Remember that wedding picture last Friday that I wanted to eat? The beautiful dreamy one? Well, Britta sent me her wedding graduate post, and that picture was just the tip of the amazing iceberg. I don’t even know what to say about this post, other than I love it so so so much. I love that Britta was as neurotic about her wedding dress search as I was, and that she ended up with similarly amazing last minute funky results. I love that she also likes to look at her bank statement to see how rich she is. I love that she likes to get her hands dirty and make things. And the pictures. Oh… the pictures. Here we go:

Adam and I have different versions of our engagement story we tell to different audiences but for the semi-anonymous Internet I’ll go with the vague but true:  I came home sauced one night in September and then it just happened.

We’d been dating for about four years. We met after I finally managed to talk to him following one academic year of stalking him through the engineering building we both spent most of college in.  I’ll always remember the first time I saw him standing there in front of the injection molding machine…

After getting engaged the first wedding decision Adam and I made was that our wedding would be cheap.* I don’t like spending money. He has an expensive motor sports habit. We wanted to throw a huge party for all our friends and family (yes, to celebrate our love, blah-blah) but we had a lot of other things we wanted to do with out funds.  (Him:  spend it on tires, Me:  Look at my bank statement and see how rich I am.)

The second decision was where to hold the wedding. We both went to college at WWU in Bellingham WA. My Dad’s cousin Fred and his wife Beverly live outside Bellingham in a big house on the bay. Every year they throw a 300 person 4th of July party because they love huge parties. Patriotism has very little to do with it. I left a message on Beverly’s phone telling her Adam and I had ‘Big life news”. When she called me back the first words out of her mouth were ‘Are you pregnant? Are you getting married? Are you having the wedding here?” Of course we were! Done and done.

Neither of us had thought much about weddings previously nor did we have particularly opinionated family members to guide us.  So we generally made the whole thing up as we went along.

As we made decisions like ‘choosing a mystery groomsman before the ceremony based on best mustache’ we got a few raised eye brows, but that was part of the fun and I think most people who know us would have been disappointed with less. All we really wanted a was huge party. We were lucky enough to have un-particular and  indulgent friends and family.

As wedding planning continued it turned out I’d rather have my hands busy as an anti-anxiety measure. I made a lot of wedding stuff. I crafted some crafts. Its like xanax. To anyone confused about why people get all crafty around wedding time: That shit kept me sane. And it was fun. Really really fun. (Full disclosure:  My job is industrial design. Making stuff is my thing.) We made the save the dates and the invitation which involved a brand and butane torch. We made napkins (80 cents to rent 1 napkin!?! Hell no!), the wedding arch out of PVC pipe and old table cloths, a pinata of our faces for the kids to hit. It was all a lot of fun and kept me from going too nuts.   That being said….

The dress kicked my ass. At one point I told Adam “Adam, I give up, I have failed at finding a wedding dress…I think I’ll get married naked…maybe in scrubs”  I couldn’t feel good about any dress over $200 (Oh the cheapness!) and I kept changing my mind so often about what I wanted it probably wouldn’t have helped if I had spent the money. Normally I’m a decisive person. Not in this instance. I looked at thousands of dresses on the internet. I must have bought 10 dresses that I returned. At some point I started making jokes about how all my wedding stress and neurosis was all being channeled into the dress. Eventually I figured out that that was probably true.

But panic is the soul of invention. Right after getting engaged I’d bought a dress (okay 3…) from one of the Chinese wholesale websites. (Not generally a route I’d recommend but hey…) This particular dress had a fine bodice but had a lot of weird going on with the skirt. It lived in the closet for about eight months and for some reason I never cut it up to make the wedding arch. Three weeks before the wedding on the verge of folding and buying a $600 dress, I had a last-ditch idea and I spent about eight hours cutting up a lot of goodwill lace and chiffon curtains into 8” squares. I  stitched them on the skirt of the China dress until it was dense enough you couldn’t see any mistakes I made or how uneven the bottom was… from where I’d manically hacked in a hi-lo hem with scissors…. while Adam acted as dress model while standing on our laundry hamper. (We’re the same height… he offered… and if that isn’t true love, I don’t know what is.) After the dress was done, I’d reached wedding dress peace. Even though the dress was a little big and I knew the hem was uneven and the squares could have fallen of at any given moment I didn’t change my mind anymore.

