10. BRIDAL FAIRS = WASTE OF TIME (aside from the cake samples): The wedding industry is just like the funeral industry…they are out to make a profit off of an inevitable life event that involves a large array of emotions (aka large potential for foolish/unnecessary decisions on your part).  If you do attend a bridal event (I went to the Twin Cities Bridal Expo), keep your guard up, do NOT sign your contact information with anyone, ask for another form of contact from THEM so you can get ahold of them if you do decide to use them.  Bridal expos are about “wowing” the naive and overwhelmed bride-to-be who is still starry-eyed over their engagement to their love.  If you slip up and sign your email or phone number, it’s okay, just understand that you will be getting numerous calls from scam companies claiming you’ve won glamorous prizes and free trips attached to expensive bake ware and dining sets.  Unless you have an endless budget and want everything done for you during your wedding, you’re better off looking for ideas online  (etsy.com and offbeatbride.com are my favorite) and making a weekend of it by searching locally with your partner for vendors.

only reason to go to a wedding expo

9. Write your own vows: One night, about a month before our wedding, Will and I were feeling the stresses of planning and felt a little disconnected from one another.  So we decided to take a bottle of wine up to our roof top deck with a pad of paper and see what we could come up with for vows.  We stayed up until 2am talking about the past nine years and the hopes and plans we had made during the course of our dating relationship.  We penned about 45 different promises that we wanted to make to one another (before narrowing it down to about 15 for the actual ceremony).  It was simple and sweet yet one of the most memorable moments of planning because it really mentally prepared us for what this commitment meant to us as we became husband and wife.  For us, marriage was never considered a defining moment for what made us a family but we chose to make this legal commitment to one another and having a night completely dedicated to the reasons why was exactly what we needed.

8.Don’t assume your husband doesn’t care: Will and I made a great wedding planning team because most of the traditional elements of planning a wedding meant nothing to us.  The items that took the most work were the items that we cared about (the venue, the decor, our outfits, the invites, music), the others (flowers, dress codes, etc) we left up to the concept of  “whatever happens, happens and we’ll love it or just not care!”  Most tacky bridal magazines will warn you of the frustrations of your fiance’s lackluster support for wedding colors or floral arrangements (I can’t say I blame most of them!) because women get pretty obsessive about wedding stuff and I think men have a natural radar for craziness so they tend to shut down if bombarded with wedding crap.  What these bridal magazines don’t tell you is that most men would be happy to help with wedding items if they’re allowed to actually make the decision.  Will and I sat down when we first began planning and discussed what elements meant the most of us; for him it was good music, good art,  good food and marrying me so he was 100% in charge of those items.  He picked the DJ and music, he sought out the design team for our invitations and even helped design a gorgeous poster for all our friends as thank you gifts for their help.  Also, yeah, the caramel apple cheese cake?…thank him!  Allowing him to take on projects will take stress off of both of you and make the planning more enjoyable and personalized.  Just make sure not to meddle in his decisions, unless they’re terrible…but then that becomes of matter of your choice in men.

7. “When do I start feeling like a bride?”  Syndrome: During your planning you will endlessly dream about the day when everything comes together into perfect bridal bliss.  The truth is that your wedding day will most likely not be how you imagined and because of this, I think many brides spend a lot of their day trying to reign in their feelings over how they are supposed to feel rather than just living in that moment.  I’m not saying the day wont be bliss, because COME ON! It’s a party celebrating the union of you and your best friend, but I know I suffered a little bit from the “what, why am I not feeling the way I planned to feel!?” when I walked down the aisle or during dinner.  The entire thing felt very ‘dress rehearsal” like to me because I couldn’t believe it was actually happening.   This is probably why the day feels like it flies by.  Eventually I just took a moment to breath in deeply and focus on taking in the moments and people around me rather than trying to figure out why I wasn’t feeling the way I thought I would as a bride.  There is no one definition of how a bride should feel on her wedding day, don’t panic if you feeling differently than you anticipated.

