Blessed

[liv]

Among other things, jack and I spent this weekend unwrapping our wedding presents. It's taken a month because we dashed away straight from the reception to the unhoneymoon, leaving a big heap of presents under the stairs at my parents' house, and I've been busy every weekend since then, so this was the first chance I got to go back to Cambridge and actually deal with them. I am really, really bowled over by how lovely our friends are!

People took us seriously when we said we didn't want duty presents of household items because that's the tradition for getting invited to weddings. So many people gave us cards with lovely lovely messages, and many people gave us or our chosen causes money. And a few people gave us the presents we asked for, even though we weren't very specific: beautiful things. So now we own actual artworks, unique, non mass-produced pieces, some made by our friends, some commissioned by them, and some bought from artists who sell their work commercially. And in a whole bunch of different media, paintings, prints, sculptures, and some incredibly lovely ceramics. This makes me feel grown-up in a way that useful, practical household stuff could never have done.

Next job is going to be writing thank you letters to all these amazing wonderful friends, of course. But the thing is, I want to thank not just the people who gave us shiny things, but everybody who gave us advice and recommendations and moral support through the wedding planning. And everybody who contributed to the ceremony and the reception. And everybody who dealt with geography and found time in their lives to come and celebrate with us. The shiny dress was nice, being the centre of attention was nice, but getting to see all my friends at once was absolutely amazingly unforgettable.

The thing about marrying someone with no religious affiliation was that we didn't have the support of a community for the wedding. I mean, the several different Jewish communities I'm involved with have been nothing but supportive, but because jack isn't Jewish, they're not actually doing the wedding. In as far as I ever thought about getting married at all, which I didn't plan to do, I vaguely imagined that I'd use the liturgy as it has been established for hundreds of years, rather than having to write our own. But it's not just liturgy; communities provide an officiant, a venue, and quite often many of the practical details such as decorations, music and even food. And when they don't offer that directly, they have a relationship with wedding-related businesses.

Lots of couples these days are secular, of course; some of them take up their right to marry in the Church of England, some of them pay a lot of money to a professional Wedding Planner to take up the functions of a community, some of them rely on families, but that option means you have to put up with your parents' tastes and views of how a wedding should be. (This is yet another reason why we need to equalize marriage: same-sex couples should have access to community support, including religious communities if they're religious.) What we did was turn to DW. Basically, my lovely little corner of the network have been my community for this.
Thank you all so much!

Everyone who congratulated us and cheered us on as we moved through the various stages of getting together, deciding we were in a Relationship, getting engaged, going through the legal formalities of marriage and eventually last month the wedding itself. Everyone who helped us think through the ever-multiplying options and make decisions. Everyone who supported me when I was wibbly about some of the femininity stuff. Everyone who bothered to read all the way through my ridiculously long description of the wedding; I really wish we could have invited all my DW and LJ networks, but at least being able to tell you about it was some consolation.

synecdochic played the role of community leader, both in a quasi-religious sense and in the sense of creating and guiding a space where people can gather to be a supportive community. Thank you for liturgy and vows suggestions, thank you for mentioning the idea of titanium rings, because that developed its own meaning as well as the practical benefit of being able to afford the perfect ring I imagined when I did find it.

Thank you to emma for recommending Gerry Quinton of Morúa as a dressmaker. Gerry was entirely wonderful to do business with, completely understanding about my ignorance of clothes, willing to set up fittings on Sundays and generally fit in with the fact that I'm busy and don't live in the same city. And also entirely wonderful as an artist; she made me a dress that was in fact far more lovely than anything I could have imagined. For all this she charged me about twice as much as I'd have paid for a medium-fancy off-the-peg designer dress, and just a little more than I would have paid for a mass-produced, fairly standard wedding dress made of synthetic fabric and in a design that doesn't suit me (basically all commercially produced wedding dresses when I was shopping were either strapless or that funny asymmetrical one elaborate shoulder and one bare design).

Likewise thank you to naath for recommending us Jolly Dicey, who made jack's outfit. I'd about given up on finding anyone who would make custom-tailored clothes for a man and provide real, clothing quality clothes rather than just stage or steampunk costumes. But again, Kate Dicey was amazing. She was friendly and kind and accommodating, and designed just the perfect outfit, one which coordinated with mine without being too matchy, and suited jack better than pretty much any men's clothing form the last hundred years. And the execution was just at such a high standard I'm almost awed.

blue_mai lent her graphic design expertise and fixed the invitations when they'd become a source of panic and dread. So the invitations lived up to our imagination, and did justice to hatam_soferet's artwork, and most importantly, got sent out in time for most people to be able to make it on the day! That was also partly down to robhu who recommended Cambridge Printers, a most helpful and reasonably priced printing firm.

fivemack found us a ceilidh band who were incredibly talented and helpful.

