Happy Anniversary to us!

We've been married for one year.




It flew; so much happened. This year we got married, honeymooned, wrote thank you notes, bought a house after two-plus years of looking, hosted two holidays, bought appliances, missed family and friends on the east coast, puppysat, vacationed, and I used a lawnmower for the first time. I changed my name (what endless hoopla). Kevin decided that he'll hire people the next time we drywall. I finished a quilt, we replaced windows and carpet and floors, we bought furniture, we hosted guests. We painted, bought tulips weekly for a good stretch of dull winter days, Kevin played video games on the green couches, I read and read on the red couch. We played with a digital camera. We moved a fish tank. We explored bits of Washington, and committed to more travel and camping. We watched it snow nine times. Kevin switched jobs, I got promoted. 4 babies were born to friends or family. Our yard is infested with mint, forget-me-nots, ivy starts, and bamboo, but the rhododendrons, azaleas, and lilacs are also blooming like mad. We've joined an organic CSA, and the first drop is in two weeks. We shop (endlessly) for water heaters. We bought 14 gallons of paint.

What an intense, wonderful, satisfying year.

My dad has informed me that we've graduated from "newlyweds" to the moniker of "young married couple". :-) Very exciting. Hope that treats us as well as our former status did. Here's to year two!

I love the new lighthouse stamps

Yay!! I finally mailed the last of the backlog of wedding thank you notes! So many people brought cards to the wedding (which was wonderful -- so easy to fly home with). The "thank you"s have been on my list since we got back, and I've been making progress a group at a time. This is the final batch. :-)



I feel so light and free. :-)

It's 24 days after the wedding -- I'm suspended between some lingering guilt that they took so long, and pride that I'm now caught up.

Two Tips from the Bride

I discovered one of the best things ever last weekend, when I found that most packaging stores (such as UPS, or "the brown store" as the quasi-helpful woman in Crossroads told me) reuse packing peanuts. This is a major, major bonus, and frees me from a substantial amount of environmental guilt.

I love our registry, and I love the gifts, but so far we've managed to accumulate eight garbage bags worth of packing peanuts. Crate and Barrell uses thin sheets of foam and honeycombed paper to wrap things (I'm a fan), and those puffed up plastic pouches (which can be recycled at the grocery store), but our other registry places are major fans of styrofoam. Being able to regather and recycle it makes me exceptionally happy.

Here are two bags, ready to hand off, in my car:




So, number one tip from the bride: recycle packing peanuts at shipping stores. :-)

A bonus tip, in case your car is as dirty as mine, and you live in a place like Kirkland where you shouldn't use soap to wash cars because it drains to a water source: Our city's water guy, via email, confirmed that I could use vinegar to wash my car, instead of soap, without detrimental effects to the lake. I've done it twice now, to great effect (I diluted about 2/3 with water). It works better when you dry as you clean, instead of air drying, but the results are impressive regardless. Clearly after all of the June pollen, I need another round, but it's nice to have an option other than one of the random carwashes, which I just don't trust.

Amanda and Brian are the plant whisperers

We were gone for eleven days and came back to find the tank crystal clear and happy. Exciting enough!! Worrying about the state of the fish is the worst part of traveling.

BUT, then we opened the back door, and most of the plants had tripled in size. When I called Amanda, she blamed warm weather, but in over a month the tomatoes (back left), basil(front left) and beans (right) had barely budged, and all of a sudden, they're enormous. I credit the caretakers. :-)



Our mint and dill are also enormous...

Wedding present

One of Kevin's fraternity brothers is working on Wall Street, had an awesome year, and bought a crazy fun car. Here's Adam, Kevin, and the Porshe 911 before Kevin set out for the wedding present joyride.



Look at Kevin's face in that photo. Adam is a trusting soul. Apparently, the thing has a (capital letters) engine, plus styling, and happiness. Kevin was reduced to onomotopeia. Vroom!

Sealing the deal

We stayed in Boston, in the Jury hotel, for about a day and a half after our wedding. The hotel was gorgeous. We'd been slightly scared off by reviews of Boston police uniforms, handcuffs and parephenalia in the halls, but location and price won out and the hotel turned out to be luxurious and perfect.

