Weddingbee Blog

Hey lovelies! I’m so sorry to disappear like that—I had a few scares this past weekend! First F Stripes decided we were gonna watch the Super Bowl!! Waaa? Excuse my blatant sexism here, but isn’t this why I’m marrying a girl? Of course I’m kidding… well kinda, I mean, we’ll just leave it at “Go Saints!” Our second scare of the weekend came when the notorious r.i.n.g. (eater) Oscar ingested something toxic and had a series of seizures forcing us to spend Sunday night in the doggy ER. The drive to the ER was seriously terrifying—F Stripes did great with the precision driving, and I held/comforted our near unconscious and twitchy pup. Tears were shed, dollars were spent, and many sleepless hours later we were able to spring him from the ER, tail a-waggin’! A very happy ending indeed.

And now thanks to the dog-who-lived we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming and talk about the super rad new-school traditions we wanna rock on our wedding day!

Here goes:

We wanna Jump the Broom. This is awesome for a few reasons. A little history: jumping the broom originated in Africa and later served as a public declaration for African Americans when NO form of marriage was available to them (i.e. during slavery). It symbolized settling into a “marriage-type arrangement”. Doesn’t the thought of having to settle into “an arrangement” make you feel a little queasy? Me too! Anyway, it was always done with witnesses AND whoever jumped the highest was the decision maker of the household. So, let’s review. We’re publicly announcing our desire to settle into a “marriage-type arrangement” (blech) sans a little piece of paper and about 1400 rights. We’re gonna have witnesses. We’re fiercely competitive and welcome a little egalitarian way to decide just WHO’S IN CHARGE around here. Oh yeah. We’re definitely jumping the broom.

We wanna write our own vows. Although I was almost convinced by Miss Scissors’ post here and Mrs. Mouse’s post here about the virtues of going with traditional vows, and while I’m sure to be a blubbery mess and F Stripes is admittedly shy, we still wanna torture ourselves and write super-personal, sure-to-mess-up-your-makeup, heart wrenchingly personal vows. I would love to include this excerpt from F Stripes’ favorite book:

For her I changed pebbles into diamonds, shoes into mirrors, I changed glass into water, I gave her wings and pulled birds from her ears and in her pockets she found the feathers, I asked a pear to become a pineapple, a pineapple to become a lightbulb, a lightbulb to become the moon, and the moon to become a coin I flipped for her love, both sides were heads; I knew I couldn’t lose.

Nicole Krauss, “The History Of Love”

I think it’s magic and I love that it captures both the vast possibilities and utter certainty of love in just a few sentences. I’m not really sure if peeps ever include quotes in their vows, as I haven’t been to that many weddings, but I’d be hard-pressed to say it better myself. Has anyone else included a quote in their vows or should this be more of a reading thing?

… Because…

We want our friends to do readings from our favorite books.

I like you, by Sandol Stoddard Warburg, might just be one of them. I don’t remember when I first discovered it, but I gave it to Fiancee Stripes as a gift a while back, just because. Just because it’s a lovely little book and so perfectly captures everything beautiful and wonderful and totally deliciously odd about relationships. You must GO read Miss Scissors post if you aren’t familiar with the book. I’m not sure what other books will make the cut, but we LOVE the idea of including as many people as possible in the wedding fun and since we can’t just have one GIANT wedding party, we’ll have readers. And various other wedding elves, I think. Yes, elves are a must.

We want our friends & family to bless our rings.

Yup- we want to risk our rings forever falling to a grassy home, being eaten by a toddler, or dropped in a cocktail just so that our family and friends can get their grubby paws all over ‘em and endow them with good wedding juju.

We want to drink sake have a San-San-Kudo Ceremony.

What can I say- we like to drink together! Seriously though, the SSK is a formal/ritualized drinking of sake by both partners AND their respective families to bond them in marriage. The literal translation is three-three-nine-times which is a whole bunch of auspicious numbers that dictate how many times you drink the sake. And since we’re freaks about auspicious numbers here in Stripeland this is truly perfect. AND I LOVE the symbolism of sharing a cup (of booze) with my future wife and family (whoever shows up or F Stripes chooses to stand in) and I think it’s only appropriate that we borrow this tradition from Japanese culture as I have a whole Japanese family who mean the world to me and have played a big role in my life! Enter our bridesmaid Nami, who was my exchange student when I was eleven. We’ve kept in touch ever since. And by “kept in touch” I don’t mean we write letters, I mean we traverse the globe to hang out in various cities and have spent time living in each others’ homes. She’s awesome and I’m so happy to have her stand with me as a bridesmaid! I can’t wait to share our big day with her and her family and I love this little nod to their culture/tradition. So yeah. I think it’s legit. Just check out the proof:

*I’m about 20 here and my J fam played dress up with me at a Kimono Parlour, had professional pics taken, and then paraded me through town to their local shrine. Love ‘em!

AND there you have just a few of the new-school traditions that we hope to incorporate. Whadda ya think? Too many or too much of a mish-mosh? Are you incorporating/creating new traditions for your wedding? Do tell.