Return of the Wedding Dreams

Last night I dreamed our wedding started late.

We kept delaying it by five minutes to finish the last little things, and five minutes turned into hours. All the guests were sitting patiently in white wooden folding chairs in a big dark room that looked like a conference room, and I was running around behind the altar, in a little prep room, making a list of the things we still needed to do and realizing we'd forgotten almost everything.

We hadn't confirmed the location with the photographers, so they weren't there. We hadn't written a ceremony with Mo. We hadn't written our vows. We had forgotten the booze for the unity cocktail. We didn't have music set up. We didn't have a chuppah. We weren't in our wedding clothes. We hadn't discussed the reception at all, so there was no food, no music, nowhere to sit.

So I tried to write vows as fast as I possibly could in a way that would encapsulate everything we wanted to say (which makes sense--the ceremony's the most important part of the day for me, and the vows are the most important part of the ceremony, so of course that's what I'd want to get done first).

I didn't ever get to the ceremony part of the dream. One of the last things I remember is Nate suggesting that he could "throw together" a chuppah at the last minute and me worrying that it wouldn't look nice,
This is a classic example of how my brain manifests subconscious stress. In high school, I would dream about being late for class because I didn't know where class was, and everyone being mad at me and therefore not telling me where class was, so I'd just run around looking for it, getting later and later. In college, after I stopped living with Julia (the roommate from Hell), I woke up crying in my sleep, which had never happened before and hasn't happened since. Dreams have always been my way of releasing steam my conscious brain isn't ready to admit is there yet.

So yeah, maybe I'm a bit stressed about wedding stuff. Really, I'm stressed about how damn much money this thing is going to cost, and whether or not people are going to have fun, and a bunch of shit I seriously should not care about. I'm not as interested in the wedding  minutiae as I am in the actual relationship/marriage stuff, but I haven't ever thrown a party this big before, and I guess I'm worried that people will think it's lame, rather than awesomeand original and fun and touchingly personal in a quirky-yet-spiritually-significant way.
So yes, I guess it's time to get this planning shit well and truly under way. 

Prenuptial Braindump

Okay, so, our engagement party is over, Great Western is over, I think it's time to actually start doing wedding-related shit. Here beginneth the brain dump:

Phew. This is probably post-party exhaustion, but I'm wiped out today, and generally not feeling so hot. Pre-period body changes have made me extremely clumsy, overly emotional, feeling gross because I'm breaking out everywhere, my boobs almost too sensitive to put in a bra, and generally Ready To Be Done with it all. Of course, I was supposed to get my period last weekend (the Saturday before the party) but being stressed out and in go mode has delayed it for a few days... and hopefully not much more than that. I don't really want to have my period at war, thanks. Also, all that nice relaxin has made my back go out worse than it has all year, including fun-filled spasms. It's probably also a reaction to starting to de-stress after this weekend... fortunately, that mostly got wiped out at the chiropractor yesterday and I'm feeling stiff, but not dying.

Things I Learned from Throwing My First Party

• When my parents tell me we haven't bought enough food, DON'T LISTEN. Your eyes and the size of the Costco shopping cart are true compasses.
• Make sure I actually get to spend time with the person/people with whom I am throwing the party. I saw lots of guests at the party, and not much of Nate.
• Your guest list will never be final, nor will it ever be set in stone.
• There are people in your social group who have done this before, better, and more often than you. These people include your family. Use them. Don't be afraid to delegate; just delegate to people you trust.
• If you're going to speech, prep it before the party.
• If you can't prep your speech before the party, Mo bullshits as easily as breathing.
• Sometimes Nate gets stressed out about party-planning too.
• White wine sangria.

Don't let the bullets fool you, our party went really well. We had some last-minute no-shows and some folks changed their RSVP's to No, and my parents decided when they showed up at the house that we hadn't bought enough food, so they went back out and got more... and now we have leftovers for days... but the party itself was great. It was really great to get to finally introduce my awesome family to my awesome friends, and we were totally loved on during the party itself, so I floated on a nice cloud of happy community lurve for the next day or so.