Once we got me out of my dress (an undertaking), we relaxed for an hour or two, and then set out on the town in search of (specifically) hamburgers and champagne. As we grew increasingly thwarted, the list of desires grew to include pasta and fun drinks. After much wandering, we ended up at the perfect American Joe's Grill on Newbury, which not only had our pasta, burgers, champagne, drink and appetizer, but struck the champagne from the bill when we mentioned we were newlyweds. No camera, but a great dinner.

Sunday we spent with family, then watched the (ultimately disappointing) Red Sox/Yankees game.



It was fun to finally knit a bit and veg. It's been in short order recently.

I'd held on to my bouquet, and it was lovely in our (already lovely) hotel bath:



Somehow, I neglected to take a picture until right before we left, so the stephanotis are wilting. The bouquet was amazing, though (perfect shape, perfect colors, and well constructed), and the scent was beautiful. My hands shook for so much of the service that I wished the lily of the valley were less tremulous flowers. :-)

Here's a closeup of a rose!

Day of.

My vows, learned by heart:

In the name of God, I, Susan, take you, Kevin, to be my husband
To have and to hold from this day forward
for better, for worse
for richer, for poorer
in sickness and in health
to love and to cherish until we are parted by death.
This is my solemn vow.

And, when exchanging rings:
Kevin, I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow,
and with all that I am, and all that I have, I honour you,
in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Many people thought that we wrote our vows, since we said them without prompting. I wish I was that eloquent. Hopefully someday? It's straight from the Book of Common Prayer. And I love the rest of the service, shown here. There's so much hope and happiness in it, but also so much reality: we should comfort each other, lend strength, realize that relationships require tending, and know when to stand down. It's nice to know that our vows and the prayers weren't cliche -- I genuinely hope that we can live up to them -- they articulate what I want from my marriage better than I could have myself.

Our organist provided lots of needed guidance for the music.

As people arrived, he played the "St. Anthony Chorale" by Haydn/Brahms, "Trumpet Tune" by Purcell, "Rigaudon" by Campra, amd Pachelbel's "Canon in D".

I can't tell how happy/emotional it made me to walk up to the stairs to the church and hear the Pachelbel canon playing... It's

The wedding party (grandparents, parents, and bridesmaids) came in to the "Te Deum Processional" by Charpentier. Kevin's maternal grandmother was walked in by one of her grandchildren (Steven), his paternal grandmother was walked in by her grandson Chris (not in the wedding party, but in his marine dress uniform), my maternal grandparents walked together, and my brother (and groomsman) Dave walked my mother down the aisle.

My father and I walked to Purcell's "Trumpet Voluntary".

After the ceremony, we walked out to Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" -- usually one to make me cry regardless, but the organist led in with minor chords and it just seemed right.

He concluded with Handel's Hornpipe. Or at least, I assume he did? We walked out of the church after processing up the aisle, and so I'm really not sure. :-) One of those little wedding mysteries. :-)

Locusts and "Plagues"

My aunt (and godmother), Nancy, let us invade her house for all of the pre-wedding hoopla. The company was great (my cousins are two of the most personable, intelligent, interesting people I know), the house is gorgeous, and they just redid all of their landscaping. Ooh. :-)

The whole "planning a wedding from three time zones away" seemed less challenging at the beginning, and worse as we got closer, but knowing that we'd have a home base (instead of a hotel) the week before somehow made things more mentally manageable. We even got to hold a reception for out-of-town and near-by family at their house the night before (despite an end-of-year elementary school skit night scheduled for the same hours). Many people compared Nancy and her family to saints...

And, as everyone woke up at Nancy's Friday morning (after a week of late-May heat and humidity), we found carpenter ants practically dripping from everywhere. They fell from the canister lights in the kitchen, they crawled in the bathroom, and they swarmed under every glass and coffee mug left on the counter. Yay, New England at the very beginning of summer. While I wouldn't have wished carpenter ants on anyone (especially them!), I do have to say that it was wonderful to have a concrete thing to focus all of the family-wide jitters and anxiety on. People at the pre-wedding party ate food, squished multitudes of ants, and enjoyed meeting each other. Once home from the concert, Nick and Jack appointed themselves as head exterminators, and cleared the upstairs.



