1, 2, 3...smile!

Know a photographer who's up to a challenge? 

(and available June 6, 2009) 

1, 2, 3, smile? Yeah right, for Dp and I it's more like 1, 2, 3, have a seizure. Finding a photographer who can accommodate our *cough - interesting expressive abilities - is not as easy as originally expected. We're laid back, and for the most part we're indifferent about what pictures are actually taken at the big show. We just need a photographer who can - and here is the key - catch us smiling. This should not be hard because we smile most all of the time, but ask us to pose and well...you'll see that these pictures are a more than fair representation of all the photos we have together. 

Any suggestions? 

My Inspiration Board

The logic behind the inspiration board is this: If you gather several random pictures that inspire you, make you smile, or catch your attention and lie them next to one another you will discover that the pictures are in fact, not random at all. Rather, there is a common thread throughout all the things to which you find yourself mysteriously drawn. For instance, I have a friend that has decorated her entire house solely with things that simply appealed to her. She intentionally never considered whether things matched, but somehow in the end, everything in her house fits beautifully, as if she knew all along what the final result should be.

So this is my inspiration board. I went to flickr.com and shuffled through tons of pictures picking out things that made me feel....right. As you can tell, there seems to be a color theme, I also had several pictures of night lighting, the water, piers, oak trees, cotton, and cajun food. In the end, I found that all the pictures made sense, and the inspiration board actually does its job! 

There are some other great boards by other brides on stylemepretty. Check it out - Its amazing how the groups of pictures manifest a common theme. I bet you could make a board for just about anything you choose; you could go through a magazine and tear out pictures of furniture, or kitchens, or cakes that strike you, and ask yourself what they all have in common. There will be something. I used this great info sheet to help me figure out how to make mine on photoshop. 

This may be stretching it, and I know that I may have taken this blog on a turn towards "all about me" town, but having a general "feel" that you are going for is a much safer, less stressful, much friendlier way to plan for something. i.e. Look at your inspiration board, what feeling do those pictures generate for you? How do you want your guests to feel at the end of the night, or when they first see your reception site? I have found that there are several ways to get your guests feeling excited, exhausted, and celebrated (if that's what you're going for) that don't have a thing to do with the amount of flowers on the table (or whether those flowers are the correct shade of "blush and bashful"). If I can just keep that in mind, I will come much more quickly to a healthy, balance between "getting the things every girl wants," and appropriately accommodating the needs, wisdom, and experience of others. Thereby keeping the amount of worrying I do to a minimum. 

If the mantra of a friendly affair is something like Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, then reducing stress should be no less important than reducing paper waste.

Jumping in Pools and Making Decisions

Things have been hectic recently with school and everything, but so far (and for the most part) I really enjoy thinking about the wedding. We are coming close to settling on a location for both the ceremony and the reception, with only minor complications, i.e. my dad's deep disdain for summer heat. But its best just to remind myself that hurdles happen, you can't make everyone happy (not even those dearest to you), and thats okay! So the tentative plan?

Saturday, June 6, 2009 - in the evening. Camden Presbyterian Church. Reception to follow at Daniel's family home in Oak Hill - outdoors.

Lord willing, night breezes and cold drinks to be provided in abundance.

I have almost completed the first major round of decisions (along with a color palette and atmosphere), and yet it feels weird making them...but you just have to do it. It's like jumping into a cold pool on a warm day - even though you know you want to, you're still a little shy about doing it. Daniel and I have also decided who will be our attendants (this is a colder pool on a less warm day), and we are thrilled about it. Now its time for.....creating a budget (said out loud with your most booming and intimidating voice); this is the coldest pool on an already cold day. But surprisingly I still look forward to it.

Henry Nouwen wrote that if you're exhausted and burnt out then you are not doing the will of God because God is gentle and kind. I'm not even close to exhausted, and even though making major decisions can be a little off-putting, I am far from burnt out. Ultimately, I think that means that I am still on the right track.

God is gentle and kind, and this entire process should reflect such a disposition. Right?

What is Important to DP and I?

So a quick game of catch up - and I am sure it comes at the risk of sounding like some bogus bridal magazine list - "75 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Plan the Wedding of Your Dreams!!" But I have been asking myself some questions, and I started with this one: 

What is really important to DP and I? 

