Mailboxes, Etc



The finished product -
along with our favors and photo of me and my dad.



I grew up in Manhattan and today we live in a condo building in DC.  Why do I mention this, you ask?  Because to me, a mailbox is a small locked box in a row of other small locked boxes in the lobby of a building.  A lone mailbox, standing freely on the edge of a driveway with the residents' names painted on it is very bucolic to me.  So, when planning our outdoor Vermont wedding, I thought a mailbox would be a great home for cards we'd receive from our guests.  Not exactly the gilded locked birdcages of many weddings I've seen but I thought it would work well.  Once again, with the internet at my fingertips, I found a standard mailbox on Amazon for $15.  There are two issues with a "standard" mailbox.  First, mailboxes are significantly larger than they appear when driving down a country road or grandma's driveway.  They're really just quite long.  It was about 8 inches longer than I needed but figured for the price, it would do.  Second, a "standard" mailbox, as the word would imply, is a boring mailbox.  It would need some sprucing up.  And I had the perfect thing to spruce it with - chalkboard paint!  Before you think I painted chalkboard paint on everything without two (or four) legs, this is the last chalkboard paint related project.  I swear.

 

So, with the tarp still down in our living room floor - it stayed there for a solid month or two - I got to work.  Typically, it is recommended that you scuff smooth surfaces before painting.  But, I'm a bit on the lazy side and figured I'd first give it a whirl without this annoying scuffing step.  I'm not proud that I'm lazy, it's just a reality I've come to live with.  Maybe lazy isn't the right word.  It's just that I like things done, and I like them done quickly.  I'm impatient more than lazy, really because I don't mind hard work. But in addition to this tendency toward impatience, I'm also a perfectionist.  These two characteristics do not go well together and have led to more than one fight in my home.  But impatience ruled the day and I put brush to mailbox.  Three coats of paint and 24 hours later, I was done.  It took me another day to touch up some of the hard-to-reach places (like around the little red "you have mail" flag) and I was done.  When it came to the day of the wedding, my dear friend with the great handwriting simply wrote "Cards" on either side of the mailbox.  It was placed on the gift table along with our chalkboard reading "Cards & Gifts" and worked out well.  One thing I would note is that there is some risk with this option.  If you're at all concerned about the theft of envelopes - a particular concern if you're at a large venue with a large staff and multiple events - you may not want to use this idea.  A few people raised the concern that our mailbox didn't lock someone could steal the cards.  We had a plan that someone would check the mailbox throughout the night and collect the cards, but that never really materialized.  I sort of shrugged it off figuring that if someone stole wedding cards, karma would get them.  In the end we didn't lose a single card but I am aware that this is not a good project for all people and all venues.

 

One funny note about this project:  This is something I had never seen before.  I didn't steal the idea from Pinterest, a bridal show, or a blog.  I came up with it all in my own little head.  But weeks after my mailbox was  painted and packed away for the trip north, my mother called me excitedly.  That day at work she spotted one of her employees coming back from the mail room with a large mailbox in hand.  Knowing this coworker was getting married around the same time as me, she inquired - "Karen, what is that mailbox for?" to which Karen replied "I'm using it for the cards at our wedding!".  My mom then showed her a photo of my painted mailbox and they had a good laugh.  I guess sometimes great minds really do think alike!

My Daddy



My daddy and our dog Tag-A-Long



My father was 58 when I was born.  Even though he never seemed any different than the other dads, I was always aware he was older.  The downside of an older parent is knowing they might not always be around.  I grew up with the awareness that my dad wouldn't be around forever.  I always understood there was a significant chance that unless I married young, my father wouldn't be around to walk me down the aisle.  And given that I come from a long, proud line of late-marrying ladies (not to mention my penchant for dating less than fabulous guys in my formative years), marrying young was not likely.  Because I was aware of my father's age and mortality, I was at least somewhat prepared for the eventuality that he might not be alive on my wedding day.  The downside of an older parent was also an upside because I did not have the struggle, sadness, and challenge of someone who loses a parent unexpectedly, having never given such a reality any prior thought.  I have friends who have had that experience and my heart breaks for them.  For me, getting to have my dad around until 27 - to see me graduate from college, start my career, begin graduate school - was more than I had hoped for.  I felt lucky to have him for as long as I did.  

