The Venue

I always knew I wanted to get married in San Diego – even though I’ve spent my entire adult life in Virginia and D.C. San Diego has been and always will be Home. I grew up exploring desert canyons and splashing in the cold waters of the Pacific, and something about the meeting of the divergent climates and cultures is what helps define San Diego.

A beach wedding was an obvious option, but, for all the advertisement of San Diego’s perfect weather, you can almost guarantee that a San Diego shoreline be will socked in and drizzly when you really, really want it to be sunny. If we’d been planning an autumn wedding, I may have risked it, but we knew we wanted a short engagement and ergo a spring wedding – when overcast skies are the norm near the ocean. The alluring romance of a San Diego beach wedding was no match for that reality and was nixed pretty early on in my mind.

Perhaps second only in predictability would have been a California vineyard wedding. The idea has its appeal, but the cost of venues was a little outrageous, and the locations far north of my San Diego. I wasn’t about to make people fly across the country, drive another hour up north, and miss the San Diego I know best.

And a church wedding, while not out of the question, wasn’t really in the cards. My parents serve at a church that meets under a tent in the middle of hot and dry East County. Trying to set up a wedding at a church we’d been part of a decade before seemed a little awkward. Plus, both Kent and I wanted a unique location – and something uniquely San Diego.

So I kept thinking about the mission. To be accurate, it is a replica of a mission – the first mission built in California. It is perched high on a hill overlooking the sea to the west and the San Diego River and Mission Valley to the east. The hilltop is almost always lush and verdant. I remember elementary school field trips to the mission and visiting the site with my mom on trips home from college. I drove under the shadow of the mission at least once a week, if not more, when I was growing up. It was a simple yet stunningly situated citadel, it seemed, keeping watch over my beloved city.

So it seemed a natural choice to suggest visiting the mission during Kent’s Christmas stay with my family. We explored the site on Christmas Eve day.

What I didn’t know was that Kent would ask me to spend the rest of my life with him three days later.


I said “yes” on a Tuesday. That day was a wonderful flurry. Just our families (and the next door neighbors) knew about our engagement. I distinctly remember talking about eloping, since our families were already in town. But being a traditionalist and having waited a long time to fall in love, I decide I wanted a wedding – small and soon, but a wedding for sure.

On Wednesday, I called and made an appointment for us to see the mission. The man I spoke with had literally started as their event manager that very morning. He said he would always remember me as his first client. I hope he remembers my amazing mom, who made the entire thing happen without a hitch.

We had the opportunity to tour the inside of the facility Thursday morning. Since it is functionally a museum, not a church, it was a little more cluttered inside than I’d remembered and hoped. But the location could not be beat, save the impossible hill from the parking lot to the mission, and Kent was impressed enough to approve.

I’ve been involved with enough weddings to know this much – when it comes to decisions, makes them once and move on. Since we were both so happy with it, we never looked at another venue.

Which is pretty nice when you’re going from “yes” to “I will” in 90 days.

All photos (c) Kelly Sauer.

The Dress

Right after Kent and I started talking about marriage, I had, in a moment of weakness, perused wedding dresses one day at work. I came across one I adored. It struck me at once as both classic and unique, definitely a wedding dress but far from over-the-top. I printed it out for future reference and did no further dress-gazing pre-engagement.

It was the first dress I tried to find online after Kent popped the question; it had been discontinued.

I’d always had a fairly good idea of what I wanted in a wedding dress. The problem, of course, is that my ideas didn’t exactly coexist in reality. I also faced a challenge in that my new, highly-skilled fashion consultant – my husband-to-be – was not going shopping with me. Terrified as I was about picking out a dress without him, I was far more adamant about him not seeing the dress until I was coming down the aisle.

My solution was to scroll through the entire David’s Bridal collection and note his reaction to each dress. He shared my aversion to the more modern, making-a-statement dresses – which was good. I waited with baited breath when he’d come across the ones I’d identified as my early favorites. The simple, lace-all-over number was received with little fanfare (“I’m actually not a big fan of lace,” he commented on a later dress). Other dresses I marked as possibilities did not merit much comment – which made me nervous.

