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.

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"?

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?

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.

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!

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.

The Veil

I don't normally seek out advice on this blog, but it's worth a shot.

My mom laughed at me when we went dress shopping because every dressed had to be matched with a veil before I felt "like a bride." A long, flowing veil adds that mysterious charm, the once-in-a-lifetime allure or a bride. Not mention a veil is traditionally the symbol of a woman's purity. To me, the veil makes the dress.

When I went for my fitting, I found the most gorgeous, cathedral-length lace veil. Stunning. Mom said my face lit up with they put it on my. Even though I knew the lace didn't quite go with my dress, I've not got an itch for all that lovely lace that I can't scratch.

Two problems: A, budget. That gorgeous, cathedral-length lace veil costs $300. B, Adam. My fiancé doesn't get it. And why bother with an investment that significant if my groom is going to roll his eyes while I walk down the aisle.

He's right about the width of the veil. I'm only 5'3" (ish) and 115 lbs. I need a narrow veil for my frame. But what about the length?

Do we compromise on a lovely, finger-tip length veil like these?

Or do I totally give into his hesitations, and my parents' pocket-book, and settle for a simpler number?

I need to call the bridal store in the next few days to tell them what we've decided. What do you think?