In the Moment: Continuing Our Story

Today we pause from our recaps. Did you know we're going to be celebrating our six month wedding anniversary this coming Sunday? Time has gone by so quickly. And that's got me thinking about how we want to document our story going forward.

Before we got married, I carefully catalogued and saved Tweets, Emails, and Facebook status changes. Most of our love story was chronicled online.

This past weekend, the medium for recording our story became physical. How? While wandering through a barn, we found this Underwood typewriter.

The typewriter immediately tugged on my heart strings. I pointed it out to cubes and then said let me think about it and we walked on past. I thought about it maybe all of five minutes when we stumbled on a pair of nightstands. When the salesperson asked if there was anything else we were interested in, I responded, there's a typewriter too! Long story short, it now sits on the table in our entry hall.

As cubes was playing with the keys, I quickly slipped a sheet of paper in only to discover there was still some ink on the ribbon. And an idea was born. We'd create an Exquisite Corpse.

Our Exquisite Corpse Begins

We type whatever is on our mind or has caught our fancy. We hope that when guests come over they too add to the Exquisite Corpse. I have no idea how the story will unfold, but it's a neat project and one with a tangible result. I'll be filling the typewriter with various acid-free, handmade, treeless papers to keep the story colorful and long lasting.

How are you chronicling your love story?

Sneak Peek: Favors for Our Burning Man Wedding

Yesterday's mail brought our wedding favors for our Burning Man Wedding - a box of personalized buttons.

Want to see a sneak peek? (Yes I know I said you'd have to wait, but I love how the design turned out.)

Overall, I was very impressed with Wacky Buttons. I received a proof of the approved design. Then after submitting the order, we received a proof of our buttons. From design to order to delivery, the entire process took just 4 business days. While their Time Calculator could be a little more user friendly (include the estimated time to approve design), everywhere else Wacky Buttons went above and beyond. It was easy to upload your own artwork. (If you didn't have Adobe Photoshop they had an online design tool.) The price was right. The customer service was great. I would definitely order from them again.

So what do you think of the wedding favors? Did you do something untraditional for your favors?

Choosing: Designing Table Numbers

Earlier this month we were deciding what to do for our table "numbers." Well since then we've decided on a theme - Restaurants. (The table "number" might be an actual number or the first letter from the restaurant's name.)

Specifically, we're choosing restaurants (and/or bars) that mean something to us or are our favorite haunts. Of course, we've come up with more than 20 and are working to whittle the list down.

Each table tent will identify a specific restaurant and include a filmstrip along with a short description of why the restaurant is important to us.

For example, one of the restaurants we've chosen is Weird Fish. (Check out Chapter Five of Our Story to see why this restaurant is important to us.)

Some filmstrips will include shots of the restaurant's food. Some filmstrips will include images of the restaurant (as we've done with Weird Fish). Other filmstrips will feature us dining/eating at the restaurant.

So for the filmstrips what finish should we use? And why?

1. Sepia
2. Black and White
3. Color

Are you doing something special for your table numbers?

Get to Know Us: The Reasons I'm Marrying Him

After our last meeting with our rabbi, we started thinking about vows (ok, I'd already been thinking about vows since cubes suggested we write our own).

I spend a lot of time on a train. When I'm on a train without a book, which happens more frequently than one would assume, I spend a lot of time thinking.

I spend a lot of time commuting. When I'm stuck in stopped traffic, which happens a lot, I think about what I'm thankful for. I'm very thankful that cubes is in my life. I spend a lot of time thinking about him.

So while we're keeping our vows secret from each other, I thought I'd share why I'm marrying him in less than three and a half months. I've been collecting these reasons via Twitter and LiveJournal since the Fall when our friend Ed started a twitter meme after he got engaged - #reasonswhyimmarryingher. Note that I modified it slightly for my use #reasonswhyimmarryinghim. (I initially mistyped the hashtag and created an inadvertently funny tag that J caught #reasonswhyimmarringhim.)