Mostly we laughed at the crazy dresses and he lauded simplicity. So I made a mental note to try on a few of the simplest dresses – just to see.
Kent was very patient through the online fashion show, but equally relieved when I announced that I had collected all the feedback I needed for this undertaking. The rest was up to me.

When the day of my initial wedding dress shopping excursion came, my longtime dear friend, former roommate, and matron of honor, Sarah, picked me up at the Metro and surprised me with a bag of goodies – bridal magazines, a journal/organizer, candy, nail polish – a general sampling of just what a girl want and needs at that juncture of her life. I apologized as we drove to David’s Bridal. My hope was to never make anyone go to that madhouse on my account, but the fact is, they have the broadest range of options, so it was a fairly commonsense place to start, try on a ton of options, and narrow it down before going to other bridal shops.

Partially on account of it being a Tuesday in January, the store was fairly empty, which meant Sarah and I got to have a fair bit of fun. We picked things off the racks as the consultant pulled out dresses I’d picked out online.

The first dress I tried on (and went back to subsequently) was a full-trained number, pure white, strapless and covered in beadwork. It fit like a dream, weighed at least fifteen pounds, and cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $600. I tried on the lace-all-over, just because I could. I liked it, but I started to see what Kent didn’t like about the style – and it wasn’t the A-line style that flatters me best. I tried on a unique dress that came with a bolo jacket and veils with thick trims that worked with the Spanish-influenced theme of the wedding. The super-simple dresses Kent gravitated toward were just too plain on me.

I tried on more than a dozen dresses. The shopping trip was a success – I definitely had a better idea of what was out there and what I wanted. But before leaving, I had one question for the consultant.

I pulled out a piece of paper and explained that I knew this dress was discontinued, but did they have anything similar – the style that replaced it, perhaps? She cocked her head, took the paper, and said she would be right back.

She emerged a few minutes later with a dress in tow.

“I think this is it,” she said as she handed the dress to me. “I thought we had one left.”

At first I thought she meant they had a similar replacement style, but I soon saw it was The Dress. The Dress I’d first seen online months before. In my size.

Despite the fatigue of more than two hours of trying on dressed, I rushed back into the dressing room with great excitement. I pulled the dress on. It wasn’t just in my size – it fit me perfectly, brushed the floor just at the right length.

I bolted out of the dressing room toward a pedestal in front of the mirror-lined walls, and stared. I stared at The Dress, then at Sarah, then back at The Dress. Its simple lines struck me as something Kent would appreciate, but it had enough flair to satisfy me. And I kept staring.

“And because it’s a discontinued item,” the consultant mentioned offhandedly, “it’s $99.”

I blinked. And stared.

“We’re supposed to just be looking,” I murmured.

“Mhmm,” Sarah replied, a smile creeping across her face.

“I can’t buy a dress the first time we look,” came my next baiting statement.

“Says who?”

Exactly.

I bought The Dress that night. We put it in the car and celebrated by getting French fries at the McDonalds next door. Because that’s how Alexandria girls celebrate.

I was afraid I would wake up the next morning, not like it anymore, and have to sell it on Craig’s List since it wasn’t returnable. My fears were unfounded. And any doubt I had about whether Kent would like the dress was dispelled by Kent’s first words to me at the altar.

“You look amazing.”

So I guess I did okay.

On Being A Bride: The Not-Greatest-Hits List

Yesterday was the fun stuff – things that stand out to me five months after the event as having mattered in a good way. But when you plan and pull off a wedding in (exactly) 90 days, sometimes things don’t go exactly like you had in mind. Even if you’re trying to keep it simple, it’s never quite simple enough, and that means you forget some details. Worse, you neglect to go about things in the right way when it comes to the most important thing – relationship with those you love. While hindsight is 20/20, these oversights of both practicality and of the heart are those that stick with me the most.

I’ll start with something lighthearted: we had no idea how to cut our cake. File this under didn’t-think-to-practice-for-this: when Kent and I approached our cake, we looked at each other with the blank stare that says, “what do we do?” We ended up cutting the top layer of the cake. You know, the part you’re supposed to save for your first anniversary. Cutting through fondant is hard enough, but trying to cut it at that angle was even more awkward. Should have asked the caterer for a tutorial - or at least watched a how-to on YouTube.