My mom surprised us by giving us one of our engagement pictures, blown up to 8 x 10" and glued to a big piece of posterboard, for our guests to sign. We got signatures from almost everyone, and we're going to frame the whole shebang and hang it up in the apartment. I was really touched and pleased by Mom's thoughtfulness--I keep being surprised when they do these wonderful wedding-related things (visiting so often to help us look at venues, giving me my Grandma's wedding ring--well, that was a request from her to my mom, but still--talking with me about wedding plans and marriage in general). I think part of me still expects them to disapprove of me getting married at this age, but that seems to be entirely in my head now.

Having Nate's family out was great too. They got along famously with my family, and held their own during a traditional Bauman/Day family Drunken Dinner at a restaurant where we drank waaaaay too much wine, sang in harmony with each other, and threw things. Yep, typical us. There were some issues with Josh, Nate's little brother, but nothing to write home about. I'd been anticipating some drama with him, but it ended up manifesting in a different way than I'd thought it would, and Nate and I got some good conversations out of it, so it all worked out in the end.

And people came! They came to the party and drank beer and played kubb and hugged us and bantered and generally had a great time! My parents seemed to really like everyone, and Nate's parents said it was easy to talk to everyone and that everyone made them feel welcome, even though they were in the minority 10% of folks who didn't know anyone at the party other than us. I was really floored by how much people helped out--my mom, dad, and Linda all handled a lot of food stuff, Rachie, Monica, and Kim all did a bunch of food presentation stuff, and the boys did a lot of shopping on Friday and Saturday. It was really incredible to see the community come together and help us out with stuff, unasked.

We're so blessed.

Wringing my hands about wedding rings (ooh, I punned!)-- Part Deux

So when last we left our heroine (me), I had given some cashola to the jeweler I lurved in Ventura as a promissory payment on a custom ring... of some kind. I was torn about teal-blue diamonds vs. sapphires and feeling kind of guilty about spending so much money on such a frivolous thing and debating the moral implications of buying diamonds, even ethically sourced ones, and generally wringing my emotional hands about the whole situation.

So I got a call from the jeweler yesterday, and he told me he had ordered some diamonds for me to look over, but the color variations weren't as diverse as he thought I would like. I went in to take a look this morning, and he was right. I was hoping for a five-stone ring that had a very light stone, a medium-colored stone, a dark stone, a medium-colored stone, and a very light stone in a line, but when we put the diamonds next to each other, they all looked like pretty much the same shade of teal. Teal's my favorite color, and the stones were beautiful, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for.

So long story short, I looked at the sapphire ring again, I looked at the diamonds, I mixed up the order of the stones, and finally George (the jeweler) suggested we put a couple of sky-blue diamonds on the ends of the line of teal stones. I took out the two middle stones, bumped the lightest color teal stones into the second and fourth positions, and put two sky-colored stones on the end, and voila--colors I loved, the gradations I wanted, and stones I didn't have to worry would wear out in fifteen years, like sapphires can. Sold.

Until recently, I'd been wrestling with buying a diamond wedding ring. I trusted the jeweler when he said the diamonds were ethically sourced, but I felt guilty about spending what, to me, is a good amount of money on a purely symbolic item. I felt like diamonds are so stereotypically decadent and chi-chi, would I really be happy with a diamond ring, or would I look at it and think I could have had something almost as pretty without the pricetag? Would I feel guilty about spending money other folks didn't have on something that was, on some level, a status symbol?

So I was driving to work on Thursday and it occurred to me--I'm paying for this ring by myself, with money I earned. Doing so isn't going to keep me from paying my bills or put me in debt. Nate's not helping me with it. My family isn't helping me with it. I'm choosing to spend money I earned with my own work on this.

All of a sudden, the ring changed from a petty concession to capitalism (and my fixation on sparkly things) to a symbol of my independence and capability. I'm spending money I earned on this ring, money I worked for. It's not an indulgence or a stereotype, it's a token of achievement. It's a symbol of my ability to take care of myself, to commit myself to a marriage as an independent adult.