At one point I read a post on APW about how and when to cater your own wedding. The qualifications were things like: knowing how to cook, and having done it before. None of these were really true of us. However we did the food for our 200 person wedding and it turned out fine, even great.

The key was organization, (google docs!!! Planning is everything, the plan is nothing) and conscripting as many hands as possible in the 2 days before the wedding. We only served dishes that involved one step…either chopping, grilling or thawing. Brats and corn on the cob were grilled. Green Salad, fruit salad, and bean salad were chopped, and Adam’s step mom heroically made 300 corn muffins she froze ahead of time that we later thawed. Same with the brownies Adam and I made for the cake. We also hired 4 college students from Adam’s Ultimate Frisbee team to man the buffet and we lucked out with one extremely competent family friend to help manage it all during the festivities. If you think it through and call in a lot of favors (coolers) it can be done. Which is not to say you shouldn’t fear and respect the beast…cause you should.

When it came to the wedding weekend it was ridiculous how much help we got and how lucky we got.  The weather was perfect. Our friends and family took time off work and helped set up, chop food and generally deal with all complications of throwing a 200 person wedding. Honestly the 2 days of preparation before the wedding were at least as fun as the wedding itself. Its pretty humbling to see your entire network of loved ones hard at work on your behalf.

And we shamelessly  called in every favor we could:  The amazing location at my Cousins’ house. Adam’s Grandpa is a pastor and we asked him to marry us. Adam’s step mom and her mom took care of the rehearsal dinner.

One couple we’re friends with own a company that sets up light and sound for trade show booths. Clearly we promised them beer on us for eternity and ended up with a sound system that kept the neighbors up til 3am without having to worry about a single cord. We constructed a one day band for the ceremony out of my brother on trumpet, Adam’s brother on guitar, My aunt on Accordion, a college friend on Bass and the best man’s dad on Drums. They all met for the first time on the day of the wedding and rehearsed while we set up tables and chopped food. You could not find a more funky sound west of the Mississippi.

The only things we paid actual wedding professionals for was A) the huge tent we rented, an extravagance I was willing to spring for because even in August it can rain buckets in western Washington (and it did rain buckets the weekends before and after our wedding)

B) Our awesome photographer. We found her on APW. I can’t say enough about how awesome she was. The pictures really speak for themselves but Christina was also great to work with. We later looked at the full 742 pictures (The rally car number is 742…nice touch!) and we were amazed how she managed to be everywhere at once and capture everything. She must have been literally running around our wedding but after the family pictures I hardly remember seeing her at all.    Apparently my mom kept trying to get her to eat some food but she wouldn’t stop taking pictures…amazing amazing pictures.  Oh yeah, and she charged us almost nothing for what we got.   Ridiculously under-priced awesome photography.

And the wedding was everything we wanted. During the ceremony I cried a lot but not as much as I thought I would. We spent approximately 30 seconds with everyone we know. Neither Adam or I ended up eating more then 2 bites of food.

There was dancing and Bohemian Rhapsody and a dance contest, fireworks and a particular pair of brown corduroy’s were split in half during the limbo contest.

I saw nothing but grins in every direction. I’d be hard pressed to think of a happier day.

And now that the wedding is done and we’re back from our honeymoon road trip I’m still overwhelmed with how much everyone did for us and how much fun we had.  It was awesome to see friends from all different parts of our lives came together and party like they meant it. On this flip side I was also humbled by how much it meant to people to be invited and included in our wedding. Weddings are heady stuff. People like to be involved and people being involved in our lives turned out to be what it was all about.

I can’t say much about marriage yet.   Our one month anniversary will be this weekend.   We haven’t succeeded in spontaneously referring to each other as ‘husband’ or ‘wife’ yet.   I am optimistic we’ll get the hang of it.

Pictures: by the amazing Christina Richards Weddings. There are tons more pictures that I couldn’t manage to fit in the post, but you should totally go look at them.

* For context: we ended up spending 10K, counting the rings. Its more then I was shooting for but felt about right and allowed for plenty of fun and not too much financial regret. And it was worth it.

