Snasta!

snasta

in Gaelic; adj.

1. 
   
   • finished, 
   • polished, 
   • glossy
   
   
   = Status of the Wright Dress!!

As of  July 16 at 4pm, the Wright Dress is finished! I can hardly believe it.  All hemmed, stitched, zippered, together.  Snasta!

My grandma insisted on correcting my zipper issue (which I was happy to have her complete), and she hand-stitched the hem into the bottom of the dress.  I watched her sewing, imagining all of the years, places, and projects her hands have tended.  And I'm so happy to have had her help tend to this one.

I sat nearby with a stack of old albums while she worked.  I have this idea to gather old family photos of wedding days to showcase at our wedding, and I found some amazing old pictures. She reminisced over them as I asked her about a few of them.  Most of the photos were ones I had never seen before, and they were little glimpses into the youth and past of my sweet grandma.  "We were young once, too", she had to remind me.

It was during this time that I realized how much I look like her.  I had never considered it before.  When she was about my age, her hair was the same length as mine, long and brown.  It's just amazing to see the span of a life, the importance of family. 

It was a perfect afternoon spent with her, and the perfect way to finish up the dress.  I've loved that the dress has meant learning quite a bit about myself, and also about others.  There's just something about dreaming something into existence, and the process of creation.  It's satisfying, gratifying, and simple.

My mom and sister were there when I slipped it on, all finished.  They helped tie the bow in the back and celebrated it.

So, here's to the Wright Dress!  I'll be the one wearing it.

My Grandma and a friend.  Love it.

Color Commotions

If you ask any of my roommates, they'll tell you a thing or two about my love of color.  And pattern.  And mixing them all up.  My best friend, bless her heart, put up with it for years.  I always took over decorating whatever house or apartment we had snagged for the year (because we moved nearly every year), and made it the hodgepodge of my possessions (85.2%) and hers.

I once read that a decorating style can be as simple as this:  collect things you love, and they will all go together.  I adopted this approach, almost because I had no choice.  When you're a poor art student turned poorer career woman, what you can afford on your small allowance of monthly shopping money comes in very small, very random quantities.

And in my uncertain moments, when it was even too much color and visual commotion going on in a room for me, she'd laugh and say, "you always make it work."

So, my tendency for color, pattern, and eclecticness is translating very accurately into this wedding.  Nothing matches, and there's not a single color scheme.  It's all randomness, and things I love.

People ask me what my colors are, and I just have to laugh.  Let's just hope I can make it all work.

Idea board for the wedding:

Brown Kraft Envelopes and Kindness

I have so many advantages because of where I work--to name a few: an in-house print shop/press, a mail room, and lots of girlfriends to bounce around ideas.

Total cost of my wedding invitations?  Well, about the cost of 260 stamps and $25.00 for a box of 500 brown kraft envelopes.  I don't mean to brag, but what a blessing!

My 100lb glossy cardstock invitations were born just 6 floors below my office, and printed as a wedding gift from the shop manager.  What kindness!  I teared up a bit when he handed them to me wrapped up tightly in clear cellophane.  I could never have expected it.

So, after 10 long hours divided over the course of a few days, I hand-addressed all of the envelopes with a pen I stole from Jacob.  The USPS has an amazing series of Abstract Expressionists stamps (my favorite after Fauves), so they completed the package.

I love how meaningful things in life carry the weight--the stamp of approval--of sentiment.  And my expectations couldn't have been met with more contentment and thankfulness.  Invitations were such a big deal to me--I worked on them for nine months--and they turned out just perfectly wrapped in brown kraft envelopes.

Austin Wedding Inspirations

Listen, I've combed a lot of blogs.  I have a hard drive full of right-clicked images, a book filled with (literally) cut-and-paste pages.  I've gone through glue stick after glue stick collecting pictures and ideas. You really can't believe all of the inspiring stuff out there--and if I had known how fun wedding planning could be, I wouldn't have put off getting married for so long. Weddings are becoming so creative, fun, and expressive. So don't believe all of the shows on TLC.  They scared the heck out of me, too.

Here is one of my all-time favorite weddings. This amazing wedding took place just outside of Austin, Texas.  I just want to steal everything about it. But, sadly, I won't. You can see more beautiful photos of the wedding on the Nichol's blog, here.

