I have a blister on my left index finger and a pulled muscle in my neck. All from removing the lids from baby food jars. Around 60 of them.

I’m using mason jars. Love the rustic look and how easy they are to come by. My sister even scored some with glass lids at tag sales. Woo hoo! Tables also need candles, so I thought hey, let’s use baby food jars for candles! Luckily said sister just had a baby and started to save jars for me.

I plunked myself down and attacked the jars with ferver. In retrospect, I’m not sure why my sister gave me all the jars with the lids on them, but she did. As kids, she would put lids on jars so tight that we wouldn’t be able to get them off. Things haven’t changed.

Also related: gave up the idea of making my own candles in the jars. Like putting in wicks and melting wax. Just going to order candles instead. Feels good to say no to DIY sometimes.

There are mini lessons to be found everywhere. Just keep your eyes open!

This past weekend Bryan’s mom graciously threw us a fabulous engagement party. With caterers, passed hors d’oeuvres and a bartender. We joked it was fancier than our wedding. Our immediate family members attended, and it was a loud joyous occasion.

Saturday morning I was a ball of nerves. My mom, stepmom and step aunt were training it down from Mass. How was the train ride, did they settled some of the shower business? Are they going to be comfortable and get along with people, etc etc.

In the end everything was lovely and fine. People did exactly what I expected they would do, and I just need to let it go.  Patterns and behaviors don’t change overnight, and I just need to modify my expectations. Or know when to be clear about expectations, when does it matter.

The party was a bit overwhelming, meeting a lot of people who knew Bryan and his family. It was tricky navigating as there were people invited to the party who aren’t invited to the wedding. Emily Post may call this a social faux pas, but this allows us to invite more of our friends to the wedding and there will be another party post-wedding. I would meet people and be matching them up on our excel spreadsheet of names and address. “OH! You are So and so and you live here!” I’ve been living with these names for so long that it was wonderful to start putting faces and personalities to it.

At one point, I came up to Bryan and he said, “I feel like I haven’t seen you at all tonight!” and I knew those were words I didn’t want to hear on our wedding.  Granted, this was a cocktail party with lots of people he hasn’t seen in awhile, but it helped me realize an expectation and I was able to share it with him.

People were incredibly generous and we received many lovely items off of our registry (new wine glasses!) and unexpected gorgeous gifts, like Kate Spade votives. We felt so celebrated and loved, and look forward to continuing the party!

Friday night out with Bryan and his buddies, drinking beer, watching them flirt with women.  One of them  mentioned he received our postcard.

He complimented the vintage look to it, and dug on the stamps. “Such a cool idea for the wedding invitation.”

“It’s just the save the date. Didn’t you see where it said formal invitation to follow?”

“Oh no! I thought that this was it!”

Sigh.

Ron Lieber of the New York Time posted a story a few weeks ago, Four Talks to have Before Marriage. Of course, I devoured the article immediately. He says:

It’s crucial to air and resolve financial disagreements beforehand.

Amen.

He recommends couples discuss four areas: two past looking and two future looking. Ancestry and credit will have the couple talk about how their parents handled money and it’s impact on how one deals with money now. Credit is like an adult report card- and best to disclose everything up front. If there are areas that need to be repaired, the couple may have some time before applying for loans together. Credit surprises are not fun, but getting a good rate should be.

Who will be the household CFO, managing the expenses and retirement accounts. For couples marrying later in life or set in their financial ways, this can be tricky. And then, affluence– how rich does the couple want to be, what sort of life are they looking for. Investment bankers and corporate lawyers make a comfortable salary, but it also requires long hours and weekends.

After I read this, I gave myself a little pat on the back. In order for us to prepare for marriage and living together, I felt it was necessary to sit down and have a straight up talk about fiances. This is what I make, these are my expenses, this is what I have in savings and retirement and this is what I owe. We talked about how we manage our money from month to month and how we would split expenses moving forward. I’ve read that money is one of the most stressful topics for a couple. We both grew up witnessing how money affected our parents during the marriage, through the divorce, and there after and wanted to clear the way for a healthy dialogue. Create an environment for honesty and disclosure through clear communication.

Now we are discussing how we will handle money once we have a joint account. How have you handled money before marriage and after? What differences have there been?

Yeah— it’s called my bachelorette party, sweetheart.

The object in question is this gorgeous tulle skirt.

from etsy seller ouma

also loving this dreamy wedding dress, so appropriately named.

dreamy day wedding dress from ouma

They say:

• You’re wedding won’t be perfect.
• You’ll have to give up some things and find a balance.
• You’re wedding should reflect you, and not be a magazine shoot
• etc etc etc

I found my first DIY project, our Save the Dates to be a great lesson in finding the balance, giving things up, and saying yes.

I love postcards. I’ve participated in monthly postcard projects with friends, always send them to friends and family when traveling, and designed my own for Christmas a few years ago. Bryan and I sent each other postcards in the early months of our courtship. Postcards are us. (Well, more me really, but that’s okay.)

I started daydreaming up a vintage postcard, with deckle edges and lineny paper. So that it had a vintage feel and texture to it.  I purchased some deckle edged scissors from Target and ordered paper samples from Paper and More. I started designing the postcard with GIMP, figuring I’d create a JPG and have it printed, either at home or nearby. Bryan checked in with some local printers. I requested some samples from online printers as well.

But then, all the DIYness started to get out out of hand- just too many variables. It was becoming something bigger and more cumbersome, and not enjoyable. I used Prints Made Easy a few years back to design some holiday cards, and I remember it being a very easy process (and affordable).

