Feb 12, 2010
Posted on Feb 12, 2010 in fashion | 8 comments
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I have a confession to make- when it comes to hair, I’m completely helpless. I don’t own a blow dryer, a curling iron, a flat iron, or any other heavy equipment. I don’t know the first thing about extensions or updos and I can’t imagine waking up any earlier than I already do in order to DO my hair.
I only have myself and my freakin’ amazing hair stylist to blame. I tell her to make it choppy and that I’m never going to blow dry it and then I sit back and enjoy a head massage while she works miracles. A little goop, oil, or salt spray and I’m on my way in the morning. I like my messy hair.
And yet. I’m totally enamoured with how glamourous my mom looks in this picture that hangs in our hallway:
And then. Last weekend we saw “An Education” and it hit me. I want big, glamourous 60’s wedding hair like my mom. And like Carey Mulligan. And I want every single outfit she wears in the film and I want to go to Paris.
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Hi, I’m Ms. Awesome and I LOVE the 60’s! Maybe I haven’t let you all in on that little nougat before, although I guess I hinted at it a bit with the title of yesterdays post.
So this hair inspiration isn’t really a big surprise to me…and yet it’s been right in front of my nose this whole time. I’ve even had this hair before. Witness:
I still think I like my moms hair (bumpit!) best of all! What do you think? Should I rock my messy hair on our wedding day, go for the bumpit a la my mom, or sport the simple elegant updo? Is your wedding hair along the lines of your everyday hair or are you going for something totally different?
Feb 11, 2010
Posted on Feb 11, 2010 in traditions | 3 comments
Hey lovelies! So sorry to disappear like that- I had a few scares this past weekend! First C decided we were gonna watch the Super Bowl!! Waaa? Excuse my blatant sexism here, but isn’t this why I’m marrying a girl? Of course I’m kidding, well kinda, I mean, we’ll just leave it at “Go Saints!” Our second scare of the weekend came when the notorious r.i.n.g. (eater) Oscar ingested something toxic and had a series of seizures forcing us to spend Sunday night in the doggy ER. The drive to the ER was seriously terrifying- C did great with the precision driving, and I held/comforted our near unconscious and twitchy pup. Tears were shed, dollars were spent, and many sleepless hours later we were able to spring him from the ER tail a-waggin’! A very happy ending indeed.
And now thanks to the dog-who-lived we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming and talk about the super rad new-school traditions we wanna rock on our wedding day!
Here goes:
We wanna Jump the Broom. This is awesome for a few reasons. A little history- Jumping the broom originated in Africa and later served as a public declaration for African Americans when NO form of marriage was available to them (i.e. during slavery) It symbolized settling into a “marriage type arrangement.” Doesn’t the thought of having to settle into “an arrangement” make you feel a little queasy? Me too! Anyway, it was always done with witnesses AND whoever jumped the highest was the decision maker of the household. So let’s review. We’re publicly announcing our desire to settle into a “marriage type arrangement” (blech) sans a little piece of paper and about 1400 rights. We’re gonna have witnesses. We’re fiercely competitive and welcome a little egalitarian way to decide just WHO’S IN CHARGE around here. Oh yeah. We’re definitely jumping the broom.
We wanna write our own vows. Although I was almost convinced by posts here & here about the virtues of going with traditional vows, and while I’m sure to be a blubbery mess and C is admittedly shy, we still wanna torture ourselves and write super-personal, sure-to-mess-up-your-make-up, heart wrenchingly personal vows. I would love to include this excerpt from C’s favorite book:
For her I changed pebbles into diamonds, shoes into mirrors, I changed glass into water, I gave her wings and pulled birds from her ears and in her pockets she found the feathers, I asked a pear to become a pineapple, a pineapple to become a lightbulb, a lightbulb to become the moon, and the moon to become a coin I flipped for her love, both sides were heads; I knew I couldn’t lose.
Nicole Krauss, “The History of Love”
I think it’s magic and I love that it captures both the vast possibilities and utter certainty of love in just a few sentences . Not really sure if peeps ever include quotes in their vows, as I haven’t been to that many weddings, but I’d be hard-pressed to say it better myself. Has anyone else included a quote in their vows or should this be more of a reading thing?
b/c…
We want our friends to do readings from our favorite books.
