Hey everyone,
Just wanted to post real quick to let you know about where things will be taking place.
The family get-together on Friday night will be at Reza's restaurant in Oak Brook. The address is 40 N. Tower Rd., Oak Brook IL. Click here to see Reza's on a map.
The wedding is at the Vineyard of Oak Park, located at 705 Jackson Blvd., Oak Park IL. Click here for the map.
Last but not least, the reception will be at the Glessner House Museum, 1800 S. Prairie Ave., Chicago IL. Click here for the map of the Glessner House.
That's it for now! There will be more instructions about parking at the Glessner House soon.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Registry, etc.
Greetings!
Life is crazy in these parts... Bethany and I both are in the middle of Finals Week. We're both in pretty good shape going into this, so it's not panic time or anything, but we're not thinking about much else. The whole point of going back to undergrad was to get really good grades so we can prove to future grad schools that we're smart enough for them, so we're buckling down a bit this week.
The good news is that we managed to get our registry more or less done. We've registered at a few places to make sure people have options. Each place we registered at has something or else going for it.
With each of these registries, you may have to search by name, date, and/or location of the wedding - you should enter Bethany Mall, June 23, and Illinois respectively.
Our choices of where to register were for the most part fairly standard, although we would like to think that we were a bit creative in what we added to our registries. First of all, we are registered at Crate & Barrel. It's a really fun store... we had a blast signing up for stuff there. It wasn't the first place we registered, but we decided to add it because it's a really enjoyable place to go shopping for classy stuff and there's still a decent range of options.
We also registered at Bed, Bath, & Beyond. This is the bread and butter of our registry - a lot of unpretentious, quality stuff that we need in order to eat, sleep, do life... We've both been vagabonds since we left home eleven or twelve years ago - I'm pretty sure neither of us has stayed in one place more than a year at a time during that period, and since mobility has been a high priority, we've never had the chance to accumulate stuff. Instead, we've been pretty good at counting on our roommates to be more with it domestically than us. So we have to basically start from scratch now, which is fun, but also a bit scary.
There were also a few things we registered for at Target that we couldn't find elsewhere. We didn't want to do too much there because we've heard that others haven't had the best experience registering at Target in the past, but if you find something there that you really like, by all means feel free.
There were one or two things that we really
wanted to register for that we couldn't find in any of the above locations, but we discovered that you can buy and register for a crazy variety of random items on amazon.com. We also added a bunch of things from both of our Amazon wish lists.
Somewhat later we discovered that there is a way to register for items that are fair trade. Please check out our registry at Ten Thousand Villages Speaking of fair trade, my sister-in-law Beth has a wonderful fair trade online store called Bambootique. Thought we'd pass the word along.
We were sad that Ikea has not gotten around to setting up wedding registries. But we would be delighted to receive Ikea gift cards. Unfortunately, you can't order these online, but you can call Ikea at 1-800-434-4532 to order them.
One other thing we would absolutely loooooooooove would be airline miles. Those of you who know Bethany and me know that we both have terminal cases of the travel bug. I'm not sure how it works in transferring miles or buying them for someone else, but if anyone is interested or knows how to do that, let me know.
Here again are the links to the places we've registered:
Ten Thousand Villages
Crate & Barrel
Bed, Bath & Beyond
Target
Amazon.com
Thanks!
Life is crazy in these parts... Bethany and I both are in the middle of Finals Week. We're both in pretty good shape going into this, so it's not panic time or anything, but we're not thinking about much else. The whole point of going back to undergrad was to get really good grades so we can prove to future grad schools that we're smart enough for them, so we're buckling down a bit this week.
The good news is that we managed to get our registry more or less done. We've registered at a few places to make sure people have options. Each place we registered at has something or else going for it.
With each of these registries, you may have to search by name, date, and/or location of the wedding - you should enter Bethany Mall, June 23, and Illinois respectively.
Our choices of where to register were for the most part fairly standard, although we would like to think that we were a bit creative in what we added to our registries. First of all, we are registered at Crate & Barrel. It's a really fun store... we had a blast signing up for stuff there. It wasn't the first place we registered, but we decided to add it because it's a really enjoyable place to go shopping for classy stuff and there's still a decent range of options.
We also registered at Bed, Bath, & Beyond. This is the bread and butter of our registry - a lot of unpretentious, quality stuff that we need in order to eat, sleep, do life... We've both been vagabonds since we left home eleven or twelve years ago - I'm pretty sure neither of us has stayed in one place more than a year at a time during that period, and since mobility has been a high priority, we've never had the chance to accumulate stuff. Instead, we've been pretty good at counting on our roommates to be more with it domestically than us. So we have to basically start from scratch now, which is fun, but also a bit scary.