Hello All,

Suddenly the light is fading, and we are rushing towards the close of the Jewish year, and the opening of the gates. The Days of Awe are always a powerful time – raw, stripped down, peaceful, and hard, all at once. You’re confronting what you did wrong over the last year, what you did right, and holding yourself accountable. But this year The Days of Awe and 9/11 coincide, on a year when my memories are hitting me pretty hard. People mentioned on the post earlier today that loss ebbs and flows, sometimes it’s a dull ache, sometimes it’s as near to you as the day it happened. And for me, at 21, living through terror, and then living next to death, was a kind of a loss. A moment where your life is ripped in two and is never the same again. And this year the loss is close again. On the rare days when I talk about what happened that day, David sometimes asks me if it gets better over time. And I say that over time you think about it less. But the moments when it catches you off gard: a news story on the radio, an image, the fall light on a clear blue day, on those moments it’s as close as the day you woke to a building shaking roar, and sirens. I doubt that ever goes away.

So. The gates are opening, and we’re marking nine years. Nine years since the horror and the terror and the compassion. Nine years, and the opening gates.

And to think I just sat down to write that I was taking tomorrow off for Rosh Hashanah. Oops.

So to all of you that are Jewish, or Jewishly affiliated, L’shanah tovah tikatevi v’taihatem. May you be sealed for a good year. May these days of wonder be peaceful and reflective and healing for each of you. To the rest of you, I’ll see you on Friday.

Meg

Picture: Apples (with no honey) by Cara, she of Peonies and Polaroids and Lillian and Leonard

You saw that picture and you’re excited already, right? Pretttttyyyyy. Carousels. Mmmm. Ok, focus. Achem. You should probably get more excited… Jennifer of J Wiley Photography is one of our first ever Chicago wedding photographers (wheee!!) But it’s actually much better than that. First, Jennifer is offering $100 off to APW couples, because she loves you. Second, Jennifer could be one of you guys. Seriously, I expect that some of you will meet her, hire her, and then become fast friends.

Jennifer was in the middle of her PhD in sociology, when she realized she wasn’t that happy. Then she realized that making people happy with pictures was really fulfilling. So, since she’s brave, she just quit. Ended with her masters and ran off to do what she loved.

She says, “Thinking about society and how people interact with each other has been ingrained in me, so I bring a lot of that to my photos.” Which… that’s like the inside of my brain, and the insides of your brains, and half of what we talk about around here, but now in wedding pictures. So cool. When we first talked over email I told her how many of you were in graduate school, and she got super exctied. She told me, “I always seem to connect really well with bookworms and nerds like myself.”

J Wiley Photography is not new to Team Practical weddings (of course, right?) One of her favorite brides ever was our own Rebecca, and Rebecca sent her over here so that all of you guys could get to work with Jennifer too. J Wiley Photography wants to work with couples that are fun, young, open-minded, and completely NOT crazy, which, um, is you! Plus she’s not crazy! And smart! And kind! And talented…. man….

Let’s talk about the pictures. I mean, first, they are amazing. She has so many shots that are amazingly composed, and emotional. All her images are so strong and clear. But what I was really struck by when going through her portfolio is how versatile her work is, while still staying true to a really clear vision. There are lots of wedding photographers that do artsy, and there are lots of wedding photographers that do traditional. But it’s somewhat rare to find a photographer who is artsy and fun and exciting, but still does traditional shots fantastically well. And while you might not care about traditional pictures, I bet one of your moms does. And Jennifer’s are beautiful. They are pictures that you’ll be glad to see every time you walk into your mother or you mother in laws house. And trust me, that means something.

Oh! And she does hip photobooths! And… I’m dying to hear about how you guys collaborate, so go already. Go, go, go. I expect to see a million amazing pictures and hear all the stories.

PS – And go check out Jennifer’s new collaborative project Free To Be Photography. It’s all about indie weddings and being yourself and the two photographers shooting you being exactly who you are (no blahblahblah you have to hire a makeup artist of I can’t shoot your FACE bullsh*t. Just goodness.)

