Ordinary Saturdays

Blogfriends, it's time.  The eventual wedding is over.  Time to move on.  Within a few weeks I will have pictures to illustrate my wedding stories, which may be where I leave some of you.  For the few of you interested in life after wedding, it starts with a wedding-day story.

I mentioned before that DJ and I wrote letters to each other, to be kept secret and read at the ceremony by friends of ours.  Our officiant kept his homily a surprise as well.  We, along with many well-wishing cards, referenced the same idea.  We all fixed on the same thought, a theme that came first from DJ's proposal.  Ring in hand, he said that loved our ordinary Saturdays, and asked me to spend mine with him.

So, of course.  Ordinary Saturdays.  The next chapter in my bad-neighboring, bacon-eating, project-starting, fun-running, recipe-ignoring life.  See you there?

worth it

Over 21 months of planning, I don't know how many married women told me that they should have eloped. Too much trouble, didn't turn out like they wanted, etc. It makes you wonder if the wedding is really worth it.

Sure, if DJ and I had eloped we would be just as married as we are now. (whee!) But if you're in the throes of catering decisions and floral insecurities, know that the party may be worth it. Really worth it.

(photo from a guest with my camera)

Here I am, dancing with Kid A. My older-younger brother. He is not always well enough to dance, and that night he was all over the dance floor. In all of the problems and trials of life, there we are - dancing badly, kids shaking off joyful energy. So, it's worth it. It might be. I hope it is for you, it was for me.

yes I said yes I will Yes

We're married! (To each other, as DJ likes to clarify.) It was absolutely wonderful, I wouldn't change a thing.

(Snapshot from my camera, probably taken by a bridesmaid.)

DIY flowers: I did it!

At 9:30 in the morning the FedEx guy wished me a happy marriage. He left three boxes; two deceptively narrow, one the size of a small coffin.

Thirteen hours later...
(There are a few more pieces, including one big mama of a bouquet for me.) I'll tell you all about it in a week or so. I'm off to get married! I have had such a good time at EAD, getting advice about veils and family struggles and enjoying all of your ideas. After 21 months of I have an idea and I think I could make that, it's all happening!

Although, at the moment I am most excited about handing my bouquet to Katie so I can hold DJ's hands. Walking back down the aisle together. Sneaking glances at his hand with a ring on it. Doing the stand-and-sway to a sappy song. Celebrating a life ten years in the making, and worth every minute.

words of love

During our ceremony, two of our friends (a happily married couple) will read letters that DJ and I have written to/about each other. She will read what I wrote, he will read what DJ wrote. We are not sharing our letters with each other before the ceremony, so it might be a very nice and genuine moment.

But then we had this discussion over e-mail.

Me: I’m excited to hear what you wrote. Unless you are going to have {friend} get up there and yell WHO FANCY NOW! Because that would be stealing my idea.
DJ: You can have “Who fancy now.” {Friend} is going to holler “Who gonna check me, boo?” and do the head shake thing that goes with it.

We are a very romantic couple.

Julia gets help

I am the girl with all of the projects. I haven't even told you about some of them yet because I was afraid. We have friends and family to help, but I wasn't sure how smoothly that would run without some serious planning from me. I've actually ranked them so that some could be jettisoned from the plan, if necessary.

A few weeks ago DJ's mom (who early on volunteered to coordinate the day) admitted that she was worried. Worried that she wouldn't be able to see the ceremony from inside the barn. Our ceremony is (knock on wood) outdoors. DJ's mom. This was not okay! Our wedding was turning into a Cindermama situation, which is a lousy way to start with the in-laws.

Fortunately I'd been talking to Elizabeth of Anticipation Events in Chicago. The first thing I knew about her was that she writes a really friendly, professional e-mail. The second thing was that her resume is impressive. I mean, really impressive. Don't take my word for it, go look. I'm sure it's true, she also gave me references. References. She's done some big stuff, my little wedding is not going to be any challenge. (Although I did send her a five page document of instructions. I was honestly surprised to hear from her after that, but I did - less than a day later.)

