After: All of the Love

OMG LOOK AT THAT RING.
(Brunch Aftershock Picture.)

I wish that I had the time, immediately after the wedding, to capture everything that the day was: all of the joy, all of the laughter, all of the perfect bloopers, all of the friends and family truly becoming one community, all of the dancing, all of the love.

I didn't have that time right after the wedding. We stayed up dancing and karaoke-ing at the Best Unplanned Wedding After-Party Ever until 3 AM, which thanks to Daylight Savings Time was really 4 AM. Then we got up at 9 AM to have brunch with a bleary-eyed but beaming crew of friends and family. Then we had to drive three hours back home, continue packing...

... and the next day, we picked up a moving truck. Some of the very same amazing friends who helped us get married Saturday night showed up Monday morning to help us load a truck and move away from them.

As I said on Facebook, teary-eyed as I typed, that is the definition of Joy. Community. Love. The theme of our wedding, and God willing, the theme of our life.

Someday, I want to have time to share some of the amazing stories of love from the weekend and immediately following it. I mean, I did already share one brief hilarious blue-comedy bit. Now, I will share one sweeter moment:

Toward late afternoon, as the fiance HUSBAND was preparing to hit the road (yes, another week-long separation ahead), our friend Richard came over. When we let him in, he said, eyes alight: "I'm going back outside to get something set up! Don't come out until I knock again!"

Curious, tired, and obedient, we waited. A few minutes later, he knocked again. We stepped outside, and my eyes welled with tears for the thousandth time this week. When we stepped outside, this is what we saw:

Somehow, in the time between Sunday and Monday, while we packed and loaded and prepared for The Next Big Thing without any time to reflect and relax... Richard created an incredibly beautiful, moving memento - not only for us, but for our parents and our little wedding team. In his shop, he chopped up the beautiful twisted trees that had formed the base of our chuppah, and created candle sets for all of us. Wherever any of us go, we will now always have a small piece of our first official "home" as a married couple to take with us, and literally light our lives. Is there anything more lovely?

I don't have time, today, to reflect on all of the moments like this, from The Day and everything after. I still have too much packing to do, too much cleaning to do, to many hugs and quality time to squeeze in while I can. But for the record? I did have the time of my life that day. Getting married was awesome. It's pretty cool to say that the best wedding you ever went to was your own. It truly was the Best Day Ever.

And it's all because of the people. Our parents and siblings, our friends who are family. We didn't spend a lot of money on this wedding, relatively speaking, but we did spend a lot of time and energy and collaboration. It's overwhelming. I might not stop tearing up every few minutes for a good long time. Especially since the fiance HUSBAND is gone again, and I'm staying with precious friends (WSM-D and hubby-J) I can't imagine not seeing all the time, and the emotional roller coaster is far from over. But what a ride, y'all. 

What a beautiful ride.

We Did.

We got married, and it truly was the best day ever. I'll catch up on the backlog of blogs and all the stories of the beautiful day that was our gorgeous, hilarious, joy-community-love-filled wedding. For now, here's to all of that incredible love... and this:

Journeys & Destinations

Here's where the rehearsal dinner will be!

With just over a month to go, it was time for one last trip to W-Town. So the WSMs, the Chuppah Master, and I hit the road early Saturday morning.

First stop: Lunch at the Rehearsal Dinner Venue. The MOG & FOG met us at the Italian restaurant where they will be hosting the rehearsal dinner. It was a lovely visit, a lovely lunch, and we were able to compare notes on other items on #TheList.

Bonus: Delicious Italian foods means that the rehearsal dinner will fit right in with the "our wedding theme is carbs" plan.

Second Stop: Scouting Out the Venue. With a new floor plan in mind and our Chuppah Master on hand for the first time, we cast new eyes on the ol' venue and made a few important decisions.

This is how I make the fiance jealous.

Third Stop: Donuts. Again with the carbs. Also, this particular donut shop is D's favorite. How could I pass up the opportunity to have my friends snap a picture of me, enjoying-but-also-regretting enjoying one of those babies without him? (His reply when I texted him this photo: "My favorite person eating my favorite donuts? No fair!" Aww.)

Fourth Stop: The Open Bar. That's not the name, of course. But loyal readers will recall the tales of the not-actually stabby gay bar that is now our second home in W-Town. This time, no one's pants hit the floor. This time. (It was earlier in the day. And anyway, we'll be back.)

