Wedding on the Edge

The Sea Was Angry That Day, My Friends....

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 14:13:00 +0000

...like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli.

A sneak peek of our wedding on the edge. More to come...

We Did It!

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 14:52:00 +0000

We did it! We tied the knot!

(Come back in a couple weeks for gorgeous photographs from our photographer. And in the meantime, visit our Wedding on the Edge Facebook page to share your own pictures from our wedding!)

Come on, Irene!

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 16:14:00 +0000

Hurricane Irene touched down in the Outer Banks, NC, at around 7 AM this morning, with intense winds and heavy rain that could throw quite a hurricane-sized kink into our wedding plans twenty days from now.

Jeff and I are keeping our eyes on the news and waiting to hear from the realtor and our vendors over the next few days as they assess the damage. Though this is a large storm, we are cautiously optimistic that we'll be able to hold our wedding as planned on September 16. But just in case things don't go perfectly smoothly, we'd like to ask our wedding guests to stay in touch with us via email and to check out this blog for updates and information as we get closer to the Big Day.

Thank you all for your love and support! And keep your fingers crossed!

Let's Find Out....

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:01:00 +0000

What to Wear to Our Wedding

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:50:00 +0000

Never been to a (Pagan) beach wedding? Neither have we! So we did some googling to find out what kind of attire all those "experts" out there recommend for our Big Day on the threshold. Below you'll find some basic Do's and Don't's that we've discovered in our research.

Wedding Attire Do's

Definitely do wear whatever you want! We don't care! We want you to feel comfortable and relaxed so that you can enjoy celebrating our wedding with us. Most of what follows are tips and suggestions to help you plan and prepare, but they're not hard and fast rules. We strongly believe in the come-as-you-are (because-you-are-awesome) philosophy of wedding day style.

Do embrace the casual, playful spirit of our wedding! Sundresses, khakis, hippie skirts, even Hawaiian shirts are all a'okay! Bright, fun colors are encouraged — they'll stand out beautifully against the sand and the sky in our wedding pictures.

Do dress comfortably in loose, light clothing that breathes well (such as cotton or linen). You'll feel more at ease in clothes that move with the breeze and keep you cool at the same time.

Do remember that you'll be walking in sand! Treat your feet with care. Now's your chance to break out those adorable sandals or fly flipflops you love. Flats, casual shoes and even bare feet are all appropriate, too.

Do be prepared for the elements. Hats and sunglasses will protect you from the sun and keep you from glaring while we're exchanging our vows. A shawl, wrap, shrug or casual jacket will be helpful if the ocean breeze gets a bit too chilly. Whatever you wear, make sure it can stand up to sand, sun and a bit of salt spray.

Wedding Attire Don'ts

Definitely don't feel pressured to go out and buy a whole new outfit for our wedding! We are all about the eco-friendly principles of the three Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle. (It even took some convincing to get Ali to buy a new wedding dress, instead of just wearing a dress she already had!) We promise to be pleased and proud if we notice you wearing that favorite skirt you've worn a thousand times before, or that faithful button-down shirt you wear to the office every week. Your care for the earth will help to make our wedding day all the more special!

Don't wear or carrying small or expensive items (such as jewelry, cosmetics, cell phones, etc.) that could easily be dropped or lost in the sand. That would be sad! And also, it's littering. (If you need to carry such items with you, avoid large, clunky bags. Try something small, light-weight and, ideally, with a zipper to keep it safely closed.)

Don't wear heels, please! We would be heartbroken if you turned an ankle!

For more information and wedding day details, check out the For Our Guests page!

Oh Yes, It's Jeff

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 01:38:00 +0000

42!

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Well, we have forty-two days to go until the wedding (and only ten days left to RSVP!), and things are moving right along in more ways than one. This past week we made the final reservations for our honeymoon — two weeks of camping out west in Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks with a short but sweet stay in a Santa Fe B&B — and we also received our first official wedding presents (thank you!) from our main gift registry with REI, a nonprofit co-op for camping and outdoor gear. We're nailing down last minute details with our vendors, finishing designing our ceremony and writing our vows, and figuring out "plan B" alternatives in case of inclement weather (because it's always when you're well prepared for disaster that things end up going perfectly!).

Non-wedding-related life has been a bit crazy as well, with unexpected business trips and happy holiday visits with dear friends, birthdays and beach vacations for the kids and an early start to their homeschooling year. Jeff and I are working to keep our heads above water and de-stress as much as we can with our yoga and running — not to mention get-togethers with our friend, Arthur, for marathons of Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica.

It's still hard to believe that in only forty-two days, we'll be married. I have to admit, although I was always adamant about having a year-long engagement (not too short, not too long, or so I thought), I think a full year's worth of wedding planning is about as much as I can take. And since we've been unofficially planning this wedding since about March 2010 — I'm about four months past burn-out. I could be quite happy never to hear the words "wedding planning" used together in the same sentence ever again.

Still, I am psyched about the actual getting married part. Jeff — who doesn't much like ritual or public speaking — is a bit worried that he'll be too overwhelmed for the ceremony to be really meaningful for him. I know what he means, but personally, I'm a bit worried that it'll be too meaningful and we'll both end up crying like babies. We have a tendency to do that. (We cried when he proposed, we cried when our custom wedding bands arrived, we even cried when we first sat down together back in March 2010 to talk seriously about saving money for an engagement.)

But whatever happens during the ceremony itself, I'm looking forward to being a wife. I'm looking forward to settling back down into the simple, daily process of living our lives together in partnership, now with that promise of commitment and community support and love behind us. (It helps that my side of the family got to meet Jeff's lovely kids at the engagement party back in June, and are hopefully now a little more reassured that I'm not stepping into a dysfunctional family situation.... or at least, no more dysfunctional than most!) I've heard from some brides that it's easy to get so caught up in the excitement and busyness of wedding planning, that returning to "ordinary life" afterwards can feel like a bit of a let-down. But I for one could use a bit of down-time right about now, with only a little more than a month to go. (True confessions: I am really really excited about the honeymoon! Nothing like a desert night sky full of unbelievable stars stretching off into infinity to help you recover from the mundane hustle and bustle, eh?)

