Wedding Stuff
When we first decided to get married, Dianna suggested that we should elope, citing the stress of planning a wedding. "How hard can it be?" I foolishly asked. Oh, if only I could go back in time, bitch-slap myself, and go with Dianna to Las Vegas to get married by Elvis.
Actually, it's nowhere near as complicated as other weddings I've been to or heard about. Essentially we're breaking down the work by having Dianna take care of all the decorating, and I'm taking care of planning the ceremony itself. There's a considerable amount of overlap, but she's doing the vast majority of the decorating, because quite frankly it would have NEVER occured to me that we need to have the napkins match the flowers.
But I'm rather enjoying planning the ceremony. I've picked out a couple of good readings, including one by Madeline L'Engle. There will be hymn, and a prayer at the end to make her family happy, but for the most part, it's going to be a decidedly unreligious event. And it looks like we're going to have live music for the ceremony! A few people from her church have volunteered to play instrumental music. (I don't know if this is typical of Mennonites in general, but at her church, it seems like almost everyone can play at least one instrument.) And I'm trying to wrangle someone to sing a Cheryl Wheeler song that we've picked out for part of the ceremony.
We'd been trying to think of a good song to play during this one section, and not coming up with anything. But then a few weeks ago, we saw Cheryl Wheeler live at Green Fire. Neither of us had known much by her, and were really entertained by the show. One song she played was called "Gandhi / Budda", and about half-way through, I turned to Dianna, and whispered "I want to use this song for our wedding". She said that she was just about to say the same thing, so hopefully we can get someone to sing it. If not, would it be weird to play a song from CD during the ceremony?
Anyway, since we're having it at her church, we invited everyone there to come. A number of people had asked if they could help by bringing some food, so it turns out that instead of catering it, we're having the wedding pot-luck style, with most people from the church bringing food. Again, I don't know if this is typical of Mennonites, but her church LOVES pot-lucks.
And since there won't be a DJ or a band for the reception, plus no alcohol, I think we're going to blatantly steal an idea from parilous and sleepvoid and have board games and decks of cards on the tables for entertainment. I'd never seen that done before their wedding, but it went over really well.
In other, non-wedding related news, I'm finished with my spanish class. There was an exam a couple of weeks ago that I thought I had screwed up. Although, in a sign of how much my perspective has changed, I viewed "screwed up" as getting a B- instead of an A. My first time through college, I would have been thrilled with a B-. Anyway, I was disappointed in myself, as that would have brought my grade for the semester down to an A-. But I got it back today, and it turns out I got an A after all. Plus, I got a perfect score on the oral exam. So it all comes down to how I did on the final exam, and I'm pretty confident about that. So I should get an A for the semester.
Actually, it's nowhere near as complicated as other weddings I've been to or heard about. Essentially we're breaking down the work by having Dianna take care of all the decorating, and I'm taking care of planning the ceremony itself. There's a considerable amount of overlap, but she's doing the vast majority of the decorating, because quite frankly it would have NEVER occured to me that we need to have the napkins match the flowers.
But I'm rather enjoying planning the ceremony. I've picked out a couple of good readings, including one by Madeline L'Engle. There will be hymn, and a prayer at the end to make her family happy, but for the most part, it's going to be a decidedly unreligious event. And it looks like we're going to have live music for the ceremony! A few people from her church have volunteered to play instrumental music. (I don't know if this is typical of Mennonites in general, but at her church, it seems like almost everyone can play at least one instrument.) And I'm trying to wrangle someone to sing a Cheryl Wheeler song that we've picked out for part of the ceremony.
We'd been trying to think of a good song to play during this one section, and not coming up with anything. But then a few weeks ago, we saw Cheryl Wheeler live at Green Fire. Neither of us had known much by her, and were really entertained by the show. One song she played was called "Gandhi / Budda", and about half-way through, I turned to Dianna, and whispered "I want to use this song for our wedding". She said that she was just about to say the same thing, so hopefully we can get someone to sing it. If not, would it be weird to play a song from CD during the ceremony?
Anyway, since we're having it at her church, we invited everyone there to come. A number of people had asked if they could help by bringing some food, so it turns out that instead of catering it, we're having the wedding pot-luck style, with most people from the church bringing food. Again, I don't know if this is typical of Mennonites, but her church LOVES pot-lucks.
And since there won't be a DJ or a band for the reception, plus no alcohol, I think we're going to blatantly steal an idea from parilous and sleepvoid and have board games and decks of cards on the tables for entertainment. I'd never seen that done before their wedding, but it went over really well.
In other, non-wedding related news, I'm finished with my spanish class. There was an exam a couple of weeks ago that I thought I had screwed up. Although, in a sign of how much my perspective has changed, I viewed "screwed up" as getting a B- instead of an A. My first time through college, I would have been thrilled with a B-. Anyway, I was disappointed in myself, as that would have brought my grade for the semester down to an A-. But I got it back today, and it turns out I got an A after all. Plus, I got a perfect score on the oral exam. So it all comes down to how I did on the final exam, and I'm pretty confident about that. So I should get an A for the semester.