My Second Post as Someone's Husband!

Totally forgot this little tidbit yesterday: "...like puzzle pieces made of clay..." is a reference to the song "Such Great Heights" by the band The Postal Service. It's another song we'd thought about dancing to, but the Postal Service version is too fast, while the terrific cover by Iron & Wine is just tooooo slooooow (though very pretty). So, we snuck it into the ceremony! I do still plan on posting the ceremony at some point.

W+5

My First Post as Someone's Husband!

That "someone" is, of course, Sarah, and the wedding was pretty much perfect. We started with the not-quite-clear vision of "whimsical", and evolved it into "unique; nerdy without making people who don't get the references feel left out" which...isn't much more defined than "whimsical". However, it did give us some degree of freedom to tailor each element of the wedding to our sense of quirkiness.

For example, the ceremony music - instead of just using Pachebel's "Canon in D", we drew from indie band's instrumental songs and the Vitamin String Quartet tribute albums, allowing us to feature bands like Frightened Rabbit and The Album Leaf, while including songs like "Falling Slowly", "Hunger Strike", and the 600 AD piano piece from the Super Nintendo game, "Chrono Trigger" (not sure the playlist got to that point before the ceremony started - honestly, I didn't even hear the music as we came down the stairs). For the bridal party, we were able to use the Harry Potter theme music, as well as an instrumental version of a Macklemore song.

As Sarah and I shared our first kiss... Well, our first kiss as a married couple... Well, our first kiss as a married couple wearing our wedding rings, we played "At Last" by Etta James, a favorite of ours that was almost our first dance song, and a song we very much wanted at the wedding, but one that we weren't sure we'd have time to play later. I think it worked perfect, with the music coming up as Kerrie instructed us to kiss, and then sweeping in fully as we ascended the stairs to leave.

We followed this by a string version of another favorite - "Everlong" by the Foo Fighters - and then, if people took this long to head over to cocktail hour, the closing theme song to "The Empire Strikes Back". Here's the thing, though - I don't think you had to know what any of those songs were to enjoy the ceremony. The pre-ceremony music was just supposed to entertain if you were just waiting, and fade into background music if you were chatting with someone. The Harry Potter theme is a pretty song, and the Macklemore song was a mostly-piano piece that had the perfect rhythm for walking up the aisle. "At Last" is pretty self-explanatory, while the rest of the recessional music was just pretty instrumentals.

The ceremony itself was chock full of various references (and I will post the entire thing here later for all to read). Some were explained during the ceremony, such as the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling, and the Madeline L'Engel and Rainer Maria Rilke readings. Others were hinted at, but not so overt. The final bit before the vows, "Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now." was attributed to "a friendly neighbor", and I'm sure there were some in the audience who didn't quite get the reference to a late TV host that most people in my age group watched as children, and that's understandable, as it's not necessarily something he'd have said on his show, "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood".

"Do you mind if I tell you a story?" (at the beginning of the ceremony)
"We are all just stories in the end; make it a good one."
"Just be magnificent."
"Allonsy!" (all at the end of the ceremony)
All of the above are from the new "Doctor Who", the first two from the Eleventh Doctor, the 3rd and 4th from the 10th Doctor.

"They made cocoa and got engaged" is a reference to the very first Doctor, on one of his very first adventures (the earliest adventure that still remains fully intact), "The Aztecs". They visit the Aztecs, and the Doctor befriends an older woman. They share cocoa, which to her is a marriage ritual, but he doesn't realize until after the fact. The First Doctor was a rather serious character, and this was one of the first examples of the quirkiness that would characterize the Doctor that we all know and love.

"First, the Earth cooled. Then, the dinosaurs came, but they died and turned to oil." is from the inferior-to-the-original-yet-underrated movie, "Airplane II: The Sequel".

Kerrie's explanation of the symbolism of the rings features bits of a marriage ceremony from the science-fiction show "Eureka" that aired on SciFi/Syfy for 5 seasons a few years back. The entire run is available on Netflix, and I highly recommend it. The actual quote, from Season 3, Episode 4 is as follows: "Love is timeless, transcending everything we know, everything we understand and giving us strength and comfort forever. What is past is now present. And what is present will become your future. That is what love is – never ending."

Sarah's ring vow: "My dearest friend, if you don't mind, I'd like to join you by your side, where we could gaze into the stars, and sit together, now and forever. For it is plain as anyone could see, we're simply meant to be." is from the movie "The Nightmare Before Christmas".