Ladiezzzz…

Well, I said I was going to update you on book club locations for our bookclub meetup this Saturday, 9/11, but Emily really went above and beyond. Please click the above image (twice!) to see it nice and big, and see exactly where your local meetup is being held. We’re still waiting on locations and times for Atlanta, Australia, Cleveland, Lexington, London, LA, Portland, and Madison. If those are your locations, go check Facebook for more information. In fact, if you have any questions at all go to Facebook for more information and find your cities meet-up thread.

Now! Some people have requested that I come up with a list of bookclub questions to kick off discussion and break the ice. My brain is totally tapped out, but any of you that have read or are reading The Commitment and have suggested questions, throw them out in the comment area. Just questions though, no discussion! No fair to start that all early-like. (Seriously, I’m totally going to take down early discussion, and that would be lame, so don’t make me do it.) If we get a good batch of questions, I’ll throw out suggestions on Saturday morning.

As for the rest of you, get reading!

Bay Area ladies, I’ll see you on Saturday. Just pass me a brownie and a cocktail please. A big cocktail.

Meg

Two different complaints about the DIY culture of weddings came up in the comments last week. I thought they were interesting, and I thought it was high time (again) to talk about the cult of wedding DIY.

The first complaint was, in sum, “F*cking brides, man. Why are they always asking you to DO SH*T TO HELP THEM. It’s such an imposition and so uncool. You shouldn’t expect your guests to care about your wedding as much as you do.” The second was, in sum, “F*cking DIY, man. Why is there so much pressure on APW and other indie websites to DIY everything for your wedding? I hate crafting. This is so uncool.” Both of these comments made me pause, because they highlighted the dissonance between the way I view DIY and the way wedding culture views DIY.

I grew up in a semi-hippie, very community focused micro-culture populated by a lot of artists without a lot of money. The macro-culture I grew up in was a very conservative largely poor suburb/city (cityburb?), populated by a lot of friends without any money. Both of these sometimes diametrically opposed cultures viewed big life event the same way – every one pitches in to get it done. That was just the end of it. When you don’t have a lot of money, ‘making it work’ becomes your cultural default. You just don’t waste a lot of time thinking that ‘it can’t be done,’ because obviously, objectively, you can’t do whatever-it-is without money. But you don’t have money, and you are going to do it, so you just have to figure it out.

Because of the way I grew up, I’ve been able to sew since I could reach a sewing machine. In High School I would throw beautiful backyard parties with old sheets, a string of lights, and flowers I managed to pick from hedgerows, and cake and tea I made in big quantities. I knew people who lived more or less on the road in these amazing plywood shelters that they made to look like magical gypsy caravans. My friends throw these crazy anti-homecoming parties (when people couldn’t afford homecoming tickets) at bowling alleys. And, when it comes to weddings, I’ve gone to my share of potluck weddings, dish in hand. I’ve helped set up or tear down weddings and parties. Hell, I even went to one wedding where the bride paid for it by stripping for a year (Yeah. True story…. And one of the most fun weddings I’ve ever been to, actually.)So make it work? Got it in my genes. But crafty? Not me. The first time I picked up a Martha Stewart Weddings (years ago, I actually really like MSW), and came across one of their monthly craft projects (make a basket for your flower girl!) I was really confused. I kept looking at it thinking, “Weddings are pretty stressful. Why would you want to add making a basket for your flower girl to everything else you have to do? You could buy this for a dollar.” Ha. Clearly I had not yet entered the world of wedding DIY.

So what happened when we threw our wedding? Well. We made some stuff. But I wouldn’t say we crafted anything. Not because crafting is bad, just because we’re not so good at it. When I fell under the thrall of indie wedding blogs, I totally had plans to craft some things (photo booths, screen printed tote bags, photobooth backdrops). But in the end, my laziness, which I like to call pragmatism, won out, and we scrapped all those projects.

So what did we make? We made A) Things that we couldn’t afford to buy (our flower arrangements, for example) and B) Things that had dreamt up, that we couldn’t buy (our huppah, our invitations). And it was rad. It was hard work, but in the end it was this joyful, kinda-grassroots feeling wedding.

So did we craft to be indie cool? Heck no. Do I think you should craft to be indie-cool? Heck no. I think you should craft if you’re a crafter, and that’s your thing. I think you should make stuff if that’s part of what you need to do to afford your wedding (and that’s part of your ethos), and I think everyone else should simplify like crazy, and throw DIY out the window.

