It’s Not Really A Secret

Mr. Darcy and I don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day. We get each other a card and have dinner together, nothing fancy. But last night I came home from dance and there was a roaring fire, candles lit, the table set with flowers, and a husband preparing me dinner. Please note that the only thing Mr. Darcy has cooked for me in our three plus years together is a grilled cheese.

I married a sweetheart. His sweetness is a constant truth but it still catches me off guard. I haven’t always picked nice guys to give my heart to. Case in point, the other day I was scrolling through the secrets on Post Secret when I came upon a postcard that made me stop and do a double take. There was a photo of two people mid-kiss with the text of the postcard cutting off half their faces. The cursive handwriting said something about wishing he could forget her so he could move on with his life.

The man kissing the woman in the photo is an ex of mine.

And then everything got complicated inside me. Because here I am, a happily married woman, feeling like someone gut-punched me as I look at the ex kissing his ex in a photo on a famous website. It’s so complicated, the story of me and this ex, I can’t even begin to explain it here. The cut-to-the-chase version would be: we were on again and off again over the span of 5 years and the last time we  were on again, he and the woman in the picture with him, were breaking up and he was (once again) proclaiming his undying love for me (as he was wont to do, even when he was engaged to her). But, here is his face with her face, kissing, with his words about being unable to move on with his life since they split (over 3 years ago). We all make wrong choices. Maybe his was cheating on her. Very possibly mine was ever giving that guy my heart.

I’m not supposed to care about this at all or feel like a complete chump for believing everything he said all those years when he’d come crawling back to me over and over with his professions of me being his one and only. But being married doesn’t erase my past and having ended it with him doesn’t make it not hurt. I started to question all of it and felt the fool. Not because I care about him pining for me but if he did, would that finally make all the shit he put me through mean something? Truthfully, I always thought that someday I’d find a secret on that site from him about me.

I haven’t spoken to him in years, not since right before I met Mr. Darcy. I believe that letting this ex go was a big reason I was able to be open to SEE Mr. Darcy when he entered my life. Like I’ve said, I have not always excelled at being available for good men. But I walked away from that toxic, tumultuous relationship that made me feel small and unworthy and twisted up inside and said aloud: I want more than this for myself. I want to build a life with someone who shows up, who is here with me every day in every way, who builds me up, not breaks me down. I wanted someone who would fight for me and our relationship.

Enter Mr. Darcy, stage left.

I talked to Mr. Darcy about all this over dinner the night I discovered the postcard. I was nervous to tell him I was hurt that the postcard was not about me but I didn’t want to keep it from him when it bothered me so much. But, true to form, he got it and wasn’t threatened by it. We actually had a thoughtful conversation about love, relationships, the past, and ego. And in the end, I was reminded again what an amazing man I am married to.

The ex used to say he was never jealous of the men I dated while we were broken up because no one would ever love each other like we did. In a way he’s right- no two loves are exactly the same- but in a big way he’s so, so wrong because I would choose Mr. Darcy a million times over him. Even when we’re a mess, we’re fighting, we’re annoying or boring each other, Mr. Darcy is my choice. The love I share with him surpasses every other love I’ve had. It’s the love I want to spend the rest of my life in.

Saying Good-bye to Oliver

Oliver as a pup at one of his favorite places- the beach.

We spent part of Sunday sitting on the floor with Oliver, petting him and showering him with love, knowing that it wouldn’t be much time before he would be gone. We didn’t think he’d decline so rapidly. We hoped we would have a few months left with him after his cancer diagnosis but the medicine wasn’t helping. He wasn’t himself- he could barely get up on his own and his breathing was labored, more like puffs of air than breaths and my mom had made the appointment for the vet to come out and help him pass. It was a tearful time with the family as we remembered good times with Ollie- all his romps at the beach and games of fetch, how he’d often show up from the bedroom with one of my mom’s slippers in his mouth, the way he would happily greet everyone with a tail wag and sometimes with his nose directly into your crotch, and how all humans and dogs were happy in his company. He looked like a big Muppet when he ran and, man, he loved to run. So seeing him lying there unable to barely walk was so heartbreaking.

