ANNIVERSARY Countdown (Count-Up?)

Today is Friday, March 7th, 2014. We were married 986 days ago, on June 25th, 2011.


Sunday, February 27, 2011

MIDDLETOWN - SOME IMAGES FROM HOME

Setting the Scene - Part 1

Some scene setting... I can get all poetic later, but for now, so you know where we will be...

We live in the center of town. There's a defunct gas station, the Church, the General Store and the Historical Society visible from the house, along with the post office and yes, the Green.

Here's a map of the town with the center located.  The wedding will take place at our friends' land on Many Springs Road here. And the Green is here.

There are all kinds of lovely walks in the area. Buxton Ave is quite flat and an easy 2 mile circuit without going back over the same territory though you WILL have to be on heavily traveled West Street for part of the route.

You can walk up to the school practically in our backyard, and from there walk through the woods to the river, over a snowmobile bridge and back through Dietra's meadow. There's a good little swimming hole here if you know where to look!

There's Springs Park which is practically across the street. We were thinking of having the wedding there, but it seemed more appropriate to wed in our friends' backyard with a view of our landscape. Maybe we will have a post wedding picnic there before Strawberry Festival..

Spruce Knob is my favorite local walk through a range of houses and some forest and marshland. You can take a long walk up to the Knob  (even climb up if you dare) or just wander til you tire and then come back to the Green.

There is also the Green Mountain National Forest with some great hikes and you can head down to Manchester for Outlet shopping and one of the great independent bookstores: Northshire.  There's a lovely route to take by car through the Green Mountain Forest and into Weston where the Vermont Country Store sells all kinds of odd and retro goods and penny candy (no longer a penny of course), and this is a MUST stop if you are coming with kids. Besides the sugar rush, they have a range of retro toys that will keep them occupied without Nintendo.

Proctor is the home of the marble that built the Supreme Court and much of the architecture and the retaining walls on the roadways are lined with marble. Burlington is our big city and is a two hour drive north through the college town of Middlebury and there's some lovely agricultural land along the way with Lake Champlain as your destination.

Oh yes, and here are restaurants like Simon Pearce where you can watch glass blowing powered by hydro from the Ottaquechee River, breweries including Otter Creek and Long Trail, and one of the new additions to Manchester's outlet haven is one of our favorite places: a craft gallery known as Epoch and run as a cooperative. They sell some fabulous glass and a friend's wonderful treenware (David and Jenny will be at the wedding), and the work of a wonderful sculptor named John Long who makes pieces of art with old barn wood from the area, shaped into forced perspective views of old barn cupolas and steeples.  Mom gave us one for an engagement present!

Well I have student papers to respond to so I will go. But.... there's much more to come!

Saturday, February 26, 2011

There's a theme here....

So there's a pattern evolving in this marriage thing. Herb initiates and I respond. So let me respond to his most recent posting. Then we'll see if I have anything unique to say .... moi?

First ... on logistics... We are starting to get queries about places to stay. We will post a list of local B&B's and hotels shortly. We understand that a number of people want to come for two nights and some may want to stay for longer. I am not sure whether there is any way to get a sign-up sheet  posted so that you can make collective arrangements, so we may need to be the clearinghouse for who, how long and where you want to stay. For now, let us know how you would answer that and we can put you in touch with each other and the appropriate inn keepers. There is also the Rutland Holiday Inn and associated other anonymous places, but who wants to stay there when you can stay nearby?

As for the other logistics, you will note that Herb has identified the linens, tableware and booze. Personally, I would rather tell you about our two wedding cakes - the one that we will have as dessert is TBD but the other one will be made of Humboldt Fog cheese. I have long been a fan of this artisanal goat dairy's cheeses, and when we went out to Humboldt County last August, we discovered that they make a wedding cake of cheese rounds at different sizes. I didn't know that H was going to propose but I said, "If we were going to get married, that's what I would want!"  Subtle, eh? 

As for the TBD cake, anyone who knows H knows there will be something chocolate involved though I would veer more to the citrus... We'll see.

We will also be blending another tradition... Having lived in Middletown for 11 years or so now, I can't imagine a party that isn't a pot luck, but we can't ask people staying at the Holiday Inn to make their favorite family recipe, so we will have a subsidized pot luck with food from our local friends and some of the gorgeous goodies from the local restaurateur, Sissy Hicks, who opened a restaurant in Middletown a year and a half ago, to raves!  

