Lynn says that the best achievement of the whole wedding was that I hadn’t managed to see the reception space until after the wedding.  That our family took care of that and somehow managed to make me stay out of it was a monumental achievement for which I am grateful.  Everything was gorgeous.  Even though I planned it, secretly I didn’t think tulle would work (I mean, ick—tulle) but it covered the shelf with our childhood photos and made everything kind of floaty and magical along the mirrored wall.  The flowers were lovely, and the colors all came together nicely.*

We came into the room and went straight to the dance floor for our first dance.  We took lessons, but there is no overcoming our most serious ballroom impediment–I’m not meant to lead.  And, since Lynn is too short to see over my shoulder (bless her), I have to even though I’m really bad at it.  My lack of skills only got worse once we got in there and I started to get nervous with all of those people watching.  Luckily Lynn caught on and started to twirl me around, rather than sticking to our routine.  Everyone clapped and we loosened up for the rest of the dance.

After my dad and Lynn’s brother each gave very sweet toasts to us, it was my turn.

This year my grandparents have been married for sixty years, and I wanted to celebrate their commitment to each other. Back when we announced the wedding my grandmother had given us a talking-to about what we were doing.  She didn’t understand it, didn’t agree with it, and thought we were making a mistake.  We talked it out and since then we hadn’t heard anything else about it—I think she just wanted to have her say.  So I was scared to get up there and address them directly, but even though I got a little choked up I managed to get through it, and she thanked me for the kind words.  And then she and my grandfather proceeded to dance together at my big, gay wedding.  They were the last ones on the floor, and even started putting on songs they wanted to hear.

But that was later.  First we had the amazing meal (worth every cent!), danced with our dads, cut the delicious cake, sort of threw the bouquet (I wasn’t going to, but my friend who is about to be engaged stuck it in my hand, called over the photographer, and documented that she did, in fact, catch it), and did silly conga (and other) dances with our friends.  There were some glitches with the music at first and not everyone stayed as long as we would have liked (that’s what you get when your over-70 friends come to your party), but we had a ball.

The best part, though, was late in the evening.  The gazebo had been lit up, and Lynn and I took the photographer out for some final photos.  We got to be (almost) all alone, and dancing in the gazebo in the cool evening air.

Then we went in and helped our family clean everything up.  I know it sounds funny, but that was the most fun of the night.  We joked and hung out with our family, shoved everything into the back of the truck, took down the decorations, and then got into our car and drove ourselves to the hotel for a long bath and a bottle of champagne.

*A quick planning note: if you want pictures of your decorations, YOU MUST TELL SOMEONE TO TAKE THEM!  I forgot and since everyone was focused on taking pictures of people instead of things, you have to rely on my word that it looked good.  But it did, it really did.

Part 1: Wedding Morning

Part 2: The Ceremony

When we got to the ceremony site we were greeted with the most pleasant problem I can imagine—not enough chairs!  The rain had stopped just in time to set up the ceremony outside at the gazebo in the garden, and they hadn’t put out enough chairs for all of our guests.  So we waited while my step-brother ran some more out there, and got through most of our pre-ceremony jitters while our moms pinned flowers on anyone who walked by.

images by Karl Knize and Connie Kalsch

Once the chair problem was solved our friends lined up, Lynn and I grabbed our birth parents to walk us down the aisle (our step-parents were waiting at the front) and stepped out into the sunshine.

Lynn’s uncle owns a landscaping business and had come by earlier in the day to lend us some plants, so there were beautiful topiaries lining the walkway, and our violinist played one of Lynn’s favorite songs.  All of our guests stood and we grinned our way down the aisle.  At the front Lynn grabbed my hand and didn’t let go for the rest of the ceremony.

The pastor was perfect, and we managed my goal of making all of our mothers cry.  I’m glad that I spent so much time working on what was going to be said—everything flowed together and really summed up what we were doing by having a wedding.

We re-stated the vows from our legal ceremony, our parents gave their blessing, and we broke a glass in good Jewish tradition.

And then–we kissed in front of everyone.  Which was new.  And kind of scary.  And kind of wonderful.  (the actual moment didn’t turn out in the pictures, so I give you a re-take later in the day)

That was followed by the requisite photo-shoot (sadly it was too cold for croquet, so our poor guests had to content themselves with cocktails inside while they waited for us.  I didn’t hear any complaints, though).

