Joel and I went to a wedding last weekend that was everything the WIC* tells you an elegant wedding should be. The Save the Dates were on multiple layers of elegant pearl finished cardstock, with a cute little story and hand drawn artistic pictures (I thought they were the invitations when the envelope came in the mail). The invitation itself was multiple layers of the same pearl finished cardstock in pastel colors, with what appeared to be hand painted flowers around the edges. It had a pocket, and was wrapped in lace and ribbon with a square seal featuring the Bride and Groom's initials.

The wedding itself featured four violinists, bridesmaids in matching dresses, and programs** that matched the invitations. The reception was at a fancy restaurant on top of a hill, overlooking the city, and began with cocktails and signature drinks. It moved inside and there were several courses, champagne for the toasts and wine with the meal, cake and a candy bar. The tables had pearlized tablecloths with gorgeous floral centerpieces*** in the center, a mass of pink and peach roses and flowers atop a crystal type candelabra with votive candles. There was a three tier cake, beautifully decorated with fresh flowers, a candy bar, and chocolates on the table****. The dance floor had all kinds of fancy lighting, and the couples names were displayed in lights over the fireplace. It was lovely and elegant.

I feel like this is what the WIC tells women they should want. A lovely, elegant, expensive wedding. It was a lovely, elegant (and expensive) wedding. And yet I am so glad it was not our wedding. I would not trade any detail of our wedding for theirs. Actually, I felt a little sorry for them, because their minister preached a kind of crazy sermon, the wedding was so small and there were so few people there, the DJ was kind of horrible at times, and the dancing was lackluster.

At some point during all the wedding planning, I ran across a website that suggested one consider one's dream wedding, and from there see what elements to keep or abandon. I considered this for a few minutes, and realized that I was already planning one wedding, and didn't have the space in my head to plan a "dream wedding." If we'd had a bigger budget, would we have done things differently? Probably. But we didn't, and I didn't second guess myself. We had the wedding that was right for us, and had some of the Wedding Magic that I really thought only happened in the movies. I might have thought, before planning a wedding, that I wanted a fancy and elegant wedding, but when we planned our wedding I found just the quirky, fun, and occasionally elegant wedding that I did want. And I'm glad I didn't listen to much to the WIC and gave up things I didn't actually care about, like real plates and silverware and steak.

So, it turns out that I can enjoy a fancy, elegant wedding without being jealous (in fact, I secretly believe our wedding was better, but am also totally relieved that it is over and done with and we can get on with being married).


*Wedding Industrial Complex (coined by A Practical Wedding, and it perfectly describes how the Wedding Industry tells you it is about Having All the Things)

**The programs were kind of useless, because the minister completely ignored the order of service and jumped all over the place and skipped some things. These things happen.

**I ended up taking the one from our table home, where, lacking vases, I cut off all the stems and put the flowers in a six quart pot and a two quart pot, where they made our apartment smell deliciously of roses. Yes, that many flowers for one table, and there were fourteen tables.

****If you must have favors, chocolate is totally the way to go. They gave us *truffles* (I might have snuck a few extra).

To sum up, I am now incredibly sympathetic to anyone getting married. I've been there (it feels like we were just there, but the reality is that we've been married for a little over six months, and were engaged for exactly six months). So, while I'm still snarky (I don't think there is anything in the world that could stop me from being snarky), I'm more understanding and less judgmental.

I think, now, that there are really only two things that make a happy wedding. First, it has to be a happy thing that the couple is getting married. I've been to a wedding where I thought the couple made some poor choices, or was really rushing into things, and that makes it less happy. Secondly, the couple has to be nice on the wedding day. I've never been to a wedding where they weren't. The couple may have been stressed, but there have been no crazy tantrums (or general craziness, like the wedding Joel went to where the money dance had a credit card reader, which I find past the boundary of good taste). But with those two things, I will have a splendid time as a wedding guest. The rest of the details matter, but not that much.