There were also a few things we registered for at Target that we couldn't find elsewhere. We didn't want to do too much there because we've heard that others haven't had the best experience registering at Target in the past, but if you find something there that you really like, by all means feel free.
There were one or two things that we really
wanted to register for that we couldn't find in any of the above locations, but we discovered that you can buy and register for a crazy variety of random items on amazon.com. We also added a bunch of things from both of our Amazon wish lists.
Somewhat later we discovered that there is a way to register for items that are fair trade. Please check out our registry at Ten Thousand Villages Speaking of fair trade, my sister-in-law Beth has a wonderful fair trade online store called Bambootique. Thought we'd pass the word along.
We were sad that Ikea has not gotten around to setting up wedding registries. But we would be delighted to receive Ikea gift cards. Unfortunately, you can't order these online, but you can call Ikea at 1-800-434-4532 to order them.
One other thing we would absolutely loooooooooove would be airline miles. Those of you who know Bethany and me know that we both have terminal cases of the travel bug. I'm not sure how it works in transferring miles or buying them for someone else, but if anyone is interested or knows how to do that, let me know.
Here again are the links to the places we've registered:
Ten Thousand Villages
Crate & Barrel
Bed, Bath & Beyond
Target
Amazon.com
Thanks!
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Engagement Party
I know it's been a while since we posted here, but we finally have a weekend where we're staying in Madison instead of going to Chicago, so we can post a few pictures about our engagement party. It was quite a while ago - March 17, to be exact - but it was a real smash hit. We decided to do a real Indian engagement party, or as close an approximation as possible. Bethany's close family friends, the Great Kumars of Naperville, graciously hosted us at their lovely home. Mrs. Kumar also happened to be the only person available who really knew what is supposed to happen in this sort of affair, so we were very grateful for her. Before the thing started, I was getting a bit worried that it was going to be a big production, but they really made it a very fun time, and everyone really enjoyed the pageantry and everything else.
The first hint that this was going to be something more than just a family get-together was when Bethany relayed the message that all of my family had to arrive simultaneously and enter the house en masse. We Sethis are a bit of an unruly bunch, but we managed to pull it all together - arriving only 45 minutes late, as I recall. We walked up together to the front door - about 12 or 13 of us total, I think, with me in the lead. I rang the doorbell, and Bethany's parents answered. Her mum first anointed the doorstep with oil, then gave me a bite of the staple of Indian sweets called ladoo. It's this orange ball of crumbly sweetness of which you will hear a lot more later. Then, after tossing some rose petals at me, she let me in the door.
All of Bethany's family - brother, sisters, brother-in-law, grandpa, uncles, aunts, cousins, and what are affectionally referred to as "para-family", were gathered in the lobby, and each one took turns pelting me with rose petals. One person, however, was conspicuously absent from the proceedings - the bride-to-be... or should I say the fiancée-to-be, since until the key point in this ceremony, we wouldn't officially be engaged. She had been squirreled away in an upstairs room, the poor thing. Actually, she was hidden from my view, but she was sneaking a peek at all the excitement while waiting to make her grand and glorious entrance onto the stage. After the Sethis and the Malls had had a bit of mingling time and were properly arranged in the living room, she came floating down the stairs under her radiant red veil, escorted by her sisters.
She was guided to her seat on the throne right next to mine, and only then was I allowed to see her face. I think according to the rules, the fiancée is supposed to be totally emotionally expressionless at this point, but Bethany can't really hold back her smile (which of course doesn't bother me a bit!).
Then each person took turns saying lovely things about us and for us. The final blessings came from my mum, my Uncle Shubh, and Bethany's parents.
(Sorry, I don't have a good picture where we're not looking at her feet.)
Right after the speeches, my cousin Erica and my aunt, who is more like a grandmother to me, came up and tied a red string around our wrists - my right wrist, Bethany's left. They wrapped it around the wrist several times before tying the knot, and the threads remain on our wrists to this day, six weeks later. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think that might have been my favorite part of the evening. There was something sacramental about it, I think - a visible symbol of invisible, but real and beautiful, things going on - our commitment to each other, the official blessing of our families on our relationship, and their joy (symbolized by the red color) at what is to come in a couple of months.
Then each person present, first from my family then from Bethany's family, came up to us and gave us a gift and fed us a piece of ladoo. Here's a picture of my wonderful quasi-grandma with the ladoo:
Ladoo is a wonderful thing when taken in moderate doses. But when 30 people feed it to you non-stop for half an hour, it is downright nauseating. Some people were nice and just gave us little bits, like Mr. Kumar (Ashok-"uncle"):
But others were just too naughty, like these chalu aloos (sly potatoes - Bethany's brother David & sister Tiina):
After gorging ourselves on ladoo, it was time for dinner! Bethany's family had made lots and lots of delicious food, of which Bethany and I could only manage to squeeze in a few bites, but it was still wonderful. That was pretty much it for the evening - a truly splendid and joyous affair. We'll close with a photo of the cutest nearly-2-year-old in the world, Jaiya, who was definitely at the top of her game this evening.