In the meantime, there is something all you lovely people can do to help me chillax a bit over the next month. Be sure to check back here for updates, especially regarding helpful info about the ceremony and reception. We're doing things Druish-style! And that makes me a bit nervous that people won't know what to expect. That's what this blog (and our guest "wedsite") is here for, to keep you all in the loop so we can all relax, kick back and enjoy ourselves on that special day!

Oh, and if you haven't RSVPed yet — there's no time like the present!

Gowns of Green

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 21:18:00 +0000

It seems only a few months ago that I was having a minor breakdown about trying to find an eco-friendly wedding dress. (Oh, wait! It was!) Googling the subject to take a look at my options, I seemed to find a lot of websites that recommended things like: buy a used dress, or buy a dress you can wear more than once! Really? If I asked you where I could buy sustainably-made tee-shirts, and you told me, "Just buy a regular tee-shirt, and wear it more than once!" ...I would probably point out to you that that's not really "eco-friendly," so much as just not conspicuous consumption. Wear clothes more than once? Well, duh.

Then, of course, there were the dresses made from organic hemp and cotton, or sustainable raw silk... These mostly looked like they were constructed out of cardboard and guilt. But every once in a while you'd find a few that were absolutely gorgeous, in the "more suitable to a Paris runway in the FUTURE than a casual beach wedding" sort of way — with a price tag that agreed.

So time passed, and I was beginning to panic. Then I went through that blissful stage when you shrug your shoulders and pretend like the problem doesn't exist at all. ("Maybe we could go skyclad after all," I thought to myself. "I mean, are we Pagan, or are we Pagan, am I right?" And the little voice in my head would reply back, "Um... we're more, you know, Druish than Pagan, really, and kinda shy, and our parents will be there, and it could be chilly, maybe, and we still need to lose some of that winter weight, and, and... remember, Druids are all about the white gowns, don't forget, right? Please don't make us go skyclad.") This went on for a month or so, while I was busy with other things.

Then one day, Jeff and I were out at the local Panera, which is right near the local bookstore, which is where we like to spend a lot of our time. The bookstore happens to be across the street from a department store which I've set foot in maybe twice in the six or seven years I've lived in this city. But on this particular and particularly special day, something in my poor wedding-sick brain snapped... and I turned to my lovely groom and said, "Want to go in and see if they have any white dresses on sale?"

So we did. And they did. And I got a cute little summer dress made from all-natural materials for less than $50, perfect for a Pagan beach wedding, and casual enough that I can most definitely wear it again (and again and again!). I think we can count that as a solid 2.5 on our Two Outta Three rating system.

I won't spoil the surprise by sharing any pictures of the dress — but rest assured, my parents have seen it, and agree that it "suits me" quite well. So while I don't recommend that you go out and buy your wedding dress from a random department store after months of panic and denial, I have to say: Stress-Driven Shopping Spree For the Win!

Just for fun, though, here are a few examples of what my wedding dress most definitely does not look like, but which are pretty kickass nonetheless:

From "Weedrobes" by Canadian environmental artist, Nicole Dextras

The "Robe Vegetale" wedding dress by Patrick Blanc

The "Sprinkle Dress" by Italian designer Linda Schailon

Gift

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 23:07:00 +0000

Yesterday our very first wedding gift arrived!

All over the world, gifts are the glue that hold societies together. Gifts are given to create new relationships, and strengthen existing ones, and sometimes — as with an engagement ring — to mark a change in the kind of relationship. Somehow, the arrival of this first wonderful gift makes our wedding seem even more real. After all, a wedding is about the union of families, the binding of community, as much as it is about two individuals.

The word gift comes from Proto Indo European ghabh, "to exchange", which descended into Proto Germanic as giftiz and Old Norse as gift or gipt; the Norse used it to mean both "gift" and "good luck". In Old English, giftiz became gift as well, but only referred to a dowry (bride-price); but in Middle English the Norse meaning was borrowed. Among the Germanic tribes, kings were chiefly esteemed by their gift-giving: the more wonderful gifts they could bestow on their followers, the greater their honor and prestige. It was the same with their gods: Odin, for example, had a magic ring called Draupnir, "dripper", which dropped eight golden rings every ninth night. This gift-giving was a custom similar to that of the potlatch of the tribes of the American Northwest.

Spiritually, gift is such an essential concept that the sound 'g' is associated with gift-giving. The word gift specifically indicates an offering which is raised up, held poised, and then released, free to follow its own path.

Why

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:08:00 +0000

An ancient word, from Proto Indo European quei, literally "at whom?" Related to what, who, and where. In Proto Germanic it became khwi, and in Old English hwi, the instrumental case of hwaet ("what"). Hwi could be used to mean "why" or "how", but as how became more popular, why came to mean only "for what reason"? Spiritually, the word indicates a willful energy initiating thought, mind, art.

I was poking around on a forum the other day, and someone asked for feedback on why a man would get married in 2011. After all, a man no longer has to actually get married to get many of the traditional benefits of marriage: a loving partner, children, solid family life... For that matter, the same is true for women. At least, this was the argument put forward.

I feel like the answer is obvious. I’m getting married for two reasons: (1) because I'm committed to Alison, and I want to codify and set that commitment in a way that goes beyond simple words, beyond easy promises -- I want ritual, and oath, to show my devotion and loyalty. And (2) because a marriage is not just a private contract between two people, but a social act — one that involves the recognition and support of the entire community. When we marry, we will perform a ritual of commitment that is witnessed by our families and friends, and that means a lot to us. We’re literally asking you to share our joy with us, and to recognize that we consider each other to be family.

What Do You Get When Two Introverts Go Traveling?

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Sun, 29 May 2011 19:46:00 +0000

Lots of pictures of each other, but no pictures together!

Oh, well. Our awesome wedding photographer will make up for that in September!