But as prepared as I may have been intellectually for a wedding without a father the reality still completely and utterly... well... sucked.  I'm not typically a very emotional person but nothing turns on the waterworks like a girl without her daddy on her wedding day.  And my skin did not thicken to it.  After planning a wedding for ten months, it was all i could do when - two months before the big day - our band leader asked us what song we'd like for the father/daughter dance.  I held it together while I explained there wouldn't be one, that my father had passed away, but then lost it as soon as we hung up the phone.  

And so, we decided to skip the father-daughter dance.  And I asked my mother to walk me down the aisle.  It has been just the two of us for five years.  And I decided I didn't need some male relative - even though I have great ones - stepping in to walk me down the aisle.  My mama and I would be just fine together.  We included language in the program to honor my daddy but I wanted something more.  I needed another way to have him with me on that day.  And so I began to think.  And after a great deal of thought, I came up with the beginnings of a plan.  My father was a printer - a great printer.  And some of my fondest memories of my father from my childhood are of him working.  I can see him bent over our dining room table (which gets great natural light) intently examining a print with his loop.  I used to love going with my father to the printing presses.  There were two in the shop, which I had named Big Bird and Snuffleupagus (Snuffy).  The smell of printer's ink can quickly bring these memories flooding back.  And so, we decided to subtly incorporate some printing materials into our decorations.  We went to Eastern Market - the best outdoor market in DC - and found exactly what we were looking for: movable type and a type tray.  We bought about $100 worth of "R"s and "K"s and one type tray.  The letters would go on each table and we'd find a use for the tray.  We eventually decided to use the tray to display the mini boxes of altoids we had purchased for everyone (more on the altoids later).  I loved this stuff but knew it wasn't quite enough.  It was reminiscent of my father but I wanted something more.

One evening I was watching one of countless bridal/wedding shows that I had become addicted to over the year of our engagement.  It was one of those makeover type shows where they don't just find the girl the dress of her dreams but also the veil, makeup, and perfect hair style.  And typically these women had some sort of heartfelt story to boot.  For one woman, it was a father who had passed away.  Her father had served in the military so the industrious makeover king found one of her father's epaulets and wrapped it around her bouquet.  It was a perfect idea.  I loved it.  The only problem was i had no idea where my father's epaulets from his days in the Navy were.  We do have his medals though so I thought about using those.  But somehow that wasn't quite right either.  My father was in the Navy but it didn't define him.  Finally, it came to me.  His watch.   My father had a beautiful gold watch that I vividly remember him wearing for years which my mother kept in her jewelry box.  And so, with a few pins and a clear hair band, on my wedding day we fastened the watch around my bouquet.  It was perfect.  It was beautiful but subtle.  I could hold it as I walked down the aisle, like my daddy was holding my hand.  It was the perfect way to honor him in a way that made him feel close but wasn't too overt.

 Long ago, when I'd ask my mother about the decision to marry a man more than twenty years her senior, she'd always respond the same way.  She said she'd rather have 30 great years with a man she loved with all her heart than 50 mediocre years with a man her age.  Now, a married lady myself, this makes all the sense in the world and I couldn't be luckier that she followed her heart.  I, too, would rather have 27 great years with my wonderful daddy than 50 with anyone else, even if it meant walking down the aisle with his memory rather than the man himself.

This Ain't Your Teacher's Chalkboard

I grew up in the '80.  It was a time of leggings, neon, layered socks...and chalkboards.  While the fashion of those times has made a comeback (unfortunately), chalkboards have been replaced by dry-erase boards, "smartboards" and iPads.  This may be good for the learning experience but it made my search for chalkboards difficult.  I had seen some wedding decorations online that used chalkboards and thought they would work perfectly for our outdoor "country elegant" wedding.  So, I hopped on the interwebs thinking I'd have no problems scooping up a few chalkboards for $10 each.  This is America!  The internet!  But no such luck.  I could find an array of boards but all ran above $30 for the size I wanted and I was not spending $120 on the four chalkboards I desired! 

