Bear & Honey

Oh, no, it’s the B-word!

No, not that b-word…Though if you are doing your own planning and undertaking lots of D.I.Y. work for it, you will likely utter that and many more creative epithets many, many times.

Budget.    (dun, dun, duuuuuuuuun!)

The word causes a shudder to run down the spine of many brides-to-be, but it doesn’t have to be terrifying.   If you’re a tomboy bride like me, it may not even be that scary, because there are probably lots of things you’ve already decided you just don’t need or want to include in your Big Day…but even the thriftiest couple can easily be intimidated by trying to figure out how much wedding they can afford.

When we first got engaged, I knew that my parents wanted to contribute to the wedding.  I also knew that my parents probably did not have a realistic idea of what a big wedding can cost these days.  We didn’t feel comfortable having them pay for everything, and since we’ve both got full-time jobs, we decided to ask them to pay for two “big” items and we’d cover the rest.

With that out of the way, we had to go about deciding what we could reasonably afford.  It turns out that setting up a couple of simple rules made budgeting really, really easy.

1. My first (and most important) rule:

We were not going to go into debt for a party.  Even if it would make it the most awesomest, baddest, kick-assingest party of all time.  If  we can’t cover a deposit with cash, we don’t need it.   You might be surprised at how much this eliminates right away.  It makes it easier to say no to some of the things that all the pretty wedding p0rn on the internet can make you believe you need.

2. Spend more money on the important things.

The next thing we had to do was figure out what our priorities were.  Was it the food, the dress, getting the date we wanted at the perfect venue?   Did we need an event designer or would I plan it on my own?  There are some things that I’m more than happy to go the D.I.Y. route for, and others things that I know would stress me out to no end and are better outsourced to the professionals. The top three most important aspects of the wedding for us were:

• The place
• The pictures
• The music

So that’s where we decided the bulk of our spending would go.   Almost all the rest can be done on our own, with help from friends, or at very low cost.    We’ve found some really creative solutions to things that we otherwise might have spent a good chunk of money on, and figured out other ways to add personal touches to the day without over-spending.

3.  It will not be perfect.

I touched on this in one of my very first Tomboy Bride posts, but I don’t believe in perfection.  In fact, I’m a pretty staunch imperfectionist. So with this in mind, it’s easier for me to choose the not-quite-perfect but less expensive thing, than to spend a whole bunch of extra cash for the custom-detailed-everything.  Lots of people lose lots of sleep worrying about their wedding day being perfect.   Let that go, and planning actually starts to be kind of (*gasp*) fun!   Aside from being an imperfectionist, I am also a huge believer in fun.  If it’s not fun, it’s pretty hard to get me to do it.

As long as I keep those rules in mind as I go along, staying on budget for the wedding isn’t too difficult.

Going this route has also opened us up to having some great conversations about money.  It turns out that money is one of the things that newlyweds fight the most over, so having to plan and pay for a big part of our wedding has felt like great preparation for sharing financial decisions in our marriage.

It also feels pretty awesome to know we won’t still be paying for the wedding months after it’s over.

How did you (or are you) deal with budgeting for your wedding?  What details are the most important to you?

Hey, kids! Today is Girl Talk Thursday!

Today’s topic is What’d you wanna be when YOU grew up?

A few years ago, as I was packing or unpacking or in some sort of possession-shuffling process between the many places I lived, I found a book.

It was Dr. Seuss’  My Book About Me.

This book is cool as heck.  

It’s basically a fill-in-the-blank autobiography for little kids, with pages to color and draw your family and pets, how many teeth you have (top and bottom rows), etc. …I had apparently filled it out when I was six.  I have zero memory of doing it, but the evidence was there.

When  I found the book, I had just started playing shows and getting more serious about writing and performing.   When I was a kid, I was interested in music but honestly had no intention of being a performer.   As far as I remember, I wanted to be  a witch or a zookeeper, possibly both.   So imagine my surprise when, after the page about how many teeth I had and what color my hair and eyes were, I noticed a page that asked “What are you going to be when you grow up?”

In my six-year-old scrawl I had written:

A writer or a singer

(I mean the “g” was backward but that’s basically what it said!)

This blew my mind.  I guess six-year-old me knew way more about 26-year-old me than I could have imagined. I’ve noticed that as I get older and more in touch with my authentic self, I have a lot more in common with that six year old girl than the person I was trying to be in my early twenties.