There's likely to be ham from the local Wallingford Meat locker, or a turkey from the free range farm nearby, or maybe barbecue -- and no surprise - lots of vegetarian options. It will be rhubarb time, so I may even make some rhubarb tart... just to keep me occupied rather than worrying! So plan on eating well when you come. As I think H has said, we will be celebrating Strawberry Festival the next day in town, so we look forward to spending some real time with friends rather than the rushed meet-and-greet of most weddings.

In short, we look forward to food, friends and family, and it is easy to say that those of you on the list are blurring the boundary - friends are family and family are friends and we look forward to your  blessings.  We will be asking all of you for stories, so please come prepared with your thoughts, about life, love and laughter (and yes, I expect to see a tear or two-- so bring tissues).

Oh yes, and one last note, Herb, the count-down is scaring me silly!

Anyone have ideas for a wedding dress that, to steal a phrase, won't make me look like the ornament on top of the wedding cake?  Deborah has suggested white wedding jeans... I like that!

The Quartermaster Corps

In military service, the quartermaster is the officer in charge of logistics and provisions.  They don't create military strategy—instead, they get the food and the Jeeps and the tents and the tools to the soldiers on the front.  It's amazing how much stuff they have to muster and move.

We've now retained our own logistical corps for the wedding, led by Quartermaster Melody Squires and her Lieutenant, Patty Kenyon.  They'll be responsible for:
  • About ten people (six kids a-laboring, two caterers a-cooking, one bartender tending, and a wedding musician playing)
  • A big-ass canopy tent
  • Either 130 or 260 chairs, depending on whether they can pack them up from the ceremony and get them to the reception in 45 minutes...
  • About 20 tables, with white linens (oh, here we go... we're not into the zebra print accessories yet, but I can feel it coming on...)
  • Place settings (NOT with Dixie Cups and Chinet plates...) for 150 or so
  • About 20 gallons of beer
  • About 50 bottles of white wine
  • About 50 bottles of red wine
  • About 70 bottles of Prosecco
  • About 20 bottles of sparking cider
  • About 30 liters of soda
  • About 30 liters of bottled water
  • transportation for some folks to and from their lodging 
I've never planned a party for more than about a dozen people, so this is a whole new world for me.  I'm grateful that we have a team experienced at putting on multi-day parties for 500.  This little family wedding thing should be a breeze for them...

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

OK So you now know how we met...

And you know he isn't what he claimed to be. He is a Puritan and a son of a witch. And yeah, that's ok with me. But we are NOT having a honeymoon in the Hall of Records in Muskegon and looking at the inquest report.

Paris? OK. Ireland. OK.. Italy? Sure.  Muskegon's Hathaway or Hanaford or Halliday Hospital? No.

Who is Aunt Grace?

Family histories are remarkable things.  They get reshaped over time, modified for comfort.  And since no two of us are the same, no two of us will have the same family history even if we have the same family.  It's been wonderful to talk with my brothers again after many years apart.  But I learned things... well, it'll probably be that we ALL learn some things.

Take, for instance, the identity of Aunt Grace.  This was a relative on my mother's side that I'd never heard of while growing up, never heard of until a week ago.  Aunt Grace was the woman who raised my mother and Uncle William after they'd been orphaned for the second time. (That's a long story — Mom's parents died within days of one another when she was 15 months old and William was a week old.  They got sent off to live with her mother's parents, who then died within a few months of one another when she was about 10.  I thought they'd gone into the foster-care system... but no, there's Aunt Grace.  Who knew?)  When my brothers were young, they used to get birthday cards and a Christmas box from Aunt Grace out in Pasadena.

But there's some problems here.
  • First, my mother's mother's parents never lived in Muskegon.  They lived a hundred miles away in Berrien County.
  • Second, my mother's mother's parents lived until my mom was nearly 40 years old.
  • Third, my mother's father's obituary says that the grandchildren Gloria (my mom) and William lived at home with them. 
So she never did go off to live with her maternal family; her claims of rejection by the paternal family were maybe a little overstated.

