the linens

On the surface, finding ten matching tablecloths for a garden party wedding doesn’t seem like such a chore. After all, you can pretty much buy those at any department store, right? Well, I have spent the better part of the last two weeks COMPLETELY bogged down in tablecloth hell. Let me tell you a few things that I’ve learned.

First off, standard table linens to do not come in a 120” round size. This is the size you will need if you are using standing (“high top”)cocktail tables and you want the linens to touch the floor. Which you will, because rental tables are made out of industrial plywood can PVC pipe.

Second, you as just a regular old person cannot purchase from a restaurant linen vendor. Even if, like me, you are an event planner. Yeah, you have to actually be a restaurant.

Third, its possible to rent linens through the mail, which seems quite baffling to me. Apparently, it works something like this: you slap down your credit card and presto! a box of linens arrives in the mail. You use them and then ship them (dirty!) back to the vendor, who washes them and ships them out again to the next customer. I guess it’s sort of like Netflix but with much larger envelopes. But here’s the rub: you have to select your linens for this very special occasion based on one-inch square images on the internet. So, you’re not really sure what exactly you might be getting.

And finally, no matter what you think, fabric is expensive. You might think you could buy it cheaper and make them yourself, but, really, you can’t.

falling behind

I realized this week that we are only three months out from THE BIG DAY, and our planning seems to have stalled. As an event planner, you would think that I would have a good handle on all the things that still need to be done, but it’s all in my head because I just haven’t had time to make a list. We better get out butts in gear, I do think.

What we have done in the last several weeks is created a space plan for the actual ceremony itself. We’ve ordered tables and chairs, strung wire above the pool to hold paper lanterns, and purchased candles from every website imaginable. Gee, I guess we actually HAVE been getting things done. Thank goodness.

114 days and counting

This is the story of two little girls getting hitched ... and I mean, to each other. Lesbian and gay weddings are hardly news these days: though many Americans are conflicted on the idea of gay marriage, same-sex couples are flocking to the chapel (or synagogue, or non-denominational house of worship, or Vegas drive-thru, or handfasting ceremony, or ...) in record numbers. Legal or not, we're ready to proclaim our committment to one another.

Despite middle America's queasiness, Hollywood and wedding vendors are on board. There are literally hundreds of websites out there to assist us with this quest, and everybody wants our money. And why not? Our demographic is an attractive one: we're highly educated, dual-income households with few dependents and loads of disposable income. Vendors that have historically catered to straight couples have found that they can cash in on the gay dollar without much extra effort. In a bad economy, we're the wedding industry's white whale.

-- but more on that later --

As I start this blog I wanted to introduce us by saying that, after more than six years together, my partner and I have decided to board the wedding train. We currently live in Maryland (both transplants from colder states that usually vote Democratic), but we've selected a lovely little town in Virginia to host our wedding festivities. Culpeper is a beautiful, Civil War era town with a charming main street brimming with luscious shops and gourmet restaurants. It's also home to one of Jen's four sisters, with whose family we spend a lot of time. So it wasn't much of a leap to choose their beautiful home as our wedding location.

Although we embrace Northern Virigina as part of the DC metropolitan area, most of us liberals find the rest of Virginia ... well, sort of .... scary. It's kind of like the back of your coat closet: there are things in there you haven't worn in 10 years, and you keep thinking of throwing out. Having spent most of my adult life in urban areas, planning our wedding in the country has opened my eyes to bigotry and homophobia that I had forgotten existed. This blog is partly a reflection on that, and partly just a chronicle of the zaniness involved in planning any other American wedding.


Oh, and PS: In the spirit of full disclosure, I feel that I should mention that I am an event planner by trade. Yes, I spend my days babysitting egomaniacs and b-list celebrities, and I'm really pretty good at it. But planning AN event and planning YOUR event are two different things. So, let's see how this goes.