DIY Distress

The one problem with deciding to make your own wedding invitations is the part where you realise that you have to send them out. And not just, you know, anonymously posted on the internet - you will be literally sending these things that you have spent months crafting, poured hours and hours of time into constructing, to every person you know and love.

Like that nightmare you had where you did something stupid in front of everyone you know and love.

When this realisation hits you - usually around the time you accidentally glue-gun one of the inserts slightly off-centre into one of the cards, or when you notice that the ink from the stamp has smudged a little around the edges, despite you hairspraying it twice for good measure - your stomach drops and you realise that maybe, maybe those things you've been working on since Christmas are in fact a little bit crap. And everyone knows you're making your own invitations because your mum has been telling everyone so proudly, but actually they're going to open the envelopes and see... these.

And it's too late to back out now because you'd never be able to get professional ones made in time, and of course because everyone knows you're making them yourself, they'll be really confused if they suddenly got non-homemade ones, so you'd have to answer questions about how it all went wrong, so it works out quicker if you just send out this trash and then people will be able to see just went wrong and will hopefully be British enough not to comment on it. Besides, it's not like there's anything you can do to fix it at this point.

Of course from there it starts to spiral.

What if nothing you've made for the wedding is any good? What if it's not just the invitations that suck, what if it all sucks?

And what if it's not just the stuff you made what if all the choices you have made, what if everything you picked for this wedding is going to look awful? What if once it's all put together it just looks like a hot mess of random colours and glue-gunned decorations, and everyone just sits there really awkwardly waiting until there's an appropriate point for them to leave so that they are no longer surrounded by all sorts of weird, poorly-coordinated things.

And then afterwards no-one will speak to you for a while, if ever again, because they've seen what's inside your mind and it wasn't nice for anyone.

And they're probably still all covered in glitter, even though you didn't use any glitter, but that's just the way these things always seem to turn out, with glitter stuck to people.

At this point you have to go and sit quietly somewhere and distract yourself in some non-alarming manner, possibly by watching a livestream of kittens, and take a lot of deep calming breaths.

After that you have to reaffirm yourself, it will be fine, people will like your things, and if they don't they will probably be too drunk to examine them too closely anyway, so it will work out either way.

Registering an Interest

I spent last week frantically working on getting envelopes addressed for the invitations, with the plan of getting them posted last weekend - I would be visiting home so could get some of them hand-delivered, saving on postage. Clearly the plan was ingenious, so I was flogging myself to get the ones finished for people who lived near my parents.

Until late Thursday night, when I sent a text to my mum chasing up the last few addresses. Her response was "Have you sealed the envelopes yet?"

Ummm, no, because I'm still writing the addresses. Why?

Apparently after our conversation the previous week about how Jon and I did not want to do a gift list, she has decided that it would be best for us to do a gift list. Hurrah.


So, Friday afternoon, Jon and I bunked off work and went to set up a gift list.


Near us there are really only two shops which can be used for making a gift list - John Lewis, or Debenhams. Whilst we have always appreciated browsing in John Lewis, the prices are pretty ridiculous there, as they tend to target the slightly more well-off shopper. Debenhams had always been where we went for the sensibly-priced alternative. So Debenhams was our first stop.

We found the wedding registry desk, and saw a member of staff nearby who was helping another customer. We loitered by the desk waiting for her to finish with this customer, or someone else to walk by, who could tell us who we needed to speak to, as the desk was very very empty.

And we waited.

And we waited.

 

Eventually, after about twenty minutes, the staff member finished with her customer and came over to me. Oh no, she wasn't the wedding registry lady, but if we went over to the tills they'd be able to tell me where she was.

I (by this point Jon had wandered off to be amused elsewhere) wandered over to the tills, and waited as the two slowest cashiers in the world took forever serving the two slowest customers in the world.

And I waited.

And I waited.

Finally, one of the customers was sent on her way, and I was able to ask about the lady who manned the registry service. Apparently this question was extremely unexpected, so the cashier had to disappear into the staff only area to try and find out what was happening.

