Last-Minute Dress Decision(s)

Today marks the two week point for the Ferris Wheels, and I gotta be honest that it feels crazy-making to know we're so close yet there's still so much that needs to get finished.  Some of those last-minute tasks make sense:  escort cards (because we're still trying to finalize our guest list), seating arrangements (because we're still trying to finalize our guest list), and baking stuff for the dessert buffet (because there's only so long that a baked good will last).

Then there are other tasks that I really wish had been completed earlier, but for one reason or another they're still up in the air like the videographer (because we didn't decide until the last minute that we even wanted one) and wedding party gifts (because of various snafus in the production process).  But perhaps the biggest last-minute project(s) has to do with my dress.

When I bought the dress, I didn't pay much attention to the train because that just wasn't on my priority list.  Well, now that I'm having to make final alterations decisions, apparently I have to decide whether or not I want to keep it.  My primary concern about the train is how it will fit with the limited amount of space in our ceremony venue.  If you don't recall, the ceremony room looks like this.

{Mr. FW and I will stand in that window along with our wedding party, the area leading to the window will be the aisle, and limited chairs will be squeezed in there as much as possible.}

And now here's a picture of how the original train length looks on me.

One thing's for sure: the train as it is will absolutely not fit well in the space.  For.  Sure.  Plus the alterations woman told me that, no matter what, she recommended reducing the length of the train because it's currently disproportionate to my height.  This is not something I'd ever considered before, but I suppose it makes sense.  

So I think my options are thus: 1) reduce the train, hope it fits in the ceremony space without looking stupid, then bustle it for the reception; 2) leave it bustled throughout the day, no need to worry about whether or not it fits in the ceremony space; 3) chop it off - no train, no bustle, no hassle.

For your reference, here are some pictures the seamstress took of a potential bustle for this dress (not necessarily the one I'll go with, but it's an option).

I feel torn, Hive!  If I'm being really honest with myself I can admit that I kinda like the idea of chopping off the train.  But as soon as I think that I tell myself this is probably the only time in my life when I'll get to drag around a bolt of extraneous fabric attached to a garment I'm wearing, and I question whether I'd actually want to give up that experience.  Plus - the bustle is just 'meh' for me.  I don't necessarily love it.  

So I'm looking for the invaluable insight that only a group of similarly wedding-obsessed people can provide!  Given what you know about me, my style, and our ceremony space, which train option do you think I should go with?

(insert poll)

Option 1: Let it flow then tuck it in.

Option 2: Bustle me all night long.

Option 3: No bustle, no problem.

Can't wait to see what you think!  Have you given any consideration to train changes you might want to make for your dress?

(And also, in case you were wondering, the other last-minute dress decision has to do with whether or not I'll be wearing a shrug with the dress.  I really want to, but as the days tick by without a good option on the horizon, this decision might just be made by default.)

It's Feeling Real Now, Folks!

Yep, today Mr. FW and I made the arduous ten minute trek to City Hall, and we completed the shockingly easy task of applying for a marriage license.  As we walked up the front steps of the building I recalled that the last time I was actually inside the City Hall rotunda was a few years ago when one of my friends married his husband during the brief period of time when gay marriage was legal in California.  On that day the entire building was full of lights, cameras, press members, happy couples, and excited guests.  But today the place was silent, with only our voices echoing off the marble.

There were no signs directing us where to go, so we wandered around until we found the unassuming corridor with the door marked 'County Clerk.'  We actually arrived on time for our appointment, and if you know me at all, you know what a miracle that is.

Mr. FW lovingly offered to fill out the form for us since I was pretty busy snapping pictures of the whole process.  My favorite part of the license application was this: "At the time of application for a marriage license, one or both parties to the marriage may elect to change the middle or last names, or both, by which that party wishes to be known after solemnization of the marriage...  Parties may adopt any of the following last names: the current last name of the other spouse; the last name of either spouse given at birth; a name combining into a single last name all or a segment of the current last name or the last name of either spouse given at birth; a hyphenated combination of last names."

