, his photography is one of my favorite finds for our wedding so far.

When I contacted Robert, I expressed my concerns about our photographs to him. I'm camera shy. Adam is a foot and a half taller than me. And neither of us seems to photograph very well at all. Free of charge, he came to my house for a consultation. He showed me all of his photographic equipment and walked me through the day. He started taking pictures after I'd dropped my guard. I have to say, he got some pretty nice shots. As an added bonus, Robert is a graduate student at Georgia Tech. Adam and I were very excited to support the work of a student like us, trying to make ends meet while doing a degree. It helps that his work is particularly brilliant.

Of course, I understand that part of the process of brilliant wedding photos is learning to be comfortable with myself and the way I look. As a matter of fact, learning how to comfortable position my body was one of my goals when I started taking ballet .That's why I was so excited by the ballet headshots taken the other day in the lead up to our show on 29 and 30 May. One of my fellow dancers, Henry Uniacke, runs a small wedding photography business. He photographed us for our program. Between his wonderful behind-the-camera work and my ballet teacher posing us nicely, he took really beautiful pictures of me. It was a wonderful object lesson in how to have my photo taken.

We're supposed to be compiling a list of photographs we want taken during our wedding. Can you think of any shots we "have to have"?

An Affair to Remember: A Counter Tragedy

About four o'clock this morning, I finally realized why the plot of Casanova seemed hauntingly familiar. It's because I've seen that story before--two people making their livings off of the misplaced affections of others fall hopelessly, and impractically, in love. That's the basic plot of one of my very favorite films, An Affair to Remember. But where in Casanova the characters' unwillingness to live a life of hardship and sacrifice makes the tale a tragedy, the choices of the characters in An Affair to Remember make it an uplifting story of the redemption of selfless love.

In An Affair to Remember, two people meet aboard a trans-Atlantic cruise. One is an artist-turned-playboy, now engaged to an heiress. The other is a lounge singer and live-in girlfriend of a wealthy businessman. The man takes the woman to meet his grandmother on an Italian island, one of the ship's ports-of-call. While there, they both stop and pray in the family chapel. That moment they drop their guards, see each other as they really are, and begin to fall in love. When the cruise ends, they decide to meet in sixth months. If they've successfully turned their lives around, they will marry. Instead of running back to safety and security, as Casanova and Henriette would have done, these two leave their lovers and set off to become independent, to redeem their past lives of indolence and questionable morals, and to make themselves worthy of the love they share.

That's what love is. They never pine or mourn or even complain about the situation. They give in to the transformative power of love. They take great pride and pleasure in their growing abilities to take care of themselves and to make moral choices. Love makes them want to be better than they were before. And the process is cyclic. The better they become, the more they love; the more they love, the better they become.

That process, of love refining my personality and inter-personal interactions, is what I enjoy most in my relationship with Adam. Over all our time apart, I've gradually noticed how much more difficult it is to be nice to people and to use my time in efficient ways. It's part of why I feel so comfortable in my vocation to marry him: being with him makes me better. Not being with him makes it more difficult to be good.

As much as I empathize with Casanova and Henriette, it's an empathy born of the knowledge that they've made a tragically wrong choice. They've chosen to remain static, unchanged by the powerful impulse of love which leaves people with little choice but to grow better. That's what I have with Adam and what I hope we'll never lose.

Casanova: A Tragedy

I spent more time than I ought to have today watching a 2005 BBC production of Casanova. David Tennant, of Doctor Who fame, played the world's most famous lover. The chronicle of his youthful exploits was delightful, but it was the frame narrative that really made the mini-series worth watching. Peter O'Toole plays Casanova in his old age, withered and spent. Amidst all his lovers and all his conquests, O'Toole's Casanova ends his life alone and almost forgotten.

In the BBC production, Casanova's actions revolve around Henriette, his one great love, and his inability to ever be with her. The one that got away. The one woman whom he loves too much to seduce. His whole being revolves around her. No matter how many terrible choices he makes, his love for her stands out as the redeeming quality of his life. His enduring, unrequited love, destined never to be fulfilled.