And I waited.

And I waited.

At long last she returned and told me that the woman I needed was on lunch, and would not be back for another 10 minutes. No-one else was able to help me, but we could maybe look around and see if there was anything we liked.

By this point we had been standing and waiting for what felt like the whole afternoon but was probably in reality about 40 minutes - which is a long time when actually you just want to buy something. They wouldn't have had to work for it, we were standing there going "Please let us spend money with you!" and we were getting zip.

What was worse was that our time-killing browse of the items which we were looking to register for took approximately 90 seconds. There wasn't much there at all, which was disappointing.


So, our patience gone, even the promise of a £50 gift card from the store in return for registering with them didn't hold enough allure to keep us there, and we left, heading instead for John Lewis, the place of the £16 spatula.

It was the work of maybe 15 minutes to get our list all set up, by a very friendly and efficient lady, and we were handed both a barcode scanner and a voucher for a free hot drink and slice of cake each in the cafe, and we were off.

The barcode scanner was sadly a bit dicky, and kept randomly losing signal if I bent down too long to look at something, and the scanner part didn't work very well either, so we spent most of the afternoon attempting to scan things and then having to type in the product number ourselves using the stylus. This was tricky for the bigger and heavier objects which had the product numbers on low shelves, so we did a lot of squatting and bending and contorting whilst trying to both read and enter the numbers without losing signal.

Guys, I didn't realise how much weird and expensive household stuff there was in the world until I spent an afternoon painstakingly going through it all to try and work out if I wanted it or not.

Firstly, because I am a child, and this seemed a little bit rude:

Heeheehee tiddly pots.

I don't know what a 'Big love bowl' is that warrants something made that much of plastic being that expensive. Possibly it is some kind of totem for a religious ceremony of some sort? As a spoon is involved I can only assumed it is a ceremony that involves ice cream.

A mat made of cork fish! If the one made of 5 cork fish was too big for your needs, there was a smaller mat made out of 3 cork fish, so it can fit into just about every household seamlessly.

Perfect! Just what I needed to subtly store all those toothpicks I do not have. Classy, elegant, unobtrusive... And for just less than £20 looks nothing at all like the little plastic animals they used to give me ice cream in at chain pubs when I was a kid. Nothing at all.

Oh, you think, looking at this little silver cage, this is quite lovely, what is it? Why it is a tea strainer! The little bird is the strainer, and the little cage is where you rest it when you are finished with it so you don't get tea gunk dripping all over your table. Now, pretending for a moment that you at 100% behind this strange fascination for birdcages which seems to be gripping society at the moment, you take a look at the price tag...

What a bargain! Why, that is less than the cost of three of those stupid Big Love Bowls, surely you can't turn down that price?

You will note that the strainer, bowl and toothpick holder are all from the same high-value high-use brand, Alessi. I would not like to go round to their house, no sir, because that would be full of some crazy shit.

(This is not the first time I have had an appropriate use for this gif. Apparently it is more regularly suited to daily life than you would think.)

I can only assume this is for when I have 6 extremely picky, but not very hungry friends around for dinner at the same time.

Guess how much this chair costs. Go on, guess! I bet you can't guess! Have a go.

£224! For all those American sorts out there, that's $377. For a plastic chair. That is BRIGHT GREEN.

By this point, Jon and I were flagging heavily, to the point that Jon had spent five minutes flicking through a swatch book for a £2000 leather chair so he had an excuse to sit down for a bit. It was only sensible that we made our way to the cafe to make the use of the free drink-and-cake voucher.

However ridiculous the rest of the shop might have been, that GIANT piece of cake was an absolute work of art. Even if we did have to eat it with a soup spoon because Jon grabbed without looking and neither of us had the energy to go back and switch the cutlery.

the Conflict of Wedding Blogging

Wedding blogging is a strange beast.

The nature of blogging is such that you are encouraged to share every detail of things, to reveal yourself and all your plans. Such is the intent of wedding blogging, to show everyone who reads the real nitty-gritty of your planning and crafting, and to document both for public consumption and personal reflection the long journey to your wedding day.