So who's Aunt Grace?  One brother says it was Mom's mother's sister, truly her "aunt Grace."  But Mom's mother's obituary notes three surviving siblings (Martha, George and Rex, all of whom I'd known of).  No Grace.  And another brother says "She wasn't nobody.  She was a housekeeper who took care of the kids.  And she got a chance to do some education or something out in California, and she took them two kids with her."

The family dynamics are tangled at best.  A third brother says that my grandparents met because grandma was a maid in grandpa and great-grandparents' house, and that there was a huge scandal when blueblooded Mort married Melba the maid.  But they were married in 1916, never moved out of the family home, and didn't have their first kid (my mother) for six more years.  So was there an unnamed pregnancy/miscarriage/adoption that forced a shotgun wedding between Mort and Melba?  (I shouldn't use the term shotgun loosely with regards to Mort, given the events of years to come...)

There'll be a diagram later, and a test.  Suffice it to say that almost every 19th century male on my mom's side (the Averills) was named either Mortimer William or William Mortimer.  But I can now go back with some assurance through Mortimer to Frank to William to Daniel to Samuel to Paul Sr. to Ichabod to Thomas to William Jr. to William of Ipswitch, the guy who showed up in Massachusetts from Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, in 1635.  At least on one side.  The other side kind of falls apart, given that Childress was historically a surname given to anonymous orphans (from the Old English cilder-hus, or children's house).

I never thought of myself doing geneaology.  I'd rather play pool.  But this set of mysteries landed in my lap, and now the storyteller in me can't let them go.  I think we'll take our honeymoon in the Muskegon County archives of wedding and death records...

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Meeting Smart (and Cute, Too)

There's a common strategy in women's entertainment ("chick flicks" and "chick lit") of having the two leading characters meet for the first time in some kind of unexpected and endearing way.  It's called "meeting cute."  Examples include:
  • A handsome cop gives a pretty girl a jaywalking ticket (in an episode of the old TV show "Alice")
  • A man and a women who don't know one another happen to be buying pajamas in the same department, and he says "I only need the bottoms" and she says "I only need the top" ("Bluebeard's 8th Wife," a 1938 movie with Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper)
  • The classic may be "You've Got Mail," when Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks have fallen in love by e-mail only to discover face-to-face that they're direct and hated business rivals.
That's so complicated.  In men's entertainment, it's much simpler.  The guy just has to deliver a pizza to the bored housewife.

Anyway, the way I met Nora is one of my favorite stories.  I was at the end of my second year of grad school at UW-Milwaukee, and had just attended the annual conference of our professional society, the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) in Chicago.  I always enjoyed that meeting; it was fun to realize that there were hundreds of people interested in similar work rather than just the handful of fellow students and teachers in Milwaukee.

Once we got back home, one of my colleagues, a first-year student named Habib Chaudhury, gave me a copy of a paper from a session he'd attended.  "I really liked this presentation, and it reminded me of the work you're doing."  And he handed me what turned out to be a treasure map, called "Psychic Homelands: From Wilderness to Zionism."

And Habib was right.  It was one of the most remarkable things I'd read in my field.  Intellectually daring, emotionally generous, beautifully written.  The historian of science Thomas Kuhn talked about "normal science" and "paradigmatic science."  In normal science, the field is incrementally moved forward with a little new information at a time.  But sometimes, an idea comes along that changes not only what we know, but how we think.  "Psychic Homelands" was one of those paradigm-changing moments.

I'd vaguely heard of its author, Dr. Nora J. Rubinstein, before that.  She was one of the New York elite, a leader in the field who was well connected with EDRA's powerhouses.  I didn't write to her to tell her how much her work had meant to me, because a) I'm a shy person, and b) I was this midwestern rube grad student and she was a New York intellectual powerhouse.  But I incorporated her ideas into my work, and made remarkable growth in my research life.

The next year, I happened to run into her at the next iteration of EDRA.  If this was a movie, I'd say that it happened while I was talking to friends about how brilliant that paper was, and that Dr. Rubinstein happened to overhear me and introduced herself.  Or that I was giving my (ultimately award-winning) presentation that drew strongly on her work and she happened to be in the audience.  Fact is, though, I don't actually remember how we met at that conference.  I know that we'd already met before I gave my talk, because I was going to refer to her work in my presentation and I asked her whether she pronounced her last name to rhyme with sheen or shine.  (I remember it now because it's pronounced the same way as Einstein.) 

