Tracking the Light

Having decided to get married on a Friday at the top of the city, and being two people who are completely mesmerized by the city lights, Mr. FW and I didn't even have to talk with one another about what time of day to have our ceremony.  We knew it would be an evening ceremony, after work and after sunset.  We were even more sure about this when we visited our site last November to take some pictures of the space after dark.  On that night, it was jet black outside - a completely cloudless and fogless evening, and there was the most incredible full moon visible through the windows of our ceremony space.  I'm sorry to say that I don't have photographic documentation of that, so you'll just have to believe me that it was gorgeous.

In order to be absolutely certain about the lighting conditions on our wedding day, I consulted http://www.timeanddate.com/ to get the lowdown on sundown for November 11, 2011 in San Francisco.

screenshot taken from here

At this point you may be thinking what I was thinking: "What's the difference between astronomical, nautical, and civil twilight, what do they have to do with sunset, and how do they impact my wedding?"  Well folks, I'm here to answer that question for you in as brief and painless a way as possible.  And I promise that, if you're having an evening wedding or an early morning, you do care about this information..

(Note: I am summarizing this from several sources, but primarily here.  I am in no way an expert on this issue, so please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)

Astronomical Twilight:  The beginning and end of light during the day.  Faint stars, galaxies, and other objects begin to disappear as this phase starts and they reappear as this phase ends.  The end of astronomical twilight would be prime city lights-viewing conditions.  

Nautical Twilight:  The middle of the full sunrise/sunset process.  Bright objects are visible in the sky, as is the horizon.  It is too dark to do activities outside without extra lighting, but some light remains.  Not the ideal light-gazing opportunity, but not impossible.

Civil Twilight:  During this phase the sky is illuminated and you will not need additional lighting for outdoor activities.  In the evening, only bright lights will be visible.  Good enough to see a full moon, but not good enough to take advantage of all the city lights.

photo via yimg.com

Sunrise:  When the upper part of the sun becomes visible.

photo via Esquire.com

Sunset:  When the sun disappears below the horizon.

photo via intrepid.com

As all of us already know, light becomes visible before the sun has actually risen above the horizon line in the morning, and light remains visible after the sun falls below the horizon in the evening.  Thus it's not that helpful to look only at sunrise and sunset times if you're interested in gauging the amount of light you'll see in the early morning or late evening.

And now comes the part where I super excitedly tell you the good news about our wedding day.  If you study the chart above you'll see that on 11.11.11 astronomical twilight ends at 6:32 p.m.  Purely by chance, we slated our wedding ceremony to begin at...  6:30 p.m.!  Yay for prime nighttime darkness!  Crazily enough though, if you take a closer look at that chart, you'll also see that daylight savings time ends A MERE 5 DAYS before our wedding date.  So if we had picked a date only a week earlier, then a half hour ceremony beginning at 6:30 would've meant that it would just be getting dusky outside (end of civil twilight, going into nautical twilight) and we would have completely missed out on that city lights look we love so much.

Clearly the stars were aligned for us (astronomical pun intended).  Oh, you don't believe me?  You want proof?  I'll give you proof.

{November 11, 2011...  Full. Freakin'. Moon.}

image via Moon Connection

Bam!  There's your proof.  I know I'm more than bit biased, but I'm pretty sure we have the absolutely awesomest wedding date and time ever, and I dare you to deny it.  :-)

How have the stars aligned for you and your significant other?  And do you have a need to track the light for your wedding day?

Our Ceremony Soundtrack

Now that I've confessed to my one and only princessy bridal moment, it's time to put that into some context for you.  My musical ear is pretty finely tuned, so I was super picky when it came to ceremony music - not just what songs we chose but how those songs would fit together to set the stage for our celebration.  I wanted them to create a mood, to flow from one to the other in a sensible and meaningful way.  I guess you could say that I wanted to create something of a soundtrack for our ceremony that was reflective of both our personalities as well as the significance of the occasion. 

This was another one of those times where not being tied down to any traditional or venue-imposed ceremony music "rules" was both a blessing and a curse.  We had to figure out our own preferences (lyrics vs. instrumental, contemporary vs. classic, edit songs ourselves or play from the beginning) in order to narrow down an incredibly vast world of music.  Mr. FW and I pretty quickly agreed on a few songs we liked, but finding the perfect arrangements took me for-freakin'-ever. In fact I almost abandoned the project on several occasions because I couldn't find a useable copy of something, or the arrangements of two songs were each beautiful but didn't work well together, etc.

But I'm happy to report that after many days spent scouring YouTube, iTunes, Amazon, and our personal music collections we finally agreed on sixty minutes worth of music.  Sheesh!  :-)  Well worth it, though, if you ask me.  So if you were a guest at the Ferris Wheel wedding (wouldn't that be awesome?!), this is what you would hear.

