Wedding Weekend

One of The Boy’s cousins got married last Friday. In was in upstate New York where most of his family is based. His mom has 10 siblings, 8 of whom have children. Most of those families are not only children families and many of those children are on to having kids of their own. As an only child who isn’t close to her extended family, that was a lot of people.

We crashed with his Uncle Joel and Aunt Monica. Their daughters Kim and Callie, around my age, still lived at home. They were incredibly kind and showed love as many families do, with food. Monica and Kim had very big personalities and enjoyed the company. The Boy’s sister older Bonnie and her son Marvin were staying with other relatives. His parents and other sister were staying at a nearby hotel.

The happy couple was Elle who was marrying Craig. Her parents were Aunt Anna, Uncle Marc, and Anna’ second husband whose name escapes me. Elle’s matron of honor was her sister Nina whose husband Dan was a groomsman. Dina was also a bridesmaid and her sisters, Vera and Sandy (plus her husband) were there. Randall played guitar, Bruce was a character, Cam was lovely, and Tony was there with his wife Kourtney and they are expecting a baby boy in a couple of months. Aunt Nora, Uncle Sam, Aunt Linda, Uncle Gordon, Aunt Beatrice were all very welcoming. Connor, Farrah, and Maya are all the youngest of the bunch not having hit high school yet.

If that sounds complicated factor in that I’m trying to remember enough real names to make up passable pseudonyms. All the real names are so damn normal it was hard to keep straight. There was even overlap between a blood uncle and one who married in. I was really hoping for a Gertrude or a Hamish.

I met most of them at the wedding which made it even more complicated to keep it all straight. I knew a few going in but Aunt Nina enjoyed hearing The Boy give me a who’s who before there ceremony started. Almost all the relatives knew me from Facebook since I regularly post pictures of our antics. I think the relatives who didn’t recognize me from FB were fewer than 5.

The ceremony included rings and hand fasting which is an ancient pagan tradition I love. The officiant was a woman which was also neat. The bouquet toss was rigged but I’m fine with that. A cousin I don’t think I met just got engaged and Callie will be moving in with her boyfriend in January so The Boy and I aren’t on the radar yet.

I wish I’d spent more than 5 minutes talking to Elle and Craig; I’m sure I would have liked them. They cut the cake with his grandfather’s military dress sword and Craig said “This is not the red wedding. You are all safe.” I looked at The Boy and said I’d marry him for his family.

I showed up with The Boy and I basically got a whole new set of relatives. Everyone was happy I was making The Boy happy and just seemed to glad to have me.

Saturday was lunch at a German deli with Gordon, Beatrice, their young daughter Maya, Bonnie, her son Marvin, The Boys folks, and his sister who lives near us. Then we went back to The Boy’s parent’s suite to watch Aliens with immediate family. Before heading over to Gordon’s for dinner we wandered around a sort-of mall with crafty shops. Dinner at Gordon’s had the same crowd from earlier plus Aunt Linda, Farrah, and Aunt Nina to the mix. Gordon and Beatrice had meatballs, homemade gnocchi, eggplant lasagna and salad. I have learned socializing with this family requires at least 4 kinds of cheese at any event.

It took until Saturday night for me to get overwhelmed. At Gordon’s I was texting a friend and went into the TV room. I heard people notice I was gone and I texted The Boy I was hiding. I love his family but I needed a break. The 10 minute respite was enough to get me through dinner and dessert, both of which were delicious.

There was a briefly awkward moment when I thought his uncle would get into a political discussion. I finished breakfast quickly and discovered being a voting and registered independent is OK. Driving there and back with The Boy forced me to do something I had never done before. Let someone else drive my car.

The Boy did just fine and since we’re not too different in height, moved my mirrors minimally (say that 5 times fast). Traffic was never bad and the drive was good. Not once did The Boy or I have to fight the urge to kill each other. Our relationship is good and we have many plans for November. Plans for this week largely center on resting and doing very little.

Music: Now by SHeDAISY

I Do, A Little

Kelly Clarkson got married last weekend. I was a little swamped to say too much about it here since I was out of town for a wedding with The Boy (more on that later).

Kelly Clarkson and Brandon Blackstock flew out to a picturesque Blackberry Farm in Tennessee with his children. The ceremony was so intimate that the siblings and parents of the couple weren’t invited. Clarkson’s brother didn’t hear about it until a tabloid called to ask him about it.

