Reclaiming Wife: Remember The Lesbians

I've started this sentence three times, because I can't find words to adequately express how excited I am about today's post. There has been a lot of talk on the blog about wanting to hear about what the term 'wife' means from a lesbian or otherwise queer perspective. So, who did I turn to first (more to come, of course)? Well, quite obviously Lisa and Terri. You'll remember them from their fancy budget wedding, and then their gothic one year anniversary legal Iowa wedding. Oh, and they write the awesome e-comic Godseeker. So here they are, with their post, which pretty much sums up why I think marriage equality is important to EVERYONE. Not just because it's the right thing to do, but because the expanding definition of marriage makes all of our unions better, and makes us wiser. And this post taught me the term "role fatigue," which will give me weeks of thought. So get ready:Lisa (my wife) and I have been talking, on and off, about how we're utterly baffled at why some people balk at both marriage as an institution, and at the concept of being a "wife". We understand why not everyone wants to get married, but not why they should by afraid of the institution existing. Here we are, a couple of liberated, over-educated feminists, and all we can do is stare blankly in confusion.

And we've come down to this idea- we lucked out by being lesbians. Sure, there's the oppression, the legal ramifications, and the odd co-worker or stranger that needs a talking-to, but just at the moment, I'm feeling a bit like we won the lottery.

And that’s because we're new. That as out, married lesbians we are fairly new to this culture as a whole. The media hasn't ever bothered to tell us yet what a married lesbian couple looks like/acts like/wears/drives/buys to wash their dishes. We're under the radar of most mass media. And that means there are no rules. There's nobody to tell us which one of us raises the kids or mows the lawn or washes the dishes or fixes broken toasters.

We're not a couple that’s easily identified as "butch" and "fem" so for us, society gave us no pre-prescribed roles. Yes, they still tell us what we should drive/wash our clothes with/look like/act like as women, but we've been ignoring that for years now. So unlike some of you; we weren’t suddenly hit by a barrage of new societal pressures when we got hitched. That can be a vulnerable time in your life, and the last thing you need is to get hit with a bunch of extra psychological rubble.

Ok, so given the percentages, most of you probably aren't lesbians. But we still have good news! Our marriage works.

We don’t have any societal roles but we still get by just dandy as a married couple. Which means you straight ladies don’t need the rules either. You might have more pressure to adopt them, I'll admit, but always remember that you don't need them. Those rules are bullshit, plain and simple.

If a "rule" doesn't work for you and your partner, toss it on out the window! The rules are more…guidelines. Not even very good guidelines. In fact, as a graduate student of marriage and family therapy I can mention here that the current "rules" tend to lead to "role fatigue" (that thing you're worried about in which you get stuck with all the responsibilities of the housewife and the worker and the mother and then you don’t have time to be yourself) which leads to unhappy wives, unhappy husbands, no sex life, and the next thing you know your fighting over who gets to keep the kids in your two year long divorce.

Ok, that might not happen to you. But it sure does happen a lot. Enough to generate a whole lot of studies on it. The main point is that those "rules" really can be toxic- it's not in your head, no matter what people try to tell you. Which means that for the sake of your marriage, your sanity, and your partners sanity, you really should take a look at what rules you both want to have for your own marriage. Because the rules other people sell you about how you need to cut your hair, take out your piercings, have a baby, and become obsessed with home decor (I am, but that doesn't mean you have to be) are bullshit.

If a definition of "wife" doesn’t embody the kind of marital partner you are or want to be, then toss it out and make your own! I mean, if the various household chores that come with society's idea of "wife" are getting done and nobody is being unduly burdened by those tasks--who cares who does it when? The floor is vacuumed. The dinner is cooked. Lets move on.

All a wife is is a female marital partner- any definition more complex than that is just somebody's personal opinion, which you are no more obligated to follow than when they tell you what to weigh, wear, and watch. Being a wife only means that you’ve chosen someone to stand by and to stand by you, whom you love. If anyone tries to tell you differently, you just remember the lesbians. If we can do it, so can you!

Drawing by Teri & Lisa

Pre-Marital Counseling, And Why I Think You Should Do It

Many of you (including one Team Practical member who works at the magazine) emailed me this week about the New York Times Magazine cover article yesterday "Married (Happily) With Issues." If you haven't read the article, go do that now. In a way, there is not much to say about this piece of writing. Elizabeth Weil crafted a funny, honest, intimate portrait of her marriage, and trials of trying to use your type-A skills to work on something so ephemeral yet so centrally important as marriage. But the essay reminded me that I'd never talked about premarital counseling, why we did it, and why I think it's important. So, it's high time.

First the facts. We did our premarital counseling with the rabbi of the congregation we are members of, the rabbi who was officiating at our wedding. It was 'free,' by which I mean we pay thousands of dollars a year in support of our congregation, and there is no extra charge for life cycle events, though we did make an additional donation in thanks. (Suddenly paying for it doesn't sound so bad, huh?) And because I know I'm going to be asked: our rabbi is phenomenal, but she only marries and counsels members of her congregation, because she is so swamped I think she never sleeps.

Additional facts: David and I had been together for five years when we got married, lived together for two, and been friends for fourteen, and YES I still think it was the best part of wedding planning. So, NO, I don't think it's just for couples who haven't been together for ages.

In my head, what we'd do in premarital counseling is talk about our issues as a couple (everyone has some, right? I figured yes.) and work on them, and then enter marriage with a clean slate. Or something. I was wrong. What we did talk about in premarital counseling was really practical things, and really important things, such as:

• Living wills, and how each of us wanted to be treated as we were dying.
• Regular wills. Had we made them? Could we go ahead and do that already?
  
• What values we wanted to instill in our children (we made lists), or alternatively what values we wanted to make central to our lives together.
• Inspired by the values exercise, David and I also made lists of our life goals, and them compared them. Interestingly, lots of them were the same. Of those goals that were the same, we figured we would go ahead and get started... and our honeymoon ended up being the very first shared goal on that list. Awwww....
  
• How we felt about monogamy, and what our attitudes and approaches would be if one of us slipped up.
• What we would do if we felt our marriage was in crisis.
• Would we agree upfront that we would both attend marriage counseling if the other partner requested it, even if our marriage was not in crisis?
• Kids. Did we want them? Had we discussed a time line? Had we thought about what we would do if we discovered we were infertile? How did we feel about adoption?
• Money. Had we thoroughly discussed our attitudes about it with each other? Had we talked about budgeting and debt?
• What our relationship meant to each of us. Our rabbi asked us to go home, and each write a statement privately about our relationship. When we came back, she had us read the statements out loud to each other. Let me just say, they were more similar than I could have guessed, and while they were both very unsentimental, we cried.
  

And divorce. We talked about divorce. Because here is the thing: I don't think you have any business getting married unless you have sat down and had a long frank talk with your partner about divorce. How do you feel about it? Has it happened to anyone in your family? How do you feel about that? Do you feel like it is an option in your life? If so why, when, how? And when you talk about divorce, I'd really suggest that you have a professional sitting across the table from you, challenging you to think even harder, because divorce is a huge and difficult subject.