Henriette loves him, too, but craves a life of stability and prosperity. She once vowed to herself she would never live in poverty again, as she had in early life, nor raise children in an unstable environment. For her own sake, and for the sake of her children, she chooses stability over love.

A few days ago, I posted about how irrevocably linked I already am to Adam. From that standpoint, Casanova's struggles become gut-wrenching. I can't imagine a life of constantly reaching out for Adam, barely missing him. Worse yet, I can't imagine Henriette's life--a marriage of convenience to a man she doesn't love, always wishing she could have been with another.

What would life be like, spending it without the one I love, my soul mate? How would my life change if Adam and I weren't set up to be independent? Could I always choose Adam over every other thing? What would happen to me, to us, if I couldn't? These are the questions Casanova forced me to ask myself.

But I don't think those questions give me enough credit. I know what I would choose. I would choose a life of poverty over a life without Adam, hands down. A life of scandal and a life of hardship, too. I could never choose the kind of tragic life Henriette chooses for herself, and for Casanova. I don't think there is anything on this earth more important to me than love, and unity, with Adam. I think that's the way marriage is supposed to work, isn't it?

Wedding Ethics

Last term, I posted about a "Catholicism and Economics" reading group I've been attending at the Chaplaincy. I joined the group hoping to get a better handle on my own buying decisions. I know that statement seems a bit pretentious, so please let my try to explain.

In a Capitalist market, I, as a consumer, have many buying choices. But with those choices comes a certain responsibility. If, for example, I buy clothes only from stores that mass produce, I'm contributing to the downfall of local enterprise. If I buy milk in a plastic jug, I'm telling milk farmers that biodegradable materials aren't important to me. And so forth...

Ultimately, I've deduced that responsible buying means never putting price at the top of my list of priorities. When I buy something, it ought to be the best value, not the cheapest product available. A hand-made skirt from Etsy might cost more, but it will probably last longer than one from Target--and it was made by a small-scale producer working in an environment where she could take a sense of pride and accomplishment in her work, rather than mass-produced in an impersonal factory.

But knowing price can't be my highest priority is only the first step. I have to decide what does matter to me. What labels do I look for? Sustainable? Hand-made? Local? Organic? Fair trade? On top of that, how much can I cut down on my consumption--period--regardless of a products "localness" of "sustainability"? Suddenly moral buying decisions become more complicated than I ever anticipated them being.

These are the sorts of questions Adam and I have increasingly been asking ourselves about the way we spend our money. It's difficult, but we're trying to take buying decisions seriously. In a Capitalist market, its the best way we have to tell producers what's important to us. The way we spend our money ought to reflect what we find important. That's why we've tried to take those kinds of factors into consideration when planning our wedding.

"Ethical weddings" have come into vogue in the past few years. Dozens of websites, like EthicalWeddings.com, offer brides thousands of suggestions from serving a vegan/organic brownie wedding cake to packing your entire bridal party onto a London bus to save on CO2 emissions. The massive lists suggestions is alarming... and guilt-inducing. In the end, I think it's important for me to accept that the buying decisions I make for my wedding, and my life, are never going to perfectly reflect my values. There's just no realistic way to always choose the "most ethical" product in a market with this many choices. Still, I'm happy with the little ways we've been able to incorporate ethical buying decisions into our wedding:

• We hired a local, small-scale caterer and baker. Our caterer is a friend of my mom's. I'm very excited to be working with someone with whom we have a personal relationship.
  
• We chose to have fewer flowers, and flowers which are not difficult to find. By cutting the number of flowers, we saved a lot of money. We were also able to get flowers that are seasonal, which cuts down on CO2 emissions racked up in shipping plants.
  
• We are having our invitations hand-made by an Etsy artisan. As a bonus, she's also using paper from sustainable forests. You can read more about our invitations here.
  
• I bought a dress from a small, local store. Again, going local has been a good move. The shop attendants at Natalie's Bridal have been incredibly helpful. They're even communicating with me over the internet about my veil.
• And we've stayed in budget! Adam and I really wanted to stay in budget as a sign of respect and gratitude to my parents for paying for our celebration.
  