However, this comes into conflict with what I view as the traditional view of wedding planning - the surprise element. That on the day people will appear with no knowledge of what to expect and be dazzled with wonder and delight at all beautiful amazements you have worked hard to create.

So where do you draw the line?

Naturally, the wedding dress is Top Secret - although I have seen pictures shared by people on instagram of their fittings, which seems like an extremely public forum, so I guess there are different standards for that nowadays. But I think everyone involved, including Jon, would have a fit if I let slip any images of my dress, so I have had to keep this secret since like last July, and I am not good at secrets.

But what of the bridesmaid attire? That is already spread further - between myself and the bridesmaids, and then their immediate family members. And also, in the case of one of my bridesmaids, all the women in her office (although they all have approved of the choice, so that's a relief).

And what of invitations? People will be seeing them anyway, I guess, but is it better to wait until they have been sent out before you share pictures of the details? And decorations, plans for music, plans for the ceremony...


I mean the basic impression I get is that the things that Must Not Be Shared are usually the things that people would be interested in hearing about beforehand, and the less secret a thing must be kept, the less interested people are in hearing about it. Which I suppose is natural - there is always something far more interesting about a thing you mustn't know about than a thing that it's totally okay for you to know about.

I guess the only thing I can do for now is play it on the safe side, and deal with vagaries in the blog until closer to the time. Sorry guys, instead of deets for now you get self-reflection and nonsense-musings.

Unwritten and Handwritten Rules

Weddings have rules for everything. And I mean literally everything.

The latest I have come across is how to address envelopes for the invitations.

This has only come up because we are at the point where we are presently getting ready to address our envelopes, and were thus exploring our options. Now, my handwriting is terrible. It's really quite appalling. My parents went through a phase of blaming my infant school for not teaching me how to write joined up (although I can, I just really have to concentrate), but then realised that actually it's just that their daughter is fundamentally incapable of writing neatly.

 haha I wish. For more beautiful gifs, check out calligifphy.tumblr.com.

As such, when my Mum presented me with a calligraphy set for Christmas just after I got engaged, this seemed like a potential avenue for exploration in the context of invitations. I began with a first burst of enthusiasm with the idea that I would naturally hand-calligraph ever single invitation, until I realised that would be SO MUCH WORK and did them on the computer instead.

I revisited the idea of calligraphy when we started gathering addresses to send out the invitations, as a way of addressing the envelopes. Naturally wedding planning is ridiculous, and Jon and I ended up having an argument that was far too involved for something as mundane as addressing envelopes. I didn't want to just write in my normal handwriting, because it would look awful. How awful?

However, Jon was of the opinion that a) calligraphy would be way too much effort, and b) my calligraphy skills were a bit rubbish really anyway, so what was the point if it was going to look crap?

I politely told him what I thought of his opinion, he responded likewise, and after a slightly heated discussion over the qualifications of both members of the debate, with a few less-than-generous allusions to each others respective intelligence and sense of taste, and queries as to what the other person knew anyway, the session was adjourned until we could be friends again.

When we reconvened half an hour later, the idea was batted around of printing labels with the addresses on, because that would be neater and we could be decorative without it looking awful. 

Except apparently that is Verboten. Not Allowed. Martha Stewart says NO.

"The address on a wedding invitation should be handwritten; printed labels are not appropriate (though calligraphy done by computer directly on the envelope is gaining popularity and acceptability)..." from HERE.

Well that's just dandy, Martha, but frankly I wouldn't trust my printer not to mangle any envelopes I put through it, and as demonstrated above my handwriting is less than appropriate if the reason you are declaring all this is for the sake of formality. And no, I can't afford to hire a calligrapher to write my addresses for me. I would rather spend that money on booze.

She then laughingly goes on to declare the invitation addressing etiquette has become more relaxed in recent years, but still gives 17 PAGES of exactly what you must and must not do.