In retrospect, I wish I’d had someone videotaping the reception. If I had it to do over again, I would have someone walking around getting video of the guests talking and dancing – nothing formal. I wish I could hear the toasts again. I also know that both Kent and I gave little speeches; I have very little recollection of what I said! While I suppose it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, I wish I had a live-action record of the festivities. (After all, it was the best wedding of all time.)

When it came to communicating with Kent about wedding details, I generally assumed that if it wasn’t important to me, it wouldn’t be important to him. Lesson for wedding planning and, more importantly, for marriage: that ain’t necessarily so. Assumption is the first step toward misunderstanding. Traditions I was happy to skip mattered to Kent. Had I been more communicative, I wouldn’t have short-changed those items of my time and energy.

Forget what you hear about guys not caring about wedding stuff. This is their wedding day, too. While some facets of the planning bore them to tears, it’s worth talking through what is and isn’t important to them – so you don’t waste time on things unimportant to both of you and don’t find out a week before the wedding that you’ve neglected something important to your groom.

My biggest wedding planning mistake stemmed from the hubris of thinking I didn’t need a wedding planner/coordinator. I thought we were keeping things fairly simple. I tried to keep things simple. But weddings involving more than the couple, an officiant, and a witness will be more complicated than you expect – period.

No woman deserves to have the burdens placed on her that my Mom endured during wedding planning. I did not set out for her to become my wedding planner. It was never my intention, but my lack of intentionality resulted in her being the chief coordinator, vendor contact, favor-assembler, and general fire-putter-outer. In short, I took her for granted. As a result, I am ashamed to confess that I prevented my own mother from enjoying my engagement period as well as the wedding of her only child. In the process, I for a time lost my Mom as confidant, counselor, and friend. When I called to simply be excited and chat or ask a question about marriage, she would have a list of practical wedding questions for me to answer. It was terrible for both of us, but it was my fault for putting her in that position. She ardently desired to make everything perfect for me, but that never should have been her job.

Brides, don’t give into the temptation of thinking you don’t need a coordinator. If you don’t designate the role, someone will end up filling it – and it will likely be someone who you’d rather have enjoying your day. Have a professional or an experience friend do it. Your bridesmaids, your sisters, and especially your mom will be grateful.

I’m blessed because my Mom is a very giving and forgiving person. I know she doesn’t hold it against me. But I hope that my experience might prevent others from making the same mistake I did!

(All photos © 2011 Kelly Sauer)

On Being a Bride: Must’ve Done Something Right

Whether intentionally or accidently, some elements of planning and enjoying our wedding really came together for us. Below is a stream-of-consciousness on some of those details - not to pat myself on the back, but to share some of the things that went right. What didn't - well, that post comes next. ;)

One of the more sanity-inducing things I did early in wedding planning – largely because of our short engagement period – was making a list of the things that mattered and tried to not sweat the details on everything else. Other than the obvious of marrying my best friend and having the people who mattered most to us in attendance, three major things that really mattered to me about the wedding event: my dress, the venue, and the food. I wanted a dress I absolutely adored. Both Kent and I wanted a venue that was distinctively Southern California. Finally, we wanted to serve a memorable meal. And once we selected the venue, we realized we had the opportunity to share our favorite cuisine – Mexican – with those who came to celebrate with us.

Priorities will of course differ from couple to couple, but I knew that if I started out with a list of exactly what I wanted across the board, I was going to be disappointed. I worked with talented vendors with whom I shared my overall vision of the event and then trusted their judgment. That set a tone of curious excitement the day of, and I was blown away by what my hair and makeup stylist managed to pull off from a picture of Catherine Zeta-Jones from The Mask of Zorro and the bouquets my florist created off my list of colors and flowers I liked. I actually think I scared my florist by running down the aisle at the mission and throwing my arms around her. I was still in jeans and she had no idea who I was. (One of the hazards of planning a wedding from more than two thousand miles away!) Keeping an open mind also allowed more details to fall into place instead of the frustrating exercise of trying to make everything fit a certain mold.

One of the most difficult and important things I managed to get right was keeping the wedding weekend schedule light. When friends and family are travelling from far and near to celebrate, it’s terribly tempting to plan all sorts of fun activities – but I knew I needed a slower pace to be able to soak in the true meaning of what was going on, actually get the rest I needed, and focus on Kent.