Can you think of other ways we could make our wedding a little better?

A Good Omen

If you've been looking at ...and Enide's FEEDJIT feed, you may have noticed that we've been getting a surprising number of hits from Google for my post about our Old Testament reading. I finally got around to doing a bit of digging to find out why.

I have to say that I'm delighted about what I found. If you do a Google search for "Old Testament 'Allow us to live together to a happy old age,'" ...and Enide is the second cataloged hit. I'm not one for superstition or omens, but it I love the idea that people looking for such a delightful ideal in scripture find it on our blog.

Variant Readings

Alison and I are alike in a lot of ways. By the time we talk about most things, we already agree. But whenever we discuss something we’ve read together, we are very different.

I’m a smart person and I don’t like saying banal things. When discussing readings in college classes, I rarely bothered to answer the professor’s questions because I had moved a few steps further. When I spoke out with what I was thinking, I saw blank looks from my classmates. I always thought it was because I was so much smarter.

But I know that Alison is smart, and so am I, and we have the same problem. When we settle down to discuss a book or article, there’s always an awkward pause as we consider all the true but insultingly obvious things we could say. Whoever gives the first opinion, the other invariably disagrees or has to ask a few questions before it makes sense. Starting from the same observations, we arrive at very different critiques. I enjoy that we bore down on different points and frame the reading so analytically that the equally-obvious observations of the other become fresh and exciting.

The whole arc of our relationship has taught us to respect each other so much that thoughts and opinions we would consider obviously (but not provably) wrong come to deserve our attention. There are numerous books, movies, foods, ideas, people that I came to respect only because of a willingness to share with Alison.

If I can be excused for a theological digression, the widening of our realm of acceptance is part of the vocation of marriage. All vocations are a way to experience giving and receiving love as God does. God’s love reaches to all people and all of creation. We can’t grasp for such universality, because we are limited and dependent. But joining with another person invites us to look at from the inside, rather than observing from the outside, the love another person has for creation and share in that love.

I hope that coming to know and love me has introduced Alison to just as much a change of perspectives and perhaps in future entries we can together about the favorite things we’ve learned to love from each other.

Wedding Party: the Mother of the Bride

Because today is Mothers' Day--at least on the other side of the pond--it seems like the perfect day to inaugurate my long-intended series on members of our bridal party.

The mother of the bride is different than the rest of the bridal party. The parents of the bride are the only people involved in the ceremony about which the bride has absolutely no say. I picked my readers, my bridesmaids, and even my groom... but, even if I did have a choice, there is no one I would rather have gone through this wedding planning journey with than my mother.

Mom has been absolutely amazing! She's spent a lot of time playing intermediary across three states and the Atlantic Ocean, but she's done it without ever complaining. She asks me what I want and then makes it happen--like a fairy godmother, except better. We could never have done this without her.

More than that, though, she's been an amazing emotional support. She's been extraordinarily aware how being overseas occasionally makes me feel like I'm missing out on part of the "wedding-planning experience," so she's gone out of her way to make me feel extra special when I'm at home--particularly in the forms of manicures, "trousseau shopping," and pleasant lunches. She's also the one I call for tough answers about marriage. After almost thirty-five years of loving marriage, she's always ready with honest and helpful advice about starting our marriage off right.

There's no way a simple blog entry could be an adequate tribute for someone who has done so much to make our wedding a success. But in the little way I can, I just wanted to thank her. Happy Mothers' Day, Mom.

Experiences I Wish I Could Have Shared with Adam #1

After a few days of fairly heavy posts, I thought I'd offer something a bit lighter.

Oxford academic years are divided into three eight-week terms: Michelmas, Hilary, and Trinity. For people who aren't sitting exams, Trinity Term is the fun term. There's a lot of work to be done, but the mood shifts from gloom and panic to a better sense of perspective and fun. That's where punting comes in.