And since I don't think we've shared a picture of him on this blog yet, and he is most displeased with our oversight.... Here is a picture of a very important family member, indeed:

Cu Gwyn, The Best Cat Ever

Cu says, "All Ur Windowsill R Belong to Us!"

Fiancé, Fiancée, Betrothed

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff) — Fri, 20 May 2011 22:39:00 +0000

The Proto Indo Europeans of the Asian steppe had a word, bheidh, meaning "advise, encourage, command", much the same as its rather stuffy-sounding English descendant bid (as in "He bade me come inside," "I will do as you bid"). The word came into Latin as fidare, "to trust", from which was derived the noun fides, "trust, confidence, faith." This went into Old French as feid, and became faith in Middle English. Meanwhile Latin also had a derived form, adfidare, meaning roughly "to state on faith," which descended into Medeival Latin as affadavit "he has sworn". The two paired terms went into Old French as afier and fier; they were converted into the French nouns afiance and fiance, "confidence, trust", and two verbs in turn derived from that, afiancier and fiancer, "to promise". They were borrowed into English as the verb affiance ("to become betrothed") and the noun fiancé (the one promising). The feminine form of fiancé was borrowed as fiancée.

The two words replaced the old Anglo Saxon betrothed, which literally means "become pledged", and is related to truth, in the sense that a promise literally makes something true.

The words fiancé, fiancée have a spiritual trajectory of high, tense freedom being gathered up and grounded, with a release of sunlight, energy, and motion.

Beach

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff) — Thu, 12 May 2011 00:20:00 +0000

I don't know about you, but after such a long cold winter, I am totally ready to hit the beach. Well, emotionally, I'm ready. I think I should lose a few pounds and establish a bit of color to my skin first... But a wedding on the beach to the woman of my dreams: yes, I'm ready!

Beach is from Proto Germanic bakiz, meaning a stream. In Old English this became bece, and in Middle English beach. In the late 1500's, the word was extended to mean the sandy, pebbly stream bed, and from there to sandy, pebbly shorelines.

Spiritually a beach is a place of challenge and change: a burst of energy, high and tense, resolved with a difficult achievement. We chose the beach, not because it was an easy or relaxing place to get married, but because of the beauty of the clashing and mixing elements. It's a challenge, but so very worth it.

Bad Dreams & Wedding Worries

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Wed, 04 May 2011 17:28:00 +0000

Well, it's Wedding Wednesday once again here in the Shaffer-Lilly household, and it's finally happened. I had my first wedding-related nightmare.

Okay, not so much of a nightmare as a bad dream, really. But still. Waking up, heart-pounding, at 4:30 AM and being unable to fall back asleep as wedding plans stampede back and forth across the backs of your eyelids… not a pleasant way to start the day.

The dream wasn't even all that bad.

There we were, hanging out at some relative's house with a bunch of family members, when my mother and one of my aunts start putting their heads together and conspiring — I know! they declare suddenly, Let's just have the wedding right here, right now! And up they get, clearing a space in the living room, moving couches and other bits of furniture aside, elbowing folks out of the way. At first, I'm all for it. Getting to skip ahead to the fun part of actually getting married to the person I love, without having to stumble through the next four months (and one week and five days) of stress and planning? Sure!

But then… people start coming up to me saying things like, "There wasn't much notice, you know," and "We weren't really prepared for all this"… A small bit anxiety starts to rise in me. I explain to them, "Well, we were going to wait, we were going to have a lovely wedding down at the beach in September, it was going to be beautiful…" That phrase repeats over and over in my mind as I try to keep up with the bustling rearrangements of my mother and her helpers. When I try to slow them down, to say maybe we don't need to rush and wouldn't it be nice to just stick to the original plan, she hurriedly shuffles me aside, reassuring me, "Oh, but we'll save so much time and money this way!" I object, "But, I don't want it to feel rushed. I mean, it's an important day, I want it to feel important to everyone else, too." But she smiles brightly and shakes her head. "Oh no, no — you were just going to do some weird Pagan thing anyway, and you hardly invited anyone. What's the difference between that and just getting it done with now?"

"But… it was going to be lovely, it was going to be beautiful…" I murmur helplessly as the rushing continues on around me. "But it was going to be…" Until the anxiety in my chest has become an intense mute protest of panic in my throat, choking off my words, and I can't find Jeff anywhere, they've rushed him off because it's unlucky for him to see the bride before the wedding, and I'm feeling overwhelmed and helpless and I try to cry out, but….

Then I wake up. And I still have four months (and one week and five days) to go.

The winter here seems to be lasting forever. Today's high is 54º F, nearly twenty degrees below the average high for this time of year, with a chilly rain set to fall all day. The trees have barely leafed out, though by this time most years they're full-to-bursting with new green. We're already into the first week of May, and when it comes to wedding planning, we only really have four months to go (by this time in September, we'll be packing and preparing for our drive down to the Outer Banks the following week).

Part of me feels like that's no time at all — probably the same part of me that works seven days a week without a day off for months at a time, trying to squeeze in wedding planning whenever I can. Another part of me says, don't panic, stick to the original plan, September gives you plenty of time and the wedding will be beautiful.

And still another part of me worries, just a little, that if I don't spend more time obsessing over details and getting everything perfect, then people won't think of it as a "real wedding." When the pressure's on, I can make decisions like a… um… efficient decision-making machine of some kind. I can cut through complicated issues with a machete — tuna or flounder? tuna, swipe! candles or flowers for the table centerpieces? candles, chop! turquoise or purple ink for the invitations? purple, hiyah! But on the other hand, obsessing over little details imbues these choices with a certain amount of power and significance, and part of me worries that my efficiency will rub off and translate into nonchalance. I mean, I'm already having a "weird Pagan wedding" on the beach, instead of a normal ceremony with all the pomp and circumstance of huge poofy dresses and veils and expensive shoes and identical bridesmaids and everything. What if no one takes it seriously?

So this is a glimpse into Ali's current wedding anxiety. The planning is going smoothly — we've found another officiant and we're back on track with the ceremony planning. Invitations are in the works. All the little details are starting to fall into place, and we're right on schedule. All we really have to do now is stick to the original plan, and keep things in perspective, and maybe pray for a bit of warmth and sunshine around here before, you know, July would be nice.