6. The calmer you become the crazier your family will get, hold your ground on things you really believe in: **Disclaimer: Will and I obviously harbor no ill feelings towards our families, they are the reason this wedding was so great but…sorry families…it’s still true

I’m not going to lie, I actually googled the phenomenon Will and I were experiencing first hand as we planned for the wedding, “Momzillas and frenzied families during wedding planning.”  Will and I didn’t make it easy on our families because we did almost everything ourselves which, at the time, we thought was a huge load lifted off our parents, but in reality I think they felt a little left in the dark about our planning which was not our intention.  There really weren’t any huge episodes that come to mind but there were a few interactions where their reservations for something that Will and I felt was unnecessary were repeatedly brought up.  It’s important to make sure everyone emotionally invested in you and the wedding feels heard and respected for their input but ultimately this is your experience as you become husband and wife.  At first I was very frustrated with the issues brought up and felt disrespected that our families couldn’t accept the choices that Will and I made.  Will and I had several long talks about picking battles and decided that the things that we were butting heads about (all vegetarian menu, non-religious ceremony, having both parents walk down the aisle) represented us and we weren’t willing to compromise.  Of course, after the wedding was over, the three top things people complimented us on was our vegetarian menu, our non-religious ceremony (mostly because of our vonnegut quote) and the decision to have both parents walk down the aisle…Do not compromise yourself on the things that matter to you, even if others, for whatever reason, have a problem with it.  Also, forgive.  It’s easy during times of frustration or stress to hold on to those negative feelings you feel and become the victim, “oh why are they doing this to us,” “why can’t they respect our wishes,” “this isn’t about them, they’re being selfish to continue their protest.”  Talk to your family members, especially if their argument is about something superficial, they’re obviously feeling emotional about something deeper and it will help everyone in the situation.  You can also try assigning other tasks to them that are completely in their control so they can focus their energy into something that will be all their own on the wedding day.

5. Pick your soundtrack: I just saw a ‘fan page’ on facebook about wishing that there was a soundtrack that played during dramatic life moments like in the movies.  Your wedding day is one day you can actually achieve this.  Meet with your DJ, iPOD or whoever is in control of your songs before the big day to plan out what style or particular song you want played during the day.  We wanted to create defining moods throughout the evening so we had funk playing during cocktail hour, a little lighter mix at dinner, oldies to start the dance off and ending with the cupid shuffle (twice).  I also chose to play ‘all my single ladies’ by beyonce during the bouquet toss because I’m a cheesy sucker for top 40 dance hits.  We also burned a CD with songs we thought our DJ may not have on vinyl and instructions on when we’d like them played so we could set the mood the way we wanted to.  Definitely worth it.

4. Steal yourselves away from time to time: Will and I started off the day doing an intimate session of yoga with our dear friend Alicia.  We enjoyed a small breakfast together (before our dog tried to eat Will’s breakfast sandwich), sneaked out after the ceremony and during the dance to take some KILLER photographs of us freshly married and found time throughout the night to hide away downstairs in the dressing room to just soak everything in.  I once read about a couple that exchanged vows and right afterward sneaked away to a small, private room where they were alone to exchange another set of vows they wrote only for each other to hear.  I really wish we could have done this because it’s so precious but I think our late night roof top deck session was kind of the same thing.

3. Wear your dress again then sell it! You’ll thank yourself after the generous gifts your loved ones gave you run out.  Will and I had a second photo shoot done after our wedding day, partially because it was gross weather the actual day of our wedding but mostly because I wanted to wear that bitchin’ dress again.  As soon as spring wedding season hits, my dress is going up on ebay; let’s be realistic, what the hell am I going to do with a big heavy dress?  Unless your dress is something you can wear again (maybe you went with a very cute tea length number), get it out of your life and reap the benefits of a few extra funds.

DO work it, DON’T hoard it

2. Your photographer is everything:Remember when I mentioned that you’ll probably be spend a bit of your day trying to catch up with your emotions?  This is the reason you have someone take pictures.  One day after the wedding I actually thought to myself, “Was my wedding fun?  I don’t even remember!”  That night I got the pictures back and was reassured that my wedding was epic, flawless, beautiful, etc, etc.  Let your photographer know ahead of time what moments you absolutely want and need, otherwise let them do their art, you hired them for their eye, trust it.