When it came up in our sessions, I said something like, "DIVORCE IS NOT AN OPTION EVER IT IS TOTALLY OFF THE TABLE PERIOD." And then there was a pause, and our rabbi said, "Meg. Divorce is written into the Jewish Ketubah. (editors note: The traditional Ketubah language dates back thousands of years, and was one of the first marriage documents to give woman specific and protected rights. Among these rights is the right that, under certain conditions, a woman will be granted a religious divorce, and that her husband will be required to financially provide for her.) Our rabbi then went on to talk about cases that she'd seen in which divorce was actually a mitzvah (a good deed). This was challenging. This was confusing. This was thought provoking. This is a conversation I'm really glad we had before we walked down the aisle. I do not think you should get married until you've talked about divorce. I mean it.

There are as many kinds of marriage counseling as there are people who do it. There is helpful counseling, and there is... less than helpful counseling. (We had friends who's counseling consisted of a pastor giving them a Myers-Briggs Personality Test to see if they were a good match. As our friend said at the time, "We're getting married next month. Isn't it a little late to be taking a compatibility quiz?") But here is what I really think: Wedding planning is fraught with stupid questions. Chairs, for example, or what length your gown should be. Marriage is fraught with things that really do matter. Taking some time in the middle of the planning to talk about the reality of your lives together, and to ask yourselves hard questions? Well, that's a gift. So if you can, go find someone, and talk. It will be worth every penny, even if you think you already have everything figured out.

The day of our last counseling session I showed up frazzled. I'd just gotten a quote for getting my hair and makeup done that was, I swear to god, $700. I'd just had a silly conversation with my mom where she tried to talk me into outfitting a table full of toys for the kids at the wedding (as if all they wanted to do wasn't to eat cake and run around after each other and hide in flower beds that were totally off limits). I was at my wit's end. And then our rabbi asked us to go into the hall outside her office and practice walking down the aisle, and circling each other. We giggled like little kids, we got teary, we felt ridiculous, and we gasped at how huge this thing was that we were about to do. And I realized once and for all that the other sh*t? Well, it just didn't matter.

Cara & Jeff's Wedding In 72 Seconds

The lovely Cara will be joining us as a wedding graduate soon, but after a long week, I had to sneak peak this wedding for you, because it will make you smile big-big-big.

Facts And Rambles:
1) This wedding took place blocks away from my long time home in Brooklyn, at The Farm On Adderley. I ate there the first week they opened, right around the time we saw a site specific To Kill A Mockingbird a block away. That's when we knew our ghetto-ass neighborhood had made it. And now it hosts practical weddings. Oh, Brooklyn.
2) This video was not part of the couples plan to take over the world with their wedding. Instead they spent $100 to make a little photo corner with a frame from e-bay and some cool fabric. Then the photo corner got totally outta-control, and later they thought, "Heeeyyyyy.... this looks like a stop motion film." So they made it one.
3) Don't you want to be at this wedding? I do. F*ck pretty weddings, let's bring on the fun.
4) Cara and I (and um, Alyssa) want to reassure you that this is not one more thing you have to live up to*. No, no, no. It's just a snippet of surprising wedding magic, shared with Team Practical, since you're part of the support that makes such magic happen. Happy Friday, kids, and kisses from Brooklyn.

Our Wedding in 73 Seconds from Jeff Kirsch on Vimeo.

*But if you're at that point of madness that comes at the end of wedding planning where you're slamming your head against the wall shrieking that you're pretty sure you have to have a videographer shooting on Super 8 even though you never wanted a videographer ever (Been there. Stupid blogging industrial complex) this one's for you. Read: you TOTALLY DON'T.

If You're Not Engraged, You're Not Paying Attention

If you get angry at how totally screwed you feel (rock, hard-place, hard-place, rock) when planning a wedding as in intelligent woman, then people call you the-word-I-won't-even-say-here-because-it's-so-un-feminist. So it's time for a new word:

Engragment - The feeling of rage that so often sweeps over you when trying to plan a wedding within the bounds of reason, while staying true to yourself.

Possible uses:
Honey, I just called that super hip, low-key venue that we saw on the blogs. You know the one's all the budget/DIY couples were using? Yeah. It costs $7K for a Saturday afternoon, and that doesn't include tables, chairs, plates, or the security guard and the venue DOC that we have to hire. I feel so engraged I could rip out my hair.

Oh. That's nice. This wedding magazine said this bride was super-budget-conscious, but the wedding is at that $7K venue, she's wearing two designer dresses, and the photographer is that one who's prices start at $10K. This is BUDGET??? This cr*p makes me engraged!

So I asked my mother today if she'd help haul the beer to the site the day of the wedding. But, engragingly, she just told me, "Oh, I don't think that will work. But don't worry dear, it will all work out, and just remember, at the end of the day you'll be married!"

How would you use it? Go!

(Thanks Carrie, you make my typos better.)

Reclaiming The Word Wife

So. Wife. Being a wife. There are loaded words, and then there are *loaded* words, and I think wife falls into the second category. I first started thinking about this concept when I got this comment from Cindy (remember Cindy?) right before the wedding:

"Meg, I love being a wife. So far in life, it's been my most satisfying and challenging role. So here's to the rest of yours and David's life. Cheers."

David was reading my comments over my shoulder (as he does) and he stopped at that one. "Wife?" He said, "That's sort of a surprising comment. It's something I feel like you don't hear very much these days. People don't say 'I love being a wife' unless they are talking about how they love being a stay-at-home soccer mom, and I'm pretty positive she doesn't mean that."

"I'm going to be a wife THIS WEEK," I screeched. "I better love it. I better not become a stay at-home-soccer-mom-with-a-minivan. I better not lose myself. Certainly! Not!"

And then we got married. I haven't told you guys this, but I stopped wearing my engagement ring the next day, which was funny, given all the time we'd spent thinking about it and picking it out. There were a lot of reasons that maybe I'll talk about one day, but one of them was this - my bands (I have two, Jewish and well, regular) don't scream 'wedding bands,' at least not without an engagement ring. And while I wanted to mark myself as taken, it turned out I didn't really care to mark myself as married to the wide world. "Too much baggage," I said, "Being a married woman comes with a lot of baggage, and a lot of stuff I'm not. I just don't want to communicate that to everyone I meet."

So. It turns out I love being married. LOVE it. It's strange that it's any different at all, but it is. On our honeymoon I started realizing all the really great things about it - we're on a team now, a literal team. We support each others endeavors, we encourage each other, we support each other financially. Ah ha! I realized. Now we are two*! This is awesome. As two we should be able to be much braver, much more adventurous, right? We'll be able to hold each other accountable. Imagine all the stuff we'll be able to get done! Fabulous. So I started making a list in my head of 'Now-We-Are-Two exciting projects to consider in the next three-ish years:'

• Project Travel. You can travel with babies, but isn't it better to practice traveling without them first? I have a lot of the world left to see.
• Project Grad School. I've been breadwinner while David is in school, when he's out, I should take my turn. I started researching graduate programs on our honeymoon. Somewhere in Scotland, I decided on what Masters degree I wanted to pursue.
  
• Project Start A Business. Look around you. Wouldn't it be great if I had time to make sure there was more of that?
  
