planning our wedding: 4 things we delegated that thoroughly surprised us!

it's tempting to want to control every aspect of your wedding, to have it be "perfect." i implore you to let that go of that mentality as soon as possible. it will make life easier! plus delegating is a great solution to wedding control issues. : ) 

the beauty of having six weeks to plan our wedding was that our time constraint made it clear we simply couldn't do all of it. i am so glad for the gift of delegating some things out to people who i love and trusted. 

1. bouquet & boutonniere. i wasn't even sure i wanted flowers at first. they can be very costly! anyway, i can't remember if heather offered or if i asked, but the thought of heather making my bouquet felt like the right call. she's so talented with floral arrangements, and she is so dear to me. i knew having something she made for me would be really special, kind of like wearing annette's earrings. i showed heather a picture of a bouquet i was drawn to for it's simplicity and colors and asked if she could make something like it. i completely trusted her judgement and eyes for beauty and let it go. i was so surprised and delighted by what she created the morning of our wedding. it was...perfect. 

2. the welcome table. oh emily grady. she is a saint. here are a few things about emily i appreciate: she cares a LOT, she got married a few months before us, has a great rustic sensibility, and is impeccably organized. i knew that she and her husband would go above and beyond welcoming our guests because they are naturally like that. they give their all. i merely handed her the stuff i had for the welcome table, asked her to do what needed to be done, and then thanked her. i knew all would be good in the grady's hands. and it was! (see below, the little mason jars and yellow ball flowers were small things that emily brought from her home.)

3. family dinner venue. we needed to find a restaurant to host 30+ guests for dinner on saturday night after the wedding, which was no simple task. we asked my oldest sister to help us with this search, negotiate the terms, and be our liaison. it was so helpful to have my sister do the heavy lifting in this process. easy to say: everyone RAVED about cafe pro bono. the meal was so good that we went back there with our wedding coordinators to thank them, and gave a gift card to one of our speakers to enjoy a meal there as well. we loved it that much!

4. cake & toppers. when chris said he would make a cake for us as our wedding gift, we were thrilled. we didn't know what to expect. but classic chris....he sent us a list of questions to think about regarding what the cake and its meaning to us. when we got back from europe, we met with chris to discuss his questions and share our favorite cake inspiration. in the same discussion, he asked us about toppers. honestly, cake toppers wasn't even something i cared about, but chris mentioned sheri and then things changed. i love her work and i love her, and commissioning sheri to make us cake toppers felt like a good decision. i told her that samuel calls me bird and i call him my bunny and that we do this little affectionate nose-to-nose thing. and with that kernel of information, we had one of the most exquisite and tasty wedding cakes i had ever seen and tasted. (yes, i'm biased.) 

bonus: the day of coordinating. there was of course, delegating the entirety of the day to our friends cara and amy. we did as much prep as we could and then handed over everything to these two extremely capable women. they gifted us with an enormous sense of relief and freedom. having day-of wedding coordinators is like being pregnant for nine months, and right before you go into labor, someone else takes over. cara & amy delivered our baby. how's that for a metaphor? 

ps. if you're looking for a wedding coordinator, cara is available for new clients. i'd be happy to put you in touch (email me at lizsong (at) gmail.com or comment below). 

anyway, all this to say....

there was an element of surprise and delight i couldn't have created if i did everything on my own. i simply loved being surprised on my own wedding day by the beautiful creativity and service of my friends.

as much as samuel and i wanted to host an awesome experience for our community, i think part of what made our wedding so special was that we were also able to receive from our community. we had to stop believing we were "being a burden" by asking for help, but rather we were inviting our friends to participate, to ask them to invest in us. 

a wedding can be a beautiful opportunity to give and receive love from our community. i'll hold this learning close to my heart for many years to come.

how might you let go of perfection and invite deeper friendship/delight/surprise into your wedding planning process? or even into your life?

zero waste home adventures: let's talk about apparel

i'm embarrassed to tell you how much clothes/shoes/accessories i had before i moved here. good thing i didn't count it all. but to give you a sense of all the crap i excavated from every nook and cranny of my barn loft, here's what i donated on just one occasion of a clothes drop: 50 shirts, 3 jackets, 10 dresses, 12 shoes, 3 bags, 2 luggage bags.

