I'm back!

Well, I've actually been back from my honeymoon for a few days now, but I sort of felt like I needed even more time to recover from the craziness. That and there's been a lot to accomplish since I've been back. I have not really accomplished much of it, but I have gotten one big thing finished. I set up an site for everyone to upload their photos of our wedding.

Our first dance, photo by Paul Beck (my dad)

Wedding photos tend to be the biggest chunk of change for many brides/grooms and their parents. In order to save some money we asked my stepfather to be the official photographer and then told everyone else not to forget their cameras. After the wedding I planned to set up an online account with a photo service where everyone could upload their photos.
This is the only thing I've really accomplished since returning. My house is still a mess. Miyagi seems to have forgotten large chunks of his training. I have piles of gifts (which we are really grateful for) from extremely generous friends and family that I'm hoping to finish writing thank-you notes for soon. And on Friday we are moving back to Newport News.

You may now kiss the bride, photo by Myrna Teague (my great aunt)

But I have officially set up a pro account on Flickr. Everyone can upload their photos there so I can download high quality original copies instead of shrunken files from Facebook. That helps triple the total number of photos I have access to when I'm finally able to afford printing good quality copies. Looking through my stepfather's pictures, I've realized he doesn't have the right eye I wanted for catching some of the details of the wedding (which I worked so hard to visualize and my friends and family worked even hard to implement). He did capture the basic photos you want, but some shots were missing. Having others take photos as well allowed me to have shots I wouldn't have gotten if I had depended on just my stepfather's shots. Such as this shot from my new sister-in-law:

Table settings, photo by Jenny Land (sister-in-law extraordinaire)

So if you plan to get married, I really recommend doing this if you can't see spending $3,000 (minimum!) on wedding photos.

Technical gibberish, or Why I chose this method
I chose Flickr because for about $25, I get unlimited downloads, storage and access to the original sized uploads.
Why is this important? Well, I wanted the chance to Photoshop photos that might not be perfect (most have beautiful potential, but many need a little tweeking) and that is extremely difficult to do when you are working with sizes that have been shrunken down for web use.
Facebook, for example imports photos at a resolution of 72 pixels per square inch and a size of about 720 pixels wide by 540 pixels high. For comparison, the camera my dad was using saved pictures at 4,272 pixels by 2,848 pixels at 72 psi. That may sound like gibberish to you, but pixels hold the information that make up the building blocks of a photo. So, the more pixels, the more information I have to work with. Ergo, I can make a beautiful photo perfect.
At the same time, to print photos they need to be at least 200 psi for quality printing. If you resize the Facebook photo to 200 psi, it can be printed no bigger than 3.6 inches by 2.7 inches. And that is too tiny for me to use.

Coming soon
Finally, I wanted to let you know that I am going to be doing a lot of posting in the near future. Not only do I want to go through some of the awesome details of the wedding, I have several other posts I've been putting off, including: several book reviews (including The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender and Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber), a photo tour of our new home and the setbacks and triumphs we've hit while training Miyagi.
So, please come back soon and let me know what you think!

Wordless Wednesdays: Love & Marriage

Photo by Ken Kienow via Ruffled blog

Wordless Wednesdays: A table full of pie

Photo by Brinton Studios, via Style Me Pretty

Wedding notes: On hair

It's one of the least important aspects of my wedding (to me) and yet it seems to be one of the first things women tend to ask me, right after what color my dress is (ivory) or what shoes I'll be wearing (yellow Converse). Who knew that hair was so important among us females. I certainly didn't. In any case, my hair will most likely be simple, just like every aspect of my wedding. For a few ideas, see the following wedding porn (as Ariel of Offbeat Bride fame calls it):

I like the simplicity of pulling back some of the hair, but leaving the rest loose. Plus you can't beat fresh flowers.

Long and loose, with a curling iron to add a bit of flair.

And then there is the low bun with a floral accent, which I'm leaning towards if it is hot and I don't want to get overheated.

Wedding Notes: Dancing with my dad

One of the first things I thought about upon getting engaged was my dad. I was excited that he would walk me down the aisle and that we would have a father/daughter dance. I remember a father-daughter dance we had in Illinois which was sponsored by the girl scout troop my mom was a leader in. It's a pretty foggy memory for me because I was only five or six, and yet it's stayed with me for most of my life. It's this memory I want to honor at the wedding, but I also want to honor all of the great times we've had together. We really are great friends. When I make huge decisions in my life, he's always the first person I call. In fact, I called him first when Travis proposed. I even called him before adopting Miyagi because I didn't know if it was the best decision.

In that vein I've been putting a lot of thought into what our song will be and I'm torn between songs that convey love and what our relationship is and songs that remind me of him, but don't necessarily speak to our relationship.