They were startled, as they swept the bathroom, by the green pre-wedding face. My dad was too, and requested a picture. :-) (I couldn't smile or the mask would have cracked...)



Better green with mask than green with nerves? :-)


In other pre-wedding round up news:

We ran 2.5 miles together on Monday. Woah! We run together in Seattle (usually a mile and a half), and both of us have been exercising on our own, but that distance surprised me once we'd done it. When I was in high school, I used to run according to the field hockey training schedule, which (if I remember?) capped out at 2.4 miles. Running more now than I did in high school, when I had my swimming physique, makes me proud. Nice!

So many people, books and websites brokering wedding advice made a point of saying that brides-to-be need to eat in the days before the wedding. I scoffed. What dimwit needs to learn/remember to eat?! And yet, the entire prewedding week was a stretch of time-zone- and situation-enhanced nerves and distractions. I barely ate, barely noticed, and lost five pounds in six days (better than mono!!). Crazy. Luckily (?), the honeymoon took care of it. :-)

I finished my veil on Thursday. I'd based in on a design we saw in a store... not too poofy on top, double layered, scalloped edges, and crystals outlining the edge and scattered. When I get my act together, I'll post directions and a summary. :-) I used superglue to attach the crystal beads to the tulle -- disaster. My cousin Jack was impressed at how thoroughly I managed to glue the beads to my fingers instead of to the veil. :-)

Much effort went to learning the vows. we chose (after prompting in no uncertain terms from our minister) to learn them by heart. I practiced mine in the car with my mom, sister, mother-in-law-to-be and sister-in-law-to-be. No dry eyes. A good audience for inuring yourself.

Our organist played samples of songs so that we could choose a program. This was a treat. I was also so, so happy to escape the Bridal Chorus by Wagner. (My second grade self reliably chanted the lyrics "here comes the bride: fair, fat and wide", followed by the equally delightful second verse, "here comes her mother: married to her brother.")

Weddings Make Us Tired

In between one-day-pre-wedding parties on Friday, my brother Dave ordered me to a nap. Smart kid. I didn't actually fall asleep, but following the orders to just lay down for a few minutes was incredibly energizing.

A few minutes later, Kevin wandered upstairs and joined me in the sprawl, and Dave took a photo. This is about 17 hours out from the main event. :-)



(It was also nice to have a few minutes to just BE together. Despite almost three years of living together, we both wanted to retreat to our separate quarters the evening before the ceremony. As we got to the day, we both second-guessed that decision. It ended up being totally a good one, but I needed those minutes to gather strength from him. It always amazes me how comforted and bolstered I am from being around Kevin. He's so steady.)

Rehearsal Dinner

Kevin and his parents took care of the rehearsal dinner, which was exceptional. We had it at Stellina's in Watertown, and they provided a private room, amazing food, and excellent service. I loved having that many important people in one room -- and then the details of the setting made it truly an evening to remember. :-)

While we were milling, everyone's cameras were out. Here's Stacey (a *very* close Weston family friend), Neen (Kevin's sister, one of my two bridesmaids), me grinning like mad, my great-aunt Irene, and my grandmother.



And then here's a great shot of (my brother/groomsman) David, (my sister/maid of honour) Sharon, and (best man) Larry. Apparently within seconds of this photo, Shar and Larry realized that they were planning to give the same speech/toast at the reception. Larry was *exceedingly* the gentleman and let Sharon take the anecdote. :-) Both speeches were awesome, so here's to both.



(I'm not being nice. The speeches really were excellent. We're incredibly lucky to know people that would say such nice things and so eloquently.)