My parents graciously wanted to host a “y’all come” at their home for out-of-town guests. I insisted the shindig be held two nights before the wedding. While this meant a few late arrivals couldn’t attend, I think most of the people there really wanted there made time to come. And when the party went a little longer than expected, it didn’t mean the stress of knowing we were up later than we should’ve been the night before the wedding.

The night before our wedding was one of the most meaningful moments of the weekend. We had a quiet, relaxed dinner (taco salad!) at my parents’ house with Kent and his mom and stepdad. We laughed and talked and had a powerful prayer time together, which is probably the only reason I got any sleep the night before we got married.

I also made time for just my mom and me (we got our nails done!), a session with our photographer (very important – details on this immediately follow), and avoided scheduling things down to the minute. As a result, I felt more relaxed than I ever imagined I would be for the days leading up to the big event.

I’m also grateful that we gave our photographer time to get to know us before our wedding day – and I say that even though I’ve known the incredibly talented Kelly Sauer for a decade now and she’s taken my picture at least a hundred times. (Now that number is like eight thousand.) Whether you hate being in front of the lens for any purpose or love hamming it up for the camera, you need time with your photographer so you have the opportunity to relax under its scrutiny. Good photographers don’t want you to pose; they want you and yours to be as natural as possible. It makes their product better and their clients happier. Kent doesn’t like cameras, and I’m in denial about my tendency to pose, so I knew we needed this time with Kelly.

There’s reason it’s hard to act naturally. The equipment employed by the pros isn’t your mother’s point-and-shoot. The lenses are long, the flashes are huge – they are spectacular machines that can be quite intimidating. Making the time for an informal shoot somewhat near your wedding not only helps photographer and subject get to know one another, but it will give you and your sweetheart some fun almost-alone time away from the pressures of wedding planning.

And if you’re as lucky as we were, you’ll get some great pictures out of the deal, too.

Though it took being a little brave, both Kent and I managed to articulate some of the more unusual things we wanted in a wedding ceremony – and the wonderful pastor who married us didn’t just tolerate the changes, he incorporated them into the service. I never thought I’d sing during my own wedding ceremony, but Kent wanted to bring music reflecting our story into the ceremony, and his strength gave me the courage to do it. And I was sure Kent thought my foot-washing idea would be impractical, but he was on board the moment I mentioned it.

One quick and very practical piece of advice we tried to take was keeping up on thank you notes. Before I swore off bridal sites about three weeks into engagement, I ran across advice to write thank you notes as you received the gifts – many of which arrived well before the wedding. We did our thank yous on a rolling basis, which meant no tremendous backlog. Each note was given more personal attention and detail, and it felt good to be able to stay on top of that piece of etiquette.

Finally, and most importantly, Kent and I made time to prepare for our marriage – not just the wedding. Before we became engaged, we went through 101 Questions to Ask Before You Get Engaged - which covered much ground we'd already discussed, but brought up other areas about the past and future we had not yet covered. Once we were engaged, we participated in premarital counseling with an older couple that was a time commitment well worth it. We also had several great conversations over the phone with the pastor who married us. He took the time to understand us as a couple and give us very sound advice for our life together (and sent us an amazing book I highly recommend to all marrieds or to-be marrieds or thinking-of-to-be-marrieds: To Understand Each Other by Paul Tournier). Overall, we did a decent job of cordoning off some time for things other than wedding planning. Instead of reading all the books I could about marriage or being a good wife, I took the advice of some wise folks and endeavored to be a student of my future husband so I could begin learning to be the wife he needs.

And in case I didn't mention it already, I'm grateful for our decision to sing to each other during our ceremony. The hours of rehearsal we put in during the months leading up to the wedding were some of the simplest, sweetest moments of our engagement. It was time during which no decisions needed to be made; we simply had the opportunity to look in each other’s eyes and enjoy music, something we both love.

(All photos © 2011 Kelly Sauer)

Well… I’m back

It’s been more than a year since I’ve posted anything here. To be honest, I’m glad. I had writing of my own to do, and even more importantly, some life to be lived.

Writing used to be not just an outlet, but a way for me to justify my existence to the universe. And I’ve found more meaning elsewhere. Not to take away from the meaning of the writing process or product; it’s just the fact of the matter.