Instead, I went to Fragers, my favorite no-longer-in-my-neighborhood hardware store and, for $30, left with cut wood, moulding, wood glue and the aforementioned green paint.  I already had chalkboard paint at home from another project I'll cover later, so that didn't count as an expense.  I would make my own chalkboards for the price of one.  The easy work was the painting of the boards (chalkboard paint on one side, green paint on the other side, edges and moulding) and gluing the moulding for a frame.  The hard part was cutting the moulding.  Not one to do things the easy way, I wanted the chalkboards to have a frame.  My wonderful fiance agreed a frame would make them look nicer. 

Luckily, Rich's parents live 30 minutes away and have a garage full of tools.  So, armed with a fabulous tool (which I don't know the name of), Rich, his dad and I got down to the business of mitering edges.  I have a great relationship with my now-father-in-law but I definitely encourage the careful consideration of embarking on construction projects with the inlaws.  It worked out well for us, but sometimes such projects do not bring out the best in people and you want to avoid a situation which could leave you yelling at your fiance's parents while waving a circular saw above your head.  Tantrums avoided, we measured and cut 8 short sides and 8 long sides for the 4 frames.  The key with this is making sure the mitering is facing the right direction.  You want to be certain all of your angles face inward or the pieces won't fit together as intended.  Here is a good tutorial on mitering edges yourself. 

Wood cut, I hand-sanded both sides of each of the 16 frame pieces and painted them.  The final touch was using wood glue and a vice to attach each side of the frame to my board.  Because my woodworking skills aren't exactly professional grade, I used some wood filler to fix any gaps between the frame sides.  I then touched that up with more green paint and - Voila! - chalkboards!  I made four, shown below.  In the end, they ended up reading "Gifts and Cards" (for the gift table), "Please take one" (for our favors of maple syrup bottles), "Our love is as strong as these mints" (for the Altoids we gave out - this was also to fit with our first dance "That's how strong my love is" by Otis Redding), and "Please sign our guest book" (for, obvs, our guest book).  They turned out well and we saved a ton of money.

Nice

 

I was planning to write about another wedding craft project today but that will have to wait until tomorrow.  I got through three sentences and realized there was something very important I'd have to cover first.  And that's being NICE.  My mother has a sign behind her desk at work.  It says "Because Nice Matters".  My fabulous, dedicated, social worker mother has this sign in the least ironic way possible.  In her line of work, nice does actually matter and does actually count for something.  Nice makes a difference in people's lives.  But this is not the kind of "nice" I'm talking about (I wish I was!).  This kind of "nice" is not a way of behaving, it's a way of being.  Soon into our wedding planning process it became very, very clear that a wedding - ours, yours, your sister-in-law's neighbor's - must, above all things, be NICE. 

 

What is nice?  Nice is different to everyone.  To some people "nice" is Wedding Package #4 at a hotel ballroom on Long Island, to others it's a shoeless beach wedding in Mexico, or a gondola ride to the top of Breckenridge in February.  But regardless of what "nice" is, it is very, very important.  For us, understanding everyone's "nice" proved a bit of a challenge.  From the beginning, Rich and I could see our wedding in our heads.  And - thank heaven! - we were in near complete agreement on that image.  But it seemed like we had to do a lot of justifying and explaining to everyone else.  "Yes, the Inn is beautiful."  "Yes, people will be able to get to Vermont."  "Yes, we have a plan for the ceremony if it rains." "Yes, the tent will have lights." "No, the caterer won't serve hot dogs."  We knew we were doing things differently than most of our family and many of our friends.  We were doing almost everything ourselves and some of our decisions were hard for people to understand.  Yes, we would have chalkboards but they'd be pretty chalkboards.  Yes, there would be burlap but it would be hemmed and have lace detail.   Yes, the reception would be in a tent (with nothing but the ground of grass and dirt for the floor!) but there would be a proper wooden dance floor, linens on the tables, and candles.  

