Why is it so difficult getting gifts?

Speaking of registries... The registries have been one of our biggest trouble makers in this planning process. And I think that is weird. Shouldn't receiving gifts be easy? We put together a list of what we want...and those who want to give us gifts give us those things. But no. Not quite. Because it just wouldn't be wedding planning without a dash of drama and a healthy dose of indecision!

Its probably because we are running into the common problem of not wanting much STUFF. We've been living in sin for quite a few years now, have a home set up, and don't need (or want) much. (and have very little room to put said stuff in!) But a lot of people don't like giving money - even if its in the awesome form of honeymoon gifts on Traveler's Joy!

We've had family telling us that we don't have enough on our tangible item registries and that we need more. That we should set up another registry all together to give lots of choices. We even had a family member set up a registry for us because they reaaally wanted us to have this extra registry. And people telling us that the stuff on our registry isn't nice enough and that we should take this opportunity to get china or or crystal or other fancy stuff (stuff that would definitely fall into the "don't want or need or have space for" categories). People telling us that the white dishes we picked out are boring (because he wanted super dark dishes and I wanted super bright dishes....so we just went with classic-never-fail-will-always-match-and-never-go-out-of-style white).

Talk about unsolicited advice! Such strong opinions on what we should ask for for gifts!? wtf

Are/did any of you have similar registry problems?

Image from Kol Tregaskes because while some of you are dreaming about babies...I'm dreaming about puppies!

Bitchy Bride and the Bridal Veto

I was having a discussion yesterday with an unfortunate bride who is having serious mother-in-law issues. Her MIL issues make me feel like my MIL is a little cherub angel sprinkling dust and fancy on us and playing the harp. I was trying to think of helpful advice but was coming up pretty short. Its a shitty situation and shitty to deal with and there is only so much that we can do to make it better. (Keep with it, dear! Sending good karma your way!)

But one thing did stick out in my mind. She mentioned feeling "bitchy" when dealing with her tough MIL.

First, I want to talk a tiny, little bit about that word: bitch.

What a word, huh? Lots of history, lots of cultural meaning, lots of changes and attempts to reclaim it recently. But to being with, I'm going to borrow from an article that Andi Zeisler, co-founder of Bitch magazine, wrote for the Washington Post. She wrote:

Bitch is a word we use culturally to describe any woman who is strong, angry, uncompromising and, often, uninterested in pleasing men. We use the term for a woman on the street who doesn't respond to men's catcalls or smile when they say, "Cheer up, baby, it can't be that bad." We use it for the woman who has a better job than a man and doesn't apologize for it. We use it for the woman who doesn't back down from a confrontation.

So let's not be disingenuous. Is it a bad word? Of course it is. As a culture, we've done everything possible to make sure of that, starting with a constantly perpetuated mindset that deems powerful women to be scary, angry and, of course, unfeminine -- and sees uncompromising speech by women as anathema to a tidy, well-run world.

Whenever I hear that word, I have the feeling of silencing. Its one of the many ways our culture tells women to quiet down. To not be so strong. Not be seen or heard so much. Not to make so many waves.

Sure, sometimes people are actually being bitchy (aka jerks), but I'd say most of the time when I hear that word, it is simply being used on a female who is not playing along with prescribed gender roles that say women should be quiet, soft, gentle, forgiving, please others, passive, or whatever other bullcrap. Women are bitches when they act like men and that is dangerous territory that makes patriarchy very uncomfortable. So how handy to have a nice little word to shut down those types of unruly women!

And how well it has stuck. I know for myself personally that I often feel wary of being bitchy. At work when I need to get something from someone and they aren't getting it done... or while planning a wedding and dealing with demanding family members. I'm always aware that I may be stepping out of the "soft, gentle, passive, feminine" realm and into the "bitchy" realm and I tread lightly. No one wants to be labeled a bitch, but I definitely do not want to live my life in a passive manner either.

I'm still learning how to navigate this issue for all the variety of situations*, but I wanted to share a nice little method I've come up with to avoid feeling bitchy (and hopefully to avoid being labeled bitchy) while wedding planning.

I call it my Bridal Veto. Unsolicited advice that just won't quit? Bridal veto! Way too many varying and stubborn opinions? Bridal veto!

