Registry Idea: Deposit A Gift

I recently discovered a fantastic new way to register for wedding gifts! Heather and I really love taking the laser gun at Crate & Barrel and scanning stuff we want, but what if we just aren’t sure we will still want that Areolatte Frother or that digital wine thermometer in a year? And what if we want a little help with the honeymoon? Or paying off my student loans??

Well, Deposit A Gift is perfect! Guests visit the website you create, see what it is you really want, and pay into a general account that you will withdraw from (for a small service fee), once it’s time! You can put literally whatever you want up there: TVs, baseball tickets, Billy Blanks Tae Bo DVDs, velvet Elvis paintings on ebay, whatever. It doesn’t matter, really because your family and friends aren’t actually buying these things--they’re just dumping money into your account! Here are a few tidbits from the “10 Reasons To Love Deposit A Gift” section of their site:

"Just kick back, watch your account grow, and dream about that cruise you've always wanted to take!"

--Sign. Us. Up.

"Gift money is yours to spend on anything you choose, when you decide the time is right."

--So, even if Auntie Margie thinks she is contributing to a new vacuum cleaner, there’s a no-questions-asked policy, so if we want to go all out on our next Mad Men party (new season starts in about a year, probably), we can now afford to do so, guilt free (we’ve had our eyes on a fainting sofa for a while)!



Go ahead and check out some of their sample registries. You can register for dolphin watching, an afternoon spa visit in Bali, room service, or a new digital camera (and that’s just a fraction of what’s on the sample registry). But keep in mind that this is a cash registry, which means they are just dropping money into an account for you, so if you decide that Bali isn’t your thing, no one gots to know about it.

And finally, they only charge a 7.5% service fee, so if you’re really raking it in, it’s totally worth it to have them collect the money for you. No longer do you have to deal with cumbersome registries that deliver gifts to your door—just trust that your family and friends will be willing to drop their hard-earned cash into a Deposit A Gift account online and trust that it will eventually get to you and that you use that money for what you said you needed in order to start your married life off right.

After all, it’s your day.

--Rick

A Million Gramophones

Heather and I are always trying to think of some fresh ideas for the wedding and reception that incorporate our unique essence and flavor with classic sensibilities. We want to create that timeless quality on the big day, but still keep it hip and modern.

And what is more timeless and modern than records??

Music is important to both of us, so we thought a great way to celebrate our interests and inject a little class into the day would be to display a cluster of vintage gramophones. One on its own might be quaint, but if we could have between ten and twenty, it would be ideal. Honestly, I’d go for upwards of a hundred, but at around $350-$3,000 each, via worldofgramophones.com, I’m not sure how this plan will factor into the budget, but I’m willing to sacrifice the food and wedding favors. Because looking at these sweet gramophones will be a favor in and of itself, right?

Let’s be clear, though. I’m not saying we want a record player at the wedding. Any dummy with a 7” collection could do that. I’m talking real, vintage, working, 19th and early 20th century gramophones/phonographs. With the big horns. A hundred of them.



It would also be super classy if we could have them as centerpieces.

Other ideas we have that combine the vintage/modern aesthetics include poor-quality photographs, skinny ties, mustaches, and reverb. If we have microphones on us during the ceremony, there will be a ton of reverb.

If you can think of any other vintage/modern ideas that we could utilize, let us know!

--Rick

I Heard It On NPR: Grow Your Own Wedding

Recently, on my way to 1980s New Wave Dance class, and listening to The Splendid Table podcast, I heard about the best wedding cuisine idea ever--possibly since I came up with the idea of a vegetarian hot dog vendor.

Are you ready? In this show, Julie Grant visits a couple who has decided to GROW THEIR OWN WEDDING MEAL.

I am obviously a DIY-er, so I was immediately interested in how to create our own wedding meal by growing and maintaining natural foods (not our cake, do you think I'm crazy?). Now, we live in a condo with no garden, and I have never grown anything in my life, but we do have a roof and a bunch of leftover plastic cups--our "The Wire" party was not as successful as we had originally intended...

Naturally, after hearing this splendid podcast, I was out the door after class immediately to wrangle up an Upside Down Tomato Planter plus this adorable book which I thought was a journal about gardening with your sweetheart, but it turned out that it is about actual gardens. Oh well.

I am very excited about the prospect of a homegrown, SuperUnion meal. Despite the fact that I am now a vegan, I am willing to make an exception for farm raised Quail eggs, which I'm pretty sure I will be able to procure after I find the perfect, vintage birdcage.


Rick wants nothing to do with my Grow-Your-Own-Wedding-Meal idea but I'm pretty sure that when I mention that roof gardens are really cropping up in Brooklyn, he will come around.

I'm sure the two of us can grow and cook a 4-star meal for 250 people. I should probably register for a Isi Thermo Whipper in the meantime...

-Heather

Paint Chips: A Vent pt. V

Fine.

