simont | Wedding writeup

Wedding writeup

So, atreic and emperor got married yesterday, which was nice.

I managed to get through the ceremony without worrying too much about its transactional integrity, as I've tended to do at other weddings I've been to recently. Instead I found myself wondering what I'd do about clothes if I ever got married. My particular peculiarity, you see, is that I absolutely hate wearing a shirt and tie; I'm willing to do it for other people's weddings, but at my own wedding I would want to make it very clear that nobody should wear anything they didn't actually want to wear. But that only solves half the problem: having the occasional guest turn up in jeans and a T-shirt is one thing, but having the groom dress like that would still seem a bit odd even to me (and the hypothetical bride would have to be pretty forgiving to let me get away with it!). I haven't yet thought of a satisfactory answer to what I'd wear at my own wedding, so it's probably just as well such an event isn't looking the least bit likely in the near or medium future.

Also I've figured out what the deal is with four-part harmony in hymns. Ever since my social group started putting sheet music in their orders of service, I've stopped complaining that I could never remember the hymn tune from one verse to the next, and instead bemoaned my apparent total inability to sing it sensibly. I've now figured out what this is about: it's because I naively thought that given my vocal range I clearly ought to pick out the bass part from the sheet music and sing that. Unfortunately, singing bass appears to be incredibly hard: I can't clearly hear myself over the clamour around me, so I can't correct any pitch errors I might make, and also it's surprisingly hard simply to keep the bass part's tune in mind when all you can hear is the soprano part. I don't know how much of this is normal, how much is due to my musical skills being rather rusty, and how much is due to the fact that even when I was a musician I played the violin and hence mostly lead melodies or nearly so. But part way through this wedding I suddenly noticed that the men around me seemed to be singing the soprano part transposed down by however many octaves seemed appropriate, so I switched to doing that and found it to be almost laughably easy in comparison. Proper musicians are now welcome to complain, or offer helpful advice, or sympathise, or all three.

After the wedding I went home, ate some food, and changed out of my suit for the ceilidh. (I had seen an LJ post from emperor a few days ago saying they ‘officially’ didn't care what people wore to the ceilidh, which was very welcome given my abovementioned dislike of shirts and ties, and probably also what got me thinking about clothes in general.) A bit later it occurred to me that what I could have done to achieve comfort while showing a continued willingness to look at least vaguely smart would have been to keep the actual suit on but switch the shirt and tie for a simple long-sleeved white T-shirt; but by then I was half way through walking into town for the ceilidh, so it was too late.

Ceilidhs strike me as strange. What primarily strikes me as strange about them is the preservation of the tradition of people personally asking one another to dance. I participated in one of the early dances mostly due to not running away fast enough, and what happened was that we all arranged ourselves in a gender-alternating circle and then the men went round anticlockwise while the women went round clockwise, so the person who had actually asked me to dance rapidly headed in the opposite direction and I only saw her in passing once or twice thereafter. Not only does this make it slightly meaningless to ask someone to dance with you, but it also means that if etiquette requires (as I wasn't sure whether it might) that you thank your nominal partner at the end of the dance, you have to find your way through a milling crowd of randoms in order to do so. As far as I can tell, therefore, this is a nearly-vestigial tradition whose sole remaining purpose is to achieve the parity of gender generally required by the dance structure.

After that experience I managed to stay off the dancefloor for the rest of the evening and treat the event much as I treat the Calling (primarily a social gathering, with the added risk that the person you're talking to might at any moment decide to dash off and dance). As a social gathering it was definitely good, with about the right combination of lovely people I knew well, lovely people I hadn't seen in too long, lovely people I wanted to know better, and lovely people I'd never spoken to before. (Not all of these categories are disjoint. :-) So that was excellent fun, mostly.

On the way home my umbrella exploded. It was the only accessory I'd brought with me to the ceilidh, and I'd been a little worried that I'd forget I had it with me and leave it there. In fact I remembered about it with no difficulty (without even having to step outside, notice it was raining, and think ‘hmm, an umbrella would be useful – aha!’), but it did me no good at all, because as soon as I got outside and pressed its Up button, it shot to full extension with unusual force and then went *twang* and what looked like a couple of snapped metal hawsers shot out of the mechanism. Among the damage was the catch that held the umbrella actually open; I was able to hold it open manually, but that proved so painful after a few minutes that I abandoned the idea completely and just got very wet on the walk home. Bah.