On almost every wedding decision, we've had differing opinions from both our parents. I always try to be gentle first and let them down easy, but often that just isn't enough. They start debating and arguing - and I start trying to debate back, giving them all our justifications, reasoning, or whatever defense I can throw at em. At a certain point, though, debate has to stop and decisions have to be made, and sometimes things just aren't up for debate at all.

That's when we need to be able to say no and stop worrying about being bitchy.** Saying "Bridal veto!" is one way I've found to remind others that hey! I'm the bride! This is our wedding! and we get the final say! Thanks for your ideas, input and suggestions, but you have all been denied by the Bridal Veto.

And so far everyone has responded to Bridal Vetos way better than just me laying down the law. ... What am I going to do after the wedding when my Bridal Veto has run out!? Actually deal with people!? WHA!?

:)

Peace out, holmes.

Jen

*It doesn't help that Minnesotans are notoriously passive anyway. We are always saying kinda, sorta, maybe, I think and never giving full, firm statements that may get us in trouble later. Some call it Minnesota Nice, but its I kinda think its maybe, sorta Minnesota Passive.

**Its silly that we should feel bitchy for taking control of our own weddings. That is not fair to put on ourselves.

Image via superbomba

Defending your own

Yesterday I came home to see my mister on the phone. After a few seconds observing, I knew it was with his mother. I sat down to start putting our stamps on our invites (SQUEE!!) and heard this, "No, that's actually the opposite. Blogs have helped her deal with the wedding in a good way. Its the other mainstream sites and magazines that were driving her crazy!"

Apparently my mother in law thought I should stop reading blogs. She couldn't understand why I read them so much and thought they were bad for me.*

This made my defensive hairs stand up and I wanted to grab the phone and defend all you thoughtful ladies in the really amazing community and defend myself from such allegations... but I didn't have to.

The mister went on to describe (and very well, might I add) how there are so few good resources out there for brides. How the first wedding resources you find are insidious pooh heads that have no heart and no soul and just make brides feel bad about how ugly their wedding is going to be unless they include one of the latest "hot color combos" or have a "stylish theme"! Or how they have to put on a show to "wow your wedding guests"!**

Ok, he didn't get into that much detail, because I'm pretty sure hes actually never looked at The Knot or Martha Stewart Weddings or any other general WIC thing. But anyway.

In this conversation that I came home to yesterday, he defended me and my blogs. He also defended our so far limited inclusion of his family in the planning process AND he defended our choices for our guest list.*** Good job, baby!

I was so proud and so happy! First of all, he does an amazing job of moderating between his mother and I. I know he is on my team and prioritizes us as a couple and as a new forming family first. This is not the first time and probably won't be the last time that we have to deal with in-law issues, so its such an amazing relief that we are on the same page and can effectively deal with these issues. He naturally followed Lisa's advice from A Practical Wedding post that in dealing with in-laws,

The most important thing is that,

1. your partner is on your side.
2. your partner navigates.

When he got off the phone, I pounced him and attacked him with a million kisses and much praise for his wonderful dealings with his mom and not making me deal with it.

That's my story for the day.

Jen


*I will agree that at some point, even reading blogs gets to be too much. I've learned to limit what I read and to stay away from the ones that make me feel our wedding is inadequate in any way. I'm passed gathering 'inspiration' for the most part and just want to crank this thing out. The blogs now are serving as just a great social community to share with and connect to.
** Burn in hell, Knot! I hate you! ok...just a little venting...
*** Apparently his mama had a lot to get off her chest!

Together

Last week I went a bit MIA because I needed a break from wedding planning. Not because I've been stressed or freaking out about something - actually just the opposite! I've been feeling great lately! Just really enjoying where we are at and getting really excited for the day to hurry up and get here already! I'm looking forward to putting the wedding behind us and moving on to being MARRIED!

It feels like I've found the elusive wedding zen! Lets hope it can hold...

This new zen has come from a major shift in our planning and the fact that my mister is now on board with the wedding.

So that may sound odd. Wasn't he on board before? Kinda. And I haven't talked about this for a lot of reasons. 1) It made me feel dumb. All you blog ladies have seemingly super involved, opinionated, and engaged FHs. Mine wasn't. and I felt like something was wrong with us. 2) I didn't know what to say about it because I was busy trying to deal with it. I hadn't been able to process it and probably didn't fully know what was going on. Its hard to be objective when you are in it.

