My Guest Blog: Survive Wedding Season Top 10!

Remember when I guest blogged last June @Survive Wedding Season about personalized wedding poems? I was happy to hear that it was chosen  as one of the Top Ten Wedding Guest Picks of 2009!

Thanks so much!

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Guest Blogging @ Practicing Writing: Digesting AROHO

Erika Dreifus, our lovely Practicing Writing Blogger, posted Part II of my experience at the retreat hosted by A Room Of Her Own (AROHO.) I think you’ll enjoy reading some tidbits of wisdom I learned from the workshop leaders, like Rita Dove, and more.

You can read Part I here.

Thanks, Erika!

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Guest Blogging @ Practicing Writing {A Women’s Writing Retreat: One Woman’s Treat and Necessity}

Thank you to Erika Dreifus for inviting me to blog a second time for her wonderful Practicing Writing blog. (You might remember my first blog, Writing Your Family History.)

I mentioned to Erika that I would be attending A Room of Her Own’s summer writing retreat on the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. She asked me to write a two-part series on the retreat. This first blog post was written before leaving for the retreat. I describe my expectations and preparations for the one week writing retreat for female authors located where Georgia O’Keefe was inspired to paint her southwest landscapes. I begin with a few obsessions.

Stay tuned for the second one about my experiences.

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Guest Blog: A minute to say hello, a card to last forever. How to address everyone at your wedding.

Hillary Dorwart and her groom handwrote a card to every single guest at their wedding. Each individual card addressed something about their individual relationship. Wow! I asked Hillary to share her experiences with us. I think you’ll be as touched as I was to read this story.

 

A minute to say hello, a card to last forever. How to address everyone at your wedding.

My husband, Jon, and I knew we’d at least be able to say hi to everyone who attended our wedding and anything beyond “Hi, thank you so much for coming. It’s wonderful to see you,” would be icing on the (wedding) cake. But we knew that at some point during our rotation around tables, some guests would be up for another drink or headed for the dance floor. How were we going to tell our guests exactly how much it meant that they traveled in for our special day? We also wanted to convey the message of love, appreciation and perhaps impart a memory or two. 

The writer in me, who appreciates writing and receiving hand-written letters, thought of the perfect way to relay messages to everyone. Why don’t we write all of our guests hand-written cards? Jon and I wrote cards individually or as a couple – depending upon who we were addressing. Friends or family of mine that Jon had never met or did not know as well, were written by me and vice versa. Family or friends we knew equally as well were written together. 

These cards were placed at the tables before the guests entered for the reception. The envelopes addressed the person or couple and in this way they acted as the table’s place cards. The cards also acted as our wedding favor. Many guests said they would keep our note forever. Everyone was just stunned by this gesture!

No one could believe we took that kind of time to write them a personalized message. All in all we had 130 guests attend. It took a few late nights, and a lot of focus – but it was easier than people think. We had a wonderful time reflecting upon memories with our family and friends. Nostalgia, excitement, appreciation and love were felt with each note we started and finished. What a wonderful way to celebrate the people in our lives who supported us and our marriage.

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Guest Blogging @ OneWed: Finding the best readings for your wedding

Thanks to OneWed for inviting me to blog about how to find the best readings for your wedding. It is a great site and I think you’ll enjoy the collection of Expert Tips and Advice.

Feel free to comment below on your favorite wedding reading ideas.

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Guest Blogging @ Survive Wedding Season

Thanks so much for posting my Expert Survival Tip: Personalized Wedding Poems, Survive Wedding Season!

Readers, I hope you’ll click through their great website. It is a unique online destination specifically designed for wedding guests. They give great advice, from bachelorette parties to gifts. Enjoy!

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Guest Blog: Russian Weddings and Traditions

Hans and I met Galina Gorokhova and her husband Vitaliy at the Kenville Dance Studios, where we take ballroom dance classes. Recently, they kindly had us over for a Russian cooking class (more details to come in another entry) and shared their wedding pictures and some of their wedding video with us. In each picture, you can see how in love they are with each other. I so enjoyed hearing about the Russian traditions and what they decided to incorporate into their wedding in St. Petersburg that I asked Galina to write a guest blog entry on Russian weddings. I hope you enjoy it, too!