For the former I've come up with two songs:

Nickel Creek -"When you come back down"

Beatles - "In My Life"

When I think of my top three favorite bands, Genesis(and Phil Collins) always makes the list, and that is all thanks to my dad. The first song I remember learning the words to was "I Can't Dance." (The music video is hilarious; you must click on the link and watch it).

While the song always invokes memories of driving in my car with Dad, that song isn't exactly appropriate for the occasion. I have come up with a Genesis and two Phil Collins song I could see dancing to:

Genesis - "Follow You, Follow Me" (This actually makes me think of having nightmares as a kid and knowing it would be alright because Dad was there.)

Phil Collins - "You'll Be in My Heart"

Phil Collins - "Can't Stop Loving You"

Wednesday wedding inspiration: Mason jars galore

When I think of my wedding flowers I've been imagining bunches of simple flowers placed in mason jars. Like these:


But though I've been planning on white flowers for my bouquet, I'm all about the fun pops of color I could work into decorations.


There's just something homey and amazing about mason jars. And there's a bit more natural feel to the fact that you can see the stems in the vase.



My final photo I discovered is this ridiculously cute metal fly guard. I just want this for my normal life. This is so much better than a paper towel because it won't fly away and you won't be wasting the paper.

Wednesday Wedding inspiration: Typography

I really still want a typewriter as my guestbook. Someone needs to hook me up!

Photo courtesy of Millie Holloman, as posted on Snippet & Ink

Wednesday Wedding inspiration: Twine! Pie!

Photo by Anna Kuperberg, venue at Bear Flag Farm (an organic farm in California)

A wedding recently featured on Style Me Pretty's Little Black Book blog (the section that is all about wedding eye candy) offered outdoor elegance for its guests. There were so many amazing details from that wedding, but I was most enamored with this sun-kissed vision of twine and lavender. Apparently it's the little things that get me. You know what else makes me happy? Pie.

Photo by Anna Kuperberg, venue at Bear Flag Farm (an organic farm in California)

Specifically a table full of gorgeous pies and fresh flowers to wow guests accustomed to a single cake that is likely covered with fondant (the most hateful dessert ingredient ever concocted). You better be prepared for fruit pies at my wedding.

Wednesday Wedding inspiration

The blogger at 2000 Dollar Budget Wedding blog has a pretty interesting idea for a guestbook: A Wedding time capsule. The pads of paper read "Write a message to Groom and Bride to be read on their 10 year wedding anniversary." That would be a great reminder of all the fun we had during our wedding and all the great friends we have.

Wednesday's Wedding inspiration

When I first explained to the fiance my thoughts on a wedding, I said this (and I am quoting here): "Outside, preferably under a tree." And since I was never a girl who daydreamed about her wedding (I left that to the girly friends I had over the years), that was all I had to say.
Well, it turns out I'm not the only one who had this inkling when it came to her wedding. Turns out another bride went to a winery to find this gorgeous tree and then created a centerpiece with it using gorgeous white fabric, under which the ceremony was performed. I love it!

Photo by Ella Jae Photography, as seen on Style Me Pretty.

Scouting for wedding venues #2: Williamsburg Winery

Looks like we have another swing and a miss here. I'm sure the Winery is a lovely place to have a wedding, but (except for the 30 seconds I was driving down the driveway and super excited by the fields of vines) it didn't really feel like us. Travis wasn't there, but I got the feeling after talking to him last week, that he wasn't too excited about any of the venues I had come up with. And I'm beginning to understand why.
They're all a little too mainstream for us. When you get married, you get married at a church, or an old historic inn, or even a winery. Though some of these examples are less mainstream than a church, none of them are what we wanted when we first brainstormed back in September.
I remember distinctly, we said outside, off the beaten path, abnormal, with trees. None of our options right now fill any of those ideas, except the orchard idea that I came up with recently.
The Boxwood Inn, the Williamsburg Winery, the Chrysler Museum: Any of these would do in a pinch, but they don't feel right.
I still think the Winery would be a fun tour to do. Maybe a bridesmaid party? All of us take a trip through the winery and then have lunch together. Might be fun.

I will still offer a few photos:

A smashing good wedding idea

Last night I was driving home from work and it hit me: Pinatas.
Let me back up. As the fiance and I near our wedding day, we've both been attempting to come up with fun ways to celebrate with our friends and family. On my way home, for no particular reason, I began thinking about pinatas and how much fun it would be to have one (or two) at the wedding. Why not begin our marriage by smashing something apart with a baseball bat? So what do you think, bad call or a smashing good idea?

