DIY,P Weddings

I used to feel bad whenever I looked at pictures of perfect weddings where everything from the cake to the dress to the rustic wooden tables was handmade. "I'll never measure up to that," I thought. "I don't even own a glue gun. And I've given up trying to figure out what Mod Podge is."

Are you FREAKING KIDDING ME?!

Then I figured out their tricks. These charming soirees look professional because they are professional. It's all in what you leave out.

"The invitations were made by the groom [who happens to be a graphic designer]!"

"Can you believe the bride's mother MADE her DRESS? [She can, because it's been her day job for thirty years.]"

"Here's how to cater your own wedding [as long as you're a professional chef with lots of friends in the catering business]!"

What about all the people who aren't creative? What if we don't have friends and family who can whip up a hand-carved ceremony arch at a moment's notice? The good, slightly wonky name of DIY has been sullied. Now it's more like Do-it-Yourself,-Professional.* I want to see a wedding featured on those blogs where everything is handmade and it's just...not quite there. Just...a little bit off. Just...kinda sad?

Well, if you want to see that, too, you only have to wait six months and ten days, because our wedding will be DIY and wonky as hell! Featuring:

• A dress made by the bride, who tends to get frustrated halfway through projects and either give up or staple things together at the last minute while sobbing!
• Invitations designed by the couple, who have decided that "pretty good handwriting" is good enough for them!
• A dessert table maybe-hopefully-we-haven't-asked-her-yet-but-please-say-yes made by the bride's sister!
• We're cheating on this one. She makes some bangin' cakes and is training to be a professional chef. But you'll be able to tell which desserts we helped with.
• Flowers arranged by the Ladies, who don't know yet that my bridal shower is really just a ruse to force them into manual labor!
• Decorations that rely a little too much on my skills with scissors!

*Good one, Carrie. Thanks, guys.


Images via Once Wed, Gizmopod.

Flars

I don't get them.

Well, I get them, in that sometimes I bring them home from the store and watch them die. I acquire, but I do not understand. Specifically, I don't understand what makes a good arrangement or a bad arrangement. All I know is that I don't want a bouquet that looks like a lollipop, and I may have certain sekrit bouquet plans in store.

BUT! This post is not about bouquets. This is about centerpieces.

What do you guys think about just tossing flowers onto the tables Easter Beagle-style?

Images via Flickr and Most Sacred Heart School. Suck it, Sorta-Sacred Heart.

The Dress

I don't wish to alarm you, but I am making my own wedding dress.

I'll just wait here until you recover.

....

Better? Very good. Let's continue by addressing some questions you may have.

Q: Why are you doing this? Don't you know there are stores?
A:  Being a human person, I do know about stores. As for why, I just want to. Ain't no thang.

Q: No, but did you know that there are stores that sell wedding dresses? Already made? 
A:   . . .

Q: As in, like, you don't have to make it yourself. They'll make it for you, and you just have to buy it.
A: Oh, that's what you mean by store!

Q: YES!! Oh, good, you do understand.
A:  Yep, but I'm still making the dress.

Q: Well, I just don't see why. This is the most special dress of your life. Why would you want it to look . . . homemade?
A:  Why wouldn't I? This dress will look exactly the way I want. I have unusual taste and once lamented a sold-out pair of shoes by saying, "Those were the perfect shoes. Every other shoe is ugly." Homemade is the way to go for me.

Q: Is this about money? Because you could probably make a Kickstarter or something if you need money for a real wedding dress. I'll donate. I'll tell my friends to donate, too. You CANNOT wear a dress you made yourself.
A:  It's a little bit about money, but more about my need for control, probably. My dress might look a little bit wonky, but it will be stitched with looove.

Q: But what if it looks hideous?
A:  Then I'll wrap myself in a bed sheet with a toilet paper sash. But that's for me to have stress dreams about. Don't you fret, little one.

Q: You're crazy.
A:  Whatevs, man.




Image via Jenny Trout.

Getting Stuff Done

We're officially past the seven-month mark. It's at the point where we've finished booking our big vendors, figured out most of our ideas, and we're actually starting to do things with our hands, like clicking on songs to make into a playlist, and shopping for antique knick knacks to use as table decorations. With our hands.

The music is my #3 priority, right after getting married and eating tacos. No, wait - it might be above tacos. Just barely. 