We went out for Mexican food (we were in San Antonio), and then talked together most of the evening at Sue Wiedemann's annual informal party with her hotel room's bathtub full of ice and bottled beer.  That resulted in us creating a conference session together for the following year in Boston in which we brought five people from each of the three generations of EDRA members (the "founders," the "stalwarts," and the "heirs"), all of whom came together really only because she knew them.

So we worked together for years in different ways, writing and consulting together and periodically losing touch and then re-connecting.  And about five years ago, we discovered that we shared far more than we'd ever thought.  The treasure map had led me to a new land of ideas, and the "X" on the map was Dr. Rubinstein herself.

I think that counts as "meeting cute."

Friday, February 18, 2011

Oh yes, I almost forgot....

Remember that line about the dreams and laughter and the best friend from the invitation text that Herb posted?

I blush to realize that that's what I just posted!  Ah well, can't help it if it's true.

Want to play our word game? Just respond in the comments below with the first thing that comes to mind. Don't worry about meaning or alliteration or anything except what it feels like to say the word(s) aloud... Here I go:
"Zebra Print halter dress"......

While Herb's away....

Herb is off at a consulting gig at the moment - helping John Jay college address Undergraduate Research. And it's going to be 60 degrees outside. Some of the snow may actually melt, though much of it looks like permafrost.  I will be at work tomorrow for the second part of what is called "Sketch Problem" and 145 students (who imagine building something that will house their dreams) will be working with a team of low-budget Architects designing a dorm over the highway that cuts through the heart of Boston, supported by columns along a median strip between 8 lanes of traffic. In effect, most of the building, if it is built, will rest on a cushion of air. So that's the work part of the week. But you aren't here to read about work, are you?

I have been obsessing about what my story is in all this. It is clear that Herb is more comfortable with this medium than I. I blush at the idea that you are all reading about us. I am a much more private person -- or so I thought until he tried to convince me that our friends and colleagues have little doubt about who I am. I suppose that's true, but like everything else about this getting married thing,  I am discovering new aspects of myself and my partner as we move toward that date. (He hasn't updated it today, but I think it is 128 days away.) So here's what I think my story is...at least for today.

I am marrying a man I have known for 17 years. That's a life time I never expected to have. I expect to be married to him for a generation or two (gods willing and the proverbial 'crik don't rise').

I am marrying him at a time when lives and governments change in a blink of an eye, and it is hard to believe that there is anything that will be forever. There's too much evidence to the contrary. But the reality is that every day that we spend together is better than the days spent apart. Every day spent together is built on laughter and shared meal making (yes, we still sit next to each other on the couch each night to have our rather ersatz meals, made too often with take-out from Whole Foods).  Every day spent together is built on the daily rituals and routines that I never thought I'd share. (And yes he refills the ice cube trays and likes the toilet paper to come from the top of the roll). And every day, he drops me off at work while he goes to park the car (I am always carrying the computer and a thermos of coffee and bags of papers, just as my mother and father did decades ago). And we walk together to get the car from the garage and repark it on the street  (just as my father did). And whatever comes, he will sit in the office at home and I somewhere soft, and every day will be built on knowing what the things that hurt are and the things that help soothe a difficult day or a sense of loss or a sense that the world is not, for most of us, a just place. And most days, we will wake too early, so that we can again start the work day that went on too long the night before. Or on long luxuriant weekends, we will wake with word games: "Plethora" "Pink" "Plink" "Plunk" "Sequlae" "Squamish" "Skunk."

Somehow I think that we too are building our dreams over a highway on a cushion of air. 

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Rings

When I was a kid, two of the big employers in my hometown were Sealed Power piston rings and Anaconda Coil and Wire.  Chuck's mom, two doors down, did piecework for Anaconda at home, wrapping wire strands into loops and tossing them into a cardboard box while she watched TV bingo on Channel 54.  So I got used to seeing circular metal objects from an early age.

But not like these.

We just ordered two of these today, from a metalsmith named Andrew Nyce.  It's a metal technique called mokume gane (Japanese for wood grain), formed by layering different metals under huge heat and pressure, then twisting the resulting bar into interwoven curves.  They're pretty remarkable things.

We'll have them in a month or so, and will post photos of the real things once we have them.  In the meantime, this photo from the Andrew Nyce website will suffice (this is the pattern called Canyonlands; there are many others).