We gave him final kisses and hugged my mom. As we were all standing around outside in the driveway- Finn and Dokey playing a game of chase before they got into the car, and Darcy and I hugging my mom and sharing a laugh through tears- my mom said, “Shhh, I hear something!” It was the clop of Oliver’s feet through the kitchen as he came out to join us. How he got up on his own, we don’t know but we greeted him merrily and with great affection, “Oliver! What a good boy!” and he wagged his tail like the good ol’ days when he’d stand by my mom’s side and watch us all drive away after a family dinner. We got into our separate cars and I watched my mom and Oliver painstakingly walk into the backyard for what I knew would be the last time. I felt so sad for my mom, knowing these were her final hours with her best friend. In the car on the way to park, Finn composed a song about losing his best “furry friend” as he tried to make sense of his grief. He’s known Oliver, or “Olls” as he calls him, his whole life and losing him is confusing and hard for a six and a half-year old.

I really thought that at some point in the night Oliver would pass on his own. But when I checked my phone at 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, my mom had not contacted me. I got up, went to my dance class shift, and headed over to her house to sit with her and Oliver while we waited for the vet to arrive. We circled through the feelings as we petted him. He couldn’t get up. He hadn’t really eaten in a day and barely drank any water. He could barely lift his head and his breathing was worse. It was painful to see him in that state and as much as I didn’t want him to go, I was anxious for the vet to arrive to help him end his suffering. I do believe he was hanging on for my mom. He was incredibly loyal and such a sweet love of a dog. He needed someone to help him let go because he’d never leave her given the choice.

I’ve never bore witness to a pet’s passing. I’ve lost pets but I’ve never been strong enough to take them through their final moments. As scared as I was to be there, I knew I needed to do it for my mom and for Oliver. It was as peaceful as it could be given the circumstances. They gave him the first shot right there in my mom’s house on the floor he’d spent countless hours sleeping on. My mom and I petted him and cried as we told him we loved him, that he was a good boy, that we were so sorry he had to go. Then they gave him the second shot and it was pretty quick before he stopped his labored breathing and rested his head on his paws.

My poor mom, lying there on the floor crying into his big head, just broke my heart. He was her first dog she got all on her own. He was with her all the time and everywhere she looks, there is a memory of him. She lives alone now and the emptiness left from his passing is tangible in that house. I spent the afternoon with her there after they took him out on a stretcher, just talking or crying or laughing when we could. It was the hardest thing for me to leave her there, knowing she’s in pain and feeling that hollowness of loss.

Sweet Oliver on his final day.

Where there is love, there is heartbreak. But the love part is so worth the pain of loss, isn’t it? We were so lucky to have Oliver as part of our family. We will miss his big sweetness and boisterous affection. We will miss the way he kept my mom company and ran out to greet us whenever we’d come over. We’ll miss him and love him, always.

I hope he and my sweet Lou are playing in the ocean together like the good old days, wherever they are.

Walking Around in My Wrongness

The only control is surrender. -Daily Om

Lately (my whole life?) I’ve been really struggling with my need to control everything- how I feel, how others feel, what happens next. I’m simultaneously hyper-aware that I logically cannot control these things while knowing that I am, indeed, feeling the strong need to be in control. I’m at that crux where I know a thing I’m doing doesn’t work for me/my life but I don’t know yet how not to do it.

I am very uncomfortable in the crux.

I’ve been a hiatus from therapy for a couple weeks. I left my last session feeling like I didn’t know what I wanted from our sessions. It was a rough hour where I spent a good deal of it avoiding my therapist’s eyes and emotionally beating myself up. I’m wrestling with a lot of internal stuff that I can’t eloquently explain. There are things about me, characteristics or faults, that work for me in certain circumstances but also bite me in the ass a lot of the time. Sometimes I get in an indignant rage saying: THIS IS WHO I AM! THE WORLD NEEDS PEOPLE LIKE ME! People who are not carefree, who don’t even understand that state of mind. People who will take the lead when everyone is faltering. People who will organize chaos. People who want to feel useful, not get the free ride. People with fierce loyalty and an unwavering sense of fairness. In many instances, I don’t mind these qualities in myself. Hell, sometimes I’m downright proud of them. But they also exhaust me. I put too much of myself into situations that don’t necessarily require it. I often feel under-appreciated and many times, unlovable.

I am extremely uncomfortable knowing people don’t like me or are unhappy with me. It’s a very triggering place that makes me feel small and all my shame comes bubbling up. I spent a good deal of my childhood wondering what I did wrong. When I couldn’t come up with an answer from any adults, I assumed that just being me was the problem. Did you hear that? BEING ME WAS WHAT MADE ME WRONG. That’s a hell of a pill for a kid to swallow. And yet, I did. I made the pill and I swallowed it whole.