Making a wedding playlist is turning out to be much harder than I thought it would be, though. I want to include every song I love, but they aren't all necessarily appropriate for a wedding. I have to rein myself in so that I don't end up the only person on the dance floor, shakin' it to "No Scrubs."

Which would be fine. I require a lot of space to really get down.

Still, I do want other people to dance. With that in mind, I'm doing my very best to craft a playlist that will captivate guests, draw them to the dance floor, and force them to bust all of their moves. It'll be the pied piper of wedding playlists. Some people will say that a playlist needs a few slow jamz, that you should give your guests a break to breathe and drink water, but I think the best playlist challenges dancers. Our wedding will be a grueling test of physical endurance fueled by David Bowie and Wham!

You should probably start training now.

Although it's probably foolish not to include a few duds. If every song's a winner, when do you take a bathroom break?

Right now we have 220 songs - over 12 hours of music. That's just on the "Dancing" playlist. Now I'm faced with the sad task of cutting down our most precious songs. To help with this task, I have developed a set of criteria for choosing which songs make the cut and which get the ax. Because making things needlessly complicated with a list of arbitrary rules is my specialty.

Here's how it goes:

Thank you all for coming, all 220 of you. Before we begin, I'd like to say that you are all great. If you weren't, you wouldn't have made it this far. That being said, we're having a five-hour reception, so we can only feature about a third of you. I'm going to have you come in one at a time and just ask you a few questions to see how well we mesh. If we still have too many songs after the initial interview, we will proceed to a dance-off to determine real-world danceability, emotional response, and ease of singing along. I'm looking at you, Shaggy. Again, thank you all for your participation. Roxanne, why don't we start with you?

1. Can we dance to you? The answer to all of them, so far, has been yes. We can, and do, dance to anything.
2. Can normal people dance to you? No? Please step over here to the cocktail hour playlist.
3. Will our guests be able to sing along to you? I'm not much help at this. I know the words to every oldies song and most other songs, too. I even sing along to songs I've never heard before.* We may need to round up a population sample to test lyric familiarity.
4. Are you played out or have you circled around to retro? Is it a legal requirement to play "Single Ladies" at every wedding?
5. Are we including you out of a sense of obligation? I knew Bill was the one because he agreed that "ABC" by the Jackson 5 is overrated. 
6. Will people enjoy listening to you even when they're not dancing? This is helping to eliminate a lot of pop songs.
7. Are you by Bruce Springsteen? A lot of New Jerseyans will be there. We probably need to include at least one Springsteen song.
8. Are you the Cupid Shuffle or the Cha Cha Slide? Please leave.
9. Do you contain any swear words or inappropriate subject matter? This isn't make-or-break, but if it's a choice between two equally catchy songs, we'll go with the one that won't make my little sister blush. At least before 11. After that, the disco ball switches on and WEDDING AFTER DARK begins.
10. Will we be embarrassed when you come on? Is it socially acceptable to play Taylor Swift in mixed company? 
11. Are you too cheesy? This is such a fine line. Is "Take My Breath Away" an emotional treasure or a gag-fest?! I can't tell anymore. Please help.
12. Does Bill hate you, even though you are obviously a masterpiece of musical creation? Fine. Some people have no taste. I guess I'll just have to play you every morning when Bill wakes up, ABBA's Greatest Hits.
13. Do I hate you, even though Bill says you're "like really good," or whatever? Get outta here, "Double Dutch Bus."
14. Does your sick beat override all other concerns? Well done. You win.

I've had to get tough with these songs. They think they all have what it takes, but not everyone can be a star. Still, it's tearing up my heart. My achy breaky heart. 

"Good bye, old friend," I whisper, the sadness of a thousand ages weighing on me as I click "Delete" on my Spotify. "Please pick up an iTunes gift card on your way out. They'll verify parking at the front desk."



*IT'S A GIFT AND A CURSE!

SAVE THE DATE!

Yo, are these necessary? Can we just post something on Facebook that says, "WEDDING. OCTOBER 10. CLEAR YOUR SCHEDULE JUST IN CASE YOU'RE INVITED."

It would definitely be easier, but that's a fine line to walk between being exclusive and being mean.

Actually, mean would be if we added, "STILL DECIDING ON THE GUEST LIST. SEND US A PRESENT AND WE'LL DECIDE IF IT'S WORTH $75 A HEAD."

Which is an arbitrary number, of course. We're having tacos, which are basically a natural resource.



Image via imgfave.

I AM GETTING SO MAD ABOUT MY PERFECT DAY

in that don't want it to be perfect. I don't care about it being perfect.

