Countdown: I do

The Big Day is here! I can hardly believe it.

Was I able to sleep after all? Mostly…

I am meeting the Wonderful Women at my parents’ house at 6:30 am (the only downside to an afternoon wedding) to start hair and makeup with the stylist. Then… onto the venue. 

You know, more or less, what happens next.

How do I feel? Excited and lucky to be marrying the man of my dreams. Practicing our vows last night on the side of the ceremony room with our judge moved me to tears.  

I also feel a little fancy. I’ve never been pampered like this. 

I know that as long as we get married today, nothing can go wrong. We’ve worked out all of the details and if something doesn’t go as planned, no one will notice.

We will be going on a “Mini-Moon” after the wedding, so I promise to update you on the wedding itself next week, when I’ll be posting as a married woman.

 I like the sound of that.

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Countdown: (1) Rehearsal & Gender Separation

Today feels like the first day of the wedding. I will be meeting my Chief Wonderful Woman with the Mother of the Bride for pedicures and manicures after a very New Jersey lunch of thin crust pizza at my favorite restaurant. Meanwhile, my fiancé and the Gentlemen of the Wedding are having haircuts and shaves.

The two genders have commenced separation. 

We’ll come back together for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. We sent the readings to the bridal party about a week ago and we will practice the set-up together in the actual ceremony space. Hopefully this won’t be too difficult. We are getting married “in the round,” so we’ll need a little coordination.

Dinner, though, should easy. My favorite dish on the menu is fried calamari. Mmmm. The diet can’t possibly still be important, right? How much damage can you do in one meal? 

In a traditional move, my fiancé and I decided not to see each other before the wedding. I am staying with my parents and the Chief Wonderful Woman while he is staying in a hotel near the venue.

I hope I can sleep tonight.

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Countdown: (2) Last Preparations

Two more days. It is hard to begin these last few blogs with anything less than surprise about how quickly time is moving!

Today is the last day of preparations (we hope!) We are going to drop everything off the venue for the set-up, including table markers, chocolate favors, etc. Last night we took a final dance class with my parents, which was really fun. (I particularly love how we’ve learned some new things because of the wedding.) 

Guests are starting to arrive and the fun frenzy – rather than the planning frenzy – is beginning.

I imagine that many of you thought I am crazy to think that I could blog everyday before the wedding. Indeed, it is hard to think clearly and focus on important things to share with you.

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Countdown: (4) Family History: Ideas for Collecting & Assembling @ UM

While there are only four days left before the wedding (and we fly to New Jersey tomorrow), I’m taking a break from all-things-wedding to present “Family History: Ideas for Collecting & Assembling” at the University of Michigan’s Work/Life Resource Center’s 4th annual event on work/life issues. The title of this year’s conference is Connecting the Dots.

I was contacted by UM’s HR department after someone read the description of a similar class offered at Rec & Ed and one presented at the Ann Arbor Book Festival last May. You never know what opportunities will lead to other ones.

A description of the workshop:

Family History: Ideas for Collecting and Assembling 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.

The idea for this workshop, as well as earlier ones and a memoir writing class I taught in NJ a few years ago, came out of a family history project that my mother and I completed together. Continuing the work of her late sister, my mother researched documents about our family’s emigration from southern Italian (Sala Consilina) to northern NJ in the late 1800’s. My mother, a professional photographer, and I visited the town a number of times and collected not only more documents pertaining to the family, but also an oral history. Our relatives there were incredibly generous in sharing their stories.

We paired her photographs with my narrative poems re-telling the family’s history. The result is a manuscript entitled, “Cent’Anni.” The manuscript as a whole is still looking for a publisher, but individual poems have been published. If you are interested, here is one that is available online:

“Teresa serves dinner at 20:00” Conte: Journal of Narrative Writing (Dec. 2006)

I loved collecting oral history and crafting poems out of those voices and so I decided to begin Word Arrangement, a personalized poem company. And that’s how this blog and venture was born.   

I can’t wait – only 4 days left! – to becoming a family with my new husband.

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Countdown: (5) The Italian Tribune and Wedding Announcements

I had no idea that you have to pay for wedding announcements in most newspapers. (Don’t look for our announcement in the Star-Ledger or NJ county papers.)

I guess it makes it sense: the announcement isn’t necessarily news and it is more like an advertisement.

That said, I really wanted to announce the wedding in New Jersey’s Italian Tribune which my family may (or may not) have been reading since it started in 1931. (It is not to be confused with Michigan’s Italian Tribune which has been publishing since 1908 and we subscribe to.)

