Tasha's Wedding Dress Adventure

Posted by Tasha

Well, it sure has been an adventure, this dress hunt! Actually, I have been dreading shopping for a wedding dress. Sounds nuts, I know, but I don't like shopping in general and I've looked at hundreds of white wedding dress photos and nothing popped out to me. Nothing even mildly excited me! So there was only one thing left to do: I grabbed my two most hyper and excited friends and hoped their excitement was contagious. Oh, was it ever! I had the best time! My two giddy girls and I had a blast! Everything looks so much better on than in photos and it feels so good on! I was told to pick out a few (10+) dresses and the lady in the store lead us to a huge fitting room and helped me put on each dress and then used clamps to make it very tight (so any size you try on fits almost like a glove with those clamps!) Having a dress on feels like a wonderful giant hug! And in order to put the dress on, the store lady holds it out and says "dive in!" - My hands above my head, my body at a 45 degree again and swoosh, I dive into layers of fabric. Each time I emerge, I'm surprised by how it looks! After day one of the dress hunt, I realized this wasn't so bad. I made a few more appointments and engaged another one of my closest friends. My friends made my wedding dress search so much more fun than I ever imagined! They each possessed a combination of some great characteristics, creating the perfect mix of giddiness, excitement, hyperactivity, honesty, bluntness, and a touch of the type of delusion that comes after working a 12 hour night shift on cold medicine (that still does not suppress a cough - go get a chest xray C!). Anyway, it was incredible!

After about 8 or 9 dress shops over a span of one month search, I returned to the first shop with my parents and tried on 2 dresses (each one 3 times). My biggest dilemma in all the stores I visited, was figuring out if I preferred a lace dress or a (for a lack of a better descriptor) non-lace dress. My top choices were always one lace and one non-lace. Deciding between apples and oranges is much harder than apples and apples... hence the need to try on the final two dresses 3 times each. Can't give too many details ... hoping to preserve some element of surprise for Tigritza, but the lace dress was actually a mermaid cut (which I was adamantly against until I tried it on) and the not-lace was a mix between ball-gown and A-line... whatever that means. And it was impossible to decide, until of course, I decided... on not-lace.

Both were phenomenal but ultimately, I had to actually picture it on the big day - so I had to picture what would feel best next to Tigritza and in photos, and eventually (with the help of my parents and the constant reminding of the first two giddy girls which was their favorite...) I picked one! So, another task to cross off the list: I have a wedding dress!

Now... on to the shoes, and jewelry, and thinking about the hair...

Our 4th of July - The Red and The Gold

Posted by Tasha

Only a month left to our engagement half way mark... 220 days have elapsed since she said "yes" and only 278 days until she says "I do" Ah! This is where the planning gets serious!

Our biggest accomplishment in these 220 days has been finalizing our venue... drum roll... the art gallery! It was the first of the two options we described and we could not have made this decision without your input! Thank you!!! We talked to the Managing Director of the venue, CT, and he is exactly the person we need to refocus us into the planning path! He told us our priorities now are food and photographers before everyone gets booked!

We discussed our options for food in a million different ways and maybe that warrants its own post (stay tuned); yet we still have not come to any conclusions there. In fact we talked about almost every aspect of the wedding day and suggested a dozen options for every element of the day, and again few conclusions are set. But hey, we have another 278 days to really get things straight (or gay).

Besides the venue, we have only one other thing finalized (as of yesterday). Tigritza and I are in India spending some time with her family - the perfect opportunity to get all the Indian trimmings! Last night we spent a few hours in the gold district of Kolkata and finally found THE wedding jewelry for my bride! After rejecting hundreds of gold necklaces of different styles, shapes, designs, and patterns, we came to a very unusual necklace with some fiery colors. This was it. In good Tigritza-Tasha custom, we kept it aside and continued to look until we knew nothing compared. It is delicate and grand and intricate and asymmetrical (like Tigritza's ring) and it's the wedding jewelry! With the necklace we got earrings which perfectly match and we got a tikka (or what I called a tickleee - which is a gold chain with a pendant at the end worn parting the hair in the middle with the pendant at the top of the forehead). Next she had to finalize her sari!

