More veil thoughts

Here's an interesting item I found on eBay:

It's a 50's ad, featuring a pretty, simple veil and simple instructions on how to make it at the bottom. I like this; it's definitely something I'll keep in mind, though I fear it will not go with the haristyle I am currently fixated on.

No, not the Conehead, but this:

The first time I saw this picture, I thought, "Ew, that's a little wild." The second time I saw it, I thought, "Hm, it's interesting." By the third time (and, you understand, viewing something multiple times does not happen by accident), I was thinking, "Hmm, it's everything I like about the Conehead, without the Coneheadiness." It looks like it requires a lot of hair, though.

And, of course, it absolutely will not go with that veil :-).

And...another

What can I say? I'm obsessed. But I really like this one:

(More name changing....it's hard to make up names!)

I would ask my dad to write a double happiness for me, since this one is another stolen jpeg. And this is yet another 2-color design, but I didn't like it as much all red or all black. This is nice combo. Letterpressed on a white textured paper with a red pocketfold: gorgeous.

I suspect I am going to be spending a lot more on invites than I really wanted to....

I detect a theme.....

A few more attempts at designing my own invitations:

(Names changed to protect the guilty)



This one is a "tea length" invitation featuring a Chinese papercut. Alas, the Chinese do not have a tradition of elaborately beautiful papers like the Japanese, but they do have a tradition of very intricate papercut designs. This one features the double happiness symbol as well as a dragon and a phoenix--traditionally representative of the Emperor and Empress, respectively, and used often for weddings.

Both of these designs are 2-color, which adds a layer of cost. Sigh. I have expensive taste, what can I say?

I've really been enjoying playing around with these invitation designs. It has inspired an urge to quit my job, get a graphic design degree, and set up an invitation design business out of my home.

In the course of the wedding planning, I have felt similar urges to:

Quit my job and start up a floral design business.

Quit my job and start up a wedding cookie favor business.

Quit my job and become a wedding hairstylist.

Quit my job and become a wedding photographer (OK, this one would be in a totally different reality).

Quit my job and start up a wedding dress sewing business (again, this would be in a dimension where I am someone with a much greater attention span and a much bigger apartment).

I sense a theme running through these....

On the other hand, I have no desire to become a DJ. I do not expect to have any urge to become a wedding officiant. And I have zero, I repeat zero, desire to be a wedding planner/consultant because you know what? Being a middleman sucks.

In which I lack equipment and knowledge

So, here is a first attempt at designing an invitation, which I did very quickly in Word:


(Names obscured because this is the Internet :-)

It's very plain, and I think my sweetie would like it (I haven't shown him yet). It may be a bit too plain for me, but I think I could come around, especially if I decided to splurge and do letterpress. You see, this place will take your design and letterpress it for a very reasonable price. I could be happy with a plain invitation if I could have letterpress.

The problem with designing my own, of course, is that I lack the tools (and also the design training, but if I keep it simple we won't worry too much about that). For example, I would need to provide the file as a pdf (at the very least: they'd love a Quark file), and I have no means of making a pdf. The little double happiness in the middle is a jpeg I swiped from somewhere; by no means is it a printer-ready piece of art. Somehow I would need to get my hands on a hi-res piece of art, preferably one that's "vectored" (like that term? I learned it yesterday) so that I can size it at will and still keep the quality of the image.

On top of it, it has occurred to me that it might be nice to ask my dad to write a double happiness for me--he's known in his family for his beautifl Chinese calligraphy, and it would be a nice, personal touch. Then I would need a scanner to get the art into my computer, and who knows how you scan something as a vectored piece of art?

All of this is going to cost money; I certainly am not going to invest in a scanner or a piece of software that costs hundreds--that would sort of defeat the purpose of designing my own.

On the other hand, I'm saving a lot of money in yarn these days--what else am I going to spend my craft money on? :-)

Veils of time

Several years ago, long before I met my sweetie, possibly even before I started dating seriously--so, let's say 1999 or 2000--I was standing in front of Saks Fifth Avenue, waiting for a bus to take me home. For those of you who don't know it, Saks Fifth Avenue on Fifth Avenue is a gorgeous, elegant store. The kind of store Carolyn Bessette Kennedy goes into to buy a $4,000 off-the-rack little black dress before flying up to Martha's Vineyard in her husband's small plane. The kind of store with a lunch room for the real Ladies Who Lunch. The kind of store where li'l ol' me goes in to browse, but never to buy. Once I was given a $50 gift certificate to Saks, and it took me two trips and six hours before I found something I could buy--and yes, I looked at the hair accessories.

Saks has gorgeous windows. They are always chock full of beautiful designer clothes, often gowns of the crispest silk faille or the most glorious structured wool suits. I walk by and drool. And, in January, they have wedding clothes.

So, in January of 1999 or 2000, long before I met my sweetie or even started dating seriously, I was standing in front of a Saks window which featured a dress, a tuxedo, doubtless some frippery accessories--and a veil.

The veil was glorious. I don't remember who the designer was, but it was a long, cathedral-length veil, draped mantilla-style over the mannequin's head--not poufy at all, just smooth and elegant as it fell down over her outstretched arm--and edged in at least nine inches of heavy, luxurious alencon lace, all the way around.

I'd never seen a veil like it. It was breathtaking, and the lace was substantial; it looked almost quilted, corded and beaded with pearls, and the extravagant width of it screamed expensive in the best way. It clearly had weight--the veil's drape was entirely due to its lace edge. I fell completely in love with.

Fast forward seven or eight years, and I am looking at veils. Way back when I saw my Dream Veil, I thought it would be an indulgence, but one that wouldn't be too terrible. Now, I laugh: I don't remember who the designer was, but I wouldn't be shocked to hear that that veil cost $8,000 or more. Veils are crazy expensive, especially when you consider that they are pretty simple things: a circle of netting and some lace edging, maybe with a comb sewn on. Sometimes they don't even have the lace edging, and they still run into the hundreds of dollars. I honestly don't get it. There are a lot of things associated with weddings whose expense I don't get, but veils are #1. Designer wedding gowns are ridiculously expensive, but at least they involve some work to create; veils are, well, veils. There's not a lot of there there, and on top of it, you wear the veil for maybe an hour, while you wear the dress all night.

