Shout out!

Remember how frustrated we were by this New York Times gem? Well, there's my honey, quoted in the Boston Globe on the subject. Congrats, dear!

Home and happy

Well friends, we're back from Connecticut and from an awesome, teary, hysterical, dance party of a wedding. It's been quite a few months since we last went to a wedding - I am the first of my group to get married, and we're really only at the beginning of the landslide for D. - and this experience overwhelmed me with joy for the beautiful couple. You could feel the anticipation in the procession, the teariness during the ceremony, the overwhelming happiness when they were announced husband and wife. I said to D. afterwards: This is what I want our wedding to feel like. It was the perfect antidote to a stressed out week and an awesome reminder of why we're putting all of this time and stress and effort into this event.

D. and the stunning bride breaking it down on the dance floor


Me and D. anticipating said dance floor breakdown

As D. wrote on facebook this morning: That was a fantastic wedding. Let's do it all again next year.


Yes, please.

Gratitude

Is blogging just a way for my future husband and I to have internet conversations? Maybe so.

Still, D. is commenting today on the New York Times latest journalistic gem, "What is it About Twenty-Somethings?," and I think it's well worth a read. I must confess that part of my absence this week has been due to overwhelming frustration with a number of "current events" - including this charming blog post by the US Chamber of Commerce released yesterday and the ridiculous conservative upheaval over Dr. Laura Schlesinger's resignation. I've started more blog posts than I care to count on these issues, but they all seem to descend into incoherent tirades, which isn't really what you want to read, now is it?

A while back, Meg posted about life in her twenties and the adventures that came with it. Have you read the comments on that post? Because the things that community of women are doing with their lives are inspiring. This week, Lauren and Meg both posted about their Mondo Beyondo lists, and it's really had me thinking about all the exciting adventures ahead and the ways in which our marriages (or future marriages) help us achieve those wishes for ourselves. The most disappointing thing for me about the New York Times article (and the comments from the US Chamber of Commerce this week) was the disparagement of the lives young people lead today. The generation currently in its twenties is America's best educated and most accepting of diversity. It is true that many of us start families later than our parents did, but I think it's equally true that, at one time, many of us were encouraged to do so. And besides, the number of children I bear is not a true measure of my success. The young people I know may be poor, but they are not lazy - they work hard, often at jobs that under-reward them for their investment of time, energy and love.

It is one of the great gifts of the generations that "came of age" in the 1960s and 1970s that we enjoy freedom of reproductive choice and greater access to education. These choices and freedoms make me a better partner, and, I would argue, a more productive member of society. The New York Times article criticizes young people who - instead of buying homes and producing offspring - choose to spend the years after graduation in programs like Teach for America, but I would argue that it is these kinds of choices that demonstrate what is great about our generation. There is a very upsetting move at the moment toward a more conservative politics that emphasizes (women in particular) "finding the right partner at home" rather than exercising these rights and freedoms, living the heck out of our lives and giving of ourselves, even if that means the down payments come a little bit later than they did for our parents.

Today, I'm particularly thankful for this group of intelligent, independent, and inspiring women who blog about marriage, but, more importantly, about the choices we make and the ways we challenge ourselves. I'm grateful to stand on the fringes of a community that doesn't measure their lives by the New York Times' five pillars of adulthood, who ignore accusations that we're all experiencing extended adolescence while we work hard at jobs that matter instead of jobs that just pay, and, instead, live their lives fully and proudly and carve out a space for other women to do the same.

"I'm sorry, did I interrupt you?"

Via Meg, this morning, a clip from Fox News (likely the only time I'll ever direct your attention to such a thing). Ted Olson and Chris Wallace debate judicial activism and the constitutional right to marriage:

The Supreme Court has said that marriage, the right to marry a person of your choice, is a part of liberty, privacy, association and spirituality guaranteed to each individual under the Constitution.

And if you can't watch the clip because (unlike me) there are other people in your office who might not want to be so entertained, I point you toward the transcript.

Happy Tuesday!

Speaking of ethical/ honest weddings...

D. is joining the wedding conversation today on his thoroughly un-wedding-related blog The Wooden Spoon. I think we're a little late the party, but earlier this week I read on CNN about Target and Best Buy's substantial donation to political candidates who oppose marriage equality. LGBT rights have been important to me since the moment in 8th grade when I found my usually quiet and shy self engaged in a full-on debate with a classmate regarding Don't Ask Don't Tell. The debate brought me almost to tears,* I was so alarmed by the vehemence of my opponent on a perspective I just couldn't understand.

D. and I are fortunate to live in Massachusetts, where gay marriage is legal. In this context, it's sometimes easy to become complacent on the issue, but my relationship with D. has made me more political and more politically active than ever before. Our decision to close our Target registry was not a difficult one: As soon as I read the article, I called D. at work, and we deleted it that evening. It has been important to us to have a wedding that is honest to our stance on these issues, and we cannot endorse, via our wedding registry, the denial of this basic civil right to all people.




* Full disclosure: I am easily drawn to tears. But, nonetheless, this remains one of the most vivid memories of my grade school days, which is saying a lot for someone who used to count-down the beginning of the school year every summer.

Images of joy

Yesterday, over at A Los Angeles Love, Becca wrote an important piece on diversity in the wedding world. Her post was a plea to photographers to embrace the diversity of their clients and to focus their work on the transcendent joy of a wedding, rather than the joy we typically see in blogs and magazines and even on photographers' websites, the joy that is specific to thin, white, wealthy women. Becca writes:

This is part of the bullshit that subtly twists us into thinking brides all look like models and that therefore my plain-Jane face isn't really bridelike. Granted, it's not a photographer's responsibility to change the systemic issues that drive my self-esteem problems. However, it's a paid photographer's responsibility to respect all his damn clients, regardless of what they look like. If you take our money to capture our wedding photos, it's your responsibility to capture our joy and beauty, and our beauty-as-joy. And that requires that you see it, that you understand it, that you interact with it, and that you cherish the real heart of the wedding.