That doesn't suck. :)

Pre-weddin' depression?

Things are not necessarily well in Sarahville.

Wringing my hands about wedding rings (ooh, I punned!)

In which I do some emotional handwringing about wedding rings. Sorry, kinda long, kinda fluffy.

This Sunday we went up to Santa Barbara and looked at the SB Unitarian Church as a venue. It was probably a little small for our needs, but it was really beautiful. The whole building is sort of a Spanish mission-style building. I'm uncomfortable getting married in any church, even an awesome one like the UU church, but we could have the ceremony in the courtyard outside, where there's a nice fountain and lots of green grass. If we don't book the parish hall, I think we'd save some money, too (that's the 'chapel' where they have lots of ceremonies and weekly services, and is this big dark long room that has a very Catholic church feel to it and kind of creeps me out--fine if that's your thing, but my spirituality eschews indoor worship and clergy standing up dictating God's opinion to people, so I'd feel completely dishonest being married in a place that made me so uncomfortable).

I didn't exactly fall in love with it immediately in a "OMG THIS IS IT!!!!!" kind of way, but as we walked through the grounds I started scheming and imagining and the place really grew on me. I could imagine decor, and in my head I started arranging furniture, and I started getting really excited, so when we left and Nate said he thought the place was too small for our estimated headcount, I got really bummed.

I think part of the reason venue shopping is stressing me out so much is because I think it's one of the aspects of planning that's the most critical and has the possibility of being the most restrictive. It's hard to avoid the big wedding-in-a-box places around here, and I have a really hard time visualizing decorations and colors and whatnot without a space to work in--that's just not how my brain works. I feel like we're sort of stuck until we have a venue, then a lot of my questions will be answered for me and I can start the more fun parts of planning because I have some of the bigger nitty-gritty stuff cleared away.

Nate keeps telling me that it's too early to stress myself out, but I have a tendency to leave things for the last minute, and that's the last thing I want to do with the wedding. I don't want the whole process to be a nightmare, but I'm worried that if I don't stress out now, it's just not going to get done. :( I know to a certain extent perspective is a choice--I could choose to be stressed out about something or I could choose to go with the flow, but I can't seem to let go and let wedding stuff just happen, or even to approach the planning I am doing with enthusiasm and a joyful heart. Maybe it's too personal, maybe I've heard too many horror stories, maybe I feel like if I want shit to be important and meaningful I have to break my back to get it. I'm not sure what the source of my perspective is right now, but I'm not thrilled with it.

Weddings While You're Planning One

I took a few days off work this week and took a trip up to the Bay Area. 

Tuesday afternoon, I got all dolled up and headed out to the event that had prompted this trip in the first place, Kristen and Ryan's wedding! Kristen's a friend and former roomie from college, and I actually went to 8th grade with her as well. We've done our separate thing for the last few years, and most of our contact has been on the internet, so I was surprised and honored to get an invitation to their wedding. And the wedding? Was awesome.

It wasn't about the decorations or the food or the dancing, although all of those things were great. It was about the community coming together to celebrate the people they loved. It was about the tiny flower girl doing stiff-armed five-year-old dances until she was falling asleep on her feet because she was so excited. It was about post-ceremony croquet to commemorate their first date. It was about the beginning of the ceremony, where each of them acknowledged and thanked their parents, and every single person in the audience cried.

I kept taking little pauses during the reception and thinking This is it. This is how a wedding should be. Meg Keene occasionally talks about the wedding magic, the thing that makes weddings happen even when caterers don't show up or rain ruins the photoshoots or you didn't get any sleep the night before because you were up finishing the last of your projects. There was wedding magic all the fuck over that place.

And waterproof mascara? Worth every fucking penny.

Stress is not doubt.

Why is the wedding already freaking me out?

Um.

So people talk about weird shit when you mention being engaged.

Nate and I are in St. Paul's Episcopal church, picking up our weekly CSA box, and we meet up with a coworker of mine, Bill. He manages the organic farm where the CSA food is grown and is basically a priest-in-training at the church. He's a very chill, laid back kind of guy, and the church is very liberal, so I actually enjoy talking with him about his faith and the process of learning to be a priest.

