Wedding planning

Gallery

DIY Decor: Pillows in Progress, or Making a Beautiful Mess

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When you visit a craft fair or art show, you see shelves and racks and cabinets filled with beautiful finished products. Fat colorful coffee mugs rounded to fit the cup of your hand, stunning framed photos of frozen waterfalls or birds in flight, the striking drape of a woven wool and silk scarf: their unique beauty stops you in your tracks, earns your admiration, perhaps even secures your ownership.

What we don’t see at the fair are the hours the artist spent bent over the pottery wheel, the precise balance of brute strength and fine pressure required to throw a symmetrical vessel. We don’t witness the lopsided learning curve or the moment of inattention that sends a blob of clay whirling across the studio. We don’t wait with the photographer, bug-bitten and motionless, in the field, or feel her boot crack through the ice that covers a trail of mud. We aren’t privy to the knotted tangles of thread, the beads lost under the radiator, the two discarded muslin mock-ups in the sewing room.

Or the cat who insists on helping.

Anyone who’s ever made anything knows the truth: The creative process is messy. And hard work makes more art than does inspiration.

The same might be said of love and relationships. Continue reading →

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Bratty Bride Goes Shopping

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If “Bridezilla” and some of the other wedding reality TV shows are to be believed (and I’m not so sure they are—no bride I’ve known has had anything so much as resembling a meltdown), there are at least a few ladies who think their “bride” status entitles them to be bossy, demanding, and downright rude. Planning a wedding can be stressful and time-consuming, but whenever I get the urge to complain, I try to stop and remind myself of one key thing: every last piece of it is a privilege.

It’s a privilege to have found a partner who returns my love and shares a desire to commit to a life together. It’s a privilege to have caring family and friends with whom to celebrate our joy. And it’s privilege to have the resources to throw a party with beautiful decorations and  abundant food and drink. These are not things to be taken for granted, and they’re assuredly not a license for temper tantrums and testy outbursts.

So I’m confident “Bridezilla” is well beyond my basic crankiness capabilities.

I’m embarrassed to admit that a little alter-ego I’ve come to call Bratty Bride is not.

 Meeting Bratty Bride

When you’re planning a wedding, everyone, it seems, has an opinion. Vendors and wedding professionals—the photographer, the florist, the DJ—are supposed to have opinions; you pay them well for their expertise, and when they share their knowledge, it impacts your vision and helps you make decisions. But then there are, oh, say, the overly enthusiastic dental hygienists, or the nosy sale clerks whose advice seems entirely derived of their own nuptial dreams and utterly divorced from the reality of yours.

It was whilst I was on the receiving end of such advice that I first met my inner Bratty Bride. Continue reading →

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(Not Too) Much A-Do about Being

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A few weeks ago on a quiet Sunday morning, fiancé Steve and I were seated across from each other at my dining table. Having shared a homemade omelet and fruit and still working on our respective cups of coffee and tea, Steve sat with his paper calendar in his lap, his laptop open to email, while I had called up my calendar on my phone and sat with the wedding notebook in front of me. As we compared notes, I made a to-do list on a legal pad: we needed to call X, send a follow up email to Y, compare quotes from Z and Q. We divvied up the duties and decided on a timetable, determining what had to be done before the holidays, what could wait until after.

Once we each had our assignments, I slid my reading glasses off my nose and snapped the frame closed, the muscle memory of the movement recalling something far removed from a leisurely morning lingering over breakfast with my love. I sat back in my chair in consternation.

“What?” Steve asked, closing his calendar.

I sighed. “I know planning a wedding is supposed to be fun, and it mostly is. But it feels like we just spent our morning in a business meeting.” Continue reading →

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Green Gifts and a Few Other Favor-ite Things

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A friend recently shared a link to a New York Times article about the amount of plastic accumulating in our oceans. She captioned it with a plea: “Before you buy all those plastic toys and stocking stuffers for Christmas, please consider where it will end up once they’re thrown away.” The accompanying photo was horrifying: a pile of plastic debris on a beach in Portugal, so thick it obscured the rocky shore underneath.

The photo, and my friend’s request, resonated in light of—of all things—our search for personal, useful, and earth-friendly wedding favors. Wedding magazines offer an abundance of what folk musician Nancy Griffith once referred to as “unnecessary plastic objects”: giant “diamond” key-chains, wedding-cake shaped candles, nesting hearts salt and pepper shakers. All sweet to look at, but—let’s be honest—likely to end up in the landfill. Traditionally, favors were foodstuffs, and something simple and edible like Jordan almonds or truffles seems much more earth-friendly than miniature Lucite chairs. That is, until you dress the truffles up in multi-layered packaging, little brown boxes with raffia ties and tags, or festive cones in cardboard stands. So cute! And sadly, sure to be tossed as trash as soon as the guest has enjoyed the treat within.

Some thoughts on the thought that counts

Though I’m not so keen on unity sand, I like the tradition of wedding favors, maybe because I’ve always loved choosing (or making) just the right gift for someone, whether it’s big or small, silly or sweet. My relationship to gifts has changed a little in recent years, however, in concert with my shifting relationship to “stuff.” I’ve become increasingly aware of the costs, both to our planet and to our psyches, of an excess of objects cluttering our minds and homes, our waters and our world. Continue reading →

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DIY Decor: Vintage Finds Cakestand

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This is a quick and simple project, and a great way to create a unique pedestal cakestand that will (ahem) “elevate” your wedding (or holiday) pies, cakes, or cookies!

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Supplies for the project
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A few weeks ago in “Perfectly Imperfect,” I shared some of the thrift store finds I’m re-habbing to use as part of our wedding decor. First up, turning mystery object #7 and plate #2 into a cakestand with character. For those of you (still) wondering: mystery object #7 is a vintage toothbrush holder! It was obviously in need of a coat of paint, so I selected Valspar Signature, satin finish, in “Trolley” to coordinate with our wedding colors. (Note: A lot of hardware and home stores now mix and sell half-pint sample sizes, which makes it easy to purchase just the right color for a small project.) Continue reading →

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Breaking Cake Together

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Once we had a venue selected and booked, it was time to turn toward securing other vendors. The choice of where to focus next was obvious: the cake.

It’s all about priorities, people.

The tradition of wedding cakes, according to a fascinating history by Carol Wilson in Gastronomica, dates back to antiquity: “Ancient Roman wedding ceremonies were finalized by breaking a cake of wheat or barley…over the bride’s head as a symbol of good fortune,” after which the bride and groom would share a few of the crumbs. I’m certain many brides were grateful when this custom (also the precursor to modern-day confetti, says Wilson) morphed into a somewhat gentler crumbling of the cake over the head. Still, both rituals are a little too similar to the disturbing contemporary trend of the bride and groom shoving wedding cake in each others’ faces. Because nothing says I love you like frosting ground up your nose.

I’m equally glad we’ve moved beyond Yorkshire’s “Bride pie” (1500s-1800s), which Wilson describes as consisting of “a large round pie containing a plump hen full of eggs, surrounded by minced meats, fruits, and nuts” and decorated with “ornate pastry emblems.” It sounds like a cross between a Turducken and a fruitcake, and the fertility symbolism is a little less than subtle. According to Wilson’s history, it wasn’t until the late 1700s that a sweet cake finished with white icing became a common part of English wedding celebrations. Continue reading →