If you haven't already, go read it, and then stand up for it in the comments, where a number of anonymous commenters are attacking Becca's message.

In a few weeks, we're having our engagement photographs taken. Choosing a photographer was one of the first decisions we made in the whole wedding-planning process, and I couldn't be happier with our choice. It's been awesome to bond with Corinna over the past week as we've celebrated the court decision in California, and every week I look forward to seeing her blog about couples like these. To all those anonymous photographers who believe that joy only shines through photographs that feature blonde, white, size 2 clients sitting in fields with furniture from Anthropologie and chandeliers from God-knows-where, I give you this:







All photographs by Corinna Raznikov Photography.

And, yes, I am aware that we have hired the world's most incredible photographer... yay!

The woes of graduate school

I know, I'm just a flurry of links today, but, as someone who has received a total of 23 higher education rejection letters,* somehow this really spoke to me. Given that the wedding blog world seems to be overrun by poor souls like me willing to grovel before graduate school admissions committees, I thought some of you might too.


*In case you're wondering, yes, I have by and large recovered. Though, yes, these letters are also contributing to the big-life-decision phase D. and I are currently facing.

Grief and Love

I'm not really sure what to say except that you should take some time today to read Drea's guest post on A Practical Wedding.

We took the time to grieve. To be honest, we’re still grieving. I felt both betrayed and a betrayer; betrayed by my body and a betrayer to my husband, to our plan. On my worst day, I offered to walk away, to leave my husband so he could find a new wife, one who could give him the family he deserved. The look on his face told me he’d never even consider it.

It was that day that I really understood our marriage.

D. and I are at a bit of a crossroads at the moment, discerning about our future, and it seems all of these big-life-decisions or big-life-just-happens-to-you come with a certain amount of grief for the life you won't end up living. It's so wonderful know that love grows even through those challenges and that our partnerships and the families we build make us braver to face those life realities.

On why we attend weddings

Jezebel is at it again with the wedding posts, and today's is about menu choices for vegans and vegetarians. The question: is it selfish for a vegan or vegetarian couple to serve only foods that fit their dietary requirements at their wedding?

My response: Really?

I shouldn't bother reading the comments on posts like these anymore, since they just seem to invite fury, but I can tell you that the comments here are filled with people who are willing to complain and even decline invitations should they find the details of the reception not to their liking. This isn't the first place I've seen this strain. It comes up in discussions about "plus one" invites, debates over open bars,* and any number of other wedding "etiquette" questions.

Of course, it's your prerogative to decline an invitation to any wedding you don't wish to attend. But, I think all of this guest uproar about the specific decisions a couple makes really misses the reason we have and attend weddings. People are quick to accuse women of being bridezillas or planning weddings that are selfish and attention-hungry. It is similarly selfish, though, to decline to share in the celebration of a marriage because you've been asked to forgo meat for one meal or because every drink you consume won't be free. I have never attended a wedding for the free booze or the free chicken or for the "plus one."

In two weeks, D. and I will witness one of our wonderful friends get married. Of course this wedding entails a certain amount of cost to us - getting there, the hotel, the gift - but we're spending that money freely because we want to be there to share in that moment and to celebrate. If the cost of a wedding is too high for you, of course it is your right as an invitee to decline the invitation with your regrets. Of course couples should try to accommodate the needs of their guests, in the same way we always try to make our guests happy and comfortable when they come to our home. But, I don't attend weddings to be pampered and attended to every step of the way. I don't go for the party. And I think that this move to focus on the marriage rather than the wedding should hold true for guests as much as it does for the couple.



* In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that I'm touchy on both of these: We are not having an open bar, and "plus ones" will not be extended to those without significant others.

One week

Oh, friends, I have about seven posts all going on in my head right now, but last week was a little crazy between things picking up at work and canceled engagement photographs and getting caught in the world's most insane rain, and, oh yeah, we're moving next Sunday.

D. doesn't really like reminiscing,* but this week I'm overwhelmed with these feelings about the time we've spent in this apartment and the big changes it's brought about in my life. When I moved into this apartment, I had been living 3,000 miles away for a whole year. D. and I had only seen each other four total times in that year, and the strain and stress of enormous distances was incredibly challenging. Moving in together, for me, was a bit of a risk and also a relief - finally, we'd made it, and, when we moved in, D. triumphantly deleted Skype from his computer.

When I moved into this apartment, I was finishing the dissertation-from-hell. I was unemployed. I spent many afternoons on our inherited apartment couch crying over both. In those two years, I've found a job, finished said dissertation, worked a lot, hosted parties, made new friends, missed old friends, got engaged.

If you know me, you know I'm pretty much obsessed with places. I had lived in 11 homes before I moved to college. My parents recollect events in their 33-year marriage by recalling the home they lived in at the time. For four years, I moved internationally every year. For me, this apartment represented settling down, settling in. It's been nice.

We only have one more week in this apartment, and, honestly, it doesn't even really look like our apartment anymore, with all the books and paintings packed and boxes strewn everywhere. I'm so excited about our new place - somewhere that feels even more grown-up with our little office, eat-in kitchen, and brand new furniture - but I'm going to miss things about where we live now. The totally wonky walls and floorboards, the clutter of books and furniture, the times we spent eating great food and drinking cheap wine, hanging out with the community of friends I've managed to become a part of.




*Probably a good thing, as it prevents me from becoming just one great big gooey emotional feeling.