Punting is a lot like riding in a gondola. Well, a bit. It's actually a lot more rustic. Beautiful. Someone stands in the back of the boat and pushes it along the river, steering by using the pole as a kind of rudder. Everyone else lounges in the front of the boat, soaking in the sun--or at least the light glare off the clouds. Adam and I have never had the great fortune to go punting together, but I did have a delightful time punting with friends.

Punting together made it onto a recent "to-do list for life" that Adam made. Hopefully I'll post more about that later. See more punting pictures here.

Learning from each other

Alison recently posted about her false self, the conscious thoughts that judge her and worry her rather than helping to improve her. I wanted to reflect on one way that we are starting to face up to and reject our false selves, with each others’ help.

Marriage is two people learning to live as one. During our engagement, Alison and I have learned to look at our lives through each others’ eyes. We have worked hard to share the parts of ourselves that we don’t like. I think we expected to need to forgive and work together to improve. That has been hard, but there is something even harder. Sometimes, when you bring up the most embarrassing and horrifying things about yourself, the other person isn’t shocked at all. They think that your horrible secret is the most natural thing in the world. We were prepared to work through the places in our lives that honestly needed improvement, but had trouble with the even harder task of sharing and letting go of the secret fears and judgements that have accumulated after so many years of listening to our false selves.

Alison and I could both improve our lives and those of our friends in so many ways. But shame gets in the way. Those of you who know Alison know how constantly thoughtful and sweet she is. If you’ve never talked to her deeply, though, you might not realize how constantly she is ashamed of small mistakes in her words and actions that she thinks have offended others. I am always at a loss how to talk with her about this. I know that she truly does feel shame, but I also know that the shame comes from the judgement of her false self, which is counter-productive. I am learning to accept the reality of her feelings first, and then tell her that I think she wasn’t at fault and has nothing to gain from guilt over unintentional slips.

Seeing Alison experience this process has also shown me that I need to distinguish between real faults worth focusing on and false shame that only traps me. I have a hard time differentiating on my own. But because I know that Alison loves me and will not condemn me, and because she doesn’t have to constantly hear the running commentary of my false self, I trust her judgement. I can even trust her judgement when she isn’t here. I just ask: if I told Alison this, would she lovingly help me improve by changing my behavior, or would she help me improve by telling me not to worry, to be thankful for the many gifts given to me, and to go do something productive?

A Walk to Remember: or, When Is a Marriage a Marriage?

I finished watching Doctor Who on BBC iPlayer two days ago. So, when I needed something else to do to waste my time, I found myself fumbling through You Tube for old movies. That's how I ran into A Walk to Remember.

Just in case you missed the 2002 teenage romance, allow me to fill you in. Landon, a popular, somewhat troubled high school boy gets stuck doing community service for his school. In the process, he finds himself spending more and more time with Jamie, the socially outcast, devoutly Christian, minister's daughter. He is initially embarrassed to be seen with her, but slowly learns to admire her quiet faith and conviction to do good. Ultimately, he finds himself in love with her and the life-affirming presence that she represents. She surprises herself by loving him back.

As the story moves towards its climax, it is obvious that something is terribly wrong. "I'm sick," she confesses to him, "I have leukemia." Although he is first devastated and resentful, he resolves himself to helping her through the terrifying experience of death by disease.

What makes the picture particularly beautiful is the way in which he helps her. Earlier in the film, she admits to him that she keeps a "to do list" of all the things she wants to accomplish before she dies. With an unexpected sense of urgency, he helps her with as many of them as he can as her health slowly deteriorates. He takes her to the state line so she can be in two places at once. Her helps her apply a temporary tattoo. He even builds her a telescope so she can observe a comet.

But the most beautiful moment in the film is the moment he asks her to help him meet the goal highest on her list: she wants to get married in her mother's church. She agrees. They marry. And she dies at the end of the summer.

After I finished hysterically crying, the film forced me to think about some of my own less-than-orthodox questions about marriage.

Landon and Jamie truly love each other. Each values the other over his or her own happiness. Their love makes them better, and makes the people around them better, too. They are a part of one another, long before he asks her to marry him. Why aren't they married already? What has the ceremony changed?