Thanks, Galina, for sharing your thoughts with us!

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A Typical Russian Wedding

In Russia weddings have always been a tremendous three –day event where a large amount of people was invited. 

Preparing for a wedding doesn’t take such a long time as in America for example.

Usually people go to a city hall two month prior to their wished wedding date. They write an application that they want to be married on that particular date.

All the nearest relatives take part in this event. Guests are sent invitations. If the celebration is not taking place in a restaurant then the women cook different meals. The cars in which the guests of the wedding will travel are decorated with tapes, flowers and balloons. No doubt the most beautiful one must be the car for bride and groom. It is decorated with huge rings. 

Also before the wedding it’s important to choose two witnesses. One of them must be male and the other one – female. By the way groom usually chooses the male, and the bride chooses female to be witnesses. These are as a rule best friends, brothers or sisters of the young couple.

A lot of attention is paid to the clothes of a groom and a bride. In Russia the groom is usually wearing strict black suit and white shirt. The dress of a bride is to the contrary traditionally of white color. There is a veil on her head. Besides, the groom mustn’t see the bride in her dress before the wedding. In Russia it’s considered to be a bad sign.

An important custom is the buy-out of bride. The groom and his friends must come to the house of the bride. Guests from the girl’s side are waiting for them here. The guy must pass several trials to see and to take his bride away. For example he is asked to make compliments to the bride. Or they can check how well he knows her asking different questions about her. If he doesn’t know the answer to the question or is mistaken then he must pay money. 

The groom is given the bride in the end. When a young couple goes to street parents sprinkle them with rice or coins. This is done for future prosperity and well-being of newly-married couple.

After that future spouses sit into the car and go to the wedding palace. Guests follow them. Decorated cars go on the streets in column. During the travel they’re certainly signaling so that all the associates paid attention to them and knew about the holiday 

The official part of the wedding takes place in a registry office. It’s rarer for couples to arrange wedding ceremony at a church. During the wedding the groom and bride exchange rings symbolizing their love and devotion to each other.

After the official registration a newly-married couple goes to the trip through the city with guests. They stay at mostly important monuments and sightseeing. Besides, there is a tradition that the groom must carry bride on his hands through all the bridges in the city. Of course it is rarely executed but at least one bridge is necessary. As a rule at each staying guests say toasts for the young family. Usually people drink champagne.

At this time the parents of a groom go home. After the city trip all the others also come here. The groom’s parents meet a newly-married couple with bread and salt in front of the house entry. They wish the new family happy life together. After that they treat the groom and bride with bread and salt. It’s considered that the host in the house will be that of them who breaks off or bites off a bigger piece of bread. 

Then guests go to a place where the celebration will take place. Here a magnificent table is waiting for them. The groom and bride sit at it first. By the way bride sits right of the groom, and the groom’s parents are right to bride. After that the other people take their places, and the celebratory dinner starts. It is accompanied with numerous toasts for happiness, health and well-being for the groom and bride.

 Besides if you are at a Russian wedding don’t be surprised when you’ll quite often hear here guest shouts “Bitterly!” (Gorko) Sometimes even too often. Don’t think it far doesn’t speak that the food isn’t tasty. In fact when guests shout “Bitterly!” that means that the groom and bride must kiss each other. By the way sometimes you can also hear “Sweet!” (Sladko) And this moment witnesses must kiss each other.

Guests give presents to newly-married couple. Usually wedding presents are practical. Lots of guests even give money. Also different kinds of home appliances are popular.