When it came to the day itself, even more people rallied round to make it wonderful. fishpi did an excellent job as best man, unobtrusively but efficiently getting people into the right places both before and after the ceremony. rysmiel gave a beautiful reading of a contemporary sonnet, written by rozk who very generously gave us permission to use her work in the ceremony.

And then there was the music. That's one of the aspects where I feel impossibly fortunate; I don't know a whole lot about music, and it had slipped down the list of things I needed to organize, and almost up to the last moment I just wasn't sure if it was going to happen. pseudomonas managed to seek out songs set for three voices, partly by being awesome, and partly because siderea gave us the benefit of her early music geekery. Thankyou, siderea, for bringing Adam de la Halle into my life, as well as for making the wedding just that bit extra lovely. And pseudomonas, hatam_soferet and darcydodo contrived to rehearse the pieces (in spite of living in England, the East Coast and the West Coast of the USA). They performed them absolutely beautifully; having my three dear friends from college sing at my wedding was one of the things that made all the effort and uncertainty more than worth it. Apparently some of the guests have been writing to my parents to rhapsodize about how much they loved that bit!

deborah_c was nothing short of the hero of the hour. Firstly she agreed to my eccentric choice of the Pirates of Penzance overture, and practised it even though she is one of the busiest people I know and was working on a major solo during the same time period. But more than that, she forgave me for my complete inability to think through what I wanted or communicate properly, which kind of landed her in a minor crisis at nearly the last minute. And she managed to source her own keyboard and sound system and transported them to the Guildhall, which meant that everything went entirely smoothly even though nobody seemed to know what they were doing in terms of sound tech. Thanks also to ewt for turning pages.

One of the reasons I wanted to have a chuppah, a Jewish-style wedding canopy, was that it creates four "slots" in the ceremony where you can ask friends to be involved, namely by holding the canopy. But on discussion with friends, including hadassah, we decided it wasn't quite appropriate for a non-religious wedding. So I wasn't able to give specific roles to as many of my closest friends as I've have liked. I had considered asking lethargic_man to be the official Objector, but again, decided that was inappropriate and would be more likely to cause offence than be amusing. But thank you so much for being there, lethargic_man, in spite of your philosophical problems with the event. And thanks to doseybat for signing our contract as a witness. And thank you to khalinche for writing me the most touching letter about the wedding, and for being there to smile at me even though I couldn't find a way to honour you directly.

I am not entirely sure who helped out practically at the reception, because one of the things that was so wonderful about it was that people just pitched in and helped, I didn't have to do any organizing. But people I was aware of were kaberett, pplfichi, ceb, shreena and atreic. ETA: And kathrid, apparently you were super-helpful before I got back from the reception! And anyone else I've forgotten or didn't notice helping! Thank you all so much.

Now I come to angelofthenorth and hadassah. I was already more than grateful that they agreed to officiate, which included helping us to design an original and personal yet solemn and meaningful ceremony. But the way things turned out, they not only donated their professional skills, but ended up effectively slotting in to the role of matrons of honour. hadassah encouraged me to go ahead with commissioning an unforgettable dress, and helped me choose the fabric (yes, that breathtaking green is thanks to hadassah being the queen of colour; left to myself I'd have just gravitated towards purple and it wouldn't have been nearly as amazing!) And she gave me sensible sartorial advice so that I looked put together and not ridiculous, and introduced me to the terrifying world of makeup. angelofthenorth talked me down when the makeover touched a sensitive spot and made me a bit panicked, and helped me actually learn how to use the makeup I'd acquired and explained some of the theory of how it works. And devised a really cool hairstyle that was formal but doable within a reasonable timescale.

They both gave up their weekend to help with final preparations on the Saturday, along with their respective husbands. Many, many thanks to gwyddno and Mr Hadassah for taking on a whole load of boring jobs like laying the tables. And thank you to all four of you for calming frayed tempers and making sure all the set-up was as smooth as possible!

On the day itself, they both arrived early to help me get ready, which was very much needed. hadassah offered me the most wonderful wedding present ever: she pressganged her husband, a very talented photographer, into taking photos of the day. And he was stunning, far better than a conventional pro wedding photographer! He took enough pictures to make sure he had a good selection of shots, but without making the whole event revolve around posing. He has an amazingly good eye for slightly artistic, quirky shots as well as portraits which really captured his subjects. And having done all that, he made up the pictures into a truly lovely album, which fits together as a whole and isn't just a collection of boringly similar shots of people in pretty outfits. She also lent me a necklace in colours that just complemented the dress; I hadn't been able to find any suitable jewellery and the neckline is low enough that it needed something to finish it off. angelofthenorth did my hair and makeup as promised, and helped to lace me into the corset when I was too nervous to manage the slightly tricky technique on my own. I think both of them worked together to find a way to put my grandmother's silver hairpiece firmly into my hairdo so that it lasted all day.