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We discussed what to wear to your wedding before, didn't we, but I can't remember what we decided. You can if you wish of course choose some theme, fancy dress or something casual that looks pretty on large numbers of people. I guess if depends, do you want it to look formal? I think I'd like that, so would want something that works with that (eg. frilly shirts and capes or something), but if you didn't, you would have more lattitude in choosing.

Don't you like dancing? Why not?

Dancing alternate gender. Yes, mostly obsolete. It does serve a practical purpose, in that it most of the dances are designed for two rows of people and you can see at a glance which you should be aiming for. At least in Ceilidh in cambridge no-one bats an eyelid if you change sex, (especially if you're female), whereas in CDC no-one *minds* but because it's always inevitably two very good dancers showing off, it's not normal but cause for staring and applause :) And most people seem happy with most of the time dancing with the opposite sex.

Asking people to dance. Well, maybe somewhat obsolete, but it's a convenient way of (a) getting an even number of people mostly opposite sex on the floor and (b) allowing some discretion who you spend half of the dance with. Progressive partner dances are the exception; it's like asking someone to dance but only 10% as much, I don't think you need find them specifically. (c) Also, it's a nice way of socially interacting someone other than talking.

I am a geek

I believe the phrasing is supposed to be "Simon in 'is a geek' shock; read all about it!" :)

Transactional integity

As gerald duck says I assume it's implicit that "I do, provided they also do."[1] It always puzzles me that they never do this in fantasy novels.

Hero: I swear to [go on quest we agreed is more important than our differences] ~~provided all the other people actually do swear~~
Antihero: Mwahahaha! I don't! Now you have to go and save the world, whilst I shall be taking it over. Ha!

[1] Hey, I just had a scary thought. We have suggestions for their not being unique, at which point we need to wonder if they're supposed to be transitive, which leads to the question, are they reflexive? But [1] makes me wonder what on earth would happen if they weren't symmetric!

I can't speak for Simon but to me it looks like exactly the the kind of thing it takes me ages and ages to pick up, with lots of getting it hopelessly wrong and standing round wondering what I'm supposed to do next all the time.

This is in relation to the dancing, or the getting married?

Most of the time it's relatively easy to follow, your partner is nearby and/or holding you, and not too hard to recover if you get it wrong since you're mostly dancing with the same set of people.

The one dance that stressed me out at the ceilidh did so because it had a complicated phase where everyone was moving individually at the same time (which is much harder than having a fixed point of reference or someone to hold on to), because it changed what you had to do half-way through the dance, and because your couple moved to form a four with a different couple each iteration, and so I was responsible to different people each time for getting it right (or, er, wrong).

(S)

I looked in for a while but it all just looked far too complicated for something at the end of a rather tiring day. I am glad that people seemed happy, though.

I think I was lucky in that -- despite being uncoordinated and bad at following music -- my first ceilidh was really fun and never involved pain or embarassment, so I was motivated to come back. I do think it's much better than almost any other form of dancing in that you can *plausibly* join in first time, even if rather imperfectly.

(b) allowing some discretion who you spend half of the dance with.

Hmm. Perhaps I've been unlucky in only finding myself involved in the kind of dance where it doesn't make a difference then. *shrug*

Don't you like dancing? Why not?

As

ewx suggests, part of it is that it's probably a lot more fun when you have a clear enough idea of what you're doing to be able to just enjoy it without constantly worrying that you're spinning round the wrong way, grabbing the wrong woman, stepping on someone's feet or just standing there trying desperately to remember what comes next.

Also, I think, the sort of big sprawling dance that involves every dancer being one cog in a large machine just doesn't hold much intrinsic appeal for me. I can at least see the point of a ballroom-style dance such as a waltz, even if I don't have the skills to actually do it, because it seems to me that dancing with a partner in that sense is a means of spending quality time with them which combines the good points of several sorts of activity: the bonding effect of any cooperative physical activity, the intimacy of a prolonged cuddle, and the pleasant feeling of having each other's undivided attention for a reasonable period (which is often hard to get any other way in a large social event). But a ceilidh-style dance doesn't really have any of those things in the same way, and I'm not entirely sure I see what it does have instead that makes it enjoyable.

Mostly, bouncing madly around a room with lots of people and folk music, I think.

Hmm. Perhaps I've been unlucky in only finding myself involved in the kind of dance

They're a minority, I'd actually like to see more of them[1]. It's mainly very confusing/annoying when you don't realise before you start, if either you would have liked to join in, or prefer to stick with a couple of people you started with you know will lead you round.

