Rachel & I completed the Mystic Places Marathon relay on Sunday, and… we came in second!

…out of the mixed open relay runners

…for teams of two

…out of two total teams in that category.

Actually, we probably should have registered as “Mixed Family,” but
whatever — the point is we finished in 3:46:34 and loved every minute
of it. In retrospect.

We got our photos back from Jonathan, and they’re great! I started scanning them, which really doesn’t do them justice, but nonetheless I’m uploading them here. I’ve gotten through about 1/3 of the black-and-whites and hope to finish those by… tomorrow?

Rachel & I were very grateful to have received some wonderful gifts
at our wedding, and we will be starting the storied process of writing
thank-you notes over the next few weeks, inshallah. Most people were aware that we had designated the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter as the near-exclusive “registry,”
on the principle that we didn’t really need all that much. Many people
did so, and we are excited that to date, our friends and family have
donated well over $2,000 to the shelter. (They are seeking $200K for
significant kitchen renovation, and every dollar helps!).

We did also receive very nice gift checks from several individuals
for which we are very grateful. Several of these were sent to us with
the explicit instruction to donate the amount to the shelter. Several,
however, were not, and some came from individuals who had separately
donated to the shelter directly.

It is equally true today as it was a year ago when we made the
decision about the charity registry that we are not in serious need of
any particular household items — not any more so than any couple ever
has, at any rate. We were also fortunate that the wedding was entirely
paid for by Rachel’s parents, so we do not need the money to cover any
wedding debts.

My questions to our readership (all 5 of you!) are:

1. Would people who gave us cash gifts feel offended or slighted if we donated that amount to the shelter?
2. If not, should we donate some or all of the amount to the
   shelter, for the same reasons as we had decided to designate the
   shelter as our charity to begin with?

I know it’s probably gauche to discuss these questions publicly, but.

It
seems married life consists primarily of attending other couples’
weddings! We were honored to attend our good friend Theresa and Adam’s
wedding in New Hampshire. Rachel participated as a reader in the very
thoughtful ceremony (”Always the reader, never the bridesmaid”).

In some ways going to the wedding was like an extension on our honeymoon (which was itself built around Yet Another Wedding #1). And I will get around to writing about our week in England!

A few weeks ago we fired our florist.
(Technicially, we never hired them, but the sentiment is the same).
Rachel & I were committed to keeping the wedding within budget. We
had allocated $800 for flowers — around here that is a very low price,
but honestly, there are many more worthwhile things
you can do with $800 than blow them on 8 hours’ worth of flowers. We
had been discussing our plans with one of the store’s proprietors for
about 2 months. While this guy (let’s call him “Bruce” – he does)
seemed to really listen to our ideas and had a very creative approach
to the flowers, he also was terribly disorganized and flaky. We figured
this would be an OK tradeoff, though we also were considering how to
set up the contract to ensure on-time performance on the actual wedding
day.

Well, when it came time to finalize our plans, Bruce came back to us
with a $1,200 proposal — way beyond our budget and means. Rachel ended
up in a 11pm discussion with him in which she tried to cut the number
of flowers and arrangements to hit our budget. Bruce pulled every trick
he could to keep the price up. Finally, Rachel flat-out told him, “If
you need to hit $1,000 to make a profit, just tell us.” If he had said
“yes,” we probably would have paid. But he refused to answer, and
instead threatened us with the possibility of late delivery.

We don’t take kindly to threats, and that was that. What could have
been a small but profitable business deal for him and a very creative
floral arrangement for us went out the window. Luckily, flowers just
weren’t a priority for us, so we decided to go with a local, albeit
more expensive, flower shop to produce just personal flowers (bouquet,
boutonnieres).

Maybe others have had a good experience with these guys. I don’t know; Bruce never gave us wedding references. My best advice: stay away.

Thanks to runoff and other pollution, for the second straight year
clams are dying in mass numbers in Narrangasett Bay. Hopefully this
won’t affect the catering for our wedding.

Note to self: all music from the Democratic National Convention goes on the “Do not play list.”

Or as boingboing calls it, “cakemod.”

After many fruitless trips to Paper Source, refuge of the imaginatively
crippled, we’ve realized that its entire business model rests on
selling every customer the exact same “unique” paper experience. That’s
right, you and 100,000 other couples can send petal invitations that
reflect your own, personal, conformist identity. Thanks, Paper Source!