But what about Do-It-Together? Well, know your audience. If you are blessed with a community that pitches in to make magic happen, don’t dream of trying to stop (or control) them. You will loose, and that will be the best thing that ever happened to you. If you have a community that hates pitching in to help out, don’t try to make them (it will suck for you… trust me, I had my moments with that). So instead simplify, simplify, simplify, hire help when you can, and know that everyone else will get the h*ll over all the stuff you left out.

And wedding guests? Friends and family? If a bride asks you to help her out, HELP HER. It’s a mitzvah, first of all. And second of all, even thought we’ve spent the last few decades in a world of professional weddings, as times get harder, we’re all being called to community. And sometimes what sounds like a ginormous pain in the ass turns out to be a pile of fun:

Yeah. That’s our friend who took Polaroids for us at our wedding. I think she’s having a pretty ok time.

Pictures from low DIY high simplicity weddings: Kate Baker, Eve Event Photography (yeah, that’s a REAL photobooth, not a rented or crafted one), and One Love Photo.

For more DIY free wedding inspiration, please see: Nancy & Sean, Anna & Daniel, Marissa & Nick, April & Thomas, Lyndal & Stephen, Susie’s Las Vegas throwdown, Maddie’s cheap & lazy wedding, Leah & Omid (just to name a few…)

Today I get to introduce a new APW sponsor, who, oddly, at this point needs no introduction. You guys remember Alex of FedorovFoto in New York City who, with his wife Natalia, decided that they wanted to shoot two Team Practical weddings for free, for people who couldn’t afford a photographer, in honor of their second wedding anniversary? I know, right? Who DOES that? Apparently APW wedding elves do that again and again and again. It sort of blows my mind. But back to the topic at hand.

So! Before I even get in to how clearly awesome Alex and Natalia are, I wanted to give you an update. So, reader Julie, who is *in the middle of planning her own limited budget wedding* left this comment:

Oh, this is the most beautiful gift! My little sister, Kate, is getting married on Sunday September 19 and they have no photographer because of their tight budget. She’s really bummed about it but there really is nothing she could do to make it work. She is a sophomore in college and her fiance’, Joe works for his families small business. They’re just starting out and consequently, are getting married on a shoestring budget. They’ve been dating for over four years and finally decided that they didn’t want to put off being married any longer because of money. I looked into covering their photography charges myself as a surprise but the cost was a little too high for me to handle.

The one snag is that they’re getting married in Columbus, Ohio which will likely disqualify us but I saw this beautiful, generous offer and thought I’d at least give it a try for her sake. If there’s any possibility of this working with your schedule then I would gladly pay your travel expenses to make this work.

Yes, you read that right. A bride, on a budget, decided that she wanted to PAY for FedorovFoto to travel to Ohio to shoot her baby sisters wedding (man, I’m such a sap, because I almost teared up typing that). And Alex and Natalia agreed, and it is so totally happening in two weeks. Ahhhhhhh!

Ok. So now, after that, I’m supposed to tell you why FedorovFoto is awesome, which almost seems pointless because it’s so effing clear (I mean, you’ve seen the pictures so far, right? And the kindness?) Well. Ok. I’ve lived in New York City, I’ve thrown events in New York City. I know. Throwing a wedding on $20K in New York is like throwing a wedding on, uh, $5K? In the Midwest. So when people email me to ask me about sane, kind, New York City wedding photographers who might just be getting started and be affordable, I used to slam my head down on the computer screen before typing, “Um. I got nothin.*” BUT NOW I DON’T HAVE TO!!!

FedorovaFoto’s rates… Oh. My. God. I must have triple checked that they were in New York City, and then looked at the images again, and said, “Whhhhaaaaaaaaa?” So yeah. Good prices. But that’s not all. They are giving you guys a killer discount. Alex sent me this:

Following your blog keeps reinforcing my feelings about wanting to work with practical, down to earth people for whom the wedding is a celebration of their love for each other.   To thank your readers for being true to who they are I would love to offer a 15% discount to all Practical Wedding couples, no matter when their wedding date is (provided that I am available).  My only criteria would be that they would have to book their date with me before October 15th, 2010.  Those readers whose wedding is in 2010 would get an additional 5% off.

