The date draws near... final points of information.

Stay tuned for final points of information and updates!

1. THE HOOD CANAL BRIDGE IS OPEN. HOO-RAY. This will make travel to the wedding site way easier for most people.

2. Friday night will be BYOB. Please plan on bringing your own beverage, beer, wine, or other tasty beverage to enjoy that night. (Port Angeles has plenty of places to stock up, and you'll pass Lost Mountain Gas Station on your right just before you hit the lake, that's the last chance to buy beverages. Don't know how good the selection is.) Saturday night we'll of course provide beer and wine and non-alcoholic beverages. Friday we will be providing a veggie dog roast, and some associated chips and possibly pasta, whatnot. If anyone has a small, easily transported camping grill that they'd be willing to bring, it help, as cooking 85 veggie dogs on sticks over the fire might be a tiny bit labor-intensive. But! If you don't have the carspace or would rather not, its not a big deal. I think we'll manage just fine.

3. We'll provide some very lite breakfast fixins on Saturday morning ( likely bagels and cream cheese). we recommend you bring snacks, especially if you have kids, want to hike or whatnot on Saturday... there's lots of great hikes around! (Check out "Recreation" under "What to Expect" on www.sarahandrion.com) On the drive in, there's plenty of grocery stores in Port Angeles. Our favorite place to stock up on fruit, snacks, veggies, et cet, is Sunny Farms Market, in Sequim. its right on 101, on the right. We will have some fridge space if you need it, but its probably best to bring a cooler if you want to keep track of your own stuff. Saturday meal (the big weddin spread) will happen around 5:30-6:00. Sunday we will offer some sort of breakfast, we don't know what exactly yet.

4. Please remember to bring sleeping bags, pillows, and towels. If you are unable to do so since you're flying in from out of town, please let us know ASAP so we can rent you a set of linens.

5. Please let us know if you have not yet figured out your transportation to the wedding site, so we can help you find a carpool.

I think that's it for now... holler if you have any ?s.
much love...


s and r.

Shawl

Weather on the Olympic Peninsula is difficult to predict.
Our weekend may be sunlit and glowing, or it may be drizzling and chilly, or it may be crazy windy. No way of knowing. With the possibility of cold weather in mind, my mother offered to weave me a shawl to wear over my dress.

Some of my earliest memories are of my mother spinning, weaving, knitting, and making baskets. Handcrafts were her way of supporting the family while staying home to raise kids, and we grew up playing around her looms and her spinning wheels. She's a full-time professional historian now, so its been a while since she spun or wove... which made her offer all the more poignant. We went to the Weaving Works in the Udistrict, and picked out a bunch of different colors of soft merino fleece. Brought it home, set up our wheels, and went to work.

We've spun about eight skeins of beautiful, soft, brightly colored yarn.

The next step will be warping mom's loom and weaving the shawl.




(keep the volume down, I'm kind of high-pitched. :)

CAKE

So... Haven't been blogging much. Partly because as many of these wedding details fall into place, we realize how much we want you all to be surprised! This morning seemed absolutely blog-worthy though. Mom and I met up at the Lenin statue in Fremont (seemed as good a rendevous point as any) and had breakfast, then headed in to Flying Apron bakery to meet with baker extraordinaire, Jennifer.

In keeping with our general wedding philosophy, we wanted our cake to come from a place that we felt good about supporting---a business or entity that believed in and practiced sustainability and community. (Particularly since asking our loved ones to travel all the way out to the peninsula creates a pretty sizable carbon footprint at the outset.) As the economy collapses further into the recession locally, nationally, and globally, this has only become more important to us.

We're doing pretty good on that front so far. The Olympic Park Institute will use all the money we spend on the site rental, cabin rental, and wedding meal to support their environmental education programs. My dress, (which is the dress my mother wore when she married my Dad!) is being re-created by an awesome, down-to-earth local seamstress, Darcy Martin-Lenay (Fragile Fit Alterations). We're getting veggie-dogs for a campfire hot dog roast from the Field Roast Company here in Seattle, and will most likely order our beer from the company I work for, Elliot Bay Brewing, which composts all its food waste, buys windpower credits, runs its company vehicles on biodiesel, brews organic beer, and gives its senior servers health benefits.