As a medievalist, the answer is not as straightforward as you might think. Historically speaking, marriage just requires the consent of two adults in front of witnesses. There are medieval anecdotes of parents who catch their daughters in bed with men. They tell her parents they plan to marry. The parents go back downstairs, considering the marriages valid and binding--which, for all intents and purposes, they were. Even now, the Church recognizes that the priest doesn't administer the sacrament of marriage at all--the couple administers it on themselves. The Church doesn't make two people one: two people decide to become one. All silly anecdotes aside, mutual love and commitment make a marriage, not a priest.

Given that fact, it's difficult to determine what makes the significant difference in what a marriage is if it performed in a church in front of a priest. Landon and Jamie gives themselves to one another a long time before their wedding takes place. And Adam and I decided to become one, to give our lives to each other, a long time ago. I feel irrevocably bound to Adam already. It's virtually impossible to believe either of us could walk away at this point without leaving a piece of ourselves behind.

Obviously there are problems with marriage purely by intention, else the Church wouldn't have bothered to clarify. Marriages require the formal sanction of the Church for our own sakes, to protect the sacramental and legal validity of our marriage. How else can they assure that neither partner is being coerced or misled. Plus, marriage is more than just the formal commitment in ways that Jamie and Landon, and Adam and I, haven't satisfied. I plan to follow the traditions of the Church and to continue talking about and treating Adam as my fiancé, rather than as my husband. Still, the three months that stretch before us seem like an endless formality given what we already spiritually share.

I posted a few weeks ago about what engagement is. I suppose that deserves a clarification. Adam takes the idea of engagement more seriously than I do, but that doesn't mean I'm any less committed to him than he is to me. We are, as I believe many couples are, more than engaged. We've already given our lives to each other. We're just waiting to close the deal.

Please do comment if you have any insight! I know I'm not being particularly orthodox. I'd love to better understand what marriage means.

Wedding Website

My mother has been religiously checking Emily Post's Wedding Planner for Moms just to make sure she hasn't committed some gross breach of wedding etiquette or forgotten some vital part of the ceremony. I half-listened one January night as she poured through the engagement checklist. "Alison! When are you going to make a wedding website?" she cried.

At the time, I was extremely loathe to create a wedding website. It seemed self-indulgent and unnecessary. But, as with many of my unrealistic and idealistic impressions of wedding planning, the unnecessary website proved unavoidably useful. There's just no other simple way to provide a large group of people with a large body of information--information about directions, accommodations, and registries.

And so, without further ado, I reveal to you the wedding website.

There's also a new, permanent link on the side bar of this blog for easier access.

(The domain name does make me feel warm and tingly! The URL is at www.thesoloves.com. Adam and I have our own domain together! We're almost more official now than we were when we declared ourselves engaged on Facebook.)

Invitations: Check!

Thanks for all of your comments and suggestions here and on Facebook. Adam and I decided to go with these, made by Etsy artisan Two Silly Sisters.

Invitations were never high on my priority list, but Adam and I are both very happy and excited about these. They're perfect, just the right mix of traditional and contemporary. Elegant, but not overdone. Not to mention handmade by a small-scale artisan on sustainable paper. Exactly what we were looking for!

I highly recommend working with Etsy. We got exactly what we wanted at a reasonable cost without having to go to a big-name provider. (I'm buying the wedding present on Etsy. Shhh!)

Once we picked the vendor and the design, our only real question was what to do about the response cards. 50-75% of our guests would rather RSVP by e-mail anyway. We settled on a postcard design. That isn't too "new," is it?

Now we just have to finalize the wording. It's amazing how careful you have to be with the way you phrase wedding invitations!

Blogging: A Moral Question

A friend of mine asked me today whether I thought "the sudden and dramatic explosion" of blogs was "a good thing." His question tapped into a issue I've spent a lot of time thinking about over the past few days. What is the value of keeping a blog?

We all know that blogs come in all shapes and sizes. Some make us more aware of the world around us. Others are simply fun. And some are stream-of-consciousness journals, unedited accounts of those willing to bare their souls for the world to see. All of us are asserting ourselves in a vast, world-wide medium, competing for our moment on the LCD screen. What's one more drop in a pond that vast?