How incredible is that?!  I love the flexibility that California law allows for both parties when it comes to changing names with the marriage license.  (Also, I know I haven't posted about mine and Mr. FW's thoughts when it comes to name changes, but I will later if it interests anyone.)

A few minutes later and our form was all processed and ready to go.  We were given the information about what our "officiant" (aka deputized sister of the groom) needs to fill out, which we promptly forgot and will have to research again later.

And that was it.  So quick and so simple, this legal process to get married.  Mr. FW commented on our way out that, for how easy it was to get a marriage license, it somehow makes it even more sad and ridiculous that not everyone can get married - in this state or so many other places.  And I certainly agree.  *sigh*  Maybe one day...

As for us, our license is good until January of 2012 so let's just hope we can pull off a wedding sometime between now and then!

Was anyone else amazed by how easy the marriage license process was?  (I think I remember my mother telling stories that, back in the day, they required bloodwork in order to secure a marriage license.  Sheesh!  So, so glad we've moved on from that.)  :-)

History, and Old School Photoshop

You know how I said that my mom and I were going through her wedding stuff this past weekend?  Well as part of that conversation I found out the most fascinating thing about her wedding photos - something I'd never noticed in all my years of casually flipping through her wedding album every now and then.

She showed me this picture:

And she focused my attention on one particular detail.

Notice anything about this close-up, besides the fact that my mom is absolutely gorgeous?  Anyone thinking that her eyelashes are amazing in this picture?  Well, they should be.  Those lashes were given the old school photoshop treatment.  If you don't have the slightest clue what that could mean, then you're in good company because I'd never heard of this particular technique either.

It means that those lashes were actually painted onto the printed photo itself!!  Can you believe that?!  

I was completely floored when she told me, but as I flipped through her album looking for additional evidence of old school photoshopping, I saw it everywhere.  There were pictures where the photographer painted in sections of my mom's hair because the tip of her ear was peeking through, and multiple examples of him painting in eyes on my father because my dad was squinting in many of the photos.

It's incredible to me that I never noticed this before, but I guess it's proof that no one scrutinizes your wedding photos like you do.  That's certainly a good lesson for a perfectionist like me.  It also made me really happy that there are more advanced photo manipulation techniques available to modern photographers.  Of course, the minute I have that thought I flash forward to the day we'll flip through our wedding album with our kids and they will scoff at how dated those now-so-modern Photoshop effects are.  Ahhh, the neverending march of time (and technology).

Was anyone else aware of photographers painting/drawing directly onto printed images?  I'm curious how widespread this practice was.

A Little Piece of History

This past weekend I flew back to Georgia to spend a weekend with my mom, brothers, and my grandparents.  In all the crazy hustle and bustle of last-minute wedding planning (24 days and counting, gah!), it was nice to get away from the stress for a bit and reconnect with family.

While I was home there was a lot of wedding talk of course, which spurred my mom to pull out some of her own wedding stuff.  As soon as I saw her veil and headpiece in the dress box, I couldn't resist trying it on.

Here's my beautiful mother wearing her veil over thirty years ago.

And here I am - proving that this look was much better on her than it is on me.

The headpiece may not be the right style for me, but I actually liked the edging on the veil and I started to wonder whether I could find a way to re-purpose my mom's veil as my veil.  So I gathered it up and held it in a way that kind of imitated what it would look like if the veil was attached to a comb rather than the lace headpiece.

It has a little more body than I might have chosen otherwise, but the history and symbolism of it being my mom's veil way outweigh any tiny preference I have about length or puffiness.  The only question now is whether the color is a close enough match to my dress.  In the overhead lighting of the house it looked as white as the day my mom wore it, but in the bright SF sunshine it was looking a bit more cream.

I have my first dress fitting today, so that will give me a chance to see if the coloring will work.  If it does, then you can pretty much bet this will make its way onto the "must have" project list.  I'm not-so-secretly hoping that it does!

