Weddingbee bios

Hi out there everyone!

I have to admit, this whole wedding planning thing is a bit overwhelming. Luckily I have a super-organized older sister to guide me through it all.

We are Dani and Nelson. We just got engaged about 3 weeks ago and this is all very new to us. Nelson proposed on cliffs overlooking the ocean at Te Toto Gorge, a beautiful spot near where we live in Raglan, New Zealand. We are temporary kiwis, living in New Zealand for a few years while he pursues his PhD in science education.

We were both high school teachers when we lived in the US, and met teaching at a private high school in New Hampshire. I taught Spanish and Nelson taught Environmental Science. These days we find ourselves spending most of our time in the garden. We run an organic veggie garden for an eco-retreat in Raglan and teach courses on human-scale sustainable agriculture.

I think the thing we are most excited about for the wedding is getting all of our friends and family together for a fun time. It is really important to us that we do as much as we can to limit the environmental and social impacts of our big day, so we are looking forward to finding creative and fun ways of making our wedding footprint as small as possible. We don't have a date or even a location picked yet, but we know we want to be outdoors and we want to try to know the growers/producers of all of the food personally.

Here we go!!

Pushbikes for 10k over a gravel road,
Te Toto gorge is so beautiful it gave you vertigo.
Hike down the trail, breakers in front and far below.
The Tasman Sea to our right.
Windblown tree and that would be a good spot to camp.
“So do you think we should get married?”
“I mean, [Ms. Veggie Farmer], will you marry me?”
“Ask me again”
“Yes, yes, yes”
Lay back in the grass in your arms.
Two clouds in the sky, a double helix, no an ibex horn.
Three layers of clouds moving in opposite directions.
Can’t stop smiling.
We’re getting married!
“Sheep, you are all invited”.

 

Me: "Look at me and think about how you're going to feel the day we get married".

The camera comes out and suddenly Mr. Veggie Farmer's smile looks like the Joker. Me: "Relax your cheeks". Him: "They are relaxed"

 

This is my first attempt at an inspiration board for our "green" wedding. It was really fun, so I forsee doing many more in the next year. We are thinking Sept. 2010 and will most likely get married in New England at farm or summer camp. I know it's a bit trendy (and I'm not usually one to pick up on trends), but I'm really into saffron/grey/brown lately. I think it would work well for an end-of-summer wedding. Alot of these pictures were grabbed from other bees, so maybe you've seen them before.

I think my best idea so far is that our ring bearer will be riding a vintage tricycle to bring our rings down the aisle. It will be fun for him and since we bike a lot will bring a bit of us into the ceremony. It also might make it a bit easier for him since he will only be 4 at the time of the wedding. The picture in the board (bottom center) is the trike we will use, but the little one on it is my niece Annie (future flowergirl). Would love to hear ideas for local vendors in New England or ideas on how to improve on our big day.

Mr. Veggie Farmer is good at many things. Ok, he's so good at so many things that it can drive (Soon-to-be) Mrs. Veggie Farmer a bit mad. But the one thing that he lacks is good common sense about fashion. His style might be best described as "Functional Salvation Army" (but that's why I love him, right?).

You might say that Mr. Veggie's proposal was a bit of a surprise for both of us. So much of a surprise that the day he popped the question he hadn't bought an engagement ring yet. Riding bikes back to our house (Soon-to-be) Mrs. Veggie found herself wearing a big smile and the ring from the key chain of our bike lock.

We are simple folks who like simple things, but even Mr. Veggie Farmer could see that we needed a slightly more suitable engagement ring. The only criteria we had was that we wanted something ethically and environmentally sound. I also wanted something that I could wear every day without worrying about getting bits of compost stuck in it, or snagging it on a chicken feather as I put the girls back in the coop.

He wanted to go out himself and find something special, but in my mind all I could think about was the aforementioned affliction that Mr. Veggie has when it comes to fashion. Is there a tactful way to say "That flourescent orange rock may be eco, but it doesn't go with my eyes?".

