Our Love Story

Via bridebook: What If It Rains?

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So, it’s been pouring rain here in Southwest Virginia, going on four days now. The rivers are roiling and cresting, basements are seeping and leaking, and the sky has held the same deep grey for so many hours I can no longer tell, without a clock, whether it’s early morning, late evening, or some time in between.

It seems a good time to share a link to my most recent bridebook post, which was published the week before our wedding, a post in which I wondered, “What if it rains?” It didn’t rain on our ceremony or reception, though showers early in the day made us cross fingers and toes. But it rained all last weekend, when I’m sure many lovely couples tied the knot, and it’s sure raining now, and the rain is predicted to keep right on falling.

So this one is for all those folks whose weddings have been and will be wet. Take heart and carry a big umbrella. As my wise brother said, “The wet won’t stay. The married will.”

The skies looked ominous enough! Photo, Noah Magnifico

The skies looked ominous enough!
Photo, Noah Magnifico

FsFTB in bridebook: What If It Rains?

Dear readers, FsFTB is moving to a once-a-week posting format. New posts will now appear on Fridays. Thanks to all who’ve followed our love story this far, and all who keep on reading!

So, How’s Married Life?

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First Dance

magnifico photography

Steve and I have now been married for 12 days, 17 hours, and I’m-not-that-obsessive-so-I-have-no-idea-how-many minutes.

In that time span, we celebrated with our friends and family, made a honeymoon trip to Asheville (where we mostly ate good food and lounged around at the spa), taught class, responded to emails, spent a weekend painting a room in our new house, paid a few bills, unpacked a couple kitchen boxes, went to the dentist, and drank a glass or two of wine on the porch.

This is not a humble-brag about how busy we are; life happens to everyone. But someone asked me yesterday, “So how’s married life? Is it everything you thought it would be? Does it feel any different?” And the answer is, it feels great, but different? No, not really. And that’s a good thing.

Life feels some different now than it did three or four months ago, of course, when Steve and I were still living in two different houses in different towns. Having now lived together in the same house since early August, we’d already come to know, pre-wedding, the gentle pleasure of a welcome home hug and a good-night kiss. And there’s definitely a sense of relief that the pressures of planning the wedding itself have ceased, though we’re still doing things like selecting photos and writing thank you’s and wrangling with our Kohl’s registry (another story for another day).

What hasn’t changed is that I know I have found my love, my friend and supporter for life. I knew that back when Steve proposed to me–that’s why I said yes! I knew it when we began planning our big day, and when we moved into our house. I knew it when we said our vows, shared our first dance, when we held hands and watched the sunset over the mountains surrounding Asheville. And I know it still, when we laugh over shared Facebook videos, tag-team cooking dinner, cuddle up with cats and dog and just hang out together.

Now that we’re married, I still love, and feel loved, every day. It may be the same-old same-old, but I hope our married life always feels just this way.

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Hooray, We’re Hitched! (Raise a Glass!)

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We're hitched!We did it!

Steve and I are now officially a Mr. and Mrs.! It was a beautiful day in every way (even the weather—it rained early on but cleared before the ceremony!), full of family, friends, and joy.

I took a week off from blogging (and the office) for the wedding festivities, and now I think I need another week to recover…. I’ll be back soon with some reflections on our big day (and how it flew by), a few behind-the-scenes stories (you’ll never guess who almost got arrested), and descriptions of the elements we kept a surprise (everybody loves a parade!).

In the meantime, kick back and enjoy one of our “Quite a Pair/Pear” signature cocktails (recipe follows below), and check out our wonderful “next day album” provided by photographer Noah Magnifico, who brought us hard book copies the morning after the wedding so we could enjoy and share immediately!

Sandee and Steve’s Next Day Wedding Album, Magnifico Photography

Enjoy with a Quite a Pair/Pear and Elderflower Martini (from Barinacraft):

  • 1 oz. pear-infused vodka
  • 1 oz. elderflower liqueur (St. Germain)
  • 1/4 oz. dry vermouth

    • Mix ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and strain into a glass. Garnish with a pear slice as desired.