1. I've never felt like he wanted me to be anyone other than me.
2. With him, I can be "me."
3. He didn't try to teach me how to play pool.
4. He didn't mind that we never won when we played pool together as a team.
5. He walked me to my car even though it was just across the street from the pool hall.
6. He picks me up at BART and walks with me when I'm scared (and when I'm not).
7. He's able to roll with it when plans change unexpectedly.
8. Even when there's no harm in telling a white lie, he doesn't.
9. He didn't try to take me back to his place after our first dinner date.
10. He kissed me back.
11. He knows how to give "long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days."
12. He asked me to be his girlfriend.
13. He doesn't mind that I'm broken.
14. He reads to me.
15. He thanks me for the little things.
16. He checks to make sure food is dairy-free.
17. He reminds me about dairy toppings if I forget when I order.
18. He drove all over Sonoma County on our supposed-to-be-relaxing Holiday getaway to find me food.
19. He bought me a replacement cat necklace when I misplaced the first.
20. He's grateful I'm in his life.
21. He really wanted me to take a photo of him putting the save the dates in the mailbox.
22. He found the song for our first dance.
23. He doesn't laugh at me when I tear up at proposals on TV or in the movies.
24. Even though he's not a morning person, he goes with (and or drives) me to Palo Alto to get my hair done and never complains.
25. Even though he's not a morning person, he makes me coffee and breakfast when I need it.
26. He holds me tight to warm me up when I get cold.
27. He can have a good time when I'm not around, but he has a better time when I am around.
28. He watches "Drama Flakes" with me even though most of the shows have jumped the shark.
29. Even though he's superexcited about Szyzygryd, he offered to camp elsewhere at Burning Man if I couldn't camp with them.
30. He's never made me feel guilty for being selfish.
31. He waves to me every morning when he gets to work.
32. He waves to me and blows me a kiss every evening before he leaves work.
33. He says goodnight each evening before we go to bed.
34. When I get stressed, it stresses him, but he doesn't show it. He just hugs me until it's ok.
35. He doesn't think the idea of $100+ underwear is silly.
36. He takes care of me when I'm hungover (although he tells his mom about how hungover I was).

Get to Know Us: The Moment We Knew

This moment is best told fresh, without the intervention of time. Here's the story of the moment we knew straight from my May 7th, 2009 journal entry:

Last night felt like a scene out of a movie. No not the type where girl discovers true love only to have him die or vice versa (City of Angels, Nights in Rodanthe, Message in a Bottle, etc.). I mean the type where girl gets the unexpected.

So imagine a girl who still knows nothing about guys, getting enough nerve to actually ssk the guy she's interested in if he's interested back. Yeah... the girl's not waiting and not avoiding the question and hoping by avoiding the question she gets the answer she wants. In this scene the girl - incredibly nervous and tongue-tied - does the unexpected, asks the guy if he's interested in her as a friend or maybe more.

Now let's set the scene. Boy and girl are in the kitchen, each standing on the opposite side of the counter when girl asks boy (imagine girl completely tripping over her words). Turns out boy is just as nervous as girl. Boy doesn't reply with a straight answer immediately, he's trying to see what girl is thinking. Girl replies why he turned his head when she thought he'd try and kiss her. Boy replies that he wasn't sure she was interested because she didn't kiss him back the first time. Boy tells girl he can't read her. Girl replies she can't read him either. (Good thing one of their friends can read both of them and creates opportunities for the two to end up by themselves.) Boy and girl end up kissing over the counter. Boy asks girl if she felt anything. Girl replies um yes, you? Boy replies with another kiss.

Now I'm sure I've seen a scene like this out of a movie. What took me by surprise wasn't that it reminded me of a movie. What surprised me was that I asked the question I really didn't want an answer to (always assume I'll get a negative answer) and instead I got the answer I hoped for and more.

May 6th, 2009 was the night that the girl and boy stopped dating with a little 'd' and started dating with a big 'D.'

Get to Know Us: The Proposal(s)

I left off last Wednesday with the story of how we met. Today we'll fast forward from February 2009 to September 2009. Our story is one punctuated by good food and lots of fire. So it's not surprising that when we were out on the playa cubes would propose.