So I guess I’m still “growing up”, but I’m also growing in….growing into myself and learning to love that little weirdo who stuck her hands in the dirt, talked to animals, and did Elvis impersonations at family gatherings.

What did you want to be?  Who do you want to be now?

Today, my parents have been married for 40 years. They’ve been together for about 42 years.  In a row, even! They have been parents for 35 years,  have survived parenting me for almost 28 years, have seen one child married for 1 year so far,  and have been grandparents for 1 month.

All I can think of is this card from someecards:

Up until recently, my longest relationships lasted just shy of a year, so the thought of adding 41 years to that totally blows my mind.

I look at my parents and I know that marriage is not easy, but it is worth it.   Every day, they compromise, they talk, they do things together, they check up on each other, and still manage to be affectionate to one another.

As a child, I assumed my parents would always be together because that’s just how things were. The older I get, and the closer I get to creating my own marriage, I realize just how much they have done for each other and how hard they have worked to build their family.

I appreciate their example so much, and while there are a lot of things that will be different about our marriage, there are many more things that I will carry with me as reminders of how to keep it together…things they probably have no idea they taught me.

Happy 40th Anniversary, Mom & Dad. Thank You.

The other day, as I was checking out at my doctor’s office, we scheduled my next appointment for the end of October.

“I guess you’ll be married by then!” said the doctor’s friendly administrative assistant.

“Yep,” I answered, “I definitely wanted to schedule it for after and not before.”

“What will your name be then?” she asked. Oh no.

“The same as it is now.”

She paused. I almost cringed, waiting for the inevitable conversation that comes up when I tell people I plan on keeping my name.

“Well, good for you! I wish I had done that.”  Relief. Sweet relief.

Then we had a good ten minute conversation about the expectations that a gal will change her name, why it’s expected, why it’s outdated, and why more guys might consider doing it instead.

I understand the idea that having the same name promotes family unity and all that, but if that is your only reason, then why not:

*Have him take your name?
*Combine your two last names?
*Create a whole new name for your new family?

The truth is, that if there were not some underlying lady-oppressing stuff going on there, then the ideas above wouldn’t generate scoffs and “But that’s just wacky!” facial expressions from so many people.   And by the way, those reactions are the kind ones, most of the time.   Often, the thought of a woman not fusing her identity with her husband’s family actually makes people angry.  I have yet to comprehend why any of my personal choices are threatening to a complete stranger, but there you go.

I know for a fact that there are women who still do choose to take their husband’s name, and they are no less deserving of that choice than I am.  The point is, it is a choice.    You get to choose who you are, and what your legal name is, no matter who you are.

There are couples I know who are redefining what marriage means to them, and many of them have taken one of the name-changing options above rather than what has become the “traditional” option of a woman taking her husband’s name.  It is refreshing and wonderful to see these people create new traditions and new meaning for their lives together.

Please note, I said lives together, not life.  I believe that there is strength in leading parallel lives that occasionally bump into each other and touch, but aren’t tangled.

I’ll end this post with some of my favorite words on love:

How shall I hold on to my soul, so that
it does not touch yours? How shall I lift
it gently up over you on to other things?
I would so very much like to tuck it away
among long lost objects in the dark
in some quiet unknown place, somewhere
which remains motionless when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin’s bow,
which draws one voice out of two separate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.

- Rainer Maria Rilke,  “Love Song”

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words ‘make’ and ‘stay’ become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.” – Tom Robbins, from Still Life With Woodpecker

Now then, go forth, tomboys, and call your marriage by its own name.

Today’s Tomboy Bride post is inspired by something I read last week over at A Practical Wedding.   First of all, APW is one of the best wedding sites out there, especially for Tomboy Brides.   Y’all should check it out.

Anyway, this post over at APW is about a sensitive subject that a lot of folks don’t talk about… wedding dropouts.    There is a ton of information online about how to plan a wedding, how awesome and fun it is, how lovely and fabulous and terrific it all is, but amid all this girly squealing there’s very little discussion about what happens if it doesn’t work out.