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Wedding Invitations, Round 2

I never understood the term "wedding industry" until we started supporting it.  There are a remarkable number of businesses vulturing around, waiting for the delirious couple to lose their critical faculties so they can step in with a "solution."  We stopped in at a paper store yesterday while we were out wandering around in Portland, Maine.  (Great town, by the way.)  News Flash!!!  Wedding invitations are CRAZY expensive!!!

Once you get the invitations and envelopes and RSVP cards and their envelopes and postage, we're at $1500 easy for 125 invitations.  That's over twelve dollars per invitation!  I'd rather buy people extra cake and liquor.  And there must be some kind of law that says an invitation can consist of no fewer than seventeen pieces of paper. They look like real estate promo packages:  nested envelopes, insert sleeves, pockets and gatefolds and ribbons and refrigerator magnets.  Who knew that there was such a thing as a paper duvet?  The last time I got an envelope with that much stuff in it, it came from the IRS.

And the motifs veer between British Royal Wedding and Jersey Shore.  You've got people who spend a gajillion dollars on invitations because... well, after Poppy buys the yacht, who would notice what got spent on stationery?  And you've got other people who spend a gajillion dollars on invitations because they look "classy," like a Mafia don's pinky ring.

But the main reason for our trip to Portland was to see in person the wedding rings we're ordering.  They're really remarkable, our one extravagance in all this.  So far, anyway.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Two professional writers and the invitation

Nora and I both write for much of our living.  You'd think that wedding invitations will be easy.  Well, maybe.  The wording of most wedding invitations is formal and carries back to the days of  transferring the ownership of the bride from father to husband. 
"Dr. and Mrs. Richard Portnoy humbly request the honor of your presence as they celebrate the marriage of their daughter Bethany Renee to Mr. Philip Carlton Withers IV."
Or some such.  But we're both grownups, and equals, and the protocol hasn't exactly caught up.  I've been looking at a blog called "Offbeat Bride," and the post entitled "Wedding invitation wording that won't make you barf."  And it isn't bad, but even The Offbeat Bride has some pretty traditional tastes:
"...invite you to share our celebration of lifelong love and commitment in the ceremony uniting us in marriage"
"This day I will marry my best friend, the one I laugh with, live for, dream with, love"
"We invite you to share our joy and support our love as we are exchange vows and are united in the commitment of marriage"
Etcetera, etcetera.  Weddings just seem to bring out the sappy and drippy.  Maybe I should just roll with it. Here's my idea:
"Nora and Herb getting married... amazing, isn't it?  Come join us on this remarkable day."

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Diamonds are forever

I never knew a lot about my family.  But I learned one thing today.  I knew that I was named after my father's father, Herbert Allen Childress.  But I discovered this afternoon that if I'd been named after my mother's father, I'd be... Mortimer.  (Thanks, Dad, for insisting that your side of the family be represented.  I didn't like the name Herb when I was a kid, but if I'd known the alternative, I'd have been a lot more appreciative!)

There's a much longer story to be written, and it will be soon enough.  But I've learned more about my mother's family today than I'd known in the prior fifty years.  And some things I thought I knew, I now know are entirely wrong.  All because of a little stone.

Turns out that I MAY have had a distant relative who was one of the "witches" executed in Salem — Sarah Averill Wildes.  Turns out that my mother's original American ancestor, Thomas Averell, arrived in Massachusetts about ten years after the Plymouth settlers.

I feel an odd weight... nine or ten generations of Averills looking over my shoulder.  There've been several hundred weddings on that side of the family before this one.  We only think we're on our own.

I haven't gone as far back on my dad's side yet, but here's a telling moment from the 1920 census, in Yell, Arkansas.  Look at the size of this household
  • My great grandfather William A. Childress, age 46, and his wife Alice (sometimes spelled Alose), age 41.
  • Their eldest child Herbert A. Childress, age 21 (my grandfather), his wife Maude, age 21 (my grandmother), and their first son John Hulbert, age 1 (my uncle — my dad would be born later in 1920).
  • William and Alice's other children Guy (19), Edwin (17), Mattie (16), Gilford (14), William Henry (12), Johnnie (10), Robert (8), Merle (4) and Bill (1).
  • William's mother Hattie Childress, age 78.
I can see already that the patterns of the Dust Bowl Childresses and the High English Averills emerged long before the 20th century... 



