Yayyyyy! What else should you know? Alex said that his focus is capturing the spirit and the feeling of the day (translation: not just a bunch of trendy shots, but the real you), and he’s unobtrusive (you know to always ask wedding photographers that, right? Yeah. The screaming photographers are enough to make you loose hope in humanity.) So seriously kids, what are you waiting for? Greater New York City area? GOOOOOO!

*Though Kelly is now shooting in the Tri-State area now too, thank god.

Ok. Because I am the luckiest girl in the world, lots of you send me thank you notes. You send me thank you notes all the time, but the ones I love the best are these, “I’m working on completing a mound of thank you notes in the aftermath of our August 14th wedding and it didn’t feel right not to include you in the gratitude fest.” Awwww, right? Anyway, Britta sent me that little note yesterday, with a few sneak peaks of her wedding shot by APW sponsor and wedding elf Christina Richards, and OH MY GOD, right? Don’t you want to put that picture in your mouth? Or at least lick the screen? Me TOO! That picture is the epitome of YAY! (And have I mentioned I’ve met Christina and she’s awesome? Whatever, I digress.) This post is about how you guys are the best and your weddings are the best and Britta totally has to be a wedding graduate and I want to eat that picture up.

Oh. And vacation. As in, I’m going on a mini-one.

So speaking of yayyyy, and sparklers, and joy, it’s a long and hopefully hot summer weekend here in the states. I’m going to be taking the next few days off, and catching up on some projects and some sleep. Hopefully, in the next few weeks, I can clue you in into what those projects are, and little-but-awesome changes going on at APW. Changes that might occasionally allow me to get some sleep and take a shower. You know, details. I’m also heading down to LA this weekend to and see family and friends, so double yay!

In the meantime, you’re totally going to be reading the comments on the Wife Does Not Equal Mother post, because they are fabulous and smart and thought provoking, and I know you’re not caught up. Don’t lie to me. In fact, everyone is so excited about the term ‘auntie brigade’ that I’m sort of want to stuff them all in an envelope and mail them off to Elizabeth Gilbert. Because she has *got* to want a break from thinking about Eat Pray Love right about now.

Have wonderful, long, hot weekends, and I’ll see you on Tuesday. Wiggle your toes in the sand for me.

Picture: CHRISTINA RICHARDS WEDDINGS, ahhhhhh! So awesome.

After talking about kids and deciding when to have them, I said that this week we’d take on NOT wanting kids. So here we go. Obviously this is a complex and many faceted subject, but here our first crack at it:

Dear Meg,
I wonder how familiar this scene is to married APWers:

Well-meaning but infuriating family member/friend/stranger : “So when are you starting a family?”
Me: “I’ve been married for three years. I already have a family; it just doesn’t have any kids in it”
WMBAFMFS: *vacant expression*

I don’t want children. Neither does my husband. I don’t like kids. I like adult pastimes and adult conversation. I’m awkward and uninterested around babies, toddlers, tweens and teenagers.

But I have a funny feeling in my stomach.

I think it’s the feeling of injustice at the way my childless marriage is viewed by others as incomplete. I think it’s genuine rage that our decision is looked upon with distrust and distain. That our marriage is viewed as pointless if children aren’t to follow.

But maybe it’s broodiness. And maybe I’m afraid of that because of what it would mean for us, our life and our relationship. The thought of loving something more than I do my husband is terrifying to me. Although not as terrifying as him loving someone else more than he loves me.

I’m paralysed by the fear of making a mistake. Will I reach 40 and wake up every day next to my husband wishing we’d had a child, or wishing that we hadn’t? I’m not sure if this is even a real dilemma, or just a projection of the expectations of others.

I wonder if you have any insight.

Warm regards,

Laura, UK

Ok. First of all. I just want to state for the record, and for all of us, how much I detest the phrase, “start a family,” when applied to kids. I remember the very first time I heard it. It was back when I was first dipping my toes in the Reclaiming Wife waters, and people were getting riled up. I mentioned something about not wanting kids right away, and someone left an angry comment that said, “Well, I guess the difference is that some of us thing marraige is about starting a family, and some of us don’t.”

