all about tea (well, more about other stuff actually)

Many people who know me well were surprised to find out I'm having a wedding instead of a nice, efficient elopement. For many years, I've said I'd prefer to elope. It's tidy. No muss, no fuss. No complicated planning. No worrying about etiquette rules you might have overlooked or might have misunderstood. No wearing a poofy dress in a really unflattering color. I gave all of these reasons. I was adamant about my preference for elopement. No one doubted me.

For many years, however, I've also said, "But I know if I end up with Terry, there's going to be a wedding instead of an elopement." No one doubted this either.

From the beginning of our planning, there has been some tension between his notion of an ideal wedding--a huge celebration with all our friends and family--and my notion of an ideal wedding, which would probably involve just the two of us saying "I do" somewhere in the California wine country or maybe tying the knot in Vegas with an Elvis impersonator officiating. (Fat Elvis only, please. Complete with bedazzled white jumpsuit and plenty of sweat. I think people are missing the point if they choose to be married by young Elvis.)

To be more precise: elopement would have been my ideal wedding until I made it most of the way through the planning and began to realize some of the invaluable things I have gained by going through this process.

First, Terry and I understand each other better. The wedding has really made us talk our way through a lot of differences in our personalities (most of them revolving around his extroversion and my introversion). I know we'll eventually look back and laugh about some of our flawed first attempts at compromise and our misguided attempts to please each other without fully understanding what the other person wanted. Other people may also remember these early miscommunications. We have already begun apologizing to the groomsmen for saying to them, "Oh, just wear a brown suit. Any suit. Any shade." We sincerely intended for this to be simple and easy. It was not simple and easy. We are so sorry, guys.

Second, I feel connected to our pasts and our future in a way I would not have without this whole experience. We've had many occasions over the last few months to talk about our families, from grandparents who are no longer with us to children who are currently no more than the shadow of a plan of a possible idea. As part of our premarital counseling, we each had to draw up a family tree. Because of that exercise, I later got to see an enormous book of genealogy that traces part of Terry's family back hundreds of years. Terry didn't get to see any genealogies of my family, but, when we went to my parents' house to dig through some old photos, he did get to play with an adorable baby goat. He decided that in the future he'd like to live somewhere he can also keep goats.

Third, I feel more connected to a community of people than I could have possibly managed in such a short time without the wedding forcing me outside my introvert's comfort zone. Even before Terry and I got engaged, we made it a priority to deal with some religious differences. Terry assured me that if I got to know the folks from his church we would be halfway to resolving those differences. He was right, probably in more ways than he realized. I'm getting to know some wonderful people, but I'm also getting acquainted with a type of Christianity that values community, that values being active in a group of people who actively share with each other all of life's events, both the joyful ones and the sorrowful ones. With every interaction, these folks teach me something new about how to live a life that is connected to others rather than disconnected.

Finally, I believe I promised to say something about tea. It was teapots that got me thinking about some of the stuff I wrote above.

Yesterday, Terry and I were cleaning out some kitchen cupboards and making space for bridal shower and wedding presents we have received. Before anything new could go into the cupboards, some stuff had to come out of the cupboards. We're both in our early 30s, and we both love to cook. We've had a lot of time to accumulate kitchen stuff. We realized a few months ago (when I was finally convinced to create a wedding registry) that when we combine our belongings we have too many of some things and utterly lack other things. For example, I found seven can openers in our kitchen yesterday, but every time we bake we remember we don't own a cooling rack.

In the midst of all the cleaning and cataloging, I had occasion to think about another item we have in duplicate: tea pots. With the photos below, I'll explain why these duplicates are a pleasure to have and maybe how they tie into the ramblings above.

Two weekends ago, the folks from church gave us a shower. I was overwhelmed by the attendance at the shower, by the number of people who were thinking about us and helping us begin our marriage. These are the lovely teapot and sugar bowl we received from our registry. I washed them and placed them on this shelf. I can' wait to make tea for us and use these to serve it.


This is a Corningware teapot that Terry has had for a few years now. He stared collecting Corningware--specifically pieces with this blue flower pattern--because he remembered meals his mom cooked in similar dishes. His collection got a little out of control, and now we have so much of blue-flower-patterned Corningware that we had to pack some up until we have a larger kitchen. (We did not yet pack away the multiple 5-quart casseroles he and his mom are using to make lasagna for the rehearsal dinner. It's funny how things unexpectedly come in handy.) This teapot, however, gets used almost every day to warm the water for our tea. It can almost always be seen hanging out on the stovetop ready to make the next cups or next pot. (in this photo it was actually headed for the sink because it needed to be washed.)




This is a cast iron tea pot that I've had for a few years now. I picked it out specifically because it takes me a while to drink even a partial pot of tea when I'm drinking tea alone. The cast iron keeps tea hot for quite a while, but its heat-retaining properties are not so necessary now that I have someone to drink tea with me most of the time.



This is a tea set that belonged to my maternal grandmother. She passed it on to me a year or so before she died. I adored her, and she is the grandparent to whom I was closest. When my mom was a little girl, a friend of my grandmother's visited England and brought this set back as a gift for my grandmother. I've never seen anyone drink tea from it, but it had a prime spot in Mawmaw's china cabinet for many years where, if I remember correctly, it was surrounded by odds and ends of china patterns and a small collection of depression glass. I can't bring myself to make tea in it because I would have to disturb the cryptic handwritten note that she kept in the pot and (I assume) forgot to remove before she gave it to me.