My ring vow is a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke:
"Understand, I'll slip quietly
Away from the noisy crowd
When I see the pale
Stars rising, blooming over the oaks.
I'll pursue solitary pathways
Through the pale, twilit meadows,
With only this one dream:
You come too."

"Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts." is a line from "Henry VI" by William Shakespeare.

Everything from there until the "Remember, we are all just stories in the end..." is written by myself and Kerrie, and paraphrases some of Robert Fulghum's book "From Beginning to End".

And then, of course, was the kiss. After all of that, we couldn't just have Kerrie tell us to kiss, so we called upon yet another nerdy reference, one of the granddaddies of nerdom, "The Lord of the Rings". The actual quote comes from "The Return of the King" and is as follows: "And he took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they stood high upon the walls in the sight of many. And many indeed saw them and the light that shone about them as they came down from the walls..." It is Faramir and Eowyn's first kiss after Faramir proposed to Ewoyn (notable as the only woman in pretty much all of Tolkien's masterpiece to actually do anything...ignore the fact that when she agrees to marry Faramir she basically agrees to regress into the same type of woman as all the rest in that story and just remember her as the bad-ass that snuck into battle and took out the Witch-King (leader of the Ringwraiths) because that's way more awesome).

As for the reception, for those that didn't recognize the introduction music, the parents and parties came out to the "Doctor Who X" theme (the theme song for the Tenth Doctor), while Sarah and I came out to "I Am The Doctor", which is kind of the unofficial theme song for the Eleventh Doctor; sort of the leitmotif for the music in his adventures.

Our first dance was to "Love, Reign O'er Me" by Pearl Jam, released as their Christmas Single a few years back, and also on the soundtrack to the Adam Sandler film "Reign Over Me", which approximately 4 people actually remember, and even fewer actually saw. If it came out 10 years earlier, I'd say that Sandler played a good-for-nothing slacker who discovered some hidden talent and bounced from zany joke to zany joke before realizing that he had to grow up just enough to win over the love of a beautiful woman and secure his financial future, but since it came out during his "I'm a serious actor" phase, I'm guessing it's pretty much the same movie, just with no humor, and thus, probably unwatchable. Ok, that's completely unfair of me. In truth, the film is far more serious than I give it credit for, and received mixed reviews, though mostly positive.

At any rate, it is a cover of the Who's song, with which I was not familiar before hearing Pearl Jam's version. Now, I've long expressed frustration at people hearing a cover and thinking it was an original (The Indigo Girls did NOT write "Romeo & Juliet"), particularly when the truth is revealed and the cover is still preferred. However, I was fully aware that it was a cover, and upon hearing the Who version...yeah, the Pearl Jam version is better. This happens from time to time, though. Many think the Johnny Cash version of "Hurt" is superior to the Nine Inch Nails version. Bob Dylan actually changed the way he plays "All Along the Watchtower" after hearing Jimi Hendrix's version. I'm ok with this, when it is true (The Indigo Girls' version of "Romeo & Juliet" is NOT superior to the original), which it simply is in this case. It's a very similar version, but Eddie Veddar's voice wins the day.

Anyway, on to the centerpieces.

The recipes on the bags of flour came from three sources. The potato soup recipe came from the back of the bag of Bob's Red Mill Potato flour. We used it because it seemed like a great base for other soups - for example, if you add mushrooms, you have a cream of mushroom base for various casseroles. The other recipes were found online: Gluten Free Onion Rings recipe comes (with some modifications) from simplygluten-free.com, while the Vanilla (or Chocolate) Macaroons came from www.freecoconutrecipes.com.

A note about the macaroons - if you look at the recipe on the website, there is no coconut flour listed in the ingredients for the chocolate macaroons. We weren't sure if that was a mistake, or not, so we kitchen-tested the recipe, making a half batch with flour, and a half batch without. Both are tasty, but we actually found that omitting the coconut flour made them a little moister, and left the chocolate flavor a little more pronounced, though they were more difficult to work with. If you choose to make them, I would do a similar test for yourself. I don't think you'll be disappointed.



I'm sure I'll have more stories to share later, but I just wanted to get some notes up here about the main part of the day. It was an amazing day; the weather was perfect, the ceremony and reception were nearly flawless, and I am so proud to be married to my beautiful wife and to have shared the day with my friends and family.

No Pictures, Please, but for a Good Reason.