• Project Renovate a House. I've never been super wrapped up in buying a house. I mean, all the places I want to live tend to offer apartments for sale for half a million and up. If I have to choose between renting in San Francisco or buying in the suburbs, I can make that choice in five seconds flat. But then I realized you could buy run down cheap historic homes these days. Tiny, maybe in slightly dubious neighborhoods, but cheap (there are perks to being young in a horrible housing market). Then you could gut them, and make them beautiful again. Ahhhh... refinishing hardwood floors with an industrial sander by ourselves? That's the kind of nesting that sounds interesting to me.
  

So I was excited. As soon as I came home from my honeymoon, I started looking around. Married blogs! Married media! I was going to find all the media that discussed exciting married projects! Ambition squared! Whheeeeee! And then slowly, very slowly, I felt the air letting out of my balloon. Where was this marriage discussion? I didn't want to talk about nesting and buying pillows. I mean, I already had pillows. I didn't want to talk about cooking organic food. I don't really cook. (There. I said it. David cooks.) I didn't want to talk about having a baby. Or I didn't want to talk about *me* having a baby right now, though your baby is adorable.

And then I started processing this a little bit. Could it possibly be true that much of the available media I could find about new wife-ness was about buying pillows and cooking and having babies? In 2009? That couldn't be right. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like cooking and babies and maybe even pillows, but I'll be damned if I was going to let being a wife mean just cooking and babies and nesting. I had a list of PROJECTS damn it. I wanted to think about what new marriage meant. It's joys, it's challenges. I wanted to talk about wife-dom, and what it means to me now, as a woman with a very independent streak, a woman who's a feminist, in 2009.

The New York Times recently ran a Modern Love article (that you MUST read right now if you haven't already) written by a gay woman about her stay-at-home-wife. She said this:

I want to broaden the meaning of “wife.” When I call Ellen my wife I don’t want to mean that she is simply the chore-doer but that she’s the guiding intelligence behind her half of our household. Ellen doesn’t take care of the children the way I would, not by a long shot. If I were the stay-at-home mother, they would wear different clothes, eat different lunches, attend different activities. The cleaning and the laundry would get done in a different order and to a different standard. It took me a long time to accept that Ellen’s way is legitimate; it was probably 18 months from the time she began taking care of our son full time to when I truly let go of trying to make her do it my way.

That passage reminded of two members of our family. We don't see them very often, but every time we do, we come away saying, I hope we're parents like *that.* I hope that's us, 15 years in. The kind of parents no one tell you that you can be - the wry, honest, funny kind. The kind that can love your kid and still note that parenting, when paired with sanity, needs a pretty serious dose of irony. The stay at home parent** in that family is the dad (parent and artist, natch). And this passage in the New York Times reminded me that as far as I can tell, he's one of the best wives I know. I don't think I'd mind growing up to be a wife like that. And I'd like a little more of that. A little less pillows, and a lot more honesty.

So lets do this thing. Lets reclaim the word wife. Lets talk about marriage. So tell me what you want to talk about, and then lets c-h-a-t. You can bring your pillows, but you better bring a conversation topic that doesn't involve them.

*Two. Count it. Two. None of this two-become-one bullcr*p. Why the hell would I want to go from being One to being One-Half? Right. I wouldn't.
**For all I know he may have a mini-van. Do y'all even drive mini-vans in the UK?

Anna & Mike's Eff It Wedding

I'm wildly excited to share Anna's wedding story with you. It's one of the coolest things that's landed in my inbox for awhile, period. This story somehow 100% captures what getting married felt like to me, and what I learned while I was planning our wedding. I could go on and on, but instead maybe I should just give you Anna:We got married on August 15th, and had planned a awesome BBQ picnic on a ranch in a meadow by a lake in the Colorado mountains. Think ribs, potato salad, home-brewed beer & apple pie, followed by an epic dance party. Nice, right?

I say “had planned” and “supposed to” because all that didn’t actually happen. Why? Well, two hours before the ceremony was set to start, it began raining. Then an hour later the temperature dropped to 37 degrees and it started hailing. Did we have a Plan B? Nope. We’d planned pretty much everything EXCEPT a Plan B because it’s usually 95 degrees and hot as h-e-double-hockey-sticks during this time of year. Snow? That wasn’t on our wedding radar. No way, no sir.
So. Our guests were set to arrive in 15 minutes, and as Mike and I watched torrential rain blow chairs over and tablecloths away, we let go of the wedding we’d worked to plan for so many months. We decided to move the whole shindig up the hill to an old barn, and hoped for the best. The most important thing was that we got married that day, and we were going to DO IT or ELSE.

But here is where things got good. Here is when our wedding actually happened. Because when the guests arrived and saw us – wearing jeans & rain slickers -- moving food, supplies and tables up a muddy hill in the rain, they got to work. They created an assembly line to get chairs up to the 2nd floor of the barn for the ceremony. Mike’s brother brought the car over and started bumping Michael Jackson. The caterers moved all their equipment inside, set up the bar, and started passing whiskey around to warm everyone up. People hung lights, lit candles, and set jars of flowers (that were supposed to be for the tables) up all over the place.

And look what they did: rad, right?!
Mike got dressed in his truck, and I got dressed in a horse stall. We didn’t use the tent we’d rented. Or the tables. And most of the plates/cups/dishes didn’t even get unpacked from their boxes. My dress (which I made), had 6 inches of mud on the hem. Ceremony programs? Didn’t happen. The table runners that Mike sewed? Forget it. But did we get married? Heck yeah! And did we have a good time? Absolutely!I’ll remember everyone laughing, helping and pitching in as some of the most wonderful moments of my life. Despite the rain and the mud and the cold, everyone had an amazing time. Mike and I feel that our wedding was so much more meaningful and fabulous than we ever could have planned or imagined, because the people we love most in the world came together and literally helped us get married. We couldn’t have done it without them.And the epic dance party? That totally happened. The little guys got it started off right with the “Bare Necessities,” and we closed it down at midnight with George Michael’s "Faith.” Cause that’s how we roll.I think it’s actually pretty cool that the universe rained on our wedding parade. It encouraged me to let go, to sit back and focus on what was REALLY happening – that all our favorite people were together in one place, & that I was promising to spend the rest of my life with my very best friend. At that moment I was able to see that things couldn't possibly go wrong, because the most important stuff was so very right. And that’s all that mattered.All our pictures were taken by the lovely, fun, friendly and awesomely-talented Traci Griffin & her incredibly fabulous assistant Molly Watson. These two are photographer ninjas: everywhere all at once, capturing everything without being noticed, and making the whole event look magical. We have major crushes on them.

Married.

It was one of the great joys of my life, and one of the best parties I've ever been to, but I'm not sure it was the best day of my life. The best day of my life probably involved a few more naps.

When we were about to leave our best man asked me if it was everything I'd hoped for. Without hesitating I said yes. Yes, yes, yes.

And anyone who tells you that you won't remember your wedding is a fool.

PS Before you ask, I made my own hair thing, in the end. Well, WE did.
PPS Please note the guy dancing in the sweat soaked shirt behind us. That really says it all, no?

