Sea Change

I found this picture while Jeff and I were doing some wedding-related tasks on the world wide web tonight. It makes me laugh and cringe at its morbidity. I did a little research on the painting American Gothic, and it turns out it was, and still is, ambiguous whether the woman in the picture is the farmer's wife or his daughter. It's violent and appalling, but I am still drawn to this reinterpretation of the image. What can I say, we are 7.7 weeks out from the wedding.

My fascination with this picture is slightly ironic because there has been a shift in moods on the Bridal Caboose. The defining event of the weekend was meeting with Mindy and Lindsey, our new wedding coordinators (aren't those totally wedding coordinator names?). They are both low-key, attentive and seem competent on nuptial matters. They both took notes and asked the pertinent questions and exuded calm and confidence. When I got in the car with Jeff after our meeting with them, I felt for the first time, a sense that this wedding could be a seriously fun event. Not just for our guests, but even for me. It helped so much to just envision getting my claws off the process and turn it over to the people we are paying to coordinate the band, the food, the cake, the pictures. I let out little yelps of joy in the car on the way to dinner after the meeting. It's the best thing we have done for ourselves. It's like that final 10% that will be so critical in determining whether I have a good time the week of our wedding.

Other important tasks include measuring the taleysum (plural of "tallit"--the prayer shawl worn during Jewish services) to make the chuppah under which we will be married. Jeff collected a tallit from his brother, his father, and his grandfather, all of which, along with his own, will create a canopy that we will stand under when we say our vows and step on the glass.

We also finalized some details on the party favor we will give our guests. It's a bit of an artistic endeavor, so it may take some time to align our respective visions. I literally just learned about 17 minutes ago that Jeff has a design background. It was a funny conversation, because Jeff asked me if I knew about his design background as if he was asking me if I knew he had a secret mafia past. I thought he was kidding, but it turns out he built websites and did some very high level design projects during college. See, our relationship is full of surprises and "Gee, I never knew that" moments.