1. Post nuptial depression is real and can happen to anyone: After the wedding was over and we began settling into post-planning life I started to notice how sad I was all the time.  I was disturbed by this because I just got married, why the heck was I feeling so down?  I started feeling guilty because I couldn’t figure out why I felt so depressed so I started researching it.  Post wedding depression has nothing to do with the feelings of ‘now what?’ after all the planning is done or any trace of disappointment that the wedding is over or feelings of panic or regret for marrying someone you shouldn’t have married; it’s real depression that can affect any one.  Depression is already so taboo in this county so obviously post-wedding depression isn’t going to get a three page spread in a bridal magazine.  Wedding planning guides wont mention depression, brides don’t talk about it and you wont see a booth at the wedding expo with tips on how to cope so just know that you may experience symptoms of sadness and depression and that you shouldn’t feel guilty or confused and you are not alone.

That’s it!  Now read, reflect and go out and create your own top ten.  We are preparing to take our honeymoon to Chicago in a few weeks, we’re taking the train and going to a taping of Wait..Wait..don’t tell me!  We spent our first two month wedding anniversaries at vet clinics with our animals (brown cat got a fever of unknown origin and almost died on november 3rd  and digital dog had a toe amputation surgery on december 3rd), how romantic!

c + w j

Friday was super rainy and we spent most of it running last-minute errands.  We still hadn’t finished our guest book box so we ran to Target hoping to find something that would do the trick.  I ended up buying thank you cards and a one inch hole puncher for like $4 and cut the decorative fronts off the cards to act as dividers and used the blank white portions of the cards as material for my hole puncher.  I found clearance scrap booking letters to put on the paper circles and ta-da!

Perfect guest book box (I just wish more people had actually signed it, not sure where the confusion or miscommnication happened).

We then got ready for the rehearsal and dinner.  The forecast didn’t look good for our wedding day but at this point, we were still planning on having the ceremony in the courtyard.  Once we arrived at the museum, it became clear that having an outside ceremony wasn’t going to be in the best interest of our guests or my dress so we decided to have the ceremony on the dance floor (I’m SO glad we decided to have it inside, everyone was nice and dry and warm and it looked gorgeous).

Me…temporarily losing my mind.

So we have a quick run-through (****This is one of THE MOST important times to delegate tasks to other people, you will have a million things going through your head, use your friends and family to help move things along at this point), got the ceremony schedule situated and headed back to our loft…except me because I got a call that morning that a trial pair of contacts had come in for me at my eye clinic (my eyes are the perfect storm of crappy vision and the doctor didn’t think any contacts would work for me so I had been quietly mourning the idea of wearing them in the wedding that entire week) so I ran over there in my leopard print heels to get them.

After that minor detour, we all met back up at the community room in our loft building.  We tossed around ideas of how we wanted to do our rehearsal dinner for months, but with the size of our entourage and the budget we wanted to stay within, it only made sense to rent our free community room and have an intimate night of baseball on the big screen, loved ones and food. Our family had gone all out for us by creating a beautiful feast of cupcakes, Pizza Luce pizza (our favorite), veggies, beer, wine etc.

It was so relaxing to just chill out with the people we love most, I really can’t say enough good things about taking this approach to your rehearsal dinner.  We then handed out some thank you gifts (whiskey stones for the groomsmen, minus darren who we gave some sweet vintage ice cream bowls…he’s serious about his ice cream…, black french veils for the girls and skinny ties for the ushers) and watched the Twins.  The rest of that evening was spent packing up items in our loft for the next day and making a list of what we needed to have done for us the next day (again, delegate!).

I know it’s tradition to not see each other the night before/day of the wedding but it just didn’t make sense to have one of us leave behind the comforts of home just because someone once said it was good luck.  We even let puppy sleep in bed with us that night.  The next morning we got up nice and early to have a private yoga session with our dear friend Alicia (we take her yoga class once a week in our loft’s yoga studio and she agreed to give us a private session the morning of our wedding!).  This was one of the best decisions of our wedding, it was great to zen out with my husband to be for an hour before all the chaos started.  It left us both feeling relaxed and centered for our long day.

After that I, along with my mom, headed to Uptown to get my hair and makeup done with my maid of honor.  For my hair, my stylist loosely curled my entire head and pulled most of it to the side to create a low side bun.  I wanted something classic and romatic and as I put it “will look better the messier it gets”.  For my eyes, she used three shades of MAC eye shadow, a light gold color, dark chocolate brown and a more neutral brown.  She used liquid liner for my lids (I opted for a thicker lining of my top lid to create a more dramatic look for the evening ceremony).  I got my eyes done at 10am and they lasted until 2am!  I waited until it was time to take pictures to put on any other makeup,  I don’t like the way makeup feels on my face, even if it was bare minerals.