The first hint that this was going to be something more than just a family get-together was when Bethany relayed the message that all of my family had to arrive simultaneously and enter the house en masse. We Sethis are a bit of an unruly bunch, but we managed to pull it all together - arriving only 45 minutes late, as I recall. We walked up together to the front door - about 12 or 13 of us total, I think, with me in the lead. I rang the doorbell, and Bethany's parents answered. Her mum first anointed the doorstep with oil, then gave me a bite of the staple of Indian sweets called ladoo. It's this orange ball of crumbly sweetness of which you will hear a lot more later. Then, after tossing some rose petals at me, she let me in the door.
All of Bethany's family - brother, sisters, brother-in-law, grandpa, uncles, aunts, cousins, and what are affectionally referred to as "para-family", were gathered in the lobby, and each one took turns pelting me with rose petals. One person, however, was conspicuously absent from the proceedings - the bride-to-be... or should I say the fiancée-to-be, since until the key point in this ceremony, we wouldn't officially be engaged. She had been squirreled away in an upstairs room, the poor thing. Actually, she was hidden from my view, but she was sneaking a peek at all the excitement while waiting to make her grand and glorious entrance onto the stage. After the Sethis and the Malls had had a bit of mingling time and were properly arranged in the living room, she came floating down the stairs under her radiant red veil, escorted by her sisters.
She was guided to her seat on the throne right next to mine, and only then was I allowed to see her face. I think according to the rules, the fiancée is supposed to be totally emotionally expressionless at this point, but Bethany can't really hold back her smile (which of course doesn't bother me a bit!).
Then each person took turns saying lovely things about us and for us. The final blessings came from my mum, my Uncle Shubh, and Bethany's parents.
(Sorry, I don't have a good picture where we're not looking at her feet.)
Right after the speeches, my cousin Erica and my aunt, who is more like a grandmother to me, came up and tied a red string around our wrists - my right wrist, Bethany's left. They wrapped it around the wrist several times before tying the knot, and the threads remain on our wrists to this day, six weeks later. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think that might have been my favorite part of the evening. There was something sacramental about it, I think - a visible symbol of invisible, but real and beautiful, things going on - our commitment to each other, the official blessing of our families on our relationship, and their joy (symbolized by the red color) at what is to come in a couple of months.
Then each person present, first from my family then from Bethany's family, came up to us and gave us a gift and fed us a piece of ladoo. Here's a picture of my wonderful quasi-grandma with the ladoo:
Ladoo is a wonderful thing when taken in moderate doses. But when 30 people feed it to you non-stop for half an hour, it is downright nauseating. Some people were nice and just gave us little bits, like Mr. Kumar (Ashok-"uncle"):
But others were just too naughty, like these chalu aloos (sly potatoes - Bethany's brother David & sister Tiina):
After gorging ourselves on ladoo, it was time for dinner! Bethany's family had made lots and lots of delicious food, of which Bethany and I could only manage to squeeze in a few bites, but it was still wonderful. That was pretty much it for the evening - a truly splendid and joyous affair. We'll close with a photo of the cutest nearly-2-year-old in the world, Jaiya, who was definitely at the top of her game this evening.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
the where and the when
We have a date! After waiting for confirmation from several corners of the globe, we are pleased to say that our wedding celebration will take place on Saturday, June 23rd of this year. To say that we're looking forward to it would be a bit of an understatement.
We are so thankful that a church in Oak Park (just outside of Chicago) has opened their doors for our ceremony. It's a lovely old stone building with beautiful stained glass windows. We feel really honored at their willingness to serve us in this way. This church was built in the late 19th century (I think), but nowadays it's a Vineyard Church. It's got plenty of space for whoever can come. See you there!
We are so thankful that a church in Oak Park (just outside of Chicago) has opened their doors for our ceremony. It's a lovely old stone building with beautiful stained glass windows. We feel really honored at their willingness to serve us in this way. This church was built in the late 19th century (I think), but nowadays it's a Vineyard Church. It's got plenty of space for whoever can come. See you there!
Thursday, January 18, 2007
the announcement.
hey, there. i'm not the bloggiest of them all, but big news calls for me to be unconventional... and this is big...