She made the haul out to see the Barn on a Saturday, to take notes and ask astute questions, and I feel so much better now. I mentioned lemons, she said to bring a knife and she'd chop them. I mentioned candles, she asked if I knew the burn time. Love that. It took her a matter of minutes to charm the socks off the Barn's manager, who tends to be... not charming.

I've held off on talking about most of my vendors until I see how it goes. I'd rather not mention them if it goes badly, you know. But Elizabeth already did half of her job - I feel relaxed and excited. Full of anticipation, like the name says.

Anyway, I'd like to do something nice for Elizabeth. If you were my day of coordinator, what sort of gesture of appreciation would make you forget the five-page e-mail?

Captain Jack

Last week DJ and I met with our officiant. Actually, we took our officiant and his wife out for sushi, since they're our friends. Our friend/officiant always reminds me vaguely of Captain Jack Harkness.
So, Captain Jack. We asked him to do the job partly because of his stage voice, but also because he and his wife seem to like being married.

He's really enthusiastic about officiating, which was surprising and awesome. He already had a tabbed file of ideas, sample ceremony orders, and instructions for obtaining a marriage license. After going through an online ordination process (type credit card, print certificate) he called the Lake County offices to find out what paperwork they needed to legally recognize him.

And... nothing. Apparently unless someone challenges his authority to perform weddings, it's all good. Even better, if at least one of the parties being married believes he has the authority, it's a valid marriage. Cool! I believe, I do.

Anyone else having a friend officiate? Any stories, advice, warnings?

moss escort card display

I love when things turn out exactly as I had pictured them. This one was a little iffy, all the way until it was finished. It turned out much girlier than I anticipated, but so far DJ does not seem to mind. The moss and girliness makes me think of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden.

I ordered moss on eBay, with no idea what the color or texture might be - or even quantity. I'd recommend the seller I used, although he never did respond to my questions before buying. But it was delivered quickly and packed well.

Quick note on moss: I ordered the dyed green variety, and it is a perfect forest/hunter green. The natural moss would be better for a silvery or sage-y color scheme. It's hard to say exactly what the coverage of a box of moss is, but I used about 1/3 of a box for the bulletin board.

The base is a (thrifted!) bulletin board, the frame painted with pewter-y art paint. I attached the moss using little dots of hot glue. Not too many and not too close together, because I was afraid that too much glue would make it hard for the corsage pins to hold. The moss sort of sticks together on its own, so I didn't need a ton of glue.

That's one of the escord card envelopes, tacked on there with a pearl-headed corsage pin. I went a little embellishment crazy with silk flowers and ribbon. There's a trick to the flowers. Pop the heads off the stems, then insert the head of a sewing pin into the hole left by the stem. Instant flower on a pin. (Yes, I'm sort of embarrassed about the state of our dining/crafting table. I'm a terrible housekeeper.)

The whole thing is sitting on a 12" plate stand from Michaels. It's pretty stable, but if you're trying to fit more than 40 cards then two boards would be better.

tall and taller

These are my brothers. Both younger, both taller. And that is saying a lot. We are a tall family.

They are going to walk me down the aisle. One on each side, like a hustle maneuver. I am counting on the broad comedy to keep me from sobbing my face off.

The left (younger) one lived with DJ and me for a while. He's a good kid, and although he lives practically across the street now I often miss him.

The right (older) one is graduating from college in a few weeks. He was home from school a few weeks ago and my mom found this teeny tiny bowtie he used to wear when he was a baby, which he obligingly modeled. Things are taller now.

I'm lucky to have them. I don't have much of a dad, and although I'm willing to walk myself I like it better this way.

wedding data collection

It is worth noting that actual empty, clean baby food jars cost practically nothing. Pennies, each. However, the shipping...