 17 pages! And none of these rules are things which I even would have noticed were I the recipient of an envelope which broke any or all of these guidelines. I find myself wondering who has the time to sit down and consider how offended they would be if someone wrote 'Dr' instead of 'Doctor' on the envelope, or used an initial instead of a full first name, or god forbid printed labels instead of hand writing, even in aid of legibility.

Who has that sort of spare time? And who even spends that long looking at envelopes? Surely once it arrives you spend at most a minute investigating the postmark to try and guess who it is from, and then open it and immediately lose interest in favour of the contents which are generally much more interesting.

However, the overwhelming response from the internet was "NOPE". So for fear of actually offending someone we know who cares more about envelopes than we realised, we turned back to calligraphy. 

And lo, planning a wedding has accomplished what years of school could not - I am practicing my handwriting.

Eh, it's a start. Right?

Appellation Station

So, I alluded to this briefly in one of my earlier posts, as part of the things that are "too hard so I've been putting them off" in my wedding planning, but I am currently wrestling with what my potential surname will be when I'm married.


When I was a kid I blithely announced that I would have to marry someone whose surname began with the same letter as mine (if not my own surname, although this was unlikely as it's a pretty unusual one) so that I could keep my initials the same, because they presently spell out an Italian word and that delights me.

As I got older I figured that naturally I would be changing my name, but obviously that wouldn't be a problem because by the time I got to the age of getting married I would have already accomplished so much under my maiden name, left my stamp on the world with that identity, and would be ready to move on to my new name. I would be a successful author, perhaps, writing under my maiden name so as to allow any potential children some anonymity from my hoardes of screaming fans. So on so forth et cetera.

Naturally, given my stellar understanding of how accomplishment and fame work, I have of course not managed to do any of these things. But lo, here I am, on the brink of marriage (6 months to go next Tuesday) and suddenly having to consider actually changing my name.

Now for the sake of illustration, I will be using the Psuedo-surnames Bulwer and Lytton, which match mine and Jon's surnames in syllables and some assonance.

I've been a Bulwer for nearly 27 years now. I'm used to being a Bulwer. I like it, I think it fits me.

Faced with the prospect of being a Lytton, I instead find myself struggling to part with my identity for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to:


I don't like change.

I don't. It upsets me. I'm still not over the new photocopier they put in at work (well, that is awful,  and thus justified). This was ably demonstrated in my initial freakout when Jon and I got engaged, and my occasional wobbles when I think about getting married, only to calm myself down by reassuring myself that nothing has or will change fundamentally.

Sometimes I'm okay with change - if it is something beyond my control, if it is something that just has to happen, then I can cope and adjust, but if it is something that I have to make an active decision about? I will dither and fret until people either make the decision for me or I have to just close my eyes and pick.



I feel like it is a bit anti-feminist

 You may have noticed that occasionally on this blog I let slip my somewhat feminist leanings. And whilst some people may argue that the act of marriage is in itself anti-feminist, I am of the school of feminism that feels that as long as people are doing something willingly and equally, with a full understanding of it, then if they're not hurting other people they should be free to do it. However, there is something that sticks a little about the idea of totally removing an aspect of my identity for marriage and substituting it for my husband's instead. Whilst I know it isn't the case, it does feel a little bit like a transferral of property, and like I am being subsumed by this new role as wife.

I know this absolutely isn't the case, and I don't at all think this of women who do change their name after marriage, but it is something which is niggling with me a bit - I had an identity prior to marriage, and I'll continue to have an individual identity after marriage. Shouldn't my name reflect that in some way? Why is my name okay to change, but the man's stays the same? I feel like it is betraying my feminist beliefs in some way to do this.

In Jon's defense, he has never pushed that he wants me to change my name, he has even considered changing his so we hyphenate and both have the same name, Bulwer-Lytton. But, as he's a man he's never had to consider changing his name before so it has been a very difficult thing for him to get his head around.