A Reason To Be A Bachelorette

I wasn't going to have a bachelorette party, because really, I'm just not a hard-partying penis cake eating kind of girl. At first, before the economy fell apart, we were considering having a girls getaway weekend up in wine country, but well, people flying in to San Francisco twice in one summer was just not feasible these days. So I gave it up and moved on. Goodness knows I have plenty on my plate.

And then. And then. This weekend, some of my San Francisco girlfriends threw me a surprise bachelorette. I'm still on a high from how amazing and loving it was, and I don't want to shake the glitter off the day, but I will tell you this.

We went shooting. Clay Pigeons*. Shotguns. Best bachelorette party ever.
This is me, firing a gun for the first time,** with the adorable hipster western shirt that they gave me for the occasion. They also gave me a wad of cash, Lacy underwear, and single malt scotch, because, well obviously.

40 year old guys at the shooting range: Are you ladies here for a birthday?
Me: No, it's my batchelorette, I'm getting married in three weeks.
Guys: Oh, god. What do you want to get married for? You're to young to get married. How old are you?
Me: Twenty-nine.
Guys: Oh, never mind, you're old enough to get married, you look much younger.
Me: Ha!
Guys: But seriously, what are you going to do after you get married? It's boring.
Me: Shooting.Do I look like I'm up to no good? Because I totally am.

* CLAY pigeons. Not actual birds. Though I can't say I harbor any pigeon love in my city dwelling heart.
**Though for the record, I used to be black powder certified, and I've fired cannons many many times.

Finally, Up The Steps To City Hall

We walked into San Francisco's city hall today, put down our bags at security, and the security guard beamed at us and said, "County clerks office is down the hall and to the left."
"We... um... what?"
(Grin) "Down the hall to your left."
"Um, we're here for a marriage license?"
At which point the guard totally cracked up, "Girlfriend, please. With a grin like that on his face? Like you could be here for anything else."

It felt like a tiny taste of what the wedding might be like, and it did feel auspicious and giddy and free. I was so excited and shaky that I made David double check my part of the form, because I was sure that I'd gotten something wrong.And then, there was a moment where it was really bittersweet. We got our number, and all I could think of was this wedding. I stood in line, feeling on top of the world, and then realized that there was a huge chunk of our community, and many of our nearest and dearest who didn't have the right to stand in the line at the county clerks office, who didn't get to be grinned at by the security guard. We got our form, and I immediately asked David, "Have they changed the forms back after Prop 8?" It turned out they hadn't. David and I each filled out our names, and then we had a choice to designate ourselves as bride and groom. We didn't. It was a small protest, but it was the protest we had available to us. We will have a un-gendered marriage. And next time someone tells me "But you *have* to, you're a BRIDE." I can say with total honesty, "But I'm not actually a bride. I'm Person A." And that feels really wonderful.

Fred and Hannah's Wedding: 1974

If all weddings are a product of their era, my parents' wedding was certainly a product of theirs. We tend to think that Alternative Weddings are new to our generation, but of course they really began with the counter-culture movement of the late 1960's and early 1970's - and my parents lived in Berkeley, the epicenter of it all. My parents' wedding is for anyone that is worried that a practical wedding has to be small, or a alternative wedding has to have a certain style.

Now I will let my Dad (who is a huge fan of all of you guys and reads all of your comments) take it away. Oh, and one last thing: my parents were so excited to write about their wedding that they told me they stayed up past their bedtime doing it, because they were just having so much fun:
Hannah and I got married at the high altar in Grace Cathedral in San Francisco with five Episcopal priests celebrating the Eucharist (i.e. Communion) early in the Winter on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. (Our entire family loves irony.)

Elaborate, yes. Expensive, not really. The five priests were close personal friends, most about our age. We asked them to wear their fanciest, most colorful vestments. A friend printed copies of the liturgy so everybody knew what to say. I asked my brother to be Head Usher; the other ushers and our attendants were close friends. We chose the hymns, and even included a Christmas carol. Other friends baked the bread for Communion. We chose the wine (a nice Zinfandel,* as I recall), and asked the priests to give big sips to the recipients. The wedding ceremony itself takes no more than 20 minutes, so we chose to have Communion. It is optional, but provides emphasis for the idea that a wedding incorporates a married couple into the Community. We are big on that kind of thing.The Christmas decorations were still up in the Cathedral; the only flowers we needed were corsages for our mothers and bouquets for Hannah and her attendants. We did not belong to the Cathedral congregation, so the use of the building cost a couple of hundred dollars, but a Verger (a custodian, wearing vestments) came with it. We decided to hire one of the Cathedral organists for another hundred or two. This did not seem like very much, and he could play anything we wanted, including, for the Recessional, some heavy-duty Bach that matched one of the hymn tunes. (We like Johann Sebastian.) We had the Receiving Line at the back of the church so that we could greet our friends, and so they could start partying as soon as they got to the Reception. The organist rang change for half an hour. The photographer had shot my sister's wedding two years earlier (the reception had been in my parents back yard), and charged us the same price even though he was from out of town and had to travel. (His wife wanted an excuse for a trip to San Francisco.)

Hannah did all of the heavy lifting in putting the wedding together. In the late spring she had agreed to marry me, so she had about six months. I had just finished my degree, and my first full time job was on the East Coast. It started in late August, so I was not around to help her. Both of her parents worked full time, so, while they paid for the wedding and set some limits, the wedding belonged to Hannah. However, I was around when she got her wedding dress in the early summer. It was a winter dress with long sleeves, and was marked down 50% to $150 at one of the high-end department stores. This was good; her mother could not have afforded a $300 dress. The dress was actually a little short and could not be lengthened, so Hannah wore perfectly flat ballet-style satin bedroom slippers to disguise the shortness.Hannah's parents arranged for the reception; the ceremony was ours. The reception cost more than a thousand dollars, a lot of money in those days, but it covered the venue, the food, and the setup and service. We served hors d'oeuvres and wedding cake and champagne punch. Hannah's mother gave us the choice of limiting the guest list or eliminating champagne service. We gave up the champagne. We bought the cake at a local coffee house, now defunct, where one of the bakers had trained at the fanciest bakery in San Francisco. It cost $100, a good price for a good cake. Different layers were different flavors, an innovation back then. They baked a sample cake for free; Hannah had them write "Happy Birthday, Mom," and used it for her mother's birthday.

The reception was held at the Marines Memorial Club. My father had been a career officer in the Marine Corps and a charter member of the Club; Meg is using his dress saber to cut her cake, just as Hannah used her grandfather’s sword to cut hers. Hannah’s parents also were members of the Club; her father had been an Army officer.My sister’s wedding cost a thousand dollars. Ours cost two thousand, and we did not feel that it was outrageous. Meg calculated that $2000 would be about $8,500 now, due to inflation. On the other hand, she priced out duplicating our wedding and came up with a cost of more than $40,000.**

This was an era when Alternative could mean many things. We took the standard service and pushed the envelope as far as we could; our parents were distinctly dubious about its showiness. And that did not even include the Episcopal Chaplain to U.C. Berkeley carrying the Bible into the midst of the congregation so the Gospel could be read by the Pastor of the Berkeley Free Church, one of the most radical priests of the sixties. Alternative is as alternative does. We got the wedding we wanted for $2000. We like to dress up, put on a big show, and have a party. And even the Wedding Elves: the Baker, the Verger, the Organist, the Marine’s Memorial staff , seemed to have a good time.

