invitations on the way

If there's one thing Joel is going to have to learn to put up with, it is my love of paper. All kinds of paper - handmade paper, crisp drawing paper, paper with grid-lines, artist paper that comes in big sheets with the loveliest of designs... Sigh. So we decided we'd make our own wedding invitations, out of both tree-free lotka paper (made sustainably and fairly in Nepal) and 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper. And I'm SO excited about them!

Right now we're in the middle of making them, and here's a sneak peak.




We printed these at the Fortune Building and the College Press, where I once worked for a summer. Sweetie, the press shop cat, certainly helped keep me patient as the 80lb cardstock jammed the copier and kept smearing the typeface in the duplicator. Bob and Pat have my eternal gratitude.

-Brianna

a two spoon day.

Thank heavens for daylight savings. Now we can walk downtown and back after work in the spring sunshine.

We took advantage of the delightfully unseasonal warm weather today and went for a stroll with one goal in mind...

Dessert.

In this case, lavender creme brulee...























... with a side of hot chocolate.

Love + Cakes = Marriage

We just had the most delicious and wonderful cake tasting with our good friend Jodi, who is the baking genius behind Short Street Cakes. Her creations are simply amazing and the the most delectable for miles around. We're really happy she's doing our wedding, and we're excited for all of you to be able to share in the yumminess in August! We won't give away the secret flavors we'll have yet... but for an eyeful be sure to check out her website, or even better, visit her at her new shop on Haywood Road in West Asheville! (The coffee is delicious too.)

How We Met

Brianna's version

It was my first semester at college, and family weekend. I took my parents to an open mic on campus and was caught by this one person who read a poem - as my mom was, too. She told me (much to my chagrin at age eighteen) that I "really should meet that guy." 

The next semester we ended up taking a class called Goddess Traditions together, and in March, going on a week-long service trip to New York City to work with homeless organizations. We got to know each other chatting in a soup kitchen run by French nuns, and on a free day when we ran around the city to different galleries and museums. That week I grew to really admire him and loved his view of the world and his creativity and humor and presence. Pretty soon he became one of my favorite people - if someone were to ask the question, 'who, living or dead, would you invite to a dinner party?' he would always be on the short list.

Fast forward four years - I've just graduated from school and Joel is back from a stint in California. We ran into each other getting a burrito - I was with my little brother, and Joel sat down with us to eat.  I knew it was fate when Orion, 6, started tickling Joel within minutes (a mark of true friendship), and I was thrilled when Joel invited the both of us on a hike the next day. After a week or more of seeing each other every day and wandering town together aimlessly past midnight, Joel had told his friend that he was 'dating a girl but she doesn't know it yet.'  Though I had high hopes, being ever-cautious, I didn't presume to know exactly how he felt until he succinctly asked me to dinner, stating, 'I'll make a reservation.'

And yes, we've been hanging out every day since then too - and plan to spend every day together from now on, if we can help it.

Joel's version

We met at Warren Wilson College. Brianna walked up to me one day and said "Hey, I liked your poem". I was standing outside of Bryson Gym where I worked at the time in the Community Bike Shop. I had read a poem a few days earlier at this open mic, and I think I said something like "Thanks" and got really squirrely. 

So skip ahead about five months and she and I both enrolled in Goddess Traditions. It was a good class taught by Jeanne Matthews-Sommer (who will be presiding over our wedding btw). In the middle of that semester we both, unbeknownst to the other, signed up a service trip to New York over spring break. The second to last day of that trip was free time. Evan K. and I had planned to visit a bunch of galleries, and Brianna joined us. 

It was a really fantastic day, one of the best days of my life. We saw a lot of really great art. Later that evening, the 3 of us ran into the wrong opera house (trying to see Faust) and watched a single act of a really terrible musical starring Jeremy Irons. We left there and went to see a show of hawkish hardcore bands. So anyway after that day/night I would say that Brianna and I were officially good friends. We definitely stopped to chat and such whenever we saw each other over the next few years.

So several years later and two weeks after Brianna graduated from Warren Wilson. I ran into her and asked her if she wanted to hang out the next day. I asked her again that next day and the next one after that if she wanted to meet up. So on and so forth eventually she and I found ourselves very seriously in love. One day I asked her to marry me, and she said yes.