    Raise a glass and stay tuned for more tales from FsFTB!

    So-True-Love Tuesday (& Wednesday & the next day &…)

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    Steve and I have been preparing some slide shows for the wedding reception, so we’ve had the joy (and occasional agony) of going back through years of photos. Despite my general skepticism regarding things like pre-determined plans and fated soulmates, it’s been hard to resist the idea that, at the very least, Steve and I have been traveling parallel paths all these years—paths that, once they finally intersected, would naturally funnel into a single trail we’d keep walking together.

    Happy baby days…

    Steve
    Sandee

    Smiling with our big brothers…

    Brother Fred
    Brother Todd

    Posing for the requisite Olan Mills family portrait…

    Liz, Steve, Fred, Judy, John
    Sandee, Todd, Garry, Margaret

    We each cherished holidays with the next generation…

    With sons Dusty & Tucker
    With niece Natasha

    and loved our furry friends…

    Cody
    Roscoe kitty!

    We spent time in the woods…

    And on the water…

    We rode…

    And we ran…

    And we found our happy places…

    And then, at last, we found each other:

    NJM_9113

    magnifico photography

    I’m not one to believe in some automatic “happily ever after” either—talk about a gloss on the good (and the hard) stuff.  But I believe in us, and our commitment to create a happy life together.

    I’m so grateful our paths crossed, and I can’t wait to join hands and travel forward together. ♥

    Steve Speaks: Looking forward

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    NJM med

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    Every so often my fiancé Steve shares his thoughts. Here’s his last pre-wedding post.

    It’s just around the corner. The 10-day weather forecast now extends to the wedding (partly sunny, highs in the upper 70’s…). I keep getting asked, “Are you excited?” “Are you nervous?” “Are you ready?” Yes, no, yes and no.

    More and more I’ve found myself saying (and hearing) “…after the wedding.” As in, I know we need to do X, and maybe we can get to that after the wedding. When will we find and unpack the rest of our dishes, pots, and pans? After the wedding. When will I get caught up at work? After the wedding. When will we have friends over for dinner? (You know the refrain).

    I look forward to life after the wedding, because so many things have been on hold while we’ve been merging households and making preparations. The top five things I’m looking forward to leaving behind:

    5. Dates as planning meetings. You go to dinner with a beautiful woman, sit down across from her over a candlelit table, order a bottle of wine, and… each pull out your calendars and to-do lists. I look forward to leaving the notebooks behind.

    image4. The craft room fiancée. Sandee and her mom are making lots of lovely decorations for the wedding, some of which I’ve even been allowed to see! But she’s labored some long hours over a hot glue gun. On good days, I hear her singing upstairs. On other days, I hear the occasional growl. I won’t miss the time and stress involved in so much high-pressure D-I-Y.

    3. Middle-of-the-night financial questions, like waking at 2:00 AM, trying to remember if I actually wrote a check for X or just dreamt that I did. What account was I going to use for Y? Did we over-extend when we decided on Z? I prefer my pondering take place after coffee. In daylight.

    2. Life lived out of a suitcase or cardboard box. For two years, I saw Sandee mostly on weekends, packing a suitcase and driving an hour each way. For two months, we’ve lived in cardboard box limbo, our earthly possessions stowed in unlikely places. Unpacking has been sporadic and scarce as work and wedding preparations have taken priority. I’m ready for us to be home, together.

    1. Wedding-related decisions. I’m OK with decisions; I can be very decisive. I create decision-support models and software. But I’m weary of all the difficult trade-offs. How many of our friends can we actually invite? Where’s the balance between being tight-fisted and responsible about wedding expenses? When is it OK not to care about some décor detail that’s so important to my bride? I look forward to those days after the wedding when the toughest decision is whether to drink red or white wine with dinner.