And I bet some chamomile tea before bed should clear those bad dreams right up! Which is excellent, because Jeff and I recruited the kids to help us start our very own Eco-Victory garden in the backyard this spring, and the chamomile will be sprouting any day now…

Ceremony

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 22:29:00 +0000

The time is fast approaching when Ali and I and our officiant will start nailing down the details of the wedding ceremony. It's going to be awesome, because (a) it'll be pagan, so rather different from the Christian ceremonies of most weddings, and (b) Alison will be having huge input. The officiant and I will have lots of input too, of course, but Ali has an amazing genius for ritual -- she has a deep understanding of what makes them work, coupled with an artist's intuition.

We've had a bit of a hiccup with our officiant; the one we'd settled on months ago had to back out at the end of March for personal reasons. But it looks like we've found another, one who's excited to be working with us to design our ceremony, and we're going to be in great shape.

In the 5th and 6th centuries BC, about 50 miles northwest of Rome, there was an Etruscan city called Caisra. Caisra, nestled between lush, protective hills and the Tyrrhenian Sea, was quite rich and powerful, and a traditional friend of Rome. It had three ports, and handled a wealth of trade between the Mediterranean sea powers (Greece, Carthage) and the Etruscan towns further inland and in the Po valley. But at the height of its power, it was defeated by the Greeks, and was made to pay tribute. Later, during the wars between Rome and Carthage, it lost its ports and quickly dropped in population and prominence. Today it is only a third of its original size, and the villagers farm on top of their necropolis.

But the name Caisra was borrowed into the Roman language -- Latin -- in the adjective caerimonia, "pertaining to Caere" (the Roman name of the city). Caerimonia was used to refer to rites of divination, and so it has been supposed that the Etruscans of Caisra were known for their ability with prophetic ritual. The old word came into Medeival Latin as ceremonia, and was borrowed into English in the 14th century as cerymonye. The spelling was later standardized as ceremony.

Spiritually ceremony is a word which brings energy, sunlight, and growth into manifestation, and grounds it.

Lillies Among the Lilies

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:59:00 +0000

The Lilly kids enjoy an afternoon of drawing and coloring at the Phipps Conservatory Spring Flower Show.

Jumping Off: Cake vs. Pie

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:06:00 +0000

Challenge the status quo. Especially in the name of Awesome.

That's pretty much been our motto in planning this wedding so far. (Only four months, three weeks and five days to go!) Sustainably harvested and crafted wood engagement ring: AWESOME. Caterer who provides local, organic food with many delicious vegetarian options: AWESOME. Wedding registry at a nonprofit cooperative camping gear store (oh, wait, I haven't announced that yet! but still): AWESOME.

In light of this clear and evident trend, I would like to put in a word about cake versus pie. We've put my mother in charge of finding and commissioning the wedding cake, since Jeff and I have only so much awesomeness that we can handle at a time. We've talked a little bit with her about the kind of cake we might like. After all, there are some pretty gorgeous ones out there.

Still, if she's reading this, we'd also like to encourage her not to be afraid to aim higher. Why settle for awesome when you can achieve AWESOME? She may want to take into consideration, for instance, this latest scientific research in cake versus pie dessertology:

(Find out more from Hyperbole and a Half)

Strive for excellence, Mom!

Honeymoon

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 20:45:00 +0000

We've been laying down the final plans for the honeymoon (and it's going to be awesome -- I'll have a special post up about it one of these days real soon now), so I thought I'd dig into the origin of the word...

Honey is of uncertain origin, but may go back to a Proto Indo European root something like kanek, meaning "golden". It became khunaga in West Germanic and was probably applied to "honey" at that time. (The word gold comes from a PIE root meaning "yellow / green".) In Old English it became hunig, and honey in Middle English. Spiritually it has qualities of heart and hearth, earthiness, and groundedness, but also high energy.

Moon goes back to Proto Indo European menses or meses, meaning "moon" and "month". This probably is related to the PIE root me, "measure", because the moon was of course associated with measuring time. In most daughter languages of PIE, this root was only retained for "month"; the moon itself got other names (eg selene in Greek, meaning "brightness", luna in Latin from the same root as lux, "light"). The Germanic languages, though, retained the pairing as mænon for "moon" and mænoth for "month". mænon became mona in Old English, and moon in Middle English. During this time it retained is association with time, measurement, and months. Spiritually the word evokes a manifestation of flowing, subconscious energy.

The honeymoon, then, is a month, a season, of flowing, half-conscious sweetness grounded in the heart and earth.

Family

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 23:22:00 +0000

"Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl - no superior alternative has yet been found.” -- Winston Churchill

"When a parent gives to a child, both laugh; when a child gives to a parent, both cry." -- Shakespeare (paraphrased)

Family! It's a word that makes some people shudder, and others feel warm inside. But oddly enough, it's a relatively recent concept in English.

Among the Anglo-Saxons, there was no word that meant "family". Most often they used hiwscipe, which meant something closer to "household": it included the husband, wife, children, servants, slaves, pets, animals, buildings, and lands. It was centered unambiguously on the husband, who was legally in charge of it all. In the 1500's, however, the Latin-derived word family (which came from familia, "servants") became widely used to mean everyone in the household. By the 1660's the meaning of family had been changed to referring to primarily those people connected by blood.

Even today, family is a vague term, at its edges. Depending on context, it could refer to the whole human race (the "human family") or to a single pair of unmarried adults (and their dog). At its core, though, is a special notion of intimate kinship between souls that perhaps not even death can sunder.

“Writers will happen in the best of families.” -- Rosa Mae Brown

Jumping Off: Getting Weddinged (And Other Alternatives)

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:11:00 +0000

On the heels of yesterday's post about the legal and religious aspects of tying the knot, I wanted to point family and friends towards the wonderful and inspiring website Offbeat Bride, where they have a whole subcategory for brides who celebrate their wedding day with family and friends after they've gotten the legal ceremony out of the way. (They call it, tongue-in-cheek, "getting weddinged.")

