More ways to cut costs

Studio Blue photography is offering 20% off packages booked now, starting at $992 for six hours of coverage.

Ajalon Printing and Design, which I discovered via elefantitas alegras, has an *amazing* letterpress special:

100 invitations, enclosure cards, and envelopes for $398!

What a deal!

Quick: they've got to be ordered by June 30, 2009.

If our invitations were not already well under way, I'd totally be going for something like this:


Or this


More reasons to love it: They're based in Sonoma County, the heart of California wine country, where they print on 100% recycled cotton paper (tree-free) and use soy-based inks.



Green and gorgeous.

Blindfolded and dizzy

What a way to begin married life!

Remember the wedding cake piñata?

Look what shiny happy wedding directed me to:

here

We're not allowed to afix anything to the ceiling at the reception location, but there's always outdoors...

Beat it... but not so soon!

source

So sorry to see you go, MJ.

You'll be in heavy rotation at our wedding.

Two childhood icons gone in one day -- so long, Farrah of the dream hair. The end of an era.

Don't hate me, un-bride

You wanna know the real reason I haven't gone to SF for the first fitting of my wedding dress?

I'm worried that it will be too small.

See, I was between sizes when I ordered it. A size up would have needed significant alterations to fit, while the size ordered was just a little bit snug. The consultant encouraged me to order the smaller size and just "lose 5 to 8 pounds." Not much. I assured her (and myself) that I was at my winter weight, and a few weeks of salads and daily workouts would have me fighting trim.

Ah, but we didn't figure in the stress munchies that join at my computer each day. And we didn't count on me spending 8-10 solid hours in front of the computer, all day, every day.

I'm maybe two pounds lighter than when I ordered the dress in January. My fitting is in three weeks. Goodbye alcohol, laziness, and bread.

I welcome any other (sane, healthy, and vegetarian) ideas to help me fit into my dress.

(I can't believe I am capitulating to Shrinking Bride Syndrome. $)@$#^*&#@ ego. and Wedding Industrial Complex.)

Take a hike... to your dining table

Oh, we love to hike! This seating plan, from here, found via Bride on Purpose, would be perfect in our national park setting.

I wonder if we could make one ourselves... using photos and maps of places we've been, and the poster printers on campus. I bet someone who is craftier that I am could pull it off easily. Just what I need: another project.

Mr. Barefoot love to ski... this is super cute.



And for an urban wedding, you can an NYC subway map, or Paris metro. What, no BART? That's where all of our best city dates begin!




All images from Conrad Design Weddings. (Budget warning: design like this does not come cheap.)

I am humbled

No more complaining about the difficulty of planning a wedding and finishing my dissertation at the same time.

This girl graduated fourth in her class, and got accepted to Harvard (and 19 other top-flight colleges and universities), while being homeless and attending 12 schools in 12 years.

Pure grit, and totally inspirational. Go read her story.

Floroptimist

I came across small stump + studio choo, just down the coast in Pacifica, via shiny happy weddings. Loving these slightly wild, organic-looking arrangements, using locally grown seasonal flowers. Check out the goodies in their shop, too.

Save/ splurge

After seeing the firestorm around Ten Thousand Only's reluctance to reveal her final wedding costs, and sera's comment at broken*saucer: "I don't need or want your wedding total. I want how to make mine cost less, and still get what I want," I decided to share what I've learned about wedding budgets after six months of planning.

All the usual caveats apply: trained driver on a test course, do not mix with alcohol, your mileage may vary.

Talking about money is the last taboo, especially for WASPs (high or not), but I feel strongly about sharing information to help each other out and not go broke.

The initial budget
It's nearly impossible to jump into a new world - where you don't know the parameters, what's available, how things are done - and come up with a reasonable initial budget. Our very first budget was $12,000. That seemed like a huge pile of money when we'd never spent more than a couple hundred dollars for wine and snacks from Trader Joe's for a party. Surely, we could wine and dine 100 of our nearest and dearest for that much. (Especially when I've been in grad school for the past nine years - hardly the road financial security - and both of us have buckets of student loans that we'll be paying until we retire.)