If you've never been to Burning Man, I can't really explain it - no one can. Someone best said that describing Burning Man to someone who's never been is like explaining what color is to someone who's blind. The official theme for Burning Man 2009 was Evolution. How it will be remembered by those of us who went - The Year Burning Man Came with a Life Partner API (Application Programming Interface for the non-geeks out there). Audrey and Enki got married at 2Pir. LeEvil and MFC got married. Heather and Ed got engaged at the Temple Burn. Cat and Becks also got engaged (I forget which day their proposal occurred.)

The day cubes proposed I woke up early. We'd seen the Temple earlier in the week, before it was completed, and I wanted to go back. I waited patiently, like Sprite waits on us in the morning, for cubes to wake up. Finally I gave up and woke him up, letting him know that I wanted to visit the Temple. We dressed in layers and headed out (the playa is cold before the sun comes up). After our visit and my emotion-filled note to my grandparents and friend, we started back towards camp. Just as I finished sharing with cubes what I'd written we came upon Spurious Causality - the art project that cubes had worked on. We were exploring when cubes pulled a lever. He calmly turned to me and announced, "You know what this means? You're just going to have to marry me now." I wasn't sure if he was joking or serious - I also wasn't sure I'd heard the question right. Totally unromantically, I responded in a matter-of-fact tone, "Are you asking me to marry you?" He answered "Yes I am. Will you marry me?" I think I squeed "Yes" and jumped in to hug him in reply. There wasn't a ring - cubes had no idea when we left The Bay Area that he would be proposing; we'd just recently decided to move in together. This was the first proposal.

We both decided that the first people on playa that we had to share the good news with were Moni and Sekani. It was still early and cool - most people are still sleeping at this time - but we both had this idea that this was the type of news you woke someone up to share. On the Dustfish sound stage (a real Western Bordello) Ro and Lady Luck were working the mike. We scrambled up the back stairs and joined them at the turntables. cubes asked Ro for the mike. When Ro handed over the mike, cubes exclaimed to everyone on the Esplanade and within range of the speakers that he loved this girl and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. People stopped walking and looked up. cubes again asked if I'd marry him. I again said yes, which was followed with hearty applause. This was the second proposal. We bounded off the sound stage and into Moni and Sekani's Pyramid Army Tent.

(Photo taken by Starr)

After we shared the news with Moni and Sekani the day went on as had any other day. It wasn't until we were getting ready to head out with the camp to the Man Burn that we shared the news with the rest of the camp. Lots of hugging and congratulations ensued. Iris ducked into her tent and returned with a ring. Starr captured the moment with her camera. Then off we went to the Man Burn. We stood aways apart from the rest of our campmates - not wanting to get too close (too many people) or be too far away. As the fireworks exploded, cubes got down on one knee and proposed again. I said yes immediately.

How did your fiancé propose? Was it planned or spur of the moment? How did you share the news of your engagement?

Get to Know Us: How we met (and re-met and re-met)

As promised last Wednesday, I'm going back to the start - the start of our love story. We really honestly didn't start our relationship thinking about color palettes or tablescapes for our wedding - that's just where this blog began or rather when I contracted Wedding Verbal Diarrhea.

To those that say the third times the charm, I whole-heartedly agree. But I get ahead of myself, let's rewind to the beginning.

We met for the first time at the combined birthday celebration of two our friends - Ames and Andy - hosted at Leslie's in August 2007. At the time I lived down in the South Bay and didn't get up to The City all that often. Looking back I can't figure out why I was adverse to living in The City - but I was.

Outside of a brief introduction, that's all that happened the first time we met. I knew two people before I showed up - Ames and Steve. I also didn't know the dinner was a potluck and felt a little ill at ease as I'd showed up without a dish. (I did come bearing bottles of red wine.) I was also a little overwhelmed - Ames was quickly running down who everyone was - I met Leslie, Andy, Massive Bri, Opal, Mella, Nina, Dan (cubes), Karen, Dennis, and many more for the first time that night - and issuing warnings about homemade infused vodka. Already suffering from information overload, the night took a surprising turn when we were invaded by zombie invasion.

At dinner cubes and I sat almost at the opposite ends of the table. I was very quiet and not too sure what to say or to do (I tend to get very tongue tied when I meet people for the first time who I just like off the bat.) I also turned into a pumpkin quite early that evening - leaving for the South Bay long before Icka, Josh, Moni, and Sekani among others arrived. This celebration marked the end of my aversion to The City and I began coming up for more events and potlucks. For one reason or another, cubes' and my paths wouldn't cross until almost a year later.