'Lytton' is actually a surname of a very famous pop culture figure

On the bonus it means it will be  much easier to spell to people over the phone. On the downside it limits the names of potential children a little, and means that it feels like a much more common name. Being a Bulwer, I've never met anyone else with the same name. We were the only family of Bulwers in my town, and I think only one of two in our county. I believe it's a more common name in North America, but I have never in my life met a Bulwer I wasn't related to. It felt like being part of an exclusive little club. It's no fault of Jon's that in the last twenty years Lytton has suddenly become such a hugely famous surname internationally, but even aside from that it was a more common name anyway, so even though it's petty it is something which I can't help but note.



Now, hyphenating is definitely an option. Bulwer-Lytton sounds pretty nifty, and is just the correct number of syllables (and he was also a famous Victorian author, btw). But this also raises issues - I wouldn't be able to just use my marriage certificate to change my name, I'd have to use Deed Poll; would my in-laws think that I'm rejecting them in some way; if we have kids and they get the double-barrelled name, will they hate me forever when they are first learning how to write?

etc. etc.


But even then it still feels weird. I guess it's just a case of getting used to it, but until then every time I think of it there's a little part of my brain just going "what's happening why are you calling me that?"

This is all definitely just to do with me over-thinking things to the Nth degree again, as I do. And there's only one thing to do when you are suffering internal turmoil over something very silly.

10 Things I Like About Myself

So a while back the wonderful Christy over at Avoiding Atrophy did a post listing 10 things she liked about herself. As a crusader for improving self-esteem and positive self-image, she has moved on to run a Link-Up, encouraging her readers and their readers and so on and so forth to think about the things they like about themselves.

 The master-post can be found here.

It's very easy to fall into the trap of self-criticism, and to assess yourself by perceived societal standards that are higher than any you hold others to, or that others hold for you. I know I'm very guilty of considering myself a failure, and I'm incapable of taking a compliment, instead always rebutting them by pointing out some flaw of myself for people to see as an alternative. (A recent example - "I really love your coat!" "Yeah, but I've lost a button"). It's a habit that I know drives Jon to distraction sometimes. If he were ever to eventually snap and murder me, it wouldn't be anything to do with the towels on the floor by the washing machine, it would be because he told me I looked nice and I listed all the reasons why I don't one too many times.

I wonder if part of this is cultural - the British are apparently known for being self-deprecating, and struggle to sell themselves. 

So, in the spirit of self-belief and self-confidence, here are 10 things I like about myself:

1) My breasts are pretty awesome. In fact, I might go so far as to say they are magnificent even. There are some tops that when I wear them people are like "Hello Claire, and hello Claire's breasts." I spent all of high school wishing for something in the chestal region, and was delighted when I edged my way into a B-cup. Then came University and seemingly all of a sudden BAM! E-cup. And I love them. Yes, they may make choosing necklines difficult, too high and it's frumpy, too low and it's a bit alarming for all involved, but it's worth it. I can't talk about my breasts in real life very often, and I'm really quite proud of them.

2) I'm a good cook. I mean, yes, I do have a tendency to sometimes get bored and wander off to the detriment of more normal meals, but I can make an amazing Hungarian Goulasch, my chicken soup is delicious, and every time I make my chocolate brownies I have to increase the recipe because they get eaten so quickly.

I made these chocolate brownie cookies before Christmas and they were AMAZING. When I make a project of a meal or a cake it turns out great, and I'm pretty good at knowing what flavours will compliment each other to freestyle on existing recipes.


3) I have a really good memory for seemingly obscure facts. This makes me seem very impressive in pub conversations, but unfortunately gives me no aid in pub quizzes because they never seem to ask questions relevant to my random facts. Jon compared me a bit to the characters in the film Space Cowboys, where they memorize the eye chart to fake their way through an eye test, because they can't read it. I know a lot of little things in a lot of subjects to give the impression I know a lot. That said, I also do have my 'specialist subjects' which I can bring up information from at any given moment. Like Greco-Roman mythology, the Harry Potter books and all the words to the poem Jabberwocky.