Here's a great shot of Kevin and his parents:



This photo is dark, and I apologize to Kevin's parents for catching both of them in the middle of a conversation, but it's an awesome photo of my Dad (on the left) smiling. :-)



And Kevin and his grandmothers:




I'll post more once I get my photos off of Kevin's laptop. :-)

Something to fill the hours

Last night, despite the fact that I probably need another project like I need a hole in the head, I finally decided to do something with this pile of fabric:



That's black knit suiting with vertical stripes, and blue cotton with vertical lines of lace, plus contrasting ribbon for each. I've been shopping endlessly recently. Between David's graduation, a party for my high school swim coach who's retiring, the rehearsal, and the evening before, I need several dresses, shoes, and wraps, since Boston in May/June will either be 90 degrees or 40. Then, we leave for a week in Hawaii, and I need honeymoon-worthy beach clothes. Since Seattle is neither a dressy town, nor a sunny one, this has meant a lot of shopping. A bit exhausting. I finally gave up on finding a cover-up for walking from the hotel to our snorkeling beaches, and just decided to make one. Everything I was finding was either gaudy or non-functional, and everything was expensive, so I just went to Joann's last week, found sale items, and "splurged".

I came up with a detailed plan:



(note ubiquitous printouts of registry information and collection of readings for the service -- still need to choose two!)
Then I used a dress and a sleeveless v-neck to approximate a good size and shape.



And then I hemmed the sides (My first time using a walking foot! Good fun.), sewed on the ribbon, decided that the back wasn't working and so removed the cross and replaced with strait straps, and then used a zig-zag stitch to hem the bottom. It turns out that the only black thread that I have causes my sewing machine to choke, and so the thread was orange, turquoise (from two decades ago, since the label has a Canadian flag and French on it), and navy. Good enough!



It actually fits very well. Yay! The body is perfect, and the hem is straight. The ribbon is slightly puckery, and so I'm considering adding darts to it, but it really barely even needs it, and for beach-wear, it's just fine. :-)

My favourite parts are (1) where the two ribbons join at the shoulder, and (2) the seam for the v-neck.



And this morning, I woke up feeling accomplished (for thirty seconds until I remembered the rest of the things on the list.) :-) Only three more days until we leave for Boston!

Composition with Bridal Shoes

I finally found shoes to go with my dress! This is a huge relief. I've been looking with increasing urgency for the last three months.



I finally went back to DSW and found these (the link is a picture of them with the hem of my dress). They're a shade whiter that I was picturing, but they're as comfortable as flats and will do the job. Given the lace at the hem of the dress, and the way the waist is structured, the only way to shorten it was to remove portions of the lace. With two inch heels, that wouldn't be an issue, so that was the length I needed. Other considerations: they needed to be comfortable, white or metallic, dressy, and not wedges (which are apparently madly fashionable right now).

I love (love!) the stacked wood heels, that they're not slippery or tippy, and all of the frippery (the bow, the lacing, the scalloped edges) seems appropriate to the occasion. Better yet, they show a pedicure, even if it's self-applied. :-)



I've gotten positive marks from both mothers and one bridesmaid. Even though the second bridesmaid hasn't responded yet, I'm feeling ready to cross one more thing off the list. Yay! On to get the dress bustled. :-)

PS. I also found a pair of backup shoes. They're silver and sort of clash (not that anyone would notice under that much netting...), but more importantly just didn't fit as well. I want something that I can stand in for eight hours.



*But* they're pretty with black capris. :-) (Admire, if you will, the mass of crinoline behind my legs in that photo...) And better yet, they were $25 at the Nordstrom rack. Between the fun mirror picture and my deep desire not to return to that store, looks like a bargain!

Invitations

Our wedding invitations finally arrived, and I'm smitten with them. My parents humoured my whims, and so Kevin and I chose dramatic three-layer invitations (a dark purple backing, a shimmery lavendar middle layer,and a cream top layer), with a ribbon, double envelopes, and shimmery lavendar envelope linings. They're everything I was hoping for.

Aside from the ribbons, and heavy paper, and the colors, one of my favourite parts in the reply card -- we centered the accepts/regrets on a single, symmetrical line. It's been making me happy for every envelope I've addressed.