When we met for the second time, fire erupted! The time was July 2008 and Moni was performing at The Crucible's Fire Arts Festival. After Moni's performance, all of us grabbed drinks and wandered around looking at the art. (By the way... fire is loud and concussive!) cubes and I talked. Not just the hi how are you chitchat, but we talked about what we liked doing and more. I thought he was very interesting and put away my camera so that I wouldn't be sidetracked. One problem with a long day (I worked in Freedom, CA (south of Santa Cruz) at this point and had driven up after a full day) is that I get tired really easily and don't remember things like people's names. The event ended and a day later, I tried to get cubes's info from Ames by inquiring about hiring software developers for the start up I worked at. This was a major fail. Too many in our chosen family are software developers. And she didn't know who I was referring to.

2009 started with another shared birthday celebration. This time - February 2009 - the celebration was for Steve and me. Friends gathered for a Moroccan dinner complete with belly dancing. It was the best birthday celebration that I've ever had. I was so excited that friends came out to celebrate with us.

Steve and I Learn to Bellydance (Photo taken by Ames)

I had secretly hoped that cubes would be at the dinner and had chosen my outfit to amaze (fantastic top with ruffled bustle from Miss Velvet Cream and my first pair of leather pants - none of which cubes would remember me wearing). Ames and Steve had planned the seating so that cubes and I were seated next to each other ( I was super excited). Unfortunately this didn't last long, as we all got quickly shuffled and cubes ended up at the opposite end of the group once again! We finished up dinner and the party continued at Shine - more people joined the celebration here. The afterparty then headed back to Andy's place in The Mission and eventually wrapped up with The Superbowl at Ames and Steve's place. At some point during the festivities - actually at a couple of points - with Moni at Andy's and Ames at their place - I confided that I liked a boy from our family. Ames immediately set the record straight that he wasn't in a relationship and was indeed single. I squeed in delight upon this discovery and was so excited that klutz that I am, lost my balance. Luckily Ames is great at catching me.

At the time neither cubes nor I knew that our friends were setting out from that weekend to nurture our relationship - creating opportunities for the two of us to become more than casual friends and become a couple. They definitely had their work cut out for them as neither cubes nor I were very well versed on the art of dating.

So there you have it. The story of how we met (and re-met and re-met). We're sharing the complete story on our website. Here and in our programs, we'll have the short and sweet version.

How did you and your love meet? Did you hit it off immediately? Or were you like us and had to cross paths a couple of times before your friends intervened and took up the role of matchmaker?

Welcome: We're Getting Married in 7 Months!

Hi! This is Eden. Lots of things are happening - but before I get to that, let me say:

Welcome!

As I write, we're getting ready to send out our Save the Date postcards (they should be finding their way across the U.S. in the next few days). That means no more procrastination - our website must go live now! So... we're busily putting it together so that everyone will know what's going on (or at least has a page to bookmark and come back to as things develop).

Staying Informed
Between now and October 10, if you want to keep up with everything that's going on, there's a few things you can do or places you can go.

• For emergencies, call or email us.
  
• For general wedding information, check out our website.
• For in-depth behind the scenes information, this is the place. Subscribe to our feed and OD on wedding plans and details.
• To share photos you have of us, please add them to cubes and Eden's Wedding 2010 Group on Flickr. To see photos that we've selected from friends' photo streams, visit Our Story Gallery on Flickr (you'll see photos of us along with projects we've worked on and places we've been).
• For short (140 character) updates on what we're up to, follow us on Twitter. Note that we're cubesdenwedding - there's an E missing due to character limits on usernames.

Catching Up
If you want to see if there's anything you might have missed between phone calls and/or emails, there's a short FAQ (a little out-dated now). (We borrowed this idea from our friends Mooflyfoof and Ed.)