You can finally see part of the dresses!  I realised too late that we never did the full-length portraits of either one of us.  Maybe we’ll get bored one day and do another photo shoot (although I doubt it).

Also!  A brief note on photographers: we hired the excellent Karl Knize (who came on a last minute, price-reduced mission of mercy after our other photographer ran off with the cash).  He blended in perfectly with our guests, took excellent pictures, and was a joy to work with.  But we were also blessed by the presence of my step-brother’s lovely girlfriend, Connie Kalsch, who is a professional photographer also (though not of weddings), and who took some shots as a gift to us.  It was GREAT having two sets of lenses at the wedding–there were times when there were people in multiple locations, or looking more than one direction, and it has been wonderful to get more than one perspective on things.  If you have a photographer friend who doesn’t want to work your wedding, but who might be willing to bring their good camera and take some shots for fun, I would totally encourage you to ask them to do it as an addition to your paid photographer (unless, of course, you can afford to hire more than one person).

Next! On to the reception!

images by Karl Knize and Connie Kalsch

Initially we had planned to go to a salon to have everyone’s hair and makeup done, but I’m really glad we skipped it.  Everyone looked much more like they do normally, and not pulled back into elaborate updos.  It was more casual, and more comfortable to get ready this way.

Out on the porch everyone who wasn’t getting beautified started making the flowers, and my family headed over to the site to put together the decorations.  I was so touched by the number of people who showed up to help!

Everyone was really excited about the powder-puff tree in front of the house (we used them in the boutonnières) and for a while everyone was walking around with bright red powder puffs in their hair or behind their ears.

My mom and sister brought the dresses and we put them on and stood still for some last-second adjustments.  They were totally worth the wait.  They fit perfectly and felt absolutely comfortable.  I had originally wanted a longer skirt, but there wasn’t time to make it, so I ended up with a shorter wedding dress (by the way, it was fabulous!  I didn’t step on my hem all night, or worry about walking around on the lawn or fuss with a bustle–better pictures coming in future posts!).  Then, after we got dressed, right at the last minute before we headed over to the site the rain dried up and the sun broke through the clouds.

Getting ready together was really great—Lynn and I got to see each other getting our most beautiful, and also could step in to calm each other down when we started getting nervous.  I feel like our relationship is more about the romance that comes with everyday life—being together, seeing each other change—rather than being about a series of heart-stopping romantic moments.  So there was no instant when we first saw each other in our wedding finery, just a series of little moments noticing each other getting more and more beautiful until everything was finished and we were ready to go together into the world.

My mother and I flew down to Florida on the Tuesday before the wedding to try to get all of the loose ends tied up before the big day.  Planning from a distance meant that a lot of the things I’d bought I had shipped directly to Lynn’s mother’s house, and she had piled them into a spare bedroom (she got so many packages that at one point the UPS guy came back looking for a missing box that had been delivered accidentally two months before).

I’m not going to lie—getting things pulled together at the last minute was a lot more work than I’d hoped it would be.  Part of the problem was that we didn’t know the area that well, so it was impossible to plan routes that took in more than one errand at a time.  But eventually we found enough thrift store vases and candle holders, flowers and citrus fruits, and, most importantly, enough booze to keep us all in signature drinks all night long!

Our wedding posse stayed with us at the house, and were amazing.  They went out on bushwacking missions in the yard looking for exotic leaves, helped us make key lime curd from scratch, and then bake it into 200 hamantaschen cookies (the wedding was on Purim, which is traditionally associated with all-out, drunken, gender-bending parties, and about coming out even when it’s dangerous—things we wanted to share with our guests.  Hamantaschen are the official Purim goodie) to give away as favors.  And, when our dj friend got stranded in new york with all the music, our friend Joe even helped put together the playlist for the wedding, working with a baby on one knee and a cheese Danish on the other.  It was fab.

The most stressful thing about the pre-wedding day prep was the last-minute dressmaking.  My sister and mother ended up working overnight the two nights before the wedding finishing our dresses, almost entirely by hand.  I wouldn’t recommend it, except that we LOVED them when they were done, and they were exactly what we wanted.

So things were a little frantic by the time the wedding rehearsal rolled around.  But we got through the trial run without any difficulties, and were ready to go to the dinner!