Before I arrived in India, Tigritza and her parents went sari shopping and found two beautiful bridal saris (in two different stores, one in Kolkata and one in Mumbai) after hours and even days of searching through red saris. And since they couldn't decide which of the two was right, they got both! After coming home last night from the jewelry adventure, Tigritza had to make a very exciting choice! She tried on each sari with the jewelry and had her parents and I pick the best one. I was very hesitant seeing her in the wedding get-up, but she assured me that she wouldn't get completely dressed - she still doesn't have the blouse-piece made (the little shirt worn under the 9 yards of sari material) and the pleats (or folds) wouldn't be done perfectly, etc. Regardless, she put on option A, the Mumbai sari, and it was beautiful - rich red with a uniform gold pattern and very thick gold pallu (the end piece that hangs over the shoulder). Then option B. The Kolkata sari. It was breathtaking. Bright red sari, swirls of gold all over, pleats covered in a different - more concentrated pattern of gold, pallu delicately sprinkled with gold. Absolutely majestic. I jumped up and ran away! Tigritza's Dad said "What's wrong!?" And all I could say was "That's my bride, wearing her bridal sari! I can't keep looking at her! This is it!!!" And after a big hug from Papa I ran to another room while the aaahhhs and ooohhhs continued.

So there you have it. Tigritza covered in red and gold. No photos since I'd be looking at them all day and that's no good. Tomorrow we'll go shopping for some little random Indian decorative things that might be nice for the wedding!

As always... more to come!

The Best People

Posted by Tigritza

At a Saturday wedding reception in Bristol, England in March this year, a young English chap and I privately made a toast to each other: the best man and the maid of honor. "To the...Best People!" I said as our glasses clinked, after a smooth and perfectly executed marriage ceremony (whew).

What made the two of us so special? Not much. True, he wore an impressive three-piece country-style suit that almost perfectly matched the groom's. And I wore the same purple dress as the other three bridesmaids, but was allowed to distinguish myself with white shoes instead of black. He'd been responsible for carrying the wedding rings safely until the final moment, and for making one of those funny-but-charming toasts at the reception. I'd been responsible for running around to get last-minute chores done with the bride in the days leading up to the wedding, and for reading one of those touches-your-heart-and-makes-you-cry poems out loud at the ceremony. But really, we were just the bride and groom's best friends. He'd known the groom for years, and I'd grown up with the bride.

It's not just the best man and the maid of honor. A traditional Western wedding will also include bridesmaids and groomsdudes (as my sister calls them) in the 'best people' wedding party. And as much as Tasha and I consider our wedding to be 'unconventional' in some senses, we know we want a wedding party - a group of people who stand with us as we promise each other the rest of our lives. Unfortunately, as soon as one starts planning a wedding, it's impossible to avoid the question - who will the 'best people' be? And which two will be 'more important' than anyone else? I'll admit it, I've been guilty of it myself. One of my best friends, Belle, just got engaged - and we've already brought up the maid-of-honor issue in our little group of close friends (albeit in jest).

(image from here)

Tasha and I are fortunate enough to have a plethora of people that we consider close friends (all of you reading this, we're talking about you!). We've each grown up in many different locations, and have had to form a new circle of friends in each one. As a result, we have many important people in our lives. So how can we justify the pressure to pick just two - or even just eight - to stand with us on the big day?

I've heard of many different choosing 'algorithms'. Choose your family: sibling, or cousin, or even parent. Choose your high school best friend, or your college best friend, or your current best friend. Choose the person you've known longest. Choose the person you grew up with. Choose the person who introduced you both, because they're responsible for your relationship. Choose your closest friend who lives next to you, so they can help plan the wedding with you. Choose your ex, because they had the good sense to break up with you (just kidding about that last one).

We decided to condense all that into one simple question: for each of us, who was the person who most supported us - and basically built our relationship with us? Someone without whom, truthfully, we may not have ended up here together? Who was the person who was there from the beginning, heard our "oh-my-god-I-met-someone!!" story the night after we first met at Penn, counseled us during every fight, celebrated every anniversary, gave us peace of mind when we couldn't stand each other, and inspired us to be better, to be braver, to try harder, and to love stronger? Who made that kind of impact on the couple we are today? Basically, who took us both, together, from zero to this altar?

Maybe if we each answered that question, we'd get the first two people in the wedding party. The ones who hold the rings or take the flowers or read the poem. But overall, who would be in the larger wedding party?

(1.) Of course, some of the first people that come to mind are high school best friends: from the pre-Tasha era. When I talk about "growing up" with someone, this is who I mean. Sure, maybe they didn't know me when I was 6 or 7. But they knew me best when I was 12 - 18. When I went from being a little girl with schoolboy crushes and secret notes to being a woman with dreams and a college acceptance letter. Yep, they even saw me through that awkward adolescent stage (*shudder*). My best friend from my time in Oman (age 12-16) was the bride at the Bristol wedding I mentioned. My best friends from my time in Dubai (16-18) have also had a huge impact on every aspect of my life. These are still the first people I rush to share good news with. Tasha has at least two best friends that fall into this category too.