I'm in an abstract phase of projects and planning right now. For one, it's mostly projects. For another, the projects are sublime: Buy baby food jars. Paint a perfectly good mailbox "pewter." (Is that even a color?) Hem seven yards of muslin so it can be called a tablecloth, for the exclusive-to-weddings "head table."

Eventually I will photograph all of these things, and at some point they may even make sense outside of my head. But in month -5 it's all abstract.

six

DJ and I both have calendar counters on our iGoogle pages. Mine says "0 years 6 months 0 days." His says "183 days: 9 hours: 16 minutes: 35 seconds."

We like a slightly different level of detail.

generous gifts

Not all handmade, off-registry gifts are bad. Most are very, very good! (I think of the registry as a tool of convenience, especially for people who don't know us well.) A good friend of mine is working on one right now. She is a very talented artist and calligrapher - back when I was in college I watched her gesso and gold leaf a ketubah, and didn't THAT make me wish I were Jewish. Her work is really amazing.

Anyway, she offered to calligraph addresses on all the invitations. So a few weeks ago I sent off the envelopes and guest list. When they come back they'll be ready to go, and much prettier than my chicken scratch. She also offered to match the ink to the green invitation print, and she'd have stuffed the envelopes too if I weren't such a lousy little control freak.

DJ and I didn't register for calligraphy, but isn't that a fantastic present?

gold/ivory/champagne dress no. 1

On a more positive note, Maid of Honor Katie bought her dress last week! She took the dress shopping very seriously, which made me feel a little guilty when we stood in the dressing room discussing whether this particular shade of ivory was ivory enough. But it looks amazing on her, and it's really a great dress.
This picture is snagged from the Adrianna Papell website, since I still can't seem to find it for sale anywhere online. It's a really cool jacquard texture, with champagne pearl beading around the neckline and a great pleated skirt.

She hasn't started looking for shoes yet. Any suggestions to help her get started?

paperstorm

I've been holding out on you. While stewing over my broken sewing machine and the incomplete chair covers, I fidgeted my way through some paper.Yep. Those are book cover seating cards, a circular hole punch, and a pile of paper scrap.

From punching these, which make me delightfully happy. Since this photo was taken they've been made into stickers. The *smooch* *mwah* *kisskiss* ones are for the outside of the cookie favors, and the Grandma Julia ones will go inside the boxes. Because I know I would be suspicious of a cookie whose genus and species was not immediately apparent.
Place/escort card with the envelope, which looks brown here but is actually more of a dark gold. There's a difference between place and escord cards I know, but I'm too lazy to look it up so I don't know which I have here. Everyone will be offended by their table assignment if they look for hidden meaning, but really the books we chose are our joint favorites. No subtext. (Although we did rule out David Sedaris' Naked because of the grannies.)

The books we used are not necessarily the ones pictured, but the titles are the same: One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Catcher in the Rye, Cathedral, A Confederacy of Dunces, The Corrections, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, The Great Gatsby, Not the End of the World, and Where the Wild Things Are. The head table, which is headslappingly obvious (but took me until last week to a-ha) will be The Princess Bride.

check us out

I'm going to sneak back in here like nothing happened and I didn't fall off the face of the internet for two weeks. So! What you see up there is a guestbook. Ideally the album will be different, but in a pinch that blue-green Kolo album will do. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that DJ will get to meet our photographer this spring, and along the way I'll get to make a book of "engagement" pictures. A year and a half post-engagement, but I haven't aged a bit! Really!

Anyway, this fits the very loose book theme. I printed Creature Comforts' library card templates, then cut them out while watching some really trashy television. There's a corresponding pocket template which was very tempting, but for once I decided to go with something premade and ordered pockets from Amazon. I'd check this project off the list - but it never made it to the list at all.

(Chair covers? What chair covers? The ones that broke my sewing machine? We're not talking about those right now.)

great big beautiful doll

So. Um. If you don't already think I'm weird and a little Miss-Havisham-crazy, now you will. I have mannequins. Two, plus my wire dressmaker's form. They have names and sit in our living room just like any statue or lamp. Seriously, the things DJ tolerates.