What little pieces of history will you be incorporating on your wedding day?  And does anyone have any tips for me about how to attach tulle to a comb?

The Meaning of Marriage, Part 2

In ways large and small, and ways that I don't even know yet, marriage will change a lot about our relationship because of the meaning it holds both for us and for other people.  I have been a staunch advocate of marriage equality for as long as I can remember, but being on the verge of marriage myself really illuminates all the ways that marriage is different from a civil union.  Those changes I referenced in my last post, well, I'm not sure if or when they would've happened if Mr. FW and I weren't getting married. 

It seems to me that people have been viewing us differently since we got engaged, and I think it's because they know what a marriage is, they know what it means, and they know how to relate to it.  It's not like we didn't have a serious relationship before, because we did.  But our relationship looks somehow more significant to people now, and thus they react to it differently.  Like everyone else, we had the option of entering into a civil union or domestic partnership earlier in our relationship, but we wanted to get married.  And marriage is not the same as a civil union or a domestic partnership.  The proof of this is that even heterosexual couples avail themselves of these options in order to, say, take advantage of their partner's health insurance benefits, and they can do so prior to the point where they feel "ready" to get married.  For me personally it sometimes feels like civil unions and domestic partnerships are talked about as if they are "wedding light."  I don't necessarily see it that way, and I'm sure queer couples (who enter into those arrangements because they're the closest they can currently get to marriage) don't see it that way, but to me it's pretty clear that marriage is more than just the act of two people legally entangling themselves with one another.

For instance, we bought a house together (a legal and financial entanglement) long before we were ever engaged, and we could tell at the time that some people thought that was probably an irresponsible decisions for us to make. Because as a society we tend to understand things like joint home ownership through the lens of marriage.  And we understand raising children through the lens of marriage.  We understand so much through the lens of marriage.  Yes, these are culturally constructed understandings of marriage, but Mr. FW and I live in this culture and we can't separate ourselves from that.

We have grappled very seriously with the potential hypocrisy of taking advantage of the institution of marriage when it would have been denied to us as recently as a year ago.  I don't think there are any easy answers to this issue, either.  In the end, we came to some important conclusions that feel okay to us but might not be a good fit for other people.  So I offer the caveat that these thoughts are ours and ours alone.

image via Stinkerpants.com (aka Mrs. Cream Puff!)

First, we have been supportive of any couple who wants to avail themselves of marriage at any time they can.  This has included brief periods of time where gay marriage was allowed in San Francisco and/or legal in California, even if those decisions were later reversed.  In fact, we considered getting married as a queer couple back when it would have been legal in California, but we decided we didn't want to rush something that was so important to us.  Second, we can't see a way that not accessing the privilege of legal marriage for ourselves would support the fight for marriage equality.  We actually think that accessing marriage will give us a platform to better speak to people about just what marriage gives us that we wouldn't have had access to otherwise.  We both strongly believe that individuals with privilege can - and should - find ways to utilize that privilege to advocate for those without privilege.  And third, we recognize that, for us, knowingly engaging in such privilege necessitates taking on the responsibility of acknowledging that privilege whenever we can and not allowing ourselves to become blind to it.

We have come to these conclusions based on what marriage means to us right now, as an unmarried but engaged couple.  I'm interested to see how getting married, being married, and staying married will change how we perceive its meaning in the future.

What experiences have you had that illustrate the meaning of marriage in your life?

The Meaning of Marriage, Part 1

Almost a year ago now, as I was preparing the Thanksgiving meal we would share with Mr. FW's parents, I became aware that I was spending time reflecting on relationships and family - more specifically, how relationships shape how we define family.  I had been casually referring to Mr. FW's family as "my in-laws" for a while, probably since the time everyone started taking for granted that I would be included in his family functions.  Last year though, as I was about to tell someone, "We're having Thanksgiving dinner with my in-laws," I stopped myself from using that term, instead changing it to "dinner with Mr. FW's parents."  In that split second I recall thinking that they would be my legitimate in-laws in less than a year, so I should reserve that term for the time after we're officially married.