In the end, I guess I just like stories. I like to read them, to study them, to tell them, and to write them. Stories mean something. They gives us a vocabulary for understanding our own lives. Sometimes, just reading a story can liberate us, set us free to think about our selves and our experiences in ways we never thought possible. They help us to step outside ourselves, to see our actions in the stories' characters, helping us to understand who and what we are.

Stories, too, shape the narratives of the lives we lead. What teenage girl hasn't pined away for a great unrequited love just because that's what teenaged girls do in stories? Better yet, what child hasn't whispered "I think I can" to herself the first time she rides a bicycle? And what Dickens reader has read the final scene of A Tale of Two Cities without the instant to go and do some "far better thing" of his own?

Best of all, a story has its own, external existence. Romeo and Juliet is timeless because of what it shares with no many stories of tragic love, both real and fictional. Dante's Commedy remains relevant because a struggle with faith is a common human experience. Hundreds of stories get retold on paper and on the stage of the world around us every day. We share the narratives that run through our lives with billions of other people in human history. No two people share the same narrative threads, but those threads create a vast and intricate web connecting all of human history. That's why reading really can make us more human. We all have our own stories. But we are never truly alone because there is never a new story.

So ...and Enide is my attempt to tell my own story--a story I share with hundreds of other people, but told in a way that's uniquely my own. My blog is my quest to find others like me who share tales of prince-like lovers or of conquering their own personal monsters. It's my quest to shape my own engaged, and later, married life into the patterns of Enide, Jo March, or even my parents--patterns that work. And it's my quest to share my story with people still writing their own stories in the hope it will help them understand their own.

No, I don't think that "the sudden and dramatic explosion" of blogs is "a good thing." Or at least not necessarily. In fact, my blog--my story--may not mean what I would like it to mean to anyone else but me. Still, I do believe there is a value in people telling their stories in a medium free from the struggle to be profitable or trendy. And whether they are interesting or not, stories almost always have a value. I hope you, as a reader, continue to find some value in mine.

Love: a first sight

A number of friends have come into or out of relationships in the past few weeks, or wanted advice on finding a significant other, and it’s made me think back on our early romance. I had pursued Alison indirectly but persistently for months before winter break our freshman year, and she had, at times more or less politely, declined. When we came back, things had changed: suddenly she was stopping by to see me, getting a bit closer, or even tickling me.

We already knew a lot about each other, but when we started dating a whole new vista emerged. Suddenly it was fun to just hold hands, talk for long hours, or see each other first thing in the morning. After that brief interlude, our relationship has changed many times and we certainly know and love each other far more now than then. It’s tempting to say that we were naive and shallow those first few weeks, but I’m not sure that’s true.

When I first started learning Chinese, I was so ready to study and work hard that the first few weeks went by very quickly. Then it dawned on me, like a child who makes the mistake of thinking when first riding a bicycle: “I’m doing it, really doing it!” and a period of self-satisfied contentment set in. After that, learning how much I didn’t know about the language, I found myself stuck in self-effacing despair.

Those two feelings alternated for many years, and I thought they represented the full range of possible attitudes toward the language. But the two apparent opposites, contentment and despair, actually both share a common antithesis: love. Both enjoying my language skill and being humbled by my lack of skill have in common that they are focused on me. When I stop worrying about myself, I can simply love the language, both the parts I think I know and those I know I don’t, desiring to improve not for any personal goal but simply because it is intrinsically worthwhile.

It took me a long time to stop creating incentives for learning and just love what I was doing. When I was centered on myself, I used to look back on that first few weeks of Chinese class and think how shallow my understanding had been. But now I know differently: the short time that I simply lost myself in the new language was actually a small foretaste of the wonder and mystery that I have now, really loving what I learn.

I think the first period of our romance was just like that. In the years since, I have often felt either confident or worried about our relationship. But at my best, I’ve let go of those concerns and simply been overwhelmed with the mystery of what I do and don’t know about Alison. In those times, I feel a lot like the first week we were dating and just enjoy being with her and learning about her.