We knew we wanted a Saturday evening party, as about 2/3 of our guests would be coming from out of town. We knew we wanted to be outdoors, in a place that had some special meaning to us. But the cold truth about where we live: it's EXPENSIVE! Especially if you want a venue where you can hang out all day, not just for a few hours in the evening. Fortunately, our parents offered to contribute just when we were getting that horrible sinking realization that our initial budget might cover food, wine and location, but not much else. Our revised budget is at the lower end of the "average" cost of a wedding where we live, via wedding cost estimator, but much much more than the initial budget.

Networking
Most of the best ideas for the wedding - from the venue to the photographer - have come through connections. We are not people with tons of crafty artisan friends. But we do have fairly large networks, and have been blessed with lots of good suggestions (and fortunately few of the kind that question our taste or sanity).

Figure out your Values
The best wedding advice I received was to think about three aspects of the wedding that were most important to me, and to focus time/ money on those.
For me those were:
location
food/ wine
dress*

For Mr. Barefoot they were:
location
food/ wine
cake

Ceremony would be up there, too, as a fourth - but the thing that is important to us about the ceremony is that it is simple and community-oriented, mainly in ways that don't cost money. It was important to us to get married outdoors in a place that had personal significance, so our options on places were immediately limited.

*not that I wanted to spend a ton of money - I most certainly didn't - but finding 'the right' dress that made me feel really special was important. My initial dress budget was $800. I hoped to find a sample sale dress, or one at Brides Against Breast Cancer (even considered driving Portland for the weekend, to go to a sale!). Neither of these panned out, and I ended up 50% over budget, but I'm thrilled with the dress that my sister-in-law and I both independently picked out online for me. (Now, if I could just get over to SF to try it on...)

Catering
Our venue has a designated caterer, so that decision was made for us. Fortunately, she is the amazing former chef at one of my favorite restaurants in SF. From the start, we were clear about the limitations of our budget, and she has worked with us. Serving mostly vegetarian food and having stationary, rather than passed, appetizers has saved us some money. And, much as it pains me, we'll probably do a buffet rather than family-style dinner. The venue requires that we bring our own wine and beer - purchased for half price at the BevMo 5 cent sale. (We need to stock up on champagne or cava at the one going on now.)

Bargaining
With all of our vendors, we've been clear on our budget, and asked what they could do within it. (It helps that Mr. Barefoot went to law school!) A few have not been interested in discussing the terms, so we have just moved on. Most have been willing to develop a package that meets our priorities and needs. Photography is one place that we went way over our initial budget of $1000. After looking at tons of photos on the web, I realized that I wanted an artistic photojournalist who could capture the spontaneous moments of the day, not just the formal portraits. We also wanted someone with lots of experience, on whom we could depend completely. Ok, no way we were going to get that for $1000. Our photographer came up with several a la carte proposals that would cover shooting time at the wedding, processing, and the digital files, but none of the add-ons that come with a package (engagement session, wedding album, etc.). These were still above our initial budget, but allowed us to spend our money on the aspects that are important to us.

The budget crisis
Last week, we had a budget pow-wow. We reined in a few areas that were ballooning, and added a bunch of non-obvious, but necessary, costs that we'd overlooked:

• babysitters (most of our friends have toddlers);
• day of coordinator (after seeing all the work Mr. Barefoot put into my graduation party [a casual picnic affair] we knew we needed someone to handle the day of details);
• rings (ok, totally obvious, but more costly than initially presumed)
• rentals (chairs and tables for the cocktail hour)
• rehearsal dinner/ welcome party
• curtain to segregate the bathroom into male/ female sides (our site is a former military building - apparently there weren't any women around back then...)
• tax and gratuities

Where we've saved

• Music: DJ ($100 under budget for four hours of music); Mr. Barefoot's grad school friends will jam during part of the cocktail article; my uncle will help us compile a CD to use during dinner
  
