Invites - the supplies arrived!

About four or five months ago (I think...time flies when you're planning a wedding) I found "my" invitations. A set of dupioni silk-covered pocketfolds. I was in love. They were magnificent. See?
I found them on Wedding Bee. Me, being the ambitious, slightly neurotic person that I am decided that I simply HAD to have them. But, being frugally conscious, I also decided that I couldn't buy them ($20+ per invite? Hells no!). Which left DIY. Luckily, the Wedding Bee member who posted these fab invites in a contest there was also a knottie, and had put together a bio of directions for making them. What follows in this post (and a soon to be directions post) is an update of her directions (set for making 100 pocketfolders), tweaked with some tips and tricks I discovered.

I put off making these forever (we'll say it was because I was interning, finishing up law school, and studying for the bar ;)), but then finally decided that my bar trip would be the absolute perfect time to get started on this ambitious project. Last Thursday, I took the plunge and ordered the supplies I needed to make 100 pocketfolders. What supplies, you ask? These supplies:


Cardstock
I ordered 55 sheets of black cardstock and 110 sheets of gold cardstock from Anchor Paper's Express Store, for an astonishingly low price of only $76, including shipping. I had them cut the black cardstock into 17.975 x 16 inch squares (to get two pocketfolds per piece), and the gold cardstock into 7.75" x 5.75".

Fabric
I ordered 25 yards (calculation mistake - apparently I'm bad at math when I'm tired *sheepish grin*) of midnight black dupioni from Fabric Freak on eBay for $11.50 per yard + shipping. I actually only needed 12 yards, so I'm in the market for either (a) someone to buy the leftover yardage, or (b) someone to suggest something nifty to do with 13 yards of black dupioni silk. Note: I highly recommend this seller. They had the best price I could find for the quality and quantity of silk I wanted, shipping was super fast (I won on Thursday evening, it arrived Tuesday), and their staff was incredibly friendly.


Spray Adhesive
I used Krylon spray adhesive. For 100 pocketfolds, I needed approximately 1.5 cans.





Clear Liquid Adhesive
I used Tombow MonaAqua, and it worked great. Whatever you use, MAKE SURE IT DRIES CLEAR. Some liquid adhesives dry a milky color.





Rotary Trimmer I used a Fiskars handheld rotary trimmer and it worked wonderfully. Just make sure to buy replacement blades (I purchased a pack of five) and change them when necessary. Cutting through the cardstock wears out the blades, and a worn out blade = frayed fabric.




Adhesive (Tape) Dispenser
I used an EK Success Dotto Dots Dispenser (make sure to get the permanent dots, not the removable ones).







Necessary, but not pictured (I'm pretty sure you know what these look like. ;)):

Scissors
Make sure to get a freshly sharpened pair, again, to prevent fraying.

Metal Yardstick
A short ruler really won't do if you're using cardstock this size. Trust me, you'll thank me later for making you buy the yardstick. Also, make sure to get a metal one. Blades cut through the wooden and plastic one, and the metal makes a sturdier base against which to press your blade to get a straight cut.

Rotary cutting mat The trimmer I bought came with a smaller one (pictured above). That worked...sorta. We left midway to purchase a larger one that permitted us to make one cut instead of many smaller cuts.

Coming soon: Step by step instructions. :)

The New Name

I must be the worst blogger on the planet. I'm officially done with the bar, I don't have a job yet, and I STILL can't find time to blog? Yeah...I suck at blogging.

But my slacking aside, I thought I'd point people's attention to the fact that the name at the top of this blog has officially changed - to "Confessions of Feminist Bride". I'm hoping that this might free my inner writer to post more often. Because, you see, I'm afraid I'm not finding this whole wedding business thing to be nearly as exciting as all of my activist political goings-on. And E08 on the Nest has officially redeemed my wedding planning exuberance in my fiance's eyes. ;)

Don't get me wrong, I'll still be writing about my ever-so-exciting weddings finds and plans (e.g. you're bound to soon see the mess that I will be creating out of the dupioni and cardstock I ordered to create invitations) but I think I'm feeling like the new and improved name will allow me to focus a little more on the things I am finding most important about the institution of marriage right now, i.e. the inequalities is can foster, and the potential it has too erase those inequalities.

To start things of (and yes, I know this isn't exactly wedding related, but it's family-related, and many would consider that part and parcel of marriage...), I'm reading this phenomenal book by Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels. I stopped by my favorite neighborhood bookstore while I was packing for my bar trip vacation down to Holden Beach (hurray for sand between your toes!) and picked up "The Mommy Myth." I'm not that far into it yet (I have to admit that I read some fluff on the way down here - "Angels & Demons") but so far I'm finding it excellent. It's an intellectual, yet incredibly humorous and entertaining, examination of the ways in which motherhood has been idealized to such a degree that it is unattainable by many, if not most, women. Definitely pick it up when you get a chance.

Until later (probably tomorrow when the silk arrives),

~ Heather

What's In a Name?

