Unpleasant Wedding Humor

I love injecting humor into weddings. The occasion can sometimes be taken too seriously, either made especially solemn or fraught with the nerves of invested parties that want everything to be perfect. So I’m all about taking things a little more lightly; my imagined and actual wedding invitations are proof of that. What I can’t get behind, however, is a certain brand of humor I often see or hear about at weddings or in the course of wedding planning. I hesitate to call it chauvinist or sexist but that’s ultimately what it is, or at least it springs from the … Continue reading

My Fake High School Wedding

This is the story of how I planned my wedding in high school. I’ll give you all a moment to recover from the shock: Families.com’s laid-back marriage blogger, she of the gender stereotyping rants and “what’s the big fuss” attitude toward schmoopy romance and wedding culture planned a wedding in her high school days. Never fear: I did it because I had to for class. My crazy gym/health teacher, the same woman who’d also make us write papers for our self-defense gym classes, made all of her students plan weddings as part of our sexual health education unit. It had … Continue reading

Passion’s Place in A Marriage

Maybe I should stop expecting television to accurately portray life or romance, but I can’t help it. Media has a subtle yet powerful influence on our thinking, especially on younger folks, that just makes me want to address the issues it raises. Fox’s trendy new sitcom “New Girl,” starring Zooey Deschanel, just wrapped up its freshman season. In the last few episodes Deschanel’s character Jess breaks up with her boyfriend after having dinner with him and his ex-wife (something that was a bad idea in the first place). At the dinner she observed the formerly-married couple at each other’s throats, … Continue reading

Friendship: the Foundation of Marriage

Last week my husband and I made cookies for breakfast. It is supposed to be healthier to eat a batch of cookies, or really any dessert, early in the morning rather than later at night. This way we have more time to burn off those extra calories. That’s not why we made them, though. We made them because the night before I’d experimented with making Pasta Puttanesca (not bad, though I think in the future I’d just swap the anchovies for tuna), and its smell still hung around the kitchen. I figured the best way to get rid of it … Continue reading

Unexpected Difficulties with Wedding Invitations

I had a hard time choosing my wedding invitations. I suppose you could say I was a stereotypical picky bride about them, though I never got angry or chewed anyone out. I just wanted something simple, and I couldn’t find anything on the market that fit. I did have an ideal wedding invitation, and it was totally possible to make. The idea came from a close friend of mine. He said it should just be a blank white card, with the words “We’re Getting Married” alone on the front. Opening the card would reveal the simple words “You Should Come.” … Continue reading

Changing My Name

By now I’m sure that you can tell that feminist issues are a very big deal for me. It even took a bit of coaxing from my parents for me to walk down the aisle with my dad; I did it for him, because it was important to him, but I don’t like the idea of being passed off from one man’s hands to another. Yet one thing about my decisions related to my married life really stands out: I took my husband’s name. I’ll admit it rankled a little, just the idea that I erase a part of myself … Continue reading

Worrying Too Much

I know I’m constantly railing against letting the often-inaccurate media have too much influence over our marriages and our approaches to romance. One of the reasons why I harp on about it so much is because I’m talking to myself as much, if not more, than I am to others. I’m a worrywart; it’s one of my least favorite facets of my personality but one I know I have to acknowledge and for which I have to watch out. There’s little that I can’t manage to fret over, and whether or not I’m going about my relationship with my husband … Continue reading

One-Sided Romance

Valentine’s Day has come and passed, but this year it really made me start thinking about romance. I’m sure that’s in part because I now officially write about love and marriage. But as the ads on television and the radio were dedicated to talking about getting gifts for the holiday, as friends posted pictures and comments on their Facebook pages about what their husbands got them or the frantic lines of men in department stores and flower shops on the day, I really began to wonder: why is romance so one-sided? Think about it: usually when we think about something … Continue reading

The Importance of Touch

My husband just returned to work after 3-4 days home sick with a fever. I doted on him for the duration. I didn’t do it because I thought it was the wife’s role, but because it’s what I’d expect anyone to do if a person they loved was ill. I expect similar dedication from Jon when I’m not feeling well. Copying many of the nursing habits my mom employed when my brother and I were sick growing up, I made him endless cups of tea: Echinacea, cold care, green tea with honey. I froze juice and made slushies for him. … Continue reading