So, needless to say, I won't be investing in my Dream Veil, even if I could find it lo these many years later. But, sadly, the cheaper veils don't do it for me. I am seduced by that nine inch border, something that is so far out of my price range I couldn't even make it myself for the money I am willing to spend. I could easily have a two-inch or even a three-inch border, but....well. It's not the same.

Ha: I guess there is something I am very particular about :-).

So, I am leaning towards skipping the veil entirely. I have been thinking about it, and I realized that I envision myself walking down the aisle without one. I don't want one obscuring my face. Or my hair. Or the dress I love. Or my view of my sweetie.

But that veil in the window of Saks: I'm telling you, it was glorious.

We had to laugh

I've been looking long and hard for an invitation which is Chinese, but not tacky. Chinese themed invitations generally seem to feature a lot of metallic gold and glitter and foil stamping; they are also often on cheap card stock, such as you'd expect a birthday card to be printed on. I am a paper snob, and I want luxurious, thick card stock. If I could justify the cost of letterpress, I would go for it. I love the textural quality of good paper, and I'm not into the flashy glitter.

Finally, I stumbled on this invitation from White Aisle.

That symbol in the lower right corner is the Chinese "double happiness" character. Each half is the Chinese character for "happiness" and two happinesses together is a traditional good wish for a wedding. I would very much like to incorporate this into my wedding. I like the dragon, too: it's graphic and interesting, Chinese without being flashy. I think this invitation is unusual and interesting, and it's reasonably priced, so I ordered a sample.

What do you know? My sweetie hates it. The dragon is too "in your face". He wants something classic, simple and (to my mind) dull. As we discussed it, we started to giggle. Once again, our opinions are directly opposed.

What could we do? We had to laugh. And it's back to the drawing board for me, perhaps literally: I am starting to think of designing my own.

The lazy bridezilla

I am finding that being a bridezilla requires stamina, stamina I don't have. It requires sticktoitiveness (I love that word) and organization and grim focus on What You Want. I have none of these things. I read blogs of brides who have interviewed fifteen photographers, a dozen florists, half a dozen DJs, and I get tired.

So far, we've interviewed three photographers, and though we have agreed we should probably meet more, the thought of doing so is daunting, and so the process is stalled while I procrastinate. I interviewed three florists, and have gone with the first one I met, mainly because she seemed like she'd be fairly agreeable to work with. Next week we start with DJs, and if we have to interview more than two or three, I can already see I will quickly want to give up.

People appear to visit dozens of venues before picking "the one". We visited three. The dress search seems to usually comprise a hunt involving months of legwork; I got mine in a single intense frenzy of two hours. I read about brides who have hard-negotiated prices from florists, photographers, venues, etc.; if I get a price that's too high, I go elsewhere.

Does this make me laid-back or lazy? I don't know. On the one hand, I do want the wedding to be everything I want, but on the other, my wants are fairly open and flexible. I want red flowers, but since I love almost all flowers, I don't especially care which flowers they are. I want the photography to be good, but I also don't want to spend piles of money on it. I want people to be dancing, but do we have to have exactly the right DJ or our wedding will be ruined? I love our venue, but I picked it as much for price as for any other reason. I booked the hairstylist on the spot after my trial because I couldn't imagine liking someone else so much more as to be worth the extra effort.

Is "good enough" really good enough, or am I cheating myself by not being very specific and demanding, by not exhausting every option to be sure I choose the best? I think it's a symptom of the bridezilla culture that I'm even wondering this. I mean, this is usually how I make decisions in my regular life, too: I check out a few options, then go with the one I like best and don't worry too much about all the ones I haven't seen. So far my somewhat-spontaneous and not-rigorously-researched decisions have generally worked out.

How else, I ask you, would I have found my sweetie? :-)

I hate my profile

So, I had a hair trial on Friday. Yes, it's ten months out, I know. I initally called the hairstylist because I had read about her on the knot, and I knew she was very affordable, so I wanted to make sure she didn't get booked. When she emailed me back, she said we could wait to do a trial because it was still early and she didn't expect to have any other requests for the date any time soon. My sweetie said, "That's so nice, how she called you totally crazy without calling you totally crazy."

Three days later, she emailed me to say someone else had asked for my date. HAH! Plan early, I always say!

So, I went in for my trial, with my trusty bridesmaids for consultation. Here are pictures.

Style 1, a low chignon:

Style 2, a high style I refer to as the Conehead:

My main conclusion from these pictures is, yes, I still hate my profile. Hate, hate, HATE it. I will have to make sure the photographer I choose knows to never, ever shoot me in profile. That's what the 3/4 view was invented for!

The second conclusion is that I like Style #2 better. I love the look of the chignon from the back, but from the front and side I think the Conehead looks better. Which is funny because I went in determined to have the low chignon, and then at the last minute I saw a picture of Marcia Cross in a high sleek updo and thought, "Hey, why not?"

Boy, was my hair shiny after all the product she put in it. And my sweetie said I looked beautiful! Of course, I must be careful never again to let him see me from the side....

Let them (not) eat cake

My sweetie and I have agreed that we don't want a cake at the wedding. Neither of us especially likes cake; I especially don't like wedding cake, because fondant is gross and in my experience, the prettier a cake is, the drier and nastier it tastes.

Instead, I want to have Beard Papa cream puffs. Beard Papa is a Japanese chain that sells gigantic delicious cream puffs; they opened several store in NYC in the last few years, and I think now have stores in California, as well. Here I am in front of a mother ship store in Shinjuku, Tokyo:

See the line? They're good cream puffs!

My sweetie wants cannolis from Ferrara. I'm fine with that. Cream puffs and cannolis, and you chocolate lovers can go elsewhere!

Still, a part of me does feel the pull of the traditional cake. This month's Martha Stewart Weddings features several plastic-looking cakes which leave me cold, and this one:

It's hardly iced at all--just a thin layer of fondant on the top of each tier, covered by a layer of passionfruit curd. The layers are also separated by curd. Each layer is tinted with some food coloring, and the edges are cut and exposed; my mouth is watering just looking at it. I still think we will not be having cake at our wedding (for one thing, delicious though it looks, it strikes me as impractical: I'd think the edges would dry out, even if one didn't cut and expose the edges until right before the wedding began), but I might try my hand at making this cake one day. It looks too fun and delicious to pass up!