Fifth Stop: Night Lighting. We ran back to the venue right as it was closing, just to see what the lighting-at-dusk situation would really be. Good news: it'll work.

So much for small ice cream.

Sixth Stop: Sushi and Gas Stations. No, don't worry, not sushi in a gas station - sushi and several gas stations. Yeah, we actually stopped a couple of times on the three hour drive back home. (Luckily, when all the passengers have to pee frequently, none can judge.) Chuppah Master-R wasn't that hungry when we stopped for sushi, so he decided to just get a little ice cream. Lesson learned... there's no such thing as a little ice cream at that sushi place.

The trip was good, and the time with friends was even better. As WSM-D sweetly and astutely observed, these moments are what we'll remember. Maybe even more than the blur of the wedding day. Sharing jokes in a car. Stopping embarrassingly often to pee. Revealing a few secrets. Laughing.

The journey, even more than any destination.

...And Everyone's Still Talking About That Cake

I've started writing this post several times, and tripping over my words. Usually, that happens to me when I'm talking, not when I'm writing. But in this case, even when writing, I find myself at a bit of a loss. Sometimes that happens, when you're just completely overwhelmed by just how incredible the people around you are.

A few weeks ago, the parents were all in town. The MOB, FOB, MOG, and FOG all came in to see the show. The show, which was a lot of fun but also sucked up all the free time the fiance and I might have had. We hit the pause button on wedding planning. We certainly didn't have the bandwidth to put together a nice little party while our parents were in town.

So our friends did it for us - the world's best engagement party.

The Diva (Photo by FOG)

Our cherished friend Denise - AKA "the Diva" - was the amazing powerhouse behind the world's best engagement party. It was her idea, her coordination, her lovely and humbling gift. Denise is a director, and in addition to having a wonderful vision for this party, she assembled a stellar cast to help her; our friends Malaika and Nate, in particular, who helped with everything from decorations to collecting addresses from attendees.

There were several things that made this the world's best engagement party, but two things stand out above all: the people who were there, an assembly of family and urban family whose love and support filled the room to overflowing... AND THE CRAZY AWESOME CAKE.

THE CRAZY AWESOME CAKE.

People are still talking about that cake. Because it was crazy awesome. And perfect.

It was an intimate and lovely evening. Denise supplied champagne and invited guests to make toasts. Many toasts were made, some funny, some poignant (my dad promised he wouldn't tear up during his, but then did anyway), and concluded with a toast from the hostess herself, along with a Khalil Gibran poem.

Leaving that night, I felt so incredibly blessed. So undeservedly fortunate. Denise's generosity, and the goodwill of our loved ones, is more than I can ever adequately respond to with enough thanks. Re-living it all again, I'm a blubbering mess, y'all. (And that's just over the engagement party. Imagine me at the freaking wedding. The off-season, ugly-girl-crying bride...)

Revelers! (Photo by Wayne Thomas)

I would go on and on, but I'd just get more emotional. So instead I'll just say thank you. Thank you, Diva. Thank you, urban family. From the bottom of my (ugly-girl-crying) heart.

Us (Photo by FOG)

“Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls...” - Kahlil Gibran

Anniversaries

This past week marked two important anniversaries in my life.

September 30 marked the six-year anniversary for the fiancé and me. Six years since two friends who had been on a few dozen were-they-or-weren't-they-dates had a conversation that decided our new status was "officially together." (The conversation was immediately followed by me sending him a text while still sitting in his parking lot that night, which said something like "Don't get weird about this, okay?" His response was something along the lines of: "Wouldn't dream of it, doll. Won't get any weirder than I already am." Fair enough.)

A good visual representation of us.

Six years together, so far. Six years wherein we've laughed often, cried rarely, worn a lot of costumes, cooked, toasted, roasted, supported, traveled, lost grandparents and loved ones, gained friends and loved ones, and realized we want all the years ahead of us to be spent together, too. Which brings us to the next anniversary...

October 4 marked three years since I survived the car wreck that by all logic should have killed me. If you want to read the whole story, it's here. If you want the nutshell version, I was driving a Tahoe full of production equipment from Jackson to Memphis. While driving in the left lane to pass an eighteen-wheeler, a deer stepped directly in front of my car. At 70 MPH, I hit the deer. Then I was rear-ended by the eighteen-wheeler behind me, which spun me back into the right lane and directly into the path of the other eighteen-wheeler, the one I had been passing. That truck hit me, too, still at 70 MPH. The rear of the car was crushed, the front was ripped off, and here I still am today. Three years after three separate impacts -- deer, semi-truck, semi-truck -- any one of which could have meant the end of my story.