And my head exploded.

Because REALLY??? I’m sorry, what’s getting married? Just chopped liver? Just a prelude to getting knocked up? It makes me livid. Every time I hear someone use the phrase, ‘Start a family,’ I want to snap, “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought that’s what I just did. You know, when I got married?” Or as my friend and APW commenter Marisa-Andrea says (slightly less angrily) “I think there is a lot of cultural noise that tells us your marriage isn’t a real marriage until you have children. There really isn’t anything between the wedding and babies in terms of models. And I wonder, how can marriage be rich and meaningful without those culturally prescribed big events (having a baby, buying a house)?”

So in that sense, I see each childless marriage as part of the fight to make all of our our marriages more valuable, to help show that being married is something different than having kids. That being a wife is a different thing than being a mother.

Second. The fear of being childless being a mistake. As I thought about this over and over in the last week, what I came back to is the lesson that we all learn planning our weddings. The wedding industry is based on our fear of regret - if we don’t do XYZ, we’ll regret it, so we better do it just in case. And what I learned during the planning is that you almost never regret following your heart (or gut), but you almost always regret doing something just because to were told that you had to. I learned that a firm, “No,” when something isn’t right for you, spares you endless heartache. And I think the cultural noise around having kids is similar, “DO IT OR YOU’LL REGRET IT.” Which, first of all, is hardly a compelling reason to bring a human into the world, and second of all, is not true. We regret not being ourselves, we don’t regret not living the life we were expected to live.

And finally. Selfish. For that, I wanted to quote Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed, in what is hands down my favorite passage about not having children, ever. I can’t fit it all in here, so maybe you want to get the book and flip to page 109, but this is the best part about ‘the consistent 10% of women within any population that never have children at all’ (though, the rate swings from 10%-50%, it interestingly never dips below 10%):

All too often, those of us who choose to remain childless are accused of being somehow unwomanly or unnatural or selfish, but history teaches us that there have always been women who went through life without having babies. … The number of women throughout history who never became mothers is so high (so consistently high) that I now suspect that a certain degree of female childlessness is an evolutionary adaptation of the human race. … Childless women have always run orphanages and schools and hospitals. They are midwives and nuns and providers of chartiy. They heal the sick and teach the arts and often they become indispensable on the battlefield of life. Literally, in some cases. (Florence Nightingale comes to mind.) …

Such childless women – let’s call them the “Auntie Brigade” – have never been very well honored by history, I’m afraid. They are called selfish, frigid, and pathetic. Here’s one particularly nasty bit of conventional wisdom circulating out there about childless women that I need to dispel here, and that is this: that women who have no children may live liberated and happy and wealthy lives when they are young, but they will ultimately regret that choice when they reach old age, for they shall die alone and depressed and full of bitterness. Perhaps you’ve heard this old chestnut? Just to set the record straight: There is zero sociological evidence to back this up. …

Even within my own community, I can see where I have been vital sometimes as a member of the Auntie Brigade. My job is not merely to spoil and indulge my nice and nephew (though I do take that assignment to heart) but also to be a roving auntie to the world – an ambassador auntie – who is on hand wherever help is needed, in anybody’s family whatsoever. There are people I’ve been able to help, sometimes fully supporting them for years, because I am not obliged, as a mother would be obliged, to put all my energies and resources into the full-time rearing of a child. There are a whole bunch of Little League uniforms and orthodontist’s bills and college educations that I will never have to pay for, thereby freeing up resources to spread more widely across the community. In this way, I, too, foster life. There are many, many ways to foster life. And believe me, every single one of them is essential.

This is not to say that you need to make up for not having kids by being Mother Teresa. Not at ALL. You don’t have to make up for not having kids, period. But it is true that we all have limited resources in this world. We have limited time, money, and energy. When we have children, a lot of those resources get focused (rightfully) in one area – on a few lives. When we don’t have children (permanently or temporarily) we can use those resources on other projects. We can spread our focus. And that’s a fantastic thing, for us and for society (even when society is too short sighted to see it that way).