Lynn and I had found a Uruguayan restaurant (!) in Naples, and they were very gracious in providing our rehearsal dinner.  The surprise for me, though, is that when we arrived at the restaurant, Lynn had hired musicians to serenade us as her wedding gift to me.  It was a beautiful evening, and the food was perfect.  Even if our teenaged violinist spent most of her performance with both eyes glued to the tv…

The problem is that I’ve secretly always wanted to go try on dresses.  A couple of times in college I even made semi-serious plans with various friends to go try them on while wearing fake rings and lying through our teeth.  So I was a little bummed that I wouldn’t get the opportunity.

But my bridesmaid and best shopping buddy, Katie, understood the sad little piece of me that really wanted to go and play princess for a few hours, even though we both knew that I wasn’t actually shopping.

My sister, of course, was a little nonplussed.  Last year she had offered to make her best friend a wedding dress only to have the girl go shopping a week later ‘just to look’ and buy a dress on the spot.  Caroline was understandably afraid that I might do the same thing and her hours and hours of work would be wasted.  She had nothing to worry about.

The first thing I noticed at the dress shop is how ALIKE everything was.  Oh, sure, you can have puffy or not puffy, and you can have beaded or not beaded.  But if you want sleeves, or a different waistline, or anything at all that isn’t popular at the moment your options are really limited.

Even so, I found a number of dresses that were fun to try on (the best–covered in crystals and ostrich feathers and including see-through panels on the sides–unfortunately got taken off before we got the cameras out).  So for your entertainment, I present myself in a plethora of bridal gowns.

This first one doesn’t really do a whole lot for me, but it came the closest to having the neckline I’d like.  As my father said when I made him look at my favorite wedding dress options in high school (I was a weird kid), it’s too plain.

The second one was better from the front, and had an interesting train that attaches to the collar instead of the skirt, which means you can take it off rather than having to bunch it up and drag it around all night.  This is probably the one i would have bought if I were buying from everyone’s favorite bridal gown big box store.

Now I’ll be honest–I think I look totally hot in this one (see facial expression to confirm).  The dress was built for my body shape, and I like the asymmetrical shoulder.  It is not, however, something I’d want to be stuck in all night–it just felt like I had tons and tons of fabric around my feet and I didn’t even get down off the little pedestal because I felt like I would get my legs caught up in it and fall flat on my face.  But it’s a gorgeous pile of fabric, for all that.

And then there was this one, which I thought was quite nice.  I’d probably add a little piece of fabric to block out the overabundance of cleavage, but on the whole I thought it was a pretty dress.

Shopping was fun, and I’m glad I got the experience.  One interesting thing about it was the HUGE difference between the boutique place and the chain store.  At the boutique there was one saleswoman who chatted me up, told little jokes, and promised to knock some money off the price while she deftly handed me one expensive hair bauble after another.  In the chain we had one salesperson for 3 brides and she basically dropped off dresses to the communal changing area for Katie to shuffle me into while she ran off to help someone else.   We were in and out of there in less than half an hour.

Now I just can’t wait to see what my ACTUAL dress looks like!

One of the problems with holding a wedding halfway across the country is that a lot of our local friends aren’t able to make the trip.  With that in mind, one of our lovely bridespeople decided to throw us a bachelorette party to give the locals who can’t make it a chance to hang out with us and celebrate our nuptials.  It was a hoot!

Now, I’ve always thought that bachelor(ette) parties were a little weird.  I mean, if you’re getting married you’re obviously pretty far from being single, so it seems sort of strange to go out and hit on people all night.  If I’m going to get drunk and hit on someone all night I know who I want that person to be!  So I was glad she was coming with me.

So instead of getting plastered and playing bride-to-be-bingo, we started off the evening with a show at The Baton, Chicago’s drag cabaret.  About 20 of us went to see the ladies—who came in all ages, shapes, and sizes, all of them lovely—and get in the celebratory spirit.  It was especially nice to go to the early show since some of our friends have kids and couldn’t stay out all night.  I’d recommend spreading the night out that way if you can arrange it.

Then we went to a gay bar and watched the Shower Night festivities.  That was a first for me.  I don’t think I’m a huge fan of watching people gyrate onstage and splash water at me, but sure did stir up the crowd.

We got kind of a cool reception at first, I think because Lynn wasn’t wearing her tiara (she was wearing a fedora instead, but it doesn’t read ‘bride’ in quite the same way as the awful piece of tinsel they stuck to my head).  And I had been worried because some of the gay bars in that area have banned bachelorette parties (the kind with straight girls who come out for their one last fling and grope all of the guys in the club because ‘they don’t count’) But they let us in with no problems, and eventually the hostess of the contest asked why we were celebrating and we got to come out and say we were getting married. She stared at us for a second and said, ‘wait, YOU’RE getting married?  Oh my god, y’all, we really ARE taking over!” and everyone applauded.  Fun, fun!