Compromise: if Rick wants Picket Fence, then Zooey Phoenix is going back in the running as our #1 baby girl name, and I don't want to hear one word of his "Lisztomania" rant.

And it would be nice if he could move over. I don't have enough room on the couch.

-Heather

Paint Chips: A Vent pt. IV

Picket Fence

From landscapingideasonline.com:
"The white picket fence has become an icon. It is not merely a means of tracing a property line or a frame upon which rambling roses may grow. The picket fence has become a symbol of property ownership and an embodiment of a key component of The American Dream." (emphasis added)

I'm just saying. Personally, I think Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness are fine ideals on which to form a SuperUnion. And furthermore I believe that the paint in your bedroom should mean something. But maybe I'm just old fashioned.

--Rick

Paint Chips: A Vent pt. III

1. First of all, Cashmere comes from goats, and maybe Rick would know that if he had listened to me when I told him how expensive monogrammed, cashmere pocket squares would be for wedding favors. There are fewer goats than lambs, obviously.

2. The bedroom is semi-gloss because I painted it during the beginning stages of us dating when Rick constantly accessorized by swishing Old Fashioneds but never drinking them, because of your obsession with Mad Men. Semi-gloss is easier to clean.

3. And lastly, how would he know the color of expired Rice Dream? I have been trying to get him to participate in this vegan trial with me for days, but he is still on the toxic cow juice. Did you know we are the only mammal that drinks milk after adulthood? I'm guessing he doesn't care since he gagged on the Greek yogurt with pomegranate that I made and choked loudly on my roasted pine nuts with spinach and hummus hash.

I love Rick, but we are NOT painting the bedroom Picket Fence. That color is RIDICULOUS.

-Heather

Paint Chips: A Vent pt. II

So if you keep us in your RSS feed, you've probably already read Heather's thoughts on our paint-venture this holiday weekend (please read here if you have yet to).

Yes, it's true. We are facing major decisions, now that the wedding is less than a year away (Heather is pushing for white suede bucks for me at the ceremony but I want some classic black wingtips, the verdict is still out on my coffee bar idea, will the hot dog vendor wear a red and white striped hat or match our wedding colors, etc.) and it's crazy to think that we are already planning for what lies beyond the wedding day.

But it's true. And we have been looking at paint colors for Heather's bedroom, which will soon be our bedroom. Right now it's pee-pee colored. Semi-gloss pee-pee. Or "Chantilly." But when I think of "Chantilly," I think of "Chantilly Lace," which is more black-and-white than pee-pee yellow.

Anyway, here are our top five with Heather's comments and my added follow-up statements:



1. Lamb. I think that this shade is definitely the purest white of the group, not like Pure White which looks like some sort of liquid that would live at the bottom of a cottage cheese tub. (Not that I eat dairy). --Heather

Let me just say that I love cashmere. So right off the bat, I'm into this one.

2. Tailor's Chalk. I could definitely live with this one, especially since it references fashion. However, I'm pretty sure it's closer to Chantilly than any of the others. --Heather

Like Heather, I love the sartorial bent to the name. Perfect. Classy. Love it. Also, the "chalk" part could reference baseball chalk or chalk outlines, like on The Wire. Win/win.

3. Pure White. I already expressed my opinions about this one. Whatever. --Heather

This name makes me a little uneasy. But it also sounds like it could be a drug reference, which also reminds me of The Wire. So who knows...

4. Picket Fence. At this point, we are getting to the bottom of the barrel. We actually had a disagreement about whether or not to even include Picket Fence into the choices. Don't you think it looks a bit pasty? --Heather

Now Heather wanted to reject Picket Fence because it's "pasty," which I believe is a word that gets bandied about far too easily these days, especially in reference to my thighs. And, frankly, that sends a mixed message because I loved paste when I was a kid. Eating it, smelling it, pasting things, etc. Anyway, Picket Fence is a fantastic color. The name alone embodies the American Dream. Heather said that didn't matter anymore but I argued that maybe we could use it as a comment on the whole American "Dream" ideal and its place in a post-9/11, web 2.0, "America." We're still undecided...

5. Glass of milk. I don't know what kind of milk Martha Stewart is drinking, but they should call this Expired Almond Rice Milk. Or perhaps Watered-Down Soy Latte, but this is no glass of milk. (Not that I eat dairy). --Heather

Heather goes a long way to diminish the integrity of this color by disparaging the name, but I think it's a distraction. The color is fantastic. Like a warm glass of expired Rice Dream.

Also, Heather also mentioned Behr Paint's Snow Drift. I didn't care for the color, but the name was so evocative, it made me think of other possible white paint names. Here are my ideas for paint colors inspired by great literature:

Snow, by Orhan Pamuk
White Noise, by Don DeLillo
Snow Falling On Cedars, by David Guterson
Anything by Dave Eggers
White Teeth, by Zadie Smith

Any other ideas for book paint would be appreciated.

--Rick