Or as commenter Marina said last week:

As someone who’s sure I want kids, and soon (I mean, scared sh*tless, but sure) I just want to add that I am SO GRATEFUL that I have friends who want kids but not for a long time, and friends who do not want kids ever, period. I have friends in the first category who have told me they’re looking forward to babysitting duties and knitting little baby clothes, which, oh boy, I would be a LOT more scared about having kids if I didn’t have that kind of community around. And my friends in the second category, who do not want babies, who will never want babies–I am so thankful for them. I don’t want to get lost in my child(ren), and I feel so lucky to have people in my life who I know I will be able to hang out with and talk about things that are NOT related to babies. So all y’all who are decidedly against babies, or ambivalent, or all the other messy permutations of decision-making–I’m glad YOU’RE part of my community too. I know having lots of smart sassy women I can read at a moment’s notice will make me a better mom, and is already making me a better person.

So selfish? No. Let’s replace selfish with vital.

PS I know this isn’t technically about not having kids, but I’m really uncomfortable with the cultural assumption that we automatically love our kids more than our partner. If having kids meant that I’d love someone more than my husband, and he’d love someone more than me, I’m pretty sure I’d be out. But I think we love our children totally differently (and hopefully not more) than our partners or ourselves. As always, the been there done that Cate of Project Subrosa can speak to this better than me, but I thought I’d throw it out there.

Ok, you know how wedding photographers are always saying things like, “Oh, we are willing to travel” and this nagging voice in the back of your mind says, “Sure. But what’s it going to cost me?” (Or am I the only wedding industry cynic?) Well. When APW sponsors/wedding elves say they travel, THEY TRAVEL. Like, go big or go home. So today I get to talk about the travelers of all traveling wedding elves, Leah and Mark out of Atlanta. In the spring, Leah and Mark came out with an APW only offer of no travel fees east of the Mississippi, and because you guys are rad (and I love you for that), you were like, “Whatever, amazing new photographers who are still building their business and will travel for free? YOU ARE SO ON.” And y’all have been booking them all over ever since.

In fact, all the weddings in the post today are from weddings all over the country. There is  a kick-ass wedding in Indiana, a Team Practical Savannah wedding (Girlfriend! Wedding graduate post! What!), and an amazing Boston wedding. And they are all beautiful and totally totally different. I love that.

Mark emailed me recently to say how amazing the whole summer had been, and how much they wanted to thank you guys, he told me “While some couples honestly worried that we were too inexperienced and the risk was too great to fly us across several states for their wedding – others have taken the chance on us and we find ourselves flying up and down the east coast over the next year. We’ve got more weddings booked in Illinois, Michigan, New York, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina! We’ll drive, we’ll fly, we’ll arrive the day before or earlier to make sure that we can meet the couple in person before their actual wedding date.”

So to thank you guys for real, for being an awesome grounded community, with awesome grounded brave couples who are willing to invest in emerging creative businesses, Leah and Mark are giving you guys this effing amazing travel deal, for APW readers only: We are still offering 20% off all weddings and no travel fee for weddings East of the Mississippi. For weddings West of the Mississippi – 20% discount + a flat $900 travel fee. And of course – our 100% money back guarantee still applies. Oh right, because did I mention? They have a 100% money back guarantee if you don’t like your pictures. Because they are crazy (awesome).

Seriously you guys. I mentioned to Mark that there were parts of Southern California and the Southwest where I had NO APW photographers, and no one I could recommend as both sane and monstrously talented, and they decided to travel to the West for $900 and 20% off. So, San Diego? Arizona? Nevada? Utah? New Mexico? I’m totally looking at you. Anywhere else in the country where you’re having a hard time finding wedding elves who get you? I’m looking at you too. Hire them, they are rad.

Oh, and finally, they are fantastic people. Literally. They give a portion of their profits to micro-lending through Kiva, they have this amazing non-profit project to create images for local non-profits (STEAL THIS IDEA, PHOTOGRAPHERS! Make Leah and Mark proud!) And they have an amazing three month internship program for 15 adults working to build their skills at photography.

Yeah. These are totally people you want at your wedding.

PS Please go read this crazy story about how when they first started they offered to stay at couples houses to cut costs, before they realized people would think that was nuts, and this amazing Offbeat Bride was like, “totally, stay with us.” And then they helped set up the wedding and babysit and do flowers and stuff. That’s Leah babysitting up there. Rad.