Wow...so my apologies for being away for so long, but studying for and taking the NY bar exam kinda saps your extra time and energy. For realz. But I'm finished now (HURRAY!) so I have some free time to play around with wedding planning while emailing lots of resumes and waiting for the job calls to start coming in.

During this awe-inducing period of a lack of required things to do, I thought I'd share my thoughts on the ever-pressing name-change debate. The day after the bar, I stumbled to my laptop, booted up, and went to my fav wedding website, the Knot, for a day of lazing on the couch, watching bad made-for-tv movies and knotting.

The first question I noticed seemed like a simple one: "Help a feminist address her invites." Ah, but of course, on the Planning & Etiquette board, NOTHING etiquette related is simple. In my women's studies-trained, feminist-minded brain, addressing an invite to:

"Mr. and Mrs. John Doe"

is the ultimate in a line of sexist wedding etiquette related nonsense. Do women who choose to change their last names also lose their first names in the process? In the mind of the world's great etiquette nazis, apparently so. But then, I'm of the opinion that words MEAN something; they have a material effect in the world (i.e. the words we choose can change the world - for better OR worse). In this case, refusing to acknowledge a woman's first name once she's married is a de facto erasure of her identity.

And it's not as innocent as it looks. For instance, when I questioned other brides about WHY an invite had to be addressed this way, I was told that it was "tradition," "etiquette, "and that adding the woman's first name either (a) separated the man's first name from his last (apparently a gasp-worthy etiquette blunder) and/or (b) it was simply "too wordy." But when I asked whether addressing an invite to Mr. and Mrs. JANE Doe would be appropriate, I received silence. A very telling silence. Because, obviously, this second option would be just as brief as using John Doe, yet no one was willing to do it.

Women (and men) have fought too long and too hard to bring women OUT of the shadows simply to have them thrust back into darkness due to some antiquated notions about who the head of a household is or should be. Following a sexist tradition just because it's "tradition" is an inherent acceptance of the sexism behind the tradition - and that's just wrong.

This debate, of course, sparked a new debate. Should married women change their names at all? Was it anti-feminist to do so? Asking the question is, of course, itself loaded. Why not ask if married men should change their names? More and more are deciding to hyphenate both names or creating entirely new names in the process, so the procedure isn't SOLELY related to women any more (even if the overwhelming majority of name change applicants are female).

Women getting married are often forced to endure criticism no matter what choice they make about thier surname. If they take their husband's name, they criticized for beind too traditional. If they keep their own, they criticized for being a (*gasp*) feminist, and told that their children won't feel connected to them, told that their husband's name might die out (oh the horror). And god forbid they hyphenate their last names. Because, after all, what if your hypothetical child then decides to marry someone with a hyphenated name. The world might just explode from the chaos that would create!

And for women who are well-known in their fields, the task is even more daunting. What if your clients (both old, current, and new) don't recognize you anymore? For lawyers, particularly, this can be an issue. In New York (as elsewhere) an attorney who changes her name must wait for board acceptance of her new name (which can take anywhere from 1 month to a year) before she can practice under that name.

Reports indicate that more and more women are choosing NOT to change their names; not surprising given the hooplah that one has to go through to make sure that social security cards, credit cards, banks, mortgages, student loans, jobs, insurance policies, retirement plans, magazines, etc all must be notified of the change.

This upsurge in non-name change marriages has led to a post-feminist backlash. More and more women are speaking out against those who keep their given surnames, claiming that women should be "free" to change their names to their husbands without "feminists" badgering them about their personal decisions. While I agree with many that the decision to change one's name is a personal one, I think that the societal implications of a personal decision should also be considered. For women, changing one's name upon marriage is based upon a sexist tradition, denying married women their autonomy, and the decision to follow this tradition shouldn't be made lightly. However, changing your name doesn't HAVE to indicate your acceptance of sexist values. Many women do not feel any connection to their birth surname or feel a distinct dislike for it (enter the Butts, Bottoms, Weiners, Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorffs, as well as the simply unfortunately named - Ms. Ginger Snaps- here). Others weigh their attachment to their surname with their future husband's attachment to his against their desire for a common name.

I think my point is that, as any good feminist will tell you, every woman should have the right to change, or not change her name as she sees fit. Feminism is, after all about permitting women to make their own choices about their own lives. I guess all that I would ask is that this choice be made intelligently, with full awareness of the historical beginnings of the practice and to the current societal implications of changing one's name, and not blindly done to accomodate "tradition."

.....

For what it's worth, our invites will be addressed to: Mr. John and Mrs. Jane Doe (assuming spouses share the same name) or Mrs. Jane Doe and Mr. John Smith - etiquette be damned. But I'm still not sure precisely what I'm going to do in terms of my own name change. The feminist in me is screaming that I shouldn't give in, that I should keep my current surname - but given that (a) I'm not yet terribly well known in my field, (b) I have no real attachment to my surname (it's not my birth name), and (c) my fiance actually has some level of attachment to his last name, I'm leaning towards changing it.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see...