you know who.

“THEY”.  the ubiquitous “they”, the experts all around you chiming in.

how tough it is.

how great it is.

how much you struggle to communicate (or, more simply, fight).

how easy it is because you are still in that “honeymoon phase” (side note: phrases talking about phases make me…hurl.  and wish that i could find a word that rhymes with “phases” that means “vomit”.)

the challenges unique to the first year of marriage: adjusting homes, habits, expectations, disappointments.

how important communication is.

how important communication is.

how important communication is.

are you sensing a pattern of advice here?

i’d have to say, after a year of this marriage thing, that on this multiple choice question about what marriage is like, i’d select answer (E).   All of the Above.

it’s all of these things, and then none of these things, because things feel palpably different with us now than it did a year ago and we feel as though it’s been a fairly unsteady year externally (choosing entirely diverging career paths from what one has intended for years can throw you (and the person tasked with unfurrowing your brow and peeling you off the bathroom floor) for a little loop.)

things are different.

and good.

and challenging.

and still exciting at times.

mundane at times.

all of the above.

and i do still like him on idle tuesdays, when it’s hot and i’m bored around 3pm and the dished have piled up and we can’t think of anything good to do.

that was important to me.

liking him on idle tuesdays.

but, i think the really REAL things in life, the priceless things, the sure things that become really just a part of our identity…they are the most difficult to describe in words.

we just don’t have the language to contain it.

(it’s partly how i know i’m so amazed by something; the word amazement doesn’t even cross my mind — i’m quite speechless.)

this is how it is with the boy, on our first anniversary.

so, there’ll be more wedding anniversary-related fun this week for you to read about, but i leave you with this for now:

this is an email i wrote to the boy exactly 3 years to the day before our wedding.  it’s as relevant now as it’s ever been, a wonderment about the exciting adventure before us:

What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon?  And the day after that, and the next thirty years?”

– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

*    *    *    *    *

we still don’t know the answer to that, but i am quite certain of the person who’ll be beside me.

(images from our wonderful photographers: 1, 2, 3)

so you can imagine what i’m busy doing right now:

garlands
presents
caterers
calling
customer service
post office
hair
shoes
moving
rsvps
make-up
pictures
music
meetings
dress
fitting
flowers
gym
boxes
returning things
rolling silverware
terrariums
polaroids
bachelorette parties

you know, stuff.

in some life, i would like to have chronicled each step of this fun crazy process, detailed my projects, gave sneak peeks of my shoes.

but not this one, apparently.  i’m too busy to write about it.  and honestly?  i’m enjoying my days rather than worry about documenting them to reflect on later.

i’m okay with that.

but in seven more days…

love.

if you have known me longer than 2 weeks, you know my affinity towards polaroid film.  with this, i way live up to my hipster street cred.  i own five of them, and a long time ago the lovely paradigm girls gifted me my polaroid mio.

they no longer make the mio, but they do make the fuji instax 210 camera (which i also really, really REALLY want for many reasons, not least of which is the wide format.  did i mention REALLY?  all caps?), and my mio take fuji instax film.  thankfully, while the impossible project folks figured out how to make polaroid again, i have not been devoid of my beloved instant lo-fi film.

when we got our engagement pictures taken by the lovely jannelle (who you will remember from the last post i wrote), she was more than happy to take pictures with my cara mio.  i scanned them in, tweaked the color just a tad and added my favorite vintage-looking rounded corners, and voila.  lo-fi love.

bluebirds, lovebirds.

he’s awfully cute.

“love, love here we are.”  — pablo neruda

we registered for gifts.   or, well, we registered for part of our gifts.  as it turns out, trying to figure out what you have, what you need, and what goes where with what and how…takes a lot of energy and more time than one evening.  but we are well on our way.

we got the design of our invitations finalized (after much delay from me who was a little busy to work on the copy) and ready to print/mail this week.

with the incredible generosity of my friends who came to my bridal shower, i also was able to buy a couple of things i had been needing for awhile as well as a few cute additions to the clothes i picked out for our engagement photos.

which were also this weekend.

we spent a windy (thankfully, it died down a little) and mostly sunny afternoon on saturday taking photos with our friend, and fantastic photographer, jannelle.  i’ve known jannelle forever, and liked her own personal style as well as her photography style for some time.  she composes pictures well, she edits well, and she’s generally a fantastic person overall.  but, i wondered if it would feel strange to get my picture taken for hours (not my idea of the best time ever), particularly by a friend?