To the left, imagine where the front of the car used to be;
to the right, imagine where I was leaning against the airbag.

I could write again about my feelings from that night, all of my gratitude and fear and renewed sense of purpose, all of which is still true. But instead, on this third anniversary, I'm literally counting my blessings. Here are just a few of the things that have happened in the three years since the night I miraculously did not die:

• I've been more intentionally grateful, almost every day (I'm still only human)
• I learned that when the chips were down, I did, in fact, have the right people around me, thank God
• I made a career shift to allow for more writing time; I have since written six scripts, three novels, and two more children's books, so far. I have had two plays published - one I wrote pre-wreck, one I wrote post-wreck - which are now being performed, in real theaters, by real actors, in places I've never been. I no longer feel like a wannabe when I say "I'm a writer."
• New friends came into my life, and new theater projects, and the urban family for which I am so thankful continued to grow... and old-gold friendships are even more precious to me than once they were
• My first nephew was born, and I got to hold him while he was still tiny, and now he's walking; I shared wonderful mugs and glasses of coffee and wine (and mimosas) with my parents (and with the fiancé's parents), and appreciated them even more; I've been able to cheer on all of my siblings as their lives moved forward in amazing and sometimes surprising ways 
• I fell in love with Doctor Who. I know-- what took me so long?! 
• I took the fiancé out of the country for the first time-- just to Canada, but now that we know that we can, in fact, leave the country and be let back in despite his rouge-ish ways, we have bigger plans ahead
• I snuggled with Dov, survived all the attempts on my life by the world's largest cat, and fostered and found homes for a dozen rescue dogs (one of them still with us-- oops)
• I wore bridesmaid dresses in two of my best friends' weddings, and danced at several other weddings, one of them just a few days post-wreck and while still donning a neck brace, and not to be a broken record, but seriously: I have been reminded more times than I can count what an amazing collection of people fill my life, including that hilarious, protective, loyal, and loving best friend of mine...
• ...to whom I am now engaged. http:// hen we got engaged, and started planning our own wedding 

Those are just a few of the thousand good moments and milestones I've been blessed to experience in the past three years. There have been bad days, too; funerals, illnesses, setbacks. But to get through my own bad days, and to be there for my loved ones on their bad days, is another category of blessing. Some blessings feel brutal, but are blessings nonetheless.

I sometimes reference anniversaries pretty lightly. We all do. Forgetting an anniversary is one of the world's oldest jokes... and, in fact, this year the fiancé forgot ours for the first time ever, despite me tagging him in a Facebook status about it, which he liked (true story). I forgave him, largely because soon we'll have a new anniversary date, so the September 30 one will eventually fade away. Still, a year and a half from now, when the fiancé is "the husband" and we celebrate our first anniversary, we'll laugh together about how we'll actually have been together for nearly eight years at that point. Assuming he doesn't forget the new anniversary.

Sometimes anniversaries can seem a little arbitrary. But sometimes it's important to remember not only the date an anniversary marks, but also everything that has happened on all the days in between, and everything we survived to reach this day.

So here's to anniversaries, and not taking a single one of them for granted.

Cheers!

This Little Light of Ours

As my loyal readers (all ten of you beautiful creatures) may recall, the fiancé and I don't have the most romantic of proposal stories. This is not a surprise, really. "Romantic" is not a word frequently used to characterize us - but never say never.

Unbeknownst to  the fiancé, I saved the bottle of wine we were drinking that night. I hid it in the kitchen, because I had plans for that bottle. Big plans. At one point, when I was gone, he found the empty hidden bottle and put it in the recycling bin. Luckily, I noticed it, retrieved it, and did a better job of hiding it... until I could get it to my friend Juniper.

Because my friend Juniper's husband Del takes bottles, and makes art; functional art, no less - objects like lamps. While that's cool any day of the week, I thought it would be particularly perfect to preserve the modest little bottle of red with which we toasted our engagement. What better way to preserve it than to have an artist transform it into something that would continue to illuminate?

Many thanks, Juniper and Del. This little bottle will be with us for quite some time, and we're gonna let it shine.

On Equal Hearts and Broken Glass (Or, One Mississippi Bride-To-Be Reflects on Today)

Today. Because of today’s Supreme Court decisions, I am going to jump ahead to a topic I wasn’t going to address here just yet. But here we are, so here we go: equality, y’all.