[1] I'm not sure why. I like meeting many people even if briefly. It has an intricate clock like thing going.

[dancing]

I feel sure there must be an RFC or something somewhere explaining "Why dancing is fun", if only in case we meet aliens and they all go "You do WHAT? To MUSIC?" :) You're right, if you haven't, it's awkard. I did ballroom for ages, and it's only comfortable when you can dance with people without checking if you know the same things first. It's perhaps lucky if someone takes you in hard and shows you a first few, easy dances; a partner who can show you in a dance where that makes sense can make it a lot easier.

waltz vs ceilidh

*shrug* To each his own. I like both, though I couldn't say why. Perhaps compare a ceilidh to socialising with a *group* of friends; while waltz is clearly superior for cuddling, celidh has more abandon and mixing. I don't know.

Oh yes, when I sing alto it feels like that too. You can tell when it's horribly wrong, but not when it's right.

I think you should wear some kind of Minbari robe like arrangement. I'm going to make something a little like that to wear to formal events at some point, so if you get married in Minbari robes, there's one person who wouldn't be worying what to wear!

I think ceilidhs are supposed to be a messy doggy whirl of people, and as such you don't need to thank people or ask them to dance, because you're going to end up dancing with them again in thirty seconds anyway. Hilariously, when I was at school we had a barn dance (= ceilidh for wimps and with different instruments in the band, as far as I can tell) and I went round the circle doing the algorithm "one two three turn one two three next partner somebody's mum again one two three turn one two three next oh shit it's the headmistress *falls over feet*"

some kind of Minbari robe like arrangement

Mmm. As

cartesiandaemon mentions above, he and I had part of this conversation recently in the pub, and one of the things I did say at the time was that the costume design in shows like B5 do manage to demonstrate that one doesn't have to wear a shirt and tie in order to look smart and formal. I was unconvinced that I'd actually want to dress exactly like something that had obviously come straight out of B5, but it does at least demonstrate that plausible alternatives ought to exist if one only has the costume-design skills.

When I said all of that in the pub I was mostly thinking of the humans' clothes in B5, which often manage to look slightly futuristic but still basically suitlike and do so without involving shirts and ties. Looking further afield to the alien races didn't occur to me, but now you mention it the Minbari do have a lot of good stuff there...

I _think_ I managed to look reasonably smart and formal at my wedding, without using either a shirt or tie. Feel free to disagree. ;-)

I've just realised there appear to be no photos on the web of what I wore (or of the wedding in general). Must fix that.

Rocky Horror wedding!

No! When I wrote "nobody should wear anything they didn't actually want to wear" I meant what I said; exchanging a dress code that annoys me for a dress code that would annoy somebody else instead is only moving the problem around, not solving it.

(Secondly, I've never liked Rocky Horror much myself, so that dress code would annoy me at least as much.)

I realise I'm making your wedding more complicated but I would rather wear something I find uncomfortable that you like and everyone else is wearing...

That would certainly be a concerning dress code, yes...

oldbloke wore a suit and shirt, no tie. He looked fine to me. He's not a suit person and I said he didn't need to wear one but he thought he'd make the effort. Around half the guests dressed up, jeans were everywhere. There were very few ties in evidence.

I suddenly noticed that the men around me seemed to be singing the soprano part transposed down by however many octaves seemed appropriate, so I switched to doing that and found it to be almost laughably easy in comparison.

This seems to be very common in the congregation I attend. Some men sing bass or tenor, but the majority sings soprano-transposed-down-a-couple-of-octaves. (And incidentally, when there's no accompanying music and people are singing a cappella, they tend to transpose the music down about four or five semitones, so I wonder whether most hymns are really set "too high".)

I typically sing bass, FWIW. And I like four-part harmony hymns; unfortunately, there are a fair number where the non-melody part aren't particularly melodious and mostly provide accompanying chords -- singing a total of three or four different notes during the course of a piece is not particularly satisfying, I feel.

I reckon most hymns are set a bit high for the 'average' woman's singing voice, at least - on the unscientific basis that an untrained singer is most comfortable with a chest voice, and around a C' I for one have to go into a head voice, which is a bit of a strain (for this untrained alto-ish not-very-good singer, anyway!). Most hymns seem to hit highest notes that are C' or D' - so people transpose down to avoid those? At school we always had piano accompaniment and had to sing at pitch, and the singing was definitely quietest if the melody hit a D' or above.

Tony and Rachel's kameez worked very well as alternative wedding wear.