But now we have mostly resolved that issue and I have processed it and better understand it, so I feel like I should talk about it. This is a place for all parts of the wedding planning process: the good, the bad, the ugly, and the just plain crazy crap that goes on. So here is a story I was avoiding telling. Be warned: this is not gonna be short!

The mister and I dated for 5 and a 1/2 years before getting engaged. We'd talked a LOT about getting married and were just kinda slow to get to that decision. For whatever reasons, it took me five years to be sure that he was the one I wanted. It took me five years to give him the green light and say, "Ok. I'm ready. If you proposed, I would now say yes." (As opposed to the previous status of "take a rain check".) Then we worked out the details of the engagement ring (huge ordeal! not ready to post on this still! lol).

So the proposal wasn't a surprise exactly. I was surprised when it happened but not that it happened. If that makes sense...

Before officially getting engaged, I had already found A Practical Wedding and was already gearing up to start wedding planning. I thought I was so ahead of the game - and maybe in some aspects I was. I was so confident that I could breeze through wedding planning and come out with a simple, relaxed, beautiful wedding that cost around 5,000 bucks with 100 or so of our nearest and dearest. Oh, self, how naive you were!

When we were finally engaged, I hit the ground running with wedding planning. We immediately talked about what was important to us (not going into debt, local food, not being introduced to anyone at our wedding, supporting local vendors, etc.) and what we wanted our wedding to look like (dinner with our first ring relatives and close friends + fun party time!). Then we went into making it happen.

Turns out that, for what we wanted (dinner, 100 people, rented out space), 5,000 was not a feasible budget. So the budget ballooned to 10,000. I freaked out. Lots of tears. We contemplated eloping. But we had already gone through the process of deciding what was important to us and what we wanted. The only thing standing in the way was a few extra thousand. Luckily I had a bunch of savings and my parents were going to cover half that cost. So we moved forward with our original plan, learning to accept the realities of how frickin expensive weddings are.

Within this process, the mister and I made all the major decisions together. Venue, catering, guest list, officiant, choosing to iPod DJ the wedding, etc. There was no decision that we were not both a part of. But we were at totally different places when we thought about the wedding.

I had dove into the planning and become invested in the process. I had read all about beautiful, meaningful, community based weddings on A Practical Wedding and I wanted. I saw that we could have a wedding on our own terms and that it could be somewhere between indie and traditional - that it could be us. And I was determined to get there.

The mister, on the other hand, had not put much thought into it and was very unengaged in the process and was not invested in the wedding. And it drove me crazy! I could not put all the thought, money, time and effort into planning a wedding for US if he was not present in the process. I could not give the care needed if it was apparent he did not care. So what was the deal?

Money. (boo money) The mister hadn't been working much (construction sector was not happening) and was watching his savings dwindle. I was paying for our portion of the wedding and because of this, he did not feel as if he could/should have a say in the wedding. I told him otherwise and tried to let him know that that didn't matter, but to him it did. And understandably so.

So because he was not financially invest in the wedding he did not feel his opinions should be given as much weight. His lack of financial investment dissolved his emotional investment. And without him engaged in the process, I was unable to engage in 'our' day either.

Insert more crying and freaking out and debates about eloping. Insert honest discussions. Insert the mister starting a new job where he actually works 40 hours a week and has the ability to save money. And our planning is back on track.

After many discussions, he now gets that - regardless of his financial input - I need his input in the wedding. It needs to be a day built by us otherwise I just don't have the energy to put into it. And that being emotionally invested in the planning will help him feel more emotionally invested in the day - making it what it is supposed to be - a meaningful day for us.

We are now in it together and planning as a team. We are both (slowly) progressing along our to do list. We have both been crafting for the wedding (check out his awesome work!) and are both going to be able to see the fruits of our labor on August 28th.

I know that the stereotypical model of wedding planning is a demanding bride who obsessively plans the wedding while a spacey groom just shows up on the day without doing anything. But that stereotypical model just does not work for us. I could not function in that stereotype. I might kill someone in that stereotype and that would really mess up the details of a wedding!

