We just had our “un-shower/non-bachelorette” party and it was a blast. My best friend from college planned the event — it was SUPER low-key and laid back. I put in a request to have there be no presents — I always feel a little awkward about the fact that when you get married you’re somehow allowed to ask for both wedding gifts and shower gifts. Two gifts for one event?! And they’re supposed to be nice gifts too! We just had a picnic in Central Park, played some whiffle ball, and then went bar hopping. It was a chill, fun night.
However, I think the best part of the whole thing was the scrapbook that my best friend made for us. She had put out a request for photos from our lives to everyone in our lives and put them together in a photo album.
I love the cover… Audrey Hepurn is Beau’s favorite actress (I’m a Katherine fan myself)… and it was the perfect quote for the event. But it only got better on the first page. My best friend had gotten my grandparents to write us a blessing that she pasted right into the front. It reads:
We hope for you
what we have given one another –
a long lifetime of partnership,
high hopes and high fears in the beginning,
in the middle, hard work, busy days and exhausted nights,
laughter and silliness and joy beyond belief,
profound fights over what to do with autumn leaves
(he wanted piles for compost that he would never make,
she wanted bags packed down that the town took away)
and slowly, without knowing it, learning what love is,
until coming toward the ending, there is the most
gentle and tender reward: our bodies, in the night,
wrapped around one another and around our memories.
Precious among those are our memories of you.
My grandparents are poets… obviously… mere mortals like me just can’t write that kind of stuff… but you better bet that I read half of the first line of their blessing and started to cry. I had to hand it off to Beau to read the rest. We’ve asked my grandmother to write a poem for the occassion of our wedding and we’ll have her read it as our ceremony reading. If it’s one quarter as good as the blessing she and my grandpa wrote for our scrapbook, I’ll be a sniveling wreck by the time we hit our vows.
(if you’d like a complete copy of their poem along with the poets’ names, I can give you the whole attributed thing)
Yeah, almost just started crying over here. Gorgeous, and yes, I’d love a copy.
How amazingly sweet is that? You are two very lucky and loved ladies.
between this and the Michael Jackson memorial service, i am now emotionally exhausted :)