one year ago

I was getting my make up done and marveling about the incredible luck, not only to have beautiful weather in Pittsburgh in October, not only to be surrounded by so many wonderful and supportive loved ones, but to be partnered in life with such an amazing person. I'm very excited to celebrate one year of marriage today.

Not long ago, Chris and I were featured in the Celebrations section of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (which spotlit our nuptials from October 2010) and I decided (with some trepidation) that I would share it on this date. We had no idea that we were going to be featured so prominently until we woke up to emails and tweets from friends and family, cluing us in. But it was thrilling to see! As we meet the quiet milestone of one year of spouse-hood we feel both relieved and nostalgic. It's great to relax and enjoy another fall season together. It is great to be able to reminisce about such a fantastic series of memories. And it is great to sit back while we attend our friends' and families' nuptials (we just went to another last Friday!), with thorough empathy and appreciation for the labor of love that is planning a wedding.

Dressed to Register

 

I wore this silk See by Chloé dress to do some wedding errand running with Chris. In truth, we were registering for wedding/shower gifts to assist our relatives. A nagging inner Emily Post wishes this practice was less standard wedding fare. And I do I have a few friends who have forgone the (relatively) traditional registry entirely in favor of a few more modern approaches. 

These ran the gamut from 'donations to a charity in the name of,' to 'honeymoon activities websites,' to even more directly suggestive 'wedding paypal' accounts. But my parents claimed that family members would have been dissatisfied with any of those. My parents argued for practicality over risking quite a few miffed familial guests. It is standard fare in the wedding decorum of my family to give material gifts for a shower and monetary gifts for a wedding. Breeching such decorum, and forgoing the department store registry could have been interpreted as asking for money. Somehow suggesting the specific gifts we would like sits easier. Of those of you who had wedding celebrations, what did you do?