Wedding Luck

A family member, upon hearing one of my wedding colors was green, said "Oh, green is unlucky for weddings." That was intriguing. I know white came into fashion for wedding dresses during the age of Queen Victoria and it's supposed symbol of purity/evil spirit deterrent. I know that before that girls simply wore their best dress (whatever color it happened to be). I also know blue was popular for brides and the last vestiges of that are in our somethings old, new, borrowed and blue. Green being unlucky was new to me.

Green is the color of shamrocks it should never be unlucky. I investigated and read that historically if you had green on your dress it was from rolling in the grass. Nobody wanted a loose woman who'd been rolling in the grass. Surely, your marriage would be rocky with her. What a silly, silly idea. I can't believe anyone in this day and age has even heard it.

I think I'll take my chances with green. Apparently pins are unlucky too. Isn't that wild? I read that I should throw every bobby pin I use that day in the trash. What a waste. Most of these silly things have no roots I can find and are good luck and bad luck depending on who you ask.

Here's a few I never heard before:

1. Wearing Pearls:This myth has both good and bad luck meaning. Some believe that wearing pearls represents future tears, bringing potential trouble and tears to the marriage, thus being negative. Whereas some believe that by wearing pearls, they replace the bride’s real tears and she will have a happy, tearless wedding.
2. The Bride Making her Own Dress:this is considered to be a negative myth as it was believed that for brides that made their own dresses she would shed one tear for each stitch she made.
3. Dropping the Wedding Ring:To drop the ring during the ceremony was seen to shake out any hiding evil spirits, therefore be lucky. However another version is that dropping the ring gave the ominous sign that whoever dropped it would be the first to die.
4. Crying on the Wedding Day:It is considered good luck for the bride to cry during her wedding, this means that she will have no more tears left and will not need any for the duration of her marriage. In the olden days a bride’s tears were a sign of good luck to the future crops.

The list goes on and on. It's understandable on such a nerve wracking occasion people cling to silly things like this to calm themselves. Everything will be fine if I wear the right color and get married at the right time, etc. I think it's like when I was a kid I'd get nervous when I had to turn on lights in dark rooms. I decided no monsters could get me if I flipped the switch with my back to the room. I think it's just something to occupy your racing mind and soothe the nerves.

Who knew one ritual would have so much superstition attached to it. Better not meet a pig on the way to the church, sign my married name before the wedding or get married as the minute hands are moving downward. I think I'll survive and not just because I don't live in a rural area with pigs or plan to change my name. I already know what married life is like. The commitment is there and as for the number of tears shed we've got a lot of happiness coming our way.

The Diamond Standard

My engagement ring is not a Tiffany's diamond solitaire. That was not me. Budget aside, Michael would never have picked out something in a jewelry store case and walked away. I told him I wanted an emerald and being the modern couple we are, we shopped together. We picked out the perfect loose stone together. A round cut, natural emerald from South America. It was just the right shade and imperfectly perfect.

When I showed co-workers the kind of ring I wanted they were shocked. "Don't you want a diamond?!?" Well, there will be smallish diamonds flanking the emerald I'd explain, but they would still looked at me like I had two heads. Beyond a few comments from people who didn't know me well I didn't get a lot of heat on the ring choice. Some of my other choices, like my move across the country live with Mike and his preschool age son caused a stir. There was talk about how long we had been together and "engaged" without a ring, for sure. Once I had the ring nobody complained.

I didn't think it mattered that much when I got it or what it looked like. I wanted a tangible symbol of the promise, but I had time. I had lots of patience until I had a baby. Once I was his soul mate, co-parent, girlfriend, room mate AND the mother of his child I needed the ring. Whether it was social pressure to be perceived a certain way or do things the "right way" or just validation and reassurance that I needed, I needed the ring now.