One of the biggest/ridiculous/normal concerns I had for my wedding was my skin acting up.  I didn’t want to worry about my face rebelling on me so I went to my dermatologist in August and asked for her advice.  I mean I probably deal with mild acne from time to time but I didn’t even want to bother with one pimple showing up uninvited.  She put me on some low dose antibiotics and prescribed some topical cream and holy crap, my skin was flawless and clear the moment I started the antibiotics (I’m terrified to go off them, hahaha).  Another decision I’m so glad I made.  I used a little bare minerals makeup right before pictures to make my skin look airbrushed and decrease any oil that may creep up during the evening.

After the hair salon, Cristina, my mom and I headed over to the hotel where family was staying to do flowers.  Ladies, listen up, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT!!! spend money on a florist.  Farmer’s markets are your best friend and my best friend happen to be stationed at the place where I was getting married!  Mill City has a farmer’s market every saturday and the saturday before the wedding, Will and I scoped it out with puppy digital and found the most gorgeous, full bouquets of flowers for $5 a pop.  I sent my aunt and sister-in-law on a mission while I was getting my hair done to get a few of the bouquets so we could make them ourselves.  Some places will seriously charge you upwards of $150 dollars for a single bunch of flowers…don’t let your crazy wedding planning mind trick you into thinking this is a good thing!!

Now granted I didn’t have any preferences on colors/types of flowers but still, come on now, don’t blow your budget on your flowers.  I spent about $30 for eight gorgeous bouquets.

We formed an assembly line and in no time at all, finished all the bouquets.  It was a bonding moment <3

At this point, it was almost 2pm so we left the flowers with the girls and headed back to the loft where my dear husband was alone, frantically packing all the center pieces and random items we needed for the museum.  We loaded up what seemed to be six cars and headed to the venue.  The caterer had started to set up and we headed to the basement to get ready.  The boys and girls were separated by two rooms right next to one another, it was really fun running around getting dressed with everyone together; people were helping each other tuck in bras, tie ties, put on makeup, hair spray, deodorant, it was one of my favorite moments.

I threw on my fancy blue bathrobe that my mom had given me at a bridal shower and headed upstairs to check out the set-up.  As the ceremony got closer, I went back downstairs to get on that beast of a dress.

I’m so grateful for my girls, they tended to my every need, laced up my ridiculous dress, fed me shots of jameson when I needed them (hey, I’m going to be lugging around this dress all night, I need my irish courage!) and helped me walk in my 5.5 inch heels.

After I got dressed, I had Will stand outside the door with his back turned so he could see me for the first time in my dress.

Then my dad got to see me

Water-proof mascera is your friend, ladies.

After those few tender moments, we went off to shoot some amazing photos.  I could go on and on about our photographer and friend Andrew but I’ll let you just soak in his work with your eyes, they are simply breathtaking.

Of course, after we make our decision to have the ceremony inside, it clears up!  I had diva moment that day and it was when I refused to go outside before the ceremony because it was windy and I spent a reasonable price on my hair so I didn’t want to muss it up too much yet, haha.

One of my favorite ‘Will’ faces.

After these pictures, it was game time.  We all went back downstairs, Will and I gave a little pep talk which was really us just gushing about how much we  loved and appreciated everyone’s help in making this happen.  Just as we were about to get the party started, my brother tells me that one of the shuttle buses from the hotel has not shown up yet, I was..just a little panicked at the prospect of half our seats being empty but before I even had time to actually panic, the bus arrived and I was off to marry my high school sweetheart.

I don’t remember much about actually walking down the aisle or the actual ceremony.  It wasn’t nerves really, I think it was that my brain couldn’t process that this was actually happening, after months of planning and years of talking about it.  I had both my parents walk me down the aisle to the middle of the room as Will and his parents walked him to us, from there, we exchanged hugs and walked down the aisle together to get married.  This symbolism, regardless of other people’s opinions, was very important and special for us.  Don’t let anyone tell you that you should do things differently. When it comes to YOUR wedding day, you need to do what’s best for you and your spouse.  We had some backlash for some of the decisions we made during the planning process including having an all vegetarian menu, an atheist ceremony and having both parents walk down the aisle.  At first I was really hurt by these comments because I felt the people making them were being selfish and not respecting Will and I enough to understand that this is what we wanted.  I admit, looking back now, it’s hard to completely forgive and forget some of the instances when outside individuals made our planning difficult but I chose not to focus on them because after it’s all said and done, everything that we put our foot down on were things that our guests positively commented on the most.  Everyone raved about our menu and thought our ceremony was beautiful (one of my aunts told me she almost stood up and clapped after our Vonnegut reading).  You have to remember that everyone’s emotions are running high during this process, make sure you take other’s opinions in stride and try not to isolate people for any inappropriate actions or behaviors they may be oblivious to.