This one's name is Jesse Ventura. My little brother gave her to me for Christmas several years ago. She's a retired Victoria's Secret mannequin. In her heyday, they called her The Body. But now we call her Gov. Yes, I think I'm hilarious.
She's going to be at the eventual wedding. In our faux-photobooth, along with our other mannequin. He's a pants model named Legs, you'll meet him later. DJ and I thought it would be fun to give people something silly for posing, and what better than the mannequins? So, she needs an outfit. While vintage shopping last weekend, we bought her two dresses. Option one is above, a teal foiled damask sheath with a high collar. Very mother of the bride, c. 1968. Also appropriate for daywear in our living room.
Option two is this pink ruffled tulle prom dress. I LOVE this one. But is it too much? How would you feel about posing with your arm around this pile of crazy?

reference library

So, about those table "numbers." I wish I could take credit for the idea, but I can't. Like many of my favorite details, it wasn't my idea at all. This one came from my maid of honor, Katie. Katie and Chloe are equally the best friends I could hope to have, but I'm pretty sure that Chloe understands that putting up with me for eleven years has earned Katie any honors, medals, or oversized checks that come along.

Anyway, the "numbers" won't be numbers at all, but book covers. DJ and I are bookish people. Many of our books are duplicates because we each like reading our very own version of A Confederacy of Dunces or The Corrections and think it's perfectly reasonable to shelve both copies. We met in a library, people. And this is a totally unposed photo.We're not exactly having a book-themed wedding, but I do like the reference. So each table will be designated by the cover of a book, all books that we particularly like for one reason or another.

I've collected jpgs online by doing image searches, which I'll size before printing and backing with green cardstock. Maybe there'll be some Gocco action if I don't burn out on projects by then, but no promises.

It could be worse. We could have decided on using the Dewey Decimal System. I did consider it, but I think the same three people would have to explain it to everyone else and the fun would be lost.

it's my day!

I have sort of the ideal situation, planning this wedding. DJ doesn't seem to mind that I hog all the fun, creative jobs for myself - even though he gets stuck with the things I don't want to do. Like call caterers, block hotel rooms, and negotiate contracts. Most of our friends know that this is actually a joint effort, so I can't really get away with taking all the credit.

But this time there's no way around it. This is all me, this would never in a million years have been DJ's idea. (Though he still seems not to mind.) These are porcelain rosebud placecard holders, snagged from my grandma's vast entertaining horde when she downsized from house to condo a few years ago. She was quite the hostess in her day. There were a few cards in the box with names I didn't know.
There are twelve of them, enough to use one on each table to hold the table "number." Which will not be numbers at all, but that's another story for a different day.

hours available

Earlier today I requested my vacation time before and after the wedding. My boss asked if it was starting to feel close, and I had to think about it. Eight months is a long time, but if you chop it up into things that need doing - yeah, it's going to sneak up on me.

I guess I'm not too nervous yet, because guess who started procrastinating? Me! We're still holding steady at 65 chair covers, but I rearranged much of our kitchen storage over the weekend. Priorities!

when I'm 6465

When friends ask how the wedding planning is going, I usually don't report the number of chair covers sewn to date. But that is in fact most of the planning at the moment. I'm in such terror of running out the clock on these that I intend to have them finished even before the invitations are ready. Post-traumatic 4-H syndrome, maybe. I have a few too many memories of knitting all.night.long before the county fair due to a bad combination of procrastination and motivated mother.


But since you asked (you did, didn't you?), I currently have 65 covers sewn, pressed, and hung neatly in my closet. Just 16 to go, plus the runners. I may make another nine in case of overflow. DJ's dad was over on Saturday to have a look at our aged bathroom fans, and I caught a look of terror in his eye as I hung them in sets for each table. Girl, he said around bites of coffee cake, You're crazy.


I guess all those acrylic vests taught me something - it hurts more when you're under the gun. Maybe two things, if you include avoiding acrylic vests.