• Flowers: cut budget in half, bought vases at the Dollar Store & cribbed some from a friend's wedding, asked florist to work within budget, just read that Whole Foods does flowers - may get boutonnieres (or follow this DIY) there; will probably get extra filler flowers from Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, or one of the local flower markets (on target)
• Save the Dates: handmade/ reused vintage postcards (maybe $30?)
• My shoes: half-price at Nordstrom!
• Wine/ beer: half-price at BevMo (a couple hundred over budget, because we don't want anyone to go home thirsty...)
• Favors: none, other than the fruit and flower centerpieces that guests will be encouraged to take home
• Decor: scored reusable paper lanterns and vases at friend's wedding, will use seasonal fruit, and white lights that we already own. Still in the market for some inexpensive votives...
• Invitations: local print shop does letterpress for the cost of flat printing (on target)
• Cake: on target
• Transportation: our own cars, lots of folks will stay on site

Where we've splurged

• Photography (2-3 times original budget, seems totally worth it)
• Dress (1.5 times original budget, ditto)
• Venue (not included in original budget, but significant cost)

Getting ahead of the curve
If, like TTO and a.mountain.bride, you begin your wedding planning blog before you are actually engaged, you can get ahead of the curve. I've learned so much from other blogs. Those clever girls can build relationships with vendors before they actually have to write deposit checks. TTO has mentioned that the generosity of vendors who found her through her blog helped with their wedding budget... I'm eager to hear more. Blogging helped us get a free engagement photo session, with the sparkling Rosaura Sandoval,who gave away a few free sessions to so that she could build her portfolio, I was the lucky recipient of a free plan-your-ceremony book, given away by a blogging bride.

To sum up, the main budget lessons I've learned are:

• Start a blog
• Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize, and network
• Let the rest go

Ya know, that's also pretty good advice for life.

My procratination problem

The bridal salon called 2 days ago to tell me that my dress is in and we need to schedule a fitting.

Why have I yet to call back?

Partly, because I've been busy tasting cakes, looking at rings, celebrating Dr. Cowgirl's bachelorette [post coming soon!], having wedding budget discussions, and catching up on wedding blogs trying to write my dissertation.

And partly because I have a big procrastination problem.

The colors

Just the inspiration I've been looking for via Grey Likes Weddings. (though I'm not sure that this is a happy picture... it's hard to tell. It kinda matches the way my head spins when I think about the next six months...)

Timely, as I've been trying to figure out what to do about flowers, which will the main decor element on the dining tables, along with the persimmons and pomegranates.

Wed Head

Do you ever get this?

If my day starts with wedding-related stuff (today it was cake tasting - yum!), it is ridiculously hard to switch back to the serious, theoretical pre-professor I'm supposed to be. (Not quite a prof, but I play one on TV ;-) ).


Rather than focusing on that chapter I'm supposed to finish, visions of sugar plums, and tinted icing, and raspberry filling, and sugar silkscreened postcards are dancing through my head. Along with rings, and a dress-fitting, and the invitation design, and flowers, and centerpieces... oh, and the ceremony! Right now (four months out), there seems to be a lot to do, with all of it demanding attention.

I've got a bad case of wed head.

That said, I think we've found our baker, the lovely Edith Meyer. We met her at her 1921 Craftsman house that sits in the middle of a gorgeous fruit and vegetable garden, and sampled a delectable array of cakes and icings.

She works with locally-sourced organic ingredients, organic fair-trade chocolate, and free-range organic eggs. (The fair-trade chocolate is a huge bonus because much of the world's supply of chocolate comes from West Africa, where the production of chocolate often depends on child slavery. Ah, yes, briefly coming back to my pedantic profession. I learned the hard facts about chocolate only last summer, from a colleague. These little facts can help us become more conscious consumers...)

Back to sugarplums... Edith's cakes are not only socially-responsible, they're downright gorgeous, with a clean, modern aesthetic.



She copied the design on the bride's gown for this one.