Almost more important than the answer to this question are the reasons I ask it. We all know the bride who just loses it while she plans for her wedding (sub "it" for her mind, integrity, convictions, original vision, reason for having a wedding, or anything else that is true in this familiar tale). One avoidable reason that this happens I think, is because she/he never took the time to really ponder this question and then keep the answers near. I mean, you got to keep the important things before you - I think it is the reason that people wear crosses, keep pictures of their wife in the office, or sing the national anthem at ballgames - but this is just a theory. Anyways, I have already given this question a good bit of thought, so drum roll please.....

1. Entering into a covenant with the person God created for us. Obvious right? But like I said, some women (and men - lets not discriminate) can forget why they are having a wedding in the first place. Well this is it: I don't care if you wrap me in burlap and roll me down the aisle, if DP is the man waiting for me when I get there, I will be sublimely happy, without a care in the world. 
2. Having fun, but at no person's expense. You know what this means - and this can be hard. It means Go With The Flow! I know there are things that "every little girl/boy dreams about" but if it means hurting other people (child labor - ouch, your best friends life savings) or being a poor steward of what God has entrusted with us (the earth, my dad's bling) then I reckon it's best just to move on. 
3. and last but not least...throwing a party big enough to make sure everyone is well fed, well "watered," feels loved, and walks away telling stories about how great the band was. We want people heading to their car saying, "I can't believe how late I stayed, but the band was so good and I was having so much fun dancing," then someone else might say, "And did you taste how great those shrimp were?" 

**and I wouldn't mind if they were also talking about how beautiful things were like the decor, the bridesmaids ... or even the bride - wink. 

Why a Blog?

I am engaged. I find myself saying this over and over like I am trying to convince myself, and I love how my oldest friends and family react when I tell them. "Katie is engaged," they say to me, as if I'm not actually the girl about whom they are talking. About 30 seconds of silence always follows while they wait for those words to settle on them and on me. Its hard to understand why their reactions are all so similar, but the ones who have known me the longest do this (it seems) to see how my historically volatile independence will react. And the answer: I am happy. So happy. I am ecstatically engaged. Its true and its incredible...and its wild.

Now I am told that I need to plan a wedding. Some say it is a headache, a burden, an unnecessary evil - and while that may be true, I have to hold that planning a wedding is also an awesome opportunity. Which gets us closer (in part) to why I have chosen to keep a blog in the first place.

I have read a couple of different monetary figures meant to reflect the size of the American wedding industry (Fairchild Bridal Group, WeddingBrand Report, Anderson 2007). And here is what it boils down to: The amount of money spent on items and services directly associated with weddings was right at around $58.5 billion. In 2005 U.S. spending on items directly and indirectly associated with weddings was $125 billion. In 2006 there were 2.2 million weddings, with the average estimated cost of each at $26,400......breathe*breathe. If you have ever heard the phrase, "voting with your pocketbook" then maybe you are getting closer to understanding why having a wedding is actually an opportunity.

There is ultimately $125 billion circulating in the American market that reflects the voice of the bride, the groom, and the people planning their weddings. When that kind of money moves in any direction the market will respond. If the brides, the grooms, and the people planning weddings use their voice, their "vote," to demand more ecologically friendly and socially responsible products, that respect God's children and His creation, they can really make a difference. (See Emily Anderson's book EcoChic Weddings for a discussion of this)

So that is what I want to do, and that is why I have started this blog. I want my wedding to be one of integrity, simplicity, and style, that takes seriously the impact weddings and the wedding industry make on the world and its people. This is my "friendly" affair. There isn't much out there about how to do such a thing from beginning to end, and I certainly don't claim to be an expert. I just feel like I have a huge responsibility to try and understand how I can pull this off, how I can best use my vote. Over the next year I have decided to publicly plot my process from start to finish, from knowing nothing to doing something. I will keep track of resources I find and books I read. I will write about the questions I am asking myself and those inevitably tough decisions I'll have to make.

Why in blog form? Well it's not all selfless. I want to have fun and have a place to laugh with my friends and family about all of this despite being way up here in Chicago. I think that a blog might help me feel more connected to home during a time as categorically HUGE as being engaged. But also I know that as I stand at the precipice of planning the single largest party of my life, desiring to do so responsibly, it would be pretty great if I could read the memoir of another bride who had done the same. Especially if she were a bride who, like myself, was from a place as steeped in tradition, etiquette, and propriety as the Eastern Shore of Alabama (my home). My hope is that this blog could ultimately be a resource for those run of the mill brides, my friends, and my family who see a friendly affair in their future. After all, finding a balance between beauty, responsibility, and propriety is possible and I'll do it - watch me.