I like you, by Sandol Stoddard, might just be one of them. I don’t remember when I first discovered it, but I gave it to C as a gift a while back, just because. Just because it’s a lovely little book and so perfectly captures everything beautiful and wonderful and totally deliciously odd about relationships. You must GO read Miss Scissors’ post if you aren’t familiar with the book if only to ogle all the insanely cute pics! Not sure what other books will make the cut, but we LOVE the idea of including as many people as possible in the wedding fun and since we can’t just have one GIANT wedding party, we’ll have readers. And various other wedding elves, I think. Yes, elves are a must. 
We want our friends & family to bless our rings.
Yup- we want to risk our rings forever falling to a grassy home, being eaten by a toddler, or dropped in a cocktail just so that our family and friends can get their grubby paws all over ‘em and endow them with good wedding juju.
We want to drink sake have a San-san-Kudo Ceremony.
What can I say- we like to drink together! Seriously though- the SSK is a formal/ritualized drinking of sake by both partners AND their respective families to bond them in marriage. The literal translation is three-three-nine-times which is a whole bunch of auspicious numbers that dictate how many times you drink the sake- and since we’re freaks about auspicious numbers here in Awesomeland, we love this ritual even more! AND I LOVE the symbolism of sharing a cup (of booze) with my future wife and family (whoever shows up or C chooses to stand in) and I think it’s only appropriate that we borrow this tradition from Japanese culture as I have a whole Japanese family who mean the world to me and have played a big role in my life! Enter our bridesmaid Nami who was my exchange student when I was eleven. We’ve kept in touch ever since. And by “kept in touch” I don’t mean we write letters- I mean we traverse the globe to hang out in various cities and have spent time living in each others homes. She’s awesome and I’m so happy to have her stand with me as a bridesmaid ! I can’t wait to share the day with her and her family and I love this little nod to their culture/tradition. So yeah. I think it’s legit. Just check out the proof:
* I’m about 20 here and my J fam played dress up with me at the local kimono parlour, had professional pics taken, and then paraded me through town to their local shrine! Love ‘em!
AND there you have just a few of the new-school traditions that we hope to incorporate. Whadda ya think? Too many or too much of a mish-mosh? Are you incorporating/creating new traditions for your wedding? Do tell.
Feb 2, 2010
Posted on Feb 2, 2010 in traditions | 8 comments
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Because I’m a giant dork and because I LOVE the dictionary, I give you M Webs definition of tradition in it’s entirety:
Main Entry: tra·di·tion
Pronunciation: \trə-ˈdi-shən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English tradicioun, from Middle French & Latin; Middle French tradicion, from Latin tradition-, traditio action of handing over, tradition — more at treason
Date: 14th century
1 a : an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom) b : a belief or story or a body of beliefs or stories relating to the past that are commonly accepted as historical though not verifiable
2 : the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instruction
3 : cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions
4 : characteristic manner, method, or style <in the best liberal tradition>
— tra·di·tion·al \-ˈdish-nəl, -ˈdi-shə-nəl\ adjective
— tra·di·tion·al·ly adverb
— tra·di·tion·less \-ˈdi-shən-ləs\ adjective
Got that? Traditions are weighty things people. The definition above can pretty much be cited as the reason people get married, the reason we wanna get married, and the reason peeps DON’T want us to get married. Complicated no?
It also reaffirms for me how important it is for us to get married, legal or not. It’s time to introduce a new norm and reclaim “traditional marriage.” It makes me sick that it’s been hijacked and degraded by this whole “marriage is between a man and a woman” bullshit. Traditional marriage in that sense of the word? No thanks. Now if you’re talking about love, honor, & commitment- I’m totally onboard.
So it seems only appropriate that I give you our, ahem, tried and true traditions first. Here goes.
OLD SCHOOL TRADITIONS:
I want my dad to walk me down the aisle. I love this tradition despite its archaic passing off your daughter like chattel origins. I love my dad tons and the last few years have been really rough on him. He’s basically been forced into an early retirement due to a lot of scary health problems that they’re still trying to get to the bottom of. I think that sometimes it takes something like this for us to grasp our parent’s mortality and I have to admit it scares the hell out of me! I’m hoping my dad can get healthy (er) this year and that our wedding is a little something for him to look forward too. He’s been a wonderful father and I want him to have the HONOR of walking me down the aisle because I think it will make him happy. And depending how things shape up with C’s family, he may have to walk us both down the aisle. Double Happiness.
I want to wear a white dress. I know girls dream of the fluffy white princess dress, but not this girl. At some point in my angsty teen phase I told my mom that IF I ever even got married I’d have a ruby engagement ring and a red dress. Even when we started planning our wedding I still thought I might have a colored dress, although I long abandoned the ruby/red dress idea. Anyway in my progression to full blown princess dress I’m still on the short white dress end of the spectrum but with a healthy leaning towards it could be longer if it was vintage couture.