So cheers to my parents. 35 years later, they want you to know that they still remember every minute of their wedding, and if you want to, you will too.

* Editors note: the entire family loves a good Zin.
**That, in itself, should tell you everything you need to know about a wedding industry gone haywire.

The Wedding Industrial Complex, As It Were

I have started to notice that I use the phrase WIC quite a bit on this blog as a shortcut, and I've never discussed it at length. I think that shortcuts lead to lazy thought, which leads to dangerously sloppy thinking. So. Time to discuss.

What do I mean when I say WIC? In short: I mean the Wedding Industrial Complex. In long form, it's a lot more complicated.

I wish I could tell you the genesis of the term Wedding Industrial Complex, but I can't. I wish I could tell you the first time I heard the term WIC, but I can't, at least not precisely. I do know it was in the 1990's, a time when we spent a whole lot more time talking about the Military Industrial Complex, and I also know that I thought it was hilarious. It was funny in the way a New Yorker cartoon is funny. It was true and ridiculous at the same time. It was layered. It was evocative. The first time I heard the term I imaged factories churning out wedding dresses and massive diamond rings the same way they might churn out missiles or M-16's. I thought that it was correct in that the wedding industry can be destructive and enormous, but it was silly because the Military Industrial Complex was about making war and the Wedding Industrial Complex was (at least overtly) about making love. It was complicated, and I like complicated. It made me snicker, and I like snickering. It made me think, which as you might guess, I like.

All of this is a long way of saying, I use the term WIC because it makes me laugh. I use the term WIC with my tongue rather firmly in cheek, and I think at some point we lost track of the fact that the term is satirical.

So, you're wondering, *who* do I mean when I say WIC? Well, I mean two groups of people. The first thing is the most obvious: The Wedding Industry, all caps. The people that make money when we get married and are employed to figure out ways to maximize that profit: wedding magazines, bridal fashion conglomerates, the diamond industry, etc, etc, etc. To be perfectly clear: I am not anti-consumer, and I am not anti-profit. I don't think that there is an inherent problem with business or making money. That said, I think that the ways in which The Wedding Industry tries to sell us products are manipulative. I dislike the way that the wedding industry has changed our societal perceptions of a ritual that is designed to unite two people in a sacred or secular rite, into something resembling a massive theatrical production.

Which brings me to the second thing that I mean when I use the short-hand of WIC: I'm talking about Societal Expectations Of A Wedding. I'm talking about how when you tell people, "Oh, yeah, I'm just letting my bridesmaids wear what they want," mouths drop open. I'm talking about how when people ask to look at your engagement ring, if it doesn't meet their expectations they will voice their disapproval to your face. I'm talking about how, within a generation, we moved from parents throwing wedding receptions at home to parents throwing receptions in castles.

But finally, finally, I think blaming the wedding industry is way too easy. I use the term WIC because I need to keep posts short, and because I think every couple getting married in any even slightly non-traditional way knows what I mean on a gut level when I say "Wedding Industry." But I think the reason that the Wedding Industry is successful is because it taps in to things that many of us like: expensive shoes, fancy jewelry, pretty dresses, fantastic stationary, feeling like the star of the show for a day, or - say - castles. It's easy to mock, but in the end for many of us, there is a part of us that wants these things (at least a little bit).

If I was totally un-enamored of all things wedding, I'd be a boring wedding writer. If we had just run off to the courthouse when David proposed, I never would have needed to write this blog. But in the minutes after the proposal when I was sitting on a bench in a daze, David asked me, "Are you ready to plan a wedding?" and I whispered, "Yesssssss." I just didn't know how hard it was going to be to plan it on our own terms.

And that, my friends, is why I talk about the WIC. Tongue rather firmly in cheek.

Thoughts on your relationship with the wedding industry are welcomed (even relished) in the comments. But a for-warning: I expect all of us to keep it civil and smart, even when talking about a part of wedding planning that sometimes makes us want to gouge out our own eyes, or the eyes of others.

What Happened With I Stopped Reading Wedding Blogs*

Remember back when East Side Bride was my first wedding graduate ever? Her first piece of advice was this:

1. Don't go overboard with the wedding blogs. I know…. right? They will give you a complex.

At the time, I knew it was good advice, but I wasn't quite ready to take it. I was still at the sucking-in-wedding-inspiration-with-a-straw point. In fact, I might have been mainlining wedding images into my veins. But whatever, it was TOTALLY HEALTHY, and I DID NOT HAVE A PROBLEM, thanks. I was reading wedding blogs, I was buying wedding magazines, I was under the impression that I needed to maintain some sort of physical wedding "binder," whatever that was, and even though I was very unclear what I was supposed to be putting into it, I was carefully sticking in images and forms and the like. I was on the job.

But then, one day, something changed. I noticed that 9 out of every 10 wedding blogs/magazines were not making me feel excited about our wedding, they were making me feel tired and overloaded and like I wasn't living up. Another white dress, another set of favors (and you know favors drive me over the edge), another set of bridesmaid dresses. So I decided, I was going to take East Side's advice, as an experiment, and stop. I took every wedding blog that didn't make me feel excited and engaged off my reader. Done.

At first, I didn't notice anything much. I felt safe and comforted in my little wedding cocoon. I felt like we were all in this together, and everything was going to be just fine. I started feeling very secure in our choices. But I didn't think much of it. So one day, I was sitting in front of the computer, a bit bored, and I decided to browse on over to some big-wedding-media.

And my eyes popped. You should have seen the astonished look on my face. After a few months of no contact with standard-issue-big-wedding images, the type of weddings you often see had gone from seeming aspirational - what we were all supposed to be living up to - to flat out bananas. Everything draped in pink? Lots and lots of things that inexplicably matched? Endless handmade details all woven together into a overarching theme? Chandlers in the TREES? Instead of seeming delightful and quirky and well thought out, all of this seemed totally out of hand.

Now, none of this is to say you shouldn't read wedding blogs (achem). None of this is to say you should all have weddings just like mine, or just like each others, or that you can't have chandeliers in the trees if you want to. BUT. BUT. I think it's important for each of us to think about what wedding inspiration we're consuming, and how it is making us feel about ourselves. I talk a lot about how we should find a way to not judge ourselves as we're planning our weddings, and I really believe that. But I do think that the big-money, big-time, big-energy, One Perfect Day, Your Big Day, The Best Day Of Your Life, The Details Really Matter concept of a wedding that is taken as un-questioned gospel in large parts of the wedding world is damaging. I think it is actually emotionally warping, and is bad news for our sanity, our relationships, and our wallets. It takes our eyes off the prize, it makes us focus on parts of our wedding that really don't matter (like the favors) instead of focusing on parts of our wedding that really do matter (like the ceremony, or spending time with our loved ones). I think it's damaging because it makes brides think that they are less-than when they can't live up to the $100K weddings they are being spoon-fed.