(Yes: I read Martha Stewart Weddings: getting married is the perfect excuse to buy into Martha's perfect world. I can unequivocally state it's the loveliest wedding mag out there, and the only one where I've bought more than one issue. The ideas are interesting, the pictures are gorgeous, and while I could never maintain the level of perfection found in the pages of Living in real life, it's nice to dream that I could do it for one day :-)

Nothing in common

I've been feeling a little down about the wedding planning lately.

Don't get me wrong: I'm excited about it. I love our venue, and I am nowhere near as stressed out as I was at the beginning.

What's getting me down, though, is that the planning is bringing home to me the fact that my fiance and I have nothing in common.

OK, this is not strictly true: we have similar values; we agree (mostly) on politics; we are both fairly easy-going. We both love food of all kinds (very important to me, if not to him :-). We agree that together we are stronger and better than we are separate. I am so looking forward to spending the rest of my life with him. I even recently commented to a friend that it had occurred to me that, since we are getting started at such an advanced age :-), we will have forty years together only if we are very lucky, and it doesn't seem like enough.

However, we share almost no aesthestic opinions. We don't like the same music. We don't like the same art. We don't like the same tv shows, movie genres, vacation styles, hobbies. Just about the only time we agreed on something was when we went shopping for my engagement ring: we were pleasantly surprised (astonished, really) that we liked the same style.

This is a problem when it comes to wedding planning. So far we have disagreed on: the venue, the style of the reception, the flowers, the photographer, the music. If you've been following this blog, that means we've disagreed on everything so far, except the dress, and I'm sure that's only because he hasn't seen the dress.

On the venue: I won.
On the style of the reception, formal or buffet: he will win, barring something unforeseen, like the venue telling us that a buffet dinner will reduce the quality of the food.
On the flowers: I will win.
On the music: I won in the sense that I refused to entertain the suggestion of an iPod. On the other hand, which DJ we hire and what music gets played is still a forthcoming argument which I hope we can reach a happy compromise on.
On the photographer: An ongoing argument, which he has basically conceded, which makes me feel very bad.

I realize brides complain all the time about how their fiances are not involved in the planning, and how they have to do all the work. Sometimes I wish my fiance didn't care, because then I could just do it the way I want and not feel like I'm railroading him. Usually when we disagree on something, we either arrive at a compromise (such as with a vacation) or else the one of us who cares less concedes. In our "real life," concessions are split pretty evenly. Unfortunately, when it comes to the wedding, my sweetie is usually the one who cares less, making both of us feel that I'm always winning. It doesn't make me feel triumphant; it makes me depressed.

I don't want this to be a wedding he hates, or that he feels he had no part in. I don't want him to just show up on the day and wonder, what the heck is going on here? I don't want him to be resentful or bored or confused or detatched.

I enjoy weddings, even boring ones. There's something about the ritual, not just the ceremony, but the first dance, the toasts, everyone getting on the floor and dancing without caring what anyone thinks because everyone is family. Everyone is happy at a wedding (or at least they pretend to be). It's so hard to let go of the vision in my head of the ideal wedding. I'm finding this to be the hardest thing, even though I wouldn't have said that I had rigid ideas of what a wedding should be until I discovered that my sweetie has hated every wedding he's ever attended. He hates the formal sit-down dinner. He hates the stupid dance music. He's bored by speeches and toasts. And he's just as nervous as I am that he won't enjoy his own wedding.

I'm scared if I give in on things like the photographer and the music I'll regret it. I really can't agree to an iPod: I am absolutely convinced it will lead to a lousy party, and if there's one thing we agree on, it's that we want our wedding to be a damn good party. But does the photography really matter? The guy he likes is great, a nice guy, and his photos are pretty. He'd be fun to have at the wedding. The guy I like is more serious, and his photos are more technically interesting. As art, I like them better. But do I really need my wedding captured as art? Maybe it's worth the karma of my sweetie getting the guy he's most comfortable with.

Do you look at your wedding pictures and wish they were more artful? Or that you'd had a photographer you really connected with on a personal level?

Lace...and not bridal lace

Lest you think I haven't been knitting during all this wedding madness, I offer the following:




This is the front of the lace hoodie from the Vogue Spring/Summer 2005. I am knitting it with Berocco Pleasure, a lovely soft cashmere-blend yarn, in color "emotion" (a purply-grey). I'm wet-blocking it on my brand-new blocking board, which I bought at the beginning of the year, as a splurge. I love it. I love the squares which help you block the piece to the exact dimensions you need.

Here is a close-up of the lace. I really like it. For my first significant lace project, it turned out pretty nicely.

Now, I just have the back and sleeves....which are simply rectangles of stockinette. I think it's going to be wildly boring, but it will be difficult to make a mistake.

The sweater will be awfully warm when it's done...just in time for summer!

Life of the party

My sweetie and I met with some photographers yesterday.

There are a heck of a lot of photographers out there, especially in and around NYC. I've asked my married friends for recommendations, but all of their photographers, who were affordable when my friends got married, are now too expensive. This seems to be the way of wedding photographers: they are affordable when they first start out, but as they build a portfolio of weddings and a record of happy couples, their prices creep up.

So, I've gone with recommendations from the Knot, and also from the Wedding Photojournalist Association, which helpfully lists members by location and price.

Photojournalism seems to be the current trend in wedding photography, and it's one I really like: basically, the photographer does little to no directing of action, s/he simply records events as they happen. A good photojournalist will capture a real you-are-there feeling that's something I would like to have.

My sweetie and I met with three photographers, who could not have been more different, personality-wise, even though their stated photojournalistic approach is the same. The contrasts were striking: one guy met us in a Starbucks, and had a very friendly, businesslike, outgoing personality. The second one met us in a small independent cafe downtown, and had a more intense, serious, somewhat arty presence. The third met us in the lobby of an ultra-modern hotel in Chelsea and was young, hip, and trendy. It was several slices of NYC life :-).

Each photographer showed us a complete wedding he had shot--that is, all 300-400 proofs from a wedding, not merely the albums of 50 or so of the best pictures. The idea behind seeing a complete wedding is that you get a better sense of the flow of the day, and how the photographer tells the story. I must say, I enjoy looking at wedding pictures. I'm a total sap at heart.