The phrase ricocheted around in my mind for a second longer than it should have before I realized why it felt so uncomfortable.  We spent the majority of our relationship knowing that "officially married" is something we couldn't have.  So for us, and I imagine for many other queer and/or non-traditional couples, not being able to (or not wanting to) get "officially married" means that there's no hard-and-fast moment when a relationship moves from dating to committed.  So when do you call your partner's parents your in-laws, when does your partner become an assumed member of family photos, when do people get to feel okay asking you about whether you'll have kids, etc. etc.?    Basically, when do people see you and your partner as a family rather than just a relationship?  And how does that timing relate to when you and your partner see yourselves as a family? 

Like it or not, in this society the act of entering into a marriage adds legitimacy to your relationship - in your eyes, in the eyes of your families, and in the eyes of the law (at least for heterosexual couples, and for some gay couples in terms of state law only).  And weddings are the way we mark the moment we enter into a marriage.  So marriages/weddings answer all those questions and so many more.

image via mindpetals.com

Mr. FW and I have known for at least the past four years that we were in it for the long haul.  Our relationship was entirely legitimate to us and we saw ourselves as a little family (or a pack, as we refer to ourselves and the dogs).  But I know I wasn't prepared for how much other people's views of our relationship would impact how I felt about our relationship, and over the eighteenish months of our engagement I've started to feel the many ways this wedding will change a lot of little things.  

For instance, after we got engaged it felt like our relationship seemed more "normal" to people - they knew how to relate to it and they had a social framework for understanding it.  I was engaged, which meant I'd then have a wedding.  Everyone knows what those things are and what they mean.  So after we get married, Mr. FW will be included in our family's holiday name draw, he'll be expected to be present in family pictures, it will be assumed that he and I will travel places together, and it will make sense to people when we talk about having kids.  All those little things add up, and they make me feel like people are actually seeing Mr. FW and I as we've seen ourselves for such a long time - as a family.  Before I had these little privileges and assumptions, I didn't realize I was missing them.  But now that I have them, I'm aware of how much more significant our relationship feels... to me.  It's hard to imagine our relationship feeling more significant than it already did, but with all of that added legitimacy, somehow it does.

I'm not sure if that resonates with anyone else, but for me I know that being engaged and planning a wedding have shown me meanings of marriage that I hadn't before known and/or considered.

Can you relate to this at all?

Identifying the Yummies

After this wedding, I'm pretty sure I'll never want to create any sort of signage/labels/tags ever again.  Because let me tell ya, our guests are going to be the most fully-informed, non-confused, wedding guests ever.  As things have gotten down to the wire we decided to nix a few of the signs on our list because, in all of our wedding brain craziness, we came to our senses and realized our guests could probably figure some stuff out on their own (like, say, where the bathrooms are or how in the world to navigate the fifteen feet between the elevators and the ceremony space).

There were some signs that were always non-negotiable for us though, and those were the ones that were meant to be functional while also adding some crucial design flare (and, let's be honest here, that would make for some incredibly cool detail shots).  Labels for the dessert buffet and the candy buffet definitely fell into that category.

As is probably true with all good design, these little devils look much more beautifully simplistic than they actually were to create.  We're so proud of how they turned out, though, and are immensely relived that they're finished.  So relieved, in fact, that I forgot to take pictures of the dessert buffet tags before we packed them away, which means you'll just have to wait for the pro pics to come back to see how those turned out.  

But... here are some pics I did take during the process of attaching the candy buffet labels to our jars.  (And in true Ferris Wheel fashion, the ribbon I used for this has been discontinued and I ran out halfway through the job.  So cross your fingers that our feverish internet search actually yields the right replacement ribbon!)

Now, on to the pictures!

 Any chance that you'll be over-informing the guests at your wedding?  And admit it - you like pretty signs too, right?

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?