The ceremony was written by our friend Seth, and it couldn’t have suited us better..I mean it referenced the Wu-tang clan!  A few weeks before the wedding, I was searching for something to be read during the ceremony just to add another element and had difficulty finding quotes that wouldn’t outright offend anyone who believed in supernatural entities.  I ended up just writing something myself that expressed the views that Will and I share on death and life, I included a super nerdy science quote about how lucky we are to be alive and added Vonnegut at the end for good measure.  It’s included in the ceremony post I made earlier in the month.  I think the ceremony ended up being perfect, it wasn’t shamelessly shouting “HEY WE’RE ATHEISTS!!!!” but I think it made it very clear to anyone who wasn’t sure that we aren’t down with any deity.  Our friend Darren played us in to The Decemberists’ Red Right Ankle and played us out to Neutral Milk Hotel.  Our vows were pretty unique I suppose, we both started out by saying “I promise” and went back and forth making promises to one another.  We finished by promising each other that if one of us slips up or does not follow through on one of these promises, we’re simply going to move forward together and forgive.

After the ceremony, Will and I went off to take some private pictures together as a freshly wedded couple.

Now that the important stuff was out of the way, it was time to party!!  We headed upstairs to meet everyone else who had been enjoying a cocktail hour.  I finally got to see my hard work come to life.  The dining area looked incredible!

I don’t know if word got passed around or what but no one clicked their glasses for us to kiss all night (THANK YOU!!) and let us eat in peace, haha.  I don’t remember the entire menu but I believe there were griddled polenta cakes, wild roasted veggie lasagna, some sort of pastry rolade dish, roasted potatoes, fire roasted veggies with parm, bread, caramel apple cheese cake and chocolate raspberry torte.  YUM!  By this point, I was still in this weird state of “I can’t believe this is really happening, how am I supposed to feel about this!?!” (you will feel this way most of your day, it’s hard to avoid and is hard to explain.  That is the main reason for pictures, it will help you remember that you did, in fact, look fabulous and have a fabulous time) and my dress was a little hard to sit down in so I didn’t get to eat very much but damn it was good food!

Next came the toasts.  Will and I didn’t expect the amount of toasts we received and were SO touched by everyone who gave one.  Seriously, they were beautiful, funny, nerdy, sweet, teary eyed and sincere.  Thank you to Cristina, Ashley, Maggie and Rich, Kelsey, Ian and both sets of parents.

After the toasts we cut the cake.Check out my over the top, nerdy bird cake-topper.  The girl that designed and made them for us created my bird’s dress to match mine all the way down to the asymmetrical lace!  Both birds had glasses, Will’s had a red beard, mine had a monroe piercing and a french veil.  Best geeky purchase for the wedding ever!

You see, the problem with a night wedding is that the night goes REALLY fast, so we felt a little rushed because 9pm crept up quickly.  As soon as we got done cutting the cake, we went to have our first dance to keep the vibe up.  We accepted that a considerable amount of people would leave right after dinner, some people left without even saying anything to us!  It’s hard to balance yourself on a wedding night, you will feel guilty because you can’t greet and thank everyone in person, hopefully other people understand that.

Our first dance was to “You are the best thing” by Ray LaMontagne and it was wonderful.

My dad and I danced to “My girl” by the Temptations.  He used to always sing it to me when I was little

Will and his mom danced to “What a Wonderful World” by Louie Armstrong.  It’s hard to find good, unsappy Mother/Son dances for weddings!

At some point in the evening, I threw my bouquet to Beyonce’s “All my single ladies”, hahaha.

My cute little cousin caught it!