As I looked at hundreds of pictures yesterday (and even more online), I realized that one thing that really matters to me is good shots of the party. I could be wrong, but I feel that most reasonably competent photographers can get lovely and moving shots of the ceremony, or portraits of the couple, or magazine-beautiful pictures of the flowers and the cake. The real challenge seems to be the party: do they get pictures of people dancing, talking, laughing? Are these pictures interesting to me, who has no idea who any of these people are? Do we only have long shots of a group of faceless people on the dance floor, with a lot of backs? Or do we get great close-up action shots of Aunt Mildred breakdancing? Do we have endless pictures of couples trapped at tables, smiling stiffly at the camera, or do we see people laughing or flirting with each other, oblivious to the camera? Photojournalism is great for this kind of photo, but only if you're really good, because if your goal is to be unobtrusive and let the action happen, the risk is that you back off too much.

Photography is really important to me; it always has been. When I go on vacation I take a ridiculous number of photos, and if they turn out poorly I'm crushed (the last time I went on vacation, my pictures were ruined by the x-ray machine, and it almost ruined the vacation for me). I'm really, really anxious to find the right photographer. From all reports, your wedding goes by so fast, you miss half of what's going on. I don't want to miss a minute. We are doing our best to put together a relaxed, fun wedding, and I want the photographer to capture it. I don't want it reduced to stiff posed pictures or crowd pictures that show nothing.

I want to see the party.

Check this out

Red rhinestone trim, $19.98 per yard at M&J Trimming. I'm thinking I could have some fun with this....

What about the children?

My fiance (well, I guess I'm getting used to calling him that) and I are old. We are 37 and 43, pretty far along to be getting married for the first time. You could say we were waiting for the perfect person to come along. I have other thoughts on the validity of that, but maybe I'll save them for a blog when I'm grumpy about romance :-).

Since we are old, many of our friends are already married, and many of them have children, even more than one. When we worked up the preliminary guest list, we counted something like 25-30 children under the age of 10. And my fiance loves kids, being something of a big kid himself. Whenever we get together with his extended family, he can usually be counted on at some point to have disappeared under a pile of kids. He flirts shamelessly with small children in restaurants (a few weeks ago in a Tibetan restaurant, a small girl pointed at him, and then at the picture of the Dalai Lama behind him. We all agreed there was a striking resemblance: he may never hear the end of it).

So, I assumed he would want kids at our wedding, but he surprised me. He said he wasn't likely to play with kids at his wedding, all dressed up in his monkey suit, and instead he wanted an evening party with an open bar and great music.

Fast forward a month and a half and a large deposit later, and now he is starting to rethink it. As I make plans for a fairly formal evening affair, he's starting to realize he wants something more relaxed and casual, and that may include kids. I actually think it would be nice to have kids; they lighten the atmosphere. Our venue can certainly accommodate them, space-wise, so that's not a problem.

It does create some logistical problems, though, particularly with childcare. And, to be honest, I can't remember a wedding I've been to that had kids, since all of my friends got married young, before anyone had them. So I don't even know that parents would want to have to think of their children at a wedding. So, I guess I will ask you parents out there:

Would you expect or even want to bring your children to a wedding that runs from 4:00 to 10:00 pm?

Would age make the difference; for example, should we invite only children over 5?

Would you be comfortable leaving your children with an onsite babysitter, who could entertain the kids in a separate room? Would you expect there to be a babysitter?

Instead of a separate room, should we instead set up kids' tables in the main reception room? If we did this, would a babysitter even be necessary/workable? I would think being in the main reception room would make it much more difficult for a babysitter to keep an eye on the kids, who would naturally gravitate to their parents. Maybe I'm wrong about this?

Any other thoughts?

We haven't made the decision yet, and probably won't have to for many months, but it would be good to start thinking about it now.

Quality, Value, Convenience

I am the first person to laugh at QVC. There are plenty of cheesy, tacky, remarkably ugly things on there. So much polyester and velour. Cubic zirconium galore. Parades of “miraculous” skincare products. And the phone calls! Odd little old ladies (and if they’re not old, they sure sound it) calling from all over the country, crazily excited to talk with their favorite hosts. They sound lonely. I wonder how much money they’re spending shopping on TV.

On the other hand, I watch it quite a lot. It’s perfect background noise for knitting or cooking because it does not require you to look at the screen. And there is a certain fun in watching all these clothes and jewelry march by, asking you to buy. It’s the browsing fun of shopping without having to go out. And, mock me now: I totally think it’s better than HSN, which shows you how far drawn into this I am, that I even have an opinion about this.

Nevertheless, I don’t buy a lot. It’s pretty stuff, often at decent prices. But….how much jewelry does one need? I don’t like polyester, I don’t wear track suits, so I never buy clothes. I’m not going to buy shoes without trying them on. And skincare/makeup? I have more products unused in my bathroom than I could possibly need.

Is that enough caveats? Can I reveal the real topic of this blog entry without sacrificing my street cred now?

Here it is:

This was the Today’s Special Value one day last week. It’s 18K gold plated, shaped like a ginkgo leaf. I’m very fond of ginkgo leaves, and had been toying with the idea of incorporating them into my wedding, perhaps in the jewelry, but I hadn’t seen anything that really spoke to me. But when I saw this, I knew it was worth a shot. Besides, even if it didn’t work the wedding, it’s a piece of jewelry I love, and will wear a lot in my everyday life. It’s not red rhinestones, but it looks pretty nice with those earrings, dontcha think?

Here it is on a cheap multi-strand beaded necklace, which I like somewhat better than the gold satin cord it came with.

I think that I might experiment with some red ribbon, too. I’m not definitely going to use this, but it’s a pretty strong contender!

My love is like a red, red rose

On Saturday, I visited a florist.

I know, my wedding is eleven months away, and I'm already talking to florists! But things seem to get booked up pretty quickly in NYC, particularly anything affordable, so it behooves me to get started. Besides, it's not like I'm thinking about anything else, anyway.

So, I went to see a florist. It was this cute little shop in Jersey City, across the Hudson from Manhattan. I really liked the flowers on her website, and when I called and told her my budget, she didn't laugh. This seemed promising.