(2.) And then, there are newer friends. The after-we-met people, who met us as a couple (or barely before), and never knew Tasha or me without each other. Sure, maybe you could call them late-to-the-party, but maybe they're no less significant ...and besides, everyone we meet for the rest of our lives will hopefully fall into this category. So yes, we've met some lifelong friends who happened to be late-to-the-party.

(3.) And most importantly, there is family. Tasha and I both have siblings. I have an incredible sister - a role model in almost every way - who had her own wedding in 2009. Tasha has a wonderful brother - nine years her senior, and so cool that I'd consider marrying him if Tasha weren't around (just kidding Tasha). They transcend time periods: pre-Tasha, post-Tasha, during-Tasha ...we haven't even known a time without them.

Can't we have them all? Well, not unless we plan on making half the room stand up with us. So maybe in addition to the first two, Tasha and I should each symbolically stand with one person from each time period, to represent the different stages of our lives: (1) Older, (2) Newer and (3) Always?

But that means - do I just get to pick one high school friend? They're all still in my life - 'high school friend' is a misnomer. And just one post-Tasha friend? What about the others who were no less important? Not to mention gender - how do outfits work? Do we have an even number of guys and girls (or would that be both hypocritical and unfair)?

This much we know: at the end of the day, we know it doesn't matter. After all, a wedding is just a party - whoever the so-called Best People end up being, it couldn't possibly diminish the significance of all our relationships, whether or not they're standing up with us for half an hour. Maybe we should just throw all the names from (1) and (2) into a hat and leave it to chance!

Where To Marry Me: The Search

Posted by Tigritza

It's been a couple of weeks since our last post, but rest assured, we've been busy. We've been travelling south every weekend for the last month - April 9/10 was apartment hunting, April 15/16 was wedding venue hunting, April 22/23 was a chill (literally) beach weekend at a friend's place south of Philly, and April 30/May 1 was more wedding venue hunting.

More on the apartment later (yes, we found one!) - this post is about wedding venues. We saw a total of six places, and while that may not seem like a lot, we feel like we've done a pretty exhaustive search! It started with online research, dozens of places. Tasha had to force me to sit down with her and look at scores of photographs of brides and grooms in traditional (boring?) poses in the same color themes, the same choreographed poses and what looked like the same physical setup in each venue. We finally narrowed down the search, and Tasha called each place to make appointments and gauge gay-friendliness (we've heard horror stories of signed contracts being cancelled when the venue hosts realized it was a same-sex couple). I'd been the apartment-hunting appointment-maker, so Tasha took over the wedding-venue-hunting.

Through our search, we realized we were looking for a few things:
- A decent price (prices ranged from $2,600 to $14,000 for 5 hours of wedding time! Ridiculous!)
- Natural light: our original plan had been an outdoor wedding, but given that April weather is so unpredictable, a tented or indoor wedding seems like the only option. Still, the idea of an outdoor space is important to us.
- Fire-friendliness: we want to incorporate some sort of little fire, to address the Hindu tradition
- Gay-friendliness: as I mentioned above
- And finally, Circular-Seating-friendliness!

...That last one is a big one, and rules out many 'standard' wedding venue setups. One evening in England last month, at a bar by the river in Bristol, as we pondered questions like "who walks down the aisle first?" we suddenly realized: why is there only one aisle? And why are we getting married at the front of the room? Why can't there be two aisles, leading to the center of the room, with the guests seated in a circular fashion around the chuppah? (Yes, we will also have some sort of indian-ized colorful huppah) As soon as that circular idea was born, all kinds of images started coming into our minds - everything started falling in place, at least in our heads. We saw the setup, the colors, the ceremony, the fabric... Tasha became crazy-excited that I was getting excited, and we had too many glasses of wine and breathed a sigh of relief. It felt good to finally know, even in the slightest, what we wanted.

So - what venues? Of the four we rejected, some were hit-or-miss and some were absolute-miss, but we finally settled on two we loved:

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First, the first venue we saw! In Olde City Philadelphia (gorgeous area, with cobblestone and old buildings all around), was this venue:

(Note: all images from here and here)

The space is an art gallery, and is composed of two levels. The bottom level is where the ceremony, cocktails and post-dinner dancing will be held. Our favorite thing about this space is that with the amount of light streaming through the windows and the incredible talent of the staff, it can be utterly transformed into anything! We saw pictures of Hindu ceremonies, Jewish ceremonies, Christian ceremonies, social events, benefits, and more. Here are some images -

The venue has worked with all kinds of Ceremonies -

The same downstairs space can be completely transformed for Post-Dinner Dancing .
The images below may not be from weddings, but they give you an idea...