Love is choosing to be absorbed in something else and forgetting yourself. I don’t always succeed; but when I don't, I remember that first time that I was absorbed in Alison and make an effort to once again let her amaze and mystify me.

My "Not Me"

Hello, my non-self. Let's get something straight here: my friends don't hate me. You hate me. Go away. I don't like you. I am not the person you want me to be, and I will never be the person you want me to be.

A friend of mine wrote a very interesting blog post a few weeks ago about her "not me." She defined it as a part of herself that occasionally takes control , convincing her that she is unloved and unlovable. I thought the phrase was profoundly true and helped me to explain some of my own experiences.

You see, I have a not me, too. She cyclically affects the way I treat other people, making me grumpy, irritable, and even less tactful than normal. She also makes me cry at the drop of a hat. Worst of all, though, she tricks me into an exaggerated perception of how unfit I am for human companionship. Suddenly, the friendships I felt to be strongest just the day before are threatened: any moment, my closest friends may figure out who I really am and leave me on my own.

In five and a half years of dating, Adam has never gone anywhere.

In fact, it's largely to his credit that I've learned that the "not me" never tells the truth.

Adam used to fight with the "not me" all the time. It isn't his fault. He simply didn't know she existed. I finally admitted her to him. I expected him to bitterly put up with her a few days a month at best or break up with me rather than go through the trouble at worst. He did neither. Instead, he's shown love and support for me at almost every opportunity. He watches for her, for the moments I feel unloved or unworthy, and treats me with a special respect and kindness. He even gently helps me keep my grumpy behavior in check, knowing how painful the memory of it will be to me later.

The best part is, Adam has never once denied that the "not me" exists. He never scoffs at me, or jokes about my "woman troubles." He knows that my feelings and fears are, no matter how artificial, absolutely real to me in the moment. He never ignores the "not me." And he never shows any resentment toward her. He loves her because he loves me, and she's a part of who I am.

"Not me" is a part of my life that may never go away. But because Adam loves her, I, too, have stopped dreading her return quite as much as I once did. It helps to have Adam's outside perspective that, no matter how bad things seem now, everything will be normal again in a few days. Besides, knowing that Adam loves even this worst facet of myself means that my greatest "not me" fears will never come true: with Adam, I'll never truly be alone.

Bridesmaids' Gifts

I've been loathe to post about my very favorite DIY project for the wedding because my bridesmaids are more likely than anyone else to read my blog... I think. But I'm so excited I just can't resist!

Because I live so far away from my wedding venue, I've had a really difficult time putting as much of a personal touch on my wedding as I would have liked. In an ideal world, I would have had time to find a second-hand or vintage dress. I could have learned to make my own veil. And Adam and I could have made our own invitations. But, if our wedding is a projection of our relationship, it certainly makes sense that I ought not lament the fruits of our long-distance love.

Still, the result of my DIY-longing has been a manic and focused attention on my bridesmaids' gifts! I want to say "thank you" to four of the most amazing women in my life in the most personalized way possible.

Without giving too much away, I decided to use English culture as the starting point. I've picked out a very personal gift for all four of my bridesmaids. Each one is getting something "quintessentially English" that either fits her personality, or that references a funny story from our past together.

That's obviously not the handmade part. I'm also scouring the Internet for fun ways to present pictures to them. I have an idea for cute photo frames, involving bridal magazine cut-outs, but I'm still looking for the one, perfect personalized present. Any ideas?

A Mixed Marriage?

Time and time again over the past few months, I've excitedly invited a friend to join Adam and I in our new, Washington, DC home. Most people face me with blank stares or, at best, a sort of vague threat: "Don't say that if you don't mean it." My friends don't seem to realize how fundamentally important hospitality is to me, and to Adam.

Even though Adam and I are of the same race and the same nationality, we come from rather fundamentally different cultures. I'm from the American South, while he's from the American West with Yankee parents to boot. Still, Adam violates every Southern expectation of Yankee behavior on at least one point: hospitality.