Of course, we want to assume that all of our weddings will work out, and that not only will they be fantastic weddings, but they’ll lead to fantastic marriages…but sometimes that just isn’t in the cards.    Calling off a wedding comes with a bunch of practical items to deal with, but each of those practical tasks can be laden with a whole lot of emotions — guilt, anxiety, shame, relief, anger,  sadness — all mixed together.   Top that with a hefty dose of the silence & isolation surrounding brides who’ve called off a wedding and you have a very strange situation.

So, in light of the silence, and the shame, and all that gross stuff, I wanted to come out there and let you all know that I, too, am a Wedding Dropout.

How Did I Know?

I was engaged once before a few years ago to a great guy who, it turned out, was not the right fit for me.   We had been engaged for a few months, and I had been feeling what I thought were just “cold feet.”   I had not been the most commitment-happy gal in my younger days, and so I assumed the panic attacks and anxiety I was feeling around the wedding were just symptoms of my dying bachelorette-hood or something, and not really a problem that needed closer inspection.

As time went on, the anxiety increased, and though I still had fuzzy feelings about my guy, any amount of wedding planning I tried to accomplish was met with resistance — either from my family, my groom-to-be, or, strangely, from myself.   It was not the joyful, bonding experience I expected it to be.  Something was not right.

Breaking it Off

I ended up picking up a book called “There Goes The Bride”* by Rachel Safier which opened my eyes. The book highlights a ton of stories by brides who, for multiple and varied reasons, called off their weddings. Some of them ended up getting back together with their grooms, some got married to other people, some are still single and loving that. Each woman had a different reason for breaking it off, and it helped me realize the difference between “cold feet” and truly not being prepared to get married.

When I broke off our engagement, and then a little while later, the relationship, I still felt awful and guilty, but I also felt secure that my choice was the right one for me. There was no way to get out of the situation without hurting a lot of people, but I knew that breaking off an engagement was much better than getting a divorce down the road.

Practical Heartbreak

Once the hardest part was over, there seemed to be a bunch of little things that needed doing which were glaring reminders of the people I had hurt. A small comfort was that we had not gotten very far in the planning process, so I didn’t have a dress or caterer or flowers, etc. already picked out. Still, I had to:

1. Call the venue and cancel our event, and get back our deposit. They could only return the deposit if they were able to book another event on the same date, so this was a couple of weeks of pins & needles and guilt over possibly losing my dad’s money.

2. Offer to return the engagement gifts we had received from family members (most of whom, very sweetly, told me to keep the gifts, but I felt that offering was the right thing to do.)

3. I wrote a short card to my ex’s mother apologizing. This broke my heart all over again.

4. The worst part was actually dealing with varied reactions from friends and family. Even though I had done the breaking-off, I wasn’t necessarily jumping for joy about it, so it hurt my feelings when people would react with relief or happiness that the wedding was called off. I also almost instantly lost an entire group of friends. There was never a conscious confrontation, but many folks had been his friends first and so I did not feel right about hanging around at their parties & favorite spots in town. It has been almost four years, and I am just now beginning to socialize with some of them again.

So Was It Worth It?

All that aside, it wasn’t all a bunch of horrible stuff. In the end, I am positive I made the right choice (for both of us, since I truly was not a great match for him, either.)

Having to make this Big Girl Decision also changed my relationship with my family.   I felt like more of an adult, and more respected by my parents, who before then probably didn’t think I was capable of responsibly packing my own bagged lunch.

Breaking off my engagement was actually one of the very first times I’d made a decision about what I wanted, and what was best for me, with any real clarity.  Before, I was content to let my life be directed by others, and to work to please other people and be liked.   The risk I took (of losing approval, losing my friends, losing the respect of family) was worth every bit of self-assurance I have gained in the years since.   Now, I know how to figure out what I want before I make a big decision.  That was a skill I did not possess before becoming a Wedding Dropout.

I won’t say this post was an easy one to write.  I haven’t talked a lot about this to anyone, even though a lot of time has passed.   I still have days where I feel guilty and worried, but they are far outnumbered by the calm that comes over me when I remind myself that it was the right thing to do.

*If you’re interested, you can pick up the book on Amazon.com (and full disclosure, this is our affiliate link.)

We were so flattered and excited to have our Save-the-Date video featured on The Broke-Ass Bride yesterday!  Huge, huge thanks to Dana, whose blog has been a great resource for us during this whole wedding planning thing.  Also, hello to anyone who may be reading this that wandered over from that post.

