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Planning a Destination Wedding: Part 1 of 4

Posted on December 24th, 2009 by Jenna Rose. 1 Comment

Jenna Rose

So now that our location had been chosen, I had a pretty daunting task before me: find a castle on a beach in Spain which we could afford to get married in. No problem, right? Riiiight.

Some words of advice on planning a destination wedding halfway around the world, in a country you’ve never seen, in a language you don’t speak, without the help of a wedding planner or a travel agent: 1) Breathe deeply. Keep breathing. This is a very important step. 2) Prepare to become one with the internets. 3) Understand that the time difference between wherever you are and wherever the people you are communicating with are is not the 7 hours (or whatever) you thought it was. It is really 7 hours plus two weeks. REALLY. So remember tip #1? Keep breathing. And add two weeks onto whatever the appropriate response time is. 4) It is ok to scream at your computer. Loudly and often. I promise – it helps. Just try not to throw it at anything; you’re going to need those internets again.

Before I walk you through my own equally exhilarating and infuriating planning process, let me present you with the guide I wish I’d had beforehand:

How To Plan A Destination Wedding (by a Proud yet Haggard Survivor)

Step 1: Pick your location. As in, the country and general vicinity of the wedding. If you already know exactly where you want to get married, that’s great. But all you need to know right now is approximately where, geographically, you will tie the knot.

Step 2: Pick the date(s). The more flexible you can be, the better, because this is going to be the hard part. No matter what date you pick, someone is going to have a conflict. And the more people there are on your “must be present” list, the harder the date part will be. We started with Spain in July-September, with mid-August as the preference.

Step 3: Now comes the tricky part. Make a list of the people who must be at your wedding. The shorter this list is, the easier your planning will be, so choose wisely (or develop the patience of a saint and the organizational skills of a circus stage manager). That cousin you haven’t talked to in two years? Not on the list. Your girlfriend’s best friend from high school that she only hears from once every other Christmas? Not on the list. The list should only be the people you would not emotionally be able to get married without. It’s possible that your list only includes you and your fiancé/e. If so, congratulations! Your planning process is going to be so. much. easier. than mine.

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Legal Benefits of Gay Marriage: Just What Does "Legal" Mean, Exactly?

Posted on December 15th, 2009 by Jenna Rose. 5 Comments

Jenna Rose

So the recent discussions about whether Texas, in its fervor to protect itself against the plague of same-sex marriage, has in fact outlawed marriage altogether, have gotten me thinking:

Just what does “legal” even mean?

If you are lucky enough to live one of the seven countries which both perform and sanction same-sex marriages, what legal means to you is pretty straightforward. (And may I say, congratulations.)  If you’re unfortunate enough to live in one of the 80 countries in which homosexuality is still illegal, you probably also have a solid idea about what your marriage certificate is ‘worth.’ But what about those of us in the places in between?

First, there are domestic considerations. Even if you happen to live in a state that thinks your marriage is swell, thanks to the patently unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act, no other state has to be bothered acknowledging your rights. But even though the states get to fly willy-nilly in the face of the law (take that, Constitution!! How do you like that Full Faith and Credit Clause now, hm?), we mere citizens do not have the same privilege to, how do they say, “go rogue”.  This leads to the conundrum I like to call “legal vs. legal-legal.” As in, ‘yeah, we got married in Iowa, it’s totally legal… it’s just not legal-legal.’

What’s the big deal about legal-legal? To start, there’s the 1,138 federally conferred rights which accompany the distinction ‘married’, but which only count if you’re ‘married-married’. There’s also another problem which hardly gets mentioned at all. What is the international status of your ‘legal’ marriage if it isn’t ‘legal-legal’?

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Wedding Locations and Where to get legally married as a gay couple: When The World Doesn't Want to Be Your Oyster

Posted on December 11th, 2009 by Jenna Rose. 5 Comments

Jenna Rose

Since I’m still hovering in limbo about the dress (though leaning preeeetty heavily toward the ivory gown *gasp* against all possible predictions) and my wedding planning has stalled out for the last month or so, I figure this is a good time to catch you all up on how I got to this point. Last winter, as we waited for California to rule on the validity of Proposition 8, Chris and I started discussing alternate options for the wedding. We’d had a tentative date set for August 2009, but between the passage of Prop 8, our pending move back to Dallas, and the lousy economy (along with our suffering bank accounts), we decided to postpone the wedding for another year.