We wanna cut the cake. And the rug. But that’s later. Anyway this one is super important to C b/c “it’s just what you do at every wedding.” And even though she’s promised not to smash cake in my face I still find this one a little suspect. I do agree that it happens at every wedding though- and I’m happy to give our guests a little of that continuity we were talking about in the above definitions. None of that “We went to a GAY wedding and (lowers voice) they didn’t even CUT the cake.” Nope. Not at our shindig. We deliver.
Okay on to cutting the rug, aka The First Dance. Yes, we (C) want everyone to stare at us as we awkwardly sway to a song of her choice. Yup- music is not my domain peeps. This one makes me the most uncomfortable- I don’t like people staring at me if I can’t blabber. I’m much better at blabber than I am at awkward swaying. That being said, there is a redemptive factor to this one and that’s busting out with an amazing choreographed number mid-sway. That I could get behind. So if you’re one of our darling wedding guests, forget you read this and damn it, act surprised should it happen!
In a perfect world of butterflies, unicorns and rainbows we would want a father/daughter dance. We don’t live in a perfect world though and as C’s family isn’t supportive of our relationship/wedding we’re not really sure that they’ll be available for dancing. Or at our wedding at all for that matter. Here’s where are all those above definitions of tradition painfully collide and the only one who gets hurt is my beautiful fiancee. And it sucks. I’m not sure what to do about it or how exactly to deal with this beyond obviously NOT having a father/daughter dance…
Not to end on a sad note, but maybe some of you have advice about how to deal with unsupportive family members?
Up next: NEW SCHOOL TRADITIONS.
Jan 20, 2010
Posted on Jan 20, 2010 in venue | 2 comments
Yo peeps! I got this email a few days back and instead of just responding to it myself I decided to post it here in the hopes that you all will pitch in and help M find an awesome location! LA venue hunting on a budget is the pits and so the more brains and bloggers who pitch in the quicker we can find M a location and get her on her way to being hitched! Here’s her note and my response. Feel free to chime in. Pretty Please?
Dear Ms. Awesome,
I just stumbled on your blog this morning will google-ing LA DIY-style locations. Now I can’t stop reading. Our wedding style was seriously separated at birth. I’ve got the Fabric flower headpeice, the short white dress, the food trucks, the flower market trip all on my inspiration/planning board. The future Mr. & I are shooting for an October 2010 wedding but still cannot nail down a venue. Arrg!
Would you mind telling me about the prices you were quoted for The Wilson Harding Clubhouse and any other reason you didn’t chose them? I live in Los Feliz and have always had a place in my heart for Griffith Park weddings & quinceneras.
My dream location was also Marvimon – but my budget is teeny.
I thought a downtown location was perfect too but our ceremony will be at our church in Studio City and we’ll be hosting out of towners who have already expressed to me how nervous they are about LA freeways. With the Sportsmans Lodge newly re-opened, that would sure be easy, but limit our catering/bar choices drastically.
Another top pick is the Eagle Rock Art Center, but they haven’t gotten back to me.
I’m sorry to dump my issues on you, but after trolling the wedding blogs for months, you’re the first whose opinion I feel I can trust because your aesthetic is so dead-on. My mom is no help (she comes from the hippie mindset of why have a wedding reception at all when you can order sandwiches and a keg and call it a party). My bridesmaids all live out of town.
Thank you for your time. Hope to hear (commiserate with) soon,
M.
Yo M!
Flattery will get you everywhere…First off thanks for the awesome email and congratulations on being our wedding doppelganger! Clearly you’re a lady with great taste!
Second- your mom sounds effing awesome!
Now to get down to the brass tacks and find you an affordable and awesome LA location for your October 2010 wedding reception. Preferably this perfect location will be cheap, aesthetically awesome, and near studio city or easily accessible for your scaredy cat out-of-towners too right? Yeesh girl! That’s one tall order. Here are my thoughts:
Option #1
Griffith Park is sweeeeeeeeeeet! And I’ve heard rumors that you can throw an awesome party in the park for only $400!! Not sure if that’s true, but I heard that delightful rumor here, so maybe you can verify and let us know? And check out the gorgeous wedding photographs while you’re there! The drawback (or why is it only $400?) is that I’m pretty sure you can’t booze it up or be too loud with this park option, so if you’re a boozy loudmouth like moi then keep reading.