nope.  nada.  nyet.  jannelle is really great at that too.  it more felt like we were on a fun adventure with cute outfits and happened to have someone taking some pictures of us along the way.  she has great ideas, is open and spontaneous to new locations and options, and will also help you move 30 reference books at the library to a new shelf in order to get a great shot.

or maybe that’s just if you happen to want your pictures done in a library, because you’re nerds.   i don’t know anything about that, really, but i bet if you were in a library and taking pictures, jannelle would haul heavy books, take a picture with your polaroid camera, take the cutest pictures you’d ever seen, and then edit them brilliantly.   because that’s just how she rolls.

you know, hypothetically speaking.

ooooh, pearls.

lots of them.

i could pull this off, right?

and oversized?

even better.

because we all know

that i don’t do dainty.

Tagged: that wedding thing ]]> http://thesaradarling.com/2010/03/26/wedding-inspiration-jewelry/feed/ 2 sara, darling michelle obama pearls banana republic pearl necklace etsy necklace http://thesaradarling.com/2010/02/09/decision-2010/ http://thesaradarling.com/2010/02/09/decision-2010/#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:14:07 +0000 sara http://thesaradarling.com/?p=1441 ]]> no, it’s not for government office.

it’s EVEN MORE IMPORTANT than that.

it’s about my wedding ceremony shoes, people.

here are the two frontrunners thus far:

shoe A

OR

shoe B

vote now!

democracy!

american idol!

text your vote!

(okay, don’t really text your vote.  or, you can, just to amuse me while i’m at school with all those bright minds hanging on my every word gleaning my infinite knowledge…because we know that’s TOTALLY what’s happening.)

rock the vote!

WEDDING SHOES 2010.

dear delightfully perfect wedding reception shoes,

you arrived at my wintry home today.

cheers!

i’m sad that we won’t see much of each other for awhile.

stay safe in my closet until june.

but don’t feel neglected — there’s quite the party waiting for you.

love,

sara

they’re looking pretty fantastic, if i do say so myself.  and although i realize that the majority of people who get these cards won’t actually get the reference, it makes me very happy.

i acknowledge the temptation to abbreviate or acronymize (yep, i worded that) commonly used phrases or terms, but can i just vote that the abbreviation of “Save the Dates” on wedding blogs NOT be referred to as “STDs”?

it makes me feel just a little too icky about informing people of my wedding.

cordially, and with more handwashing,

sara

you should meet her for so many reasons, least of which are that she is an amazing hairstylist and makeup artist, has impeccable style, transforms her home into a crazy christmas grotto every holiday season, and has a delightfully british husband.

she is also an amazing friend, the kind that would help orchestrate a fantastic engagement.

like mine.

prologue:
people ask me all the time if i was surprised by my engagement. i always say the same thing: yes and no. i have a long-running belief that a woman should never be totally surprised by her engagement. what i mean is, she should be at the place where you have talked about it and know that it’s the right time and the right person, and not have to think those things through while the man in question is offering you something sparkly whilst kneeling in front of you. at the same time, however, it should have an element of mystery and anticipation to it. it shouldn’t feel like you are signing a contract and just putting things down on paper.

(it occurs to me that this may be a longer story. go get a snack, i’ll wait until you get back. there? good.)

so.

the boy and i had always talked about getting married, but in the sense of “maybe if we get married [insert whatever inane topic we were discussing, like how much cool stuff we'd have or that i'd never have to buy wall art again]“. in the fall of this year, however, that discussion turned to “when we get married…”; the change of one word leads to volumes of meaning. we were settled. right person, right time, right right. good, yes?

yes…good, and then CRAZY.

see, two things happened when i finally realized that the idea of getting married didn’t make me want to hyperventilate (which took awhile). i found that in the absence of abject fear, i had (gulp!) a lot of excitement about this prospect. and then i discovered this thing called “the internet”. ohhhhh, the internet and all of it’s wedding ideas/blogs/pictures/flotsam/jetsam. once i was sure about this marriage flight plan, i realized that i was nutsy crazy excited about throwing a party.

i needed to share with someone the nuttiness that had overtaken my life.  enter meg, stage left.  meg is in my lovely circle of friends who had been tracking this relationship from the beginning, so this was not news to her or to any of them.  so, as the days of september and october moved along, i would keep meg updated as to how i was talking myself down from the “when will he propose?!!” ledge.  see, i wanted it to happen in a timeframe that would suit us both, but i also knew the boy wanted to get married next summer, and that these things take time to plan.  i also wanted to be engaged for the holidays, because how fun would that be?  silly girl.

