Lucky Number Seven

It is SP and my wedding anniversary this week and in honor of the big day, I thought I would write about our wedding. I love that I get to be involved in the details of my clients' weddings, so it only seems fair that I share a little about mine.
By now, you have probably gathered that I am a little quirky, although I prefer eccentric. It feels like a more dignified way of calling someone crazy. As such, you are probably not surprised that being involved in our wedding planning was certainly not for the weak. At the time, I lived in Santa Barbara, SP lived in San Luis Obispo and our families lived in Yuba City/Live Oak. To spice things up a little bit, I decided that I wanted to have our wedding in San Francisco. To make things even spicier, we had to plan our wedding prior to my departure to India where I had scheduled a trip to travel and study for a little over two months. Once I did the calculation, I realized that we would have a little more than three months to plan our wedding. To make things exponentially spicier - these were the same three months that I had to study for my oral/written exams for my academic program and SP had to build (from scratch) a working machine for his final project at university and pass courses with names like "Differential Equations" and "Thermodynamics."

Most sane people would say, "Move your date to next year." At least, that is what I imagine they would say since I clearly don't know any sane people. Our wedding date came to be for one primary reason: my dad. Little things like the length of time to get invitations, a dress, or the fact that the proposed wedding date was smack dab in the middle of my future father-in-law's harvest schedule did not concern my father in the least. As you have noticed from my previous blogs, my family is a party planning machine. While this may have been his youngest daughter's wedding, at the end of the day it was just a party and he could plan that with one hand tied behind his back. When I suggested that we should maybe push the wedding back due to scheduling issues he balked, "Why do you want to put off the inevitable? Don't you just want to get this thing going?" At the time I was kind of hoping for a little sentimentality. After all, it was my wedding day. However, I have to say it was probably the best gift he could have given to me. He has always been straightforward, to the point and doesn't see the need to mince words. In his book, a spade is a spade and it is one of the many qualities that I love about him. Due to his pure logic and matter-of-factness it made me take things down a notch and go with the flow. As long as SP and I were married at the end of the day - everything would be fine.

Suffice it to say SP made it through his projects and classes. How, I don't know since the poor guy ended up going up to San Francisco to meet my sister so they could meet vendors and solidify contracts on more than one occasion. I only made it through because my sainted mother moved in with me to help me get through my studies. I can't tell you how great it was to come home from work and school to find a warm meal on the table and my laundry washed and folded - thanks, Mom. Before I knew it I was on my flight to India and SP had booked the The Regency Center for the reception, A Day in May was working on the invitations (we didn't have the shop at the time and these ladies are more than talented at design and letterpress) and Gertrude and Mabel Photography (two of the coolest gals in SF) were on board to shoot our wedding day.

My time in India is its own blog post. Since the majority of people read this because of the shop, I will dispense with the stories that don't directly pertain to paper, weddings and the like. I am already overstepping my bounds here. However, I have to take a moment to give credit where credit is due. My parents fly back to India every year but they usually fly back when the weather is, let's just say, not as hot as a 750° oven with 2000% humidity. Not only did my parents fly out in the middle of monsoon season to travel with me for a few weeks and get some wedding business taken care of, my sister did as well. If that is not unconditional love I am not sure what is.

When I arrived back in the US in August I was happy to be home and ready to start the wedding craziness. Unfortunately, upon arrival at SFO and as my parents and I waited at baggage claim for my suitcases it became increasingly clear that one of my suitcase was not going to appear on the baggage carousel. It wouldn't have been so bad if that particular suitcase wasn't the one containing my wedding lengha (dress), my bridesmaids saris and SP and his brother's custom made, hand embroidered uchkins (traditional Indian jackets). Thankfully, the suitcase had simply missed the connection and was traveling from JFK to SFO the next day. Whew.

Once the luggage situation was figured out, we had no other choice but to hit the ground running. Invitations were sent, a bachelorette party was given by my sister (Puerto Vallarta will never be the same) and a bridal shower was thrown by my very sweet, very loving mother-in-law. Everything ran pretty smoothly except for the tiny issue of my parent's home...the location of all the traditional pre-wedding parties. They were building a house during this time and as most of you who have done any building or remodeling know, when your contractor tells you, "I'll be finished in two weeks." you know you are really looking at two months. Maybe two years. Suffice it to say, the day that all of our family and friends were coming into town to start the festivities, my parent's home still had to pass inspection. As is my family's style, with a U-Haul outside the house with all of their furnishings inside and a group of people waiting for the green light so we could start unloading....the inspector was inside going through the home to either tell us that we passed or failed. I don't remember her name, but when she gave my dad the go ahead, I am sure we all gave her a very inappropriate hug.

People came, the parties started and the celebration commenced and it all culminated on a beautiful fall morning in San Francisco under the dome of the Palace of Fine Arts. Well, almost. Remember when I said that everything would be fine if at the end of the day SP and I were married? Yeah. I thought that would be a simple request too. It so happened that our officiant decided he did not want to perform the ceremony. We had a choice - freak out or figure it out and thankfully we were all on board with the latter. My bridesmaids kicked it into high gear. One pulled out the Yellow Pages and started calling up all of the churches, temples, synagogues she could find. Another stayed in contact with my dad and our wedding planner at the wedding site. A couple others headed downstairs to an Indian store called Kashmir located in the lobby of our hotel and asked if they knew anyone we could contact. The owner of the store was ready to jump into action when we heard that our officiant decided that maybe 1/2 hour before the wedding wasn't the time to focus on cultural differences and different interpretations of our religious tenets and ended up performing our ceremony. After the wild ride of the past eight months was over, it was time to hit the reception and start the party.

The reception was great and filled with people old and new. Like most couples, I wanted to have more hours to talk with everyone, dance with everyone and hug everyone for traveling to Yuba City/Live Oak and then San Francisco for our wedding. One of the best parts of the day, was a gift a friend of our family gave to us and that was to continue the evening at the Redwood Room with our closest friends and family to dance the night away and reminisce about the week we just had before we would part ways and go back to our lives as usual.

I try to count my blessings every day. However, each time I think about our wedding I can't count to a number high enough to equal how lucky I feel. My family is crazy. But, and I may be biased here, they are the best family a girl could ask for. Even more, SP's family are the kindest and warmest people I have met and is the best family a girl could marry into. As for SP...well, what can I say. Despite my kooky nature, my horrible taste in jokes, my abhorrence of talking on the phone, my crazy hours at work, my fierce dedication to my independence, my addiction to Häagen-Dazs Chocolate Chocolate Chip ice cream and Anthropologie sales and my wildly inconsistent temperature issues - he still claims me as his wife. Happy Anniversary, SP! Here's to the next seven.