Assembling the envelopes was daunting, especially since my etiquette books devote about 30 pages to correctness in this area. Woah. Instructions read along the lines of "The reply envelope is placed face down on the reception card. The reply card is slipped face up beneath the flap of the reply envelope." Challenging to my brain's visualization. Or, further, "The invitation and its enclosures are placed into the inside envelope with the base of the invitation at the bottom of the envelope and the engraving facing the back of the envelope. The invitation is then placed into the inside envelope with the fold toward the bottom of the envelope. Once stuffed, the inside envelopes are inserted into the outside envelopes. The front of the inside envelope faces the back of the outside envelope." My poor, feeble, verbally-challenged brain parses these as "the inside goes on the outside, facing forward, face down, and then turned". Obviously, these aren't quite marching orders.

So, you can imagine my deep relief when I found all of this in picture form. I just have to follow the directions for diagram three, and then we're all good to go. A huge relief. Thank you, internet.




Assembling and addressing all of them has made for a series of deeply enjoyable evenings. The invitations are so beautiful, and the paper is rich, I bought a great pen, and so the whole thing is a pleasure. Even better, each time I get to a new name on the list, I keep thinking that I should enclose a little extra note, just so that they know how much I hope they can come. A "You *really* matter to me -- I hope you can make it." It's just neat to realize how many people, and who, matter viscerally in my life, and our lives. Especially where so many of these people are on the east coast, and we're stuck out on the west coast, it's deeply satisfying to write their names on the page and hope that they'll be able to make it.

And then, the next morning, I have a batch to mail...



Did I mention how gorgeous the paper is? :-)

Two Months To Go

We were a day shy of two months away from the wedding yesterday, and so Kevin made celebratory seafood.



Served with champagne -- yum. :-) I can't believe it's so close.

Not exactly what we had in mind...

We've been all stymied trying to find a wedding band for Kevin -- everything in the stores is very, for lack of a better word, complicated. Mixes of metals, braids, leopard-print, diamonds... The "just a plain ring" concept turns out to be hard to find. Anyone have Seattle-area recommendations?

Because otherwise, we're resorting to this: the internet, and post-it notes cut down to size...

Trips and Weddings

Brown had a career fair and with a week to go, Microsoft sent out a call for alums who could attend (ie, who could get sign off from their teams and their significant others on such short notice). With the prospect of a trip to Providence, I sent out empassioned emails to both crowds, and was added as an excited member of the group. I was upfront: Brown is always great (and my brother is a senior!), and aiding the college recruiting program is a high priority. But (!), this trip also meant that I finally got to (1) see relatives who I haven't seen since we announced our engagement and was not expecting to see until the wedding week, and (2) got to see all of the professional wedding people who I haven't seen since we announced our engagement and was not expecting to see until the wedding week.

We're getting married in less than three months outside of Boston, we live in Seattle, and our parents and siblings all live out of state. The chance to get to talk to the florist, caterer/reception hall, cake people, and most of all the minister was so, so wonderful. I haven't droned on in this blog about wedding prep, though it's been a constant diversion since August. Most of the decisions and plans have been very intimidating to me. In a "Forge On!" frame of mind, we've actually gotten a lot done, but the whole process has stretched me far beyond my typical self-image and comfort areas. I've had a hard time envisioning the day.

So, again, I was so delighted to be flown back to MA/RI. They'll let you fly early if you pick up the non-work expenses, so I red-eyed out on Friday evening on the inimitable JetBlue. In what I assumed was a ploy to win people back, they had rental car deals where you could rent for 3 days for just over $50 including tax. Wow! It a sleep-dazed state, I arrived at the lot full of SUVs and PT Cruisers, and signed on for my car. I wasn't expecting a lean machine, but none-the-less was properly impressed at the caliber of vehicle I was assigned. The entire thing weighed about 200 pounds, and looked like someone had just chopped the back of a normal sedan off, and paper-macheed it shut. On the plus side, it was light, so it got great gas mileage.

Saturday, I drove from Logan to Concord (my aunt let me stay with her, and, blessedly, shower), Concord to Milton, Milton to Northboro, and back to Concord, which was almost 200 miles on very little sleep. Since my commute to work is just under five miles, this impressed me.

Here's the little BzzmBzzm rental outside the cake place.



Like the snow? :-) And look how teeny those tires are! Craziness!

The good news is that now I'm all on a cloud of how lovely all of this will be. I can finally picture it. It will have to be a future post, but wow. :-)