Our next wedding graduate is my dear friend Cate Subrosa of Project Subrosa (formerly of What Guilty And Baddie did next). Cate got married in the late fall, and wrote this post after reading and taking to heart the last crop of wedding graduates thoughts. So, because of that, she gave extra care and thought to these words, knowing the weight that they might have for all of us as yet un-married. As I was blogging this wedding I noticed, somehow even more poignantly than with other weddings, that what really mattered was not the cute or clever details but the emotions. Before I turn it over to Cate, I just want to say that not only is Cate a wedding graduate, soon she's going to graduate into parenthood, and I wish her, her beloved Nate, and their teeny tiny bundle of joy every single happiness in the world. One day their child will treasure each of these pictures, delighting in the evident joy on their parents faces. The traditional British wedding takes place in the early afternoon on a (hopefully beautiful) spring or summer’s day. When my husband and I got engaged on Christmas Eve 2007, we immediately knew that an all-day affair in a country house, beautiful though it could be, was not right for us. Firstly, summer 2008 felt too soon and spring 2009 too far away. Secondly, if you get married at one or two o’clock in the afternoon, and you intend for the party to go on all night as we did, you have to feed your guests twice, which makes the whole affair a lot more expensive.
So with the help of my best girlfriend, in the back of a tuk-tuk in Bangkok, we hatched a plan for a late afternoon winter wedding. We would be married at 4pm and have dinner at 6pm, then serve the cake at 9pm when our guests might be getting peckish again. It would be cold and dark outside, and dinner would be held in a room filled with candles.
Lots of couples choose to get married at their favourite time of year, but I saw the wedding as an opportunity to brighten that dark time when the clocks have gone back and months of dark evenings lay ahead of us. We settled on 8th November, six weeks before Christmas with the sun due to set at 4:30pm. As I expected it to be, the weather was perfectly terrible, but without it we never would have got photos like this.
The last thing we knew was that we wanted to get married in the city where we live. My husband was born here, I’ve lived here since I was 12 years old, we are very lucky that most of our family are here, and this is where we intend to raise our children. Also, the town hall has a beautiful resister office, which just happens to be right by the sea. (I love being reminded of our wedding day every time I pass that part of town.)
Although I never thought about it much at the time, I suppose I stayed sane by never really considering veering from this plan. I had a clear vision, trusted my instincts and went with what felt right. For example, we only looked at one reception venue. I was walking along the seafront with my brother’s girlfriend one day and she said, “let’s see if this hotel has a function room.” It did, it was the right size and shape, and the prices were reasonable. People asked me if I didn’t feel like I should look around more, but I just thought, “We’re having a party there, not buying the place.”
So, with the plan in place, we got onto the details.
Deciding on the guest list was very simple. The room in which we were to be married had a capacity of 50, which felt like a good number to us anyway. We counted up our immediate family, our very best friends, some extended but close family on my side, some special family friends on his side, and hit the magic number. We had always planned to have a big party in the evening and this allowed us to include everyone with whom we wanted to celebrate, while keeping the ceremony and dinner intimate.
I am very fortunate to have five siblings, all of whom were very happy to help out wherever they could. I asked one of my brothers to be my best man, and in the event he performed a day-of-co-ordination-type role, as well as organising the music (to which we’ll come back). Another of my brothers, with the help of his girlfriend, was responsible for showing people where to go. My eldest brother collected and helped to set up the sound system, toasted us as we cut the cake and announced our first dance.
I asked my little sister to be my best woman, and she really was my right-hand lady all the way through the planning process and on the day itself. Finally we asked my elder sister to be master of ceremonies, to organise and introduce the speeches and make the other necessary announcements.
My colleague kindly offered to design our wedding invitations and my mother-in-law addressed the envelopes. My elder sister made my bouquet, a boutonniere for my husband, and two wrist corsages for her and my other sister, and tied all the nametags around the serviettes with ribbon. My mum made the cake and decorated it with the help of my aunt.
I wore an Alvina Valenta bridesmaid’s dress in ivory. I had touches of midnight blue in my jewellery, birdcage, bouquet handle and (after a slight costume change pre-dinner) a ribbon hanging down my back. I bought my best woman’s dress in the same colour on eBay and she bought her own shoes and shrug. My husband wore a suit he already owned, but treated himself to a made-to-measure shirt. I don’t think it every crossed my mind to tell anyone else what to wear. Somehow my mum, sisters and I always end up wearing complimentary clothes anyway, especially for special occasions, and this was no exception.
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We kept the invitations simple and put the rest of the information on a website. This included a request for song choices to be sent to my brother. I had read the scare stories about iPod weddings, but I knew I could trust my brother to sort it out and the music was fantastic. He spent days working on the line-up and was there with his laptop at 10am on the morning of the wedding, checking everything. In my opinion no DJ could compete with this set-up, as we had friends and family coming up to us on the dance floor all night saying things like, “ I chose this one! Remember when we danced to it at that party...?” Oh, and they danced all night too.