So thats my long story. About how at first, I dove into the wedding planning, dragging him along and did not give him time to catch his breath. But now we've found our wedding planning zen together - which will hopefully make for a wedding day also full of zen!

Lessons learned: 1) Communications, as always, is key! I can never say that enough, but just talking it out can solve so many problems. 2) Be sure you are ready to talk it out. We talked about this a lot throughout the last few months, but as I said, I couldn't quite see what was going on clearly enough to be able to communicate it effectively. So we talked and yelled and cried. But once we were each able to communicate our feelings effectively, then we actually made progress. So GOOD communication is key. 3) I'm super lucky. I've got an awesome guy who loves me and wants to marry me. Even if sometimes I'm a nut job. :) I must have been an excellent person in my last life because he is just too good!

Peace,
Jen


PS Hope everyone had an awesome long weekend! Mine was a perfect, relaxing time that nourished my little soul! Canoeing on the St. Croix river on Saturday, celebrating my dad's birthday on Sunday, and chillin on the boat with our besties on Monday. Nothing productive was done and thats just fine by me!

The In Laws

EEEEEK! Its the dreaded in laws!!! Run for you wedding lives!!!!!!!!

haha, jk! All dramatics aside, my in laws really aren't that bad and no, that is not my mother in law (but I still love the picture!). We have some troubles, but I feel like that is normal. Its another set of parents, so of course they are going to be trouble and cause wedding hassles. Its in their job description!

I get along with my in laws pretty well. We do have lots of differing opinions and should generally avoid serious discussions (aka politics, religion, what to eat for dinner...) unless we want them to turn into arguments, but for the most part it is a very amicable relationship. No BFFs or anything, but friendly.

Enter engagement and wedding planning. Suddenly there is a new and different and scary aspect of our relationship that I don't know how to react to. As I said before, most discussions turn heated with the in laws, so I was terrified of all the scary territory I was going to have to cross with them. For example: there was religion. We are not having a religious ceremony and this caused the in laws to be upset. We had talked about religion before but never in the context of ME personally and US as a couple or about OUR wedding. And I really didn't know how to deal with it.

Then there has been money. The guest list. Opinions on what we 'should' do or what is appropriate for a wedding. We haven't even gotten to the last name situation yet or details of our non religious ceremony or what-have you. All these important, big, defining topics. Being that my relationship with them has never been very personal, I was not sure how to suddenly deal with all these intensely personal issues with them.

And I think I kinda botched it. I was scared to approach these topics because I didn't want our wedding planning to involve yelling or hurt feelings. Which means I've been avoiding his parents. (A totally healthy way to deal with your problems, right? No, its not??? Whatever! I'm not listening to you anymore!) And I feel horrible about it!

From a really logistical standpoint, it has been easier to keep the wedding planning with a few key people. Aka Me, Mister, my Mama and my aunt, Franck. Four people provide enough opinions to get tangled together, so the less the better. But also, when you put money into a wedding (my parents are paying half) you get to have more say. There just can't be that many opinionated voices or bride go crazy.

So I didn't know how to navigate their involvement and left them out more than I perhaps should have. I would like them to be involved but I also want to avoid problems the best I can and do what I can now to avoid hurt feelings.

How do I involve the in laws without making them full wedding planning partners? Luckily, the major planning parts of our wedding are taken care of (venue, caterer) and now we are just left with lots of smaller sized projects to put together. Maybe I can ask for their input and help on one of these? That will include them without inviting a torrent of advice and opinions where I am not looking for advice or opinions.

Whats your in law situation? How are they involved with your wedding?

Note: While I haven't shared this blog with many of my 'real world' people, I'm still iffy on discussing people issues here. But I feel like I should be honest - and I won't post anything here unless I feel okay about the person its about finding it. Aka no bitchfests or gossip craziness. Which isn't me anyway, but we all have our moments!

Wedding Represent!