As one writer explains, there are also many nonreligious reasons why couples choose to hold a civil ceremony prior to hosting a wedding day celebration with family and friends: military deployment, pregnancy, financial constraints, and immigration issues, to name a few. Even though this practice is far from rare in America, it can still stir up controversy, inviting accusations of "playing pretend" or "making a gift grab." But as the writer points out:

Those reactions are extremely North American-centric. In most European countries, all couples who wish to get married first have to do so in a civil ceremony. Then, they are free to have a religious wedding if they want. The city hall wedding is often very simple, with only immediate family and witnesses present, and the bride wears a nice but casual short dress, saving the long white dress, veil and big reception for their religious wedding. The most famous example known to us here in America is certainly Eva Longoria’s wedding to French basketball player Tony Parker. She was wearing a short pink Chanel dress to her civil ceremony officiated by the Mayor of Paris, but wore a white and satin silk designer dress with a fifteen foot train for the religious ceremony in a Catholic church the next day. Yet, no one would think of screaming "gift-grab!" or "just playing pretend!" Why? No, it's not just because she's a celebrity. But because it was in the groom's culture to do it that way. In France and almost all of Europe, a bigger wedding after a civil one is not only accepted, but expected.

Offbeat Bride has been a fantastic resource for inspiration, insight and perspective over the last year, and I encourage you to hop on over and check out some of the amazing "Wedding Porn" and crazy-cool themes from couples of all backgrounds, cultures and religions from all over the world. It's helpful to remember that no matter how kooky or weird you're own wedding might be, there's someone out there who did it weirder and wilder than you, with no regrets! Time and again, the story of Offbeat Brides everywhere has been the same: be true to yourself, and your family and friends will support you.

Jeff and I hope that will be true for our wedding. And it also helps take the pressure off to know that if things get too intense, we can always just elope and have a Doctor Who themed wedding in Vegas. (I mean, seriously, how cool is that?!)

How Many Druids Does It Take to Make a Marriage?

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 21:38:00 +0000

On Friday, with five months, three weeks and one day to go until the wedding, it seemed like smooth sailing. Everything had gone wonderfully so far, and we were on schedule for all of our major wedding planning deadlines. Jeff and I were excited for our meeting with our officiant the next morning, looking forward to sitting down to a long talk about how to incorporate Druidic themes into a beautiful ceremony that would honor our families, our heritage, the land, our gods and one another.

On Sunday, with five months, two weeks and six days to go, and Mercury about to go retrograde (in fiery, combative Aries!)…. well, let's just say, it probably shouldn't be a surprise if the next few weeks get a little bumpy.

Clear Sailing, Rough Waters

To be honest, after some of the horror stories I've seen circulating online, we should probably be thankful that we've only just had our first major snag during the past six-plus months of wedding planning. We were able to choose our preferred date at a beautiful venue and book our first choices for photographer and caterer. We've narrowed down our bride and groom attire to some gorgeous and inexpensive outfits made from sustainably grown hemp and cotton, and we're in conversation with a local florist who might be able to provide in-season bouquets and arrangements from their earth-friendly gardens and flower fields. We're in the process of setting up gift registries with a few co-ops, nonprofits and charities, and we're starting to plan our honeymoon trip to some of the sacred landscapes out west where we'll be able to camp beneath clear night skies full of amazing, blazing stars. And we're happier and more in love than ever.

But we don't have an officiant.

Having an officiant willing to perform a Pagan wedding ceremony is immensely important to both of us, and so from the beginning we made sure that finding one was at the top of our wedding to-do list. When the possibility of marriage first came up last year, I spent hours and hours online doing research into the marriage laws in different states. I sent out a call among my various Pagan network contacts looking for people in the Outer Banks area who might be able to perform a Pagan wedding, and I got in touch with some folks who'd had Pagan weddings or handfastings of their own, to find out how they'd handled it and what advice they had to share. We'd found our officiant even before we'd commissioned the engagement ring. We talked with my parents about having a Druid wedding, and we began spreading the word among family and friends that our ceremony would be a bit different from what they were used to (though it would still be about love, and promises, and community, and Spirit). We thought we'd covered all our bases.

The irony, of course, was that finding an officiant so early meant that there was plenty of time for things to go wrong. The officiant we've been working with recently received some personal news that has thrown his schedule for the coming year into chaos, and he's no longer able to commit to our wedding date in September. We were sad to get this news this past Saturday when we called to confirm our meeting with him — in part because chaotic situations are never easy, and we're wishing him well that everything works out and settles down soon — but I've always been a Girl With the Backup Plan, and we do still have more than five months to work things out, so I wasn't too phased.

What did phase me was the reaction of my parents when they heard the news on the phone. Jeff and I had been trundling along with our plans for a Pagan wedding, confident that we had the support and understanding of our family and friends, many of whom come from diverse religious and spiritual backgrounds themselves. We began this blog as a place to talk about our spirituality and its role in our upcoming wedding and marriage so that our guests would feel comfortable participating and celebrating with us on our special day. Every once in a while, my parents would inquire about the legality of a Pagan wedding, but by assuring them that our officiant was certified to perform marriages in the state of North Carolina and we'd have all the legal documents set straight just like any other wedding, I was able to put their anxieties to rest — or so I thought.

But revisiting the problem of finding an officiant has brought all the questions about religious tolerance and legitimacy, and the role of government in marriage, right back to the surface again. These are difficult conversations to have even at the best of times, and Jeff and I will be the first to admit that we're far from wishy-washy in some of our opinions. Heck, the stress of an up-coming wedding can make it difficult to discuss even unimportant things like invitation deigns and centerpieces. And did I mention, Mercury retrograde in Aries? Yeah.

What Makes a Marriage

What it all boils down to is really just this: What makes a marriage? What is it that makes a wedding "legitimate"? When do two people go from being engaged, to being officially married?

Is it the ritual itself, exchanging rings and saying vows? Is it the legal document they sign that grants them special privileges and rights as a married couple under the law? Is it the support of their families and communities, accepting and acknowledging them as a couple joined in matrimony? Is it some combination of all of these — and if it is, how exactly do we go about combining them?