    Friday, February 11, 2011

    Late night

    Well, the thermometer in Medford says it's 74. It feels like 64. That's partly because I am tired after another long class, but mostly, it's because it's late.

    In Egypt, there are still calls for Mubarak to step down though he has appointed the Vice President  in his stead. It all seems both compelling and distant, and when I think of spending an afternoon and evening in June with our friends, it all seems as though I am watching  some Hollywood movie script, not the reality of lives lived so far apart.

    Herb and I will be back at work tomorrow, pasting labels on a set of save the date postcards. We will probably have some kind of lunch from one of the local restaurants-- Steve's or Cafe Jaffa or Trident. I will work on student assignments and the preparation for "Sketch Problem" on Saturday. And in Egypt, people will be sleeping for yet another night in a tent city that looks on the TV screen like an orange flame.

    I am struck by how much life can change in a minute. I am struck by how conviction can make a life or lose it. I am struck by what chutzpah it takes to marry at a time when people are thinking about such things as freedom and control over their destiny.

    And I am struck once again, by the power of the improbable - whether the story of a revolution or of "us."  I am grateful every day, that we have each other; grateful every day for the strength and laughter and belief in us our friends have shown. And I am grateful for the peace we have this night, in this cold place, as we look over our destiny.

    May peace be with you....As-Salāmu `Alaykum (السلام عليكم)

    Thursday, February 10, 2011

    Today's song

    When I wake up, yeah I know I'm gonna be
    I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you
    When I go out, yeah I know I'm gonna be
    I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you

    If I get drunk, yes I know I'm gonna be
    I'm gonna be the man who gets drunk next to you
    And if I haver, yeah I know I'm gonna be
    I'm gonna be the man who's havering to you

    But I would walk 500 miles
    And I would walk 500 more
    Just to be the man who walked 1000 miles
    To fall down at your door

    When I'm working, yes I know I'm gonna be
    I'm gonna be the man who's working hard for you
    And when the money comes in for the work I'll do
    I'll pass almost every penny on to you

    When I come home, yeah I know I'm gonna be
    I'm gonna be the man who comes back home to you
    And if I grow old, well I know I'm gonna be
    I'm gonna be the man who's growing old with you

    But I would walk 500 miles
    And I would walk 500 more
    Just to be the man who walked 1000 miles
    To fall down at your door

    When I'm lonely, yes I know I'm gonna be
    I'm gonna be the man whose lonely without you
    When I'm dreaming, yes I know I'm gonna dream
    I'm gonna dream about the time when I'm with you.

    But I would walk 500 miles
    And I would walk 500 more
    Just to be the man who walked 1000 miles
    To fall down at your door 

    When I go out, well I know I'm gonna be
    I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you
    And when I come home, well I know I'm gonna be
    I'm gonna be the man who's coming home with you
    I'm gonna be the man who's coming home to you.

    500 Miles, by The Proclaimers

    Monday, February 7, 2011

    Distaff Post

    So I don't really know where the term "distaff" (when used for women) came from, but as a spinner I know what the distaff is. It is a device that is held under the arm or propped beside the spinner to hold the supply of wool that is going to be spun. Often it is no more than a forked stick, but as with everything else, there are people who make beautiful devices, convenient devices, or things that are the equivalent of a pompom bestowed poodle shaped crocheted toilet paper roll cover. Do you remember those? Anyway, as the distaff member of this partnership, I am doing pretty well at being the appendage while Herb does the heavy lifting. He has made up the postcards that we will be sending out as "save the date" notices, he has made up the list for the event planner; he has found the ring smith; he has developed the maps to estimate the distance from Tampa to Middletown and much more.

    In turn, I have been making phone calls, chatting with friends, catching up on gossip, and having fun while he slaves over the keyboard... But I DID want to make one point in all of this babble... that whichever one of us is posting at any given time, there is one thing that makes this all worthwhile and that is that we get to play with the people we love. Many weddings are filled with parents' friends and work colleagues or distant relatives you haven't liked since Aunt Martha grabbed you and wiped your face (hard!) with the edge of her stinky handkerchief. That's not true for us... we've got the best of all worlds... we've got the people we love and who have loved and shared and taught us; those with whom we have laughed and cried; those who have made us feel whole and happy.