The best part of the evening, though, was watching our friends interact. Some people showed up to the Baton early and started up a conversation and by the next day my co-workers and my volunteer buddies and my old roommates were all friends on facebook.  It gave me a little glimpse of what I hope our wedding will feel like.  Weddings are a way to join families, but also a way to link communities.  I’m still sad that all of the people I love can’t be together in one spot at one time, but seeing these seeds planted makes me feel like our wedding really will be the beginning of an intertwined support network of family and friends.

Paper is the least important thing to either of us when it comes to this, so we kept it a little on the low-effort end of things.  I think it still looks pretty decent, although I’ve got nothing on the beautiful invitations Derek’s got going. But! Think of this post as proof that you, too, can have wholly fine-looking paper products for very little effort if you also aren’t that big into paper (cake is my preferred medium).

We started off with some print-your-own invitations that I fortuitously found at a thrift shop for $5.  A little experimentation with fonts and wording choices, and some fun with Paint to make the map and voila!  Our invitation suite!

Here are the two vintage postcards that we made copies of to use as our Save the Date and RSVP cards—the choices on the RSVP were quite a hit!

Then, I found this nifty stamp on the internet and thought it tied into the kitschy Florida theme we’ve got going perfectly.  As did the paper made from palm fronds that they’re selling at Office Depot these days.

So I wrote up a program, and a little tag for our favors* and bought a ‘Thank You’ stamp to use on the plain pink notecards we got on clearance from Paper Direct** and we had a little stamp party!

Then, I printed all of our guests’ names on more palm frond paper and cut out some bright colored backing paper.  We used a corner-rounding punch (also on sale) to finish the edges and then glued them together.  I’m planning on making a white ribbon board to attach these to with little clothespins for the guest table.

So now all we have to do is get them to Florida in relatively decent shape and we’re ready to go!

* if we have time to bake them, which I sincerely hope we do!

**the company was great, but they’ll send you catalogs for the rest of your life if you’re not careful.

Done?  Feel better?

A couple days ago I realized that things were getting close and I still had no schedule for the wedding day.  So I set about calling everyone to confirm when and where they’d show up.  My first frantic call was to the jewelry store that was engraving our rings—they were a week late because of the valentine’s day rush and I was afraid we wouldn’t have our rings to use at the ceremony.  But they’d rushed them through for us and were ready, so I ran over to pick them up on my lunch break.  Before I left I got the phone numbers for our minister and photographer.

The minister was fine—I left a message at the church to have him call me back and dialed the photographer’s number.  But it was disconnected.  I had a brief flash of fear when I thought about how his website hadn’t been working on my computer—I’d had to find the number in an email since the site wouldn’t open.  But I thought I’d just written it down wrong.  Nope.  Phone line, gone.  Website, gone. $500 deposit?  Oh, yeah.  Gone.

His personal number is in one of those online telephone directories, so I called and left a plaintive message hoping that this was a misunderstanding and asking for my money back, which of course was never returned.

And then I checked out the BBB.  He’s got an ‘F’ rating because he’s done this before to people.  One poor bride wrote that she had paid $2000, and had him shoot her wedding before he disappeared—with all of her wedding pictures.  She’s never seen them, and her attempts to sue him haven’t gone anywhere.

Thank God my friend’s uncle is a wedding photographer.  He had been asking about taking some pictures of us for his portfolio anyway (he wants to expand his business and has only shot a few gay weddings), so when I called in a desperate muddle he dropped everything he had planned this weekend and also dropped his fee down to help compensate us for the plane ticket and even the lost deposit with the other guy.  In some ways it’s really wonderful because as soon as I saw his website (after we’d already signed the other contract, way back in August) I was sad that he couldn’t be our photographer.  I’m looking forward to working with him, and I know that our pictures will be gorgeous (and, more importantly, extant).

So a word to the wise: check all of your vendors on the BBB before you hire them. All of our vendors on So You’re Engayged have been vetted through 3^rd party websites and personal interactions, but I would still say that the 5 minutes you spend checking up with the BBB is worth your peace of mind.

In unrelated, but still important things you should check way before we did, go and have a look at your passport.  When does it expire?  Because Lynn’s expires exactly 2 days into our honeymoon, which is a problem since most countries want to see 6 months on there.