Jeff and I have had long conversations about these questions, because in many ways they're the same questions that we asked ourselves when we first started to talk about getting married. What exactly would "getting married" mean? How would it change our relationship? How would it change the familial and community structures in our lives? These kinds of questions become very important for divorcés with children, because kids expect answers and deserve thoughtful replies from the adults that they look to as examples and role models. We needed to be able to explain why we were taking plenty of time to make that commitment instead of rushing in headlong, and why marriage was different from simply living together. We needed to explain why we were choosing to have a Pagan ceremony, instead of a Christian-flavored civil ceremony officiated by a family friend like their mother had for her second wedding. And we needed to explain about the importance of marriage equality, and why their friend up in Massachusetts could have two moms who were married to each other, while a kid living in another state couldn't have two married parents of the same sex, no matter how much they loved each other and their children. We needed them to understand that what makes a marriage isn't just the government saying it's okay.

These distinctions — between church and state, community and government — are vital not only to same-sex couples fighting for their rights under U.S. law. They're also immensely important to religious minorities in a country where Christianity (and its close relative, Judaism) receive a certain amount of privilege that most people take for granted or may not even notice. Although freedom from religious persecution is protected in the Bill of Rights, the freedom to enjoy all of the same privileges as the majority are often only won through long years of hard work and drawn out legal battles.

When it comes to marriage, Christianity enjoys an unrivaled privilege in this country not shared by other religions. In some states in the U.S., the only religious clergy who can perform legally binding marriages are "ministers of the gospel." In others, this privilege is extended to any licensed clergy-person of a "recognized religious society" within that state. But this often excludes Pagan traditions that are perceived as merely "occult" or "superstitious," that might not have established religious communities in the local area, or that structure their religious communities in ways that differ from the Christian norm. This restriction doesn't just apply to Pagans, either. Quakers, whose wedding ceremonies involve the couple declaring their marriage before a committee, require a separate civil ceremony in every state except Pennsylvania (where the strong historical influence of Quakerism has resulted in more religiously tolerant laws and a unique "self-uniting marriage license" available to religious and nonreligious folks alike).

For this reason, it is not uncommon in the United States for members of non-Christian religious minorities to have a civil marriage for legal reasons that is separate from their religious wedding ceremony. In fact, in many countries in Europe, including France and Germany, this type of civil marriage is mandatory, sometimes excluding religious language altogether. Couples who wish to hold a religious wedding ceremony must hold a separate ceremony only after they've secured a legal civil marriage in the eyes of the law.

There are many reasons why Jeff and I are ambivalent about the role of government in our marriage, not least of which is the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act" which enshrines discrimination and intolerance at the federal level. Some Pagans (and Quakers, and even some Christians, for that matter) choose not to register their marriage with the government as a protest against religious discrimination, or in solidarity with those who are disenfranchised or robbed of their rights. Because Jeff has children from a previous marriage, however, seeking legal status for our marriage is our best way to safeguard his rights as a father and legally recognize my role in their lives as a step-mother. But in the end, the legal details are about as important to us as applying for a passport — some hoops to jump through and some paperwork to sign just to make sure things don't get messy or problematic down the road.

When we found an officiant who had both experience and a willingness to perform Pagan weddings, and the legal status of an ordained Christian minister, we hoped that we could get the "legal stuff" taken care of in one fell swoop to save us some hassle. But we'd always known that a separate civil ceremony might be necessary to make our marriage "official" in the eyes of the law. Now, even though we are still looking for an officiant who has the credentials to combine the religious and legal aspects of our wedding into a single ceremony, it seems we may also have to consider a separate civil ceremony as a possibility.

Love Makes a Marriage

Which brings us back to the question: what makes a marriage? Christians will be familiar with the idea that a couple can be married both "in the eyes of the law" and "in the eyes of God," though they may be unaware that they are privileged to be able to accomplish both in a single ceremony. For those of us without this privilege, who may have to hold both a civil ceremony and a religious ceremony, the question becomes: which is the one that really "counts"?

We can't look to the government for an answer to this question. The law has already told us that our religion doesn't always count as legitimate, and that our clergy cannot perform legally binding marriages unless they obtain special licenses or supplemental Christian ordination.

Jeff and I already know which kind of ceremony is the one that "counts" for us. It's the one where we exchange vows of fidelity and love before our gods and the spirits of the land. It's the one where our family and friends gather to support us and celebrate our marriage, and to acknowledge the importance of our spirituality in our lives and in our partnership. To us, the wedding that begins our marriage will be like the proposal that began our engagement: a simple ritual and a simple promise, out beneath the open sky, overlooking blue-brilliant waters, feet firmly planted on the solid earth. We needed no government paperwork to acknowledge our engagement — we are engaged in the eyes of our families and friends, in the eyes of our gods, and in the eyes of each other. The same will be true of our marriage. We will celebrate our anniversary on that day in September when we stood together on the shore, on the threshold, on the edge, and took that leap into our future. Regardless of when the paperwork got done.

As Druids, we believe that ritual has power, that it resonates on levels beyond the physical world. Ritual changes who we are, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. We would not tell our Catholic family members that their religious rituals didn't "count" unless they were government-sanctioned. We wouldn't suggest that two Jewish friends could go off and have their quaint little ritual on their own time, as long as the "real" wedding was a civil ceremony presided over by an atheist government official who didn't care about their religious views. We would want our family and friends to celebrate and support our union even if we were a same-sex couple denied the right to marry by a government still deeply entrenched in the prejudices and biases of a homophobic religion.

And so, we feel strongly that the role of government in our marriage should be limited to the technicalities of paperwork and should not be enshrined in our wedding ritual as the primary authority from which our marriage derives. Our marriage will be built upon a foundation of love and reverence for Spirit, not on the legal technicalities of the State. It is that love and reverence that we want to celebrate and acknowledge at our wedding. The government is more like that embarrassing uncle nobody likes, whom you have to invite just to keep the peace. (That's a metaphor — all of our uncles are awesome.) But we'll be damned if we're going to cater to Uncle Sam when he starts dolling out the religious intolerance. If that's how he's going to be, then he can just bloody well not come, thank you.

