Carrot Cake and Anniversaries

  As I kissed my husband, I commented that we had made it through the last two years without killing each other. 

“The night is young.” He said.

When we moved into our new house, neither one of us was working.  We sold both of our houses and scraped together every penny we had to build the one we are in.  When it was finished, there was no money left over for a wedding.  Chris was on this third, and even though I had never been married, I wasn’t one of those women who started dreaming of being a bride when she got to wear a white dress and a veil at her first communion.

My one wish though, was to have something in a home, and in the Fall.  Moving into a new house in late summer seemed like the perfect opportunity to have both.   It was also conveniently within our budget for a wedding venue ($0).  So we planned a very small ceremony and reception for early September, out on our wraparound porch overlooking the vineyard. 

I am very partial to dresses with an Asian flair and always wanted a cheongsom dress.  When I found a local shop that specialized in this style of custom-made clothing, it was a simple decision.  The end result was quite lovely, as you can see in the pictures.  

The interim result was nothing short of clown costumes.

I found the perfect ivory silk brocade for my dress, and Grace, Susan and myself fell in love with a gorgeous gold silk brocade with pink dragonflies woven into it.  Susan was to wear a short coat of the gold brocade over a pale pink silk sheath dress, and Grace was to wear an Ao Ba Ba, which is a traditional Vietnamese long silk shirt of the gold brocade,  over pale pink silk pants.  The gentlemen would wear pale pink silk ties, and the flowers would be white and pink.

Didn’t quite work out that way.  

I got a call from the dressmaker a couple of weeks later informing me that the gold brocade was no longer available for the season, but she had a suggestion.  Her people in Vietnam would obtain a gold silk brocade and have pink dragonflies embroidered on it.  She said she trusted her people in Vietnam to make the right choices.  I should have trusted my instincts, but she talked me into it.

When the dresses arrived I thought it was joke.  Mine was perfect.  But the clothing made for Susan and Grace was downright laughable.   Taffeta.  Yeah.  Taffeta, not brocade.  You know that puffy stiff fabric that nightmare bridesmaids dresses are made of?  And yellow, not gold.  The dress and pants were a lovely shade of bubble gum.

And then, there were the dragonflies.   Remember the movie “Mothra?”  You got it.  Big, bug-eyed monsters all over the yellow taffeta.  And stitched to enhance the natural poofyness of the fabric.  

I will say that the dressmaker was wonderful about accepting them back and getting new clothing made for us without charging us.  This time, black brocade for Susan over a black sheath, and the same ivory fabric as my dress for Grace, with black pants.  We did end up having to move the wedding date into October.  Which was fine with me, I had wanted October from the very beginning.  Columbus Day was my first choice.  We couldn’t get the JP, the Photographer, or Chris’s best man on any day that weekend.  We went with the following weekend. 

The weekend of the Double Nor’Easter. 

  

It was also a record low of 36 degrees that day, so we moved our ceremony to inside, in front of the fireplace.    Not so bad. 

 

 My Groom

My new daughter

At the very end of the day, the sky cleared up and we got a tiny peek at blue.  Just enough to get a shot or two outside.

I want to thank our JP (who claimed to be a part-time magician, that should have been my first clue) for showing up in his vintage Members Only jacket, and making all of my hard-earned fashion sense disappear.