February 14, 2006

our wedding, and some preliminary matter

First: if any of you who are US citizens are interested the ACLU is putting together a petition for an investigation into White House soy ing on citizens, here. (If you're not a citizen and you want to protest, the administration's certainly giving you no lack of options in their foreign policy.)

I think this knitting thing's getting a little out of hand. My stash still fits in one big plastic container, but right now I have in work one sweater for Rudder (one sleeve done, one nearly so, then there's the body from the armpits down to do), and one pair of socks to match (barely started). I have yarn for a shawl for me (debating between another Clapotis or some simple lace) and gloves for Rudder (same pattern I did for my Dad, since it worked so well), not one but two sleeveless shells, plus a couple of odd balls of yarn for which I'm considering something like this or maybe this. Also, I want to make a kipah (yarmulke) for my mom, so I probably need some nice colorful cotton yarn for that in a sock or DK weight. I'm glad I started the socks, though - I've got a short business trip tomorrow and Thursday, and the sweater would have been too bulky to take along easily. Also it sheds like a cat.

There are worse earworms to have than Tom Paxton's song "Gettin' Up Early". I mention this to share it with any of you stuck with more annoying songs, though obviously it only works if you're actually acquainted with the song.

For some reason, that reminds me: I've been thinking about our wedding lately, after talking about it to my cubemate who's at the very beginning of planning her own. There are really not that many things I'd change if I could. The hotel we had it at managed brilliantly: the ceremony was in one room, set up with rows of chairs for our guests, and then they shooed us out for drinks into a private lobby while they opened the room into the one next to it and set the two up for dinner and dancing. No one had to drive between the wedding and reception. Since it was out in the 'burbs (his neighborhood, in fact) instead of downtown, our in-town guests weren't charged for parking while there was plenty of history nearby for the out-of-towners. The hotel provided candles, mirrors, and greenery for centerpieces, while the florist got exactly the shades I wanted for our bouquets. The people we wanted there most were there, and the JP did a nice ceremony that we wish we could remember. I'm glad we picked our attendents by friendship rather than gender. The honeymoon in Jamaica was one of the very few relaxing vacations we've taken together, which was exactly what we needed then.

There are a couple of things that were OK, but that I wish we could have done better. It would have been nice to videotape the ceremony because neither of us can really remember our vows. (I know I didn't promise to "obey" though - I was listening for that!) This being 1993, I was unable to find a dress without big puffy sleeves, though I tried - I liked my dress otherwise. (Wedding dresses in general turn out to be much more flattering than I'd expected.) I wish I could have found dresses the female attendents would wear again, but they all rejected my suggestion that they all pick any white dress they liked. (The dresses were white and tea-length, with gentle scoop necks and slightly puffed sleeves. Not unflattering and none of them fit badly, but I doubt they got worn for anything else.) Still, it was a pretty wedding, in my biased opinion.

The one thing I wish I could change was the music. If I could do it again, I'd interview several DJs. (Actually, if I could do it now I'd choose each song, preload it on an MP3 player, and ask someone trustworthy to manage the music and call us up for our first dance. The DJ we had seemed to have only 60s and 70s music, none of the more current stuff Rudder wanted and not even the song his parents requested (Twelfth of Never, not exactly obscure.) Also, while I couldn't have picked anything more perfect than "Sunrise, Sunset" for my dance with my father and Rudder's with his mother (my family has a lot of memories around that song), Rudder and I danced to "Unchained Melody", and while the tune is pretty, the lyrics were just not appropriate for the wedding of a couple who'd been living together. I was in a hurry when I picked it. If I could do that again, we'd dance to Si Kahn's "Like Butter Loves Bread", or Garnet Rogers' "All There Is" (actually, that song probably didn't exist yet) or maybe even "Some Enchanted Evening", which is easy to dance to and quite appropriate for us.

On the other hand, that's a pretty minor thing, to be the biggest change I'd make if I could redo our wedding. I'd marry the same man, no questions and no hesitation. And really, as long as the marriage is happy these thirteen years later, who cares what went wrong at the wedding?

Posted by dichroic at February 14, 2006 12:21 PM
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