Bride and Groom Pinatas by LlavesDesigns on Etsy

A lesson in (NOT) fear-mongering

So, one of the first wedding blogs I discovered after I got engaged was an entertaining and innovative site called The Offbeat Bride, which centers around breaking down the silly traditions that no one wants or remembers why they became traditions. It's about proving that your wedding CAN be what YOU want it to be, instead of what your mom wants or your overbearing grandmother wants, or what have you. Not that the blog dismisses people doing the normal wedding thing, as long as that's what the bride and groom wanted to begin with, it's all good with them.
I have had a lot of fun seeing other people have a lot of fun on their wedding day, on this blog and on other blogs. But once I got engaged, I also got hit with all the negative stereotypes about weddings and marriage from my friends, family and even just acquantances; everyone seems to want to share and become your sister (or brother) in the most terrible time of your life (that is wedding planning and your wedding day and even your basic life as a married individual).
Apparently I'm not the only one who has been victim of this fear-mongering, as Ariel, the author of Offbeat Bride, calls it. As she says in her witty analysis of this phenomenom of the Oh-you'll-seeeeee, when people constantly project their challenges on others and get angry when you don't get worried or decide just to not bother with that aspect all, "I think what goes unsaid (by the fear-mongers) is You HAVE to worry! It's what we're going to bond over, because bonding over hardship is awesome!"
I have to admit it's great to hear from someone who has been there that "it just doesn't have to be that way." I've heard so many negative things from so many other people, not just about the planning or the day, but about how love dies when you get married, or you get old and boring when you get married, or you will have kids when you get married (uh, not likely?). In any case, for everyone in any situation I think Ariel imparts a great truth in this part of her post:

"It seem that in our effort to find shared experiences, we turn to each other and tell awful stories about how hard it all is. And you know what? Sometimes it IS hard. Sometimes the wedding plans fall apart and relationships fall apart and it feels like our life is falling apart. But rather than tell the horror stories, why not share the lessons? Learn as much as you can and share the positivity of what you learned, rather than the shared grumping about didn't work."

A peek at a possible future

Until one fateful Sunday when I was bored at work and decided to read past editions of the New York Times' Sunday Magazine, I hadn't given much thought to what our marriage would be like. I mean, I assumed it would be more of what we do now, only with an added tax benefit. Then I began reading "Married (Happily) With Issues," the cover story of the Dec. 12 New York Times Magazine.

Overview
In it, Elizabeth Weil describes her marriage as "pretty good." Unfortunately for her analytical mind, Weil realizes that she thinks of her marriage as being "like the waves on the ocean, a fact of life, determined by the sandbars below, shaped by fate and the universe, not by me." She thinks that it is just "O.K." because they haven't tried. If her and her husband, Dan, begin to apply themselves, how much better could it be?
While this may be logical, it ends up leading to a storm of issues. As Weil recalls, "You set out to improve your marriage; it implodes."

Gut reactions
Over the course of reading the article, I began thinking about the boy and I.
Weil says this about their decision to marry: "We never discussed, or considered discussing, why we were getting married or what a good marriage would mean. It all seemed obvious. I loved Dan; I loved how I felt with him. Ergo I wanted to be his wife."
I was taken aback by that. That's what I feel. Is that the wrong answer? Suddenly I was asking myself, "Why do I really want to get married?" But I couldn't come up with anything else. Freaked out, I stopped reading for a day.

Monday, again bored at work, I decided to take a second crack at the article. That's when I read that Weil admits that "while working to improve our marriage, I found myself pushing my husband away." Things only got worse for the two as divorce eventually got brought up.
And through it all, I kept getting more scared. I mean, my family's history doesn't offer a vote of confidence for me making it in a marriage. Not only are my parents divorced, but their parents are divorced. Two of my mom's siblings are divorced (my dad doesn't have siblings to add to the pattern). Even my sister is getting divorced. The boy says this just means that I'll be breaking the pattern, but if I've had no good examples of marriage, how can I hope to be in a good marriage?

Weil concludes that the "good-enough marriage" is one in which both partners "keep growing, to afford them the strength and bravery required to face the world."
I do think we do this well. Each of us saves the other from ourselves, while at the same time we allow each other to be ourselves. The boy may do a little more of that right now, but as time goes on, I'm sure it will even out. I think the best lesson Weil has is the one she doesn't actually spell out: Don't try too hard. I think marriage comes a lot more naturally than she thinks. And the reasons for marrying come even more naturally. I think our reasons are just as valid as any other, and the fact that there was no surprise among any of our friends that we were getting engaged helps to drive that point home to me.

Bottom line

This article is worth the read, even if you aren't yet married. And despite not always agreeing with her dim view of marriage, it did get me thinking about my impending nuptials and the future they would bring. And, to me, the best marker of good writing is that it forces you to think about your own life.