I also can't praise enough how they ran the ceremony. I mean, it's not surprising, they're both experienced and talented at leading liturgy, but I am still very grateful that they did such a brilliant job for us! Also, thank you both for inspiring us by the examples of your marriages and your advice as experienced married ladies; I dearly hope we can build a relationship as strong as you have with your husbands!

Then there is hatam_soferet. I can't find words to express how wonderful a gift it is that you created artwork for us! Wanting to commission a piece from hatam_soferet was one of the big reasons why I came down on the side of getting married rather than just making a private commitment to jack. The final piece is beyond any superlatives, but another amazing thing was the process of designing it, all the discussions we had, all the little progress reports she sent as a counter to the stress of last-minute wedding preps, the details that reflect shared history and express so much affection and friendship as well as being incredibly beautiful. I'm near to tears writing this; I can't believe that the rest of our lives are going to be made more shiny by having such a beautiful work of art to look at, reminding us not only of our exciting and joyful wedding, but of the even greater joy of having such a dear friend in our lives.

Comments

[wychwood]

Huzzah! And thank you for inviting me, because I had a marvellous time attending.

(I think kathrid probably deserves a namecheck for above and beyond on setting up the food - he was on that from the moment we arrived (just ahead of your parents!) up until people began actually eating, and did an awful lot of fetching and carrying and getting things ready.)

[kass]

Hooray for all of these joys! I am so glad for y'all.

[hatam_soferet]

*weepy*

[siderea]

You're welcome! I'm so delighted to have been of assistance. I wish you two many years of joy together.

[rysmiel]

The honour was all mine. Thank you for wanting me to be part of such a superlatively awesome ceremony.

*hugs*

[khalinche]

<3

[liv]

Yay, I'm really glad you enjoyed it! And thanks for mentioning kathrid; it's so characteristic of him to be incredibly helpful in such a quiet lurky way that he doesn't get noticed.

[liv]

Thank you!

[liv]

Thank you for everything, dear badger. I toned down the last paragraph really quite a lot, you know.

[liv]

Yay, and thanks again for your good wishes!

[liv]

In my tradition, yes, you totally are doing someone an honour by asking them to take a ceremonial role, but you also thank them for contributing to the event.

Perhaps I could better express it by thanking you for inspiring me. The awesome ceremony owed quite a bit, conceptually, to stories I've heard about your wedding, for one. I don't quite want to say I see you as a relationship role model, but definitely I've learnt a lot from the way you think about relationships, particularly the way you are willing to work well outside standard conventions and your intensely ethical and thoughtful approach.

[liv]

Aww, thanks! Are you doing ok? You sound madly busy judging by Twitter, but I guess you're always madly busy in one way or another.

[rysmiel]

In my tradition, yes, you totally are doing someone an honour by asking them to take a ceremonial role, but you also thank them for contributing to the event.

*hug* I am sorry if my reaction there seemed ungracious, that was not the intent at all

Perhaps I could better express it by thanking you for inspiring me. The awesome ceremony owed quite a bit, conceptually, to stories I've heard about your wedding, for one. I don't quite want to say I see you as a relationship role model, but definitely I've learnt a lot from the way you think about relationships, particularly the way you are willing to work well outside standard conventions and your intensely ethical and thoughtful approach.

It gives me great joy to think that things I have learned and figured out along the way can be passed on and found useful by you. *long hugs*

[khalinche]

I'm more or less OK and will be much more OK once the first and hardest set of my interpretation diploma exams is over tomorrow morning. Or terribly distraught. But probably OK. Thank you for asking. Hope your happiness from the lovely wedding and bringing together of people is still persisting. On reflection, I wish I'd spent more time making an effort to talk to the excellent people there who I *didn't* know, but there were so many excellent people I *did* know that it proved difficult!

[hairyears]

A practical thing about a thank-you post: some people on it, like Jolly Dicey, might well benefit directly from the recommendations.

Mostly, though, it's nice to know who contributed, even if we can't thank them.

[liv]

Definitely; jack made a post specifically about businesses we worked with. And today I agreed to give a testimonial about the marquee hire company (Dragonfly Marquees) to a customer who was thinking of hiring them. But I agree it's nice for some of the guests to know who helped, and especially to link up handles to offline names (without revealing too much to search engines).