The Veil

I've mentioned recently that I'm particular about veils. While I find certain norms and mores of marriage and the wedding outdated and misunderstood, I am also quite old-fashioned in many ways that would surprise my comparatively conservative friends who think I'm just a lefty. The veil is a historic symbol in many cultures of nobility and mourning. In religion, it is associated with modesty, not just during the wedding ceremony, but in all aspects of life for women. I have deep respect for these long held traditions, and don't wish to mock them by wearing a veil as part of the wedding costume, just because I'm expected to do so. I'm not a bride who will be presented at first sight to her chosen husband. I'm a normal American girl marrying a normal American boy that I met nine years ago. I gave myself to him in mind, body, and spirit long before he gave me a ring. We both value and protect the intangible former far above the temporal latter. 

So for these reasons I've, very personally, found a veil superfluous. In a word, I feel undeserving. It's a sacred symbol which, on my head, would be a lie in the common context of purity. If I do choose to wear a veil, it won't be a decision made lightly. It would be a covenant veil, a symbol of sacrament, both to God and my husband-to-be. I don't make a habit of doing anything in life without reason. Decisions I make, actions I take, are executed with a great deal of preparation, questioning, and forethought. My wedding won't be any different. I refuse to take part in traditions I find meaningless or with which I disagree. I have too much respect for the persons who consider them sacred, and sacredness of the traditions themselves, to follow blindly and ignorantly. A marriage - our marriage - is too important. Above everything, I do believe in the unyielding mercy and forgiveness God freely gives all people who believe in Him, no matter how checkered their past. To consider myself above or below God's law is nothing more than arrogance. I intend to walk down the aisle, if perhaps not shrouded in lace or tulle - we'll see - but certainly in His grace. 

Even if we can't live in the Sistine Chapel, we can still admire it's ceiling. I found just a few veils I find beautiful and would like to share them with you. My favorite style is a variation of the  mantilla veil, a traditional Spanish veil popular among women of Catholicism. The cultural style includes a tall ornamental comb, which I would forgo for my purposes, and simply drape the circle of lace over the crown of my head, reflective of the Italian tradition. 

The Little and the Big Things, Volume I

Big Oklahoma skies. 

Little daisy sprouts. 

Big home improvements. 

Little home improvements. 

New Beginnings

As we all know, Sunday, March 20 was the first day of spring! I've been known to call all four seasons my favorite at different times of the year, but I decided that I get excited about each season at its very beginning. I've come to love getting the home prepared for new decor, and little festive seasonal trinkets. I only recently, like in the last year or two, began really getting into holiday decor. I never did before that because everywhere I lived throughout college was so temporary, so I didn't bother. Plus, I didn't have the financial means to buy what I wanted to decorate, and I was just a little bit preoccupied with studying and graduating and nonsense like that. Now that I'm feeling more settled,have a place to call home - even if it is just an apartment that we don't intend on living in forever - a little more money to throw around (ha!) and someone to decorate for besides myself, I find myself getting really excited about each new season.

Spring is a time of new beginnings all over the world. I know from one of my favorite, favorite, favorite blogs, Aura j o o n, that this weekend marked the Persian new year, and families celebrate with lots of yummy food and staging the home for spring. Over spring break, I had the delight of celebrating new beginnings in some of my good friends' lives. One friend and her husband are eagerly awaiting the arrival of their first baby! I had the joy of celebrating their bundle of joy's upcoming debut to the world at a baby shower over spring break. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the shower. :( But I did get one picture of my little baby cousin who was also in attendance and who I met for the first time! This is baby Ellarie!

Saturday I had the privilege of celebrating one of my very best friend's upcoming wedding! Katherine's family hosted a gorgeous wedding shower in honor of her marriage to Adrian in August. Andy and I had the immense joy of having dinner with Katherine and Adrian on their way through town last year, and I have never seen two people so perfectly matched. I loved hearing them joke together, rib each other just a bit, and I could see and feel the unconditional love between them. It gave me such joy to see my dear sweet friend of 13 years so blissfully happy. 