I feel a little bad for the family of the couple. People reported that the Blackstocks had a big family shindig about a week before the wedding. Maybe that was in place of inviting people to an actual ceremony but if I was immediate family, I wouldn’t appreciate being so totally excluded. The brother said it was fine because they live their lives in the spotlight but that’s only partly true.

If you search Brandon Blackstock and Kelly Clarkson, there aren’t that many photos of them together. I looked them up and saw the same dozen photos pre-wedding, most from award shows or public events. She lives her life in the spotlight while Blackstock is a behind the scenes guy the public hadn’t heard of before she started dating him.

The amount of her life Clarkson makes available to the public is part of what I love about her. She released photos of the wedding right away and gave her fans a short video of the whole affair. The accessibility she allows is wonderful and makes her incredibly relatable. It just made me a little sad the whole world saw it at the same time her family did.

I love Clarkson and Blackstock together. I think they’re almost a rom-com stereotype and have a great love story. You can see his influence in some song titles on her upcoming album (Brandon’s Song and Four Carats). I wish them all the happiness life can offer. After spending a weekend with The Boy’s extended family for a wedding, I think including your family in your big moments is part of that.

Music: A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton

Guess Who’s Coming to the Wedding?

That’d be me.

Despite being in the latter half of my twenties, I’ve only been to one wedding. This weekend I will be +1 at a wedding including most of The Boy’s extended family. His mother has 10 siblings. The Boy has around 20 cousins most of whom are already paired off and beginning families of their own. The Boy and his sister are some of the last hold outs.

Thursday The Boy and I will make the 8 hour drive to his aunt and uncle’s house where we are guests. Friday is the celebration, Saturday is up in the air, and Sunday is the 8 hour drive back. I think this falls under the heading of ‘test of the relationship.’

Despite the ample room for anxiety and freaking out, this is a good scenario to meet all the extended family. While I’m sure they’re curious to meet me, I’m not the reason they’re there. They are celebrating another family member tying the knot, jumping the broom, getting a ball(s) and chain, and I’m out of wedding clichés for now.

The ceremony and reception are in the same room at an art gallery so there will be wandering while the set up changes. I expect a variety of relatives coming over to talk to The Boy in waves and I’ll stand there politely until introduced. I can work a room so I’m not that worried about meeting his family. I’m worried about the road trip.

16 round trip hours of nonstop togetherness. We’re used to our own space and I don’t do well on long car trips. I can only handle 3-4 hours of driving in good traffic. If it’s stop and go, I become like an enraged and caged jungle cat. I also can’t handle 8 hours of driving which means for the first time in the history of ever, someone else will have to drive my car. Normally I sleep on road trips but I don’t see that happening here.

I’m trying to cut this off the boredom by having 2 really cool audiobooks on my iPod, a kickass playlist, a book of Would You Rather questions, and jewelry making supplies for when he’s driving. If I’m distracted, that’s for the better.

Music: Tie It Up by Kelly Clarkson

A Study in White

Most people know me as a former English major but I also majored in American Culture Studies. It’s relatively young in the academic community but I think it’s great. American Studies is about the society around us. My tracks were American Literature and Sociology. My curiosity about what drives our popular culture might explain my intense curiosity about weddings.

The bridal industry is a billion dollar industry and it is omnipresent. I get engagement ring and bridal show ads on Facebook. I got a card mailed to my home about a bridal show in September. I know of 3 wedding websites and, as much as I adore Boy Toy, I currently have no interest in marrying him. (Off Beat Bride, The Knot, and Wedding Wire if you were wondering.)

I think I know the reason for this massive outreach. A friend who works for Wedding Wire says they have a name for women like us: pre-engaged. The industry sees us as inevitable clients and is marketing to us that way. It’s working. Girls who are completely single have Pinterest boards about their wedding.

A modest wedding will run you $10,000. Most weddings are closer to $20,000-$30,000. A friend attended a nice but simple wedding and described it as “unimpressive” and “not that special.” When did a day of celebration turn into an occasion to impress your friends and family for the cost of an SUV?

And oh, the reality television. There’s Say Yes to the Dress, Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta, Say Yes to the Dress: Bridesmaids, I Found the Gown, Bridezillas, Four Weddings, A Wedding Story, Bridalplasty, My Fair Wedding, Whose Wedding Is It Anyway, My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding, My Big Redneck Wedding, Rich Bride Poor Bride, and Amazing Wedding Cakes. 