The rest of the night was great, lots of dancing and visiting, Will and the boys went off to smoke some cigars and Cristina and I got to get down to our fav. The Cupid Shuffle…twice.  Our DJ was amazing, he spun vinyl all night and kept the crowd engaged, which is super important, make sure you get a good DJ!  I even serenaded my bridesmaids with Salt ‘N Peppa’s classic “Shoop” in it’s entirety.

At the end of the night, after almost everyone had left, Will and I snuck off to get more pictures taken in a really cool, industrial part of the museum.

Afterwards, we had another small dance party with those who were still there and packed up the basement.  Will and I had a car waiting for us outside to take us to our hotel (many, many thanks to our groomsman Brett for setting all of it up, so amazing).  Our hotel room was on the executive floor that required a key to access and there was a plate of chocolates and fruit waiting for us with a bottle of champagne and rose petals on the bed.  The perfect end to a perfect day.

THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone involved in our wedding, to our friends and family, to those of you who were interested enough in our journey to create 6000 views on our blog and most importantly, those who unconditionally encouraged and supported our sometimes crazy, definitely unorthodox vision for a wedding.

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Okay, so my connection is being a poop moose tonight so I’ve uploaded about 75% of the pictures into a lower quality stream on flickr just because I promised you guys picitures.  I will upload my favorite ones on here in high quality tomorrow and add the rest of the photos to flickr.  Click the picture below for the flickr stream.  Enjoy!

Our photographer brought over the pictures last night and I seriously can’t stop looking at them.  WOW!!  They are exactly what we wanted: super dramatic and no cheese.  We are definitely not the fake smiling, posed picture type of couple so many people might think it’s weird that we aren’t flashing forced grins in our pictures but I absolutely adore the sets Andrew has given us.

Tomorrow, Johnston promise!!

See!  There’s a REAL smile, those are included, just not the goofy smiles that are held 5-10 seconds for pictures.

Pictures are coming soon, I promise!

Will and I have been super busy redoing our loft, we gutted out our closet, got a new dresser, night stands, lamps, rearranged our entire living room and made our general living space more liveable.

I’m in the process of changing my name on every legal document I can think of, it’s beeen surprisingly easy so far.  We’re about to go take puppy digital for a walk (he turns one year old next month, where did our puppy go!?).  I promise to post pictures as soon as I get them and give a recap of the wedding!

I’m also going to talk about a serious topic that is rarely ever discussed.  It pertains to post-wedding day depression, which I experienced.  It’s real and more girls need to know about it.  I wish I would have known about it sooner, I spent so much time wondering why I felt weird after such a gorgeous wedding day but felt much better after learning that it’s quite common among new brides.

Happy autumn from the Johnstons!

We’ve had several requests for copies of our ceremony/vows since it was a little hard for the people in back to hear (we had to move the wedding inside due to rain but to the most amazing spot in the museum), so here is our ceremony, in it’s entirety..a little something to tide you over until the photos come back.

Wedding procession: ‘Red Right Ankle’ by the Decemberists, played acoustically by Darren Jackson.

Officant (Seth): Greetings ladies and gentlemen, family, friends, loved ones, as well as the rest of you gorgeous gorgeous creatures, and welcome to the celebration of the partnership and union between Ms. Caitlin Schaller and Mr. William Johnston.

Caitlin and Will have chosen to proclaim outcome of this ceremony as a union rather than a marriage out of love, support and respect for friends, family and complete strangers who do not legally have equal rights to partake in this intimate bond.

About a year ago, when Will and Caitlin asked me to be their officiant, I was simultaneously humbled, honored, and slightly terrified…not by the looming possibility of screwing up the most passionate and spectacular day of their lives, not by speaking in front of a large crowd of incredibly well-dressed and possibly wild strangers, but by the near impossible task of capturing, in simple language, the magic that these two fully, passionately, and creatively share.

Wedding ceremonies frequently rely upon expected conventions such as Shakespearean sonnets, exhausted scriptures, and semi-entertaining inside jokes, none of which will suffice, because Will and Caitlin are simply not conventional people.

Their connection is one that has been happily wrought with unconventional adventures spanning celebrating their 8^th anniversary touring Belfast with a former IRA member as their guide, fixed gear bicycle crashes, The Wu-Tang Clan (holla), vegetarian taco nights, talon-wielding birds-of-prey, and on and on and on.

Adventures such these are responsible for the supernatural love that these two progressive, pit-bull-rescuing, kitty-cat-loving, beat-making, earth-shaking people share….(ooh, I love you guys!) Caitlin and Will have very clearly magnetized me as a result of this pristine connection.