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Option#2
Griffith Park- The Wilson Harding Clubhouse. I think that price wise it was in the $1600 for 4-6 hours range plus a host of miscellaneous other fees. It wasn’t too bad honestly, but girl it’s no Marvimon!
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Option #3
Box Eight. Go check out one of my fav LA wedding bloggers, Bowie Bride, and all she has to say about her awesome location here, and here! It’s definitely the budget Marvimon (but in a good way)- all the Marvimon flavor at less than 1/3 the price! I LOVE LOVE LOVE it and had we not already booked Heritage Square we’d so be there.
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Box Eight is downtown though which we know is not exactly next to Studio City…
May I suggest public transit?? How scared are these scaredy-cat out-of-towners is the real question? Mid-west scaredy cats might wanna skip this one, but if your guests are flying in from anywhere else they just might jump on this option and even find it to be a redeeming quality for this dear city of ours.
If taking public transit is too crazy then I have to go with Dana over at Broke-Ass-Bride and recommend this:
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(Go see the rest of the drop-dead, oh-my-god-gorgeous photos here.)
Add a double decker to the mix and you can have your damn reception anywhere you like!
And please do let me know what you find/where you end up!
Sincerely
your honorary local bridesmaid
aka.
ms. Awesome
Jan 19, 2010
Posted on Jan 19, 2010 in how it all began | 1 comment
uber nerd on the right! LOL.
Well I made it through my first day as a bee and it was pretty awesome! I think we were both secretly a little afraid of negative comments raining on our love-fest and the absolute opposite proved true- we were overwhelmed by awesome and encouraging comments all day!
Crisis averted. Fear Subsides. The Hive is awesome.
By way of introductions, I wrote this little ‘ol post to share over there, and then realized it contained some info I’d never shared here on Ms. Awesome. So have at it.
I interrupt our usual blue skies, unicorns and the show tunes that define gay wedding planning, to give you a few more random facts than you ever needed. Come on you know you wanna know this stuff!
Here goes. Let’s play finish that sentence.
We met on Match.com Ain’t no shame in that right?
Okay. Okay. I’ll admit we’ve been known to say we met through a friend of a friend or some such nonsense on more than one occasion, but it’s a big fat lie! Fiancee stripes winked at me, I shot her an email, and the rest is just below for your reading pleasure.
Our first date was awesome! We met for wine at Banquette, my local wine/coffee house, then we walked to the Downtown Independant and saw Persepolis, and then we knocked back some whiskey, made fun of people, and made out at Bar 107. We finished the night with some tender (ha!) kisses in the rain. Cue music. Sigh.
Our Second date consisted of a trip to the Getty, a picnic lunch, and wine in a thermos. Wine in a thermos?! Another sigh. Clearly a girl after my own heart. I don’t remember any of the art.
Fast Forward Six Months and in true lezzyBEE fashion she moved in!
Marriage and kids and all that jazz have always been a part of our dialogue and so the next bit might seem a bit surprising. It’s actually one of my deep dark secrets here in wedding world.
See C proposed first and I freaked the f#$k out! Seriously I’m lucky she stuck around seeing as I pretty much pulled a Carrie Bradshaw and wore the ring in an, ahem, untraditional style (read on my right hand).
It was just too much, too fast and even though I wanted to marry her (desperately) I couldn’t bear to slide that ring on my left finger and be an “engaged” lady just yet. This is a pretty clear example of the planning/spontaneity dynamic we have going on. Luckily she stuck around, I worked through my issues, and our dog Oscar took care of the ring. He ate it. And that was that.
Fast Forward Two Years and here we are, chronicling our adventures for you as we plan our awesome wedding! A lot has happened, that’s for sure! We’ve traveled many miles (Paris, New York, The Bahamas, Miami, and Vancouver), made a home together, added to our furry family (now 2 dogs, 1 cat), laughed, cried, and danced.
To sum it up (or break it down)
We’re just two girls who love books, food, dance parties and each other.
*We also love whiskey in combo with any of the above!
So grab a glass, sit back, and join us as we return to our regularly scheduled programming (blue skies, unicorns, show tunes) and continue exploring the question How the hell did we get here?
I know it’s a little bit of an odd “getting to know you” to post as my very first one over on the hive, but I think that it’s important to keep our heads on straight (hee hee) in this whole wedding planning business and realize that our lives and relationship trajectories don’t have to be perfect to make for great relationships, wedding planning, and yes, even marriage.
What about you? How’d you get to the place you are now in your relationship? Any premature proposals or bumps along the way?