Cake Topper Couple-Approved (Image from Reuters)

Today’s news from the Supreme Court is causing big reactions. In most of my personal circles (most, but not all) the reactions are overwhelmingly joyous, hopeful, relieved, proud. But even among those reacting joyfully, there is hesitation. A quick tempering of the joy. Because this not an end-all, be-all victory. It’s just one more step.

The SCOTUS blog provides  “in plain English” a good, succinct overview of what today’s rulings on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California's Proposition 8 (Prop 8) do and do not mean. Cracked puts together a pretty snarky overview, as well, for those who need it (incidentally, d’you see which state they give as the example of “you’re still outta luck?” Yeah, that’d be Mississippi).

I have always considered myself equality-minded, but over the years I have developed a more nuanced relationship with the equality movement, on all fronts. I believe equality means everyone, at the expense of no one. That whatever your ethnicity, orientation, identity, financial reality – by virtue of being a person, the baseline should be that people are equal.

We are so far from there.

I’ve been made hyper-aware of my own privilege – and while equality does not just mean marriage equality, let me tell you, thinking about my own upcoming marriage, not as a hypothetical but as an on-the-calendar-reality… that privilege has been highlighted, underlined, and exclamation-pointed in my mind lately. Something to think about, something to act on, something not to take for granted. A little over a year ago, I was thinking about the difference between hoping to get married vs. hoping to be legally permitted to do so, and pondering the inequality inherent in that difference.

So, it's probably not a surprise to anyone who knows me well that I’ve been thinking, already, about ways we can acknowledge equality at our wedding. The two of us making a contribution to an equality-focused charity in honor of our nuptials. Distributing white knots for equality on the big day. And something very personal, spiritually speaking: shattering some glass.

Caution: Breakable.

Breaking a glass is a traditional part of the Jewish wedding ceremony. It’s the one part everyone knows about – you break a glass and yell mazel tov, right? Right! But why do we break a glass? There are many explanations; most of them revolve around the idea that even on your most joyous day, you should take a moment to acknowledge that there is pain in the world. Whether it commemorates oppression, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the fragility of life—or inequality. 

And that’s what I’ll be thinking about when the cup shatters on our wedding day: inequality. The pain that will exist until everyone has equal rights, including the legal right to marry the love of their life.

I know some straight folks who have vowed that they will not marry until all of their friends can, too. That is noble, and to be honest, I considered that choice. But in the end, I want the legal protections of marriage. I want them for myself, for my partner, and yes, for everyone – and I couldn’t see how refraining, myself, would help anyone. And I can see how raising my voice, as a married person, to say: “Our marriage is not threatened by marriage equality, it’s strengthened by it!” might even be helpful.

Because that’s what I believe. DOMA was never defending our future marriage, or anyone else’s – what it was doing instead was attacking the marriage rights of many.

It wasn’t defensive, on any level. It was offensive, on many.

Today’s news does not represent the end of a movement, but it does represent forward movement. A big, important step. And if you ask me, any step forward is worth celebrating; and while I still know that my partner and I are incredibly privileged to be planning the wedding we’re planning, I’m also feeling a little more optimistic today that soon that privilege will become a right for so many more people.

Talk about off season. This day is long overdue. So, with a little tempering of the joy but also a good dose of mazel tov, here's to dancing with each step forward, white knots, broken glasses, and hearts full of love.

L’chaim!

THE W-WORD: Optional?! (Don't Worry, Parents, We're Not Eloping)

My good friend Scott just told me about some friends of his who decided not to call their big day a wedding, but instead avoided THE W WORD altogether by inviting friends and family to join them in celebrating THE FIRST DAY OF THEIR MARRIAGE.

YES!

So. Brilliant.

(Especially as stress around THE W WORD is starting to trickle in a bit, I'm, like, totally head over heels for this idea. I mean, we'll see. But good God, that sounds healthy. It's not about a one-day-W-word. It's about every freakin' day, for keepsies.)

Pistachio Italian Wedding Cookies: SO GOOD THEY SHOULD CALL THEM HONEYMOON COOKIES

I think the title for this post says it all.

It all started when I began researching some wedding necessities - venues, caterers, that sort of thing. I started to get just a little bit stressed out. I reminded myself that the goal in all things wedding is JOY. So to ease the stress, I did a search for the ultimate stress-reducer.

