Aug 15, 2010
Posted on Aug 15, 2010 in civil rights, marriage equality | 2 comments
So by now you may have heard that on August 4th Federal Court Judge Vaughn Walker found the passage of Prop 8 here in California unconstitutional.
And on thursday he denied a stay of his order while the case goes to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. So all legal jargon aside, gay marriages will resume again in California on August 18th at 5pm, so long as the Ninth Circuit doesn’t issue its own “emergency” stay.
Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe you’ve been expecting a celebratory post from me, and if not, well I definitely felt like I should be writing one.
But here’s the thing: I just don’t have the words yet. This is too big and too close to my heart and too close to our wedding and just too tenuous to celebrate quite yet.
Sure it’s a big step. Sure I believe that equality will prevail through the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court and even the public opinion, eventually.
But for us right now, and I’m sure for thousands of other gay couples in California, this is just too personal. We are living and breathing and working and loving in a state of waiting, of limbo, of uncertainty commingling with a shiver of hope.
And isn’t marriage about a little permanence? A little stability? Hoping against hope for the future? Hoping with someone else.
So here’s to hoping in California. We’re keeping our fingers, toes, eyes, arms & legs crossed. And if given the opportunity, we’ll be buzzing down to city hall to do it up legal style very soon.
And in the meantime, I can resume talking about dresses, flowers, invitations and all the other beautiful and very welcome distractions that I’d give up in a heartbeat to go down to the courthouse and marry C right now.
Lucky for you guys- we’ve got four more days to go! So let the distractions begin:
Oh sorry- those are just some cute succulents in love. Stick around though- I promise I have a few good posts in me this week. And maybe some invite madness- b/c did I mention those beauties are in the mail?!
*And we’d appreciate it ever so much if you’d send your good thoughts/energy/prayers for equal rights our direction in California this week! 
May 9, 2010
Posted on May 9, 2010 in frustrations | 2 comments
Screw the details! Maybe we can just have a giant balloon heart?
Thank you again for your lovely response to my ring dilemma discussed here, and here. I seem to be suffering from an inability to actualize a lot of my projects lately and actually making a decision feels really good.
I think I’ve come to realize that the wedding is now, gulp, four months away and all these things that have been hypothetical, ideological, aspirational or otherwise written and debated and discussed need to start happening. I need to make decisions for realz now. Double big gulp. It’s go time.
I’m trying to focus on the details that really DO matter to us and forget (or find cheap/quick/pretty) alternatives for all the rest. I actually went to Ikea a few weeks ago and spent $20 on ALL the frames for our table numbers. Score. Done.
Here’s a sneak peek at a (very) annotated version of THE LIST that remains:
1. My dress. Not in love and since it was so cheap I’ve always told myself it was no big deal to find another one. Ha. Ha. This one deserves it’s own post.
2. Bridesmaids Dresses/Attire. It’s time to actually take our bridesmaids shopping and find some fabulous (and affordable) vintage goodness.
3. Our cranes need to be completed and strung.
4. Build my bouquet.
5. Make our ceremony broom.
6. Order our rings.
7. INVITES. Need I say more?
And the list goes on…
I’m not overwhelmed by the particular tasks themselves (in fact I’m super excited about most of them) and yet I’m strangely sad about all the details that we won’t have based on what we decide to go with. It’s super silly, I know. sigh. Sometimes I think all this thinking/blogging about our wedding makes it even more difficult to actually make a damn decision because we tend to over-analyze every little thing. We have way too many options and that makes it easy to overlook the simple, “perfect for us” but maybe not the prettiest details. Ya know?
I guess you could also say that I have a fear of detail commitment. Big time. I have too many ideas and we don’t have the time/money/tenacity for all of them. The choices we make now and move forward with will shape the look and feel of our wedding, and that makes them seem kinda important, ya know? And that has me waffling over seemingly simple decisions. And that in turn makes me feel foolish. I’m a busy lady and I don’t have time to fuss over trivial details. Oh wedding planning you really are a beast!
But now that we’ve made the paramount wedding band decision maybe it won’t be so hard to make (gulp) another important decision. I can (sort of) already feel my rusty wedding decision making gears cranking into action, although I’ll admit it could just be my stomach growling, and so it will all fall into place effortlessly* and I’ll look back on this waffling/stressing/indecisiveness and just laugh.
*Or not. Because I think effortless is the biggest lie ever told to us brides/awesome people planning weddings. There’s usually a ton of thought, work, and love behind making something look effortless.
So here’s to putting in the work when it’s worth it and taking that damn trip to Ikea when it’s not!
Anyone else annoyed by their own indecision? Taking a trip to Ikea this weekend? Waffling on trivial paramount wedding decisions? Any secrets for snapping out of it and just making a damn decision already?!