Caitlin and Will, yours is a relationship that is literally unlike any other; yours is a connection to living passionately and choosing to bear the weight of human strife and the struggle of the common proletariat. I am reminded of a passage from an existential film called Waking Life in which a character addresses just such connections by stating:

“All I can think about is how this entire notion of oneself, what we are, is just this logical structure, a place to momentarily house all the abstractions. This is the time to become conscious, to give form and coherence to the mystery, as we are an integral part of that. It is a gift. Life is raging all around us and every moment is magical.” Mmm…magical, indeed.

Caitlin and Will, yours is clearly a relationship to be envied, modeled, adored, and celebrated for decades to come, yours is an existence perhaps most keenly captured in a poem by Linda Gregg entitled The Precision.

The Precision

There is a modesty in nature. In the small

of it and in the strongest. The leaf moves

just the amount the breeze indicates

and nothing more. In the power of lust, too,

there can be a quiet and clarity, a fusion

of exact moments. There is a silence of it

inside the thundering. And when the body swoons,

it is because the heart knows its truth.

There is directness and equipoise in the fervor,

just as the greatest turmoil has precision.

Like the discretion a tornado has when it tears

down building after building, house by house.

It is enough, Kafka said, that the arrow fit

exactly into the wound it makes. I think

about my body in love as I look down on these

lavish apple trees and the workers moving

with skill from one to the next, singing our bodies on fire.

Look at you two: extravagantly and brilliantly on fire. Ladies and gentlemen, Will and Caitlin have composed their own vows and will share them now.

Seth: Will, do you take Caitlin to be your lawfully wedding wife, (slip ring on finger) Caitlin do you take Will to be your lawfully wedding husband (slip ring on finger)? By the power vested in me by the state of Minnesota, the beautiful witnesses in this building, and every naturally high molecule in my body, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, for the first time ever Mr. William Lawrence Johnston and Mrs. Caitlin Gallagher Johnston.

There was also a reading done by our friend Tony, but I don’t remember where it was in the ceremony, haha.

Has it ever occurred to you how lucky you are to be alive? More than 99 percent of all the creatures that have ever lived have died without progeny, but not a single one of your ancestors falls into that group! …

Not a single one of your ancestors, all the way back to the bacteria, succumbed to predation before reproducing, or lost out in the competition for a mate.

Those who accept their fates as humans, who embrace the beautiful nothingness of death, who celebrate the life cycle we share with all living things, those truly are the lucky ones. They live and love boldly, passionately and without fear, for there is nothing to fear once it is realized that the short time we have on this earth is all we have. We are all we have. Nothing is more spectacular and brilliant than when two people meet and consciously choose to share their one life together. They are completely aware of the inevitable fate of our kind and the heartache that will one day take place yet open their hearts fully and invest themselves completely for they have found something worth sacrificing. It is this bold and foolish gesture of humanity that we must always honor and celebrate for it is the reason we are all still breathing. So rise up, seize the day, thirst for knowledge, love recklessly and above all else;

In the immortal words of Kurt Vonnegut “Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

It was wonderful, sorry for those who couldn’t hear it!

-c + w J

After nine years of dating and a year and a half of planning the wedding has finally come.  I’m still not sure how I feel about it, since work was so busy I didn’t really have time to focus on Saturday but now that it’s tomorrow, I woke up with a twinge of anxiousness and excitement in my stomach.  I’ve talked to several married women about how it feels to be a bride, I’m not sure how I’ll feel tomorrow and why I assume I’ll feel a certain way but it will be interesting to see what emotions I get throughout the day, it’s going to be super busy regardless so I’ll just have to make sure I take it all in.

Last night I had a major panic moment when I realized I completely spaced making the boutineers, luckily, two of my aunts had already arrived in town and volunteered to help make the crafts.  There was a Joann Fabric right by their hotel so we bought supplies and made them on the hotel room floor of my mom and dad’s room.  They look amazing, each one is unique and hand made by a family member which makes them all the more special.