So here I am, on the precipice of turning forty, and I’m still feeling that wrongness about myself. I can name multiple situations just this week where my feelings of shame and wrongness have overtaken me. Old stuff, new situations- doesn’t matter. I can and do let them all walk over me. Oh I talked too much about my wedding and hurt people’s feelings who were not invited (I was called self-absorbed, among other things) so I felt (still feel!) like I did something wrong by finally being happy. Oh I showed up for my dance studio trade shift to find a new crew member was there to do my job so I was left with no work and feeling like I didn’t belong, that I wasn’t wanted. Oh I saw something about an ex on line that made me question everything he’d put me through for years so I felt like a chump, a fool, and easily forgotten. There are deeper stories to all of these but I’m afraid to share them in detail. You know, because I’ve convinced myself I’m so wrong.

I’m in a beat up place, you guys. I’m a total hard ass so I don’t expect I’ll ease up on myself very readily. But I needed to say this aloud, with witnesses. I walk around in my wrongness and that’s just wrong.

Hard & Tearful Choices

Yesterday was a tearful day, friends.

Sadly, Oliver’s condition is much worse than we anticipated. Before the vet was to perform surgery, she took a radiograph of Oliver’s chest. Unfortunately, it showed  abnormalities so after a second opinion from a radiologist, it was confirmed that his cancer has spread to his lymph nodes and chest. We are all heartbroken. No one more so than my mom.

After a lengthy discussion with the vet, we decided to keep him comfortable with medicines so he can enjoy what time he has left rather than put him through the surgery that would not prolong his life but rather eat up the time he has left with a painful recovery process. It’s hard to say how long he’ll have but it could be one to three months. Despite being at the vet for the greater part of the day, he was in good spirits, wagging his tail and charming everyone he met with his boisterous affection. He will have his good days and his bad days in the months to come and we intend to give him tender care and spoil him even more.

Your good thoughts, prayers, well wishes, and donations have buoyed my mom’s spirit during this sad and stressful time. Any left over donations that didn’t cover his vet bill will be either returned to the donor or if they wish, donated to the Morris Animal Foundation – a non-profit that invests in advancing veterinary science and is partnering on canine cancer research.

The world is full of goodness and kindness and you are all a reminder of that. Thank you so much for your support.

Below is a message from my mom & Oliver:

To all the loving, caring, giving people who have sent their best wishes, support both emotional and financial, I say thank you from the bottom of my heart.

 

Words can not express completely how moved I am by the out pouring of love and generosity from friends, family, and those of you who I have never met. I am overwhelmed by all of it.

 

Oliver will be well-loved and cared for in his last days, weeks or months with us. Thank you all for being there for us in our time of need.

Love,

MK & Oliver

Updates

Thank you so much for your outpouring of good thoughts and monetary support. I am, repeatedly, moved by the goodness of people. So far we’ve raised $1000 towards Oliver’s surgery which is AMAZING and has made me teary. The overall cost could be close to $3500 but every single dollar helps ease my mom’s stress. She wants to do whatever she can to give Oliver a fighting chance and thanks to so many of you, she can. His surgery is scheduled for Tuesday and in the meantime we wait and hope. I was over at her house last night and he enjoyed the lamb shank bone I brought to him even though he hasn’t been eating much.

*******

Our basement still looks like this:

It’s depressing. We’ve been living with this mess since before Thanksgiving. The crew has come out and demolished the concrete outside our basement door attempting to find the footing drain (no avail). They have pulled off our baseboards attempting to locate the source but only found a small patch of the foundation where water trickles in. The carpet has been pulled back for so long I’m not sure it will ever not looked warped. Tomorrow another crew is supposed to come out to dig down 8 feet outside by our back door in the hopes to find our footing drain, locate a clog, and finally fix it. If they dig down, breaking the concrete and creating another huge mess, and don’t find the footing drain? We have an even bigger problem. Meanwhile the estimate to fix this goes up and the only thing that’s actually been repaired is one of our downspouts. To say Mr. Darcy and I are at our wit’s end over this fiasco would be an understatement.

The part that really riles us is their pacing. They will send one guy or a crew out then have no follow-up. Days will go by and we’ll be calling them trying to figure out what is going on and what the next step is. We have literally called them every day this week having been promised a new bid/estimate and a crew to come out Friday. I realize that contractors often get a bad rap but if this is how they manage time? I see why! Meanwhile we are sitting on whatever money we have hoping it will be enough to pay for this. We just want our room back and Mr. Darcy desperately wants to have his nerd area back.