 

And with every explanation and justification, it felt like no one trusted us.  We were living with a constant frustration of knowing we would live up to "nice" but had no ability to assure people.  It was unnerving.  I should have let it roll off my back but instead I was left trying to figure out how I could convince people.  Left worried that people thought I had bad taste ("If they think I have good taste then they should KNOW it will be nice!!!")  It was hard to think that for our families this was a way of contributing.  This was a way of them helping to have our back.  What we heard as criticism they said as protection.  So, while I didn't need a wedding planner to pull off "Nice!" I could have used a wedding translator to know what people were really saying and do better job at hearing their intention, rather than their words.  And while I still feel anxious thinking about those stressful conversations, I am calmed believing that I think everyone there would agree we had a very NICE wedding.

 

A Wedding Registry for the 21st Century

Rich and I lived together before getting married.  And, as I've mentioned, we're sorta old (32 and 34 on our wedding day).  My point in this?  We have stuff.  Plenty of stuff.  Too much stuff already for the one bedroom condo we inhabit along with our adorable cat Stella.  We also try not to be huge consumers of stuff.  We didn't want all new stuff just because we could.  We have perfectly good stuff and we're happy with it.  (If you're like us and have similar feelings about stuff, I highly recommend George Carlin's bit on "stuff".  It's one of my favorites.) 

So the idea of registering for more stuff made us uncomfortable.  Instead, we opted for a honeymoon registry.  For the not-too-expensive price of 7%, one of various companies will help you create a wedding registry that allows guests to buy various activities for your honeymoon - airfare, dinner out, swimming with sharks (good to keep an eye on whichever guest selects this gift!).  We chose one that worked for us, filled it up with all sorts of fun activities for our New Zealand adventure honeymoon, set up a website and we were done.  It was perfect for us.  Plus, it turned out that we only ended up getting about one-third of our gifts through the registry.  Almost everyone else gave us cash.  This actually worked out better because we didn't lose out on the 7% fee of going through the registry.

Some people will be confused - and concerned - by this. Multiple caring people in my life warned me  that "people want to give you a THING" and that our honeymoon registry would make guests uncomfortable.  And we figured, so be it.  If a guest feels uncomfortable with our registry, they're welcome to give us whatever they're comfortable with.  We did not cave on what we wanted and I'm so glad.  We paid for most of our wedding ourselves and would not have been able to afford our great honeymoon without the honeymoon registry.  We would have had every kitchen gadget in the world, 8 sets of sheets and 27 towels with no place to store it all and no honeymoon.  That's not what we wanted and we're so glad we didn't acquiesce. 

The one concession I did make was for my shower.  We went to Crate & Barrel on a Saturday afternoon and clicked the fancy wand on all sorts of fun stuff that we wanted, but didn't have or really need.  My Maid of Honor (MOH) and bridesmaids ended up using it to plan a fun dining/entertaining themed shower.  I got the tablecloth, serving dishes, whoopie pie pans (!!) we registered for and then personalized recipes from each shower guests which fit neatly in a cute (green!) recipe book.  Rich and I love to entertain and host dinner parties and now we have all sorts of new menu ideas to put together thanks to this fun shower and registry.  We were able to still do things our way, help make everyone else feel more comfortable, and got to enjoy a few welcome surprises as well.

All of that said, we actually only got two wedding gifts that were not on our registry.  Both were from the phenomenal glass studio of Simon Pearce.  One of my favorite Vermont company, they have absolutely beautiful decorative and useful serving pieces.  My wonderful MOH and her husband got us an incredible centerpiece bowl engraved with our names and wedding dates.  As my friends (including my MOH) know, I am never one to go "off-registry" for people's gifts.  But in this instance, I'm so glad both couples did.  We love our special gifts from them and both are now displayed in our home.

Note:  If the name "Pearce" sounds familiar, you may know Simon's talented son Kevin who was involved in a horrific ski accident a couple of years ago.  You can read about the accident and the family here and see Kevin's amazing journey here.

Baby Break



Hanging with Nora and her canine brother

 I took a break from the blog this weekend to visit a very special baby.  Rich and I flew up to New England to visit our friends and their 5 week old baby girl, Nora.  Nora's mom is my very dear friend and college roommate. She was also a bridesmaid in our wedding.  Well, sort of....

