photo mentality

I've got a problem with the institution of wedding photography. I certainly don't object to having photos taken -- one might want to have something to look at and remember one's wedding, sure. People who weren't there might want something to feel like they were involved. Parents might want a little keepsake. Great! But more and more, I feel like people focus more on the photos than on the wedding itself.

Examples (real life people's internet stories, edited and paraphrased and all that):

• A bride's mom pays to have bridesmaids' tattoos airbrushed out of the photos.

• Brides with non-traditional hair colors get comments that it will "ruin the pictures."

• A woman wants her bridesmaids to wear a temporary tattoo, but worries that it's overbearing to request that they change how they look (what if people think it's a real one?). Commenter suggests "have a picture taken of them all putting the tattoos on to show they just did it to support your wedding" -- what, is it not official if it's not in a photo?

• Bridal makeup is always heavier than day-to-day makeup, because it has to show up well in pictures. Even if it makes the poor girl look really weird to the people who are actually attending the wedding.

It's not photography that makes you married, people! Maybe it's the magazine-ization of weddings that leads to this kind of attitude. These days, weddings are something that people consume as photos in magazines far more often than they get married themselves or even attend the weddings of others. What they see is the pictures. In that sense, is a wedding really an event and a party where two people celebrate their commitment with the people they care about? Or is it one really long and extra-fun photo shoot?

everyone else is doing it

Apparently when ladies on the internet are planning their weddings, they make things called "inspiration boards" to show the concept of what they want stuff to look like -- I've seen general, whole-wedding ones as well as very specific just-centerpieces ones. I've found a few possible venues in the Boston area, but basically can't accomplish much else on that front until we get there. All I have left to do is look at pretty stuff, so: behold! Styles and ideas for my wedding outfit. (I haven't decided about all red vs. red-and-white, but I have decided I like contrast-color borders and zari/zardosi work, and I hate overuse of sequins.)

Also: I used to like the sparse, Arabic-style mehndi more but now that I've had it a couple of times I think I prefer the dense Indian style. I don't think I will need to buy jewelry (I believe I can borrow F's mom's), but out of what's available to me I am going to go for gorgeous-but-simple (the ceremony will be in the daytime in the summer, I don't want to be armor-plated). I am not sure if I'll wear the dupatta on my head or not -- if I do, that will obviously change my hair options. But I love the 'do in the upper right. If you zoom in you can see her little braids. So awesome!

Location, location, location

We're planning on having the wedding about a year and a half from now, and we had been planning on having it in Chicago. It's where F lives now, it's the nearest big city to where I live, it's got a substantial number of F's family members and our friends... but. F's parents just moved to Alabama, my parents live in Michigan, and F and I ourselves are going to move to either Colorado or Massachusetts in six months. Why is the wedding in Chicago, again? I'm considering options.

photos!

Emily put up a sampling and slide show of our engagement photos. She really made us look awesome! I can't wait to get married so we can look awesome some more. Among other reasons.

mission accomplished

The engagement ceremony that F's family threw for us went really well. My dad cracked jokes during the pooja and flinched when the priest threw rice at him. My mom learned which finger to do tika with and our legs fell asleep from sitting on the floor sideways. F's parents marched me and F around and introduced us to all the old friends they'd invited and we got a ton of hugs. Everyone danced -- my dad, with his bad hip, even did the "lightbulb" for a little bit. The DJ announced that it was the last song, then played three more. Our photographer made us look awesome (pictures soon). My youngest cousin made up a song about F's name.

Afterward, F and I went to the hotel my family was staying at to spend more time with them. I changed into a t-shirt but the only comfortable pants I had were poofy salwar pants. Everyone was kind of jealous of my pants, actually, because they were super comfortable. We ate lots of pizza and all our friends tried on our sparkly engagement clothes.

Now we can actually plan the wedding! I might have found the perfect place, and it seems like F's parents might go for it even though it's a little smaller than we initially thought the wedding would be. I think this place's capacity is the perfect size - more than that and we wouldn't be able to afford some of the cool stuff we'd like to do, less than that and F's parents would be sad about all the people they couldn't invite.

check this out

I am so excited to get to wear mine!

no pictures

F's ring was finished this weekend, so we went to see it. We also checked out the stones for my ring, which had finally arrived. It's going to be close whether they'll finish mine in time for the engagement, but I really hope they will. F was sweet about it and didn't want to take his ring home until mine was done too. Aww. But that means I don't have a picture of how awesome it looks.

Another thing I have not seen yet is the outfit I'm wearing at the engagement. I described something I would like, and we had an aunt in India go buy it for us. It's a great plan, but I am so impatient to see how it turned out! It apparently arrived at F's parents' house a while ago, but I haven't been to visit them in a couple of weeks so I still haven't seen it. Excitement!

There are some ridiculously awesome clothes on bargello.com. If I had more money I'd be buying them all up. Soon, I will be the stylish aunt! Muhuhahahahaha! I don't just need Indian party clothes either. I need things to wear in general. I used to have so many pretty shirts -- how has it come to this?

There's a place that might be exactly what I want for the wedding. The problem is, it doesn't hold as many people as F's mom wants it to. (It holds as many as I think it needs to, but not if F actually has 300 Very Close Family Members Who Absolutely Must Be Invited.) F and I are still going to check it out this weekend, and if it is really cool we'll have to do some guest list negotiating.

bangle update

Good news: I bought some bangles online and it turns out that size 2.10 (usually called L or XL) fits me. Bad news: the bangles I bought were glass and, while they are pretty, a third of them are broken already. I should have known.

wax models!

I looked at wax models for the rings this week. Here they are! Mine is in the front -- those holes in it are where the stones go. F's is in the back. It has a cool swirly pattern on it that kind of matches the one on mine. They look awesome and I'm excited to get the real thing! They will be ready around the end of October, sounds like.

Lilliputians + me

F's family wants to help me find matching jewelry for the wedding & engagement-related outfits. This is exciting for me and everybody else, because everybody likes sparkly pretty things. So of course they want me to try on all of their own jewelry whenever the subject comes up. The problem is that the women in his family have tiny hands, so I can only fit about 4 fingers through the bangles that fit them. Not being able to fit one's hand through a bangle is a kind of weird feeling, socially and body image-wise. Not because bangle-ability has anything to do with fatness, but it does have to do with size. And it's still better in this world for a girl to be small and thin than big and thin.

Luckily, my new roommate has big hands like me, and owns bangles, so I know I'm not doomed. I tried on one of hers this morning to see, and it did actually go over my hand. She said "the ones I have are pretty much the biggest size, so if that doesn't fit you might have trouble finding any." I guess I lucked out. Apparently she also has trouble finding big enough shoes in India. I wonder if I'll care much about that, or if I'll just not bother trying with Indian shoes.