So we're there in the church hall, chatting with Bill, and in comes a small, brown-haired woman who was probably in her mid-forties. She and Bill hug, Bill introduces me and Nate as CSA subscribers and mentions that we're recently engaged.

"Oh, really?" she beams up at us. "Okay, one word of advice from an old married person?" And here she steps back and looks at each of us. "There's you? And there's you. And?" She looks up at the roof of the hall. "There's God."

She points at each of us and up at the ceiling, then roughly sketches the sign of the cross. "You here? And God in the middle. You just leave room between you. For God."

Nate and I looked at each other. We're all for God and all, but probably in a different way than she imagined. We finally said "Uh, yeah! Will do!"

When we got home, Nate suggested we keep communication between us instead.

Nate and I have begun tackling the first logistical nightmare of our wedding planning adventure--the engagement party.

Mangagement ring!

So Nate and I went out to dinner last Thursday night (burger and martini night at the Sidecar, woo!) and I popped the question.

The website lives!

We've officially completed our first co-task! We sat down, went through all the templates on mywedding.com, picked one out, and have the teeny tiny rudiments of a wedding website.

Also, welcome! This blog? Officially and entirely completely about wedding shit. It will all be this trivial, silly, self-absorbed, and childish. I make no excuses. There will, occasionally, be a contemplative post or two around here, but the vast majority of it is going to be the lightest and fluffiest of posts. Enjoy.

There will also be frequent use of the word "motherfucker."

How it all went down

This is the proposal story in its entirety. It'll almost certainly get cut down for Facebook and emails. Really, it's quite long.

Ring sizing and Conversations with Mom.

I'm working on the bigass engagement post, but just wanted to jot a few things down.

I dropped my ring off at the jeweler to be sized yesterday, which was way more nerve-wracking than I'd anticipated. I know it's just a thing, I shouldn't be so attached to it, but I love the hell out of my engagement ring and I didn't love the way the jeweler talked to me--he was pretty bored-looking and dismissive and tried to get me to size my ring down smaller than I wanted originally. I was very direct about what I wanted, and he wrote down the correct size on the order sheet, but it didn't do a lot to inspire customer confidence. I know sizing a ring he didn't make is a small-potatoes job for him, but still. They've done good work for me in the past, so I have no reason to expect them to screw up the ring, but the combination of being nervous about having it altered to begin with and the way the jeweler acted doesn't exactly encourage my confidence. :/

I moved the ring Nate got me for Xmas over from my right hand to my left, which helped. It's still a silly thing to worry so much about.

On a brighter note, my mom seems to be coming around to the whole engagement thing. My mom and I are really close (like talking on the phone 4 or 5 times a week close), and I know she'd been and, to a certain extent, still is nervous about me getting married so young. I imagine telling her we planned to wait a year or two to get married helped assuage her fears, and last night on the phone she said she'd had some time to think about it (we'd been out of town for the weekend and I hadn't spoken to her for a few days) and was actually getting excited. She went far enough to ask if we were planning an engagement party and said "Okay, and I'll help you plan it. I'm the mother of the bride, that's my job." which made me and Nate laugh--her initial reaction to the engagement was "That's wonderful! ...But you're only twelve!"

We haven't spoken more about it in detail, but I'm really glad to hear she's slowly getting on board with the idea. As Nate said when I related the conversation to him (after laughing) "Your family loves you so much!" to which I responded "They love the shit out of me," and it's true. 

Warm fuzzies

The drive to work has officially become "Holy shit my ring looks great in sunlight" time. Seriously, I've been super busy this week, but I have to take some time to get some pictures this afternoon for Facebook and Picasa.

I also have to find time to write down how it all went. I have to get crackin' at work right now, but I definitely want to take some time to write and remember. I have a feeling things are going to start to go very fast.

It begins!

Yesterday at around noonish, I created this blog.

Yesterday at 5:00, I got proposed to.

I have a feeling I know what most of this blog is going to be about. For now, anyway.

:D