Though we've steered away from the Alice in Wonderland theme idea (despite the fact that it would incorporate croquet and make a great play on my name) this cake captures the ideas that we discussed with her the best.

Edith's blog

We walked in thinking that we would get a simple white cake decorated with flowers. After going to a cake tasting yesterday where every additional design element added twenty-five cents per serving to the cake cost, we were in the mode of thinking conservatively in order to stay within our budget. However, Edith's pricing system is different, and she encouraged us to think outside of the (round) box. She worked hard to brainstorm with us to figure out what sorts of themes and ideas would represent us well.

When I mentioned the postcards that we used as Save The Dates and will probably use for table assignments, her eyes lit up. So the cake may incorporate design elements from the invitations that reflect our love of the outdoors, and pick up on the postcard theme to represent our love of travel. Woo-hoo!

I feel so fortunate to have met so many wonderfully skilled and creative people during the wedding planning process!

You want *what* color?

I've been obsessed with pomegranates ever since I was a kid, when I used my allowance to buy the rather pricey, exotic fruit at the local farmer's market. I loved the way the grainy texture of the skin contrasted with the sparkling jewels of seeds inside, and the way the luscious juice dyed my fingers red.

Dandelion Ranch

Here in California, they actually grow locally, and are plentiful (and cheap) during in the fall - an obvious choice for centerpieces on the wedding dining tables (especially since it's easier to come by organic fruit than flowers). Combined with local, organic persimmons from my BFF's backyard tree, they'll make a knock out combo.

Loop Flowers

Though florists are familiar with their decorating potential, it's been rather more difficult to explain to others that my wedding colors (as it were... ) are being dictated by persimmons and pomegranates.

Loop Flowers

Since I have champagne tastes on a beer budget, I'll probably be doing something more like this:

POM DIY

Hooray for DIY tutorials!

and more POM DIY here

Beach wedding inspiration

Go check out the beautiful inspiration board that Inspiring Brides created for me!

Love the pop of the persimmon (aka orange) next to the bright blue dresses!

A wedding fort

That's apparently what we're building in our dining room, with the boxes of wine (BevMo's half price sale prompted me to be more ahead of the curve than I've ever been in my life!), vases from eBay, vases from the 99 Cent Only store, paper lanterns borrowed from friends, and vintage mini mailboxes to go with the postcard decor. And we're still five months out...

Advice from a gay man

(Via his shrink, post the break-up of his long-term relationship, in which the gender of the other partner is a mystery to me. Potentially worth sharing as gay guys always seem to know lots about men that women should know...)

1. Never refer to your partner as "my husband" or "my boyfriend" when talking about him with other people. That diminishes the relationship. Just call him by his name.

2. Close the door when you pee.

fwiw...

Why I travel

Continuing the interview by Eco-Yogini:

2. What is your most fantastic international “story” from all your fabulous travels?

It's hard to pick one! The best of all, perhaps, was when Mr. Barefoot came to visit me, halfway around the world, not once, but twice! Other memorable experiences were meeting the Crown Prince of Bhutan, and dancing with one of the four Queens. Some of my favorite episodes from my travel blog (sadly neglected ever since I started wedding planning) are here and here.

One of my favorite aspects of travel is seeing ordinary things in a new light. This happened to me a lot in Bhutan, where many people speak English, but have a totally different frame of reference from us in the US. The seeming similarity - hey, we speak the same language - embedded in profound difference - you do what? - led to a lot of amusing moments.

My assistant pointed out some plants he called pohdeydoh, and insisted that I should know what these very common plants were. Being a city girl, I'm not familiar with the growing forms of crops, and even less when they are named in another language. We went round and round, with my assistant assuring me that he was giving me the English name....until finally, oh, yeah, potato!

Another time, he excitedly pointed out 'pig food' to me. Again, as a city girl, I had no idea what pigs eat, and brushed off the comment as just another random piece of trivia. The assistant was insistent that I take a closer look at the plants... and lo and behold, they were the marijuana that grows wild all over the Himalaya! The locals don't use the plant -- it is fed to the pigs, who become extremely contented, fat and happy. Pig fat is a much desired delicacy, necessary for all sorts of celebrations.

