Fore! In case you didn't receive my email...

To our guests: Golf anyone?

Here’s the first opportunity of the wedding day to win a couple bucks from another guest …

Who: You? If you’d like to play, email me and I’ll work on setting up tee times.

When: Saturday morning before the wedding, probably about 8:00 a.m.

Where: TBD

Caveat: I don’t know the availability of tee times or the difficulty of scheduling them on Labor Day weekend. So I’ll make calls early next week (Tuesday 7/31) based on your responses and do the best I can to put you on the fairway.

We're even predicting the weather

What's it like over the Fairport wedding meadow right now? See the new weather widget in the sidebar (right).

According to The Weather Channel, the predicted high temperature on September 1 is 76(F). Bring a sweater for the evening.

T-minus five weeks. Happy-sad.

You'll notice from the progress bar that most of you have told us that you are or are not joining us for the wedding. As it turns out, we were worried about the wrong things: overstuffing the tent, breaking our caterer's back, and driving my patient in-laws to "what are we going to do with all those people?"

When we created the guest list, we knew we'd have to make some difficult decisions. But in the end we invited most of the people who live in our imaginations week in and out. You are the folks we admire, whose model shapes a facet of our lives, the ones we delight in keeping company with. I know we don't see you as often as we might. But you can't turn off our affection even if you want to. Of course you have lives, budgets, and a less-than infinite capacity for inviting family turmoil by decamping to Rochester for two days.

Relieved that everyone has chairs and meals and cake, we are sorry we won't face the happy problem of fitting some of you in. To those of you who are coming, be sure to grab a beer and raise it to the friends and loved ones far away.

Marriage is different

Before we were engaged, we did not do any of the following:

• Hold weekly project management meetings (See photo; There's no "I" but plenty of "me" in "team.")
  
• Discuss decorations for more than twenty minutes at a time
  
• Seek an august description of love, commitment, and joy beyond those that served us today
• Dance
  
• Reflect on our taste in music (Two parallel lines drawn to infinity never intersect)
• Manage vendors (Or allow ourselves to be managed)
  
• Ask people for favors that under-use their abilities (Small but important tasks depend on people you trust)

Along the way, the goals of marriage come to light. TWIL may have others, but here are some of ours:

• Generosity - to welcome and cheer
  
• Entertainment - to delight and engage
  
• Moment (See definition 4) - to pay attention to and express the richness of today's ordinary doings
  
• Artfulness - to shape and form what you've got - time, choices, effort - in hopes of enriching those ordinary doings
  
• Endeavor - to take on new challenges, not knowing for certain where they lead
  

When I say these are our goals, I mean that these what we offer one another without really thinking about it, what we respect about each other and fell in love with, and what we have aimed to do through the wedding plans. Let us know what you see.

DIY update

I wish I could report that we're going to yoga classes and deepening our respect the essential profundity of a union that will change our lives forever. But we're cutting out paper circles and skimming the surface of world literature for just the right words to complement our ceremony.

To do list:

• Plan lighting for reception; check Northeast power grid for weaknesses
• Discuss readings: Neruda vs. Rilke, Levertov vs. Browning, Mad vs. National Lampoon.
• Worry. Stop short of panic. Save panic for when you really need it.
  
• Distribute "things to do list," directions, and schedule of events. Idea: can prison monitoring anklets be tracked from our cell phones? Size of parents', wedding parties' ankles?
• Estimate wine and beer needed. (Enough = good time; too much = people telling the truth.)
• Finalize music/dance mix. (Need: Foghat, Journey, Charlie Daniels Band)
• Feed anxiety. Solicit stories of wedding fiascoes from friends and enemies. "It's got to come off better than that, right?" Right?

Suggestions?