I’m glad I made that particular bad joke late last night.  She’s got an appointment with the passport office (which thankfully is in Chicago—if we were farther away from all of these consulates we’d be in real trouble) to see if they can help her—luckily they had an appointment open before she leaves for Florida—about 6 hours before she leaves, that is.  Um, so we’re hoping that we’ll both be on honeymoon after the wedding.

Engaged people are supposed to get cold feet, right?  Nervous about making a huge commitment, worried about what it all means, yes?  But since Lynn and I did our committing in Boston last summer, we’re just throwing a big, special party, where we re-say all of the important stuff in a place where our family and friends can hear it.  The decision is made, and we’re in it for life, so that pressure is off.

What I’ve got now is itchy feet.  We’re a month away from the wedding, and there are TONS of little details that I could be working on.  Could be.  But for some reason I just can’t seem to focus.  I think a lot of the problem is that everything is sort of small—we need to get our rings engraved, and the engagement rings cleaned.  I wanted to make hair appointments to try out different styles, even though our hair won’t be done by the same person as the one practicing.  I need to buy mini clothespins and something to wear to our rehearsal, and hand out assignments to helpful relatives.  But so far all I can do is stare at other peoples’ wedding pictures and wonder how ours is possibly going to come together in the next 30 days.

That said, the nicest part of this phase has been getting back the RSVP cards.  A lot of people can’t make it (that’s the problem with a destination wedding), but a lot will be there.  Yesterday I got an RSVP from my great-aunt, saying she couldn’t make it.  Every time I see the ‘no’ box checked, especially from an older relative, I have to fight down the urge to interpret why they aren’t coming.  Is it because they disapprove?  Do they think that what we’re doing is wrong?  Or is it just to difficult to travel once they reach a certain age?  I was dealing with this, trying to tell myself that this woman I’ve known from birth—the auntie who always had a toy hidden in her house just in case I came to visit—wasn’t judging me.  And then I noticed that the other piece of mail in my hand wasn’t another RSVP, it was a letter.  From my auntie.  She said how much she wished she could be there, wished us all the happiness in the world, and asked that we send pictures so she can keep up better with our lives and feel like she had been there.  Although it’s not helping with the details, her note is helping with the bigger picture.

So I’m waiting for more notes, more RSVPs, and for my sense of urgency to kick in and make me actually accomplish the things left on the list.  Wish me luck! I think I’m going to need it…

Now that the rehearsal dinner location has been agreed upon (thankfully), we move on to the next step—planning the menu!

Is this something that is addressed elsewhere and I’ve just managed to miss it?  Do most restaurants come out with some sort of plan if you tell them you’re having a rehearsal dinner at their space?  Or does everyone else just have no set budget for their rehearsal dinners and hope for the best?

We’re having the dinner at the Martin Fierro Restaurant in Naples.  Lynn and her mom went there a few weeks ago to sample the food, which they both said was marvelous, and that the staff didn’t blink and eye when she said exactly who was marrying whom.  So that’s good.   I’m happy to support a South American restaurant in that part of the state (the other side of Florida is swimming in them—the west coast not so much) and also to show our guests what sort of things people eat in Uruguay, since none of them have ever been there.

Now we just have to figure out what to feed people.  As far as I can tell there are three options for this (all of which involve us ordering ceviche and some sort of lovely cheese appetizer for everyone beforehand, and letting people get whatever drinks they want):

1. hand out menus, let people choose, pay for whatever they buy.  This is the easiest method since everyone will get exactly what they want, but also has the potential to be the most expensive.
2. work out a set menu with the restaurant before and have them bring out our pre-ordered (and possibly pre-paid) food once we show up.  Here we’d have the most control of the budget, but what if we get things that no one wants, or too much or too little food?
3. make a smaller ‘event’ menu just for our party.  We choose seven or eight entrée options and give our guests a menu with just those choices to order from.  We’d have some cost-control, and they’d have some choice in what they get.  I just worry that we’ll eliminate some of the cheap-but-interesting things along with the too-expensive ones and everyone will get a nice but somewhat boring meal.

So, um…help?  What should we do?  I honestly can’t decide which is the best way to go.  Part of me thinks that we could just order off the real menu—after all not everyone is going to order filet mignon just because it’s an option.  But then part of me feels like if we are hosting a dinner we should plan the menu (as a way to take care of our guests).  Whatever we decide I’m still really excited!  Just reading the menu makes me hungry…