i've said this before, but i prided myself in believing that i lived simply. but when push came to shove, the amount of stuff and waste i accumulated was - simply put - too much. so i got rid of possessions, over and over and over again until i finally came to a stall. too much of this iterative minimizing can cause a kind of mental constipation. it's an exhausting process. when i felt like the amount of apparel had been reduced enough, i packed it all up.

then i moved and counted everything before unpacking it. here's my current list of apparel:

• tops
• 10 casual shirts 
• 5 nice blouses/shirts/sweaters
• 4 tank tops
• 4 dresses
• 3 cardigans
• 3 sleepwear tops
• 2 half zip long sleeve pull overs
• 2 athletic tank tops
• 1 really ragged hoodie sweater (my favorite!)
• total: 34 tops

• bottoms
• 3 jeans
• 3 shorts
• 3 sleepwear bottoms
• 3 other pants
• 2 hiking pants
• 2 workout pants
• 2 running shorts 
• 2 long johns
• 1 snow pants
• 1 skirt
• total: 22 bottoms 

• jackets
• 1 waist length down jacket
• 1 half zip puffy
• 1 rain jacket (also doubles as my snow jacket for snow activities)
• 1 knee length down jacket
• 1 running shell
• 1 cycling shell
• 1 jean jacket
• total: 7 jackets

• intimates
• 12 underwear (i accidentally forgot underwear on a 3 day trip, so bought 2 extra. argh)
• 4 bras
• 3 lingerie
• 3 sports bras
• 1.5 bikini (two bottoms, one top)
• 1 slip
• total: 24.5 intimates

• shoes
• 2 brown leather boots
• 1 running/trail shoes
• 1 crocs
• 1 swing dance shoes
• 1 flip flops
• 1 snow boots
• 1 slippers
• total: 8 pairs of shoes

• accessories
• 10 pairs of socks
• 6 pairs of earrings
• 4 rings (including my wedding band)
• 2 belts
• 2 cold weather beanie/hats
• 2 gloves
• 3 scarves
• 1 bracelet
• 1 neck gaiter
• 1 sun hat
• 1 cap
• 1 messenger bag
• 1 "nice" bag
• 1 pair of sunglasses + case
• total: 36 accessories

• GRAND TOTAL: 132.5 apparel items

this is my first time adding it all up, and geez!! it seems like a lot. 

i'm surprised by: the number of jackets, pairs of socks, underwear, and shirts i own.

when you see this list, what surprises you? 

what's been really interesting to notice in this lifestyle experiment, is to see what i've actually been wearing these past three weeks. it's significantly more casual here in montana, it's actually winter, and my days sway more towards being ready for an adventure than going into an office. also, i haven't touched any of the spring/summer things like my skirt, shorts, and flip flops for obvious reasons. my hope is to get down to ≤100 items by my next culling. until then, hopefully subconsciously, i'll be able to let go of more of my "what if's."

slowly and surely...

"...we are tethered to life stories through things."

first, play this. it's my current song of obsession.

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in a moment of bother, i asked facebook: why is it so difficult to let go of possessions?

my friend sheri replied: It's hard for us too... in some way we are tethered to life stories through things. It's scary to rely only on memory for connection.

you see, i have a horrible memory about most things in life, and a laser sharp memory about the rest. my lifetime of collected artifacts help me put together a story: the story of my life. how is it then that i should part from those things that help me understand where i've come from? we can't be clear about where we're headed if we aren't clear about where we've come from. what if parting with all of the artifacts leaves me unclear about the lifetime of memories i've experienced?

or, is it possible that in saying goodbye, i can walk forward with that much more clarity? 

it's so glaring that this season of life is coming to an end. i feel it like an abrupt winter chill that penetrates deep into my bones. and these days, i feel it especially when i'm sifting through all of my possessions. 

i realized tonight that my heart is pained to part with my stuff because all those possessions are extensions of the people who have made me, me. people who i love & cherish. they are the characters in my life story. that's why getting rid of my stuff hurts.

my dear friend spoke a wisdom from her own experience of letting go of everything: even though you say goodbye to certain things, the stories will forever stay with you. 

perhaps because people are unforgettable...they are forever.