I know, I know, people <i>love</i> to take pictures. Some bring their cameras, others are happy with their smartphones, but all feel this need to document any event with hundreds of photographs. Which is fine, except for one thing - if you're busy setting up a photo, fiddling with your camera, taking into account lighting and focal distance, focusing on keeping your arms still, how much attention are you paying to what's going on in front of the lens? Even if much of that work is taken care of for you by your camera/phone, you're still going to end up doing some fiddling - checking to see if the shot came out well, deleting it if it didn't - and you're going to miss something.

On top of that, there is a study that shows that the more you photograph, the less you remember.

Now, Sarah and I are not the most comfortable in front of groups of people. Neither of us really enjoy being the center of attention. So, for us to present ourselves willingly to our friends and family, and ask for all of you to focus directly on us (and my sister, who will be doing most of the speaking) is kind of a big deal. We are stepping somewhat out of our comfort zones here, and we don't think it is too much to ask for your undivided attention.

In addition, we put this ceremony together ourselves. A good amount of work has gone into it, so, while I can't speak for my wife-to-be or my sister, I can say that I would greatly appreciate if people actually heard what we wrote.

We have hired a professional photographer (Sharon Simpson), and she will be there with two cameras, so there will be plenty of photos from all the angles available after the wedding. You will not be disappointed.

All of that said, this only applies to the ceremony itself. Beforehand, the cocktail hour, the reception - all fair game. The only thing we ask is that if you are taking personal photos during the family photo time with our photographer, Sharon, you let Sharon have precedence (i.e. don't try to get the subjects to look at you when they should be looking at Sharon).

Is anyone else getting exnervanxcited? I just made up that word, but I think it fully encompasses how I feel just three days from the wedding. We've spent so long talking about it and planning it, that it doesn't really feel real that it is almost here! But it is! And we don't really have much left to do! That might be the most surprising thing! We actually planned ahead! I feel like I'm just saying things to include more exclamation points! Ok, I really am! No more exclamation points in this post after this one!

W-3! (I lied!)

Suits, and dresses, and boxes, and centerpieces, and on and on and on...

The countdown to W-Day has begun! Well, I guess I've been counting down on here since we started this blog, but I've been posting relevant pictures on Facebook for the past ten days or so, counting down the final month of preparations. It's not official until it's Facebook Official.

The suits are in, and the groomsvengers are getting measured and tailored and are going to look awesome! We decided to go with George's Apparel, because it is a local landmark, and I'd always heard good things. I was not misled. They have been fantastic. Super helpful, affordable, fast, and just a great experience all-around. They are the type of neighborhood store that people reminisce about when complaining about the "big box" stores that have crowded our commercial landscape. Men's Warehouse and Joseph A. Bank may have slick commercials and constant sales, but neither match the experience we've had at George's.

On the subject of clothing, Sarah's dress is in and tailored and fits (that last one is kind of important). Her sister's dress never got sent home, so that is in our closet, waiting to be addressed just before the wedding. This isn't ideal, but George's is helping us out, so I'm not worried.

Our apartment is just full of boxes. Boxes from gifts. Boxes from centerpiece materials. Boxes that fit inside other boxes. Shoe boxes. The most important box at the moment, though, is the Card Box. Why? Because we built our own. Unsatisfied with boring boxes, with lace and crinoline, or with simple baskets, we decided to find something that fit better into our own idiom. Sarah quickly found one on Offbeat Bride, and sent me the link. I'm still not sure if she was entirely serious, or if she thought it was actually feasible, but I took the idea and ran with it. For those familiar with video games, you will recognize it. For everyone else, it has hearts on it. It took a while, with a few false starts (including buying molding materials, which I still think would have been the coolest solution), a lot of x-acto knife work, and way too much carving of styrofoam, our Weighted Companion Cube Card Box came to life! Well, not really. That would be weird. It looks awesome, though.

Other boxes in our apartment: boxes full of vases. Boxes full of lights. Even boxes full of decorative stones, as we gear up for the next challenge: assembling centerpieces for each table. Fortunately, there'll only be ten tables. Unfortunately, each centerpiece has three different parts!

W-18!

One More Thing...

...about the registry that I forgot to mention last night. Yes, it is set up through Amazon, but not everything is sold through Amazon. Some items are from external websites, but Amazon lets you organize them in the list with stuff sold on Amazon.

On top of that, you don't even have to buy stuff directly through the registry. If you want to buy something listed, but think you can find it in a local store cheaper, or know of one that's "fallen off a truck", or just happen to have the item lying around waiting to be re-gifted, Amazon provides a link on the item to let them know that you bought it somewhere else, so that the registry stays accurate.

Pretty cool, no?

