If you had asked me six months ago whether or not I was picking wedding colors, I would have demurred. “Oh, no,” I would have said, “I am much too laid-back for that!” Suffice it to say, that didn’t pan out so well. The reality of wedding colors is that they are very convenient. So, without further ado, I give you our palette.

(Wow. That scan looks even crappier here than it did before! Tra-lalala! The green is lovely and clover-y – please ignore the strong yellow undertones here.)

The ladies will be wearing plum, while the accents will be green, focusing on Liberty of London fabrics. Dudes will be sporting tuxes, with a few little surprises, I hope.

…

Yup, that’s my wedding update. The world can continue to spin now.

Update: I am insane, and that scan is totally bugging me. I can’t find a better image of the left-hand print, but here are better images of the green print and the plum.

Carry on.

Well, friends, since last we spoke I have flown across the country twice, eaten a lot of pork, and moved my wedding location 3,000 miles.

Yes, yes, I know that you really want to know about the pork, but I’m going to tell you about the wedding.

Newsflash: planning your entire wedding from 3,000 miles away? Difficult. Really, really freaking difficult, and also fraught with the perils of knowing very few vendors. If you, like me, find yourself in the position of working at a cathedral, being a performing classical musician, and knowing the a battalion of organic farmers in one region, please do yourself the following favor: go ahead and just plan your wedding in that region. Do not – I repeat, DO NOT – attempt to plan your wedding 3,000 miles from that region. It will lead only to turmoil.

All of which is to say… HEY! I MOVED MY WEDDING TO SAN FRANCISCO!

Believe me, this is far less insane than it sounds. The amount of legitimate work that had been done on the wedding up to this point has been minimal, really. I’ve been digging in my heels, refusing to admit that my “dream country wedding” was a pain in the booty. Now that I’ve surrendered to the world of logic, things are feeling much more doable.

There’s so much more to say on this subject, but really it all comes down to what my dad said, when I sheepishly suggested that perhaps San Francisco was a better idea.

“Why is this a question???”

Wedding planning has been revelatory in many ways. I’ve realized new fears, discovered that certain things mean more (or less) to me than I thought, and – above all – I’ve learned that I totally suck at delegating. This probably isn’t shocking to… oh… anyone who knows me, but I have been genuinely surprised by it. I am a terrible delegator. (Ha! That makes me imagine an alligator doling out tasks! Can someone please draw this for me?)

Last week, the Horse Whisperer decided that he was going to take on a Major Wedding Task: shopping for a caterer. As you might know, I am incredibly persnickity about food. Shopping for a caterer was beginning to give me heartburn. They’d say, “Oh! We make biscuits,” and I’d be all, “Really, fools? Are those biscuits made with organic farm-churned butter, or are you using partially hydrogenated margarine product?” And so forth, and so on. It was, shall we say, inefficient, particularly given the reality that I will likely eat almost nothing at our wedding reception.

Listening to the my Long-Island-bred honey talk with Appalachian caterers, however, has been easily the most hilarious part of wedding planning to date. Armed with one of those “questions to ask potential caterers” worksheets from a wedding book, HW has called seven or eight catering options. Some highlights:

“Well, being that you’re from California, of course you’ll want us to serve sushi.”
Note: the Horse Whisperer hates sushi.

“We useto-could do tastings, but we don’t no more.”
Translation: we were once able to offer tastings, but we are no longer able to do so.

“We got yer average American fare, we got yer beans and biscuits and pulled pork, we got yer international cue-seen.”
Cue-seen? Oh. They meant ” cuisine.”

“I don’t know what kind of food they serve in California, but I’ll tell you what: ours is cheaper.”

The Horse Whisperer has long thought that my hometown is the intersection of nowhere and nothing, and my fear was that the catering mission would further that belief. Surprisingly, however, HW has left each of these conversations with a little more affection for the tiny world of my little community. So, while many parts of the wedding planning process have surprised me with my own shortcomings, the act of sending my honey off to find a caterer has been a pleasant epiphany.