 Also there is a tamada (host or toastmaster) at every wedding. The tamada is a person who leads a wedding and tries to make it cheerful and memorable. He carries competitions with the participation of the newly-married couple, witnesses, the parents of the bridegroom and the bride and other guests. Often the future of the couple is defined by the results of such competitions. For example they find out who and what duties will carry out. Also often they bear two trays. Guests are offered to put money on one of them depending on whose birth they allow from the young family – a boy or a girl. After all who wanted have voted this way tamada counts money for a boy and for a girl. It’s considered that that of them will be born for whom the assembled sum is bigger. By the way the first piece of wedding cake is also supplied from the auction. Sometimes tamada sings. Actually music is present at Russian weddings. After the dinner guests always dance.

 Usually weddings take part on week ends. On the second day the bride isn’t wearing her white dress. This day guests gather again together and continue having fun. There aren’t any special traditions on the third day.

Our Wedding

All wedding look the same. You’ll notice that if you’re ever to choose the photographer or a cameraman. It is so dull to observe all traditions all the time. So when it came to our wedding we did a modern wedding.

First, we skipped witnesses because we didn’t what to make our friends ill at ease when choosing between them. They are all best!

Second, there was no white dress and black suit.  White doesn’t go with my pale skin and we both hate black. We even asked our guests not to wear black.  Nobody minded. 

Third, there weren’t such stupid things as buy-out of the bride and “Gorko shouting”.

We thought it is silly to ask my future husband questions about me after 7 years of being together and make him pay money for me. Am I a thing or what? I found it offending as well as getting up and kissing whenever people shout; we are not  circus dogs, aren’t we? Instead of shouting “Gorko” we gave each of our guest a bell to ring to make some noise to give way to emotions. 

And fourth, there were not any games or tricks with money. We wanted our guests to have fun and not to spend their money.

Giving up a tradition is not an easy thing. We had some fights with our families on some of the things which didn’t go with traditions.

But after all it was our wedding and we successfully did it! And even those who didn’t believe it would be fun were satisfied. Because something new is always good!

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Guest Blogging @ BravoBride

I recently guest blogged for BravoBride. I invite you to read my piece Writing your own wedding vows: To Have, and to hold, and … {fill in the blank.}

Thanks, Susan, for the opportunity. Read more about BravoBride here.

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Guest Blogging @ Practicing Writing:Writing Your Family History

 

Writing expert Erika Dreifus kindly invited me to write a guest blog entitled, “Writing Your Family History: Five Hints.”  Erika’s blog Practicing Writer and her newsletter  are incredible resources for writers. When I need some advice, I always turn to her list of resources. I hope you will check it out.

 

My mother, a professional photographer, and I compiled a collection of paired poems and photographs documenting our family’s emigration from southern Italy to New Jersey. These pieces are based on visits to the town where our family originated, oral histories collected with Americans and Italians, historical documents and cultural history about the towns and time periods involved. What we created contains an emotional truth and some facts, but the stories mostly contain facts as we experienced them or as they were told to us. We continue to translate the experiences in the form of our art.

 

Here are some of those poems published (sadly without the photographs):

 

Poem “Question of Return” in Lumina.

Poems “Spring Pool Water,” “Noisier Than the Milk,” and “Statue of Liberty, 1890 Spiralbridge.

Poem “Teresa serves dinner at 20:00” in Conte: An Online Journal of Narrative Writing.

 

My personalized wedding poem company, Word Arrangement and this blog grew out of these experiences. I enjoyed collecting oral histories and translating them into poems and found a way to continue with this interest. Through wedding poems, I am lucky enough to be able to hear other people’s stories. I particularly enjoy hearing love stories!

 

If you are interested in learning more on the subject of Writing Family History and you are in the Ann Arbor area, here are two upcoming opportunities:

 

I am presenting a workshop entitled, “Writing Your Family History” at the Ann Arbor Book Festival on Friday, May 15th from 10 – 11 am.

Here is the program description: Researching and writing your family history doesn’t have to be a daunting task. In this session, learn tips on how to gather information and brainstorm ideas before translating the stories and research into a form that you can share with family members.