We discovered that the Italian Tribune will publish announcements for free and we recently send in our information along with a photograph of us at a friend’s wedding in Tuscany last summer. We were so happy to see that it was recently published!

Thanks, Italian Tribune!

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Countdown: (6) Cake and a well-balanced life

My fiancé and I were surprised yesterday by a cake celebrating our upcoming marriage at a potluck dinner for his program. Theresa Ramirez, a pastry chef whose wedding cakes you might remember reading about here, made this beautiful and delicious cake. Thank you so much, Theresa!

Even though I’m on the inevitable pre-wedding diet that I tried to avoid, I enjoyed a nice, big piece.

So, I tried to swear off a pre-wedding diet. I’ve been inundated with information (otherwise known as “ads”) about how to lose weight quickly before your wedding. They are in wedding magazines, Facebook ads, Google ads, etc. They are disheartening and could make anyone sad for the unrealistic expectations on women’s bodies.

It is important to lead a healthy life, which includes healthy food and exercise. Trying to focus on that instead of the wedding clothes, my fiancé and I joined a gym. It is the Meri Lou Murray Recreation Center, a reasonably priced county gym. It hasn’t been too hard to go regularly.

Unlike some gyms I tried in NJ where many of the patrons looked like Soprano’s extras, this gym isn’t daunting. There are a wide-range of folks there, from kids who look like they might be on a team to senior citizens who park their walkers in the corner. 

So, we go to the gym regularly and eat good cake when we can. That’s a well-balanced life, if I’ve ever heard of one.

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Countdown: (7) Rochester Writers’ Conference

Today I am presenting at the Rochester Writer’s Conference.

Brainstorming, Work, and Creativity: Thinking Outside of the Box

Right brained or left, it doesn’t matter – being creative is essential in the current economy. Access your inner poet and your muse with poet and entrepreneur, Chloe Miller, who will lead a discussion of how to connect creativity with business planning and the generation of concrete ideas. This is a hands-on, interactive, process-driven voyage of discovery. Be prepared to roll up your sleeves.

Chloe’ Yelena Miller, received an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College. She has poems forthcoming or published in the Cortland Review, Alimentum, Lumina and Privatephotoreview.org, among others. She teaches writing online for Fairleigh Dickinson University, edits Portal del Sol and reads for The Literary Review. She founded Word Arrangement, a personalized wedding poem company and related blog.

I gave a similar talk to the PIM group in  (Professionals in the Media) Maplewood, NJ this summer.

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Countdown: (8) So close!

If I were an auctioneer, I could quickly list everything we’ve been working on: seatingweddingrogramceremonyreadingsmenussongchoicestablesignsohmy!

Lots of little details, but it does feel as though it is all coming together. At this point, we are mostly tweaking and finalizing everything. That said, we do have to finish the tweaking and finalizing.

I’ve had a chance to relax a little. I shipped my shower presents and received them on Tuesday in the mail. I planted my new Italian herb garden, mixed in my new red bowl and watched tv under the tree-blanket that my friend made for me. Tonight I’m going to make one of the brownie recipes from my new collection of friends’ recipes for a potluck dinner tomorrow night.

Yesterday and this morning haven’t been filled with pensive thoughts. Mostly, I have work to do for my day jobs (there are a number of them.) Yesterday I started tutoring two new students (one MBA grad and one UM undergrad) in Italian. They found my listing on the UM Language Resource Center list of tutors. I’ve also been grading writing papers from two online classes.

Tonight we are going to be saying goodbye to a poet-friend who lives in town and is moving west. Then, our last wedding-dance class. Looking forward to breaking in those new shoes. Luckily, the heels aren’t too high (I could never be as tall as my fiance’, so I might as well make sure I won’t trip at the wedding.)

Tomorrow I am presenting at the Rochester Writer’s Conference. The copies are ready and so is my syllabus. I present from 10 – 11:15. It is about an hour away from Ann Arbor, so I think it will be an early morning. Oy. The subject of the conference is “Make More Money with your Writing!” I hope to learn something new.

With this long to do list, I gotta run…

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Countdown: (9) Love Story

I liked Hans so much after our first date that I was sure he’d never want to see me again.

We met at Union Square, under the statue of Washington. Well, officially we “met” online. We emailed back and forth and never even spoke on the phone. Hans, who was at Princeton at the time, suggested the statue of Washington as a good meeting spot. I emailed back and asked which statue that was without realizing how obvious it must be.  

Surprisingly, Hans didn’t give up on me. He carefully emailed back exactly where we were to meet (he still helps me with directions.) That evening, we walked to a restaurant off the square and I tried to breathe through my nose so I didn’t appear to be out of breath. This was a tall man who took long strides! Always ignoring numbers, I hadn’t noticed from his profile just how tall he was.