*****

We didn’t deliver the letter to our neighbors but instead plan to go over and talk to them first. Not that either of us are looking forward to that conversation but we’re heeding your advice. We did not, however, go over on Saturday night when they were having a rockin’ karaoke party with the sound so loud we had to turn up the volume on our tv just to hear the show.

******

Sometimes being a grown up is exhausting.

 

Can you help?

This is a picture of my mom with her best friend, Oliver. They have been inseparable for 8 years, since she adopted him as a puppy. She just learned that he has cancer and needs surgery to save his life- a very expensive surgery that her limited retirement budget cannot afford (they estimate it could cost $3000+). This is heartbreaking for my mom and all of us who love him. I usually describe Oliver as a big Muppet. He’s just a huge lovebug – always eager to play fetch, go in the water, or eat my mom’s slippers. He hasn’t been himself lately thanks to a growth on his spleen. Just Saturday my mom woke up to him thrashing around her bedroom. He was in the middle of a seizure thanks to the growth causing internal bleeding. It was very scary for them both and she spent the night lying next to him, worried out of her mind.

My mom left her beautiful home and comfortable life in Monterey, CA to move to Seattle to help take care of my nephew and be closer to us. She’s the type of person who gives all she has to those she loves. We wish we had the money to pay for the entire surgery but we don’t (thanks stupid basement!). My mom is a proud person who doesn’t like to ask for help so I am asking for her and for Oliver.

If you would like to contribute to Oliver’s surgery fund, I know that my Mom would be forever grateful. She’s been so worried and stressed about how she could help him knowing she doesn’t have the financial resources. My mom taught us that pets are family and there has been no truer example of that than Oliver- the sweetest Golden Retriever I’ve ever met.

Gifts can be made to my Pay Pal account at sizzlesays at gmail dot com.

Thank you in advance for anything you can give. Every gift has a deep impact. And your good vibes, prayers, and love are so appreciated!

Being Neighborly

A few months ago the vacant house next to us became occupied. So far I’ve only seen their feet out of our basement window and heard them singing. Yes, singing. As in karaoke at top volume. It’s so loud in fact, we can hear it from our living room. Which, for perspective, is at the other end of the house from where their house sits adjacent to ours.

That’s some serious karaoke volume.

At first we just thought they were partying. I mean, it was the holidays and so it made sense for people to have festive gatherings with possibly loud music. But then on Christmas Eve, Mr. Darcy and I snuck over to the edge of our lawn and looked. We could see into their living room window through a sheer curtain. There were holiday lights strung around and the glass was steamed up from the body heat inside. It was between songs and it was clear when someone got on the mic that this wasn’t just the radio we’d been hearing but bona-fide karaoke.

Karaoke in another language so that none of the songs are familiar to us. Does that make this a worse torture or easier?

So it’s now nearing the end of January and still, the random karaokeing continues. Like Friday when I worked from home. The male neighbor was at it around 2 in the afternoon, seemingly all by himself. I filmed this short video of it. This is me standing outside our bedroom window facing their living room (where the karaoke magic happens). (Sorry about videotaping it the wrong way.) (He is performing a rare English song, still unrecognizable to me.)

You guys? They are awful singers. Regardless of the fact that most of the time they are singing in a language I don’t know, they are all tone-deaf. They are like the people who audition for American Idol and suck so hard but swear that people have been telling them their entire lives they are good singers. No. YOU ARE NOT A GOOD SINGER. Maybe get a new hobby.

And why so much karaoke? Are they professionals? Is there a karaoke circuit I don’t know about where people compete for money? Are they planning on starting their own karaoke nightclub and host parties in their house as some sort of pyramid scheme to fund it? WHAT IS GOING ON AND WHY IS IT HAPPENING NEXT DOOR?

Those who follow me on Twitter (and even on Facebook) have heard me lament about this situation already. Whyyyyyyyy karaoke of all things at top volume? Didn’t we leave our urban apartment for this tranquil suburbia to escape such nonsense? Didn’t we suffer enough at the hands of The Music Man back at our old building?

I have written a letter, one in which I hope is taken in a neighborly way, explaining that we can hear their karaokeing from across the entirety of our house and especially in our bedroom where it is often very hard for us to fall asleep. I really just want them to know that it’s bothersome. Because here I am hoping that them knowing it’s a nuisance would mean they would have the good sense and manners to turn down the volume. I always want to believe people will be good and considerate. I’m probably setting myself up for an epic let down, aren’t I?