By the time Riley was 3mo old I was not so subtly hinting that I wanted the ring. If it were truly a pure symbol of commitment I shouldn't have needed it so badly, I knew Mike wasn't going anywhere. If it were purely a tangible sign of commitment why would anyone care whether it was a diamond or not? The idea of having diamond engagement rings came from a De Beers ad campaign in 1938. I don't know about you, but when I hear stuff like that I feel like a huge tool. Capitalism has it's claws pretty deep in a lot of wedding "tradition."

In Offbeat Bride the author points out that while the ring is a symbol of commitment on the surface it's also a status symbol. I know I heard at least one "Can't he afford a diamond?" comment. Is that the purpose of an engagement ring? To prove your future spouse is flush (or foolish enough to go into debt to make everyone think so). I know when I visited my dad after the official proposal (not making this up) he got out a jeweler's loop. My ring however unconventional, passed inspection.

Bottom line, why shouldn't we pick any stone, metal, material that means something to us? It represents an incredibly intimate and personal promise. It's ridiculous to expect the tangible manifestation of that promise to always look the same. All politics aside I think diamonds are pretty, but there is such a spectrum of beauty out there. Follow your heart and as an added bonus say damn the man to the diamond corporations.

Accessorizing the Bride

I'm thinking about something like this:

It's a little big, but it's the right style. I was originally thinking pearls. I know how conformist of me, right. Sue me. Something like this:

I love pearls they're so classic and girlly. I also love a little sparkle and the bling on this one's appropriately nature inspired. I suppose I should wait for a look at my custom bling on the wedding dress before I make any decisions though. I'm starting to wonder if I couldn't DIY one of these.

I still love this head piece:

The good news is it'll go much better with my new dress than the one I was going to wear. It's also very Midsummer Night's Dream since it was set in Athens. I'm pretty sure I'll find an excuse to wear it long after the wedding too. Trust me, I was the girl who randomly wore a tiara or cat ears from middle school through college whenever I felt like it.

My shoes were easy. Not being able to walk in heels and wearing kid size shoes really narrows the selection. I'm going to dye them champagne to match my dress.

I know I'll sport these long after the event if they're still in on piece too. I adore ballet slippers (and anything ballerina related.

Also, on unrelated note I started to wonder if I'd made the right choose for the bridesmaids dress not that my own dress is so ethereal I love everything about, but I've worried from the beginning about a dupioni silk dress for an outdoor wedding in April. Florida weather is so unpredictable. I've looked around a little and I don't like anything as much as the one I originally picked. I hope the fact their tea length is enough to keep my girls cool. I have a feeling no other choice will measure up.

Let Them Eat Cake!

I'm very excited about our wedding cake. Our own piece of edible art at the reception. Orbiting this sweet centerpiece are quite a few odd traditions. Saving the top tier for the first anniversary, sleeping with a piece under your pillow, mini-me bride and groom a top it...weird, weird.

As with most wedding traditions it stems from you guessed it, fertility. Bread in your belly equals future buns in the oven? In ancient Rome those party animals used to break bread over the bride's head. "History tells us that breaking the bread symbolized the breaking of the bride's virginal state and the subsequent dominance of the groom over her." The frat boys of the ancient world those, Romans.

I can't remember which one because I've seen them all, but in some wedding movie I watched someone was instructed to sleep with a piece of wedding cake under her pillow so she would dream of her future husband. I thought it was a joke, but it's really "a thing" as Liz Lemon would say. In fact, "In the late 18th century this notion led to the curious tradition in which brides would pass tiny crumbs of cake through their rings and then distribute them to guests who could, in turn, place them under their pillows. The custom was curtailed when brides began to get superstitious about taking their rings off after the ceremony."

You can't make this stuff up! Or maybe you could...How many bloggers claiming something was good luck on your wedding day would it take to ingrain it into cultural lure? Food for thought. I digress, the cutting of the cake is supposed to represent the first task the bride and groom perform together. Personally, I love a cake cutting, but isn't the first dance a better symbol for teamwork and togetherness? Heck, isn't throwing a wedding quite the joint venture?