4)  I am good at critical reading. Movies, books, tv shows, I love reading into them from different critical points of view and supporting them with evidence from the source. I've impressed people with the way I do it. In a discussion about whether Disney films were unfeminist, I provided this critical reading of The Little Mermaid:

"...You can argue Ariel’s voicelessness in a couple of ways – that men won’t fall in love with women who speak out, or that a woman’s personality will shine through despite everything else she faces. Although that first argument I suppose is weak because it is the strength of Ariel’s voice that grabs Eric’s attention in the first place, and the appropriation of that voice that distracts him, when it is put to the wrong use. Ariel’s voice is continually praised as being the most beautiful, the strongest and most unique, and allegorically speaking you can read that as because she is insistent on speaking for herself. Her voice and speech gives her power, which is why Ursula sees it as valuable and takes it from her, with the intention of making her powerless. But then Ariel proves that whilst she can be silenced, she is not totally devoid of power or agency, she just has to find other ways to utilise it, and her regaining her voice after learning these lessons makes her stronger than she was at the start, when she relied on her voice to make things happen rather than her actions too."

And someone messaged me afterwards to ask if I was a Professor or a researcher somewhere. That made me really happy, I look up to academics and researchers so for someone to read my just-for-fun analysis of the symbolism of voices in The Little Mermaid and thing "wow this person must do this for a living" was wonderful.

 

5) I'm enthusiastic. I like being involved in things, and have fun with them. My friend spent most of high school trying to get me to stop volunteering for things, but dammit I have a lot of fun when I volunteer, and I've got some great stories from it. It did work out less well for her when one of the times I volunteered us for something she got 800 gallons of water dropped on her, but it's a great story.

6) I don't quit easily. I stick with things, even if they are hard, until I either finish them or it becomes silly to keep going (I'm looking at you Synchronised Swimming lessons). I finished my teacher training even though I decided not to become a teacher - alongside a part time job and volunteering at a local Rainbows group (which I've been at for 5 or 6 years now), I've not been without a job since I was 15, and I've stuck with How I Met Your Mother right through to the bitter end so there better be a damn good payoff.

7) I make people laugh. I like to think that it's with me, not at me. 

8) I enjoy the ridiculousness of life. I can find humour and pleasure in all sorts of bizarre quirks of life and humanity. That's why Jon proposed using a ring box shaped like a cowboy hat, because I saw them, loved how brazenly unconcerned they were with what the rest of the world thought with regards to good taste, and declared I wouldn't say yes if he proposed without one. I never thought he would find one, but when he did, and then had to order a dozen because you could only buy them in bulk, I felt like I could laugh for a week. Best story ever. (we now only have 11 because I killed one of them, they are not sturdy).

Whilst the show is awful awful awful, sometimes I think Max from 2 Broke Girls is my spirit animal in the delight she takes in just about everything weird she comes across. And also has magnificent breasts.

9) I am improving all the time with my art. I'll acknowledge it's not the best out there, but I'm always always making progress, and developing. I'm not stuck, I'm learning new skills and I'm so pleased. In the last year I feel like I've gone so far in my personal development and I'm really proud of myself.

 January 2013

January 2014

10) I do a lot of cool stuff. Laserquest? All over that. Ice skating? Got my own skates. I've been swimming in a thermal lake, been to a baths, been paintballing. I've seen TV shows being recorded live, I met famous people at conventions, I've been to a lecture by a Nobel Peace Prize winner. I've volunteered for events at Disneyland that got my friend soaked by 800 gallons of water, I've stroked a sloth and kayaked across a lake in the Canadian Rockies where I saw a bald eagle. I've been to a folk festival and a book festival and a beer festival and a food festival. I've been to concerts and plays and musicals and comedy gigs. I've toured stately homes and cottages, art galleries and museums, gardens and bars. I've been very fortunate and had a very exciting life, and I'm looking forward to doing so many more things!

Wow, it was really hard to think of 10 things, which is also a little bit sad. But guys, please join in! What are your 10 favourite things about YOU?

You can see all the posts other people have made here.