Apr
11
It was brought to my attention that my religious beliefs have upset certain individual(s) to the point of severing ties with me. From here on I’ll refer to said individual(s) as Guy. Guy felt that I have such a haughty attitude regarding what I believe in that it made no sense for him to try to stay friends with me regardless of how I tried to contact him over periods of time. To provide background to this situation, I have no recollection of discussing religion with him, much less of getting angry or hostile to the point of snowballing the argument with, “That’s it! I don’t want to keep talking about this!” If my years at college have taught me nothing else, it’s that very few people agree on religious perspectives and, yet, differing views on religion are not reason enough to shut people out or to demean what they believe in. And demean he did by summing up what I believe in as “Jewish zombies and sky ghosts.”
I tried calling Guy over the phone to see if he was being serious or joking because, over the time I knew him and saw him, he was more of the joking type even with serious subjects. This is the person who wanted to name his research paper in English class, “Ebola: Friend or Foe?” the same person who made me laugh after saying the most ridiculous things that came to his mind. In truth, there was even a time when I thought we could go out because, as I later found out, he had a small crush on me and I felt similarly towards him. I share all this because I saw it as reason enough to want to continue a friendship over the years regardless of where life took each of us and where we were geographically. I was wrong. Although I should have taken the unreturned phone calls as a sign, I just saw it as, “He’s being his usual lazy self, not keeping in touch.” What I had to find out from a third party is that Guy really doesn’t want me in his life in any way, shape or form anymore. I don’t “add value.” Furthermore, my religious views are so contrary to what he believes that he sees no way that we could discuss anything else worth discussing.
I would like to know what he thinks my beliefs are. I really would because I’ve never shared with him what I believe in for him to make such a judgement.
So why write about this on my wedding blog? What does this have to do with my planning? Well, aside from finding all this out right as I was trying to invite him to my wedding, I write about it here in order to lay out how my (apparently) irrational beliefs will not be the focus on the wedding. If I was as close-minded as he claims I am, I would not have 90% of the guest list I have now. This isn’t to get defensive about my faith and be all, “Hey hey, I don’t really take that stuff so seriously anyway,” because the truth is I take it very seriously. My stance is that I will not apologize for what I believe in, likewise I don’t expect anyone to apologize for what they believe in. That Guy is a hardcore atheist is his choice and I at no point expected an apology. At the same time, I didn’t heckle or bash him for his faith or lack thereof. I didn’t tell him that he is going to hell or pester him with why he should believe what I believe.
This is the attitude my fiance and I have taken with our ceremony: Yes, it is a Christian ceremony with pastor or priest, but that is the only religious part of the whole event. Most people seem fine with that. To think that neither of us wanted to get married in a church or place of worship says enough. I’ve gone further and explained to my parents why I won’t do anything with rosaries or churches or long drawn out religious acts. In essence, we are planning a wedding that will not have many people who agree with our views on the world, but can be happy for us as our lives are united in a ceremony that means a lot to us.
There is so much more that I would like to say about this mess, but that I feel wouldn’t add value to the discussion regarding my wedding. The end of the story with Guy is I see now how very serious he is with his opinion regarding me and my “religious BS,” and, still, I let him know that if he ever wants to contact me again, I’ll be available. Unlike him, I don’t measure people’s worth with how much value they add to my life based on how much we agree on certain topics.
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Apr
04
The wedding gown and veil have been purchased. There, I said it. I did it. I finalized the purchase of THE gown and accompanying veil. And what’s more impressive, is that I didn’t get sucked into spending more than necessary. Yes, it would have been fabulous to wear the big, bustly dresses with multiple layers and a corset with crystal details, but it’s unreasonable, too. I’m only going to wear this once. What I am supposed to do with it afterwards? Hang it on my closet door to remind me every day how big or how small I was on my wedding day? Wear it every once in a while when I feel like watching the video of that special day? I really don’t know and I’m open to ideas if anyone has them. *GOOD* ideas. Nothing like, “Wear it on Halloween and dress up as the Bride of Frankenstein.”
As much as I would like to post up a picture, I’m afraid that my fiance would have a fit. We keep having this debate that goes along the lines of:
Me: Let me show you the dress and how beautiful it is!
Him: No! Don’t you know it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride’s dress?
Me: That only applies when she’s got it on the day of the wedding.
Him: NoOooOoo. That applies always. I shouldn’t even see what OPTIONS for dresses you were considering.
This may all be a ploy to get him out of helping with wedding-related decisions, but he’s been pretty serious about it all. He didn’t want to see how the dresses compared or how much they cost. He was ok with me getting the one that would tally up to $800 after accessories like the veil and underskirt, which doesn’t help because I know he’s not being rational. Spend $800 on my gown alone? I’d rather go lower and spend the difference on the honeymoon trip.