No promise of regular, in-depth posts, but I think it’s time to resurrect this forum to share some of my life with the world again.

***

My first posts are going to be reflections on the wedding planning process. I know it may seem a little backwards – why don’t I start with talking about our courtship, or at least our engagement story?

Here’s the funny thing I’ve found about being in love as a writer. I’m used to being able to assign words and craft phrases and paint pictures with my words that can describe almost anything – a sunset, a friendship, a season, a rainy afternoon, a funny experience while commuting, some deep philosophical thought I happened upon in the middle of my workday. But love – my love for Kent, his love for me, is something I’m only beginning to understand, much less put words to. That’s part of what made it so scary at first. I was used to articulating; he made me speechless. That’s part of the reason this blog went dark for a while. But I’m well past the scary and well into reveling in the mystery, peace in the living, and even joy in something indescribable.

But there’s plenty else I have words for, and that’s what will go here.

***

Maybe the wedding stuff will hold interest for some and not for others. I’m mostly writing it for my own edification, because I didn’t take the time to while I was in the middle of it, and it's important for me to write down the details while they were still relatively fresh in my mind, to have it written for posterity. But I’m hoping that loved ones who weren’t able to be as involved in my brief engagement period as they wanted to be might enjoy a glimpse into those precious three months.

If you're not into the whole wedding thing, fear not - plenty of other stories will find their way onto this page. Between our current home improvement projects, the cat we're fostering, and the myriad incidentals of life, there won't be any lack of material.

D.C. Bucket List

I’ve been in the greater D.C. area for nearly a decade now, but there are some gems in and around the nation’s capital that I have not yet experienced. I figured sharing my "bucket list" might motivate me to get out and actually do some of these things. Plus, to make myself feel more accomplished, I'm including one item I will check off tomorrow (a White House tour!)...

• Visit the National Zoo

• Go to the top of the Washington Monument

• Ride a paddle boat in the Tidal Basin

• Take a White House tour

• Ride the carousel on the National Mall

• See something at Wolf Trap

• Walk along the C&O Canal in Georgetown

D.C. folks... any additions you'd make to this list?

To market, to market…

It’s one of the great things about living on the Hill, an excuse to don a cute summer dress – frankly more for comfort than as a fashion statement, since the dog days arrived early this year. (The sign on a local bank flashed 93 degrees as I walked by this afternoon.) Cloth bags slung over my shoulder, I approach the familiar stretch of Seventh Street, lost in my own thoughts as I weave through a mass of humanity (and strollers).

Eastern Market doesn’t seem as loud as usual today. Perhaps the humidity is dulling the sound, or at least the willingness to make it. Maybe the weather kept some people home altogether. Regardless, this market-day seems subdued, which fits not only the climate, but my mood. I don’t feel like a high-powered Washingtonian today, just a girl who wants some fresh material for her kitchen. I pull out and consult my list before a quick walk-through of the major produce offerings, briefly comparing prices on what I need – onions, zucchini, mushrooms, lettuce, red bell peppers…

The booth with the best price on zucchini, fortuitously, also has the best-looking squash, so I start there. Then to the next booth over for onions and bell peppers that actually smell like a bell pepper should. I pick up mushrooms at the same place I splurge on blueberries (so totally worth it). Each of the venders look like they are in need of an iced coffee, but they still smile and laugh and engage anyone who is willing in conversation.

I venture inside the brick market to a vender I have often admired but never patronized: the cheese shop. I know I could probably procure the mozzarella I need from the corner store just across the street from my apartment, but the allure of fresh cheese is too much of a temptation today. (I blame my weakness on my viewing of Julie & Julia this week.) I gladly surrender a few dollars for a small bag of perfect mozzarella.

A brimming bag now over each shoulder, I wander through the rest of the market, catching pieces of conversations between friends, spouses, venders, and – of course –dogs. (A lot of people take the if-you-want-a-friend-in-Washington-get-a-dog adage quite seriously.) I admire the brilliant orange sunflowers in white buckets, the scent of Thai basil, and relish the breeze graciously sent to take the edge off the afternoon.

And as I follow the brick sidewalks back to my apartment under a canopy of verdant trees, I count my blessings.