    We have one thing to say... Welcome to our wedding.  We are glad you are in our lives.

    Sunday, February 6, 2011

    The Checklist, Take 1

    We set aside most of today to work on wedding planning, and we moved a lot of things forward.  It's been a good day, and now we're closing down and getting ready to watch All-Star Commercials (the Super Bowl, that is.  We take our bathroom breaks during the game so we don't miss any of the commercials.)  So here's where our current task list stands...

    January

    • Finish engagement announcements to those who don’t already know
    Well, we’ve designed and printed the save-the-date cards, and mailed six testers.  Once we hear back from some of those folks, we’ll mail the rest, hopefully by this Friday (2/11).  I have to buy postcard stamps tomorrow.
    • Set date and location
    The date is done — Saturday, June 25th.  The location is firming up—Springs Park or Emmett and Kerstin's for the ceremony, and the Historical Society for the reception.
    • Develop invite list
    This is close to being done, though we keep adding ones and twos as we remember people.  Pretty soon, it’ll be in the thousands.
    • Write wedding budget
    The one we wrote back in December is looking pretty naive...
    • Choose wedding colors (for tables, flowers, etc.)
    Nora has nixed this one, especially in light of watching MFW the other night.  But as she said a few minutes ago, she’s going back and forth between wanting, on the one hand, to just get friends together for a party, and on the other, realizing that this is the only wedding she’s ever going to have.  Watch out for the leopard-print theme!
    • Choose bridesmaid and best man
    Well, this depends on what kind of ceremony we devise.  There may be no need for supporting troops—or we may decide to have a tug-of-war.

    And yes, we DID notice that January is over, and so therefore we’re already overdue on all of the above tasks.  Thanks for mentioning that.

    February
    • Officiant for wedding
    We’d originally thought of asking every single guest to get a wedding officiant’s license from their Secretary of State’s office (anybody can officiate at one wedding a year in most states, so long as they are of “good moral character”).  That way, everybody at the event would be responsible for our wedding, and nobody could object.  But instead of just being a kind of nice letter that you get from the governor or the secretary of state, it’s now $100 to get the permit, and we can’t ask everyone to do that.  So we’ll create some approximation of that community participation, and ask a friend to officiate.
    • Host for reception
    Well, we're not sure how this is going to play out.  Too far in advance to know what the reception format will be. 
    • Select and order wedding rings
    Nora had a nice talk yesterday with Andrew Nyce, a metallurgical engineer turned jewelry-maker up in Portland, Maine.  He specializes in a form of metalwork we really like, called mokume gane (Japanese for “wood grain”), in which different metals are fused together and warp themselves into a kind of a woodgrain pattern.  Nice metaphor for two people becoming interwoven.  But it’s really hard to see what rings look like by going to a website, because the ring is as big as the monitor, and everything looks over-dramatized.  (Just as a guide, if I wear a size 9.5 ring, the one on the monitor is about size  130—it would be too big to wear as a bracelet.)  We’ve now made an appointment to have a look at his work... on Valentine’s Day.  Awwww...
    • Create gift registries and so on
    The last thing we need is more stuff.  We’re already going to try to merge two fully-equipped households (one of which is more fully equipped than the other... ahem...), so a third Cuisinart isn’t exactly a priority.
    • Create and send wedding invitations
    The Wedding Channel says we should do this eight weeks before the wedding.  Real Simple says six to eight weeks, with an RSVP cutoff three weeks in advance.  (They also advise that three months before the wedding is the time to “purchase your undergarments.”  Who knew?)  So maybe this won’t happen until early April...
    • Think about hotel rooms or other lodging for out-of-town guests
    I spent a couple of hours today getting together a list of hotels and B&Bs with web addresses.  Nora also found a website that specializes in houses for rent, so there are a few local houses that teams of guests might rent.  Maybe we should have the groom's side in one house and the bride's side in another...
    • Think about transportation to and from airports, train depots, and hotels for those guests
    Oh, dear.  How much does it cost to charter a bus?

    Friday, February 4, 2011

    OK so let me set the record straight...