An example that seems somewhat appropriate for a wedding blog are the ubiquitous dorjes or "thunderbolts" -- which we might think to be more likely at a bridal shower than at a monastery -- that symbolize protection against evil spirits, and the necessity of wisdom in overcoming ego. Huge phalluses are painted on the sides of houses and hung from the corner rafters to ensure the well-being of their occupants...


and dancing monks, dressed as clowns, and serving the same role as rodeo clowns, wield them during wield them during religious dances. The offer blessings via a tap on the head, and maintain the interest and involvement of the crowd through goofy antics.



****
I forgot to mention in my first interview post that part of this interview process is passing it on. I'd love to learn more about other bloggers, so if you'd like to be interviewed, leave a comment with your email or website, saying "Interview me!", and I'll send you five personalized questions.

Here are the 'rules':

* leave me a comment with your email address saying: “interview me”
* I will e-mail you five questions of my choice
* you can then answer the questions on your blog {with a link back to my blog}
* you should also post these rules, along with an offer to interview anyone else who emails you, wanting to be interviewed
* anyone who asks to be interviewed should be sent 5 questions to answer on their blog
* it would be nice if the questions were individualized for each blogger

An unveiling...

So many wedding-related goodies in the mail of late!

However, if you've read this blog for any length of time, you might remember that I have a bit of a phobia when it comes to opening certain packages.



I think I'm improving though - this box only sat less than a week before I opened it.

And what luscious goodness was inside!







My eagerly awaited birdcage veil and fascinator, from Kasia Fink!

It's gorgeous! I have a wedding hair trial scheduled for late August, and it's going to be hard to wait that long to try this in my hair. I did play around with it for a few minute, while Mr. Barefoot ran out to get pizza, but my ponytail didn't do it justice. It needs a full-on upsweep for the whole dramatic effect. I love it!


Like these babies, it's gonna be hard to keep under wraps until the appointed day (but until then, I'm barefoot...).

The whole thing was packaged so beautifully, with so much care, and Kasia was an absolute delight to work with online. Definitely check out her lovely veils and fascinators.

Fun wedding cake!

From the New York Times

What a fun, fun idea! A while back, I said that I wanted a piñata, but this is the first one that's really tickled my fancy. It would be a fun way to open the dance floor... we could take a couple whacks, and then turn it over to the kids.

I also love the idea of the bride being given flowers for her bouquet by the assembled guests. That really gives everyone a part in the ceremony, and makes it so inclusive.

From the New York Times

I've been thinking of a similar idea, in which everyone could bring a rock, pebble, marble, or some other small bit of nature's ephemera, and place them all in a glass jar, so we'd always have a little bit of our community with us.

Example found here
(though the ones on the right are eggs - I don't think we want to carry around a jar of eggs!

1:00 PM, Sunday

via FFFFOUND!

Goodness! How did I get through the morning without you???

Madeline Albright and other people's choices

I had the distinct privilege of meeting the former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, last night at an alumni shindig with my friend FiveTen (who introduced Mr. Barefoot and me).

The graduate school of international studies that FiveTen attended has been renamed in honor of Madeline Albright's father, who founded it in the 1960s. Albright's daughter, Katie, lives in San Francisco, in a lovely home near the Presidio, where she hosted alumni/ae to celebrate the renaming of the school. Her grandfather is the only person to have trained to Secretaries of State: music major Condoleezza Rice was also a student of his. Katie's daughter (Madeline Albright's granddaughter), having observed her grandmother, Rice, and now Hillary Rodham Clinton as Secretaries of State, asked what the big deal was when her grandmother was Secretary of State -- "because only women can be Secretary of State." Madeline Albright went on to say that people are now asking whether men can be Secretary of State, because, you know, it requires consensus building, and collaborations, and are men really suited to that?