I went to a wedding a month or two ago for one of Joel's friends. It was really simple. An afternoon church service followed by a reception on the church patio with cupcakes and snacks. And yes, I did notice that the wedding invitations had multiple spelling errors. I mostly just felt sorry for the couple because I know it could easily have happened to me, which is why I obsessively had multiple people check the invitations. Oh, there was also the moment where everyone was supposed to sing a song on the screen, but nothing was there for the entire song (which didn't even have a repeating chorus). We talked about it (there were many friends there), but mostly everyone found it amusing and then spent more time wishing that we were allowed in the bounce house (it was kids only). There were certainly things that could have been done better, but there always are.

I find that I'm sympathetic to the brides and grooms that are trying to plan a wedding and finding it stressful instead of blissful, and having to juggle what they want with what they've been told to want with what everyone else seems to want. And more and more with all the details I'm not judgmental, because I'm finding that while I wouldn't have listed the places we were registered on the wedding invitation, or done a wedding invitation in shades of pink and floral, it's not bad that someone else has. It's not going to stop me from going to the wedding or wishing them well. It makes me very happy with what Joel and I chose to do, because it was perfect for us. I may secretly think it was the best way of doing things, but I actually understand that other people have the wedding that is right for them.

I post this every year, because I find it so good for my soul.



GOOD-FRIDAY, 1613, RIDING WESTWARD.
by John Donne


LET man's soul be a sphere, and then, in this,
Th' intelligence that moves, devotion is;
And as the other spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a year their natural form obey;
Pleasure or business, so, our souls admit
For their first mover, and are whirl'd by it.
Hence is't, that I am carried towards the west,
This day, when my soul's form bends to the East.
There I should see a Sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget.
But that Christ on His cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for me.
Who sees Gods face, that is self-life, must die;
What a death were it then to see God die?
It made His own lieutenant, Nature, shrink,
It made His footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I behold those hands, which span the poles
And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes?
Could I behold that endless height, which is
Zenith to us and our antipodes,
Humbled below us or that blood, which is
The seat of all our soul's, if not of His,
Made dirt of dust, or that flesh which was worn
By God for His apparel, ragg'd and torn?
If on these things I durst not look, durst I
On His distressed Mother cast mine eye,
Who was God's partner here, and furnish'd thus
Half of that sacrifice which ransom'd us?
Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They're present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and Thou look'st towards me,
O Saviour, as Thou hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee but to receive
Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me worth Thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rust, and my deformity;
Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou mayst know me, and I'll turn my face.

Some interesting thoughts here on the Legos currently being marketed to girls. I agree with a lot of what these videos say. Legos really ought to be a gender neutral toy. They are essentially about building and being creative, and with a little effort the current Legos would probably appeal to most girls. I know I would have liked medieval Legos growing up (I was into the Robin Hood set), and a few more female mini-figures (preferably less with the lipstick).

Today is Ash Wednesday. I always go to church on Ash Wednesday to receive the imposition of ashes. I like it. I like the remembrance of the church of our mortality. I like Lent, and I like thinking about the beginning of Lent. I like reading T.S. Eliot's poem Ash Wednesday. But today I'm not going to church. I'm staying home because I'm still sick and church is forty five minutes away without traffic, and given the service times, there will be traffic. This makes me sad because it is one of those little traditions that I don't break. It is Ash Wednesday, and I want to be at church, because it is so centering before Lent. I like Lent, because it is preparation for Easter. It is one of the dark times in the church calender in preparation for a celebration, and I like being in a church that recognizes the complex interplay of the dark and light times of the soul. There is fasting and preparation before the great celebration. In the liturgical calender, there are forty days of Lent, but fifty days of Easter. There are four weeks of Advent, but twelve days of Christmas.

But this Ash Wednesday I will be sitting at home watching Stargate Atlantis. It's lousy being sick.

So, I was sick this weekend (and am still feeling a little under the weather). Not sure what sort of bug I managed to catch - it felt like food poisoning, but I didn't eat anything out of the ordinary, and Joel ate the same things I did and wasn't sick. Saturday night was miserable, as I spent a lot of it throwing up and the rest of it on the couch feeling miserable. Sunday I spent feeling achey and nauseous and having a slight fever. I ate maybe five saltines the entire day. Monday I managed to have some soup and pudding, and today I'm hoping to feel well enough to take a shower.