As you can see, the upstairs floor directly overlooks the lower floor through this sort of circular balcony in the middle, making everything a lot more intimate and unified. Dinner will be held upstairs -

We LOVE that it's naturally circular. That it's intimate, and that no one section is closed off. That it's full of light (the upper floor actually has an entire wall of windows). And most importantly, we love the staff! We know they could create an incredible wedding for us.

BUT, one downside is that it's an art gallery:

So, we have no control over what exhibit is up. We've been told we can take down 2-3 pieces if we find them offensive or awkward, but we can't take down an entire exhibit. Our hope is that in photos and in the hype of the whole party, the art pieces will sort of blend into the background...

Also, there are still some kinks to be worked out - for example, since dinner and post-dinner dancing are on different floors, we need to be sure that we set up tables on the lower floor so some guests can sit if they don't feel like dancing. The worst case scenario would be a split, where half the guests stay upstairs and only half come down and dance.

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The second finalist here is... *drumroll* ...the Franklin Institute!

(Note: all images from here and here)

For those of you unfamiliar with Philly, the Franklin Institute is a science museum in a really old building. So, it has lots of really beautiful and really science-y rooms to choose from!

There are two good possibilities for the Ceremony location: one is the roof (but again, since April weather is so unpredictable, this may not be a good idea)

But the other, more interesting choice is... the Planetarium!! Yes, believe it or not, they hold ceremonies here. The planetarium screens are in the form of a giant demi-sphere, and are entirely customizable, so we could choose an amber starfield, a full moon, or even a slow rising and setting sun for the duration of the ceremony - any colors, any images... and some of the pictures we saw on the tour (which unfortunately I don't have here) are beautiful! Plus, the planetarium is definitely circular!

As cool as a Planetarium wedding sounds (and believe me, I'm crazy about astronomy so that sounds super cool to me), our main worry is darkness and the enclosed space. The ceremony is supposed to be beautiful and free in our minds, and trapping it in a dark planetarium just doesn't seem right. Even if we choose a sunrise/sunset... it just seems too... artificially bright, you know? What do you guys think?

Cocktails would be in one of the science display rooms - a very fun and classier one is the Electricity room, where all the displays are interactive and could make for a very fun, non-awkward, sparkly cocktail hour (definitely tops the other venue in this respect...)

...And then dinner and dancing (both in the same room! solves the previous venue's problem, yay!) would be in Franklin Hall - a majestic space with a giant statue of Ben Franklin! It has a huge dome, with incredible light and sound displays. The hall can be absolutely transformed into any color - starry or cloudy skies, amber or red or green or orange or blue lighting, whatever - imagine, for example, the lighting changing to starry blue skies for the first dance, and then back to amber for the party. We were blown away by the display.

The biggest problem with this venue is that there are so many different rooms! It is a huge museum, and guests would have to be herded from room to room - hopefully without losing a grandmother or a 4-yr-old taking a wrong turn down some random corridor. It feels less intimate...and again, we're torn in two directions about the coolness-but-darkness of the planetarium ceremony. It is a huge space though, and the lighting is incredible.

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So there you have it. Our top two candidates. Which would you choose?
(Note: Price is pretty much the same for both venues.)

Happy 4 Year Anniversary ... Happy -1 Year Anniversary!

Posted by Tasha

On this day four years ago, on Friday April 13, 2007, I met Tigritza.

On this day in one year, on Friday April 13, 2012, I will marry Tigritza.

It's our last anniversary as an unwed couple and we are so incredibly excited. This past weekend we signed a lease for our new apartment in Philly! It's a gorgeous loft with the biggest kitchen I've ever seen! And this coming weekend we have our first appointment with a wedding venue (that's available on our date, lets in outside catering, allows small Hindu open flame ceremony, fits in our budget, perfect location, and loves the gays)! We are well on our way!

I was thinking about our 4 years together and the most reassuring thought that comes to mind is how our relationship was not always easy and beautiful. We struggled together, we grew and learned with and from each other, and ultimately I feel confident that together we can take on life better as a unit than individually. I'm not nervous or unsure about this at all and I feel so calm about what some call the "most important choice". Not only are we in love but we are just right for each other's quirks. We will support one another and always stand behind the other. We are a team.

Thinking about our relationship on our anniversary is such a celebration. We are so lucky.