With that in mind, we want to ask our family and friends to meet us halfway — to help us make our wedding day special and celebrate our love with us, without getting bogged down by worries about who signed what and when in front of which county judge. None of that matters to us. What matters to us is that our family and our community support our choice and our right to hold a religious wedding ceremony in the spirit of our tradition. What matters to us is that, at the end of that day in September, we're married in the eyes of our gods, in the eyes of our ancestors, in the eyes of each other and in the eyes of our community. If the law has blinders on, this is a minor technicality that Jeff and I will work out.

The Beer & Budget Meeting

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 19:04:00 +0000

Rumors have surfaced that every few months, Jeff and I travel to my hometown to visit my parents and hold a "Beer & Budget Meeting" to go over wedding plans and finances.... and that, at these alleged meetings, I ply my parents with alcohol and force them to watch PowerPoint slide shows.

Alas, the rumors are true! In fact, our third Beer & Budget meeting is tomorrow night, and I have the dazzling graphs and animated check-marks to prove it. But before Jeff and I wrap up work for the day and hit the road, I thought I'd share a few choice slides from the 20-slide presentation that I'll be subjecting my parental figures to like Chinese water torture. Enjoy the sneak peek (and thank your gods you don't have a perfectionist for a daughter)!

We Need Your Feedback!

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 14:51:00 +0000

Hello, readers, family and friends! Believe it or not, we're fast approaching that special day — only six months, one week and four days to go!

As the date of the wedding approaches, Jeff and I will be relying on this blog more and more to share important information about travel, accommodations, pre-wedding events and other facts vital to our guests (like, say, group hotel rates, gift registry information and beach wedding dress code ideas). As part of our earth-friendly principle, we hope to make the best of what the internet has to offer for communication and organization, so that you can get all the dirty details in as paper-free, tree-loving a way as possible! (Don't worry, we'll still be sending out traditional invitations, but you can get the inside scoop here first, on our "For Our Guests" page.)

But to make the most of this website, we need to know you're actually reading along! So please take a minute to fill out our Wed/Edge Reader Rollcall to let us know who you are and how you read the blog. Even if you're not sure you'll be able to attend the Big Day itself, it never hurts to stay in touch, so check-in and let us know you're out there! We'd love to hear from each and every one of you on the guest list so that we can be sure all our family members and friends are getting the information you need when you need it. (For those of you who aren't invited guests, but are simply here as curious readers or fans of our writing, we'd love to hear from you, too!)

Click on the link below to take our mini-survey and let us know how we can reach you! Sixty seconds is all it takes!

Click here to take the survey!

Ode to the Weekend Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:34:00 +0000

This past Saturday and Sunday, Jeff and I had an actual weekend. No work, no kids, no travel plans or scrambling to meet family obligations. Just an actual two whole consecutive days off to hang around the house. We haven't had one of those since (drumroll please).... August! That's right, it's been six months — half a year. You should have watched us stare at each other slack-jawed with disbelief, unsure how to handle the idea of having guilt-free free time.

In honor of that experience (now that we're back to the grindstone of work and kids), I wanted to share here a post I wrote back in January 2010. Of course, things have changed since then. My change in jobs means that my weekdays are no longer my "off days" and my weekends are devoted more and more to the kids, for whom I will soon be a step-mom even if I'm never really a "parent." I understand better, from experience, the deep guilt that comes with only seeing your kids two days a week, and how unthinkably selfish it feels to take "time for yourself" during those precious hours.... And so I understand, from experience, the fatigue that quickly creeps up on you when all you have are a few hours in the evening after work to claim as your own. Between wedding planning, spiritual practice, creative work and the work we do to make rent, it's no wonder that Jeff and I feel a little burnt out! So in honor of all of his hard work, and in praise of the man I love, please enjoy these reflections on the hard-working, often under-appreciated Weekend Dad.

Earlier this week, before he passed the cold onto me, my partner Jeff was in bed with the sniffles, bundled up in his bathrobe, happy as a clam in flannel. He would blow his nose with a rumbling, gurgling blast that filled the whole house, and smile at me with bleary eyes, and tell me how glad he was to be sick. It was, he said, as if all the stress of the holidays and work and family and bills that he had been carrying around with him for the past month had finally been shrugged off, and his body could relax enough to address those pesky germs that had invaded. Good riddance!, the message of every sneeze. And watching him cuddle into the blanket and nod off to sleep, I thought how unsung his particular kind of heroism is in our culture.

It is popular, I'm sure you've noticed, to portray fathers these days as fat, laughable buffoons tripping through life on the heels of a wife who is way too attractive and intelligent for them and who is constantly patching things up and smoothing things over and nodding sagaciously when the credit that's due never comes.^[*] Check out any family sitcom on television in the past few decades, and ask yourself why Marge stays with Homer, or Lois with Peter, or Lois with Hal, or Debra with Raymond, or Doug with Carrie, or Jill with Tim... or any of the wives who stay with clownish husbands on the numerous family sitcoms that I, admittedly, don't watch for the most part. Of course, once dispossessed of the stabilizing and sensible force of the Marge-d'œveur, the buffoon of a husband becomes something much worse: the embarrassing, bumbling and sometimes criminally negligent single dad. Sometimes the single dad is an endearing and heroic figure — if he loved his wife, who died of cancer or some tragic accident that left him scarred and unwilling to risk falling in love again... that is, until the chipper, compassionate, young heroine comes along — but for the most part, he is shrugged off as mediocre and foolish, undeserving and just maybe incapable of raising the children he helped to father in the first place.