1. Who was responsible for this match?
   I'm sure there will be debate about which of our friends is responsible for our match. I think we can agree that three of the most active matchmakers/orchestrators were: Ames, Steve, and Bri. Ames and Steve kept arranging various happy hours and gettogethers where cubes and I would play pool on the same team and where cubes would walk me to my car at the end of the evening. Steve had to explain this strategy to me one night after a happy hour at Broken Record where Cubes was not present.
   
   Some of the highlights of the matchmaking process:
   
• Throughout all of April Ames would good naturedly laugh every time I said "I think we're just friends."
• Bri decided to help things along one night after a fundraiser for Crash at ReTox by getting cubes inebriated. I neglected to take advantage of the situation, much to Bri's chagrin.
• Liz asking cubes at Epic when he was going to ask me to marry him; we'd been going out less than a month.
2. How long have you known each other and how did you meet? (aka Timeline of Important Dates)
   (Note: Some dates may be approximate as it appears we didn't Twitter about all of our dinner dates. My favorite tweet thread occurs between Bri and cubes about the identity of [Redacted].)
   
   
   • July 9, 2008: cubes and Eden met for the second time. Ames re-introduces them.
   • January 31, 2009: Eden discovered that cubes is single.
   • March 21: At Roland's Birthday BBQ, Eden asked cubes to be her date to Ames/Steve's and Helen/Bri's weddings. Eden drove cubes back to the Mission.
   • March 22: cubes followed Eden's twitter account.
   • March 22: Eden followed cubes on twitter.
   • March 25: cubes and Eden go out to Weird Fish on the first of what would become a standing Wednesday dinner date. cubes agreed to be Eden's date to Ames/Steve's and Helen/Bri's weddings.
   • May 6: cubes and Eden advanced from dating with a little "d" to Dating with a big "D."
   • May 8: After a long quest to find cake flour and multiple attempts at creating a suitable substitute, Eden secures cake flour and baked her dairy-free chocolate torte for cubes.
   • May 8: Starr took first photo of cubes and Eden at Shark Attack.
   • May 16: cubes briefly met Eden's parents. Shortly after brief meeting, Eden's mom invites cubes to join family for Father's Day.
   • May 24: cubes and Eden take first away trip together to Sunny Cove.
   • May 29: cubes met Eden's cousin Pat.
   • May 30: At Epic, cubes asked Eden to be his girlfriend and Eden accepted.
   • June 4: cubes added color back to his hair.
   • June 21: cubes spent more time with Eden's parents and met her Aunt and Uncle and maternal grandmother.
   • July 3: Priceless the Monkey joined the family.
   • July 18: Juicy, Karen, and Andy went dress shopping with Eden to find the perfect dress. After drinks at Cheesecake Factory, a gorgeous floor length green dress was found at Jessica McClintock.
   • July 18: While at Bourbon and Branch, cubes asked Eden to move in with him. Eden agreed. They decided to start looking after Burning Man.
   • July 20: Eden told Ames that cubes asked her to move in and to please keep it a secret. Ames never revealed the secret.
   • August 1: Eden met cubes' Nan (maternal grandmother), Dad, Paternal Grandmother, Aunts/Uncles, and cousins at cubes' cousin Matt's wedding.
   • August 8: Eden casually mentioned over breakfast at Nick's with her parents that she's moving in with cubes.
   • August 14: Eden met cubes' brother Todd and girlfriend Arrs.
   • August 15: Eden met cubes' sister Jamie and family friend Becky.
   • September 5: At the big party in the desert, cubes proposed to Eden three times and she accepted all three times.
   • September 11 - 13: cubes and Eden began the apartment hunt. cubes had hunch about an apartment - "The Moses Apartment." cubes and Eden scrambled to assemble paperwork for their rental application; many fingers and toes were crossed.
   • September 15: cubes and Eden found out they got "The Moses Apartment."
   • September 16: cubes and Eden received keys to "The Moses Apartment" and had celebratory sushi at Sushi Zone.
   • September 23: cubes and Eden spend first night in their apartment.
   • September 27: Sprite spent first night in "The Moses Apartment."
   • October 8: First friend - Skippy - visited "The Moses Apartment."
   • ...
     
   • February 27: cubes surprised Eden with her engagement ring while she was getting her done. cubes and Eden warmed their apartment with a Thai Dinner for over 15 people.