Luckily we live in a town full of artists with several jewelry boutiques. We decided ride down to town together, and then split up to see what we found. We went into stores that were right next to each other and five minutes later Mr. Veggie came to find me. He had found the perfect ring. I was skeptical, to say the least, but when I saw what he had found I knew it was perfect. Of course I still had to go to every other boutique in town to see what they had to offer, but he was right. He had found the perfect ring in five minutes (how did he do that?).

My ring is made by Ash Hilton from Nelson, NZ, which is about 300 miles from where we live in Raglan, New Zealand. He crafts the jewelry himself using ethical metal that he has either reclaimed and melted down or mined himself from the black sand beaches on the South Island. Nelson was drawn to a silver ring etched with a design of wind-blown grasses because it reminded him of the spot where he proposed(cute!). I loved the silver, but that particular ring was a bit too big for me. Because Ash is a somewhat local artist, we easily could have had him make us that ring in my size, but we were on a bit of a time crunch since I was travelling home to see my family in just three days and wanted to have the ring before I left. Also, I was more drawn to another ring that had trees etched into it. And so without further ado here is my ring:

 Things we learned about buying a green ring:

- Finding a local artist not only reduces the carbon footprint of your ring, but can help remind you of a special place.

- Ethical metal does not have to be expensive.

- A diamond doesn't make an engagement ring. Although we ended opting for no stone at all, we thought about having a greenstone ring (a locally-available and culturally significant stone in NZ).

- And finally, Mr. Veggie Farmer does have some fashion sense! He was just waiting until the right time to let it show.

 

Things to be aware of when sending out electronic save the dates:

1) If your file name includes "STD", non-wedding-savvy folks on the guest list may be a bit hesitant to open it. And you will be the butt of many family jokes.

2) yahoo will actually freeze your account for a few hours if you try to send an email to too many people (apparently 300 is too many)

We hemmmed and hawed about sending e-STD's, but in the end it fit with the overall feel of our wedding. No frills, budget-frienndly, and most immportant a low environmental footprint.

Our STD's were designed by our good friend Shari Amos, a graphic designer who does wedding invites (lucky us!). I am in love with them. I couldn't fall asleep last night b/c the 18hr time difference meant that people mmight open our email as early as 1am our time. I might print a few up as keepsakes... that's how much I love them.

This doesn't really have to do with wedding planning, per say, but this poll on the boards section caught my eye, and I felt like I should comment. Mr. Veggie Farmer and I are 14 years apart. I am 27 and he is 41. Which means:

• He is closer in age to my parents (who are 50 and 51) than to me.
• He was a freshman in highschool the year I was born.
• We are both highschool teachers and he has former students who are older than me. Read: He was teaching highschool while I was in highschool. (No, he did not teach at my highschool, you weirdos)

All of those things seem strange, but our relationship works. We get a lot of questions about our age gap, although most people think he is in his early 30's when they first meet us (Farming does a body good!). The one question I get all the time is "Why hasn't he been married before?" or "Don't you worry that he's never going to be ready to be married?". I guess this question bothers me more than any of the other ones because it implies that getting married at a young age and divorced is somehow more acceptable than waiting.

The only area of our relationship that the age gap affects (and it is a big one) is that we want to have a family. Ideally, we would wait a few years after we were married to enjoy our time together, although we've already been together for four years. But, because he will be 42 when we get married, I feel a bit pressured to start sooner. I don't want him to be 70 when our child graduates high school. We are also planning on adopting and many countries have an age limit on adoptions, sometimes as low as 45.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that while the "age-thing" does weigh on my mind sometimes, it seems to weigh much more heavily on everyone else's. When we starting dating our "scandalous" relationship was at the center of much faculty-room gossip. But people get bored quickly, and our solid functional relationship soon lost their interest. So, to all you brides and grooms out there with fine-looking, fine-acting, fine-thinking mature FI's. More power to you. Just like a fine wine, right?