Nate and I have begun tackling the first logistical nightmare of our wedding planning adventure--the engagement party.
Right now it's just a matter of wrangling dates and locations together with the people we need to attend: our families and, for me, my Hetero Life Mate and incipient maid of honor, Monica. Our respective SCA households are close second to those needs, but they're also all closer, so travel will cost them less in money and time.
We have yet to do anything like figure out where we're going to have it, or if there's going to be a theme, or anything like that. It's all a little daunting. I'm not a very experienced party planner, and although plenty of people tell me I'm creative, I've never been one for big-picture scheming and plotting. Exhibit A, our apartment: I've hung maybe 2 pictures in the 2 years we've lived there, because I like the pictures and had frames for them and felt like they'd go well on the wall. That's about it. I'm not a big-picture kind of girl. I don't walk into spaces and say "You know what this needs? A tasteful Moroccan-themed dividing screen or two and some spice-toned throw pillows! We can pop little lanterns on all the end tables and serve falafel balls on the CUTEST little antique plates I saw at the thrift store last week and and and..." Yeah, no.
Fact of the matter is, I know very little about party planning or what makes a good time a good time--my usual recipe for a good time is getting some friends together, adding booze and possibly some Wii or board games, and ordering pizza. I don't think I've ever thrown a party before, and I'm not really sure where to start or what to concentrate on. I see all kinds of gorgeous wedding porn on A Practical Wedding and Offbeat Bride and it's inspirational, but it's also intimidating.
In the search for good engagement party ideas, I've started to understand why so many women/couples can walk down the traditional aisle. I seriously have no idea where to start, much less what the etiquette is for all of this crap, so I find myself googling "Engagement party ideas" and ending up with some fairly traditional answers which, even though they make my skin crawl occasionally, are still answers. And the traditional stuff isn't entirely bad--it's useful to know that it's considered rude to ask for gifts at an engagement party, because it's assumed that gifts will be given at the wedding and everyone who's invited to the engagement party will also be invited to the wedding, so you're basically asking them to spend money on two gifts. That does seem pretty lame, when it's laid out like that.
And then, of course, I get this email from my Dad with a .zip file with about 20 pictures from my older brother's wedding. He and his girlfriend went to a courthouse, got married, went to the beach for a few days, and that was it. They look so happy in the pictures, and Jeremiah looks so much like my dad... A timely reminder that all of this logistical fretting is bullshit.
Right now it's just a matter of wrangling dates and locations together with the people we need to attend: our families and, for me, my Hetero Life Mate and incipient maid of honor, Monica. Our respective SCA households are close second to those needs, but they're also all closer, so travel will cost them less in money and time.
We have yet to do anything like figure out where we're going to have it, or if there's going to be a theme, or anything like that. It's all a little daunting. I'm not a very experienced party planner, and although plenty of people tell me I'm creative, I've never been one for big-picture scheming and plotting. Exhibit A, our apartment: I've hung maybe 2 pictures in the 2 years we've lived there, because I like the pictures and had frames for them and felt like they'd go well on the wall. That's about it. I'm not a big-picture kind of girl. I don't walk into spaces and say "You know what this needs? A tasteful Moroccan-themed dividing screen or two and some spice-toned throw pillows! We can pop little lanterns on all the end tables and serve falafel balls on the CUTEST little antique plates I saw at the thrift store last week and and and..." Yeah, no.
Fact of the matter is, I know very little about party planning or what makes a good time a good time--my usual recipe for a good time is getting some friends together, adding booze and possibly some Wii or board games, and ordering pizza. I don't think I've ever thrown a party before, and I'm not really sure where to start or what to concentrate on. I see all kinds of gorgeous wedding porn on A Practical Wedding and Offbeat Bride and it's inspirational, but it's also intimidating.
In the search for good engagement party ideas, I've started to understand why so many women/couples can walk down the traditional aisle. I seriously have no idea where to start, much less what the etiquette is for all of this crap, so I find myself googling "Engagement party ideas" and ending up with some fairly traditional answers which, even though they make my skin crawl occasionally, are still answers. And the traditional stuff isn't entirely bad--it's useful to know that it's considered rude to ask for gifts at an engagement party, because it's assumed that gifts will be given at the wedding and everyone who's invited to the engagement party will also be invited to the wedding, so you're basically asking them to spend money on two gifts. That does seem pretty lame, when it's laid out like that.
And then, of course, I get this email from my Dad with a .zip file with about 20 pictures from my older brother's wedding. He and his girlfriend went to a courthouse, got married, went to the beach for a few days, and that was it. They look so happy in the pictures, and Jeremiah looks so much like my dad... A timely reminder that all of this logistical fretting is bullshit.
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