FiveTen is an inveterate newspaper reader, starting each day with the SF Chronicle, NY Times, Der Speigel, and Times of India, so she had plenty of thought-provoking questions for the former Secretary. In addition to current issue of Afghanistan and Pakistan, FiveTen wondered which international leader surprised the Secretary the most. The answer: Kim Jong Il, whom leaders and diplomats all suspected was crazy at the time. Madeline Albright said that he did not seem at all crazy, but was charming and even chivilrous, concerned about her well-being if she engaged in the Korean custom of drinking shots with everyone attending a function.

Albright said Daw Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, who wore a long purple gown and a purple flower in her hair, was one of the most memorable and tough leaders she met. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been on house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years, and is now on trial after an American man swam across a lake to her house. Madeline Albright said that scenario was too strange to have happened spontaneously, and she believes that the ruling Burmese junta must have been involved in the scheme.

Her final words of advice to us, as young women in the early stages of our careers, were not to judge other women's choices, whether to pursue a career, to be full-time at home moms, or some combination of the two. She said that women put too many guilt trips on each other for not following a particular path, and that we should trust people to make the best choices they can, and respect those choices.

Believe it or not, here comes the wedding connection: her point about the guilt trips women lay on each other made me think about the judgment we can encounter about our wedding choices. Too expensive/ extravagant vs. too plain, OMG your guests won't feel welcome. Totally handmade and DIV vs. totally cookie-cutter and off the shelf. (For example, the discussion in the comments here.) It seems like you can't win in the planning process: someone will suggest that the wedding has too much of this and not enough of that.

And that got me thinking that maybe one reason that women judge and guilt-trip each other is that it's a lot easier than taking on the larger structures and paradigms that are causing us to feel constrained. Rather than taking on the Wedding Industrial Complex/ the patriarchy/ our parents/ whoever else is getting us down and limiting our options, maybe we direct our frustration at others who are equally caught in the machine, but have made different choices. Rather than fighting the powerful, we fight those who are equally powerless. I'm not saying that we are powerless in planning our weddings, but that we face a lot of very powerful cultural forces that encourage us in particular direction. Standing up to that is hard.

Our first female Secretary of State certainly knows something about standing up to powerful people and forces. Wedding planning is politics writ small.

Euphoria for all

Talk about timing! I was just about to change from one outfit into another, while my fiance and the photographer waited to continue our engagement photo shoot, when an Equality California canvasser rang the doorbell.

There, in that moment, getting a tiny taste of the euphoria that I expect to surround our wedding, I could not stand for anyone else to be denied that opportunity.

Somehow we need to engineer it so that everyone who supported Proposition (H)8 is magically visited by a representative from Equality California right in the midst of a tender moment with their spouse, and asked whether they are willing to deny the legal protection of those feelings to their neighbors, co-workers and friends. Such a denial seems nearly impossible to me - like denying a hungry person food when we are in the midst of dinner.

Equality California is working to win marriage back for all Californians by raising $500,000 in the 90 days to hire 25 grassroots organizers to reach out to people across the state, through face-to-face conversations and phone banking.

Along with financially supporting the campaign, you can volunteer to talk to people, and you can pledge your support for "the freedom of same-sex couples to marry."

Cool "I DO" gear - stickers, signs, buttons, t-shirts - from here.

Wedding announcement tutorial

Suppose you're preparing your wedding announcement for the New York Times (Stop rolling your eyes, and stick with me for a moment. It will be worth it, I promise...).

And suppose that, even after studying the Weddings & Celebrations section for years (nothing better with that Sunday coffee!), you're still a bit stuck on the phrasing.

A new book, Weddings of the Times, will gallantly dash to your rescue, showing you how to list the honors, professions, and pre-occupations of your nearest and dearest.


Read on for a sample from the new guide. It comes out on June 9 - be the first on your block to order it!

Catherine Doyle, Alfred Park

Elizabeth Snow

Catherine Doyle married Alfred Park on Sunday evening at the Woodfield Country Club in Boca Raton.

