APW Book Signing

So I'm down in NYC for the weekend, visiting my BFF Kristin. She told me that the creator of a blog we both love, A Practical Wedding, was having a book signing at the B&N in Park Slope for her new book of the same name, and I just had to come down for it. Her blog features post by women and men trying to survive the wedding planning process in the most sane way they know how to. The articles tackle a lot of the cultural and moral dilemmas that can emerge when planning a wedding, and I have spent many a night laughing and crying over them.

We started the day off by having brunch at Lido in Harlem. I had the french toast and Kristin had the eggs with meatballs and we both took advantage of their bottomless mimosas. At around 12:10pm we walked out a little less sober and made our way to Brooklyn, which took longer than expected. It probably felt even longer than expected as the mimosas began to reach our bladders. We made it, though, and were treated to a wonderful talk by Meg Keene, who was shorter than I expected.

The after party was held at High Dive and we were given tickets for the taco truck out front, drink specials on Yuengling, and gluten free cucpcakes! Saturdays are my cheat day (BTW, I've lost 10lbs so far, so yay!), so I didn't feel bad about any of those calories. On top of some amazing food and drink, I got to speak to some of the most awesome people around. Everyone there was a fan of APW and we all pretty much have the same outlook on weddings. Men and women I've never met before spoke to me like old friends. We were all high on the excitement that maybe we can create weddings that stay true to us, and not play into the "Wedding Industrial Complex".

So now I have some new twitter friends and I'm definitely feeling a lot better about some of the decisions I've made, and will be making in the future. At some point in the near future I'm sure I'll make a whole post ranting about the things I hate about wedding planning, but tonight I'll just say that I'm so glad there's a community of people out there talking about the issues and hopefully outweighing the voices on theknot.com and Bridezillas. Cheers and good night.