Prelude
For the thirty minutes of music prior to the ceremony, we wanted to accompany the amazing city lights view of our venue with some classic and not-so-classic songs about San Francisco.  For all you Bay Area bees, I'm including links here for all the songs in the order they'll be played.  (If you just want to know the music for the actual ceremony, feel free to skip ahead a bit.)

{Flower Pot Men - Let's Go to San Francisco}

{Otis Redding - (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay}

I especially like the line, "Left my home in Georgia headed for the Frisco Bay."  Like me!

{Scott McKenzie - San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)}

{Judy Garland - San Francisco}

{Tony Bennett - I Left My Heart in San Francisco}

Train - Save Me San Francisco

{Journey - When the Lights Go Down in the City}

{Vanessa Carlton - San Francisco}

Seating of the Parents

Our ceremony space is small, so it's not going to take that much time for three parents (or anyone, for that matter) to make their way down the aisle and take their places.  We considered grouping parents in with the wedding party, but ultimately we decided it made more sense for there to be some separation between them.  So we will use the first 90ish seconds of this gorgeous instrumental version of Michael Buble's "Everything" to set the stage for the rest of our ceremony.  

{piano cover of Michael Buble's "Everything" by YouTube user cdnchuchu}

Processional Part One

For the processional we looked for a song that was fun and contemporary but not so upbeat that our wedding party would feel like skipping down the aisle.  Striking the perfect balance between joy and solemnity isn't always easy, especially in under two minutes, but I think this instrumental version of Bruno Mars' "Just the Way You Are" does just that.

{piano cover of Bruno Mars' "Just the Way You Are" by the incredible Sunny Choi}

Processional Part Two

Because of the kinda awkward placement of the *moment* in this song, we decided to have the younger members of our wedding party enter at the beginning, then Mr. FW will enter around the one minute mark, followed lastly by me.  And just because you're dying to hear it again, here it is.

{Theme from Practical Magic}

Recessional

Okay, I just love the song we chose for this.  It's one that Mr. FW would come home singing, saying that it always made him think of me, but I'd never heard it before.  Once I listened to it, I just knew we should use it on our way back up the aisle.  The lyrics of Colbie Caillat's "I Do" are adorable, and it totally reminds me of how much Mr. FW loves me!  We plan to edit/cue it so that it begins 28 seconds into the song.  Just take a listen to how utterly perfect that will be.

{Colbia Caillat - I Do}

Postlude

(Which I think is the strangest word ever.)  We'll let the Colbie song play out while our wedding party makes their way back down the aisle.  Then we'll launch into another song picked by Mr. FW that I'd never heard before.  (As the person in our relationship who doesn't think the radio is just for listening to NPR, I guess it makes sense that he was so influential in choosing the music for our ceremony.) 

There are a few other songs we'll have lined up in case we still need more time at the end (including The Beatles' "All You Need is Love" and Billy Currington's "I Got a Feeling," among others).  And that's the whole shebang - the Ferris Wheel Wedding Soundtrack.

How much latitude did you have in choosing your ceremony music, and were you picky about it like I was?

Dah Dum t'Dumm, Dah Dum t'Dumm

You can tell that's the bridal march, right?  ;-)

I heard a lot of the dah dum t'dumms growing up because my mom was (and still is) our church organist and she played at many of the congregants' weddings.  When I went through my teenage phase of "I wanna be completely different from everyone in the whole wide world," I decided I wouldn't be a person who came down the aisle to the bridal march if/when I ever got married, and I never changed my mind about that.  But in all the years since then, I also haven't been that interested in getting married in general, so I've given precious little thought to any other specific things that I did or didn't want at my potential future wedding.  Except this one thing....

Hive, I'm gonna just come right out and say it.  This one thing is kind of a diva moment.  It is the ONLY princessy wedding thing I've ever latched onto, dreamed about, and held close to my heart.  And now that it's closer to becoming a reality, I'm having to really own what a diva moment it actually is.  So, I'm telling all of the internet about it and I'm trying to own it.  

It all started with the movie Practical Magic, which I adore.  Watching it in the theater, I vividly recall this one swell in the music that gave me chills, and in that moment I thought, "That would make an amazing bridal entrance."  I own the movie soundtrack, and I'm still caught breathless every time I hear it.  (I suggest you start at about 1:08 to get the full effect, but *the moment* starts about 1:30.)

It's princessy, right?  And totally diva-ish?  I know.  I know!  Yet as much as those two words really don't describe me, I just can't imagine myself walking down the aisle to any other music.  So I will do my best to conjure all of my inner diva confidence, absolutely rock out the moment, and just hope it lives up to all the emotional hype.

Like it or not, do you or your partner find that you'll be embracing any diva moments at your wedding?

