The offbeat bride: Kate, admin lackey (midwife-wanna-be)

Her offbeat partner: Matt, wind turbine tech

Location & date of wedding: My parents’ backyard in Wadsworth, Ohio. May 10, 2008.

What made our wedding offbeat: Well, first of all, we were already married! We met in a chemistry class last fall, got engaged by Thanksgiving, and decided we wanted to be married in February. So we went down to the courthouse with our parents while still planning the small ceremony in May.

Matt & I wanted a ceremony and dinner that was small, non-formal, and personal. No big, cold, overly-glittery venue for us. We didn’t want to spend much money, and neither of us had much time to put into planning, since we both work and go to school. I have much more fun planning events like this, though, so I gladly took on most of that task.

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Happy new years, everyone! It was exactly one year ago today that I officially unveiled (har har) this website. And what a crazy fucking year it’s been.

I spent the first half of 2006 aggressively promoting the hell out of my book the traditional ways, with readings all over the country and lots of press with radio interviews, newspaper articles, and tv appearances. It was really REALLY exhausting, often demoralizing, and didn’t seem to do much for book sales, honestly. I mean, the book did fine … but not great.

The second half of the year I focused exclusively on promoting the book via this website and not only did book sales markedly improve, but I started making money from offbeat advertisements! Yay. That makes the entrepreneur in me happy. Traffic has gone from 8,000 visits in January 2007 to over 60,000 in December 2007. DAMN! You could draw all sorts of conclusions from this (mainstream media dead? print being eclipsed by web? elvis still alive?) but I’ll just say that I’m happy it’s working out. Thanks to each of you for being a part of that working out-ness!

With a year of content on the site now, I know it’s easy for things to get lost in the archives … and with there being a whole new wave of freshly engaged offbeat brides for 2008, I’m going to start occasionally linking to older posts that I think have stood the test of time, just as a way to keep older stuff fresh in the minds of newer brides and to keep from having to repeat myself.

Also, incidentally, today is Andreas and my “real” anniversary. We don’t really celebrate our wedding anniversary but we’re all about our “kissaversary,” which was New Years Day, 1998. WOOHOO! That baby wearing the pink wig? That was me the first night I kissed Andreas.

The offbeat bride: Christina, Architect/intern

My offbeat groom: Michael, Musician/vintage furniture salesman

Location & date of wedding: Ceremony at Trinity Church and reception at Sunset Tavern, both in Seattle, June 2007.

What made our wedding offbeat: We tried to do things our way and not get caught up in everything we “had to have” for the wedding. We were able to have a totally rockin’ wedding with a very small budget.

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I’ve been chewing over publishing trends, the Dooce suit, my own book coming out in a few months, and the emails I’ve gotten with book questions … this is to say, chewing over bloggers becoming authors. I’m hardly an expert on the subject other than my own personal experiences (my book and Columbia Publishing Course), but still … I’ve got some thought about bloggers becoming non-fiction authors. (Fiction is a whole different beast that I know nothing about.)

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As part of the editing process, the copyeditor who’s working on my book put together a list of uncommon words that I used that she wanted to make sure she styled consistently. It cracks me up. What a window into the weirdness of my book! Want to see?

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Poor Patrick. He didn’t know what he was getting into when he agreed to take a pass at my book:

****WHOA. UH. HMMM. I’M ALL FOR ASS-FUCKING REFERENCES, BUT THIS SORTA COMES OUT OF NOWHERE … ***

This made me laugh until I almost started crying. Trust me: the reference makes perfect sense in context, so I chose to STET the edit. Which means that yes, my book about weddings mentions ass-fucking at one point.

My friend Patrick (who was my copy chief during my time at Movies.com, and who therefore is intimately acqainted with all my writerly flaws) is doing an editing pass at my book, and his feedback is the best. Here’s an example from the chapter about rings:

As for Andreas and I me, we ultimately decided that we liked the symbolism of rings — I’m pretty dang agnostic, but what faith I have tends to revolve around cycles and circles. It’s the shape that planets move in****TECHNICALLY, PLANETS MOVE IN ELLIPTICAL ORBITS, NOT CIRCULAR ONES****, that rain droplets form, that our pupils are shaped have.

Status of book:

I’ve been up at 5am every day this week to get in hours of revisions before going to work. Tomorrow I hand my first draft complete to my editor, lit agent, and adored Patrick, who’s on friend/editor patrol to personally ensure I don’t look like a dumb-ass (or at least any more than I usually do). Squeal! It’s really hard, as a blogger, to hand off writing. What, you mean I can’t revise and republish over and over again? I’m so spoiled by push-button publishing.

Status of kitchen:

Best summed up in two words: total disaster.

Moral of the story? While I’m doing ok as a writer, I ain’t no housekeeper.