You see, we are getting married on February 17. Unfortunately, it is close enough to Valentine's Day that flowers are still going to be extra expensive. Furthermore, I want my color scheme to be primarily red. Red is the Chinese color for weddings, and it just so happens I love red. However, red roses around Valentine's Day are as in demand as, oh, World Series tickets, and just as expensive.

This is a problem, because in winter, roses are the cheapest flower around. If you're not getting married around Valentine's Day.

The first florist I called suggested I cut costs by doing nothing but roses in my bridesmaids bouquets and centerpieces. Then she sent me a proposal that was about $1,000 above my budget, $400 of which was delivery charges.

The second florist, the one in Jersey City, suggested using other flowers, and didn't sneer at my budget. I went in. We looked at lots of pretty pictures of amarylis, ranunculus, tulips, anemones, ilex berries, and all kinds of lovely red flowers that were not roses. She said she would send me a proposal. I am waiting with bated breath: I hope she still thinks she can do it on my budget after talking with me.

Today I called a third florst, who basically told me there was absolutely no way I could do anything on my budget; all flowers are insane around Valentine's Day. Maybe I should do candles for centerpieces and spend my budget on the bouquets.

I hate candles.

I am, as with the wedding in general, torn. I love flowers. My sweetie gives me flowers all the time, and they always make me happy. I just love their beautiful graceful shapes, their delicate texture, their bright colors. I think they are the ultimate extravagance, and I would love to have a wedding overflowing with flowers (would that I were marrying in the spring and could have an abundance of peonies, dogwoods, magnolias and lilacs!).

But on the other hand, they are so fleeting. I have a hard time spending thousands of dollars on something I will enjoy for only a few hours. Even though I love flowers, I do not remember the centerpieces at any wedding I've ever been to. These flowers would really be only for my pleasure; no one else will really notice. It's hard to justify.

I sometimes feel the same way about the wedding. My sweetie and I could use the same amount of money to travel around the world. But...I love weddings, and I think the ceremony, the public celebration, is important. I don't want to just go down to City Hall, spend the day in line, and then sign a paper and be done with it.

Well; let's see what the florist has to say.

The Ignorance of the Urban Gardener

A brief break from wedding minutiae to pay homage to my tomato plant.

This is a “black plum” tomato plant. Black plum is an heirloom variety which produces dark maroon tomatoes, about the size of a cherry tomato, which taste almost tart. I bought the plant on a whim last spring, sometime mid April, at the farmer’s market. I’ve occasionally toyed with growing things myself, but of course since I live in an apartment, my space is limited. And you can get pretty much anything in a store, so why bother?

But tomatoes….there are few things which are genuinely, noticeably better when fresh picked instead of store bought. (Tomatoes and corn: if I could grow corn in my apartment, I would, but that’s beside the point) So, I figured, why not try it?

Since I bought it on a whim, I did not research tmato growing beforehand. My mother grew tomatoes when I was a kid; I remember the spicy smell of the plants, and the sweet juicy tomatoes. Her plants were, I guess, some sort of bushy variety, because they never got over a few feet in height. I just assumed that’s how tomatoes are: low bushy plants. My plant was four feet in about two weeks. It quickly got out of control.

It did not produce a great many tomatoes—I’ve harvested maybe 15 or 18—and it produced them basically one at a time, so I could never get enough to make anything with them. I developed an antipathy towards it. My sweetie hates it, because it blocks the door to the balcony :-).

In the winter, it looked quite sad. I kept planning to throw it out, just as soon as that last tomato was ripe. But it kept having ooooone lassst tomatooo….all the way through the winter. By the time I picked the last one this week, it was too late:

It’s got eight new springtime flowers on it.

Who knew tomatoes were perennials??

Something old

My mother keeps her jewelry in a large cardboard shirt box, buried in a blanket chest. It’s not anything fancy—some costume stuff from the 60s and 70s, my parents’ wedding rings (neither of my parents wear them), some inexpensive jade. My mother rarely wears jewelry. But every now and then when I was a kid, she’d pull out the shirt box and show me the things in there. I thought it was all so pretty—glittery and very adult. I particularly loved these earrings:

They’ve been in this little Marshall Fields (RIP) box with that shriveled piece of fluff for as long as I can remember. They’re absolutely fake—whatever their posts are made of rots my ears from the inside out—but when I was a kid, I thought they were the epitome of elegance. The bright gold color and the deep sparkly red, the snazzy modern design: what more could you ask for?

Here they are on: see how they make that cool loop?














I still love them, and I would love to wear them in my wedding.

There are two problems with this plan. First, the aforementioned rotting ears. I can only wear real silver or gold in my ears: anything else makes the pierced holes very unhappy, itchy and sore and, well, seepy. It’s gross. I doubt I could wear these for the several hours of my wedding without some unpleasant results. I am hoping a trip to the Diamond District will solve this problem.

The second problem is what to wear with them? I would like to wear a necklace which matches, something red and gold and glittery. Something pretty substantial (not simply a chain with a pendant) since my dress is fairly low-cut. The earrings’ geometric design and bright red color precludes the sort of delicate white rhinestone-and-pearl stuff that is usually aimed at brides. Something with red beads just won’t work, because the red crystals in the earrings are prong-set. I want then to match.

After many fruitless Google searches (for very generic things like “red crystal necklace” and “red bib necklace” that turned up lots of beaded items), I finally stumbled into the world of vintage rhinestone jewelry. I’ll be honest: I never thought of these earrings as “vintage,” but of course they are. Duh.

Here are some choices currently on eBay:













I like the middle one (with the horizontal rectangles) the best. The third one appeals to the exhibitionist in me, but I think it’s a bit too ornate, both for the occasion, and for the earrings they’re meant to match.

What do you think? The other option, I suppose, is a necklace that is substantial, but only gold, making the earrings the sole color star.

Have I mentioned that I’m obsessed with the fun details that really don’t need to be taken care of right now?

Mark your calendars

Well, we have a date: Sunday, February 17, 2008. Almost exactly eleven months from now. I'm excited and nervous!

The 17th is the Sunday of Presidents Day weekend. It will be one year and one day after we got engaged. It will be appallingly close to Valentine's Day, to my sweetie's chagrin. It is also a holiday weekend, which is both convenient for those folks who want to come but don't want to take a day off work, but also inconvenient for those people with kids (of whom we know a great many) who take a vacation that week because their kids are off from school. To them, I apologize: I hope you will still come to our wedding!