One of my OTHER very best friends, Rachel, is engaged to Zach, and they will be saying their vows in October. Ah, a summer wedding followed by an autumn wedding, followed by a winter wedding. Does it get any more perfect? I've met Zach and, oh my gosh, CUTE! What a sweet man, and there is no more perfect, Godly man for one of my oldest and dearest friends. 

Everyone is getting married! My talented, beautiful, and downright hilarious cousin Michaela (who is the best wedding and birthday cake baker and decorator in America) is marrying Aaron in May. I am heartbroken - HEARTBROKEN - that I won't get to go to this wedding. It will be in California and if I weren't busy paying for my own wedding this year, I'd be there in a minute. I've never met Aaron, but I've corresponded with him through the miracle of Facebook and he's so caring and sweet-natured. They are such a perfect couple!

AND! I just found out last night that my cousin Richard, who I love to pieces and is one of the funniest and most genuine men in my life, proposed to his dearest Katie, who I had the pleasure of talking to over the phone and personally congratulating. I haven't formally met her yet, but I can't wait to meet this beautiful and sweet woman who stole my cousin's heart!

Ahhh! I'm just giddy about all this joy and love going around, especially for some of my very favorite people in the whole world!!! I could easily name about a dozen or more weddings coming up of more distant acquaintances, but these, for me, are the most important. I can't wait to find out who else will be making babies or walking down the aisle!! 

Fascinating

I've spent a lot of my spring break perusing the Internet for wedding ideas of all kinds - reception decor, ceremony decor, accessories... I have a lot of fun picking lots of different things I like, but I'm less successful at settling on a decision. For instance, I paid for my wedding dress, but has that stopped me from looking and making sure I made the right choice? No! I need an executive to make these decisions for me. At one bridal boutique, I literally turned to the consultant and begged her to pick one of the three dresses I liked. A true professional, she wouldn't, saying it was my decision and mine alone.

In my perusings, I've found one type of hair accessory I love. Fascinators are extravagant headpieces often worn instead of a veil, or with a birdcage, usually made with beads, crystals, flowers, or feathers. It's a great way to add a pop of color to your wedding style. My wonderful fiance, after peering over my shoulder and asking what in the world I was looking at on the computer, dubbed them, "Flair for you hair!" (He's not as gay as that made him sound, he was being incredibly facetious.)

Queen Elizabeth, Kate Middleton, and other British royals are famous for wearing elaborate fascinators on their hats. The name says it all - they grab your attention and are so beautiful you can't stop looking. And yet, in my opinion, they don't detract at all from the bride. When done well, they even add to the bride's glowing beauty. I've mentioned before that I'm not really a veil girl. That's not 100% true, because I just love certain types of veils. The vast majority of veils I've found online don't appeal to me - anything remotely poofy just seems distracting and more fit for a costume rather than a formal occasion. In fairness, I have found really stunning veils that I would be happy to walk down the aisle wearing  - long, flowy, ceremonious, and almost born from a different time. I want to share with you some of my favorite headpieces for a wedding day. Many of these are not in consideration for my wedding day, but I love them nonetheless, just maybe for a different bride. I hope you enjoy. All headpieces pictured are handmade by Etsy artists.

Love: 

Anytime a cameo is involved, I'm a fan:

I can picture this being worn in a beautiful summer meadow wedding:

I love the gold adornment on this. So glamorously vintage:

Stop here. This is a serious contender for my wedding day: 

I especially love the hair. I could really try to replicate this look in November: 

Road Trip

Over dinner on Valentine's Day, Andy looked up at me and said, "We really need to go somewhere for spring break." I heartily agreed, since he and I have never traveled anywhere just for us. We've driven to see family in state and out-of-state, and we've been back-seat passengers on family vacations, but we have never planned a trip together, in all our eight-plus years. So, without any prompting or supervision from me, because I get crazy busy with work and my photography and beading hobbies [read: obsessions] Andy planned our road trip across western Oklahoma to the Alabaster Caverns near Freedom, Oklahoma. He even called ahead to make sure we'd get in! Maybe that's vacation planning 101 for most, but that's totally something I would overlook, especially with a simple daytrip, because my planning ability can be sketchy. And if my planning ability has historically been sketchy, Andy's has been a black hole. I say that with love.