I also learned that having Joel around when I'm sick is amazing. It's lovely having someone take care of you when you're sick. I mean, when I was home after college my mom would buy me soup if I asked for it and that sort of thing, and my roommates after I moved out were also always nice enough to offer to buy cold medicine and so on, but Joel is really good. Because moving on Sunday made me feel nauseous, he brought me saltines and water (and went out and bought saltines and apple juice because I was wanting both). And he stayed home from church just to be next to me (which, in our apartment, meant sitting on the floor next to the couch or on the chair on the other side of the room). He didn't complain at all on Monday that we were sitting around reading (and watching Secondhand Lions) instead of doing anything we'd planned to do on his day off (he heated up chicken soup for me instead).

I teased Joel a bit because of an article I read once where a man was saying how much he wanted a wife to make him chicken noodle soup when he was sick (this man apparently had lousy roommates who wouldn't pick up soup from the store on their way home, or some such, because he was complaining that he had to go to the store to buy it himself). I said that one of the reasons I got married was to have a husband to make me chicken noodle soup when I'm sick. It isn't one of the reasons, of course. But it is an awfully nice side benefit.

Every so often I read a story that I really like (and it makes worthwhile all the reading of stories that I only liked a bit or found dull). For some reason, I really liked Shades of White and Road. I'm not sure how to explain why I like it so much. It seems to perfectly capture the idea of objects desired for themselves. Of little, insignificant objects being important and wanted.

I was writing a bit recently about collateral damage and aftermath. Interestingly, the current story at Strange Horizons is called (appropriately enough) "Aftermath" and deals with what happens after a zombie apocalypse, and a cure. It is thoughtful and decently well written. Although I still don't care for stories about zombies, I liked t hat the author considered what it would be like to put all the pieces back together after, and the psychological implications of everything. You can read part one here and part two here if you're interested.

I was looking to see if there was a Kinuko Craft calendar for this year (sadly, there isn't), and the prices for the old calendars are ridiculously high. Is anyone buying them for $200 (look at the A Libris prices)? Because if they are, I'm either going to sell mine or treat it much more carefully. (Actually, I don't know that anyone would want to buy mine because I wrote in some of the boxes and treated it like an actual calendar. *gasp*)

So, I must tell you of the package of AWESOME that Charis sent us (just in time for Christmas), because I have been remiss and not told of it before.

I was all happy and bouncy to get the package, because ya'll send the best packages of awesome. They always seem to be a mix of geeky and awesome and chocolate. This was Joel's first time to receive such a package, and he was very impressed. It made both of us so very happy.

Firstly, it contained (as all the best packages do contain) very much chocolate. There was heaps and heaps of peppermint bark (Ghiradeli), which seems to have been the theme of this holiday. I have discovered that I love peppermint bark (particularly Ghiradeli). Also, I don't have to feel like I have to share, because Joel (for some strange reason) doesn't care for minty things, including peppermint. So the peppermint bark is all mine. Mmmmm. I have had to ration myself a bit to keep from eating it all at once. There was also a chocolate orange, which are very delicious and always make me think of Christmas.

There were also Star Wars candy canes. They are so geeky, and made me wish for a tree to hang them on (sadly, we did not have a Christmas tree this year, because I was sick). But what made me wish for a tree even more strongly was perhaps the best Christmas ornament ever. It is a steampunk airship, in black on white ceramic, and I love it so much. (It looks like this.) It will have a place of great honor on our tree next year.

And because Charis knows how very geeky we are, she got us Dr. Horrible things. Yay! Namely, we now have two titanium sporks (we will have to use them next time we eat frozen yogurt) and fabulous Dr. Horrible t-shirts. Mine is the "Sing Along With Dr. Horrible" t-shirt, and Joel's is the "The Status is Not Quo". We wore them for New Year's and our friends rolled their eyes at our geekiness.

Truly, a most awesome and wonderful package.