Here are some more pictures of our venue, Battery Gardens Restaurant:

Where the ceremony will be (and we will have a sunset)

The back of the reception room, where the DJ and dance floor will be set up. And you can just see the wood-burning fireplace, very cozy for a winter wedding!

Battery Gardens is in Battery Park, at the very southern tip of Manhattan. It's between the Staten Island Ferry terminal and the terminal for the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. My sweetie thought the view of Ellis Island would be nice for his 90-year-old grandmother, because his grandfather came through Ellis Island. I find this rather amazing: as a Chinese-American whose parents came to the US via the West Coast, I think of Ellis Island as something from the 19th century. When I was a grad student teaching freshman comp at UCLA, I once asked my class if any of their families had come via Ellis Island, and only one student in a class of 25 raised his hand. I won't wax philosophical about America's melting pot (or "salad bowl"), but I always find it interesting how different my sweetie's and my backgrounds are. I guess we will see how it works out--but so far it's pretty good.

Black hole

So, I am realizing that wedding planning is a black hole. Here I am, 11 months out, and I already have a pretty good idea of which invitation I like and what bridemaids dress I prefer. I'm thinking about flowers and favors. I am investigating photographers and DJs. I'm wondering if live music is the way to go for the ceremony. I have begun setting up a wedding information website and designing a cute save-the-date card. I'm thinking about where to book blocks of hotel rooms. I'm fretting about officiants. I'm thinking of where I can hang lanterns in my venue.

In short, I'm thinking of very little else.

And there's no need--I have plenty of time. Those invitations I love don't need to be ordered for another five or six months. The save-the-dates don't need to be mailed for another four or five months. My bridesmaids certainly don't need to have dresses hanging in their closets for 11 months. Favor frenzy does not need to happen for, oh, eight months, I'd say. It's ridiculous.

But, well, it's fun. I'm starting to see why women get caught up in all the details. I'm not obsessed with making it perfect (....yet), and you won't catch me going bridezilla and demanding my bridesmaids all cut and dye their hair to match (I think my bridemaids would not be shy about telling me to shove it if I do), but the allure of finding just the right touch is very compelling. No one wants their wedding to be generic, and so you start to think about things you can do to personalize it, and it snowballs from there.

And the Internet is your enabler.

You can find anything on th Internet, if you're persistent and you look hard enough. That invitation, for example, was the result of an exhaustive Internet search over several days, and came in the end not from a Google search but a suggestion on a theknot.com forum. You never know where ideas will come from, so you have to look everywhere.

Oh yes: I scare myself.

But, really, the invitation, the bridesmaids dresses, the favors, the lanterns, the save-the-dates are the easy parts. The DJ and the photographer and the officiant--those are the hard things. Those are the things I actually need to be doing now. Those are the things for which I need active participation from my sweetie, and fairly soon.

So, naturally, I am procrastinating. I guess it's good to know my character hasn't changed that much :-).

A place

My sweetie and I went to look at places for the wedding on Saturday. Right now it is 20 degress outside, but Saturday was beautiful, in the 50s and sunny. A day for remembering that spring will come.

It was really lovely to spend the day with him, walking around with our coats off in the sunshine, thinking about getting married and sharing the excitement of the planning. The day reminded me of how really, really happy I am to have him. We work really well together, and we complement each other in ways that I don't always expect. I guess he's a keeper :-).

We saw three places on Saturday, one of which was too small, the second of which was a bit too expensive (although, situated on the corner of 14th St and Fifth Ave, it has gorgeous and quintessentially New York City views), and the third of which was just right:

It has something I really wanted, huge windows, and something my sweetie wanted, a view of the water. And, yes, the Statue of Liberty, which you can spot in this picture if you squint really hard, but which is unmissable in real life. This is the downstairs room, where the cocktail reception would be.

This is their much more professional shot of the upstairs room, where the ceremony and dinner would be:

I love it. I think a wedding there would be beautiful. I think we would have so much fun. I love the idea of coming back on our first anniversary and having a romantic dinner. I can't wait!

More after we sign the contract, because until then, nothing's written in stone (or on paper!).

Omigod, I bought a dress

So, my sweetie and I got engaged two weeks ago. We have not yet set a date, nor have we booked a venue (though we will be seeing some places tomorrow). It's still quite early in the game. I swear, I am not going to be a bridezilla. I know every bride must say this, but the idea of obsessing over every little detail (are the chairs the right style and color? Do the plates match my color scheme?) just exhausts me. I am not detail-oriented.


One thing I do know, however, is that getting married in NYC is an expensive proposition. So it behooves us to save money where we can. For exmaple, on the dress. I mean, my stingy soul finds it hard to imagine I would ever spend $5,000 on a dress anyway, but given the circumstances, it's even less likely. The only problem is, I'm a fiber snob. I hate the idea of getting married in polyester. Heck, I hate the idea of, oh, going to work in polyester. But a silk dress usually means a designer dress, and that means $$$$$.

So, this morning, my friend Laura and I went to the annual Running of the Brides sale at Filene's Basement. I did not expect to buy anything, but I thought, hey, if I can get a designer silk dress for a few hundred bucks, I'm ahead of the game.

Many other brides were thinking the same thing. Maybe you've seen news footage of the original Filene's in Boston and their bridal sale: crazy women in catsuits undressing in the aisles and fighting each other for dresses. The New York store was much like that, though I suspect not as crazy. Laura and I were there at 7:30; the doors opened at 8:00. Hundreds of women, many in packs of four or five wearing matching hats (or Easter bunny ears), the better to find each other in the mayhem, poured into the store, ripping gowns off the rack, basically at random. After about five seconds of attempting to actually look at the dresses and selecting ones I liked, Laura and I fell into the pattern and just grabbed. Inside three minutes, we had a pile of seven or eight gowns, and retired to the side to try them on.

Luckily, we retired to the side in front of what was usually the men's dressing room. As I disrobed, in true Filene's bridal madness fashion, a store employee came out of the dressing room and said, drily, "You know, you can use the dressing room." So, we did. It was a haven of calm in the frenzy.