I suspect this cultural trope is thanks, at least in part, to the feminist movement and the revolution to throw off the shackles of patriarchy and reassert the essential grounded practicality and intuitive wisdom of the feminine. And I'm all for that. But I also know that smiling condescendingly at the Weekend Dad because he lets the kids leave the house with mismatched socks or orders out for pizza for dinner every Friday night is about as mature as snickering at the freshman girl wearing last year's style in striped tees. In other words: not very. Rather, it suggests that while we as women (and as a culture) have reached a point where we can balk at overt patriarchy, we have not yet understood that real equality is that of partnership and complexity, not of reducing the men in our lives to one of two stereotypes: ruthless oppressor or (in)sufferable fool. As if, as far as we've come, we haven't quite got the knack of being simply adults, but are stuck in the role of mothering. As if, to quote Pratchett (in Carpe Jugulum), "just because they'd got the label which said 'mother,' everyone else got a tiny part of the label that said 'child'..."

But watching Jeff relaxing into his well-earned rest (after putting in a full day's work despite the blocked-up nose and disorientation), I thought about just how hard Weekend Dads do work, at least the good ones. I may sometimes complain about having to work weekends, putting in long hours on my feet without breaks, dealing with sometimes belligerent, hung-over or senile customers for measly tips, but during the middle of the week, my time is my own (and as a natural introvert trying to kick a writing career off the ground, this suits me just fine). Yet here is a man who works non-stop, seven days a week: not an hour after he's finished his salaried work late Friday afternoon and set his computer aside, he's tackled by four lovely, energetic children who quickly claim every room in the house (except the somewhat messy and sparsely furnished "grown-up's bedroom") with their toys, books, blankets and games. All weekend, while I get to slip away to a job where most of the people I interact with will at least behave like polite adults if I treat them as such, he entertains and instructs and comforts children for whom "important" can mean anything from "Jake beat me in Othello by exactly sixteen points, twice!" to "Jocelyn ran into a tree on her sled!" to "I told Sarah to stop and she wouldn't, so I kicked her!" And this man, this mere "weekend dad," engages with these children with unending patience and love, sifting through the inane and the ridiculous, supporting and encouraging wherever support and encouragement are needed. And then, when he's dropped them back at their mom's house each Sunday night, he buckles down and tries to work in an hour or two of personal writing or meditation before it's back to the quiet, industrious, analytical work of the computational linguist the following morning.

And if sometimes he doesn't notice the color of the kids' socks, or only knows two good, healthy recipes to cook for a family of six in a tiny kitchen with about a square centimeter of counter space, I'm not going to be the one to fault him, or smirk, or think secretly I could do better. After all, I'm certainly no mother myself, and much of the time I think I'm not cut out to be one. When it comes to that, motherhood is no longer the only archetype of mature and self-possessed femininity available to the modern woman, who has the potential to be so much more than merely maiden, mother or crone. The priestess, the witch, the queen, the shaman, the bard, the warrior, the basket-weaver... And if we can liberate women from the archetypes of fertility and servitude, surely it would be strange to expect men to step in and take over those roles, just as it would be misdirected triumph to scoff when they do so ineptly or inadequately.

Perhaps instead we can celebrate the complexities and subtleties of contemporary gender identity and family life, and the mixed blessing of divorce that allows for a redefinition of roles and the redress of relationships that were inclined towards dysfunction or disrespect. Because in the end, matching socks only really matter in a world where socks are the only way a woman can express her competence and care as a mother and wife. But this is, thank the gods, no longer the world we live in. Now we can set aside the trivial, wade through all the social pressures to be good women, and rise to the occasion of being simply good people, who demonstrate our love through attending and sharing, and who put the real needs of others ahead of our own need to appear Large and In Charge.

(And now and then, we can revel in our headcolds and allow others to care for us, and soothe us with hot tea and honey, and assure us that we have been good parents, and partners, and children, and humans.)

^[*] Granted, the fact that these women remain in such dysfunctional relationships belies certain flaws in their own characters, so that usually after Season One the audience has come to appreciate that, despite their constant (and hilarious) mishaps, these couples were made for (and deserve) each other.

Ocean, Sea, Deep

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 03:49:00 +0000

I chose these three words to examine this week because Alison has been doing some dream and meditation work with the Ocean's deities recently. Also, it's February and there's four inches of snow on the ground, and quite frankly I'd rather be at the beach.

Ocean

From Greek okeanos, of unknown origin. The Greeks used the word to refer to a great river which was supposed to run around Europe, Africa, and Asia, and its god, Oceanos. He was a Titan, the son of Uranus and Gaia, and the husband of Tethys (the Titan-goddess of the Nile and other mighty rivers). This great river is often associated with monsters of the deep in other mythologies — such as the Norse Jormungand, the Midgard Serpent and son of Loki, an ouroboros encircling the world.

The word was picked up in Latin and used in the phrase mare oceanus, "Ocean Sea" (meaning the Ocean Sea as opposed to, say, the Mediterranean Sea or the Black Sea). This is why, when Columbus crossed the Atlantic, the Spanish named him "Admiral of the Ocean Sea." It reached English through Old French in the 13th century, and began to be used as a moniker for the Atlantic and other large bodies of water in the 14th century.

Spiritually, it begins with wholesome energy, passing through protective turbulence, and is released into grounding.

Sea

From Proto Germanic saiwaz, meaning a large body of water. The word is unrelated to any in other Proto Indo European daughter languages, and does not appear to have come from Finnish or the other Baltic tongues. Saiwaz became sæ in Old English, and sea in Middle English. It was first applied to the moon's mares in the 1660's.

Spiritually, sea is a word of sunlight, fertility, and growth, developing into high, tense energy. As such it may more naturally indicate the surface of the water, rather than its depths.

Deep

From Proto Indo European dheub, referring to hollowness and depth. In Old Irish, dheub became domun, "world", because of the world's deep foundations. In Proto Germanic, it became deupaz, and in Old English, deop, maintaining both its literal sense and metaphorical senses of profundity, awe, mysteriousness, seriousness, and solemnity.

Spiritually, deep has the same high, tense -ee- sound as sea, and contains the same high, tense energy; but this energy is engaged through a doorway, a decision, and is drawn to a definite location or point. Its phonosemantics is similar to that found in weep, reap, seep, leap, and keep.