Even The Easy Things Aren't So (Or, How I Over-Complicate Everything)

Last night on our way home from running some wedding errands Mr. FW noticed, "We're taking turns breathing heavy sighs."  And once he said that I realized I, too, could hear the sounds of deep, controlled inhales alternating with unsatisfactory exhales.  For the first time it was really starting to weigh on us just how how little time is left before our wedding day and just how much needs to get finished during that limited time.  We are working on wedding projects constantly at this point, and days are flying by at breakneck speed.  Yet it never seems the list gets any shorter.  In fact, for every one item that we start or complete, at least one other item gets tacked on.  So we both get ridiculously giddy when we find a project that seems like it will be quick and easy to cross off the list. 

The ring dish should've been one of those easy items - "should" being the operative word here.  Mr. FW spent an hour or two combing Etsy to find a few good options, one of which we both agreed would be perfect for us. 

image from Etsy shop Cats Paw Pottery

One dish for the wedding, one to go on my nightstand right away.  Affordable, patterned but simple, our choice of colors, and the seller would create a hole in one of them so that we could tie on the rings.  Perfect! 

{the color is more silvery and shiny than it looks in this picture}

When the box arrived I was so excited to see how the dishes turned out, and I knew that this project would be SO EASY to finish once I tied on a little ribbon.  Uh huh...  I pulled out some stand-in rings and my bag of ribbon, then the over-complicated, over-thinking, annoyingly-Goldilocksish mentality set in.

{"This one is too simple."}

It all started there, and it moved on to this...

{Top L-R: too unattractive, too strange, too pretty, too big; Bottom L-R: too busy, too overpowering, too much, too many bows}

After several hours of ribbon tying, what-oh-what did we end up with? 

{"Just right."}

If you guessed "right back where you started" then you win the prize.  Yep - Mr. FW really liked the simplicity of that one.  By this point I kinda hated all ribbon, nothing looked good to me any more, and I was desperate - desperate, I tell you - to just finish this project and go to bed.  So, simple blue ribbon is "just right" for us.

Finally this project was done.  But more than that, the point was clearly made that I really, really need to put a lid on this over-complicating tendency I have or we're never going to finish things in time for the wedding. 

This should have been so easy...

What Goldilocks wedding moments have you experienced and how did you finally reach your "just right" solution? 

Who Will Now Pronounce Us?

Choosing an officiant seems like it should be one of the more simple wedding decisions one can make. Either you choose a religious figure, or not. If not, you go with someone who has a close personal tie to you and your partner (and preferably has a penchant for public speaking).

Wow that sounds easy. Sign us up for non-religious-figure, closely-personally-tied with mad public speaking skills, please.

* chirp... chirp... ... chirp... ... ... *

image by Ande via Flickr

Uh huh, yeah, so umm that didn't work so well.

The first name we generated is a very good friend of ours and the partner of one of my Party People. I actually thought he'd already officiated a wedding for one of his friends, but when I asked him about this his response went, "No, I haven't. And I wouldn't want to. So much pressure and responsibility!"

 

So he was out, and we didn't have any close seconds. The other names we could think of felt a little too "my person" or "your person." And I didn't want to be married by a "your person" any more than I wanted to be married by a "my person." I wanted an "our person." Well, turns out that even after 5+years of dating, Mr. FW and I don't have all that many "our persons." And the ones we do have were already members of the wedding party.

Then one night  when we were out to dinner (Indian + buffet = delish / guilt), I again brought up the officiant topic. ('Cause you better believe I'm all about talking things to death until finally a decision is reached or one person relents/begs for mercy.)  Frustrated that we disagreed over whether one particular "our person" could split roles between wedding party member and officiant, I made some crazy comment like, "Well if one person can't go back and forth , what if they all officiated?" I wasn't really serious when I said it, but when we sat with the idea for a hot second it really started to grow on us.

Maybe instead of "our person," the officiant could be "our people."

Yes, what if the entire wedding party officiated?  What if they take turns leading us through various parts of the ceremony?  What if we could be married by community rather than by an individual? What if we could choose who would be best for which part of the ceremony based on personality and meaning? What if only one person, the person who has "the power vested in me," had to be official but shared their role equally with all others? What if we did this whole wedding ceremony thing in a totally non-traditional, achingly meaningful, completely lovely and oh*so*us kinda way? What if... it just... might... work...

image via dark.pozadia.org

The more I think about it, the more I smile. I so want everyone to officiate! But it's not set in stone, and we haven't really talked about how it would work logistically although our wedding party has said that they're on board if this is what we decide to do.  We're still in the planning phase on this one, but I'm thinking it might just be our best idea yet.

What would you think of a wedding ceremony performed by the wedding party? Any ideas about how we could make this work in a beatifully simple and deeply touching way?