Stupid Wedding Tricks

It’s about the marriage, not the wedding.

Apparently not, according to the pastel and neatly designed web sites, magazines, how-to books, seminars, “dress events” (what the fuck is a dress event, btw?). These sites will lead you and your families and friends to believe that the wedding is the end-all-be-all of your lives. And, while we want to throw a good party–I mean, come on–we reaffirm that a lifetime of marriage is more important than one insanely stressful day.

So we, your hosts John and Heather, hold the following truths to be self-evident:
We believe that the wedding industry is like a pearls-and-lace-and-uncomfy-men’s-dress-shoes version of the military-industrial complex and we will not be a part of it.

We believe that a celebration of our unity should not launch us into a life in debt (well, beyond grad school debt that we’ve already amassed).

We believe that weddings should be unique to the couple and should represent their decisions to unite for whatever reasons that they choose.

We believe that anyone should be able to marry whomever they so choose, and that couple should be able to have the event to celebrate it in the manner of their choosing–be it traditional, nontraditional, or pirate-themed.

We believe that, as reasonable adults, we don’t need to have multiple family members being insulted by our choices to include or not include whatever random traditions we choose to include or not include and that they, as somewhat reasonable adults, should have the good sense to act like the loving people we know them to be. (That being said, we love our families and look forward to them celebrating with us.)

We believe that humor is important, as well as is the ability to take a step back and appreciate the absurdity in situations.

Heather believes in bacon, teaching, and the belief that no one can have too many shoes or books. She also believes that John spends too much time analyzing prices at the grocery store.

John believes in Carolina barbeque, the Tar Heels, ergonomic yet attractive pottery, and management science a la the Society for Organizational Learning. He also believes Heather has too many shoes and too many books.

We believe that a blog might be an entertaining and somehow useful way to not only have some fun with wedding planning, but also record the process.

We love you. Thanks for reading.