Still need a room?

In case anyone is still looking for wedding lodging, my dad booked a room at the Bed & Breakfast on the Park that will go unfilled because my grandmother can't make it to New York after all. Sigh. If no one ends up taking it, he can easily still cancel the reservation without penalty, but he'd have to know soon.

The room is lovely; particularly because it has access to its own private roof garden. The B&B is located in close proximity of the Montauk Club, and Nick and I will be staying there also. Just let me know if you're interested (janameier@hotmail.com), and I'll put you in touch with my dad.

Here's the info from their website:

On the top floor, this room offers a queen size bed swathed in antique French lace. A private rooftop garden boasts fabulous views of the city skyline and the Statue of Liberty. The room also has a sitting area and a large bathroom boasts an antique 6 foot tub.

Low Season (Jan-Mar.) $275 High Season (mid Apr-mid Nov.) $295

www.bbnyc.com

How-To

I'm not quite sure how couples managed to organize a wedding in the candlelit olden days before everything about anything could be found on the web. After spending what must by now amount to days on the Internet, looking for deals, reading depressing blogs about crafty brides-to-be (see earlier post about this topic), and researching vendors, I am under the impression that 50% of web content is somehow wedding-related.

Yesterday, it suddenly occurred to me that researching Native American wedding ceremonies might be interesting. Not--let me stress this--because ours will be a Native American ceremony, but because I am intrigued by the idea that plenty of white couples desire to have such a ceremony. Complete with anointment on forehead by eagle feathers and drinking from the traditional wedding jar in front of a tipi. This quickly proved to be too depressing (it seems in bad taste to appropriate yet another part of Native American life and bastardize it to fit your needs), so I was relieved to fortuitously land on the "How to Propose Marriage to a Woman" section of ehow.com (the web site that teaches you how to "do just about everything").

In a world where milk cartons come with opening instructions, it stands to reason that people also require step-by-step help on how to pop the question. Paraphrasing the advice would really take away from it, so here it is, in all its glory:

STEP 1 Try to keep your plans to yourself.
STEP 2 Consult your intended's father before asking, if you are a traditional kind of guy.
STEP 3 Make sure the proposal reflects your personal style. Get on one knee and propose at the top of a mountain, during a romantic weekend or while you're on a tropical vacation.
STEP 4 Have Champagne and flowers waiting.
STEP 5 If your partner says yes, call the people that matter to let them know
This, by the way, seems like a glaring missed opportunity for some real quality advice to me. Because what if he/she says no?
STEP 6 Be prepared to start talking about wedding plans immediately.
I like the prompt onset of stress and pressure here. Time's awastin'!
STEP 7 Don't be offended if your new fiancée is not taken with the ring you selected. She can choose another setting later if she desires.

Very helpful is the "List of Things You'll Need" that accompanies this entry: 1) Address Books (Does anyone still use these? And I'm not sure there's a bigger downer than immediately getting on the horn to every Tom, Dicky and Harry in your address book right after the proposal)
2) Flower Bouquets 3) Champagne 4) Engagement Rings (DUH! But why plural?) 5) Champagne Flutes

Then of course there's advice for the other party involved in this whole mess. Who is anxiously gnawing her fingernails to the quick while stressing out over whether the proposal will take place "at a lake" "at a concert" or "with a crossword puzzle." If you're the kind of person that just can't stand a probably much agonized over romantic surprise, this advice will suit:

Look around secret areas of your partner's home. Look for receipts or the ring. This doesn't have to be considered snooping if you are simply cleaning up his area.

Now that is just sad.

Flowas, for those interested in that kind of thing. Mom?

Not until I started seriously researching this whole wedding flowers business did I realize that whoa...there is some heinous stuff out there. I wanted flowers that looked like I had just traipsed into a dew-speckled (that part was negotiable) meadow to pick them. Not a floor-dragging bouquet I would need two hands to hold. After a considerable amount of research (who knew there were so many florists in NYC?!) I stumbled upon Brooklyn-based Nicolette Owen. Our tastes overlapped completely, and I think she is a total genius. And a pretty cool girl. Check out some of the beautiful arrangements on her website, Nicolette Camille Floral Design.