So. Take a moment to think about what wedding magazines you are reading, what wedding blogs you are reading, what images you are consuming. If they are making you feel good about yourself and your decisions, and giving you inspiration and energy, keep reading them! But if you find yourself thinking, "Those brides are out of my league" or "I'm never going to live up to that" or "I'm just not that chic" or "Oh my god, we're so not doing this right" or "I really want this simple quick wedding, and I guess that's impossible." Then step back. Because you are amazing. And you're going to do it your way, and that is so much better than doing it someone elses way.

And if that's still not enough, East Side Bride just followed up with some tips for when wedding blogs are getting you down. Yeah. She's a smart lady.

Now go spin around in your dress, boogie around your living room to your favorite song, kiss your partner, and pour yourself a drink. I think that's the feeling you're going for.

*Not all wedding blogs, obviously. Just wedding blogs that didn't make me feel excited to be myself.

A New Way To Think About Wedding Budgets

If you are on any sort of a budget (which in the common parlance seems to mean that you don't have a money printing press for your wedding in the basement), the minute you get engaged people tell you that you need to prioritize what's important to you at your wedding, and build you budget from there. This seems like such deeply sensible advice, that I never gave it a second thought. It seemed so obviously true that I took it as gospel.

But here is the thing. I don't think this is helpful advice. Not really.

In some ways I *do* think it's a good way to think about things. If you have a limited amount of money to spend, it's smart to do one or two things well, instead of doing everything in a way that leaves you feeling over stretched. Maybe this means that you hire a great bluegrass band, but then have a potluck dinner. Maybe, like us, you hire a great organic and local food caterer, but then do your own flowers and have an ipod playlist. Maybe this means its all potluck, and there is no band at all, but you get to invite everyone you love. All of these plans are smart.

But. But. What the idea of priorities assumes is that things that are "good" or "of more value" to you cost more money then things that are of less value to you. And this is false.

When we sat down at the beginning of planning to talk about priorities for our reception they went something like this: I cared about a dress, flowers, good photography, and dancing like crazy. I did not care much about food, because I figured the real importance of food was just to refuel your guests so they could keep on dancing. David thought my priorities idea was nuts, so he only participated by sighing deeply, and saying "Sure."

Turns out he was right. This is how spending money has played out for us:

• When I said I cared about a dress, it turns out I meant that I cared that I had a wedding dress that reflected who I am and didn't look like every other wedding dress in the world. In the beginning I figured this might mean I needed to spend more, and I was ok with that. After trying on a million and one dresses at a million and one salons, from Lazaro to David's Bridal, it turned out that no amount of money could buy me the dress I wanted. A dress that was a powerful ritual garment for a important milestone in my life was not something I was willing to outsource to the wedding industry. So, we're making the dress. It's costing a fraction of what I thought it would, and its still very important to me. Yesyesyes, if I had a bajillan dollars, I might have gone with a lace dress, but even making a lace dress was out of the question because well, my taste in lace runs towards the French.
  
• Turns out when I said I cared about flowers, it meant that I cared about *having* flowers, period. More to the point, it meant that I cared about having flowers that didn't look like standard issue wedding blah. So, we're doing the flowers ourselves, at a fraction of what I thought it would cost.
  
• But now we get to the food. The food that I had dubbed as not important at all. Well, it turns out when I said that food was not important, I meant that I didn't want to spend money on expensive steaks and trendy appetizers so everyone could be impressed at our fancy food. But after talking to a few caterers we discovered that, in our particular situation, we could pay less and get standard issue wedding food that didn't taste like much, or we could pay a little more and get simple local organic food that tasted like heaven and reflected our values. We chose the later option. It's simple food, we're paying more for it, and we're happy.
  
• And then there was the photography. It was something that was important to us, so we found a photographer who was very talented and experienced that would give us a simple package. We paid about what we had hoped to.

I tell you all this not because I think your values should be our values, or our choices should be our choices. They shouldn't be. The whole point is that your choices should reflect who you are as a couple. But, be wary when you set your budget based on your priorities. Sometimes you find that the way you care about things is more important then how much you care about them.

There are times when things that didn't top your "priority" list end up being things you spend more on, and that is fine. It seems to be a common mis-perception that I think that the "practical" option is always the cheapest one. Heck no. There are times in wedding planning where you will think, "I do not care about this thing, and I will rip out my eyes if I have to think about it for one more second. Hence, I will throw a bit of money at the problem to make it go away." And you know what? That's the sane part of my mantra.

And sometimes, as each of the wedding graduates have reminded us, the things that you care the most about are the things that cost the least. A dress that you made yourself. The toasts people make around the table. The time you spent with your mom putting together your flowers.

So, think about your priorities with your wedding, think about what you care about and what you don't. But be very careful when to assign a dollar amount to those values, because that just may miss the whole point.

Why I Dislike The Term "Budget Wedding"

I've noticed, over and over again, that out here in the indie wedding world, brides still a tremendous amount of pressure to fit in. It's like when we get rid of all the crazy WIC rules (favors! matching dresses! chicken or fish! limos!) we want to substitute a bunch of other rules to live up to.

I know this, because I regularly get emails from people assuring me that their wedding was practical because they spent "under $10,000" (we've put a lot of pressure around the arbitrary $10,000 number for some reason) or because they only spent $4,000, or because they spent $16,000 but that included their rings and their honeymoon. But here is the thing: I don't care. I really, really don't care how much you spent. You can spend a tiny bit of money and still drive yourself mad trying to live up to all the wedding industry standards, but at a lower price point. Or, you can spend a pile of money and still have a amazing laid back generous wedding that reflects who you are. So let's re-think this. Here are some things that I think are important:

• That you have a honest wedding. That your wedding budget (whatever it is) reflects who you are, and what you feel you can afford to spend. That when you think of your wedding budget you don't feel ill and wonder, "oh dear god, how are we ever going to pay off this party?" I mean, in my experience *any* wedding budget will make you feel ill now and then, but most of the time it should make you feel confident like, "Hey, it feels like a lot of money, but we're spending smart, and we can do this thing."
  
• That you tried to spend less then you can afford. At the end of the day, it's nice to know that you have a little in the bank in case of an emergency, and you didn't blow it all on one day. (I'm aware that this is not always possible. In my most broke days a marriage license would have felt like more then I could afford!)
• That you have a laid back wedding where you care more about having a wedding that reflects who you are then meeting some arbitrary criteria, whether they are set by a wedding magazine or a blog.
• But there is one thing that I care about most of all: I think how you spend your money is more important than how much you spend. When I look back at what we've spent our money on, the decisions I feel the best about are the ones where we put our money towards things we believe in. I don't feel best about the affordable wine we bought at Bevmo (though I think it was a smart choice), instead I feel the best about the wine that we bought on sale from Meeker - our favorite funky, low brow, small, local winery. When we bought Meeker wine, we helped support a business that we want to thrive in a difficult economic environment, and I feel great about that. I've tried to look at our wedding budget as money we are going to spend regardless, and tried to allocate it to people, businesses, and local artists that we want to thrive.
  