Despite my long obsession with weddings, I've never had a clear picture of what I wanted my own wedding to be like. All I knew was that if I ever did get married - and I didn't entirely believe I would - it would have to be to a funny, strange man who would make me feel like I belonged in my own shoes. So far, so good. Beyond that, though, I hadn't a clue.

I've amassed plenty of ideas from wedding blogs and Pinterest. I could plan 18 different types of weddings if I needed to for some reason,* but I can't seem to settle on any one idea for myself, and the time is a-tickin' away.

It's stressing me out in weird ways. My appetite's changed. Not lessened, just . . . I don't like some foods as much anymore, like whole grains. And soup.

I have a tried-and-true approach to big projects like this: I procrastinate until the 11th hour, grasp at whatever idea seems halfway plausible, and, after several frantic hours and at least one crying jag, end up with a result that's somewhere between "not that shoddy" and "almost decent." But with this wedding, so many other people are involved in the planning and invested in the outcome. They want to know the details as we go; they check in on my progress. (This is exactly why I quit work. Now I'm my own boss, and free to submit sub-par work just as I've always done.) Everyone's so supportive and excited for us that I don't want to let them down. They all want me to have the wedding of my dreams, but I don't think my dream wedding is turning out to be all that impressive. When I talk about what I want, people say things like, "Are you sure? You can do anything you want. Anything in the whole world. You're sure? Well, okay."

Your funeral, they probably add silently. But it's not my funeral. It's my wedding. And if anyone thinks I wouldn't have a funeral-themed wedding, they are sorely mistaken.

It's taking me a while to understand and accept this about myself. After spending so many years reading wedding magazines and blogs, I would expect myself to have bigger aspirations for a wedding. But really, it's just the couples I like to see, the maniacal glee splashed across their faces as they celebrate being married to each other. I thought I was obsessed with wedding details, but really I'm obsessed with love. I try to understand the importance and transformation of a wedding through the pictures, but I guess it's not something I'll get until I go through it. That's my way.

'Cause I'm a big old sap.

Still, a wedding does need some Things, and so I've been tearing apart the Internet trying to find the perfect dress. The honest truth is, though, that I don't care about the perfect dress.

That's not true. I just can't find a dress I like, and it's making me into a crazy person. I want to be all post-modernist zen bride and pull off an effortlessly cool, chic wedding while waving a dismissive hand at such  petty things as table settings and shoes and . . . hair brushes, or whatever, but I'm not quite there yet. I'm a perfectionist, but the part of me that really doesn't care what dress I wear, the messy, easygoing part that just wants to get married and hang out with my family and friends, is starting to fight back against the perfectionist part. I would narrate the fight like a wrestling match, but I really never watched that much wrestling, except for part of a weigh-in that was on TV a couple weeks ago at a Tex-Mex restaurant in Austin. I thought it was pretty intense. So here's a picture of a wrestler, and you can fill in the commentary yourself:

Intrigue!

If it were somebody else's wedding, it would be easier to plan it.** Maybe we should start a wedding planning exchange: I'll plan yours, you plan mine. All of you. Every citizen of the Internet. Tell me all your best and weirdest ideas and we'll mix them up in a great melting pot - just like America! - and come up with the wedding equivalent of a first grader's diorama.

Those were always the worst. Nobody can make a good diorama.

Except for Brooke.

. . .

Whatever.

I don't even care.



*Like if there's a wedding planning competition but the mean contestant drops out at the last minute and I'm the only one who can step in, even though I retired years ago and claim to be content in my new life of knitting life-size llamas out of alpaca fur and miniature alpacas out of goat beards, but it's obvious that I miss the competitive wedding planning game, so my quirky wedding planning staff has to re-train me in a montage set to some Cyndi Lauper song, and even though it's only five hours before the big competition we manage to pull off a last-minute coup with a surprise entry, the bold yet folksy Oregon Trail-themed wedding that leads us to victory!

**Like if there were a second wedding planning competition, where the ragtag bunch of misfits in the wedding planning staff has to band together one last time to defend our title against the uppity youths who think they're so much better than us, probably with an idea so crazy it just might work - like a wedding-themed wedding where the DJ only plays Cyndi Lauper songs - that will once again lead us to victory!


Image via Arsenalia.