Boo-yah.

Flying Apron fits right in.... their pastries are "created with your good health in mind. Made using the finest organic ingredients; whole grain wheat free flours and organic non hydrogenated oils." They sell their pastries at the Seattle farmers markets, which is how Ryan and I discovered them.

Ma and I were told to help ourselves to coffee and make ourselves comfortable... there was good music playing, and the coffee was strong and dark. Jennifer brought us sample after sample, each baked into a perfect cupcake, iced and still warm from the oven. Lemon Poppyseed. Dark Chocolate. Chai. Carrot cake. Apricot Bliss. Coconut. Maple Pecan.
We were overwhelmed.

Most cakes, and wedding cakes in particular, are insanely sweet, covered with icing soooo sweet and thick and substantial it coats your tongue and chokes you, and all you can think about is the seventeen cups of powdered sugar paste you're imbibing. The cakes themselves are just something to chew on under the icing. I've never been a huge fan.

Most wedding cake tasting, as I understand it, consists of bakers thawing out samples of wedding cakes baked months prior, heating them up briefly, and tossing them on a plate.
Which is understandable, right? Nobody bakes wedding cake samples fresh, do they?

Flying Apron does. The cupcakes Jennifer brought us, one by one as they came out of the oven and were frosted, were moist and simple and exquisitely flavored, so that each bite kept unrolling in your mouth. You didn't want to pick up your fork and go for the next taste... you just wanted to set it down and lean back in your chair and take your time trying to name all the spices. The icings were desserts in and of themselves, neither too sweet nor too unnervingly... frosted.
we sipped our coffee, nibbled at cakes, and tried hopelessly to rate them on some sort of scale. Once we realized we were rating every single cake 10 out of 10, we gave up.

what a delicious, perfect experience.
turns out planning a wedding doesn't actually have to involve pretending to be someone I'm not.

Folding Paper Cranes...

Several months ago, I began folding paper cranes in anticipation of our wedding. I'm dreaming of folding a full thousand. Currently I'm at 213, and I have about 9 weeks left before our wedding. (!!!! how did that happen?) Lots of dear friends are pitching in, (Erin in particular, who started folding cranes as a suprise for my wedding months before I even had the idea myself. Gretchen, who folds them with me over our post-waitressing shift beers. Andrea, who folds them when she comes over to our house.)

I have a vision of them hanging on ribbons from the trees around Lake Crescent, which is where we're getting married. Not only are they beautiful, they have tremendous significance.

Most folks are familiar with the story of "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes....

"Shortly after the end of World War II, the folded origami cranes came to symbolize a hope for peace through Sadako Sasaki and her story of perseverance. Diagnosed with leukemia after being exposed to radiation after the bombing of Hiroshima, Sadako became determined to reach a goal of folding 1,000 cranes in hopes of being rewarded with health, happiness, and a world of eternal peace. Although she died before reaching her goal, the tradition of sending origami cranes to the Hiroshima memorial has endured as a symbol of the Japan's ongoing wish for nuclear disarmament and world peace."

The crane has added significance in Japan, where many folks believe it to be a "symbol of good fortune and longevity because of its fabled life span of a thousand years. It also represents fidelity, as Japanese cranes are known to mate for life."

It seemed like an auspicious project to undertake prior to our wedding.

Ryan and I both feel strongly that our wedding is an opportunity to celebrate our shared commitment to peace, joy, and justice, not only for ourselves, our friends and family, and those we know---but across the planet. We would be honored, and deeply touched, if you would help us to celebrate by taking the time to fold a few paper cranes. You can hand-deliver them, mail them, or even keep them yourself or give them as a gift to someone you love.