Just in time for the weekend: A healthy helping of CUTE

Man. This lil boids caketopper is cute. V-e-r-y cute. Probably too much so. But still. Via Etsy.

JUST WANTED TO ADD (04/22): My very artistically talented mom is making our caketoppers! And they don't involve birds or felt or flowers (Nick would never stand for such things anyway. Maybe felt but not the rest). Can't wait until they're done.

What font says "We're getting married and it won't be too cheesy"

There's a plethora of fonts out there that one might use for wedding paraphernalia. For those of you not so familiar with type, there's a whole world out there past the dreaded and eeeeeviiiiil Comic Sans (bancomicsans.com) and the ol' standby Times New Roman. I'm not talking anything found on "Free Font" sites that also hawk pixely clipart, but type created by people who do this sort of thing for a living. Yeah, you have to pay for it, but it--mostly--sure is purdy. Below some fonts I found, via Font Bureau (the last two) and Veer (the rest).

At the moment, I'm trying to figure out how to design all of the collateral material that comes with the wedding. Menus, place cards, escort cards (no worries; I didn't know what those are either, or that I needed them), programs, etc. The invites will be a collaboration with an illustrator, who is doing most of the heavy lifting at the moment. They should be done within the next two weeks. I hope. And they'll be...untraditional. I'll say that much.

Bling

I ain't ashamed to admit that if faced with this choice:
A) Wedding ring bought from effusive jeweler at local store for $300
B) Wedding ring purchased on faceless website and shoved in mailbox two weeks later for $200
I would probably choose A).

In my little (perhaps misguided) universe, this makes sense because I have this pesky habit of ascribing emotions to objects and places.* This--as an aside--makes it very hard for me to throw things away because I develop strong nostalgic feelings for them. A la "Oh, this is the toaster I bought from that sweet old man at the vintage shop on Cerrillos." It didn't work really then, it certainly doesn't work now, but I can't toss it (it's got bakelite handles!). And it reminds me of that cool store and toasting toast in my southwestern-themed kitchen in Santa Fe and so on and so forth. Ergo, I'm buying a memory along with an object.

But I digress. Wedding bands. We want simple, classic ones. I prefer yellow gold because it sets it apart from the silver rings we exchanged when we moved to separate cities after graduation. But, honestly, one simple gold wedding band is (or at least looks) like any other.

Soooooo, am I being stoopid by feeling a little weird about purchasing something so special off the web? Let me know if you have any opinions one way or the other. Maybe I'm being a little old-fashioned here.
Love,

J

*This, by the way, might be a German trait. Really! There was a story on NPR about it:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102518565

Caught in the Crafts Blog Vortex

I've never been particularly crafty. Mine were the paper planes that never flew, and I was the kid that habitually clued her craft supplies to her fingers. But suddenly I find myself trolling the Internet for nerdy craft supplies, sending Nick (poor Nick) e-mails to exclaim over "the perfect paper labels" or "vintage plastic birds" or "antique jars" or the like. Not sure what's happening, but I think I need to stop going to the Martha Stewart Weddings blog. There are girls out there who fashion their entire wedding out of a single sheet of paper!

Regardless. I'm planning to overcome childhood clumsiness to get all crafty on this wedding. Particularly after I realized that things I had considered miscellaneous expenses are actually adding up. I certainly never thought that I'd be spending more than a hundred bucks (way more) on votive candles. But there you have it. It's gonna be beautiful. Or else.

I've not been particularly good about updating this blog, but I'll try to be better. Not sure if anyone is reading these rambling missives, but I'll follow this up with a question about wedding bands and then, later this week, a novelette about how we met, penned by yours truly and Nick in a tag team effort of sorts.