COOKIES.

I found a recipe for Italian Wedding Cookies. I modified it only slightly, and with the help of my sous chef, or in this case sous baker (AKA The Fiancé - who, incidentally, happens to be 25% Italian and thereby makes creating and devouring these cookies so much more legitimate and possibly a cultural celebration of our love, amiright?), whipped up a batch of cookies. Enough for us to enjoy, and enough to package up to give his parents, since my future in-laws were coming through town and we met them for lunch today.

Here are the cookies.

Cookies. Made with love. And a lot of butter.

Here's the recipe (modified from this recipe over at Mother Thyme):

Pistachio Italian Wedding Cookies
Yield: 2 Dozen

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 1/2 cup heart healthy olive-oil rich butter substitute (or another stick of straight-up butter if you wanna go all Old School Paula Deen with it)
• 1 cup confectioners/powdered sugar (half will be for cookie-making, half reserved for cookie-coating!)
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup cake flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 package (3.4 oz) of pistachio pudding mix

Directions

• Cream the butter and butter substitute in a mixing bowl; then add 1/2 cup sugar and vanilla
• Combine dry ingredients in a second mixing bowl
• Add dry ingredients gradually into the bowl with the sugar-vanilla-butter fluff; beat gently until well mixed and smooth
• Roll dough into a large ball; put in tupperware or wrap in saran and place in refrigerator for at least an hour
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit and line cookie/baking sheets with parchment paper
• Take chilled ball of dough; form small strawberry-sized balls of dough, and place on parchment paper-topped baking sheets. Press gently; space 1" apart
• Bake for 8-10 minutes, then remove from oven and let sit on hot baking sheets for another 5 minutes outside the oven
• After 5 minutes, while still warm, dust the cookies with remaining confectioners sugar - a light coating goes a long way

Eat them and think, yes - they really should call them honeymoon cookies instead of wedding cookies, because DAMN.

Accidental Husband Test

So the Fiancé and I have only been engaged for a few weeks now, but we've been together for years. He has proven his mettle time and again. He’s supportive, he’s loyal, he’s hilarious, blah blah blah. Pretty much all of his prior awesomeness has now been trumped by the Accidental Husband Test he passed this weekend.

Photo from Etsy. (Seriously)

This is a story of puke, y’all. If you can’t handle a little vomit in a story, you may want to skip this entry. (But I promise not to get too graphic. I’m no Daniel Tosh.)

Any time I have to get on a plane, I get motion sick. It sucks. But the good news is, I can usually head it off by taking some preemptive Dramamine, and thereby keep the motion sickness to mild headache and avoid getting to the serious-nausea stage. However, when I woke up at the godforsaken hour of 5 AM to head to the airport, I woke up with a migraine.

Not. Good.

I rarely get migraines; they’re a remnant from an awful car wreck I was in a few years back. Thank all that’s good and holy, they're not the norm for me - but when one sets in, it’s unforgiving. We’re talking throbbing, disorientation, nausea, utter misery. A migraine usually means calling in to work. Staying in bed. Which is not an option when you have to get on a plane. To go wear a bridesmaid dress in someone else's wedding.

So I drag myself out of bed. The Fiance helps keep me propped up as we take the dogs outside, and then he schleps all the luggage outside. I take some migraine meds. My friend Rachel arrives to take us to the airport. I manage to keep it together for most of the car ride, but I can tell things are about to get ugly.

Please let me make it to a toilet please let me make it to a toilet please let me make it to a toilet…

Rachel pulls the van up to the drop-off curb at the airport. I say, very quietly, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to throw up,” and then open the van door and keep my word, all over the sidewalk.

I’m not proud.

Rachel’s look of pity was a sight to behold. I must have looked really, really pathetic. But then I felt better. I thought it was over.

Then came the plane ride. The puddle-jumping, turbulent, stuffy-hot-miserable-get-me-out-of-this-hell plane ride. In order to avoid the truly unfortunate details and cancel the suspense, let's just say I threw up, into a flimsy airline barf bag, seated less than six inches from my future husband.

My future husband, who kept his hand on my back the whole time and told me it would be okay. Who pointedly ignored the lady across the aisle and her disdainful look. Who later described the incident to the friend who picked us up from the airport as "the most discreet bout of getting sick you could imagine. It was practically graceful."

Now that's how you pass an accidental husband test.

He's a keeper, y'all.