After a lovely dinner, coffee at French Roast and then drinks at a bar with live music, Hans and I sat in a park. We’d talked about everything and I was smitten. Hans leaned over and put his arm around me. Another night in NYC, we’d kiss with me standing on a stoop and Hans on the sidewalk. Despite our differences in height, we saw eye to eye. 

Since then, we’ve been busy. 

We’ve been to 17 states and territories together: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, DC, and two countries: Italy, Canada. 

We’ve cooked, seen movies, taken salsa and foxtrot lessons, gone to museums, flown on a hot air balloon, driven down the coast of California, went to a Smith reunion, went to Hans’ UCLA graduation, celebrated birthdays and holidays, gone shopping, celebrated friends and family member’s weddings together, cried when loved ones have passed, kissed on New Year’s Eve, attended poetry readings and political science conferences, text messaged, emailed, called, talked, whispered and snuggled. 

My favorite memory of Hans when we first started dating was spending the weekend with him in Princeton. I had grading to complete and he had work to do on his book. We’d go to Small World Coffee and set up at a back booth. He’d work on his laptop and I’d start grading papers. We’d drink cappuccino and periodically joke about our work or the folks sitting around us. It was peaceful and I knew I found a man who I not only trusted, but with whom I could simply live with. 

And now we do live together. Our apartment in Michigan is our first shared home. We’d lived together in spurts when we were first dating, Hans patiently visiting me at my parents’ house, my driving down to Princeton for a few days and then my apartment in Roselle Park, NJ and his apartment in Washington, DC. Really living together takes the cake, as they say. 

I put his Northwestern University license plate frame on my car and he drinks coffee out of my Smith College mug. We divide the chores and sit in front of the fire on cold weekends playing Scrabble or watching a movie. We make pizza together and read the Sunday New York Times.

Hans is the love of my life. I look forward to seeing the world with him and revisiting our favorite places. I used to think that marrying someone would just be signing a piece of paper and continuing with our lives. Meeting the right person changed that.

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Countdown: (10) Why get married?

I’ve been thinking a lot about why we are getting married. I do not doubt my desire to be with my fiancé for the rest of our lives or our love for each other. I know that I want to marry him. I know that he wants to marry me.

But why, exactly? What is propelling us in this direction? I know it isn’t simply because we are “supposed to.” It is bigger than that. 

Marrying for love is a modern concept. There is no doubt that love is the primary reason behind our union. The public and legal reasons are also important.  

I am happy to be able to share our vows in a circle of our friends and family. In the beginning of a relationship, we want to “shout the person’s names from the rooftops.” As the relationship progresses, it deepens and we still want to share it.

I talked to some married friends to ask them what helped to shape their own decisions to marry.

Shasta, one of the Wonderful Women and author of the new sewing blog The Lovely Nest, notes the importance of commitment and accountability. She writes, “I think it comes down to commitment and sometimes just knowing between the two of you that you’ll spend your lives together isn’t enough.  You want to get up in front of all your family and friends and publicly declare your love and say “this is the person I will love until I die.”  There’s some accountability in that.” Yes, Shasta, that feels exactly right.

I am touched by how Wonderful Woman Alethea uses the word “hope” as she explores this topic. Perhaps there is nothing more hopeful or optimistic than making a decision like this one. Alethea writes, “Whether people decide to get married or not, love is a big chance that we all take, whether you go in with big doubts or big dreams of a perfect union. I think getting married is an expression of hope that the way you make each other feel is so unique and valuable, that it must mean you should couple for life.  And there is an urge to say it out loud in front of everyone you know!” 

Wonderful Woman Amy writes about the “pledge” she and her husband made: “To me, marriage is telling the world that you’re in it for the long haul. If Peter and I had just continued to live together without getting married, I guess it would have felt more open-ended. I would have wondered how long we would be together. Now, whatever may happen in the future, I know that we at least went in with the expectation of forever. I am a very shy and private person, but I really wanted to make that public declaration. We wrote our own vows and they included the words “Before God and these witnesses, I vow…” as an acknowledgment that we weren’t just saying nice words; we were truly committed to what we were pledging.”

A certain proof and commitment to a relationship can’t be denied in a true marriage. Shasta adds, “I think security probably plays some role.  Sometimes I joke and ask Chris if he promises to love me forever and he always answers “I already did.”  I think there really is something powerful about publicly promising to love someone forever.” 

My fiancé and I are already a committed, nuclear family in so many ways. We are committed to each other and will make this pledge public in 10 days.

I really can’t wait.

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