For those of you not familiar with The Broke-Ass Bride, here’s my favorite part of Dana’s “About” page:  Your wedding is a reflection of you and your partner; it should say something about what makes your love unique.

This is something I try to keep in mind as I plan our wedding, especially when I read articles about the latest “must-haves” and “should-dos” for events. Ultimately, the things people remember about your event are the things that made it your event, not just one in a long line of identical cocktail parties that happen to have a wedding ceremony beforehand.  Those amazing details aren’t usually something that you need to spend a ton of money on, but they are the things people will remember and talk about.

(I can promise you that I’ve never left a wedding thinking, “Gee, I sure wish they had spent more money on my dinner options.”)

Having a concrete budget has helped us come up with fun, personal touches that we may not have thought of if we’d only had a vague idea of how much we wanted to spend.   It has also kept my wandering mind in line, so I don’t second- or third-guess my choices and leave myself open to “up-selling” from vendors.

We came up with doing a stop-motion video as our save-the-date after deciding that we

a) didn’t want to use up a whole bunch of extra paper

b) didn’t want to spend the money on a whole bunch of extra paper

and

c) didn’t feel like the save-the-date postcards and magnets we’d seen lately were really “us”.

Also, Greg is really into movies, and I’m really into music… so blending the two together seemed like a good fit.  Tie in the fact that we met in grade school (awwwww) and the idea to use alphabet blocks and toys just seemed natural.

Our little video is a perfect example of something we probably wouldn’t have come up with if we’d just done what the bridal mags say we’re “supposed” to do — which typically involves spending more money than we’re comfortable with.

How has budgeting and saving money helped you come up with creative solutions?    We’d love to hear about it in the comments!

I worked for awhile for an event planner & caterer.  I was the family’s nanny, but I learned a lot about wedding planning and the wedding industry by sitting in on meetings and attending weddings & events with the family.   I also helped plan a friend’s wedding, and did a lot of vendor-shopping for my sister-in-law last year.  If I never set foot in another traditional bridal show again, that’ll be fine.

From an inside perspective, I learned just how much the industry thrives on convincing you that you need something in order to make your wedding PERFECT. Since this is the most important day of your life* after all, you must be feeling lots of anxiety about it going well. All of your friends and family will be judging you, probably by the color of the napkin rings on the carefully placed table settings!  That anxiety translates directly into spending a ton of cash with vendors who have managed to make themselves seem like the cure to all your worries.

I am interested in the bridal industry purely from a theatrical perspective – to me, a great event has a lot in common with a great theater production…and I know theater.  When putting on a stage show, something always goes wrong. It may be a tiny thing or a huge thing, but most of the time, the audience has no idea because everyone there is trained to deal with that stuff and be flexible.
Likewise, the best planners and vendors will never promise you perfection…but they will promise to do their best and to correct anything that goes wrong.

My first official Act of Tomboy Bridedom was to declare our event planning a No Perfection Zone.  Any vendor whose brochures or website promised perfect anything was right out.  By being promised perfection, you set yourself up to expect perfection, and that’s a one-way street heading straight to Bridezillaville.

How did that work out for me?   Well, so far I’ve had zero instances of paralyzing anxiety, no nightmares about napkin rings, and no guilty feelings about doing a bunch of the work myself.  I’ve also had no regrets about the vendors I’ve chosen so far.   Basically, the process has been mostly fun.   And that, my fellow Tomboy Brides, is what I wish for you.  Not perfection, but FUN.  A big ol’ party with your nearest and dearest shouldn’t be anything but.

*It’s totally not, by the way.

“Just imagine how you’ll feel as you gaze upon your perfect flowers, your perfect cake, and your perfect groom on that PERFECT DAY!”

I know you’ve all seen them.  If any of you are engaged or married, you have likely been bombarded with them.  The ads, the flyers, the magazines that tell you that this day, this one day, will be the ultimate peak and accomplishment of your entire life.     Most of these ads also mention something like,

“Every little girl spends years dreaming about her wedding day…”
Well I’m here to stand up and shout from the mountain top:

Bull.  Shit.

I did not spend my girlish youth pining over lacy gowns or sighing at flower arrangements.  I preferred climbing trees to drawing fake seating arrangements and would not have been caught dead practicing my signature with a cute boy’s name at the end.