Mar 14, 2010
Posted on Mar 14, 2010 in real life, thoughts on marriage | 5 comments
source
And it has nothing to do with Beyonce & Lady Gaga. I just liked this picture.
Anyhoo…I’m baaaaaack! And after a crazy moving weekend, followed by a week living among boxes and grinding coffee beans with our mortar/pestle because we still can’t find the damn coffee grinder, I’m finally ready to rejoin the blogosphere. Now a whole week without internet means I’ve had A LOT of time to think so you’ll have to bear with me. I promise I’ll even try and be coherent!
So….
I had this friend in high school who was super punk rock. She was in a band and she was an awesome artist and she was basically my idol for a minute there. Anyway, one day in typically divisive high school fashion I made a comment about “some rap song” and she totally surprised me by saying how she really liked that artist. Waaaaa?
If you’re scratching your head and wondering why the hell I’m telling you this little story, I’ll just get right to the point- sometimes I feel like the wedding blogosphere is high school all over again. And we’re divided into groups based on the music we listen to or the stores we shop at. It’s like a blog land battle for my soul.
And wedding zombies don’t eff around. I’ve been rolling this thought around in my head for a while now, trying to get a grasp on exactly how I feel about the competing content out there in blog land. Is there even any competition? Because really it’s ALL pretty. It seems to me there are two camps, diametrically opposed, intent on hopelessly confusing, insulting and belittling EVERY single bride. No one gets left out here folks. And I mean NO ONE. There’s the anti-wedding aesthetic camp where folks “talk about marriage,” pretend they don’t give a flying f*c# about the details, STILL make 200 bajillion napkins AND somehow end up with a blog worthy wedding. And there’s the we wanna talk about weddings in every glorious detail but not really ever touch on what happens post D Day. Details. Details. Details. These peeps end up with blog-worthy weddings too. I oftentimes feel stuck in the middle and am pretty sure that I don’t really fit into either camp.
Now Becca over at A Los Angeles Love wrote a really compelling piece on exactly which photographs makes a blog-worthy wedding (and who/what’s being excluded) that I think is awesome and so true. Go read it. She hits the nail on the head in terms of blog-lands ideals of prettiness, but I don’t quite buy that main stream wedding blogs are the only perpetrator of wedding evils. And to be honest, there is still a lot of inspiration to be found in their too perfect pages. Then again there is a lot of inspiration to be found on all the indie blogs too, and while the beauty ideals may not be the same, I would argue that they absolutely still exist. They’re just different. And the DIY bar is set pretty high across the blogosphere, no matter what the brides final verdict on the importance of said details ends up being. So I actually think all of us blog writers are in part responsible for perpetrating a few wedding evils and worse we buy into the whole us vs. them mentality a little too much in an effort to find our unique voice. I’m a gay girl who is just as comfy in Barney’s New York as I am in my garage (if I had one) fixing my own car. I’m already a precious and unique unicorn, so maybe it wouldn’t kill me to be a little nicer where other peeps weddings are concerned? Maybe I can be a little more comfy in my own skin and my own little corner of the blogosphere and just focus on what works for my wedding with out (too much) “boring” wedding bashing. And still be my bad-ass opinionated self. Maybe. I kinda wanna try, because there is already enough snarkiness in the universe. And I bet you other blog authors/brides-to-be/wedding planner extraordinaires are precious and unique unicorns too. So even if some other brides details seem boring, trite, stereotypical or just plain weird to you, who really cares? See sometimes I feel like a little hesitant to throw a post up over at Weddingbee b/c some people might be offended by my exuberance on my subject matter and sometimes I’m a little hesitant to toss up a silly trifle like my two-post shoe hunt here b/c I think my personal blog readers will find it silly. It’s like my blogroll is forming alliances and could go to battle at any time.
So in an effort to keep the peace, merge the camps, and lighten my snarkiness footprint on the planet, I vow to:
*Blog about the types of weddings I THINK are blog-worthy. I used to do this little thing called wedding wednesdays where I featured gay-girl weddings that I think did a damn good job of this. So if you know of any kick-ass gay-girl weddings please send ‘em my way!
*Have all the glorious unique little details I want AND still be an intelligent thinking bride who cares more about my marriage more than our wedding day.
*Let myself appreciate that other people may have a VERY different idea of what constitutes a beautiful wedding than I do and let it go without feeling the need to make fun of their classic/cookie-cutter details.
*Do a reality check when I come across a “too homemadey” wedding in blog land and instantly compare it to an absolutely perfect photo shoot.
At least those are my thoughts this morning. What are your sunday morning thoughts? Any plans to lessen your snarkiness footprint on planet earth, wedding related or not?