Like so many symbols of the desire for peace, they are just that... symbols. But I've discovered that each crane I fold creates a series of moments in which I am attentive, focused, mindful, and creative... and when others who are watching see what emerges from the folding, they are inevitably pleased and excited. Many want to learn, and while it takes patience (I had to watch about seven different youtube videos, and then several of the better ones 5 times more), it is deeply satisfying. So, what began as a symbol is in fact a peaceful act. Repeating that act a thousand times is more than an art project.... it is an act of faith, that a more beautiful and gentle world is possible, a world in which art flourishes and Ryan and I get to grow old together.

Those that cranes that make it to the wedding and survive the weather and the celebrating will be taken to the Sadako statue in the Seattle Peace Park after our ceremony.

Pockets would be lovely.

Might not have been the smartest move to bring only one bra---and a black one, at that---on the first excursion shopping for a wedding dress.

I had no idea what The Look was. (still don't really.) Long? Short? white? colored fabric? silk? hemp?sleeves? strapless? cocktail? mermaid? cowgirl? vintage?

I know I want something comfortable and unpretentious, but still special enough that it feels different than anything else I've ever worn... a garment made of fairly traded fabric and labor, that I'd be at ease wearing while tromping around in the woods. I've found that I don't fall for dresses easily.

(Notable exception: at our dear friends Nora and Paul's wedding this past july, I was taken in by Nora's dress: lovely soft purple vintage floor length piece with giant deep pockets. pockets would be lovely... inspired me to consider the possibility of finding something funky and already made, with stories in its seams and no particular association with "wedding" ... except I've struck out thus far. (granted, I haven't done that much on-the-ground searching).

given my nagging retail phobia, I am lucky to know good women. in early September, Andrea, Erin and Michelle accompanied me to breakfast and then two PDX dress-crafting establishments. Michelle led us to the first shop, Garnish, where another Michelle (in the pink dress) handled my total lack of vision (and lack of basic information, like my SIZE) with style. Felt comfortable in the simple strapless ivory-colored silk gown she zipped me into, (fair trade, and locally made!) and she effortlessly mocked up a half-dozen possible straps with fabric scraps and pins. I could see myself going back to that one, provided they don't mind adding pockets. My mother has offered me some lovely old hand-tatted lace that one of my great-aunts made, and it would be perfect on this dress, I think, across the bodice.
Keeping it in mind. We proceeded:



after stiff drinks at a nautically-themed bar,
and a little wee squid photography,

Erin led us to 2nd dress shop, Cocoon. More selection in dresses, colors and styles and whatnot... I tried on all sorts of dresses, mermaidy things (hard to walk) and flowy grecian thing (felt sort of like a nightgown), some fun swirly things, and some fabulous dresses that had no real association with wedding, for me.
Excellent to throw onesself into the trying-on, learn some of the vocabulary.

but still...

Feel like I'm supposed to fall in love with a dress, be captured by a vision of myself in it. Right? especially for 600 + dollars. and that hasn't happened yet.

Feeling really self-conscious about blogging. about dress searching.
it seems...
trivial. narcissistic. and kind of whiny.
however,
in the course of the dress-hunt, and general wedding-planning research, I've found that other people's wedding stories can be rather informative, and periodically comforting, especially for those of us who have no interest in the traditional, 30grand plus glittery consumption-fest women have supposedly been dreaming about since childhood, and thus can't find anything useful in the horrifying stacks of advertisement-ridden, glossy, perfumed bridal magazines.

Controversy brewing.

The blog is barely 5 minutes old, and already, controversy is brewing. Rion sets it up, then walks into the kitchen to make juice. I sit down with my coffee and start editing the description he's written. "This is supposed to be fun," he informs me from the doorway. "Not a bunch of flowery poetry about two souls crossing and ripples eddying out across the cosmic waters and love blossoming on the mountaintops." I say something about planning a wedding in the post-postmodern era. "Oh no," he hollers over the juicer, "its a post-HUMAN era. You po-mos have got to let it GO!"
He walks back into the livingroom and sees me at the computer.
"Oh no, Assata," he says to the dog. "She's beginning to blog. 'And then the landscape of West Seattle, so amazing, the birds, and postmodernism, and experience and context."

8 months to go!