Drea, who's amaaaazzzzziiinnngggg wedding I posted back here summed it up well on her blog:

We wanted to keep the focus on friends and family and each other. That said; things still cost money. We decided to spend money in a way that made sense to us, on goods and services from local vendors, many of them friends, and many of them Josh's clients. I believe that these decisions, the energy we put out into our community, and our little bit of local economic stimulus are the reasons we had such a beautiful, and authentic-to-us wedding. Go karma!

So: PLEASE stop obsessing about if your budget meets some arbitrary standards, and start thinking about if it feels honest. Start thinking about where you are spending your money, and if it reflects your values and makes you feel good. And forget the phrase 'budget wedding', because it's meaningless. My budget is not your budget. My wedding is not your wedding. And if you are reading wedding sites that are making you feel sad because they are suggesting that the budget alternative for invitations is a $2,000 letterpress package or some nonsense, just stop reading. Their budget is *clearly* not your budget.

Keep it simple, keep it sane, keep it honest. And go karma!

Wedding Graduate: A Steady Happy Wedding

I'm so pleased today to welcome our newest wedding graduate, Christina of Steady Happy. You'll remember Christina as the inventor of the bridal brigade, and you can see more pictures of their stunning wedding on Snippet and Ink. I'm deeply honored to bring you Christina's thoughts on weddings. They hit home for me more than any wedding advice I've ever received, they opened my heart and they made it bloom (so grab your tissues now). So without further ado, Christina and Patty's Steady Happy wedding:

Our Own. When Patty and I decided to get married, it wasn't legal. But it didn't matter. When I talked to a friend of mine about the whole "wedding thing" she said: "We need ceremonies and displays of strong commitments in our community too. Make it your own and celebrate your love. It doesn't have to be about the whole 'wedding thing!'" Wise words that essentially guided me through the entire process. Since I didn't have many models of weddings {like mine} to draw inspiration from, or to compare to, I really let go of all "wedding expectations." I asked a good friend of mine, Georgia, to be my "wedding planner"--partner in crime, really. She was the only one of my friends who had been married before, so I asked her to help me out. That decision was one of my smartest moves. Georgia was able to handle all the minutia of the day, delegate tasks to the Brigade and really let me enjoy it. More on that later...Community. Next step: assemble the Bridal Brigade. I only had one week off work to get married, so I knew I needed help! The idea of the Brigade didn't come overnight. Again, I didn't really feel like I had to follow the "traditional wedding model" and I wasn't really comfortable with the idea of "bridesmaids." What I did know: I wanted my friends and family involved, so the Brigade happened organically, really. It all started with the cupcakes: one day I was sitting with my friend Moore & I told her we were getting married. She immediately offered to make our cake. She's an amazing vegan baker {I'm allergic to dairy & eggs}, so it was an amazing offer--I couldn't refuse. We decided cupcakes would be more fun. Patty's favorite baker, Danny, offered to make more cupcakes--her favorite flavor: pecan chocolate! The rest just grew, we talked about details that would be fun to diy {the cupcake tiers} and we asked our friends if they would help out. We scheduled "Project Brigade" craft weekends about once a month: we thrifted, crafted, hung out, went to vintage expos to look for wedding attire, laughed...It was loads of fun and really made the wedding a community effort. By the way, even though it was the "Bridal" Brigade, everyone involved were both friends of mine AND Patty's, so it felt like our friends really knew us as a couple.Simplicity. Since we really wanted to keep the wedding as green as possible, I focused on vintage, reducing, and innovative ways of re-using. That focus for me also eliminated many common "WIC" details: there were simple favors--traditional Italian Jordan almonds wrapped in vintage lace; there were no cut flowers except for my bouquet--which was locally grown; no disposable plates or serveware; no extra decorations except potted plants; no driving {the ceremony & reception were all in our backyard}; and our registry included some household items, but also our favorite charities. That simplicity saved us in the budgeting process and kept me sane. We decided to focus our budget on a few large items. First-- a photographer, we thought it was important to document the day. We met with our photographer, Chris, through Georgia. Turns out she used to live down the street from us and we had several friends in common--she just felt right. Second: valet parking. This was really important to us because we got married in our backyard. Our street is pretty busy and parking is sparse. Not only did we not want our guests walking blocks & blocks in the heat {it was August in LA, after all}, but we didn't want to upset our neighbors by snarling up the neighborhood with a bunch of cars. {We also invited our neighbors to come to the reception.} The third big ticket item was food. Initially we decided to do a pot luck, not only to save money, but to continue the community effort of our wedding. However, my dad offered to pay for the catering {upscale Italian picnic}--a really generous and huge step for him. He was always a uncomfortable with the idea of a same sex wedding, so this was a huge show of acceptance for him. So we decided to allocate some money for music. Since Patty is a musician, she was in charge of the music. She hired a string quartet, but made it really reflect us. In addition to playing the classics, they played string versions of some of our favorite rock songs for the ceremony: I walked down the aisle to Rolling Stones "Wild Horses," Patty walked to Led Zeppelin's "Tangerine" and our exit song was AC/DC "Shook Me All Night Long."Present. The day of the wedding, I really turned it over and let the day unfold as it may. "Steady Happy" was my mantra. Our dear friend, Roz did my hair and make-up and Patty's grooming. In the morning, I took it easy, and let the day unfold. This is where Georgia and the Bridal Brigade became absolute gold...they really handled the nitty gritty of the day and shielded me from any worry. I relaxed and enjoyed my time with Roz doing my hair and make up...I visited with friends and family from out of town... I drank vegan smoothies that friends got me from the restaurant down the street. I really completely let it all go & tried to stay present throughout the day. I just enjoyed my friends and family and focused on what was important: getting married to the love of my life and inviting our friends and family to witness our love.Loving Support. We decided not to write our vows together, because we wanted them to be a surprise to each other. We both took the same "model" and wrote our own vows. We asked our dear friends, P. David & Todd, to officiate our wedding. They have been thrice married to each other, so they have loads of wedding experience {a commitment ceremony before it was legal in 1999, again in San Francisco in 2004--I was their witness!--and a third time after the June Supreme Court decision in 2008!}. They wrote the most amazing ceremony--it was spiritual, funny, smart, moving and just right for us. I'm so grateful that our dear friends were able to officiate, it made the wedding so much more personal and fun and since they knew us both so well, it really reflected us as a couple. Two Brigade members, Craig & Danny, opened the ceremony with the Serenity Prayer. We also asked two dear friends, who were in the Brigade, to do readings. One friend, Melissa, interviewed both of us and length, then she wrote the "Christina & Patty" answer to Tom Robbin's question "How to Make Love Stay." Another friend, Antnoia, chose a variety of love poems, rock lyrics and some of her own writing that made her think of us. It was just right. After the ceremony, more Brigade friends shared their talents in song... Linda sang an Operatic Aria and Romy sang Otis Redding's "That's How Strong My Love Is. The rest of the evening, we ate wonderful food {organic & locally grown}, visited with our friends and family, watched the sunset from our backyard, and danced to a mix of music we made on our ipod. It was the best day ever.So if I can boil the whole thing down to a few words it would be: Make it Your Own, involve your Community, keep it Simple, be Present and let your friends & family be a Loving Support.