If you can get past the flash site, they have a great online editor. A friend scanned a vintage postcard of the town we are getting married in, which we used for the front of the postcard. For the back: I used the online editor for the text. I uploaded the Martha Stewart postcard graphic (which I had to turn into a JPG first via GIMP). I wanted to use a typewriter font, and they had a great one. And get this,  Prints Made Easy does printing with variable data! This means upload an excel spreadsheet with addresses and it will print them for you.

Bryan said, “Uh, maybe we should do that. We both have terrible handwriting, and we will be addressing 95+ postcards.” It look a bit to figure out how to get the addresses to appear correctly (couples that live together, apartment numbers, etc etc), but then it clicked and it was magic. I flew into the kitchen and did a little dance.  So everything was looking good, we placed an order and waited for the little goodies to arrive. We had 95 printed with addresses and ordered 15 more, and the total cost was just under $50.00. Just under budget.  Perfect.

They arrived a week later, just in time to use the vintage stamps I found on ebay. As a kid, I loved checking the mail. My sister and I would race to the mailbox to be the first one there, and it’s something that still follows me to this day. I love mail. The vintage stamp trend is adorable, but expensive. There was no way we were going to pay above face value for something we could get at the post office. I lucked out and bought some vintage stamps on ebay, and with shipping it still came under face value by $2.00.

I spent a few nights stamping them up, and this was a lot of fun. It was great to pick out stamps for people: writers and poets for our bookish and writer friends, music and arts related stamps for our musician friends, medical stamps to the MDs and RNs, Supreme Court Justice and politicians to our lawyer and public service friends. It was reaffirming each one- we love these people and want like them to be with us on this day. Though, vintage stamps are big, and there wasn’t enough room always above the address and to the right of the postcard ornament. But, whatever. Sometimes you just have to let it go. And I did just that and poured another glass of wine. I did inquire about hand stamping at the local post office, but it seemed like too much of a hassle to make time with the postmaster to do it. I dropped a postcard in the mail from home and the city where I work as a trial. NYC post office placed a sticker on the bottom, while my city of work just printed a barcode on the bottom. Perfect, work city it is.

Overall, I felt it was a good primer for the rest of the wedding planning. Learning to give up things, and knowing when to keep them. Things we let go of:  the paper quality, hand stamping, and hand addressing yeiled time and convenience.The vintage stamps contributed to the entire aesthetic and were fun, if a bit time consuming. Bryan was excellent at saying things like: “Babe, our printer can’t handle that much” and “Babe, you aren’t going to want to use those scissors on 100 postcards” and he was right. His input helped make the project manageable and fun. The letting go felt liberating, and it was on things we agreed on.  I hope I can draw on this as we move towards wedding day.

I can’t wait to mail them tomorrow!

OH! Here they are!

(The dotted lines are on the digital proof as the “safe area”)

Last night, as Bryan played around with the new camera, I caught up on saved clips from Jezebel.  One I saved was Ellen DeGeneres and Portia DeRossi discussing their marriage, and how important it was to be able to get married. I got all teary when Portia said, “It felt like a gift” when gay marriage became legal and they were able to marry.

I’ve always believed that people should have the right to marry the person they love, no matter religion, skin, ethnicity, sexuality. It’s love, and let’s celebrate the commitment two people are making to each other. Becoming an engaged woman and being able to freely and legally marry my partner is an amazing thing. But if I was a man, or he was a woman, we could only do that in 4 states. FOUR. That’s not enough. Gay marriage shouldn’t be a gift from the courts- it’s to be a right of all people.

Bryan booked our honeymoon tickets today! We are headed off to Portugal for a week and a half! Oh yipppee. I am so excited for some international travel and adventure. With my husband. How cool is that?!

Hello Lisbon!

Photograph by Fr Antunes

And he got tickets to Where the Wilds Things Are, in IMAX! I’ve never been! Boyfriend gets lots of kisses when I get home.

(Yes, I still call him boyfriend, and probably will for the rest of my life.)

Just as I was thinking, you need some pictures on this blog lady, OffBeat Bride posted on wedding trends:  buttons.

How cool are these?! I am tempted to hop over to  ButtonEmpire on Etsy and start wearing them ASAP.

(And this totally sums up the night before Halloween– Bryan was making out techno chic costumes (Twitter and an App) and I was stamping up our Save the Dates.  I turned to him and said, “This is crafter dark!!!” and he laughed at me.

Love is letting your inner geek flag wave. Hardcore.)

The name change. A private decision, that we wear publicly.

One of my girlfriend’s just moved back to New York, and over a bottle of wine one afternoon, we were discussing name changes. She kept her name, and related to me her experiences of being called Mrs. Hubby’s-Last-Name. Her sentiments were echoed when I read Nancy Gibbs’ article a few days later.  Ms. Gibbs has elected to keep her name, however she’ll respond to Ms. (work), Mrs. (helpful at schools and doctor offices) and Miss (lifelong friends): she is all of these identities. This brought me great comfort. I am keeping my name; it’s me and sounds pretty awesome. My last name is from my father, who passed away 6 years ago. It is a bond I have with him.

Part of me longs for the family name. The OneHappyFamily, the monogrammed luccite ottoman tray or wine bucket, or family stationary. For a moment I feel wistful, and not just for material objects. I’ll still have the experience of being part of the family unit. It’s not a name that ties you together, but the love, nurturing and support you put in.