Each year, three of my closest girlfriends from college, our significant others and I get together at New Years.  Some years it's all eight of us, some years it's fewer.  At New Years 2011, it was six of us.  We got together for dinner in Portsmouth and, before leaving for the restaurant, my fabulous friend informed us that she was pregnant!  With our wedding date already set and her already lined up as a bridesmaid, I instantly started doing the math.  Okay, it's December 30th.  If she's telling us, she must be 3 months pregnant.  That means she'll be due in June/July.  No problem!  All of this is going through my head as our other friend pipes up "When is your due date?" and I hear "August 18th".  Wait, WHAT?   Not one to keep a secret (and taking advantage of us all being together), they decided to tell us their big news at just 7 weeks pregnant.  So, instead of a baby due 6-8 weeks before our wedding, it would be two.  But this wasn't a time to think about myself.  This was a time to celebrate!  She was the first of our group to be pregnant, the first to be a mommy.  How exciting!  The  next generation of our little gang!  Woo hoo!!

We had a wonderful dinner with lots of toasting to the life events of 2012.  That night, we got back to our other friend's house outside of Boston and all headed to bed.  In the privacy of our guest room, I started to bawl.  I  knew I was being irrational, felt like a horrible friend but nonetheless, I was bawling.  My perfect wedding with my best friends as my bridesmaids would no longer be.  We've been there for each other during some of the best and worst times of our lives.  And I wouldn't have her with me.  I knew I was being selfish but I didn't care.  I was sad.  And I gave into a bit of self-pity.  It was a complete woe-is-me moment.  And God bless Rich for laying there with me, petting my hair while I cried. 

Luckily, with the morning sunrise came perspective.  I picked myself up, dusted myself off and kicked my self-pity out the door.  A few weeks later, I called my dear friend and we made a game plan.  I would do whatever she wanted - include her as a bridesmaid or not.  I let her decide knowing that if any of my friends could make it to a wedding with a two week old on their arm, it'd be her.  So we made a pact.  She bought her bridesmaid dress and reserved a hotel room and said she'd be there if she could be.  And I'd just roll with the uncertainty of it all.  I found out this weekend that she even went out and bought a car adapter for her pump and a car charged cooler so she could pump on the way to the wedding and store the milk.  Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I should have felt honored and amazed to have such a wonderful, generous, dedicated friend.

In the end, little Nora was 12 days late - arriving just two days before our wedding.  I got to talk to my dear friend on the day of my wedding and hear the joy in her voice as she talked about her little peanut.  And this weekend, I got to meet the cutest little 5-week old and spend some serious time bonding with the next generation of our little gang of friends.  I'm amazed that my dear friend and her husband created such a beautiful little creature and am impressed by the grace with which she's conquering motherhood.  Little Nora is lucky to have such spectacular parents and I'm lucky to have such a kick-ass friend.

Welcome!

Ikea Easel

Given the issue of our lopsided guest list, we wanted to ensure that guests would not seek out a "side" on which to sit when they arrived at our wedding.  Having ushers seat people randomly seemed like it would require too much explanation and put stress on our groomsmen.  So, we figured we'd put it in black-and-chalk.  I found a cute sign which someone had posted to Pinterest and I decided to make my own.  It read "As two families become one, please choose a seat, not a side."  To the point, but with some whimsy.  It had the added bonus that it didn't scream "RICH'S FAMILY IS REALLY SMALL AND KATE'S IS HUUUUUGE".  The question remained of what form said sign should take.  I knew I wanted to use chalkboards in the reception and figured it couldn't hurt to use them as part of our outdoor ceremony as well.  Thanks to some internet searching and a helpful bridesmaid, I found a great (and by great, I mean cheap) easel online at Ikea.  $15 and a 90 minute round trip car ride later, I had my easel.  Two of them actually, though I'll get to that in a minute.  Then, I went to the hardware store and, swatch in hand (TIP:  Carry your swatch in your wallet.  Regardless of changing your purse to match your outfit, you always have it on hand), found the perfect shade of green paint to match the bridesmaid dresses.  