You may have heard rumblings in this direction, but I'm happy to say that it's official! On January 11, 2007, Michael asked me to marry him as he presented a gorgeous Afghan rug with an antique Afghan ring inside. I paused briefly for dramatic effect and told him I would marry him and here we are! Michael tells the story below. We are grateful and excited! -b
You may have heard rumblings in this direction, but I'm happy to say that it's official! On January 11, 2007, Michael asked me to marry him as he presented a gorgeous Afghan rug with an antique Afghan ring inside. I paused briefly for dramatic effect and told him I would marry him and here we are! Michael tells the story below. We are grateful and excited! -b
Michael and Bethany on her engagement rugHow it happened...
Well, since you're all quite impatient to hear about the story, I'll give it to you straight right now. In future posts, we may or may not give you all the back story about how we met, how we didn't meet, how we grew together, and how we reached this point of being ready to commit our lives to each other. We also may or may not give you lots of information about our upcoming nuptials.
But first...
I had once asked Bethany if she had any preferences about how she would like to be proposed to, and she said, "Just don't make it an ordeal. By which I mean, don't do anything elaborate that involves a huge cast of characters and is a big production." Which came as quite a relief to me... I mean, we can't all write "WILL YOU MARRY ME" on a beach in Hawaii with flaming logs (you know who you are, big boy)... so I pondered this issue in my heart a great deal and began scheming a few months ago.
So on Thanksgiving Day 2006, after chowing down on turkey and all the sides at Philip's house in Herat, I stole away from the gathering while everyone sat in the dark watching "Remember the Titans". It was my last day in Herat, so it was also my last chance to find something suitable from Afghanistan, which would be really meaningful considering Bethany's long-standing love of the country and the fact that our relationship blossomed while I was living there. So I went down to the blue glass shop, the place where they sell the hand-made blue glass goblets and mugs, etc., as well as lots of antiques and trinkets and such. They have quite a bit of jewelry there, but not a lot of rings. They did have one nice little lapis lazuli ring that was narrow and slender, like Bethany's fingers, and it was only a few bucks, so I got it, figuring it could be a stand-in for the real thing if she didn't like it.
But the big part of the scheming had started the day before when I went to the carpet bazaar in Herat. I spent an hour and a half at a lovely shop in the lower level run by the Ansari family, agonizing over which one to get. There were so many beautiful rugs there, but there was one that was just so unique I had to get it. It's pretty mellow color-wise, lots of shades of brown, with some intricate designs on the outer part, and some bigger geometric stuff in the middle (see picture above). But the kicker was that it was made from camel hair, which is just so cool.
So on Thursday, I spent the whole day with butterflies doing somersaults in my tummy. Bethany was coming back from Chicago, and she stopped at a Japanese grocery store to get some materials to make sushi. My plan was that I would pop the question and then our first act as an engaged couple would be to make sushi... but alas, what with delays getting out of Chicago and traffic and such, she didn't get home till pretty late, 8:30 or so. We were both really hungry, so we just cut up some sausage that I brought back from Austria and ate it with crackers and lingonberry jam that I also brought back from Austria. She had an inkling that something was going on, mostly because I had a serious case of the giggles. I was cracking up every time I even looked at her. It was so embarrassing and frustrating. I was feeling super nervous, not because I was concerned about how she was going to respond, but just, you know, this is a really big deal and all. The other thing is that last Thursday (January 11) was the one year anniversary of the night that she and I sat together in her parents' living room in Dehra Dun and I first told her that I really liked her, and she said, "The feeling is mutual," and I melted into a puddle of jelly. So I thought it was just so brutally obvious to her that I would choose a significant date like that to propose, but the reality was she had no idea what day it was, and I'm just a bit Rain Man-ish when it comes to dates. I had even been thinking about what time to propose so that it was exactly a solar year since our significant talk, considering that a solar year is 365.24 days, and taking the time zone difference into account. But then I realized that's a bit weird.
Anyway, after our luxurious and romantic dinner in the kitchen, Bethany went to the living room and I told her I had a gift to give her. I told her I had brought it back from Afghanistan, but that it was too big to carry to Portland, where we had spent Christmas with my brother and sister-in-law and parents. I was just trying to throw her off from thinking it was a ring (successfully, I might add, though Bethany might disagree). So I went to my car and brought in the rug and put it on her floor, still rolled up. Then I had her come in to see her present. I had her unfurl the whole thing, and when it came to the end, there was the ring, in a little box, wrapped up in the rug. I won't go into the details of what I said to her then, largely because I lost my ability to form words properly and I'm not even totally sure what I said. The point is, she said YES!
Here's a nice shot of the ring in front of the sushi we made the next night:
When I bought it I realized that the band was going to need some adjusting - it was a bit big even for my finger. So right now it's in a jewelry store in Chicago getting a nice new band and some of the edges smoothened a bit.
Coming soon to a blog near you: Bethany may or may not tell this story from her perspective.
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