So here's to creativity, individuality, and 'weirdness'.  And I think Austin represents pretty well.

Eight Weeks!

Rain falls all around as the latest hurricane from the gulf disbands in the skies this far inland.  I've always loved rainy days--the gray color of the sky and the diffused light, the force indoors, the excuse to relax.  Lately, though, I've developed a sort of resentment toward the weather, and any bride planning an outdoor wedding can relate.  Months of planning could go awry on the whim of a weather pattern.  The jet stream, El Nino, barometric pressure--a radar filled with color--could force the dreaded relocation, a change of plans.  Yet the mark of well-adjusted human is adaptability.  So, I'm acknowledging this.  But I'd just prefer no rain eight weeks from today.

So--onto the dress!  The dress is almost done, just a few measurements and a hem.  The dress now rests in Muskogee, as my grandma will help me with the hem.  Right now the fabric falls in a pool around my feet, and if it wasn't an outdoor wedding, I'd be tempted to leave it.  But grass and gravel suggest otherwise.

I couldn't speak more of the process of dress making.  It's been about discovery, trial and error, and problem solving.  It's also been about surprise.  The dress has come together almost completely apart from my hands--and sometimes I feel like I just helped it into existence.  And after slipping it on this weekend, it feels as soft as a cloud.  A light, airy, sunny cloud.

Here are a few detail pics.  I'm most proud of the neckline, a crocheted piece that I hand-sewed into the top of the bodice.  It's not quite the guipure lace, but the delicate design is close.  I love it.

So, here's to rainy days.  And the hope of sunny ones...

Milemarkers

I made the long drive to Muskogee last night.  Out of the city, across vast and empty land.  The landscape changes around mile marker 236, and the flat and windy horizon of Oklahoma City smudges into taller trees and the hills of "Green Country".  I wonder how many times I driven this stretch of highway?  Hundreds of times, possibly.  It carried me to OBU in a whirlwind, and I remember watching the exit signs as we got closer to my future.  There's one sign in particular:  Earlsboro. Earl was my beloved dog that died tragically the first Christmas break after I started college.  I still pass it and it makes me think of him.  He seemed to represent the last bit of home, the time before I left out on my own.

There's one stretch of highway that falls from a graceful hill, exposing a long curve.  When you live in the "flatlands", any type of dip or rise that you can visibly recognize is a wonder.  I love the sight.

So, thank you I-40. We've had a love/hate relationship over the years.  I've dreaded your uneventful miles, your indifferent pavement.  But you've carried me home and back, through my college years and now into another life change.  You'll carry me to my wedding day, the climax of all this waiting and planning and dreaming. We've shared a lot of good music, time to gather clarity of thought, a few speedometer readings I'd rather not admit.

And we've many miles yet to come.


My latest I-40 enjoyment, The Orbans.  Enjoy.

Invitation Inspirations

They're out there.  They're in the mail!

Jacob helped me stuff and stick return address labels on invitations last night--and they're finally done!  I took them downstairs this morning to the mailroom in a box labeled "brown kraft".  They came to rest in a US Postal Service Bin, just waiting for their little homes in mailboxes on far away streets.  We've been through so much together--me and those little #10 envelopes!

So, the giant hurdle is jumped! And the invitations came together perfectly.  I'll be posting more pictures later, because I'm quite proud of the design.  I'll just wait until all my sweet guests get them first.

I've totally enjoyed this ride of invitation development and design.  There are so many inspiring invitation ideas out there--you could hop from blog to blog and never get enough!  I finally narrowed down my concept to that of a "gig poster".  Jacob has quite the gig poster collection amassed already--some hand-screened, small-series prints.  I just love them.  And invitations these days have finally taken the hint from gigs.  Here are some posters that offered a hand in some inspiration: (And we're the proud owners of a few of these guys!)

Aren't they fun?  Bright colors, vivid imagery, an emphasis on font and type--you can see why invitations took the hint. And here are some of my favorite invitation designs.  So fun! 

These invitations really reflect the freedom I've found to make this wedding truly a reflection of our own personalities and interests.  I'll always see the value in tradition, but not in confinement or commercialism. One of my favorite art professors always said: "Art is about ideas".  And art can be anything you do--even a wedding!