Marital Talk

Apparently, expensive weddings aren’t the only thing on the downswing. According to an article in The Arizona Republic, marriage itself is less and less popular.

Americans are waiting to get married until their late 20’s, according to recent studies, and the idea of getting married at all is taking a serious hit as more and more socially acceptable options are becoming available to young people (staying single, non-married monogamous couples, same-sex pairings, etc). More and more couples are choosing to date longer, have longer engagements, and live together indefinitely instead of taking the “big step” towards matrimony.

The National Healthy Marriage Resource Center, based out of Penn State, is aiming to change that. They’ve launched an ad campaign aimed at touting some of the benefits of marriage.

“The resource center, a federally funded virtual clearinghouse, works under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families. The campaign is part of the Healthy Marriage Initiative, a Bush administration effort”

The research they’re touting for making marriage a happy alternative once again includes better health, better overall happiness, greater wealth for the couple, and improved well-being for their children.

This whole thing worries me. Not that I’m opposed to marriage – obviously I’m not, as I’m getting married in a month. But the program is federally funded, and I have issue with the governments incredibly vocal about what types of marriage are acceptable, and which are not. Will the ad campaign show marriages with multi-racial groupings? Will it show people that foster and/or adopt children? Will it show families that choose not to have children?

We already know it won’t show any GLBT families, as the government has already taken a decidedly anti-gay stance when it comes to federally regulating marriage.

So, am I all for promoting marriage? Definitely. But at the expense of other forms of happy couple-dom? Definitely not. What are your thoughts?

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Generally considered to be recession-proof, even the wedding industry is starting to feel the burn of the global economic crisis currently happening. Because weddings are generally considered a “once in a lifetime” experience, most people will go overboard on the spending. But recent reports are showing that people are spending less and less on this newly-labeled luxury.

I found an article from a Korean newspaper discussing this very phenomenon. In it, only the most luxurious wedding facilities still seem to be booked out. Most of the mid-range and more modest wedding venues are showing openings across the board, even on Saturday afternoons, a globally popular wedding time.

Interestingly, in Korea matchmaking industries are booming, as people look to marriage as a way to help stretch their finances. And 7 out of 10 women about to graduate from university have stated they’d consider a marriage over a job search in these times of economic crisis.

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Not everyone dreams of the perfect, romantic wedding proposal. While most women think long and hard about the way they’d like to be asked to marry the man of their dreams, men are often left confused, and sometimes scared, that their idea of a wedding proposal won’t measure up.

I’m happy to report that when The Monkey asked me to marry him, he did so in a way that was unique, perfect to us, and private enough that it will always be a moment just the two of us share.

There’s been some credence given lately to geeky proposals, and Wired Magazine posted an article online of the top five geeky marriage proposals in honor of non-traditionalists everywhere.

From using Google Maps and the IPhone to hacking a video game and virtual diamonds, this article showcases the ways the geek-set can pop the question in a less traditional way. I love the idea of hacking her favorite video game, but even if your lady isn’t the gamer type, this article opens the door to a wider variety of proposals than hidden in the cake or at their favorite restaurant.

So, many of you know we’re crafting much of the “stuff” we need for the wedding. And by “we”, I of course mean myself, my MIL, my wonderful mom, and any other female I can convince to help me out. The Monkey? Not so much doing any crafting.

Of all the items we’re making, I’m particularly excited about the coasters right now. both guest gift and food indicator, these bad boys will tell the wait staff if you’re a child, a vegetarian, or a chicken-eater, as well as being something fun for you to take with you at the end of the night.

Instead of just buying a metric ton of coasters in three different colors, though, and being done with the whole thing, I am instead opting for craziness. About five seconds after the last time The Monkey said “are you sure you’re not doing too much crafting for the wedding?” I decided I wanted to make the coasters. One quick trip online, and I found these plastic coasters (not in my actual hands yet, or I’d have a picture) that have inserts.

Perfect, right? I’ll just make the inserts, and then can add them in once we get the coasters! I even though ahead, and asked my amazing friend Matt, who designed our invites, if he’d make the coaster design. Which he did in about five seconds. Because he rocks.

So, easy peasy, right? Just cut them out into circles and it’s done. Except I want them to be scallopy circles, so they look cuter. So now I’m using the Cuttle Bug, this amazing invention my MIL has, and punching out all these scalloped circles.

Needless to say, I thought I’d have them done in an afternoon. I still have 2/3 of them to do. And I have the machine currently in my house, so that I can (theoretically) punch them out while watching our tv shows. Which is actually my knitting time, but I didn’t think about that.

The monkey? He is not amused. I, however, am writing up a tutorial type post for you all, so that when the actual coasters get here, and I start to get them put together, you all can imitate it for your parties, showers, and weddings. It’s actually really easy, to be honest. Just a LOT of punching!

Who here thinks this is what The Monkey had in mind when I said, “nope, not too much crafting at all! It’ll be easy!”

saturdays are officially “wedding planning central” at my MIL’s house. she’s got not just me over there crafting items for my wedding, but also my soon-to-be cousin for her wedding (happening a month after mine) and her best friend, who is getting married in September! and some of those saturdays involve a “quick” trip to the craft store to buy items we need for our wedding crafting.

this saturday was one of those days.

this is the back of her minivan, the back bench taken out, completely full of three brides’ items they needed. most of those items? used that very day for crafting!

(and no, monkey, only a bit of that was mine!)

these supplies are being added to the tons of stuff we’re already using to craft our weddings, much of which is stuff we’ve already got laying around our homes. scrapbook paper and yarn are the dominant themes, and all of us are making our own invites to one degree or another, making our favors and centerpieces, and even doing all our own flowers!

How did these supplies make their way into our wedding planning? this week (and the weeks to follow if I’m honest) will be a running display!

So, the big closet reorganize that I had planned for this weekend didn’t actually happen. I was struck down with a sickness, and couple that with the Super Bowl party we had, and not much else got done unfortunately.

But having a few friends over to watch the game, all of us choosing sides and rooting until the final seconds, gave me some time to contemplate a part of marriage I never would have thought would be important.

The importance of picking sports teams carefully.

You may laugh at me, but where I live there’s a certain college team that takes up a large portion of the hearts of most men, and when I moved here I had to quickly adapt to the reality that most fall weekends would be spent either watching football, excitedly talking about watching football, or rehashing every moment of the football game that was just watched.

It’s easy to pick the local team to cheer for, but when it comes to something like the Super Bowl, it can get much more difficult. So when I came down the stairs, proudly sporting my gold and black (YAY STEELERS!), it was to the chagrin of my fiancé, who was rooting quite loudly for the Cardinals.

In some homes this sort of behavior is acceptable, and thankfully ours is one of those houses. With pro football. Again, if it had been college football, and I’d been wearing anything other than Husker red …. Actually, I don’t even want to think about it!

Who knew sports were such a volatile subject? So my question for this Monday: how important a role do sports play in your home and marriage?