These are all shows based in the United States with WE and TLC being the biggest perpetrators. A Wedding Story, the most understated of the shows, debuted in the mid 1990s. Everything else debuted after 2000. There was a show on TLC about planning a wedding in a week for $1,000 but that died off while I was still in college.

Did you know there’s an engagement ring finder app? I do because it was an ad on my Facebook. If you go to the Lifestyles section of the app store, there’s a Plan Your Wedding Collection of apps. It’s organized into subsections: Inspiration, Details & Organization, Gowns & Tuxedos, Notes & Invitations, Rings & Things, Gifts & Registries, Photos & Videos, and Destination & Travel. Each category displays 10 apps before you can ‘see all.’ Many of these are free and I understand the need to fill a niche market but that’s a minimum of 80 apps on the first page. Imagine what apps aren’t featured but are still out there.

Articles have started popping up about people who got married and realized something strange is going on. Only a handful of books are available that look at not how to plan ‘the most important day of your life’ but at the impact these extravagant events are having on our culture. Why aren’t more people thinking about much this has ballooned over the last 20 years?

I knew grad students in American Studies whose PhD topics were Buffy the Vampire Slayer chat rooms and near death experiences. One undergrad senior paper topic was about authenticity in pop music with a focus on Hanson. A study on why and how wedding culture has ballooned into such a massive entity would be pretty interesting. It’s definitely a topic that deserves more exploration. It almost makes me want to go to grad school. Almost.

Music: Tie It Up by Kelly Clarkson

Skeletor in Bridal

I discovered something recently that I think is absolutely brilliant: Target makes wedding dresses. If I were planning a wedding on a tight budget, I would totally consider getting married in one of these. The only downside is that I probably couldn’t dye it purple. They do come in other colors since several are designed to be bridesmaid dresses.

Since Target makes super cheap gowns, I thought I’d see what else is out there. I poked around David’s Bridal in the under $600 dollar section. They have a lot of great options for brides on budgets. It’s just a pity most of those options are alarmingly identical.

Seriously I don’t know how many ways you can reincarnate white satin but after so long, the dresses become difficult to tell apart. One dress stood out a little but most of them just bored me. I know you get the more interesting stuff when you spend more money but there are bound to be more interesting party dresses for better prices.

If I ever get married I want to wear some combination of white and purple so I nosed around bridesmaid dresses. Much like bridal, none of the dresses stood out which is kind of the point of bridesmaid dresses. One of the models stood out but for all the wrong reasons.

If the camera adds five pounds, does that mean this woman doesn’t exist?

When I first saw this picture, I jumped a little bit. She reminded me of some skeletal demon out of horror movie. I showed her picture to a bunch of my guy friends and they were just as freaked as me. One said she reminded him of starving children in Africa.

I thought most places were trying to cut back on unhealthy models. The Target models are small but they don’t look like ads for world hunger. I want to tie her down and force feed her a la Se7en but only until her clothing size is an actual number. I don’t know if I’ll ever get married but I won’t be looking at David’s Bridal until they get models that eat food.

Disclaimer: I know at least one of you will be thinking this so I’ll just say it. While things are going well with Boy Toy, they have not been going well long enough for me to even consider the above an option. Should it continue to go well into the next hockey season and meeting the families never say never.

Music: Real Girls by Chantel Claret

Say Yes to the Alternative

I was goofing around on Etsy earlier and I’ve heard so many things about what great wedding stuff they have. I’m extremely single but I wanted to see what everyone was talking about. If a girl is going to poke around on the web for wedding crap, what is the first place she’s going to look? The dress.

Etsy gave you different options but I clicked on ‘Alternative Dresses’ first. Lords of Kobol is there some crazy stuff out there. Seeing all of the outrageous color and designs makes the white ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ stuff look really boring now.

This one kicked boring white to the curb and embraced embellishments. Another dress from the same people fell in love with color. They had some standard white fair but their nontraditional stuff was amazing. They’re semi-close to where I live so jotting that down if part of hell freezes over and this happens to me.

One retailer had steampunk fashion some of which was pretty and some of which was weird. I got a big kick out of a pirate dress from Australia. If I ever go hardcore theme, I’m getting that sort of mess custom made.

Some stuff was closer to tradition but had personality. A lot of retailers had shorter dresses and eco friendly dresses.

I have a hard time buying shoes and skirts on-line so I don’t think I’d leave something this important to ‘Add to Cart’ but it can expose you to new ideas and reveal new retailers. They also had some awesome stuff in rings…

Current Music: Game of Thrones Main Title by Lindsey Stirling and Peter Hollens