With the additional time (and, hopefully, additional saved money) to rethink our original plans, we started to analyze what we were really looking for in a wedding location. I knew my two musts were ‘beach’ and ‘intimate’. I also really wanted it to be outdoors, although I was semi-willing to compromise on that. But ‘intimate/beach’ leaves a pretty wide geographic swath of possibilities. We also wanted to pick a place that would double as our honeymoon, or at least be geographically near wherever we decided to go. Chris’s honeymoon must was castles. And then there was that question about legality and what, exactly, it meant to/for/about us…

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Choosing the Dress

Posted on November 17th, 2009 by Jenna Rose. 7 Comments

Jenna Rose

I thought I was done with dress crises – despite my lingering lust for a fairy-tale train, I’d figured out a solid list of “musts” and “wants”, and spent many, many weeks trolling dress stores and online options for a magical, one-of-kind, yet practical dress. My “musts”: must be re-wearable, to justify the cost; must be wearable all-night and on the beach (meaning nix the train); and must be “wedding-y” – in other words, must stand out enough to signify that I am the bride, and not someone just attending the wedding. Somewhere in my searching, I stumbled on the BariJay “Shimmer” collection, and fell in love. Except for one teensy tiny problem – I was in love with a fabric, not a dress.

The fabric was a silk charmeuse watercolor print, and it came in three dress options:

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All images by BarJay Collection

Discarding the third one immediately as too casual, that left me with two choices – neither of them perfect. But this fabric is everything I’d been searching for. After a lot of consideration, and advice-seeking from friends, I decided on the middle option. But there are some cons: I’m not crazy about the beading detail or the cut of the back. However, I think I can alter both of these things myself with relative ease. Also, it’s a $600 dress – which is my entire “outfit” budget. A bigger con is that I cannot find a single store that carries this dress within a three state radius of Texas. I’ve called everywhere to try on a sample, with no luck, and since it is a “special occasions” design, bridal shops won’t order a sample for me. So I’d have to commit to the purchase blind.

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The Allure of the Great White Dress

Posted on November 12th, 2009 by Jenna Rose. 4 Comments

Jenna Rose

First, I’d like to apologize for falling off the face of the earth (and internet) for the last month.  I’ve spent several weeks fistfighting with a very nasty flu, which essentially brought all life – and wedding planning – to a sickly, tissue-laden halt. Somewhere around week three of my cranky, fevery delirium, I decided that the best cure I could administer (short of Congress actually passing a health care plan which covered me) would be to spend countless hours mindlessly clicking through bridal sites, drooling over multi-$1,000 couture bridal gowns. How could this fail to help?

Now, I must admit something: ever since I can remember, I have sworn I would not wear a white wedding gown. Too cliche, too traditional, too wedding-industry – not to mention, I am pale as a ghost and, after beige, white is the least-flattering color on my skin. Yet secretly (and now very publicly), I covet a ridiculously whimsical white gown. Preferably a ridiculously whimsical white gown with a train as long as 5th avenue and enough fabric to smother a baby whale.

In a world where thousand dollar bills rained out of the sky, here a few of my all-time favorite dresses:

Amy-Michelson-Unknown-Peaches-and-Cream-Ivory-2007-1

Amy Michelson, "Peaches and Cream"

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Bridal Blues

Posted on September 23rd, 2009 by Jenna Rose. 2 Comments

Jenna Rose

For weeks I’ve been spending hours pouring over new Etsy items or DIY wedding posts, beaming with the sheer glee of a bride-to-be. Our budget was drafted, we’d worked through the big decisions (when, where, how) and the ball was finally off and rolling. I felt like a kid tumbling down a grass hill, yelling “Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” But it’s hard to keep up that momentum when you realize no one else is joining in – when, in fact, it feels like most of them are standing at the bottom with their arms crossed, frowning.

Let me back up and say that we have a lot of friends who are very supportive of our relationship and are thrilled that we’re engaged. The problem is that those friends are not necessarily available. Two of my four closest friends are traveling abroad for the year with only intermittent internet access, and the other two live on opposite sides of the country. We’ve just relocated from Los Angeles to Dallas, Chris’ hometown, and the only people I really know here are her (mostly male) friends. While they’re also wonderfully supportive, they’re less than interested in hearing about dresses, flowers, linens, or my latest idea for save-the-date cards. One of their wives has already made several snarky comments about my ‘bridal brain’. (more…)

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