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Registry

People have been asking about our wedding registry, and while there is information on the invitations to both the shower and the wedding itself (we are aware that it's not traditional to put this on the wedding invitation, but we wanted to subvert the inevitable deluge of phone calls; please don't feel you have to get us something), we thought it would be good to add a link here, for those who are interested, or have been having trouble finding it: Sarah and Matt's Wedding Registry

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How bad could it be? ...

While I haven't been in the medical field for an overly long time, I have come to realize one cardinal rule. Never utter the phrase, "how bad could it be?" The first time that I uttered that phrase, I was working as an EMT for a transfer company. My partner and I were responding to a call for a "stable" labor patient who required transport for monitoring. I uttered that famous phrase and not an hour later, my partner and I were holding a beautiful baby girl that we had delivered in the back of our ambulance. In the years that have passed, I've uttered those words nary a few times and have discovered in the process - how deep tunneling abscesses can go and how exciting life as a nurse can be. However, this post isn't about work, it's about the DIY process Matt and I have encountered while doing our invitations and the envelopes.

"How bad could it be to print our own envelopes to send these beauties out?"

   Matt has a great eye for design and has some excellent skills working with design programs. As someone who once painted their room "green screen green", it seemed obvious which of us would be the primary person working on the invitations. We had an awesome experience working with Colonial Printing in Manchester for our Save the Dates, that it was obvious to us that they would be the perfect choice to print our wedding invitations. Seeing as we have an overall "nerdy" theme to our wedding, we also wanted to include the other activity that has brought Matt and I together - cooking. Matt had sketched out a basic design based on recipe cards that take me back to my grandmother's kitchen (mom's mom) during the holidays or during a routine visit - she would take out her box of index cards and we would look through them together and decide what to make. Playing on this theme, Matt designed invitations that resembled cards. Danielle from Colonial Printing worked with us and we were on our way. The cards came back perfectly and we were all set to begin the DIY part of the invitation process.

We knew we were in trouble when we couldn't even get the envelopes that we had originally wanted. For "nerdy" reasons, Matt had really wanted to send the invitations in navy blue envelopes. We had seen them at Staples recently and decided to wait on purchasing them until we had a confirmation on the size of our invitation. Once the size of the invite was confirmed, we returned only to find that they only had 4 packages of envelopes and we needed 5. How bad could it be to find more navy envelopes from Staples? There are several (5) Staples in a reasonable driving distance from our house. Well...very bad as it turns out. There were no more navy envelopes in southern New Hampshire. For whatever reason, Staples has opted not to restock this color. Matt and I are (still) totally miffed. As usual, Amazon came to the rescue and we were able to have navy envelopes shipped within a few days.

Now, as it's been 6 months since we've sent out the Save The Dates, I seem to have forgotten how difficult it was to print on the envelopes. It took several days to get those envelopes printed and many hours of huffing and cursing before the entire lot was printed and ready for mailing. Somehow, in the intervening months, I had forgotten the difficulty of this task and was determined to print on the invitation envelopes. Well, we had one day to get everything printed, designed (our seals), stamped, and correlated (we wanted to be sure that everyone got an invitation). After 3 hours of working with our printer, our business center printer, futzing with the design, and pouting, I gave up. I am not gracious in defeat, but I definitely was bested by these envelopes! We settled on printing up stickers with everyone's address on them and then a separate set of stickers for the return address.

Supplies for painting on the invisible ink RSVP numbers.

Once we tackled the addressing issue, we set out to number our RSVP cards. If you've received your invitation, you'll no doubt notice that there is no place to put your name. We labeled each RSVP with invisible ink - correlating the number on the RSVP to the list of addresses/invitees. Surprisingly, this was the easiest and most fun part of the day as it included playing with Matt's Sonic Screwdriver (it has a UV light on the end).

Finally, the numbers had dried and we were ready for assembly. Matt had designed special stickers to seal the envelopes to insure that invitees open the envelopes as though they would open a recipe box so that you get the full effect of the index cards in a recipe box. We had our labels assembled and we were ready for stuffing and addressing.

All of the RSVPs numbered and ready for assembly.

Not an intimidating stack...

Ready for action for labeling.

Matt and I began an assembly line and in no time, we had those babies stuffed and ready for mailing. While I was disappointed that we weren't able to print directly on the envelopes, I'm happy that the invites are on their way and that we'll start to hear back from everyone about attending our exciting day!!

The finished product!

The disappointing address labels

Assembling the invites!

 I launched the invitations out in the mail today and am looking forward to hearing back from all of you as you decide about joining us for our special day.

Totally finished and ready for mailing.