Lastly, I had an idea to do the speeches slightly differently. Traditionally, the father of the bride, the groom and the best man make the speeches, and increasingly, the bride will say a few words too. But this still didn’t feel right to me, this patriarchal tradition of the men holding the floor while the women sit there looking pretty. I had already redressed the balance somewhat by asking my sister to be master of ceremonies and I was planning to say a few words myself, but, without putting anyone under any pressure to speak, we wanted to open it up. So we asked anyone who was brave enough to make a short speech.
Two weeks before the wedding, it was looking like no one was going to take us up on our offer. But then, by the time the day came, we had eight speakers: me, my husband, his best man, my best man, my best woman, an old friend of mine from school, my mum and my dad! And then, just when we thought the last person had spoken and we could laugh nor cry no more, my sister-in-law’s boyfriend, the best man’s mum and my mother-in-law all made impromptu speeches!
It’s true what they say: the details you remember from your wedding will having nothing to do with any of the silly little decisions you have to make during the planning process.
I expected to cry during the ceremony. In fact, the only thing making me nervous was the fear that I was going to cry the whole way through it and not be able to say my vows properly. In the event, I stood there looking at my husband thinking, “oh my God, I’m getting married right now, this is the coolest thing ever!” and I didn’t shed a tear.
But later, just before dinner, my best girlfriend showed me our present. I had known what it was going to be - she had made us a photo guest book, using images from six years my husband and I had already spent together - but when I saw it, I finally started to cry. The book had nothing wedding-related in it, no engagement shoot (we never had one), no photos from my hen night, nothing. Just six solid years of real life that we had spent together, pages and pages of us - alone, together, with family and friends. The stuff that really matters.
So, brides-to-be, my one piece of advice to you would be this: focus on the people, ask your loved ones to get involved, and everything else will fall into place.
Our wedding was held on my family's land in northern Wisconsin. It is someplace I have planted trees on as a child and ridden horse across. We plan on someday building a green home on it. The reception was held at an historical fishing lodge about two miles away from our land.
The wedding was creative in many ways. I had so many people helping! My little sister Grace helped me make the fabric "Midwest prayer flags" that were hung all over the ceremony and reception site.
My aunt-in-law, sister-in-law, and bridesmaid's husband helped me finish stuffing the little birds we also hung. My father and husband cut down the chuppah poles from our land and constructed it, using fabric I'd sewn for the canopy. My dad also made much of the wine for the reception. My mom and I thrifted over 100 blue and white plates to use as mismatched table settings for the reception dinner. A friend designed our wedding invitations. Farmer friends provided our organic bison and pork, a friend catered and provided the organic food for our reception . . . A writer friend was the officiant, and recited a poem in Arabic. Another friend played "La Vie en Rose" on her accordian, and another friend (who won an NEA grant for her amazing poetry) wrote us a wedding poem, which she read, that used only the letters of my name and my husband's name. We also had a honey ceremony, using honey from my dad's beehives. Our photographer set up a camera on a timer and guests took a ton of candid photos, which turned out great. We also provided some activities for our guests, including swimming outings and a farm animal visit for kids.
In terms of thrift, we knew there were certain things we didn't care about, and certain things we definitely did. We borrowed chairs from the local high school for the ceremony, and guests also sat on haybales (grown from my dad's hay fields) covered with cotton rugs. We spent a lot of money on a really good hot club jazz band, because that was important to us. It was also important for us to have organic and local food, but it was surprisingly inexpensive! We were lucky because my fabulous mother-in-law covered the cost of the reception lodge, which really helped us out.
Our flowers were cheap, local, and beautiful, raised by a lady who lived very close to our reception site on her flower farm. Having our wedding in Wisconsin, as opposed to the San Francisco Bay Area, where we live, really helped save money. I also had a second-hand dress (from the 1920s, beaded silk charmeuse, flapper style) which I adored, and which cost a lot less than most dresses, but was of incredible quality, even though it was 80 years old. We also helped to save our guests money by providing them with free or cheap places to stay.
Our guests said that our wedding made them feel as if they'd gone back in time, which was really wonderful. Overall, we spent less on our wedding than the average wedding by far, and our wedding was also "green" in many ways.
We really felt as if the wedding was sane because it was not just about us. I think that helps you to keep your sanity. It was about a "joining of the tribes" as my mother-in-law put it.
We were including our family and friends in every step! From my mom's cousin, who helped to mow our ceremony site (while drinking a can of Leinenkugels, nice!) to my aunt-in-law sewing 40 of the 100 birds we hung from satin ribbon around the reception site,
we were blessed with the presence and helping hands of our friends and family.
We also kept things in the family: Our caterer was an old college friend, our photographer our tenant, the meat was raised by neighbors, our flowers were provided by my grandma's Scrabble friend, our horse and carriage service was provided by my parents' old high school friend, the wine was made by my dad and having everything so intertwined just made everything that much more special. 
That much more special, and just right. Thanks Elka. I don't have a farm, or a dad who makes wine, but I have a happy spirit, and friends and family who love me. Your wedding gives me the impetus to reach out, to give, to receive. May this first day of sharing be a story that you tell your grandkids as you rock them to sleep. Happy, Happy, Elka and Peter. Happy.