 

 

I will also be teaching a related one session class through the Ann Arbor Rec & Ed the evening of May 7:

Here is the class description:

Preserve Family History

Don’t let the intimate stories of your unique family history pass on with loved ones. Learn how to collect these special stories from your family. Discover how to get started and complete an interview. Develop a better understanding of how to craft the questions, answer questions and what to do with the final product. 1 class.

5/7

6:30 – 8:30 pm

(Page 12, Spring 2009 catalogue)

 

 

An essay of mine about writing about your family history was published in the Canadian geneology magazine Family Chronicle last summer. Thanks to the Anglo-Celtic Connections Blog for the shout-out!

 

 

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Guest Blog: Bethany Albertson Shares Her Experience of an Election Year Wedding

When I saw a picture of Bethany and Josh’s Obama cake, I knew I had to ask her about her wedding. In her post below, read about everything from their first married fist-bump to a reading from the Massachusetts Supreme Court case, Goodridge vs. Department of Health.

***

Partisans can be like sports fans and perhaps there’s no better example of this than Obama supporters. Maybe the sports fan analogy explains how the Obama cake came about. We were half-heartedly leafing through pictures of cakes, when we came across a particularly elaborate groom’s cake devoted to UT’s football team. Josh and I are currently living in Texas and I’m guessing that football themed wedding cakes are pretty typical here. I laughed at the cake, but then I joked that we should have an Obama cake. Josh’s face lit up and there was no going back. We opted for a chocolate zucchini cake, because if a cake is going to be liberal, it should have some veggies. We explained the design to our wedding coordinator Abby: the sun, the blue background and the red and white stripes underneath. We know she’s heard crazier requests before, but Abby informed us that the red was not possible. Our wedding location only works with organic products and there’s no way to get a decent red. It may have been the most politically sensitive cake ever.

There was never a self-conscious, let’s tie our politics into the wedding discussion, but the wedding was planned during a year of when our normal obsession with politics became extreme. We took trips to Iowa and Pennsylvania for canvassing, made phone calls from home, and were beyond excited to see our candidate go the distance. Politics just seeped into the wedding: we followed our first kiss as a married couple with our first married fist bump. Ever since a commentator speculated about the “terrorist fist jab,” we just can’t help ourselves. Our first dance was to “Stay with You,” by John Legend, who also did lead vocals for “Yes We Can”. “Yes We Can” was not a part of our wedding, but now that I think about it, what a fantastic motto for marriage. We also danced to “Sign, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours,” and of course we served what my friend Andrew dubbed “cake you can believe in.”
These were light-hearted touches that we loved. The more serious political matter was gay marriage. This was pre-passage of Prop 8, but we didn’t kid ourselves that the government’s conception of marriage was becoming consistent with our ideals. I’ve learned that the history of rights in the United States is not one of simple expansion- we inch forward and jump back, again and again. We wanted to acknowledge the current political context and our own beliefs about marriage.

We tried to do this through a reading from a Massachusetts Supreme Court case, Goodridge vs. Department of Health, in which the Court found that the legal implications of marriage should not depend on whether a couple is heterosexual or gay. The portion read at our wedding was about the special privileges and responsibilities of marriage, and there was no specific mention of the legality of gay marriage. The pro-gay marriage message in the reading was for us. We made this decision because our friends and family are politically diverse and they were there to celebrate our wedding. Some guests did get the political implications of the reading, but most just thought it was an odd choice that was in keeping with our quirky ceremony. My friend who did the reading first mentioned the decision and noticed some puzzled looks in the crowd. She looked at us and shrugged while she said, “hopeless romantics,” and everyone laughed. I think she’s right, though since we’re Obama supporters and it’s Inauguration Day, I prefer to say that we’re hopeful romantics.
***

Bethany and Josh on Caucus Night in Iowa

Bethany Albertson is an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington.

 

 

 

 

 

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In the news: I hope you’ll read Ann Keeler Evan’s January ’09 article entitled Election Year Wedding: cake you can believe in.

by Ann Keeler Evans, Philadelphia Marriage Examiner

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