Tonight is the rehearsal  and dinner then tomorrow Will and I get up early to have a private yoga session with our dear friend and yoga instructor who lives in our building.  We thought it would be a great way to relax and calm ourselves before the day’s events.  Afterwards I’m off to get my hair done with Cristina and then it’s off to Mill City to start unloading all the centerpieces and begin setting up and taking pictures.  Last weekend Will and I went to the Mill City farmer’s market and found AMAZINGGGG, huge, fresh organic flower bouquets for super cheap, so I’ve assigned the flower task to Abbie on Saturday, can’t wait to see them.

This is my last post before I marry my equal tomorrow, thank you for joining us on this crazy adventure, I’ll post pictures as soon as I can!!

People keep asking me if I’m freaking out or nervous but honestly, I think because we did most of this wedding ourselves, there really isn’t any worry about people flaking out or third parties not following through which eliminates most of the possible sources of stress.  Anyways, here’s what we’ve been up to:

1. We met with our amazing officiant Seth to hear what he’s got for the ceremony, it’s freakin’ solid, I can’t wait for everyone to hear it, it’s so us.

2. We finalized our guest list and completed our seating chart.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned from planning a wedding it’s that you should NEVER assume people will think to put their name on something.  We had so many RSVP’s without a name on them, luckily we were able to figure most of them out but if you’re planning on having a seating chart for the event you are throwing, make sure you designate a spot on the return card for names, it will make everything so much easier.  The seating chart was also a little difficult just because we have large families and could only fit 8-10 at a table so we basically just filled each table with as many couples as possible, there’s really no rhyme or reason to the arrangements.  I also created little name cards for everyone using the same table number images, nothing fancy.

3. Will and I sat down and went through our music collection to pick out specific songs for the reception.  It was really fun to sort through nine years of songs that remind us of one another, trust me, we have stuff to get everyone dancing!

4.

Our thank you video for the showers, we created it the night we got home from the shower but I didn’t want to post it or anything for that matter, until I sent out all the hand-written thank you notes to all the amazing people in our lives.  Thank you, thank you thank you to everyone involved in the epic shower weekend.  Both the sister-in-laws traveled to share the experience with me and it really meant a lot to me (and I appreciate the boys came with too), plus my aunt and uncle from Wisconsin came which was unexpected and very sweet. The first shower was thrown by my old neighborhood, there were delicious brunch items, veggie Quiche, hand-made gifts and lots of catching up with people from my childhood.  The second shower was thrown by Kay, it was the perfect second shower, she went all out and created some really gorgeous desserts and touching gifts including a recipe book that everyone contributed to and owl themed treats.  Will got a surprise ‘man’ shower thrown by all the men at the Johnston residence, he got tons of great tools and mucked around with the guys and Digital all afternoon.

5. Last weekend we had our joint bachelorette/bachelor parties.  The ladies spent the night enjoying potluck style snacks, inappropriately themed olympic games, dancing, bonding and reeking havoc on downtown Minneapolis.  The boys (and kelsey ) spent the night at Psycho Suzies tiki bar smoking fine cigars and drinking cocktails.  We met up at our favorite bar at midnight and everyone dispersed from there.  It was the perfect bachelorette party, everyone was so generous and helpful, I can’t thank everyone enough.  We have incredible friends, I hope everyone else had as much fun as Will and I did!

6.  We decided to change the location of our rehearsal dinner.  We wanted to have it at Pizza Luce but they didn’t have the room for our 20-25 person group.  Minor panic moment until we decided to just rent out our loft’s community room and bring the pizza Luce to us.  Problem solved!

7.  We have one new addition to our wedding party.

Say hello to our dear friend Darren Jackson.  He’s doing double duty by playing us up and down the aisle (and even agreed to play my favorite Decemberists song!!) and is a groomsman for Will.  Will met Darren back in 2006 when Will needed to work on a project for school and timidly emailed Darren’s band Kid Dakota.  Darren took poor little intern Will in to his studio  and quickly became his mentor and golfing buddy.  Darren has the coolest little dog in the world named Dante, he’s a bedlington terrier, if you don’t know what it is, google it RIGHT NOW.  We are so excited to have him involved in the wedding.

I think those are the biggest updates, we are going to get our marriage license tomorrow and I’m going to finalize all wedding crafts this weekend.  HOME STRETCH PEOPLE!! HERE WE GO!!

I plan on placing them next to the center pieces with a few scattered rocks to add weight to the tent.

I also have to mention the coolest cupcakes ever!

I can’t wait to make them for a graduation party I’m going to in a few weeks, they are so freakin’ adorable!

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