Painted and taped

I tossed down a drop cloth in our living room, taped off the chalk board on one side and dry-erase board on the other and got to work.  Two coats of green paint later, I was done...almost.  The bottom tray - which would normally hold chalk, erasers, etc - was red plastic and did not look conducive to painting.  So, I measured the dimensions and sewed a quick burlap liner for it.  The last remaining question was what to do with the white dry-erase side.  I thought about painting it with chalkboard paint but refrained for two reasons.  First, I wanted these easels to be of good use after the wedding and second, what would I do with another chalkboard side anyway?  I thought about covering it in fabric but thought that would look distracting.  So, I decided to keep it simple.  I added one red dry-erase marker to our box of supplies.  The final touches came the day of the wedding when that same helpful bridesmaid wrote the phrase on the chalkboard side, drew a red heart with our initials (the initials were her idea!) on the dry-erase board side, placed the burlap liner in the tray and topped it with a small pot of flowers I picked up at Home Depot the day before for $.89.  It was perfect.

Our second easel, similarly decorated and adorned, was placed by the entrance to the tent where the reception would be held.  Inscribed on that was another phrase found on Pinterest which read "Come as you are, Stay as long as you can, We're all family, So no seating plan.  Again, concise and explanatory, yet welcoming and sweet.  We knew some of our friends and relatives would be confused by a lack of assigned seats and wanted it to be clear that our design was intentional.  And people loved it - they sat, ate and met new people.  And thanks to a row of high-top cafe tables at the front of the tent facing the lake, some people never sat at all.  It was exactly what we wanted and our signage definitely helped.

Welcome Easel In Action

Note:  And I'm pleased to say our easels did indeed go to good use after our wedding.  My helpful bridesmaid took one home where her adorable children are drawing on it and eating the chalk like champs!  Another good friend took the second chalkboard and donated it to her daughter's classroom.  The green perfectly matches the curtains in the classroom and the teacher uses it every day to write a welcome message to the class.  And I got to help a five-year-old make a good first impression to her kindergarten class.  You can't beat that!

Rowan Fox and His Artwork

The Guest List

We learned a few lessons with this one.  I have a big Irish Catholic family on my mother's side and a small Jewish family on my father's side.  My fiance (now husband), Rich, has a tiny family - his parents would be the only relatives invited.  So, we knew we were going to have a numbers challenge.  Rich was fully aware our "sides" would not be even.  And I was determined to do my best to tighten up my side.  So, I called my mother.  "Mom," I explained, "Rich's family is small and we have to respect that, which means no church ladies for you".  My mother, liberal New York City gal that she is, is also a dedicated Catholic who has missed Sunday mass probably a handful of days in her adult life.  I say her adult life because I think it was even fewer days during her childhood, given my grandfather's storied insistence upon leaving for church early enough to have time to change a flat tire.  Church was not to be messed with.  Therefore, she is enmeshed in our church in Manhattan and has a strong crew of church lady friends.  And I nixed them.  No discussion, no questions, no exceptions.  An across the board cut. 

This was my first mistake.  It was not that they didn't come.  In the long run, my mother was completely understanding and agreeable.  They came to our NYC engagement party and it was lovely to celebrate with them.  The problem was the lack of discussion.  I did not make her part of the process.  And I should have.  Making our parents feel a part of it all, it turned out, was a HUGE issue throughout our wedding planning process and a lesson we really learned way too late.  Rich and I were 33 and 31 when we got engaged.  We were grown-ups.  Grown-ups who wanted to spare our parents the painful, headache-inducing details of our planning.  But, as it turns out, sparing our parents ended up hurting our parents.  They wanted to be involved.  They wanted to feel helpful.

And so, this leads me to my first lesson worth passing on - figure out early how much your parents want to be involved and try to honor that.  You don't need to do what they want - if you hate pink, don't agree to blush and bashful as your wedding colors just because your mother-in-law's favorite movie is Steel Magnolias - but make them part of the conversation.  Guide them to understanding the decisions you will ultimately make regardless.  In the end, our guest list worked out.  Rich invited his small immediate family, I invited my massive extended family and my mom and I did our best to restrain our list of friends so our side didn't completely overwhelm theirs.  As an added bonus, this led me to my first craft project - a great sign which instructed people to avoid the tradition of sitting on a "bride's side" or "groom's side". 

More to come on that tomorrow!