People have suggested all sorts of tactics in retaliation but since we own this house and have no plans on moving, I think we might want to try a nice approach first before calling the cops on a noise complaint or something. If the letter doesn’t work, then I’m ready to invite you all over so we can go knock on their door en mass with our karaoke song slips in hand. “Hey! We heard there was a karaoke party happening and we’re ready for our turn.”

Who’s in?

Weekend Wonderful

I have just returned from a laughter-filled weekend spent with dearest girlfriends in a magical place. So yes, my weekend was great. How was yours?

We arrived at Doe Bay Resort & Retreat on Orcas Island in the dark of Friday night so it wasn’t until Saturday morning’s sunrise when I fully realized what a place of beauty we had arrived at. This was the view from our cabin.

Yes, this will do.

After an unusual yoga class (the teacher’s style was unlike any we had ever experienced and we’ve all taken our share of yoga over the years), I made us breakfast and then we embarked on an exploration hike of the grounds.

The whole reason we even decided to come to Doe Bay was because Jeni Angel invited me. She stayed in the retreat house with 19 of her closest friends and we stayed across the way at a smaller cabin. We were glad to get to see her and spend whatever time with her we could.

This is what a Jeni Angel Love Sandwich looks like.

Besides it being a great chance to reconnect with these lovelies and with nature, The Local Strangers were going to be playing an intimate show- bonus! So after our wanderings and a very early, prolonged happy hour (that started at 3pm), and an impromptu dance party (thanks Macklemore music), we spent our evening enjoying live music in the very yoga studio where we started the day.

We managed to wake up and catch Sunday’s sunrise despite the partying that went on the day before.

We had planned on eating at the cafe which everyone raves but about 5 minutes into sitting down in the booth, the power went out. No breakfast for us! Instead we scrambled to pack up and make the 11:30 ferry. Next time, I’m definitely trying the cafe. And yes, for certain, there will be a next time. Maybe for my 40th birthday celebration? We’ll see. . .

Women of Influence: Musicians

Madonna’s Like a Virgin album was one of the first cassettes I had. I remember choreographing and performing countless “shows” with my sister and our friends that we’d then force our parents to watch repeatedly. Madonna was the first female singer I adored closely followed by Cyndi Lauper and Pat Benetar. These women opened up a whole new world to me and made me daydream of being a star. Every kid should have that.

“You must be my Lucky Star, ’cause you shine on me wherever you are, I just think of you and I start to glow, and I need your light, and baby you know”

___________________

My first listen to Joni Mitchell was on vinyl. A beat up LP of Blue that I rescued from the thrift store stacks. I remember how her voice moved through me, how I felt like she was singing truths about my own life even though I was only 19 or 20 and had barely begun to really live. She sang of feelings I held in my heart and dreams I kept close. I’d spend hours lying on my bed replaying her records. You would have thought it was 1972 not 1992.

This song, “A Case of You,” has been covered by many artists but my loyalty will always lie with Joni’s original version.

“Part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time. . . oh you are in my blood like holy wine, and you taste so bitter but you’re so sweet, oh I could drink a case of you. . . and still be on my feet”

___________________

It was back when MTV actually showed videos and you’d wait for hours for your favorite video to air. It was before the age of the internet, before everything was one Google search away, and I was sitting on the couch waiting to see Tori Amos. I’d never seen or heard anyone like her. She was quirky and raw and I listened to Little Earthquakes on repeat. To this day, some twenty years later, I can still sing the entire album from start to finish. She made sense to me then, as if all the poems and journal entries I’d filled blank books with were not crazy, that I was not crazy for feeling all the feelings and writing about them.

“I got something to say you know but nothing comes, yes I know what you think of me, you never shut up, yeah I can hear that but what if I’m a mermaid in these jeans of his with her name still on it, hey but I don’t care ’cause sometimes, I said sometimes, I hear my voice and it’s been here, silent all these years”

___________________

I was a music junkie in my late teens and early 20′s. Jenny Two Times and I spent hours upon hours at the record store,  driving around Silicon Valley singing at the top of our lungs with not much else to do except work our shifts at Michaels, go to junior college classes, meet up with friends at the coffee shop, and go to concerts.  It was 1993 and I was 20 years old. My father had just died and I was full of confusing and conflicting feelings. And then I found Liz Phair. I’d never heard a woman sing like that- with an imperfect voice, unapologetically bare and sometimes crass. She was edgy and angry and a tough chick. In her music I found an outlet for the anger and grief churning inside me.