At first, I thought I was safe: every dress in that first batch was polyester, ugly, heavily beaded, or too small. I figured that was the way it was going to go, and I was OK with it: I was here bascially on a lark anyway. Laura headed out into the fray to fetch me more. The scene out there was apparently quite bad. When Laura attempted to take some dresses another woman had rejected, that woman demanded that Laura provide a dress in trade for each one she was going to take. This was the order of the day, as the friend of the woman in the dressing rom next to me came back empty-handed and complained that everyone wanted something in trade. Laura is made of stronger stuff. She said, "I'f you've tried it on and you're not considering buying it, you don't actually own it." She brought me another armful of dresses. And another, and another. In all, I probably tried on over two dozen dresses.

Somewhere in that second batch, I started to see some lovely simple silk dresses from one of my favorite wedding dress designers, Romona Keveza. Alas, each one was too small. I was disappointed, but OK with it: I was here on a lark. And then, and then--I found it. A Romona Keveza 100% silk column dress with a dramatic fishtail train. In my size. In pristine condition. And it cost $700, not $5,000.

What could I do? I bought it.



Here it is, hanging on the back of my office door. Yes, I went to the sale before work. When I brought it in, everyone made me try it on to show them. I complied, until the mail guy walked by and looked at me funny. I bet he thought I was a bridezilla!



Here's the bodice, a simple crossover v-neck with an empire waist.



Here's that gorgeous train. I ask you, did I have a choice? None. None, I say. It will need a few minor alterations, but it won't need to be cleaned (assuming I can keep from taking it out and trying it on every week until the wedding), so all in all, I got a great deal. It was meant to be, right? I mean, we had no method: we were just grabbing any dress we could lay our mitts on. Yet in that haphazard pile was this dress, the One.

No, I won't post pictures of me with it on: my sweetie might see :-).

Surprise!

My sweetie is sneaky. Very sneaky.

We got engaged last week, Friday.

Sure, we'd talked about it. I knew it was coming. But not then. Not Friday. Friday was supposed to be a belated birthday dinner. A romantic, just-the-two-of-us dinner, yes, but a birthday dinner. Because, on my actual birthday, I like to go out to dinner with friends, so he takes me out for the romantic dinner after my birthday. He did it last year, and we didn't get engaged. He said, the whole week leading up to the dinner that it was a birthday dinner, and I shouldn't expect anything, you know, out of the ordinary. He has said this before, before other events (Christmas, New Year's, my actual birthday, Valentine's Day), and we have not gotten engaged, so I figured he meant it.

Little did I know that months of telling me not to expect anything were simply laying the groundwork for me to...not expect anything.

It turns out he bought the ring weeks ago (as it happens, the day before my real birthday). He told his sister. He told my friend Brian, who was going to be visiting me this weekend. Brian said later that he avoided talkng to me for weeks because he couldnt't trust himself not to say anything.

My sweetie, though, was cool as a cucumber. I had no idea. And here I thought I could read him like a book.

Maybe I should rethink what this means for the years ahead :-).

Here is what I consider our official engagement pic, taken by Brian in Chinatown on Chinese New Year (hence the confetti):

See me waving my (btw, utterly gorgeous) ring? :-)

By way of warning: I expect there will be very little knitting content on this blog for some months to come!

Happy Valentine's Day

My sweetheart sent me some gorgeous flowers yesterday.





















Why yesterday? Because, you see, he hates Valentine's Day. It's a commercial Hallmark holiday, and it bugs him.


So he sent me flowers yesterday, as an un-Valentine's Day present. His way of being contrary without being contrary, I guess.


I was completely surprised. I didn't expect anything, since I know how he feels about the day. He caught me off guard completely.









I love them. I love him.











It got me thinking about Valentine's Day, though. My sweetie is not the first man I've dated who hates Valentine's Day. I attract (and am attracted to) rebels, maybe. I'd never really had an opinion about Valentine's Day--if anything, I used to think it was kind of silly. People (stereotypically women) do seem to get a little crazy about it, demanding wild proofs of love and expensive presents, and I do think that's stupid. I'd rather have a man who supports and loves me every day, rather than someone who gives me fancy presents once a year.


That said, the first time I dated someone who couldn't stop complaining about Valentine's Day, I started to get annoyed. I don't ask for a lot: a bunch of flowers, a kiss, and a tender moment. What's the big deal? I've read a lot of rants today in blogland about how stupid Valentine's Day is, how it's designed to value the superficial over the substantial. But I resent the idea that if I like to receive or give a present on the day, my relationship is founded on sand. It's not an either/or proposition.


To me, Valentine's Day is like Mother's Day. Mother's Day is another made up Hallmark holiday, complete with flowers that cost five times as much as any other day, and jacked-up Mother's Day menus in restaurants. But you can bet I don't call my mom for weeks prior to the day, telling her to expect nothing from me, because it's a stupid holiday, and I show her that I love her on all other days so she doesn't need anything special from me. A card, a phone call on the day: it's so little effort to put a smile on the face of someone you love. What's the problem with this?


All the ranting about Valentine's Day is as childish as the romantic adolescent paroxysms those rants are protesting, a kind of "I won't, and you can't make me." Get a grip: Valentine's Day is what you make it.


My sweetheart made it February 13th. Meanwhile, I bought him something for no reason, just because I thought he'd want it--and called it a Valentine's present to annoy him :-).

I can knit in the dark

My friend Brian has sent me a pair of these.

They are knitting needles, size 10.5, with lighted tips for knitting in dim light. They're hilarious. when I called him to thank him, he related the following story:

I was walking down the street and passed by a store and there were two women in the window knitting with them, so I decided I had to buy them for you.

I went in [I ask, "Was it a yarn store?"] -- yes, it was a yarn store -- and said I wanted to buy a pair for my friend who was a knitter.

She asked me, "What gauge does she knit at?"

I said, "Um, I don't know....."

She said, "Well, what does she like to knit?"

I said, "Ummm...she knit me a scarf, once...." [this was the scarf I knitted in grad school, fifteen years ago, the very first thing I ever knit]

She rolled her eyes, and sighed very loudly. I said, "I am just going to choose them by the color I like, and you can tell me if it's an unreasonable size."

And that's what he did. They're a nice purple. Isn't he sweet?

Weekend of knitting

It's MLKJ weekend, so I have celebrated by knitting.

I have finished the first of my toe-up socks:



It fits my boyfriend perfectly, so I am pretty proud of myself. Now...must fight Second Sock Syndrome!