Southern hospitality is one of my very favorite features of my culture. It's generosity and communal spirit in action in a vitally important way. That why it's so very important to me that Adam is not just an excellent host, but one who enjoys it. For both of us, sharing our food with other people is energizing and uplifting, as is opening our home to others.

When Adam and I sat down to think about our priorities in marriage, it made me really happy that we both included having an open, welcoming home on the list. That's part of the reason we chose our New Testament reading, from Hebrews 13: "Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unwittingly entertained angels."

And, for the record, our home will always be open to you.

Wedding Nightmare #1

Adam and I both have been having enough nightmares about our big day that I thought it was high time I started blogging about them! I'll try to catch up and keep up with some of the other nightmares we've had. Here's one from last night:

I dreamed that I went for a walk down by the beach(?!?) with my friend, Ellie, right before the wedding. Before we knew it, I was late for the ceremony! We ran up to the church and I lept into my dress, only to discover that it wasn't mine. It was a 1980's monstrosity, completely with long, sticky lace sleeves (our wedding is in August) and huge puffs on the shoulders. To top it off, the dress was several sizes too big and in great danger of falling off.

Because we were so late, I bit the bullet and decided the show must go on. My father walked me down the aisle... but where was Adam? The priest started the ceremony, but still no Adam. Finally, I turned around to look for him. He was running around the back of the church like a madman. In khaki pants and a t-shirt. Adam has completely failed to find a suitable tux!

I ran back down the aisle while the priest continued the service(?!?). Adam and I spent the rest of the ceremony desperately hunting for a tux and calling the bridal store in the vain hope they could bring the right dress in time for our photographs.

Strange, huh? I suppose the worst part is that, in the dream, Adam and I clearly got so distracted about the externals for the ceremony that we completely forgot about the part of the ceremony that counted: our pledge to each other.

Invitations

Since my mom knows, well, everyone in the town in which Adam and I are getting married, wedding planning has essentially been a breeze. We didn't painstakingly select a caterer or a baker--we used Mom's. Of course, our lack of experience choosing from amongst a large number of candidates has made selecting the few vendors we did have to pick from scratch a bit stressful.

Needless to say, when my mother's printer fell through as a possible source of wedding invitations, chaos reigned. After flirting with the idea of hand-writing them (seemed smart, until we realized we need about 100), Adam and I decided to post a request on Etsy.

For those of you unfamiliar with Etsy, please allow me to explain. Etsy is an on-line marketplace for homemade and vintage crafts, the source for everything from Victorian wedding hats to reusable sandwich bags. I really like Etsy because it's a great political statement. It is possible to shop small, local, and handmade without breaking the bank. It's a positive moral choice... plus everything at Etsy is about 75% cuter and 100% more original than anything you can find at "High Street" shops.

We asked designers to create a simple, elegant--but fairly traditional--invitation in champagne and burgundy. Eco-friendly materials would be a plus. We also gave them a link to my blog to give them an idea what Adam and I are like. And (cringe) we asked them to help us figure out how to do invitations, RSVP cards, and information cards all for a reasonable price.

So far, so good. We've gotten about thirty artisans willing to run our invitations in the last few days. After I rejected bids from anyone breaking our price limit, we still have about ten choices left.

All of the ideas they've sent me have been absolutely gorgeous! Sorry there aren't more specific pictures, but these are the best options so far:

• This one may be my favorite. It really captures the simplicity I was going for.
• This designer didn't post a picture, but she melted my heart by suggesting a design with medieval fonts in our color scheme.
• This designer didn't suggest anything specific, but her work is gorgeous! See anything you like?
• This designer has the most eco-friendly designs.
• This designer says she has a design with a perforated RSVP card that detaches from the invitation to save money and paper. I think it sounds like a great idea. Chic or too much?

How does one choose between invitation designs? Do you have a preference? What about advice for narrowing the field?

If you fall in love with one of our proposals, please contact the seller yourself. Part of my purpose in posting this entry was to promote Etsy awareness and show off some really beautiful art. Besides, you might help us narrow the field by at least one.