Author Archive

Smart Ways to Save Money on Your Wedding

Posted on January 31st, 2011 by Mandy. 4 Comments

Mandy
Wedding Date: May 29th, 2010
Bio: I am currently in the process of of living happily-ever-after with my amazing spouse, Bek; brightening up our drudgery of grad school and non-profit administration by camping, traveling, drinking on the balcony, and planning the expansion of our family! Our recent projects have included throwing the best New York City wedding EVER.

Find out why this wedding cost 20% less than it could have...

I (and my better half) were reflecting on our wedding planning recently, specifically the budgeting aspect. It’s not part of the process that I really blogged about when we were planning, except for one of my first blogs where I talked about the particular challenge of budgeting for a wedding in New York City. What Bek and I were reflecting on was whether or not we felt that anything from our wedding felt missing, or inadequate, or “cheap”, because of any of our cost cutting measures. And we both agreed that we thought we had done a good job of balancing the splurges and the saves, while satisfying everything we wanted and that we thought would make our guests feel like they had had a really special experience.

Everyone, no matter the size of their budget, wants to get the most bang for their buck. Maybe most of you are already aware of some of these, but I still thought it might be useful. Some of these things were stuff we hadn’t considered till we started talking to our vendors and really brainstorming together for ways to save money. So I put together some tips based on a few of the things we did to try to save as much as possible.

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What To Do When “The Honeymoon is Over”: Making A Marriage That Works

Posted on January 20th, 2011 by Mandy. 5 Comments

Mandy
Wedding Date: May 29th, 2010
Bio: I am currently in the process of of living happily-ever-after with my amazing spouse, Bek; brightening up our drudgery of grad school and non-profit administration by camping, traveling, drinking on the balcony, and planning the expansion of our family! Our recent projects have included throwing the best New York City wedding EVER.

Apparently, according to statistics, the highest rate of divorce is in the third year of marriage.

*Not a real fight!*

Eeeeep. We just started our third year last month! And you know what? Even though we don’t have any real problems in our relationship right now, I kind of understand why the third year is where things get tricky.

The high of getting married can only last so long, then it’s followed by the exciting new adventure that is being married. And then you just are married – it has a little less novelty, is a little less shiny, and things start to normalize a bit. It’s the “honeymoon is over” stage. It happens, and it’s pretty normal.

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It Gets Better

Posted on January 17th, 2011 by Mandy. 4 Comments

Mandy
Wedding Date: May 29th, 2010
Bio: I am currently in the process of of living happily-ever-after with my amazing spouse, Bek; brightening up our drudgery of grad school and non-profit administration by camping, traveling, drinking on the balcony, and planning the expansion of our family! Our recent projects have included throwing the best New York City wedding EVER.

Bek and I recently did a video for the It Get’s Better Project…

Most of you have probably heard about the It Get’s Better, but for those who aren’t familiar…

When in 2010 we saw far too many devastating stories of LGBTQ youth committing suicide, Dan Savage (of Savage Love) started a campaign that encouraged people to tell their stories, mostly via video, to LGBTQ youth in order to send them one clear message – It gets better. The response has been overwhelming, with over 1000 videos submitted from LGBTQ and allied individuals around the world, including notable activists, celebrities, and politicians. But most moving are the stories from the everyday people, the LGBTQ individuals who are living happy lives after overcoming the multitude of struggles that come with a lack of acceptance.

I encourage all of you to visit the site, and get involved. It’s important that we share the message to LGBTQ youth that they are not alone, that there are people out there who will accept them for who they are, that life is worth living, and that IT GETS BETTER!

If you have made a video, please share it with us! Leave the link in the comments, or post it to our Facebook page.

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The Only Two Lists You Need To Plan Your Wedding: Learning What You Really Want

Posted on January 10th, 2011 by Mandy. 2 Comments

Mandy
Wedding Date: May 29th, 2010
Bio: I am currently in the process of of living happily-ever-after with my amazing spouse, Bek; brightening up our drudgery of grad school and non-profit administration by camping, traveling, drinking on the balcony, and planning the expansion of our family! Our recent projects have included throwing the best New York City wedding EVER.

I recently revisited how we started planning our wedding. Other bloggers, here and elsewhere, have all expressed the same challenge that we faced when we decided to have a wedding: With no long-established traditions and examples of queer weddings, how do you decide what your wedding will be like?

I think that we were like so many other queer couples are when faced with weddings – we know what we DON’T want. The list of things we DIDN’T want could have stretched on for miles. It’s so much easier to identify what you don’t like, what you reject because it’s heteronormative, what is too traditional to feel right, what doesn’t suit you as individuals or couples. If you’re a couple like us who overthinks everything and can sometimes have knee-jerk rejections of all things heteronormative, it’s easy to get bogged down in the DON’Ts. And while you should question the things that wedding traditions and the wedding market say you need and learn to identify and stay strong on the issues that you know you don’t want, it can all get you into a negative mindset. And it can be tough to dig yourself out of that negative mindset of the unending list of DON’Ts and find a way to keep things positive and talk about your DOs.

As we’re all breaking new ground as queer couples planning weddings, there is little for us to point to to say we DO want this and we DO want that (that’s part of why a resource like So You’re EnGayged is so important!).

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