I also took a break from the sock to knit this:







This is knit from an Insubordiknit Monster Hat kit. The handspun yarn is beautiful and soft, and I really enjoyed working with it.





Being a Monster Hat kit, it came with this lovely little monster patch:



(It has an open skull)

But, once I got the hat knit, the monster didn't really seem to fit it. I will have to use him for something else.












The hat is topless because I have a big head, and I like hats to cover my ears. I knew, therefore, that I would not have enough yarn for a full coverage hat, so I designed this, which I suppose technically is more of a headband. I like this design, though, because it lets me keep my ponytail neat:

More socks

Here are better pictures of the black socks.

I am knitting these out of Smiley's cashmere, using a pattern I've cobbled together myself. I am using Judy's magic cast-on, wiseneedle's proportions and heel, and a mistake rib pattern on the top of the instep and aound the leg.

Here's a close-up of the cast-on:

This is my first pair of toe-up socks, and I chose this cast-on because, I have to admit, I have a block against provisional cast-ons. They seem fussy to me, for some reason. Anyway, this is gloriously simple, and produces, with little or no effort, a totally seamless toe. Since I hate seaming and grafting, I love the idea of totally seamless socks!

The heel I am less happy with:

You can't really see it here, but it looks crummy. I don't like having to pick up two wraps on the same stitch. Sometime I could only get one. This is definitely too fussy and annoying for me. I am debating whether to switch to a Sherman heel on the second sock, or do this one again for the sake of making them identical.

I love the mistake rib--it's pretty, but not too feminine since I am making these for my sweetie. I like the strong vertical lines, and also the 3-D aspect--the ridges stick out nicely. On the top of the instep, I used 27 stitches in order to have both edges of the pattern match; one I got the leg, I added a stitch so that the leg is 56 stitches around. I knit the stockingnette sole on 6s and the mistake rib on 4s because the rib comes in a wider stitch gauge. But it also comes in at a shorter row gauge, so I had to throw in a couple makeup rows. On the leg, I'm on 4s the whole way around, but I am thinking of gradually increasing my needle size as I go up to incorporate some easy leg shaping. We'll see!

We'll also see if I can repeat all of this improvisation on the second sock...because I'm not taking notes :-).

Multitasking

I just want to take a moment to crow:




Crow about what?

The sock, which I am making toe-up with a fabulous magic cast-on? The fact that I've designed the thing myself, and it looks mighty nice?

No. That will be later (with a better picture).

I'll give you a hint. See that manuscript under the sock? It's a manuscript I am reading for work. It's quite an interesting one, about dreams, and the place of the image in religion (it argues that Judeo-Christian religion is a religion of the word). I am about 110 pages in.

No, I didn't write this manuscript (good grief).

No, I didn't acquire it; I am not its editor.

Give up?


I have figured out how to read while knitting.

An Ode to Honeycrisps

Warning: no knitting content here!

Let me first say: I don't like apples. I never have. And I've given them a very good chance: I've tried Granny Smiths, MacIntoshes, Galas, Fujis, Cortlandts, Macouns, Braeburns. And some are better than others. Some are passable enough that I've thought, "This isn't bad. Maybe I'll buy more." So I buy two or three more, I eat one, and the rest sit in my fridge for months until I finally give up and throw them away. I eat apples, when I eat them, because they're good for me. Not because I like them. They are never sweet enough, juicy enough, crisp enough. They are always just a little too mealy, with a skin that turns to leather in my mouth and refuses to be swallowed no matter how long I chew. I don't like apples.

Sometimes, I bake them in pies, and then they are yummy.

Then, one day last month, I was in the grocery store, once again eyeing the apples and thinking, "It's winter. It's apples or nothing. Try a new one. Maybe, just maybe, this time, you'll find it." I saw a kind I'd never seen before, a Honeycrisp. Its name suggested sweetness and crispness, two things I feel are lacking in every apple I've ever tried. I know apple names mean nothing (Red Delicious, anyone?), but I bought a couple. Why not.

I took them home. I dutifully ate one.

I loved it. It is everything I've always wanted in an apple--sweet, crispy, and so juicy you have to suck on it a little when you bite it, or juice might run down your arm. It is the first and only apple I have ever eaten as a treat. I take one to work and I eat it at 10:30 because I can't wait 'til lunch. You know how diet gurus are always telling you to eat apples when you want something crisp--like potato chips--or sweet? I've always thought that people who advise this must hate food. They must never have eaten a potato chip in their lives.

Maybe they've been eating Honeycrisps.

Alas, they are hard to find. When I ran back to the store to buy more, they were gone. I've since found more at the farmer's market (I bought four. Then I went back and bought five), but that's a bit of a trek. Then, tonight I found some at another grocery store, after visiting three other stores in vain. I grabbed seven before they disappear again.

I'm obsessed. If you see some when you're out shopping, buy them. Eat one, and send the rest to me (kidding).

(Kind of.)

Fickleness, thy name is Knitter

Well, small knitted gifts are past, and I am back to thinking about sweaters.

No, I am not working on either of my two sweater WIPs. Yes, this is the beginning of an entirely new sweater. I am fickle. On the bright side, though, it's a true stash buster, using Berroco Pleasure, an angora blend yarn I've had for some time, awaiting the right project. That project is this:

From the Spring/Summer 2005 Vogue Knitting, a pattern by Norah Gaughan, who always has interesting designs. I fell in love with the construction of this--the lace strip comes down one side of the opening, turns at the bottom, and comes back up the other side. The sweater is therefore closed at the bottom--it is not a cardigan.

I have a weakness for unusual design--this summer I made a Roundabout Tank top from Gaughan's book KNITTING NATURE, which was essentially a strip that wrapped around the body. Not the most flattering thing, but the construction was extremely cool.

In other news, my boyfriend has requested a pair of socks. I've knitted him things (hats) before, of course, but never at his request. I'm pretty pleased that he likes my knitting enough to ask for something, and I am busily planning the socks. I think I will try making this pair toe-up, which will require my learning a provisional cast-on.

I will get back to the Kool-Aid sweater eventually--right now it's winter, though, and even though it's been remarkably warm so far this season, I am hankering for a nice fuzzy sweater. Which I will probably not finish until July :-).