Soprano transposed down> go for it. Sometimes I sing soprano and sometimes alto (my voice having a very small range somewhere inbetween) but when sight-singing I'd go for the soprano line every time. Even that's hard enough when you're trying to follow the words at the same time.

It was lovely having a seat just above the choir though: the music really swelled up and around us and you could hear all four parts really clearly, absolutely beautiful.

Dancing> I'd say the number of dances which were progressive so you lost your partner were outnumbered by the ones where you were dancing mostly with your partner. Typically I curtsey to thank whoever I'm dancing with at the end of the ones where you change partner. And as for asking people to dance I danced lots with Mike (though trying not to overdo it for forms sake :-), several dances with people I know, and at least 3 with complete strangers which is something I like about the usual etiquette of these things.

I'm not really *very* good at this sort of dance (as evidenced by me and Mike *completely* mucking up the Gay Gordons much to our amusement and apparently to that of some of the audience too). By and large I find it's good fun though, and trying to remember and follow the instructions makes it a sort of collaborative game as well as a dance. The fact that they tell you how to do it at all makes it much easier for me in general than the sort of dance where you're supposed to know what you're doing!

Mike and I tried our hand at a waltz at the end, and basically just cheated. I know it's supposed to be some sort of step-step-slide motion of the feet but we opted for step-slide-pause which worked for us more or less. I'm utterly utterly amused that he seems keen to try dancing lessons, because it just seems so incongruous, but I think it might be rather fun.

Your experience of immediately losing your partner was due to it being a "mixer" dance - callers usually mention that when announcing a dance. It's very useful if (say) you're taking your small child up to dance, because while mine can mostly cope with dancing in a friendly set, there's no way they could yet go off independently.

No need to go hunting round the room for your partner at the end of a mixer to thank them - it's really not expected. (But in a set dance it's nice to.)

I agree with the other comments about having men/women in a set making it easier to spot where you ought to be at a given point. :-)

Indian guru suit, obviously. Little mandarin collar. Looks smart but is obscenely comfy because it's designed for hot weather :)

(Disturbingly I already own a dress which, when I tried it on to get

sevenstring's opinion on whether I should keep it, he took one look at and went "Woah. Wedding dress!"...)

the men around me seemed to be singing the soprano part transposed down by however many octaves seemed appropriate

Or, in layman's terms, the "tune". :-)

It's usually expected that the congregation will sing the melody and the choir will sing harmonies (and/or descant if appropriate). I doubt if anybody would mind if members of the congregation sang harmonies, but they're certainly not expected to!

Re clothes -- how do you feel about collarless shirts, like what fanf wore for his wedding (http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/photos/2005-07-09/img_0251.jpg)?

Or, in layman's terms, the "tune". :-)

Ah yes, that was the word I was looking for. :-)

Collarless shirts: hmm. One thing I dislike about shirts is certainly the intrusive collar and the tie. However, another thing that annoys me is all the buttons and bits and bobs. I'm temperamentally unsuited to wearing anything more complicated than a T-shirt. Also, the buttons down the front always manage to make me itch.

Perhaps the itching at least could be countered by wearing a T-shirt underneath the shirt (in which case a prerequisite would be for it not to be summer).

a T-shirt underneath the shirt

Or a vest?

Or you could sew some kind of panel over the back of the strip with the buttons on?

(I can't think what it is that makes you itch, though -- I'm trying to see what's behind the buttons on the shirt I'm wearing today, and there's nothing there except a bit of thread. I wonder if it's just a psychological thing, that you know you're wearing Something Hideously Uncomfortable so you keep scratching at it, which makes it feel uncomfortable... Just a theory, anyway.)

To be honest, though, if you really hate wearing any tops other than t-shirts, then why not just get married in a t-shirt (if/when the occasion arises)? I've never understood why people feel the need to wear things they hate, invite people they hate, eat things they hate, listen to music they hate, and generally try to be somebody completely different on the day when they're supposed to be celebrating spending the rest of their life with somebody who (you'd hope) wants to stay with them because of who they are.

Besides, a nice crisp white (or bright-coloured) t-shirt under a dark suit would look great. Give it a try!