Not to go all Augustus Gloop on ya, but saving cake for later isn't something that fills me with joy. Eating cake that's been in the freezer for a year, also not thrilling. Yet, somehow this is quite the tradition. Apparently, it started as a way to have a pretty tiered cake for the wedding and than use the top tier at the christening (roughly a year later, idealy). Waste not want not I suppose.

As for the mini-mes they are a relatively new edition to the wacky cake traditions party. They became popular in the 1920's which seems fitting for some reason. I can't find any big reason behind making tiny versions of the bride and groom stand on top of a cake, but apparently departments stores helped popularize the idea. I think we should stand a mini version of ourselves on all of our deserts to keep other people from eating them.

I promise to write about our actual wedding cake design soon, but for now I hope your were at least as entertained by all this silliness as I was.

I Found "The One"!

No, not Michael. The dress. The dress that filled me with with anticipation and made me never want to look at another wedding dress for as long as I live. I'm head-over-heels this time for sure.

Mine will be champagne not white and I'm swapping the rose for something else. Any suggestions? I though maybe something sparkly and green, but I haven't found anything I like. I'm completely open to suggestions...

I love the top so much better than the other one. It's light and flowy. I think the fairies will approve. It'll be pretty to dance in and I love the little bit of lace around the hem. I can't wait to actually put it on.

I was right not to settle it's going to be amazing.

Couple Shoot in the Park

Lara kindly offered to take some recent photos of Mike and I since we don't have any. Anyone, who has browsed my tabs and scrolled through the US section knows the most recent picture of us together was late 2009. Sad, especially since Mike lost a lot of weight and I have enough time for hair and make-up again!

Here's some of the inspiration shots I sent her:

Natur-y, pretty lighting, and not taking itself to seriously was my goal. So, we shot a bunch of pictures tonight and an hour ago the teaser pictures arrived in my email! Hurray for instant gratification through technology!

Lara Coughlin Photography

Lara Coughlin Photography

Well worth the heat and obscene amount of mosquito bites. Florida brides doing outdoor sessions in summer after alot of rain, bring Off! I feel bad for all the sweat stains she'll be editing out tonight. It was fun though and went by very quickly.

We were going to do it in the late afternoon, but pushed it back due to the weather. So, by the time we got there I felt like Trixie madly chasing the sunbeam. It did mean witnessing and snapping a few shots of sunset, which is always a plus. It was a nice way to end a Saturday.

The Rest Of Our Pictures

A Woman's Prerogative

What's that you say? Enough about the boring and practical, let's have a dress update. The status of the dress is complicated. You see, I thought I was all set in that department had a clear idea of where alterations were headed and the ball was rolling. As it turns out, I changed my mind.

I have a long list of practical and emotional reasons for doing so, but in the end I just changed my mind. I no longer want to make this:

Into something more like this:

It's a beautiful dress. It's what I thought I wanted 4 years ago, but not now. It's so formal and heavy. It's conservative and just not different enough for me. The idea of two dresses so that I could keep the original and still use my wheelchair was exciting, but ultimately didn't sit right with me. It's a Midsummer Night's Dream themed fairy infused botanical garden wedding. As I picked out headpieces and jewelry I realized they didn't go with my dress. That is not an outdoor fairy-esque dress. I don't think any amount of alterations could make it something it's not.

I want something light and flowy. Something less restricting and likely to trip me. Something I can easily sit or stand in. Something like this:

I love the messy two toned layers in the skirt. Now this exact dress is well beyond my means and discontinued by the designer. I have been searching sites where you can find used wedding dresses and looking around in general for something similar. The problem is it's so different that there is nothing similar. So, I enlisted help and polled the DIY boards looking for suggestions. I even contacted some costume designers. I'm sure now and absolutely in love so I'll figure out how to have my dream dress (for Waaaaaaaay less), mark my words.