The Registry

I've been assembling our registry. Bit by by bit, I've dragged pizza stones and pillow cases back to our little registry cave where I crouch atop a hoard of home furnishings to count my silverware, cackling like a loon.*

We're using Zola, which lets us add items from any site in the whole, wide Internet. It's a little overwhelming and probably gives us a bit too much freedom. Why worry about hand towels when we can register for enough plastic balls to make our future home into a giant ball pit? WHO NEEDS PLATES, MAN? WE'RE GETTING A GENUINE LIFE-SIZE REPLICA OF A TRICERATOPS TO USE AS A COUCH AND A BED AND PROBABLY ALL OUR OTHER FURNITURE TOO BECAUSE TRICERATOPS WERE HUGE.

But then there's all the finery, the dainty fripperies that make me feel like a demure, young doe just by looking at them. What a sacred moment in a woman's life, carefully selecting all the items with which to keep her future home, amirite? Won't I feel better about myself if I can wipe my mouth on a linen napkin? Won't I have more friends if I can offer them a cold beverage out of a crystal pitcher? Don't I deserve a stand mixer and 12 sets of fine china just because I'm getting married?

No.

We do not need marble egg cups. We do not need cunning little latte bowls all the colors of the ocean. In fact, we do not need anything that can be described as "cunning." We definitely don't need a rustic, porcelain salt cellar from France with lilies of the valley etched so charmingly on the side. And I don't think my weird pining for kitchen goods should be encouraged.

Since I know you wanted to find out some boring facts about registries, I'll indulge you:

Wedding gifts are the new dowry. It used to be that the bride's family negotiated the terms of the dowry at the time of the engagement, and the bride would add her own clothes, linens, doilies, and some other stuff from her hope chest. She'd either have made or been given these things by her family, and the couple would use them in their home along with the goats and the sack of gold provided by the father of the bride. After a while, bridal showers provided an opportunity for womenfolk to contribute little gifts. Then in 1924, the department store Marshall Field's came up with the idea for registries as we know them today: an antiquated piece of etiquette that couples mention before awkwardly admitting, "But we'd really prefer cash, if it's all the same to you?"

I'm being harsh. I love tradition - and wedding traditions in particular, because they're so transient. If all goes well, I'll only be at the center of them once. Not everyone gets to experience being a bride. I feel like a third grader visiting Colonial Williamsburg: I get to put on a quaint costume for a year** and experience a different way of life - not one of churning butter, maybe (we'll see), but of pale pink roses and strings of pearls and superstitious rhymes about spiders in your dress and stuff. But under that, I'm still myself, so it's also one of tacos and shenanigans and NO SPIDERS ANYWHERE NEAR ME I DON'T CARE HOW LUCKY IT IS.

Planning this wedding has been a battle between my love of wedding traditions and my desire to be a good feminist and human being. A good person would probably forego anything materialistic and ask that guests donate to charity, instead. Which is fine, but if we register at Williams-Sonoma, we get to use one of those scanner guns. We'll probably pick out a teak cutting board and some oyster forks while we're there, because we don't know that the queen will never come to visit. I even referred to a book published in 1970 called Happy Living for New Homemakers while picking out table settings. I ain't even ashamed.

But neither Bill nor I cares about actually getting the things. The gifts themselves don't matter; it's the sentiment of a community supporting a couple and helping them build a life together. It's fun to do some of the bride stuff, but traditions don't have any intrinsic meaning. After the wedding, we're still going to be us, just with nicer stuff, maybe.

I think.

I dunno, I've never gotten married before.

Personally, I like the old Scottish tradition of couples going around to all their neighbors' houses and picking one possession from each to furnish their new home. If we still did that, I'd just take any old paintings I could find of severe-looking, dead relatives, and then pocket some jewelry from all the other places.

Treat. Yo. Self.

Then we'd haul our loot back to our little cave and live quite comfortably indeed, just like it says in Happy Living for New Homemakers.



* In other news, I quit my office job to do transcription from home. Things get a little weird when I'm not required to put on pants in the morning.
** Then I take that off and put on my wife costume, which I wear UNTIL ONE OF US DIES. Then I either put on my corpse outfit, or it's WIDOW'S WEEDS 4LYFE!!


Images via ImproveMe and Twitter.

Ladies. You're Welcome.

If you've been following your Bridal Workout Regimen, you should be well on your way to having a wedding-ready bod. But to make sure you're flawless from head to toe, you've got to work out above the neck, too. Perform these exercises twice a day, preferably on your commute to and from work, and you'll have the chin of and jowls of a pre-teen in no time!