The bride, 26, graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown. The groom, 34, graduated summa cum laude from Brown. The bride's father, Eugene Doyle, graduated egregia cum laude from the University of Washington and his mother, Kate Doyle, graduated double platinum cum laude from Wayne State.

Her grandfather graduated the harder they cum laude from Texas A&M. Her uncle graduated cumma cumma cumma cumma cumma chameleon laude from the University of Colorado.

The bride's brother, Lewis Doyle, graduated pre-cum laude from the University of Stockholm.

The groom's father, Bruce, graduated cumfortably numb laude from Cal State Fullerton. The best man graduated cumpire strikes back laude from the College of Outer Space. The best man's grandfather graduated viagra cum laude from Hofstra.

And for the Californians in the crowd:

Jane Resnick, Paul Merrill

Jason Delbourne

Jane Resnick and Paul Merrill were married yesterday at the Los Palos Community Center. A friend of the couple's, Universal Life Church Minister Tim Hoddle, performed the civil ceremony.

Ms. Resnick, 28, is the founder and proprietor of The Bead 'n' Seed store in Ukiah, CA. The store operates using a unique model of "community commerce," whereby shoppers can milk goats or provide child care in exchange for beads or seeds.

The bride's parents are Dr. and Mrs. John Resnick of Long Island. Dr. Resnick is chief of Neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital.

The bridegroom, 39, is also a "doctor": "Dr. Stoopid," a noted medical marijuana advocate who passes out joints from a unicycle.

(Many thanks to Dr. Fish for this great tip!)

A new trend?

Another amazing Save The Date video, via Brooklyn Bride, from these uber creative folks.

Some kind of wonderful

The Before, via Veiled Vows:



And the Ever After, via Broke-Ass Bride:
(Dana and Hunter killed it! What an outrageously talented duo!)

Fresh Hubby of LA from Digital Princess on Vimeo.

A drink, a hike, a ring

The wise and wonderful Eco Yogini posted an offer to interview readers of her blog, and I took the bait. So herewith, a little more about me, courtesy of some thought-provoking questions from Eco Yogini.

(Go check out her blog - its got tons of useful eco-insight and yoga fun that will enliven your day. I love her sense of humor and lightness in writing about yoga and eco-issues!)

1. Tell us the story of how you met Mr. Barefoot and how he proposed.

I met Mr. Barefoot through my friend FiveTen who also does field research in Asia. We studied a local language together one summer, and found out that we had a lot of similar interests (and that I knew her brother from college!).

When Mr. Barefoot was new in town, FiveTen introduced us at a party. He asked for some work-related information, and, because I was slightly intrigued (though I was dating someone else at the time), I made sure to send it to him. But he didn't respond to my email...

FiveTen and Mr. Barefoot became roommates, so I got to know him a bit more at their frequent parties. My previous relationship ended, as did his. Eventually, he suggested that we get a drink to celebrate my submission of an important funding proposal. The midweek day he had suggested for our drink was Valentine's Day. (He insists he didn't know!). I didn't get the grant, but I did get a boyfriend.

Last December, a week before we moved in together for the first time, Mr. Barefoot organized a hike in Muir Woods with a bunch of our friends. He and I had just returned from a Thanksgiving trip to Argentina for a friend's wedding, so I was eager to settle down, get organized and return to my dissertation writing. He insisted that we go on the hike because it was the only time our equally busy group of friends could meet up. One by one, our friends mysteriously flaked out. Mr. Barefoot and I set out on our own for a stroll through the redwoods.

But something was awry: the normally articulate Mr. Barefoot could barely carry on a conversation. He seemed terribly distracted and unfocused. Finally, he suggested that we go to a nearby beach to watch the sunset. That seemed like a good idea to me: we could sit in peaceful silence.

We walked across Muir Beach (where we had shared an excellent afternoon with my brother and sister-in-law on their visit to the Bay), until Mr. Barefoot paused to tie his shoe. When I turned around, he was on one knee with a velvet box in his outstretched hand!

(Parts II, III, IV, and V to come...)