    OK  so let me set the record straight...  WE did not find this MyFairWedding TV show... The one of us who is more committed to popular culture found it!  I was thinking about discussions in class of Kant and Peter Zumthor. And in a move that may signal our future, I gave up the thoughts of archetypes and typologies and metaphysics for zebra print halter dresses and wedding dresses that showed cleavage on a beautiful tiny Asian woman who worried about having too much hip in her wedding dresses - That's right TWO wedding dresses!!! Ah well, expect me to be wearing a muumuu. It won't surprise any of you that Herb figured if we can get Mom up to shop with me, we'll all be wearing leopard prints!

    More to come!  Much much more!

    Ten Thousand Things We Won't Do

    When we got home from work last night (at about 9:00), we were tired enough to just make leftovers and salad and sit in front of the television.  But the television, instead of being a soporific, became the source of endless inspiration.

    We discovered...

    My Fair Wedding!

    My Fair Wedding (hereafter MFW, though OMG or WTF would do as well) is a show on the WE network in which brides--never couples, only brides--volunteer their wedding plans three weeks before the wedding for a makeover by events planner David Tutera.  From his bio:  "Leading Entertaining Expert David Tutera is hailed as an artistic visionary whose ability, uniquely creative talents and outstanding reputation have made him a tremendous success in the lifestyle arena.  Tutera has created a name for himself by taking his passion for designing spectacular events and transforming it into a lifestyle."

    Okay, just look at that paragraph.  More adjectives than nouns, every word chosen to be as overblown as possible (hailed, visionary, uniquely, outstanding, tremendous, passion, spectacular).  So you already know his primary theme:  smarmy excess.  Any time someone turns your wedding into a "lifestyle," you know you've got problems.  And boy howdy, did these folks have problems.  (Note: when the TV host asks the groom why he fell for the bride, and his first response is "because she's smokin' hot!", place your bets on FAIL.)

    The episode we watched last night featured bride-to-be Shelby and her goal to have a safari-themed wedding ("Passport to Africa," which, since Shelby and her fiancee were both Asian and had never been to Africa, seems to have come from the trip to the San Diego Zoo where they met).  She was subjecting the bridesmaids to zebra-print halter dresses!  Tutera avoided that train wreck only by imposing his own multi-layered disaster on top of it.  The wedding had a "signature drink," a handmade mojito (a traditional African drink, right?) and a "signature toast," prosecco tinted with blue curacao.  He moved it to a safari park outside San Diego.  He changed the bridesmaid dresses (though the one that he wanted and she rejected looked like an explosion in a cookie-sprinkles factory), the food, the flowers, the table decorations, her hair, her makeup.  And in the end, it looked just like what he sees every day at work--a casino in Atlantic City.

    I guess I didn't realize that weddings had themes.  Or that all wedding themes had to be derived from Disney movies or soppy Broadway musicals.  So far, MFW has had brides planning the following themes:
    • The Phantom of the Opera
    • Alice in Wonderland
    • The Wizard of Oz
    • Pirates of the Carribean
    • butterflies and rainbows (awww...)
    • The Great Gatsby (think she missed the point of the book?)
    • The African Queen ("Leeches!!!")
    Anyway, the disaster list goes on.  But we learned many things to carry forward into our own wedding planning:
    • NO ZEBRA PRINTS!!!
    • No Disney characters, chariots, or undersea decor.
    • No television broadcast.
    • No custom made wedding dress paired with a custom made reception dress.
    • No FM-radio voiceover artist saying "It is my pleasure to present to you... Mr. and Mrs. Groom's Name."
    • No major decisions (officiant, location, vows, guest list, date, spouse...) based on a favorite color
    • No wedding cake taller than any of the guests.
    • No entrees with domed plates that release a puff of wisteria smoke when the dome is lifted.
    Perhaps the theme for our wedding should be "friends and family around us."  We kinda like that one.  But if you'd like to suggest a movie that should serve as our theme, now's your chance.

    Tuesday, February 1, 2011

    The revised Save the Date cards

    It's nice having a Staples around the corner, and a good friend who's a professional photographer.  Emmett Francois has taken innumerable wonderful photos of Middletown Springs, and generously shared many of them over the years.  As we were putting together the graphic design for the save-the-date cards, we messed around with all kinds of colors and borders and graphic doo-dads.  Finally, we thought of the photos.  To paraphrase Winston Churchill, you can be assured we'll have an excellent idea... as soon as we've exhausted all of the other possibilities.

    Here's the mailing side
    And here's the info side
    Coming soon to your mailbox...