“And I want a boyfriend, I want a boyfriend, I want all that stupid old shit like letters and sodas, and I can feel it in my bones, I’m gonna spend another year alone, it’s fuck and run, fuck and run, even when I was seventeen”

___________________

It was my second year at UC Santa Cruz as a Women’s Studies major and I was taking a Women’s Poetry class. In our section (a small group discussion) one of the lone boys in the class pulled out an acoustic guitar and sang “Both Hands” when it was his turn to share a poem that made him love poetry.  And that? Was my first introduction to Ani DiFranco. It was love at first listen. Her songs were rebellious and tough, tender and honest. They gave voice to many of my own thoughts, ones I didn’t think I was powerful enough to share. Listening to her made me feel brave and her music became the soundtrack to my year.

“I am writing graffiti on your body, I am drawing the story of how hard we tried, I am watching your chest rise and fall like the tides of my life, and the rest of it all, and your bones have been my bed frame, and your flesh has been my pillow, I am waiting for sleep to offer up the deep with both hands”

_______________________
I tried to fit in when I first moved to Santa Cruz for college. I wore the Birkenstocks. I didn’t shave for a winter. I smoked weed. But none of those things stuck; I just felt like I was trying on a persona of an earthy girl. But then one rainy winter afternoon as I attempted to study in a coffee shop, I heard Billie Holiday. Her voice broke with emotion as hippies and hapless skaters and fellow students sat around sipping coffee and I was changed. I grew up listening to Frank Sinatra but this was the first I’d heard Billie. Jazz was a staple in all the local cafes and I quickly devoured her music, listening to it on repeat much to the annoyance of my housemate. I discovered Ella Fitzgerald too and together, us three, we sang our hearts out. This was right before the movie Swingers came out when everyone got the Big Band craze. It wasn’t long until I was donning vintage dresses, going to jazz shows, and learning to swing dance.

“Good morning heartache, you old gloomy sight. good morning heartache thought we said goodbye last night, I turned and tossed ’til it seemed you had gone,but here you are with the dawn”

______________________

Who are your musical influences?

Our Wedding Photos Are Here!

Our long-awaited professional photos have arrived. Woo! It was so fun to relive that magical day as we picked through these awesome shots. We can’t thank Heather and Jon from One Love Photo enough for being so wonderful to work with. If you are in Seattle and looking for photographers, we highly recommend them.

You can view the fantastic slideshow they put together- complete with two songs we used in our ceremony- and it’s almost like you were there except you don’t get any pie or ice cream. You can click here to watch it (will need Flash). Seriously, go watch it and come back and tell me what you think!

Otherwise, here are some highlights:

The very nervous groom attempts to dress himself.

My husband-to-be & his best man find time to goof off before our first look photos.

Make up done, getting the final touches on my hair.

My mom helps me get my jewels on.

We spent an hour or so together getting pictures taken before we met up with our families.

I love this one.

Art deco bride & groom.

Cutest ringbearer and most awesome nephew.

The bridal party.

My sister and I pretending we’re in Sex & the City.

This is the moment I first saw Darcy as I turned the corner down the aisle.

We’re almost hitched!

Smugly married.

Joyful in the misty rain.

First dance thanks to the awesome Local Strangers.

Watching our reception video & laughing.

Being toasted by funny, sweet friends & family.

Darcy and his nerds.

Me and some of my oldest, dearest friends (sorry, Jenny Two Times that your eyes are closed in this)

Where my nephew is, there is dancing.

Other wedding sharing posts- – -

Sharing our vows
Sharing our When Harry Met Sally-esque reception video
On being wed
Our decor details

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Shout outs- – -
Hair: D’Arcy Harrison at Emerson Salon
Make Up: Sarah Swanberg
Bride’s Dress: David’s Bridal
Tuxes: Men’s Wearhouse
Maid of Honor and Officiant Dresses: eShakti
Venue: 1927 Events
Caterers: Skillet
Dessert: A La Mode Pies, Bluebird Microcreamery
Band: The Local Strangers
Day of Coordination: Amy Faulkner at Social Things
Photographers: One Love Photo
Hotel: Sheraton Seattle (groom), Hotel Andra (bride)