    Still, I don’t want to be so focused on “after the wedding” that I don’t embrace and thoroughly enjoy every moment of the wedding itself. Here are the top five things about the wedding I want to hold on to and savor like a 12-year old scotch:

    5. Seeing my bride. That precise moment when Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” bursts out with full strings and she rounds a corner, coming into view in a dress she has so carefully chosen, eyes shining, reveling in the day she’s dreamed about. I just hope I’ll be able to see her clearly, and not through blurry, watery eyes.

    Steveboys4. Friends and family. I’ll have wonderful friends and family members at the wedding to share my joy. Some of them I haven’t seen in too many years. Some of them will be standing with me as Sandee approaches. Some of them will meet her for the first time that day. These friends have stood beside me in some tough times in my life; I’m eager for them to be beside me on one of the best days.

    3. Sharing the day with my sons. How many grooms get to share their wedding day with their adult sons? It’s not entirely rare, but it feels very special. Tucker and Dusty have observed (with different levels of involvement and comment) my years of dating. They have cheered me on, sometimes questioned my choices (or tactics), but never begrudged me the search. It will be an honor and joy to have them participating in the ceremony.

    NYpierdancing2. A perfect evening. I know things may not go exactly as planned. The sunset may not be spectacular, I might stumble in the “first dance,” and it’s entirely possible I’ll spill something—hopefully not on Sandee’s gown. But we’ll be dancing to music we selected, eating food we chose, drinking wine from vineyards we’ve visited, and be surrounded by people we love. How could that not be perfect?

    1. The ring. Strange? I’ve never worn much jewelry, but I really like the idea of having a ring on my finger again. I picked it out, and I’ll like the cool feel of it when my bride slides it on my finger, and I will absolutely mean the words I speak over it. And eventually, I’ll grow so used to the reassuring weight of it on my hand that I’ll feel naked without it.

    I’ll be married. And I’m really looking forward to that.

    BenBlanc2

    The Countdown

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    initial S'sSoooo, you might have noticed I was absent from these parts last Friday. Things have gotten pretty overwhelming now that school’s back in session and we’re rapidly heading toward the “days away” mark, a situation not made easier by the fact that almost every other item one of us seeks requires a search through at least three as-yet-unpacked boxes.

    This too shall pass.

    And only too fast, I fear.

    I don’t want these days to be so blurry and harried, though perhaps that’s inevitable. I’ve been frantically trying to put the finishing touches on a number of almost-there DIY projects, a process that includes deciding which ones just aren’t going to happen. We’re finalizing details with our vendors, going last-minute shoe-shopping, testing possible signature cocktail recipes (that last one wasn’t so bad…).

    Projects in process

    Projects in process

    We’ve also been joking more and more frequently about the virtues of elopement.

    A couple of nights ago, we tried to slow the momentum and enjoy the moment by practicing for our first dance. We’d thought at one time we’d take a dance lesson or two, but we just flat ran out of time. And a wise family friend who’s seen us dance together had actually cautioned against it, saying that we moved together so naturally, why complicate or even interfere with that ease? It’s a tricky balance, though, wanting to do something special, at least a little planned, but also not wanting to set ourselves up to be so concerned about getting steps “right” that we can’t be fully present. It’s not like either of us is a choreographer, either, so the only language we have to communicate with each other about dance is just, well, dancing.

    We decided our bottom line is that we’d like to avoid falling.

    malletsThe surprises and slip-ups—assuming they don’t result in bodily harm—are the stories that stick, of course. Everyone keeps reminding me of that, and even I, years ago, wrote a poem after my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding that recounted all the funny things that had not gone as planned, suggesting those were the most real, most memorable moments. I’m wondering now if there will be some karmic return on that observation. I mean, it’s not necessary for things to go wrong to have a wedding with great stories to tell, is it? It will still be wonderful and memorable even if everything goes off without a hitch, right? Universe? Please?

    Stay tuned. After all, when things go awry, there’s writing material aplenty.