As I got older, I noticed that I was not like all the other girls.  I didn’t plan what age I wanted to get married by, or how many kids I wanted to have.  I didn’t enjoy shopping for clothes and often wanted to talk about anything but dating.  I felt a little bit like an alien for not being able to relate.

Lately I’ve been helping a few friends along in their engagements.  It’s tough to navigate an overwhelming industry when you haven’t spent your life planning a wedding.  I have some inside perspective & experience, so one day I jokingly said to a co-worker, “Hey! I should start writing blog entries for all of us Tomboy Brides!”  and she immediately lit up and agreed.   So I’m going to start chronicling my own wedding planning adventure, and also offering some tips for any of you out there in the same boat.

If you’re reading this, you probably already know that your wedding should be fun, and should be a reflection of you and your partner, not some festival of meringue-poof dresses and over-the-top decorating (unless that’s your style!)  Looking at all of the industry ads & magazines, you may not know that there IS a way to do it YOUR way.   I promise, there is.

Now I look around at all the strong, capable women I know and realize that almost none of us are That Girl in The Magazine.   We’re independent, we are quirky, we have strong opinions and preferences, and we’re not going to do something just because a Martha Stewart mag tells us we should.
We are Tomboy Brides, and we’re not going away.

Are you a tomboy bride, too?  Shout!

This week we’re talking about the stuff that irritates you, even though it’s irrational to let something so small get to you.

I’ve actually been doing a lot of work on myself to be less annoyed at the general population, so this list is shorter than it would have been a few years ago.  Despite that, there are still some things that get my panties in a wad.

1. Corporate-ese.

This is the big one, folks.  I work in a day job where I email back and forth with business types all the time, and have to see/hear tons of this made up, meaningless jargon on a regular basis. “Sphere of influence”?  “Leveraging multi-level infrastructures” ?  “Optimize cross-platform functionalities” ?   Give me a break and speak English, please.   You probably don’t even know what you’re saying, so I can guarantee the dozens of folks working below you won’t know how to “implement next-generation architecture strategies.”

2. Drivers

Just in general. I am convinced that most people have no clue what the traffic laws actually are, or don’t believe they apply to them.  They also forget they are operating a very heavy machine that could easily kill someone, themselves included.  I err on the side of caution, so I probably annoy other drivers myself, but I’d rather be annoying than dead.

3.  People who order food or check out at a store while talking on their cell phones.

When I was a barista, I would wait for someone to finish their conversation before acknowledging that they wanted to order something.  I think it’s too easy for us to forget that service people are just that — people.   They are not Food Robots, they are not lesser beings, they are humans with thoughts and emotions.  Tell the person on the line you will call them back.  If it’s an important call, don’t get in line until you’re finished.    If you stay on the phone and dismissively order with one ear facing the person at the register, don’t be surprised if your order is wrong or contains faint traces of human saliva.

Those are my main peeves.  What are yours?   Join us over at Girl Talk Thursday!

One of the things Greg likes about me (and that our wallets love about me) is that, while I have fairly expensive taste, I’m not willing to spend top dollar on something I think I can do myself.

Typically, I’ll find something I absolutely love at an expensive store, and then scour the internet, craigslist, Home Depot, and craft stores for ways to buy or re-create it on a less expensive scale.  ( I think I get this from my mother, whose favorite place to shop is Tuesday Morning.  She loves to pick up really lovely things and then ask me to guess how much she paid for it.)

When I find something for a great price or realize I can make it at home for very little money, I call it a “hey-I-can-do-that” moment.

Recently,  I saw a “distressed” dresser at a fancy schmancy furniture store on sale for $1750.  I loved the way this thing looked.  It was rustic yet elegant, with cute hardware.  It would be a perfect addition to my office, but there is no way in heck I am going to shell out almost two grand for something that will be holding office supplies and a laptop.   Instead, I can buy some sandpaper and paint and fix the broken dresser I already have for a lot less.

Instead of money, I’m choosing to invest time and effort.   Yes, I will have to delay my gratification and wait for the thing to be done, but in the end I think it is worth the wait.

Aside from saving lots of money, it can be much more satisfying to have a hand in creating the pieces in your home.  I feel more connected to a room if I have put personal effort into the items decorating it, and proud when someone asks me where I bought something and I can say, “Oh, we made that.”

Do you have items in your home that you built or gave a makeover?  Have a “hey-I-can-do-that” moment you’d like to share?

I would love to hear about it in the comments!