Timing

This afternoon, Joey, his mother, and I were at a Barnes and Noble/Starbucks and we started talking wedding dates.  Oy, so many issues!

1.  Joey is in med school.  This means that, in order for him to be fully present and involved at the wedding and not checking his watch every five minutes, sneaking flash cards under the table at the reception, we cannot get married during the school year over the next year and a half (after which he'll be in grad school, so timing is less crucial), or during the few months leading up to his boards next summer.  You know, that lovely springtime region when everyone loves to get married?

2.  All three of our collective siblings will be in college (hopefully) at the time of the wedding.  This means that we have to be sensitive to finals and other school-related commitments.  This is not to say that our siblings value spring break or sports events over our weddings, it just means that it would be unkind of us to put them in a difficult position of having to back out of a commitment for us.

3.  The wedding is one day.  The anniversary is every year for the rest of our lives.  I don't want to celebrate my anniversary every year in sweatpants because we got married in the dead of winter and I have too much California in my blood to tolerate a nice dress when it's under 70 degrees out, even if it is my anniversary.  This means that we can't get married during the winter.  Besides, Joey's people mostly come from snow and it would break my heart if they got snowed out (snowed in?) and couldn't make it to the wedding.

Long story short, we have a lot of different pieces that we need to fit together.  Hopefully tomorrow we will get the word from the inimitable Ken Chasen about what day of the week it will need to be*, and then we can start looking at which dates look good to us based on that.



Edit:  Joey complained that there was no food in here, so I will point out that, while I enjoyed my return to the Starbucks green tea frapp, I think that Jamba Juice makes better sourdough asiago pretzels.  Also, Joey is a sweetheart for getting a sourdough asiago pretzel just because he knew I would like it.




*Originally, Jewish tradition said that first-time brides should marry on Wednesday, and widows remarrying should get married on Thursday.  Later, they moved first-time brides to Friday, so that their family and friends could stay for Shabbat on Friday night/Saturday morning.  More recently, the custom is for everyone to marry on Tuesday.  The reason for this comes from the creation story in the Torah.  The pattern of creation is "On the nth day, God made this thing, and then he said it was good."  On the third day (Tuesday, if Saturday is the day on which he rested, the sabbath), God said it was good twice.  This makes Tuesday extra good, and therefore a good day on which to get married.  More recently, we just want to get married on weekends because it is most convenient.  Some rabbis, particularly more conservative and orthodox, say you can't get married on a Saturday because each joyous occasion (which Shabbat counts as) needs to be celebrated separately.  Reform rabbis are a little more flexible, but apparently my parents got married on a Sunday, so we figure we ought to at least ask.