so while meg was telling me that she was also talking to the boy (during his regular haircuts) and that the boy was definitely prepared but was also in the midst of a rather busy season (which is true), meg and the boy were plotting the engagement.

so i’m thinking that maybe this will happen in late december or january, and was making myself be prepared for such a time frame, or even later.  when i mentioned anything having to do with getting married or weddings, the boy (playing it cool) would just respond “yeah, that sounds good”, very noncommittal.

oh, what fun they had fooling me, who is not easily fooled.  me, who seems to notice everything, uncovers secrets, and is terribly nosy.  me, who thought FOR SURE i would know what was happening, and then have to pretend i didn’t.

yeah.

so.

a few weeks before the proposal, the boy and i were looking over calendars for the next month to plan out meetings/events/whathaveyou.  he looked at the calendar and said that he wanted to take me out for a date since we hadn’t gone on an official date in awhile, and he wanted to surprise me.  to which i replied “i bet you are starting to take me out on dates so that when you propose it won’t seem out of the ordinary”, somewhat in jest.  he indicated that perhaps he was doing that very thing.

then, over the next week meg advised that my hair was looking terribly long and was in sore need of her skills (it actually wasn’t).  i agreed, because we always agree with meg about tonsorial suggestions.  she said she’d see if she had any openings, and would i like her to call me?  yes, i would.  she ended up calling because she had a “cancellation” (read: she plotted to have me get my hair cut/styled in anticipation of said engagement event).  the boy also advised that his mom just decided to come down and see his art show before it closed.

so on saturday, november 7th, i got my hair cut, had lunch with the boy and his half-sister, and got ready for our date, which i was told was at a nicer place, so wear a dress.  he took me to the fine arts center, a favorite location of ours but where i had never eaten, and we had a lovely quiet dinner.  then, after dinner we were going to leave and he decided he wanted to go walk around this long glass corridor they have just to poke around.  i agreed, because our friend was getting married there the next week and i wanted to see what it would look like.  as we near the end of the hall, i realize that the museum part is closed and we can’t go anywhere else.  i said something to that effect, and the boy replied that it didn’t matter, because he had a question to ask me.

and this is where everything gets blurry.

the question.

heart pounding.

THE. QUESTION.

surely he wasn’t kidding.  was he kidding?  no, because meg just told me that he was only about to get ready to start planning.  but here he is.  he’s kneeling; there’s something shiny in his hand.  he’s talking…and saying lovely things that i can’t seem to understand or remember.

yeah, that’s pretty much how it was going in my head.

so anyway, i, in my always elegantly cool way, say “really??” instead of “yes!”, but he got the idea.

and then the security guard kicked us out.

not kidding.   we obviously look like hoodlums.

so, as we’re driving away, we’re chatting about how he talked to my parents a few weeks ago, and how he was planning this, and all that.  i’m chatting away giddily, assuming we’re just going back to his house.

until we miss the turn to his house.

mid-sentence i say “where the heck are we going?”

he brings me to our favorite restaurant/cafe/bar, shuga’s, and i can see my parents in the window.   i’m excited, because this is totally what i wanted — to have a quiet private engagement, but then get to celebrate with my family and maybe a few close friends and tell them all in person, show the ring around, all that instead of by phone.

i walk in, see my parents and his family…and then see our friends.  one by one, i recognize faces that i love.  later someone asked me if i cried when the boy proposed.  i didn’t, actually, but when i saw the face of my friend sarah and realized all of my favorite people were in one room for this moment, i did.  more faces, and more friends.  friends from here.  close friends from denver.  one of my closest girlfriends from denver.  as i’m reeling from this assemblage of people i love, hugging them and saying hello, more friends come in from craig, his hometown 5 hours away.  his “adopted family”, all of whom i love, and more of our friends from here.

it was 30 of some of our absolutely favorite people there to celebrate with us.

swoon.  he did well.

pretty much everyone has seen the lovely ring, but here it is anyway:

the perfect match for our collective style: vintage & modern.

so that’s the story. and it only took me a month after to post it!  …i’ve been a little busy.  as it turns out, once you get engaged, there are a million things to do and enjoy on top of, you know, my regular school life and finals and all that.  but, i enjoy it all.  it’s a lovely time being engaged, and (nearly) everyone has been so excited and happy to be a part of it all and surround us with love…i honestly have been taken aback by the generosity and energy of our friends.  their presence in my life is never undervalued currency for me.

but now, NOW, now i can post about all the glorious and less than glorious wedding planning flotsam and jetsam, along with all my normal drivel as well.    let the wild rumpus begin!