Photos by Chris Strother

Faith & Mike's Food And Community Wedding

I'm not quite sure I have words to express how I feel about today's wedding, which turns out to be ok, because Faith (an editor at Apartment Therapy's The Kitchn) has all the words for me. What I will say is this: Faith has, in one page, summed up David's and my philosophy around our own wedding better than I have ever been able to put into words. By the time I finished reading Faith's post, I was a weepy mess from the enormity of love, beauty, and thoughtfulness poured into this wedding. I hope you like it a quarter as much as I do, because that would be very much indeed.
Mike and I were married last September in Columbus, Ohio. We really value our community of friends and family, and we wanted a celebration that would thank them for all their support in our journey, and acknowledge that marriage isn't just a joining of two people: it's more far-reaching than that.

I'm a food writer, so food and drink are crazy important to both of us. We lucked out big time with our caterer, Creative Cuisine. John, our contact there, is on the board of the Ohio organic and ecological farming association, and he was able to bring in some local ingredients. He was great to work with: I gave him my dream menu and he not only pulled it off but at a great price too.
Important words: We pulled out a few words to keep us anchored and centered during the process. Hospitality was one. I read once that a wedding reception is a bride and bridegroom's first act of hospitality as a married couple. This drove a lot of the decisions we made: is this idea hospitable? Also, community. We have deep friendships with people all over the country, and we wanted to bring them together in a one-day reunion!
Being practical: A Practical Wedding was a big inspiration. I like the thought that being practical means doing what's right for YOU - not just what the wedding industry or indie crowd thinks is ideal. This post also made me crow! So true.

We paid a little more for our wedding than we planned, but it was a deliberate decision. We wanted to serve everyone an excellent meal with great wine, and this is where the majority of our money went. It was 110% worth it. We were very frugal in other areas, but we also tried to be sensible in balancing creativity and time vs. the convenience (and sanity) of paying others to do things. We had a short engagement of about 4 months, so this was important.

Also on practicality and frugality: we had the wedding on a Sunday afternoon, which saved us quite a bit on venue. We also decided to keep our wedding party intimate: just our siblings and one good friend as the flower girl. I felt strongly about paying for my bridal party's dresses - one thing that has always annoyed me about American weddings is the expectation for people to drop a ton of money on a dress they will of course, "wear again." Keeping the parties intimate kept costs down, but the real reason was just that we wanted to stick with people that we know will be in our lives forever.

Being creative: It was so fun to think through ways to save money, be creative, and be hospitable to our guests.
- We created our invites ourselves. I commissioned a papercut from Cindy Fergusonwebsite, and I even used a bit of the sage leaves as a design on custom-printed linen for my dress. Also, I love letterpress, but we decided not to splurge on it. Instead we ordered a custom embosser (about $60) with this image and stamped it on our envelopes, menus, and other print materials. It gave that lovely raised feel without the expense. Type geeks will appreciate: We bought one classic font and used it across all our print materials.
- A talented friend made my dress. (I catered her wedding dessert reception the year before.) It was a combo of linen custom-printed by Anna of Food Flowers Style and really inexpensive silk I bought at a remnants shop. We kept it very simple: an empire shift, basically. I wanted something natural and easy to move around in. It wasn't a princess dress, and even though this gave me a tiny pang, occasionally, it was so lovely and such a right choice for who I am.

- We used old glass jars bought on Craigslist for the flower arrangements. I had about 20 girlfriends over the day before the wedding for brunch, and we did the flowers together. It was a blast, and I was able to have the more offbeat flowers and greens that I love. I cleaned the jars out and now they hold grains in my pantry.

- We wanted a mix of urban, pastoral, and vintage in our wedding. We love the city, and our venue was an old former factory downtown. You can see the city and the highways all around, but there is a central grassy area where we held the ceremony.
- Vintage things were so fun; I used old library drawers to hold the escort cards, and vintage flashcards for table numbers. We wrote notes to each of our guests on the escort cards. Bringing our family history in was important. We displayed old photos on the guest welcome table, and we created mini family histories through wedding photos on the website.
- We did a photobooth, too, but we just used my own camera on a tripod and a remote. Friends brought props, and I printed up the photos after the wedding and included them in people's thank you notes.
The menu: It was a September wedding, and I wanted to have a menu that reflected the seasons. Before the ceremony we had house-made sweet potato chips with rosemary, and a fizzy apple cider drink. After the ceremony, during the photos, there was a cocktail hour with white wine, deviled eggs with capers, and crostini with apple slices, brie, and honey. (Honey was a theme: I used beeswax candles on all the tables in little glass tumblers that are now at home and well-used in our kitchen!) Supper was beet coleslaw, focaccia bread, pasta with butternut squash and sage, roasted fall vegetables, and an herb-crusted pork loin. We set up long tables so everyone felt like they were at one big dinner table, and we passed the food family style.

- We bought the wine ourselves -- two inexpensive but really great favorites. The leftovers all came home with us!

- I made two kinds of cake, as well as lemon ice cream. This was hectic, but totally worth it! (You can see more about the cake on The Kitchn.)

- I wanted my mom's family to participate somehow, so I asked my aunts and grandma to bring sweets for another dessert table. This was a huge hit. (Also more about the family sweets table here.)

- We aren't into dancing, much (hello! we're rather geeky. No one wants to watch us dance...) but we love music, so we asked friends and family to play at a sort of open mic instead. A couple friends sang some of our favorite songs. Another friend played a hilarious Elvis medley, and Mike and his mom and brother played an old Italian folk tune. Then his mom played a surprise encore of "That's Amore!" on her accordion, to great hilarity and group singing. There were a lot of kids there and they were all up and dancing during the music!
- We cut and served our own cake. This was by far the most meaningful part of the meal. We wanted to feed everyone from the time they got there to the time they left, and to serve our sweet cake together to all our friends and family was a good way to do a "receiving" line too.

Last words: No wedding is perfect. It's just the kickoff to a marriage that also won't be perfect, but hopefully both will reflect your spirits and your values. I know that not everyone has a religion or a faith connected to their wedding, but if you do, this is the time to put it front and center. We did a lot of things very differently, and dispensed with lots of purported wedding tradition (no unity candle!), but we did stick with short, simple, and old-fashioned words in our ceremony. We wanted to be connected to the longstanding supports of tradition, community, and strength we have available in our personal faiths. (No pun intended. Har.)
Also, we feel that our love of hospitality comes from God's own hospitality towards us, and while we understand that not everyone has the same beliefs and traditions we do, for us it was such a deep pleasure to look down the rows of tables and see all our dearest friends and family enjoying one another with good food in community. For us, that's one of the deepest expressions of what our faith means. After all the fun and creativity of a wedding is over, we are stuck with one another, and I believe we all need something -- whether that is faith, friends, a common purpose -- to help us remember our vows and love each other over the long haul. It's what a wedding is all about, right? The more you can emphasize that unifying factor during that one shining day, the more memorable it will be. Our friends and that loaded table of food symbolize a lot of this for us, and those are the memories of our wedding that will last.

Photos: Bryan and Joleen Fenstermacher, photographers extraordinaire. Also, Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan (food pics) and our friend Bom Yi Kim.