But that’s the other part of this gown hunt. It is incredible how much stores will charge you for things like a bra or a shoulder-length veil which isn’t much more than mosquito netting. I was offered the “special price” of $50 for the bra with 10% discount and $75 for the veil also with a 10% discount. Oh and as it turns out, you know how in movies you see the bride with the veil on her face before she meets the groom and then the groom (or her dad, I don’t really know) lifts the veil off her face? That isn’t the veil I’m talking about. THAT is a separate piece. So the “back” veil that was most reasonable to me cost $70 and the “blusher” as they call it, was $20. A longer veil with fake crystals on the edges was only $180… or more. (No thanks). I skipped on their particular bra because it offered nothing special as far as my silhouette under the dress and I made sure to listen to my conscience. Like I said, I would have loved loved LOVED a big dress with the bustles and a corset and a full length veil with fancy details on the edges, but that bundle would have been too much to pay off AFTER it was all said and done. I need to remember that I’m just a recent college grad without my first career paycheck.
So yes, I have a dress. Now it is even more official. Only a few more steps to wrap this up, like bridesmaid dresses and accessories, flowers, caterer, cake, tent, favors, registry, etc.
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Mar
04
The average American woman spends about 1.5 years planning her wedding… assuming that she starts planning after she’s engaged.* I know some women start early, like when they are 9 years old or something. Call me boring, but I was out getting scrapes on my knees and beating up the boys I liked when I was 9 instead of planning my dream wedding. I guess that partially explains why with only four and a half months left I have yet to get into the full responsible-planning mode. (Still clumsy and beating up the boy I like.)
All that aside, I have a simplified outlook on this mess and, sadly, it revolves around one key factor: Money. The green, the cash, el dinero, der… geez, I forgot all the German I learned in two semesters-worth. Das Geld. There we go. In the melodious words of Wyclef: I’ma tell you, like Wu told me, cash rules everything around me. (Dollah dollah bill, y’all.)
Seriously though, we know the most important part about getting married is that we have a solid foundation for marriage. Christian and I love each other and we share similar views on faith, career, children and life in general. We’ve had that for years now. What we have yet to get is the means by which we can embark on our life together. Moving in together and leaving the marriage detail for later is not an option.
All we can do is just bide our time and try to plan around the financial aspect. One of the things that has taken shape quickly is the guest list. Our first guestimate was 60 to 70 guests. Then it went up to 80. Currently, it’s pushing 100 and that’s also going to push our budget. The cap has been set at 100 though, for better or for worse.
When we first sat down and just threw out names of who we would like to invite, we wondered, “Can we really think of 60 people who we really want to show up?” The funny thing is that when you start writing the names down and account for their +1’s that also know you, the list gets long in a matter of minutes. Most of the list is made up of friends, so at least in our case there are no worries about imposing mothers who want to invite all the relatives she can think of AND her canasta friends. Luckily our moms don’t play canasta so no worries there. Instead we thought about the people who throughout the past 6 years of our relationship have been more than acquaintances. Then that narrows down to people who we can call friends in the sense that, let’s say we’re stuck in La Guardia airport because of a horrible mid-March snow storm, these people would drive out there from Ithaca, pick us up and take us to a warm house to wait out the storm for a couple of days. (This is just an example, not to be applied to all the people we know.) But yes, the process for the guest list has been given serious thought only because, if we could, we’d invite 90% of the people we’ve met upon entering Cornell. I’d end up with something like 100 guests made up by class of 2008 ChemEs, other Cornellians, interns I met at Kraft and friends from back home. Christian would contribute something like 1,000 guests from all his info sci friends, facebook buddies, coworkers, internship pals and people he met at conferences in between. This isn’t to say that all these people would want to show up, but assuminig that 80% of the guest list actually attends, we’d need to reserve all 38 acres at the Fruit and Spice Garden to comfortable party with these peeps. All I can think of is this man I met at one of my internships who told me about when he got married. He said that back in those days (and where he’s from) you had to practically invite the whole town because your wedding was announced in the paper and that usually meant everyone would find out the when and where and take it as a general invitation. I can’t remember how many people attended his wedding but it was several hundred— the number 750 rings a bell, but I could be making that up. Anyway, he said they went cheap with the reception by doing a pig roast and some other money-saving ideas and the total came out to be less than $10,000. Everyone enjoyed themselves, everyone ate and drank and I was left wondering why the dollar no longer buys as much as back in those good old days.
Anyway, musings aside, the guest list: it’s tough, it’s laborious. It’s almost like America’s Next Top Model or American Idol with so many hopefuls and so few winning spots. And who wouldn’t want to compete for the chance to see Christian and me tie the knot?? Come on.**
*I made up this statistic, but doesn’t it sound so credible? Part of my job as a plant designer in my senior ChemE course.
**Totally kidding. If anything, it would be more like Project Runway or Top Chef because we’d be more interested in inviting people who could make me a wedding dress and/or provide ideas for catering.
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