I was having a fit of insecurities about the wedding yesterday. One moment I’m worried that our wedding will be judged too cheap, us too lazy, or the style too “whimsical”.* The next, I feel like its turning into some formal, boring, stuffy, soulless, totally not unique wedding. I worried about regretting decisions, about not feeling like our wedding represents us well enough, and about spending all this money for nothing. Pretty much just a hot mess of worry where the worry is like wedding acid and disintegrates all happy thoughts and not even my beloved garlands are safe!**

Mid mild freak out, I was clinging to any and every sincere piece of our wedding I could find. The ring warming ceremony. The awesome charity favor idea that we are doing instead of useless crap. The awesome, concise guest list that we retained total control over. The two amazing ladies I will have standing up for me. These pieces that I feel good/great about and am excited for were like my wedding security blanket.

But I'm sick of fight back wedding insecurities. Its silly, annoying, and not productive. Insecurities do not check things off the Mondo To-Do List! So insecurities really just need to die. Die and never come back.

They are not dead yet, but I'm working on it. And here for you today I have the top 10 things I've learned to battle insecurities:

1) Remember that I'm marrying a completely amazing guy. Total win for me! Beat that, insecurities!
2) We wanted a big, fun party and that's what we are doing. And because this big, fun party is our wedding...well, its going to look a lot like traditional weddings. Whether we feel 'traditional' or not, that's part of the wedding territory.
2.5) because wedding = tradition. By extension: our wedding = traditional.
3) We are going to have 90 or so guests at our wedding. This means mixing lots of different family and friends. I'm pretty sure ALL of them will disagree with at least one of our choices for the day. But our goal is not to please them. Our goal is to have a meaningful wedding for us.
4) Its ok that they will disagree with at least one of our choices for the day. That doesn't mean they are going to look down on us. Different choices for different people.
5) If they do look down on us, they are weenie heads.
6) This is the first wedding I've ever planned (and I hope the last *crosses fingers*) and don't really know whats going on most of the time. I'm learning as I go and making lots of it up as I go. So me, give self a break.
7) Of all the important details, I have control over the most important of all. My mood. If I don't want to be upset, I don't have to be. Magic.
8) All the details are meant to set a celebratory mood and the detail that does that best? A couple who is giddy with love and excitement and beaming smiles wins over any arrangement of flowers or vintage anything.
9) The wedding planning - fun parts, stressful parts, insecurities, all of it! - is a great learning experience. Ya know...the whole "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" bit.
10) And again - WE'RE GETTING MARRIED!!!!!! Eff the rest! WEEEEEE!!!!!!

* Story: I was getting together with my mom and two of my aunts. Before I had arrived, they had put together two mock up tall centerpieces. One was something my aunts came up with and was very beautiful and could have come straight out of Martha Stewart Weddings. The other was based on the ideas I had been throwing around and was very colorful and different. They showed them off to me, compare and contrast, pros and cons, and then one of my aunts asked, "Ok, so which one do you like? This one, which is very classic and elegant... or this one... which is... well, lets call it 'whimsical'." (with disapproving tone on "whimsical") Can you guess which one was the creation of my brainstorming and creative, cheapskate juices? Can you guess which one I picked and which one we are going with for the wedding? Can you guess how auntie wrinkled her nose at my proclamation that whimsical was the complete winner over Martha inspired centerpiece? le sigh.

** Over dramatic much?

Wedding Drama

First, I have to say that I am extremely lucky and have only mild drama compared to tales from other brides. My parents have been mostly understanding and agreeable and the in-laws have been only mildly crazy and hair-pull-inducing. But there has still been drama and tears and frustration and considerations of eloping.

I find it very challenging to figure out what I want, what I like, what has meaning for me, etc while at the same time negotiating everyone's opinion that is being thrown at me. This has led to lots of fumbling and renegotiating and difficult discussions. And it takes that fumbling and those discussions for me to learn what is important to me and really find out why I'm making the decisions I'm making. Sometimes it turns out my decision was mostly random...sometimes I find out its because something really was important to me. And from there, a constructive decision making process can continue. But it can get messy before that!

This is also where I've been finding out what is important to other people (aka parents), and I'm guessing they go through a lot of the same process. They don't have everything figured out either, and their decisions are a mixture of randomness, emotions, WIC pressure, tradition, preference, etc too.

Wedding planning is a great lesson in patience. In negotiation skills. In communicating with your partner. In working with your partner. And lots of other life and marriage skills that will definitely be used in the future.

Yay for growing as people and as a couple!