Itching: I've always assumed it was to do with the bits of thread poking out behind the buttons, not because they're made of anything inherently itchy but simply because they brush against the skin more often and more focusedly than the surrounding smooth fabric, and thus have a constant low-grade tickling effect. It could be purely or partly psychological as you suggest, but either way it's still bloody annoying :-)

try to be somebody completely different

I hear you, but ... well ... I entirely agree that your wedding day should be a celebration of you rather than of wedding-day stereotypes if you can possibly arrange it, but at the same time it is also a unique and special and different day in your life and it would therefore seem inappropriate to make it too similar to everything else you do. It has to be personal, but special. If you're going to be the centre of attention for an entire day (well, nearly; of course from the groom's perspective the bride's dress would undoubtedly upstage anything I might come up with, and rightly so) I think it's not unreasonable to make some kind of an effort to be interesting to look at, nice to look at, and/or in some way special. Preferably, though, as you say, without sacrificing the essential you-ness.

(Mind you, given my usual style of dress, a white T-shirt would arguably be quite different enough! :-)

if/when the occasion arises

Er, yes. This is probably more than enough effort spent on planning a wedding which (a) might perfectly well never happen and (b) it wouldn't be entirely fair to have planned so much of in advance that the bride didn't get to have her say!

it would therefore seem inappropriate to make it too similar to everything else you do

I think that's totally an individual judgement call. Depends on why you're getting married, what it means to you, and of course what you think makes something "special". For some people, putting the effort into having a special meal, or going to an interesting location, would be more interesting and appropriate than fancy-dress. And so on. People are different.

of course from the groom's perspective the bride's dress would undoubtedly upstage anything I might come up with, and rightly so

Er? Why is the bride supposed to upstage the groom? If that's what works for you then fair enough, but I certainly don't want it to be taken as read that I'm supposed to look better than my husband(-to-be). I'd like to think it was possible for us both to look equally good, and for us both to wear something we were happy with.

I think it's not unreasonable to make some kind of an effort

Of course not. But I also don't think there should be an obligation for that effort to be focused on dressing-up, if that's not what makes you happy. There are plenty of ways to show effort!

it wouldn't be entirely fair to have planned so much of in advance that the bride didn't get to have her say!

Indeed. :-) I've been in the position of seriously-thinking-about-wedding-plans more than once, and they've been very different plans each time -- partly because I've changed between those times, and partly because different aspects of me have been foregrounded in different relationships. Sure, most people have ideas about what they would/wouldn't want from a wedding, but there's no sense in really planning it until you're planning it with somebody.

On the other hand, you might want to make the effort to look extra-specially-smart on occasions other than weddings (your own or others'), so there's certainly no harm in thinking about that!

I look forward to seeing how you look in a suit and white tshirt. ;)

Sorry, quite right, that was badly worded. What I meant to say was that even the simplest of wedding dresses would upstage anything I can imagine myself coming up with, and that attempting to outdo it would be foolhardy and certainly involve wearing many more bells and whistles than I'd be comfortable with. By "rightly so" I didn't intend to suggest a general principle or requirement for all weddings. I'm sure a particularly flamboyant groom and a particularly simply dressed bride might see things differently.

Of course, given that the bride is currently a completely unknown quantity, she might turn out to detest wedding dresses just as much as I loathe shirts and ties, and all bets might be off. Wouldn't put money on it though.

I see where you're coming from now. Sorry, didn't mean to rant at you!

she might turn out to detest wedding dresses just as much as I loathe shirts and ties

When I got engaged for the first time I asked my sister if she'd be a bridesmaid. She gave me a Look. "Bridesmaids wear jeans and tshirts, right?"

Interestingly, she's single at the moment, too. ;-D

I naively thought that given my vocal range I clearly ought to pick out the bass part from the sheet music and sing that.

So you should; but it takes quite a lot practice to sing part music at sight. If you've never done it before, you shouldn't be too surprised if it turns out to be tricky. There's no better way to get practice than to join a choir, of which there are many around here.

Unfortunately, singing bass appears to be incredibly hard

In four-part harmony, bass is usually the second easiest part to sing (after soprano): you have the fundamental note of each chord. Tenor and alto are often much harder, because they often don't make much sense as tunes (though a skillful harmonist, like J. S. Bach, can make all four parts interesting).

the men around me seemed to be singing the soprano part transposed down by however many octaves seemed appropriate

That's the usual thing to do if you can't sing in parts.

Does your style remove the add to memories button, or am I being daft and just unable to spot it?

The former, sort of. (S2 styles are a blank slate, so it's less a question of what the author has deliberately taken out as it is of what they haven't thought to deliberately put back in.)

I've fiddled the style and it should now have an add-to-memories link at the bottom of the page. Let me know if it works or not?

That seems to work :-)

Thank you!

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Concerning dress codes

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