Here is a long photo-tour of our St. Patrick's Day (not planned that way, just happened to be the prettiest and warmest weather day in the forecast - more planning ahead on Andy's part) road trip to the Alabaster Caverns! 

You will discover I have a fascination with Oklahoma's enormous open skies and crazy-looking dead trees.

Right now many counties in Oklahoma are under fire danger warnings. We saw what looked like controlled burn patches on some farmland, but this black patch didn't look controlled. Fortunately, we didn't see any fires today, something we were worried about. 

Stopped for lunch at La Fiesta Mexican Restaurant in Enid. 

We occupied ourselves during some of the trip by listening to a stack of CDs and making a list of music we want played at our wedding ceremony and reception. Multitasking.

Are we there yet? 

Just in case you're not familiar with Oklahoma, a lot of it is pretty flat. So when we see hills, or flat-top mesas, what you see above, it's kind of a big deal. These are some of the Gloss Mountains (sometimes Glass, depending who you talk to), about as mountainous as it gets around here. Actually, we also have the Ozarks to the east, which are more hilly and forested, and the Wichita Mountains to the south, which are part of the grassland and prairies. Oklahoma really is a beautiful state if you stop and look around. 

And finally, after three surprisingly short hours...

Yay, we made it! 

Just in case you can't read the bottom of the sign on the right, it says, "All others will be in deep guano." hahahaha

As I expected, my cave pictures didn't turn out very well. I salvaged just a few, but they're still pretty bad. There was no warning at any time during the tour about flash photography, but I didn't feel comfortable with it anyway. Besides, as dark as it was, I didn't want to momentarily blind anyone else on the tour and be responsible for cave injuries. 

After we got out of the cave, we took a tractor back to the front of the park. Clearly Andy enjoyed himself. He can be a little dramatic at times. Obviously. -sarcasm- He's really the most even-tempered person I know. A very calming influence for me. The little smirk on his face means he's probably thinking of something ironic about cows and people and tractors. Who knows? 

After the cave tour, and the tractor ride, I took something like my tenth potty break of the day, and we wandered toward a sign that said, "Scenic Overlook." We're down for anything scenic. We weren't disappointed. 

I was so moved that I decided to try to hug the sky. I'm a cornball like that. Or in Andy's words, I'm a "sap". 

But then Andy hugged the sky too. I guess he's also a sap. 

What's this? A trail? We love trails! Let's take the one with the coyote! 

Famous last words. 

I'll explain here, because it got a little too rough and tumble for me to stop and take pictures, so I have none. We went down the trail, leading down into the canyon and along a small stream in the woods at the bottom. Very nice and picturesque. Somewhere along the way, we thought we were still on the trail, heading back up the canyon. We didn't realize we'd gone off the trail. At one point Andy turned to me and said, "This is basically what climbing a fourteener is like." Nice. I wouldn't have minded at all, but I had my purse with me and not the best shoes for gripping onto rocks. Plus, I have zero upper body strength, and there was some vertical terrain, if you will. Otherwise, it would have been a lot of fun, and less scary. Oh, did I mention there was cactus? 

Here are the shots I got before the impromptu fourteener training course. 

Can you tell I'm looking up? That was our view for a while trying to get back up. 

Nice, easy trail on the way down. 

The entire trip was truly beautiful. And it didn't cost any more than what we paid in gas, lunch and dinner, and admission to the park which was $8 for adults. I really hope Andy and I get to have more outings like this in the future, where we hit the great outdoors and soak up the world's beauty. It was a great time, being in each other's company all day, enjoying the quiet, sharing conversations and lots of laughs. I've said this before and I'll say it again - I want to hold on to these moments together because we won't get them forever. If we're lucky, we'll be able to look back on all this many years from now as the good old days. 

Just a couple of lovebirdy saps.